Diamonds in the Sky (19 page)

“Could be worse, XO.”

Kevin took the bait. “How so?”

“Somebody could be shooting at us while we’re doing this.”

Kevin smiled. “Point taken.”

“Which brings us to my biggest problem with your plan.” Another sip of mocha, and Bob continued, “With only 100 warshots per tube, we can’t be popping off detonation lasers like cheap fireworks. Especially since we don’t know if we’ll run into Malzurkians.”

However enthusiastic Kevin had been with his innovative proposal for using
Procyon
’s armament to advance science, he couldn’t argue with Bob’s logic. To date, Mankind’s only encounter with an alien race had taken place in 2178 when the Malzurkians had opened a wormhole near Jupiter and then attempted to destroy all human civilization in the Solar System. Humanity had been too busy fighting for its survival to bother finding out where the other end had opened.

Kevin sighed and slumped back in his chair. “You’re right.”

Bob took a long pull off his mocha and asked, “You know what your problem is, XO? You’re bored.”

“And what, exactly, was your first clue, sir?”

Bob snorted in humor at Kevin’s dig and answered, “We’re farther away from home than anyone’s ever BEEN before, and instead of enjoying Creation, you want to do performance art with our main weaponry…”

JEDI,
Procyon
’s artificial intelligence, interrupted the conversation at that moment. “Captain, Dr. Davies wishes to speak to you.”

“Put her through.”

The table repeater stopped being an electronic menu and displayed Dr. Pamela Davies down in the main science lab. “Captain, you can tell Mr. O’Byrne where he can stick his nukes. We’ve found planets.”

“He’s right here with me. Tell him yourself.”

Kevin attempted to steer the conversation back on topic. “How many planets?”

“Two so far. A jovian at roughly 3 AU, and a terrestrial at 1.2.”

“That’s the outer edge of the Goldilocks Zone for this star, isn’t it?”

“It is within its habitable zone, yes.” Pamela subtly emphasized the words “habitable zone” to indicate exactly how she felt about O’Byrne’s cavalier astrobiology nomenclature. “Captain, we’ve taken spectra from both planets, and something’s not right in this system.”

“Elaborate on ‘not right’.”

Pamela took a deep breath. “Okay. Starting with the gas giant, it’s got a fairly standard atmosphere to a first approximation. When you look at it closer, there’s a very strong helium-3 line.”

“Your point? All gas giants have helium-3. Mars used to mine tons of the stuff from Jupiter when the Cislunars shut down all the regolith processors…”

“No, captain, you don’t understand. The amount of helium-3 required to generate this spectral response is orders of magnitude beyond anything Jupiter has. It’s not … natural.”

Bob and Kevin looked at each other, then back at the repeater. “Helium-3 is a decay product of tritium,” Bob speculated out loud.

“That just shoves the problem back one level,” Kevin offered. “How did that much tritium get in its atmosphere to begin with?”

“Much as it pains me, Captain, I have to agree with Mr. O’Byrne. We may want to wait on that problem because of the inner planet. Its spectrum looks an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, diagnostic that this was an inhabited planet — plant life at the very least. Still there are anomalies that we can’t resolve from our current position.”

“If you’re asking to move closer, consider the request approved. Download the planetary state vectors to Lt. DeMarco so she can start on a system ephemeris. We’ll let you know when we’re in range.”

“Thank you, sir,” and Pamela killed the connection.

“Battle stations before we approach?” Kevin asked as he and Bob stood up.

Bob nodded. “Still bored, XO?”

Kevin smiled as he turned for the hatch. “Maybe next time I’ll be careful what I wish for. Maybe.”

* * *

“Minus three gradient in five, four, three, downwarping … NOW,” Carmen Sanchez called out from Helm as she smoothly brought
Procyon
sublight 200,000 kilometers trailing and sunward of the inner planet.

Kevin swept a practiced eye across the threat board in Combat Information. “No targets, no active tracking,” he announced.

Bob relaxed at his station. “Stand down from general quarters, maintain yellow alert. Science Center, your ship.”

“Thank you captain,” Pamela acknowledged. Orders now flew rapidly between Science and Helm as Carmen had to position
Procyon
to unmask various sensors during their approach. Drones shot out of
Procyon
’s missile tubes, and the ship’s tactical crew in CIC directed them into appropriate orbits around the approaching planet.

