Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
There was a lot of trash orbiting Earth.
In the hundred years since the first satellites had lifted, careless astronauts or construction crews had lost bolts, tools, and other chunks of hardware. The small stuff, some of it whipping around at fifteen kilcks a second relative, could punch a nasty hole in anything less dense than full-sheath armor, and that included people inside a ship coming or going. Even a chip of paint could dig a crater when it hit. While this was a danger to ships, most of the little stuff burned up on reentry; what didn't was colected by special robot rigs everybody called dust mops.
For a time there was a real risk that the big stuff would get to the ground--part of a construction ship flamed down and killed a hundred thousand people on the Big Island once, and also made Kona coffee exceedingly rare. Because of tha tand similar incidents, somebody finally realized there was a problem with all this orbiting junk. Laws were passed, and now anything bigger than a man got tagged and swept. And rather than create a new agency, the work was passed on to an organization that already existed.
This was why the Coast Guard cutter Dutton hung in high orbit over North Africa, starlight glistening on its armored boron-carbon hull, its crew of two yawning as they moved in to tag a derelict ship. Garbage Control's flight computer said this heap was about to start its fall, and before tha that happened, the thing had to be probed, checked for anybody who might be camping on it, then blasted into pieces small enough for the dust mops to collect. SOP.
"Probe ready to launch," Ensign Lyle said.
Next to him, the cutter's captain, Commander Barton, nodded. "Stand by and...launch probe."
Lyle touched the control. "Probe away. Telemetry is green. Visuals on, sensors on, one-second burn."
The tiny robot ship rocketed toward the battered freight hauler, feeding electronic information to the cutter behind it.
"Maybe this one is full of platinum ingots," Lyle siad.
"Yeah, right. And maybe it's raining on the moon."
"What's the matter, Bar? You don't want to be rich?"
"Sure. And I want to spend ten years in the CG pen fighting off the yard monsters, too. Unless you figured out a way to shut down the blue box?"
Lyle laughed. The blue box recorded everything that went on in the cutter, plus all the probe input. Even if a ship was full of platinum, there was no way to hide it from Command. And military officers didn't get salvage rights. "Well, not exactly," Lyle said. "But if we had a few million credits, we could hire somebody who might."
"Yeah, your mother," Barton said.
Lyle glanced at the computer flat screen. It was cheap hardware; the Navy had full holographics but the Guard still had to do with the bottom-of-the-line Sumatran Guild electronics. The probe's retros flamed as it reached the hulk. "Here we are. Is that good flying, or what?"
Barton grunted. "Look at the hatch. It's bulged outward."
"Explosion, you think?" Lyle said.
"Dunno. Let's open this can up."
Lyle tapped at his keyboard. The probe extruded a universal hatch key and inserted it into the lock.
"No luck. Lock's shot," Lyle said.
"I'm not blind, I can see that. Pop it."
"Hope the inner hatch is closed."
"Come on, this piece of crap has been up here for at least sixty years. Anybody on it would be dead of old age. There ain't no air in there and if by some miracle somebody is home, they're in a suspension tank. And aside from that, this thing has about thirty minutes before it hits enough atmosphere to boil lead. Pop it."
Lyle shrugged. Touched controls.
The probe attached a small charge to the hatch and retroed back a hundred meters. The charge flared silently in the vacuum and the hatch shattered.
"Knock, knock. Anybody home?"
"Go see. And try not to bang the probe up too bad this time."
"That wasn't my fault," Lyle said. "One of the retros was plugged."
"So you say."
The tiny robot ship moved in through the opening in the derelict ship.
"Inner hatch is open."
"Good. Saves time. Move it in."
The probe's halogens lit as it moved into the ship. The radiation alarm chimed on the computer's screen. "Kinda ot in there," Lyle said.
"Yep, hope you like your soypro well done."
"Mmm. I gues anybody in this baby would be toast by now. We'll have to give the probe a bath when it gets back."
"Chreesto, look at that!" Barton said.
What had been a man floated just ahead of the probe. The hard radiation had killed the bacteria that would have rotted him, and the cold had preserved what the vacuum hadn't sucked out of him. He looked like a leather prune. He was naked.
"Lordy, lordy," Lyle said. "Hey, check the wall behind him." He touched a control and the visuals enhanced and enlarged. Something was written on the bulkhead in smeary brown letters: KILL US ALL, it said.
