Orbital Disruption Read online

  “Excuse me sir,” a woman’s voice said from beside his seat. “It’s Dr. Singh. He said it’s important.”

  Ruben opened his eyes. Barbara Dahl, his executive assistant, was leaning over his chair, blond hair framing her young face. One of the perks that came with his position. It almost made it tolerable to have his nap interrupted.

  “Tell him I’ll call him in a moment,” Ruben sighed and sat up straighter. Leviathan took this as his cue to hop down from Ruben’s lap.

  “Yes, sir.” Barbara replied and turned away. She was enjoyable from this angle as well, Ruben noted before reaching down into his briefcase to retrieve his phone. He pressed his thumb to the fingerprint reader while the phone took a quick snapshot of his face. Confirming a match, the phone unlocked. Ruben checked that it was connected to the local network of the jet and that the jet had a strong satellite signal before he plugged in his noise cancelling headphones and tapped the third entry in his speed-dial list. A dark skinned face with round spectacles appeared on the screen. Dr. Harmeet Singh, Director of Flight Operations for Excelsior.

  “Hello Mr. St. James,” the older man said as soon as the video connection was established. Judging by the dark windows beyond his desk it was still night in Orlando. He hesitated a moment before continuing, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  “Ah, Harmeet. I was afraid you’d say that,” Ruben sighed. “Go on then. What’s the situation.”

  “Sir, the communications interruption that we experienced earlier today with the lead craft on the captured body appears to be permanent. I’m sorry sir, but I think we’ve lost asteroid 207302.”

  Ruben closed his eyes briefly and slowly exhaled. Staying calm was important. He opened his eyes. “You’re certain?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. The last transmission from the uplink on the lead craft was cut off abruptly, indicative of a catastrophic failure rather than a gradual decrease in signal strength caused by alignment drift or power system failure. Then about an hour after the loss of contact we observed a pulse from the body that was consistent with a drive plume. Less than an hour later we observed a similar pulse. The period continues to decrease, the pulses are coming about every thirty-five minutes now and…”

  “It’s spinning,” Ruben cut him off mid-sentence. “You’re seeing the drive plumes from our tugs as the asteroid rotates.”

  “Indeed,” Harmeet confirmed. “Judging by the acceleration we’re seeing, we can conclude that the tugs are no longer symmetrically arranged. We hypothesize that a collision of some sort destroyed the lead craft and some number of tugs.”

  “A collision?” Ruben asked, eyebrow raised. “I thought that was unlikely?”

  “Yes, that’s what we thought. Apparently it’s not as unlikely as we’d hoped. Or else we’re simply very unlucky.”

  “Well, this was a risk we took, venturing so far into the void,” Ruben said, turning his gaze away from the screen and out over the vast Pacific. “Great accomplishments risk failure, Harmeet.”

  “Indeed, Sir.” Harmeet relaxed slightly.

  “But failures must have consequences too,” Ruben said, returning his eyes to the screen. “I expect to receive your resignation letter before I land, Harmeet. This was an unacceptable loss.”

  “Understood, Sir,” Harmeet replied, stiffly. “Good day.”

  Ruben St. James switched off his phone and placed it gently into his briefcase before pressing a small button on the side of his chair. A moment later Barbara appeared.

  “Call Janet and let her know that I’ve terminated Dr. Singh’s employment, effective immediately.” Ruben ordered. “Wake her up if necessary. Singh’s still in the office in Orlando. I don’t want him getting up to anything. Have Janet call security to escort him out.”

  “Yes sir,” Barbara said and turned to go.

  Ruben thought a moment and then called after her retreating form, “And pour me a drink, Barbara. A strong one.”

  Five

  Brooklyn looked the same on the surface. The majestic trees on the hill at the edge of Fort Greene Park still had bare limbs; leaves wouldn’t return for another month or more. The narrow streets between decrepit brick public housing blocks were rutted with potholes and strewn with more than a few newspapers. And the East River just beyond the old Navy Yard was a somber grey, reflecting the sky. But as he climbed the industrial steel stairs to the office of Jovian Resources and swiped his card at the electronic lock, Dennis Li felt like he was seeing the world afresh.

