Day of the Dragonstar (3 page)

LIKE A GIGANTIC
insect, the
Astaroth
hung in the blackness of space, hovering silently.

The general symmetry of the cylindrical ship was broken by a series of three-dimensional trapezoids
—
the outer bulkheads of its great ore-holds. The bow comprised two command blisters which resembled multifaceted eyes
—
further enhancing the insect-image of the enormous vessel. Within its hull labored the ore-crushers, the processors, and the furnaces. The
Astaroth
was a self-contained factory in space which provided metals and alloys to the IASA moonbases and Bradbury Station, the Mars colony.

On the belly-side of the ship hung a series of launch-bays
—
each platform holding two- and four-man ships. These smaller crafts, officially designated as SP2’s and SP4’s, were nicknamed “Snipes” by the miners. The little ships were employed primarily as surveying/prospecting vessels and were crammed with all manner of detection and measurement gear. Shaped like teardrops with the point-ends truncated, the Snipes were powered by small but efficient MHR reaction engines. They had exceptional range and maneuverability, and were equipped with retractable “grapples”
—
servo arms which allowed the Snipes to attach to the rough-contour surfaces of asteroids and ferry them back to the
Astaroth’
s ore-holds for crushing and processing.

At launch bay six, Peter Melendez and “Big Chuck” O’Hara climbed into their Snipe, sealed the hatches, and waited for bay-decompression and subsequent ejection into space. They had, only minutes previously, been ushered from Major Franco’s office after receiving concise, if mysterious, orders.

Neither man had spoken since entering the ship, other than to verify pre-launch checks on their consoles, but when the routine task had been completed and final countdown had commenced, O’Hara nudged his partner and put a hand over his throat-mike. “What do you figure’s going on?” he asked in a husky whisper. O’Hara was a large, beefy man. His face was round and freckled, his complexion always on the florid side. He looked like a hard drinker and would have been if lASA regulations were not so strict about such things. It had been more than five decades since man had entered space, and more than two decades since the frontiers had been opened up for the common man
—
the blue-collar, workaday types who would build Earth’s extraplanetary empires. Big Chuck O’Hara was one of those men. He was a miner, with a miner’s view of the world, whether back on Earth or out in the asteroid belt.

After hearing O’Hara’s question, Peter Melendez only shrugged, then indicated that they wait until their mikes were not patched directly into the
Astaroth.
Melendez was almost a perfect opposite of O’Hara: small of frame, delicate features, soft-spoken, and well-educated, He had been working on a post-graduate degree in Sociology at Cornell several years ago when he abruptly had become bored with it all. He’d acquired a wanderlust which had eventually led into space
—
the IASA Mining Division being the only branch of the service which would accept him. After a quiet life of safe, dilettante experiences, Peter Melendez had decided he would cast it aside for a sample of the rugged existence of the “new frontier.”

As the countdown ebbed away, Melendez glanced over at his partner. He had been running missions with O’Hara for more than three months, and Peter was growing tired of the man’s abject boorishness. Their cabin conversations comprised little more than O’Hara’s running monologues about women and tales of his physical prowess in fights.

Melendez was beginning to think that the new frontier was not so very new after all, and he had been having thoughts of going home. But now his blood was up. Something odd was going on, and Peter was curious to know why Major Franco had sent them out on a very secretive recon mission.

A lurch. A sudden assault of G-forces. The Snipe catapulted from the launch bay. Automatically, the engines cut in, stabilizing the craft. The intersect coordinates had already been keyed into the Snipe’s on-board computer, and the little ship began burning through the darkness towards a predetermined rendezvous point. For the moment, at least, O’Hara would have little to do in the way of piloting the craft.

“Pretty strange, isn’t it?” croaked the bigger man, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand the way he did when he hadn’t had a drink all day.

“I guess so,” said Melendez, pretending to be carefully examining his consoles of detection and recon gear. “Wait a second, will you?”

The radio crackled in their headphones. “SP2 double A, this is Big Mother. We have an A-OK launch here. Do you copy?” Major Franco’s voice.

“We copy, Big Mother,” said O’Hara. “Launch is nominal, and we are locked into programmed flight.”

“Stand by, SP2 double A. Further instructions to follow. Out.”

O’Hara flipped off the radio and looked at Melendez. “Now tell me, what do you think is goin’ on? And what’d you mean
—
you
guess
so?”

Peter Melendez looked up from his consoles. O’Hara’s face was a mixture of curiosity and intimidation. “I don’t know what to make of the secrecy, if that’s what you mean. We’re supposed to run a recon mission. You know as much as I do.”

“Which ain’t much,” said O’Hara. “And I thought you college guys were supposed to be so smart! You don’t know nothin’ . . .”

“Hey, knock it off, will you?” Melendez attempted to keep the anger from his voice, hoping that an honest plea for something approaching camaraderie might be successful.

“I’ll tell you what
I
think. I think it’s them friggin’ A-rabs. They’ve probably got some kind of ship out here in our territory.”

“I doubt it,” Melendez responded. “The TWC doesn’t have any ships that can operate this far out.”

“Then what the hell is it we’re supposed to be lookin’ for?”

Melendez sighed. “You heard what Franco said. Copernicus picked up some kind of object in this quadrant and they want a close-up look. That’s
all
he said, for God’s sake.”

“Well, I was just thinkin’ . . . You don’t think they’d send us out here to do anything . . . you know . . .
dangerous?”

Melendez shrugged. “How the hell do I know? I mean, look at our
jobs.
They’re not exactly what I’d call ‘safe.’”