"Damn, is that written in blood? Looks like blood to me."
"You want an analysis?"
"Never mind. We got us a flip ship."
Lyle nodded. They'd heard about them, though he himself had never opened one. Somebody went nuts and wasted everybody else. Opened a port and let the air out, or maybe flooded the ship with radiation, like this one. A quick death or a slow one, but death, sure enough. Lyle shivered.
"Find a terminal and see if you can download the ship's memory. The meter is running here."
"If the batteries are still good. Oops. Got motion on the detector."
"I see it. I don't believe it, but I see it. Nobody can possibly be alive, even somebody ina full rad suit would cook in this tub--"
"There is is. It's just a cargo carrier."
A short, squat robot crawled along a line of Velcro against the ceiling.
"We must have jolted it awake when we blew the hatch."
"Yeah, right. Get the memory."
The probe floated toward a control panel.
"Damn, look at those holes in the deck. Looks like something dissolved the plastic. Radiation wouldn't do that, would it?"
"Who knows? Who cares? Just dump the memory and pull the probe so we can blow this sucker. I have a date tonight and I don't want any overtime."
"You're the commander."
The probe connected to the control board. The ship's power was almost gone, but sufficient to download the memory.
"Coming in," Lyle said. "Here's the ID scan onscreen."
"No surprises here," Barton said. "Type five nuke drive, lotta deep-space time, bad shields, dead core. No wonder they junked this bucket. That's it. Shove it sunward, set the 10-CA and let's go home."
Lyle touched more controls. The probe placed the small clean atomic against a wall where it adhered.
"Okay, three minutes to--aw, sh_t!"
The screen went blank.
"What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything! The camera's gone out." "Switch to memory drive. We lose another probe and the Old Man'll chew our a_ses to pulp."
Lyle touched a button. The computer took over the probe. Since it had memorized every centimeter of the flight in, it could retrace the flight and bring the probe back.
"It's clear," Lyle said a moment later. "Burning more fuel than it should, though."
"Maybe it snagged on something coming out. Doesn't matter."
(continued next post)
In the hundred years since the first satellites had lifted, careless astronauts or construction crews had lost bolts, tools, and other chunks of hardware. The small stuff, some of it whipping around at fifteen kilcks a second relative, could punch a nasty hole in anything less dense than full-sheath armor, and that included people inside a ship coming or going. Even a chip of paint could dig a crater when it hit. While this was a danger to ships, most of the little stuff burned up on reentry; what didn't was colected by special robot rigs everybody called dust mops.
For a time there was a real risk that the big stuff would get to the ground--part of a construction ship flamed down and killed a hundred thousand people on the Big Island once, and also made Kona coffee exceedingly rare. Because of tha tand similar incidents, somebody finally realized there was a problem with all this orbiting junk. Laws were passed, and now anything bigger than a man got tagged and swept. And rather than create a new agency, the work was passed on to an organization that already existed.
This was why the Coast Guard cutter Dutton hung in high orbit over North Africa, starlight glistening on its armored boron-carbon hull, its crew of two yawning as they moved in to tag a derelict ship. Garbage Control's flight computer said this heap was about to start its fall, and before tha that happened, the thing had to be probed, checked for anybody who might be camping on it, then blasted into pieces small enough for the dust mops to collect. SOP.
"Probe ready to launch," Ensign Lyle said.
Next to him, the cutter's captain, Commander Barton, nodded. "Stand by and...launch probe."
Lyle touched the control. "Probe away. Telemetry is green. Visuals on, sensors on, one-second burn."
The tiny robot ship rocketed toward the battered freight hauler, feeding electronic information to the cutter behind it.
"Maybe this one is full of platinum ingots," Lyle siad.
"Yeah, right. And maybe it's raining on the moon."
"What's the matter, Bar? You don't want to be rich?"
"Sure. And I want to spend ten years in the CG pen fighting off the yard monsters, too. Unless you figured out a way to shut down the blue box?"
Lyle laughed. The blue box recorded everything that went on in the cutter, plus all the probe input. Even if a ship was full of platinum, there was no way to hide it from Command. And military officers didn't get salvage rights. "Well, not exactly," Lyle said. "But if we had a few million credits, we could hire somebody who might."
"Yeah, your mother," Barton said.