  “Hey, Captain! Welcome back!”

  Molly Owens grinned at Dennis as he walked into the small kitchen tucked into the corner of Jovian’s office. Dennis gave her a high five.

  “Good to be back, Molly.” Noticing her hair he smiled and added, “Blue this week? Nice.”

  “Thanks,” Molly laughed. Her frequently changing hair color had been a source of office humor since they started working together at Dennis’s first firm, Starlight.

  “And nice work on the capture. Seriously - the timing was amazing.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome,” Molly relied, beaming. “I just wish I could have seen Ruben’s face!”

  “I’m not ashamed to say I found it deeply satisfying,” Dennis grinned. “Have they made any announcements yet?”

  “Nope,” Molly shook her head and turned to refill her mug with coffee. She placed a plastic pod into an opening on the machine and closed its lid. “No press release, nothing on Twitter.”

  The coffee machine made a click and a hiss.

  “They may still be trying to re-establish contact,” Molly continued. “But the spin period’s down to about ten minutes. That’s about a half meter per second on the rock’s surface or three hundredths of one percent of Earth’s gravity. Well within the tolerance of their anchoring but above local escape velocity.”

  The coffee machine made gurgling noises.

  “So if it spins any faster, the asteroid might start to come apart,” Dennis observed.

  A stream of dark steaming liquid began to pour into Molly’s mug.

  “Exactly,” Molly confirmed. “We figured they’d have automatic shutoffs for their drives for a situation like this and it seems that they do. Two of the drives switched off an hour ago. We’re going to switch off the rest later today if they don’t switch off automatically.”

  With a final burst of steam, the coffee machine finished its cycle. Molly took the mug and raised it to her lips.

  “Good work, Molly,” Dennis said.

  “Mmm,” Molly mumbled and took a sip of coffee. “No problem.”

  After brewing a mug of coffee for himself, Dennis stepped out into the main area of the office. Decades ago it had been a factory for assembling hoists, winches and other large mechanical parts of ships. Today Jovian’s office space still clearly showed its industrial roots in high ceilings, exposed steel beams and a bare concrete floor. But instead of the mammoth steel-forming presses and cutting equipment of its original tenants, the space was divided roughly in thirds between an office section with two rows of desks, an engineering workspace with two large tables strewn with electronics and a plastic-shrouded makeshift satellite assembly cleanroom. A glass-walled conference room sat in the corner opposite the kitchenette and a single lonely sofa by the entrance served as the only sign that visitors were welcome. This space, the modest headquarters of Jovian Resources, felt more like home to Dennis than his tiny studio in Flatbush. And it was good to be home.

  “Hey everybody,” Dennis raised his voice to be heard over the cleanroom air filters and someone’s music. “All hands meeting in 5 minutes. Thanks.”

  Mike Jones, Jovian’s electrical engineer looked up from the workbench and smiled. “Hey, Dennis. Welcome back!” Mike had worked for Excelsior Systems from the day he graduated from Georgia Tech until the day he’d been summarily fired for insufficient sycophancy.

  Ricardo “Ricky” Sanchez, the company’s first intern was sitting next to Mike. “Ok,” he said and waved. Dennis n
oted that Ricky was working with Mike now. He’d been assigned to Tabitha a week earlier when Dennis left for Tokyo. Molly had vouched for Ricky - his mother was a childhood friend of Molly’s from back in San Jose. Ricky had flunked out of college twice but Molly had been right - it wasn’t for lack of talent. Discipline, on the other hand… well, he seemed to be getting along well with Mike, Dennis observed, as Ricky held a multimeter probe to a circuit board while Mike soldered something onto it.

  Tabitha Chu replied, “sure” - which was a much as she was likely to say. Dennis had never convinced Tony or Tabitha to tell him the whole story of what Tabitha had done at whatever three-letter agency she had worked at that made her permanently unemployable in any government-sector job. But Tony assured him it was something that Dennis would approve of and in the two years since she’d been hired, he’d never had a reason to doubt it.