Their helmet phones crackled again as Major Franco’s voice cut in: “Okay, SP2 double A, our telemetry is affirmative for a Number One intersect. Autoguidance until you achieve a visual contact. Manual after that. Do you copy?”

“We copy that,” said Peter. “Can you tell us what we’re going to be making visual contact
with?”

“Negative. When you get within range, I’m told you won’t be able to miss it. That’s all I can tell you right now. Proceed on course. When you make visual, you will be patched in to a Priority Channel with Copernicus on a scramble-sequence. You will have to validate before beginning the transmission. Frequency 204.8. Do you copy?”

“We copy,” said Melendez. “What is present ETA?”

A brief pause. “For visual, or course intersect?”

“Either one will do.”

“ETA for intersect is thirty-two minutes. Can’t give you visual . . .”

“Why not?” Melendez did not like the tone in Franco’s voice.

“Sorry, SP2 double A. I can’t talk about it. We are standing by for visual confirmation. Big Mother, out.”

“Roger, Big Mother,” said Melendez; flipping off the transmission key.

“He can’t talk about it,” said Peter. “That’s crazy, isn’t it?”

O’Hara harrumphed. “Ain’t the only thing that’s crazy. Like how come they picked you for this mission. Me, I can figure . . . I been with this outfit for almost ten years
—
they
know
I’m good. But you! You ain’t been space-boomin’ for more than a year or so.”

Melendez smiled. “I learn fast, I guess.” He did not really feel like talking to his partner, especially when he was in one of his argumentative, aggressive moods. Peter Melendez
did
share O’Hara’s apprehension concerning the mission, but he did not want to talk about it. They would know what they were looking for soon enough. He stared through the forward port into the endless velvet night.

Neither man spoke for several minutes. There was tension in the atmosphere of the small ship’s cabin, but Melendez was able to ignore it by directing his thoughts outward, to the possible reasons for the recon mission. It
was
possible that the brass had picked up a TWC ship in the vicinity. Was it armed? Disabled? Maybe no one knew what it was doing out here. The thought was troubling. The Third World countries were not very advanced in space technology. Indeed, the only thing they had actually accomplished was a lunar settlement. Aside from the two IASA moonbase installations
—
Copemicus Base and Tsiolkovskii Base, both staffed by the combined space agencies of North America, Europe, and the Soviet Union, there were two other permanent colonies: a fledgling enterprise recently established by the Chinese
—D
ua Ho Chang, and an older installation erected by the Third World Confederation
—
tagged the TWC. That base was called Ramadas Khan and it was the final glorious breath of the TWC, having been built soon after the close of the twentieth century, when the emerging African nations and the Arab political estates were at the peak of their power. Within the intervening quarter-century, however, after the oil-depletion leverage of the Third World had been exhausted with the extinction of petroleum, the TWC became a second-rate political influence in global affairs. Since that time, the TWC had clung to their moonbase, recognizing it as a final vestige of their past glory, even though they were partially dependent on the lASA for logistical and technological support.

If it was a TWC ship, though, why were they sending out a Snipe? wondered Melendez. Tensions between the IASA nations and the TWC persisted, to say the least. In fact, there was an unspoken tradition of hostility, and several “incidents” within the past decade could have easily escalated into direct military confrontation, had not the diplomats of the involved countries been quick to ameliorate the disputes. True, the world did not hang in such precarious balance as in the previous century. But the utopian vision of political and economic harmony among nations was still quite distant.

As far as Melendez knew, though, the TWC just didn’t have the hardware to get out here. Their Deep-Space vessels were obsolete and their telemetry equipment was ten years behind state-of-the-art.

So what was it they were going after?

Melendez’s thoughts kept tumbling over and over, and he wanted to verbalize them, but talking to O’Hara was not fruitful, to say the least. The man did his job, and that was all.

Checking his watch, Melendez realized that they were within fifteen minutes of ETA with the object. He stared absently through the port, into the bottomless pit of stars, remembering how it had been when he’d first ventured into space. He had since overcome those early feelings of fear and insignificance but there remained a sincere
respect
and a sense of wonder about the universe. Melendez felt that he truly appreciated the vastness of the galaxy, the implications of the hundreds of millions of suns which burned in the darkest of nights. Here he was, a speck of bone and blood, a smear of chemicals crawling across this immense canvas. A cold, insensitive place, it made you appreciate the only true warmth in the universe for human beings
—
the warmth of
other
human beings.

Something flickered on his long-range scanner displays. The instruments were picking up an object. Other sensors were also flashing into screen-brilliance. A solid object of incredible proportions . . . Melendez keyed in a request for some preliminary figures.

The display blinked. Numbers appeared.

Distance from object: 4100 kilometers. Mean dimensions of object: 321.45 kilometers by 64.78 kilometers.

Melendez re-keyed the request, Couldn’t be anything out there
that
big if it was a ship. Theirs
or
ours. Surely, if it was an asteroid, the Survey would have known about its existence a long time ago, especially if it was off the ecliptic.

The display screen blinked. The same numbers reappeared. Melendez checked again, just to be certain before contacting the
Astaroth,
No error. Whatever it was, the Snipe was gliding toward it at a speed of six kilometers per second.

“Hey Chuck. Look at this,” Melendez said in a soft voice.

O’Hara looked. “What the hell is it?” His tone of voice had changed from condescension to something milder.

“Don’t know. We’re not in visual mode yet. But it’s damned big. We should be seeing it soon . . .”