“CIC to Bridge. I’ve got a good visual off the forward cameras.”

“Pipe it up, XO,” Bob ordered.

The main viewscreen jumped, and the expanding image of the inner planet began to fill it. Bob’s stomach turned as he saw not the expected white and blue of an Earth-like planet, but a sickly brown shroud of clouds.

After a long moment, Carmen offered, “Doesn’t it sort of look like Mars before terraformation?”

“No, Ms. Sanchez,” Bob said, “Mars looked cleaner. Bridge to Science.”

“Can we get back to you, Captain? We’re a little busy right now.”

At the start of the mission, she would have told me to make it quick. I’ve made progress…
“Any better luck on atmospheric composition from here?”

“Much better. We’re getting lots of NOX species … nitric acid… No ozone, which is surprising for the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Plenty of ionizing radiation present, consistent with radioisotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen still in suspension.”

Many more questions crowded into Bob’s mind, but he squelched them all ruthlessly.
They’re busy. Let them do their jobs…
“Thanks, Ms. Davies. Keep me posted, Bridge out.”

* * *

“The quick way of describing the inner planet’s atmosphere,” Pamela started in Main Briefing hours later, “would be ‘radioactive smog.’”

“Like twentieth century California?” Kevin offered helpfully.

Before Pamela could follow up her withering stare with a supporting comment, Bob interjected absently, “No, that was just plain smog.”

“Captain?”

Bob started as if from a daydream.
When did the cloud layer become radioactive?

Pamela looked to her left and nodded to Dr. Mathews, who answered, “Our drones have taken
in situ
samples, and we’ve already run ‘em through the mass spec. What we’ve gleaned from the isotope fractions suggests the event took place sometime between 500 and 1,000 years ago. Without a good handle on the intensity of the initial exposure, we can’t pin it down any closer.”

“There was also an awful lot of UV-induced chemical reactions going on either simultaneous with, or just prior to, the radiation event. We have no idea what the starting atmospheric mix was before things started happening.”

“So what was the event,” Carmen asked. “Global nuclear war?”

Dr. Mathews shook his head. “The isotope ratios are all wrong. We’d be seeing residuals for fission products, fusion products, silicon, and other lithophile elements in the atmosphere as well.”

“And in orbit,” Chief Engineer Alex Duncan added. “If you can launch a ballistic missile, it’s not a big leap to putting a payload into orbit. Where are the derelict satellites?”

“You’re assuming our hypothetical culture developed in the same manner that ours did,” Bob interrupted. “Until we get some more data points, that’s not an assumption I’m comfortable making.”

“What if they didn’t do it to themselves?” Kevin asked.

There was a pregnant pause before Carmen voiced the subject which had already sprung to minds of all the military in the briefing room. “Malzurkians?”

“People. Time out,” Bob said forcefully. Looking at Pamela, he continued, “Unless the Science Team has something else to report, we have yet to see any evidence there was sentient life on this planet, advanced or otherwise. It is useless to speculate who did what to whom when we don’t even know if there was a victim.”

“Hypothetically speaking, sir,” Kevin argued. “During the war the Malzurkians used enhanced radiation weapons to clear the Mangala Valley beachhead.”

“Then there’s a quick way to settle this,” Bob said, “Dr. Mathews. Assume a planet-wide bombardment using enhanced radiation weapons. Is the measured radiation spectrum from the atmosphere consistent with this hypothesis?”

“No.”

“Is it consistent with any lesser usage of enhanced radiation weaponry?”

“No.”

“What would be consistent with our measurements?”

“I’ll take this one,” Pamela said. “A supernova within ten parsecs could in theory account for all the observed damage in this system.”

“Like Nova Orionis?” Kevin asked. The death of the star formerly known as Betelgeuse had been a spectacular learning experience for two generations of human astronomers, and the radiation pulse was still fifteen light-years from the Solar System.

“It came to a lot of our minds when we looked at the inner planet,” Dr. Mathews said.

Carmen looked over at Pamela, a quizzical expression on his face. “Permission to ask a potentially embarrassing question.”

“I’m not military, Ms. Sanchez, you need not ask permission.”

“Which star exploded?”

There was a long silence as the scientists looked at each other helplessly.