Lyle glanced at the computer flat screen. It was cheap hardware; the Navy had full holographics but the Guard still had to do with the bottom-of-the-line Sumatran Guild electronics. The probe's retros flamed as it reached the hulk. "Here we are. Is that good flying, or what?"
Barton grunted. "Look at the hatch. It's bulged outward."
"Explosion, you think?" Lyle said.
"Dunno. Let's open this can up."
Lyle tapped at his keyboard. The probe extruded a universal hatch key and inserted it into the lock.
"No luck. Lock's shot," Lyle said.
"I'm not blind, I can see that. Pop it."
"Hope the inner hatch is closed."
"Come on, this piece of crap has been up here for at least sixty years. Anybody on it would be dead of old age. There ain't no air in there and if by some miracle somebody is home, they're in a suspension tank. And aside from that, this thing has about thirty minutes before it hits enough atmosphere to boil lead. Pop it."
Lyle shrugged. Touched controls.
The probe attached a small charge to the hatch and retroed back a hundred meters. The charge flared silently in the vacuum and the hatch shattered.
"Knock, knock. Anybody home?"
"Go see. And try not to bang the probe up too bad this time."
"That wasn't my fault," Lyle said. "One of the retros was plugged."
"So you say."
The tiny robot ship moved in through the opening in the derelict ship.
"Inner hatch is open."
"Good. Saves time. Move it in."
The probe's halogens lit as it moved into the ship. The radiation alarm chimed on the computer's screen. "Kinda ot in there," Lyle said.
"Yep, hope you like your soypro well done."
"Mmm. I gues anybody in this baby would be toast by now. We'll have to give the probe a bath when it gets back."
"Chreesto, look at that!" Barton said.
What had been a man floated just ahead of the probe. The hard radiation had killed the bacteria that would have rotted him, and the cold had preserved what the vacuum hadn't sucked out of him. He looked like a leather prune. He was naked.
"Lordy, lordy," Lyle said. "Hey, check the wall behind him." He touched a control and the visuals enhanced and enlarged. Something was written on the bulkhead in smeary brown letters: KILL US ALL, it said.
"Damn, is that written in blood? Looks like blood to me."
"You want an analysis?"
"Never mind. We got us a flip ship."
Lyle nodded. They'd heard about them, though he himself had never opened one. Somebody went nuts and wasted everybody else. Opened a port and let the air out, or maybe flooded the ship with radiation, like this one. A quick death or a slow one, but death, sure enough. Lyle shivered.
"Find a terminal and see if you can download the ship's memory. The meter is running here."
"If the batteries are still good. Oops. Got motion on the detector."
"I see it. I don't believe it, but I see it. Nobody can possibly be alive, even somebody ina full rad suit would cook in this tub--"
"There is is. It's just a cargo carrier."
A short, squat robot crawled along a line of Velcro against the ceiling.
"We must have jolted it awake when we blew the hatch."
"Yeah, right. Get the memory."
The probe floated toward a control panel.
"Damn, look at those holes in the deck. Looks like something dissolved the plastic. Radiation wouldn't do that, would it?"
"Who knows? Who cares? Just dump the memory and pull the probe so we can blow this sucker. I have a date tonight and I don't want any overtime."
"You're the commander."
The probe connected to the control board. The ship's power was almost gone, but sufficient to download the memory.
"Coming in," Lyle said. "Here's the ID scan onscreen."
"No surprises here," Barton said. "Type five nuke drive, lotta deep-space time, bad shields, dead core. No wonder they junked this bucket. That's it. Shove it sunward, set the 10-CA and let's go home."
Lyle touched more controls. The probe placed the small clean atomic against a wall where it adhered.
"Okay, three minutes to--aw, sh_t!"
The screen went blank.
"What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything! The camera's gone out." "Switch to memory drive. We lose another probe and the Old Man'll chew our a_ses to pulp."
Lyle touched a button. The computer took over the probe. Since it had memorized every centimeter of the flight in, it could retrace the flight and bring the probe back.
"It's clear," Lyle said a moment later. "Burning more fuel than it should, though."
"Maybe it snagged on something coming out. Doesn't matter."
(continued next post)
o: The Aliens J-Drive is rated 1-5 (instead of 1-6), and the rating also represents distance the drive can push the ship. Where as Traveller's J-Drive rating represents distance in parsecs, the Aliens J-Drive rating displays maximum distance in light years (factor of 5).