“Good question,” Bob mused. “From what I recall of my astronomy history, none have ever been recorded in this particular area.”

“Exactly,” Carmen said. “Any star going supernova within 400 light years of home should have been one of the brightest stars in our sky before exploding. Alpha and Gamma Crucis were still there when we passed them, and we still see Beta Crucis and Beta Centauri. That’s all the known candidate stars between Sol and the Coalsack.”

Kevin chimed in, “All that is predicated upon the idea that it was a Type II supernova, of course.”

Carmen looked at Kevin quizzically, then over at Pamela. “There’s more than one type of supernova?”

Dr. Mathews explained, “Indeed. Type I supernovae, for instance, occur in binary pairs — when a white dwarf is in a close orbit around a larger star. If the stars are close enough, the dwarf can accrete material from the companion star, until the pressure of the added matter overcomes the electron degeneracy pressure supporting it. The resulting implosion initiates a violent runaway fusion reaction and subsequent explosion. It usually blows the white dwarf apart, but in some cases can actually recur cyclically.”

“But regardless, we still should have seen something. Right?” Carmen asked persistently.

Pamela turned to Bob and asked, “Do you need an answer right now?”

“No.”

“Well, we need to mine what data we have and build computer models to tell you what happened here.”

“Do you have all the data you need?”

“Are we operating under a time limit?”

“That’s what I’m about to find out, Doctor. Ms. Sanchez, nav platform status?”

“Calibration’s done. We’re ready for the next leg.”

“Mr. Duncan?”

“Starboard drive is secured and charging. We’ll be ready to answer bells in three hours.”

“I see no further reason we need to remain in system, then.”

Pamela was now visibly annoyed. “Captain, I don’t like unanswered questions. This whole system is an unanswered question.”

“And perhaps someday, someone else will be out this way and take a year or two to nose around some more to solve it.” Unintentionally, Bob’s normally placid bass voice became tinged with iron as he continued, “The Coalsack is still 250 light-years ahead of us. Let’s not be so excited that we lose focus on our primary mission.”

Pamela looked down at the table. “Sorry, captain.”

“Then let’s get buttoned up and ready to go. Dismissed.”

14 OCTOBER 2191
239 LIGHT-YEARS FROM THE COALSACK

The blast shield was down over the panoramic window in the officer’s wardroom, as it usually was while
Procyon
was traveling faster than light. Lieutenant Kendra “Heater” Jackson contemplated this as she looked for an open table and said sarcastically, “Another day flying blind into the unknown.”

Lieutenant Nathan “Cato” Perry rolled his eyes as he caught up with her. “You know what looking at FTL-induced aberration does to some people, or have you forgotten what happened to Ensign Varanov two days out of Alpha Centauri?”

“It was the only chess game I’ve ever seen him lose. This one?”

“Yeah.” They both sat down at a table next to the window and Cato continued, “He lost because he was too busy reversing the polarity of his nutrient flow all over his queenside pawns.”

“You didn’t have to make him sit down so he was facing the window.”

“Yes, I did. I wanted to win.”

Heater frowned judgmentally at Cato, causing him to add defensively, “It’s called ‘situational awareness’.”

There was a snort of humor from the next table over. Heater wheeled around to vent her sarcasm on a more personal target, only to end up face to face with a thoroughly-amused Bob Keith.

“Uh, sir!”

“I’ll have to remember that trick. I’m not a very good chess player.”

“Care to join us, sir?” Cato blurted.

Bob shrugged his shoulders, put his Bible on the table next to him, and stood up enough to turn his chair around. “Sure.”

Heater stood up. “Lieutenant Jackson. I pilot Remora 3.”

Cato joined her. “Lieutenant Perry. I’m the WESO for Remora 3.”

“Ah,” Bob said, pointing at Cato. “You find it, classify it, and jam it. Then Lieutenant Jackson kills it.”

“It’s a symbiotic relationship, sir,” Heater acknowledged.

Bob laughed as he shook their hands. With nearly four hundred military and civilian personnel on board, he hadn’t come close to greeting everyone currently assigned to
Procyon
personally. After sitting back down, he asked, “You’ve got face time with the ship’s CO. Anything on your minds?”

“As a matter of fact…” Cato blurted. “Why did the Martian Space Force send a top-of-the-line battleship on its maiden voyage to the Coalsack?”