  Tabitha leaned toward Molly who sat at the desk next to her and said something Dennis couldn’t hear. Molly, the only other veteran of Starlight besides Tony and Dennis was Jovian’s physicist, operations manager and resident space nerd. She raised her coffee mug in acknowledgement but didn’t take her eyes off her screen.

  Dennis paused for a moment and took a sip of coffee. Molly, Tabitha, Mike and Ricky. Along with Dennis and Tony this was Jovian Systems. Just six people to run a complex operation taking place well beyond the orbit of Mars. Dennis smiled and walked to the conference room.

  Ricky was the last to shuffle into the conference room. Dennis started to ask him to shut the door when he stopped.

  “What the heck, Ricky,” Dennis asked. “Is that an eyepatch?”

  Ricky grinned, “Arr! It is indeed, captain! We be space pirates now!”

  Mike looked embarrassed, Tabitha was frowning and Molly was trying not to laugh.

  “Very funny, Ricky,” Dennis said, trying to sound serious but knowing he was smiling as he said it. “You know we don’t use that word around here, right?”

  “Arr… ok, Captain Dennis,” Ricky looked crestfallen. “But we captured the enemy’s ship - that makes us pirates, right?”

  “Yes, that may be, Ricky. But it’s kind of important we don’t actually say it.”

  “Yeah,” added Molly. “We should really be thinking of ourselves as space repo men. We’re just collecting on an overdue debt.”

  Mike laughed and even Tabitha smiled.

  “Does that mean we can’t get a parrot?” Ricky asked with mock earnestness.

  Dennis continued to smile as he replied, “Any talk of parrots and someone may be walking the plank!”

  Ricky abruptly closed his mouth but the rest of the team chuckled. Dennis was glad to see that the tension of the past few months was abating.

  “I know you’ve all been under a lot of pressure. We worked really hard and we hit a major milestone for our company. So it’s great to let off a little steam. But we can’t forget about what lies ahead. In some ways, this was the easy part. We’re still flying under the radar, so to speak. But soon we’re going to be in the spotlight. So it’s fine to crack a few jokes but now we need to get down to business.”

  Dennis looked around the table.

  “Molly, what’s our status with the rock?”

  “As of a few minutes ago we observed another pulse from asteroid 207302 and it looks like two more of Excelsior’s drives have shut down,” Molly reported. “We should get confirmation in a little while from the capture craft when it transmits its next burst to the relay. At this rate the rock should be fully powered down in a few hours.”

  “That’s great,” said Dennis. “It looks like this phase of the mission is just about done. How is phase two coming?”

  “We’re still scheduled to launch our salvage vehicles with OrbiJet at the end of next week.” Molly confirmed. “That gives us just over a week to get Mike’s changes made and get the craft shipped down to Virginia.”

  Dennis looked over at Mike.

  “We’re almost there,” Mike assured. “We saw a few small changes on Excelsior’s connector boards when we were reviewing the images sent back by the capture craft. Ricky and I have been testing a reconfiguration of the USB diagnostic interface plug assembly that we think will be more stable. We can be ready for final shake testing tomorrow and release for shipping on Wednesday or Thursday at the latest.”

  “Ok,” Dennis nodded. “That’s tight but we can make it work. If we have to we can expedite the shipping.”

  Dennis turned to Tabitha.

  “Will any of these changes require updates to the AI?”

  Tabitha shook her head slightly. “No, I tested it already. The version you and I worked on for the capture craft can handle the new plug geometry just fine. I’d rather not introduce any changes at this point.”

  “That sounds prudent,” Dennis agreed. “Anything else?” he said and looked around the table.

  “How was Tokyo?” Molly asked. “I mean, besides the part where Ruben St. James looked like a chimp on stage.”

  They all chuckled but Dennis knew that Molly was the only one who felt it like he did.

  “Well, besides the circus show? It was a good,” Dennis shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, typical aerospace trade show. I got to talk to a couple new launch services. It seems there’s a new one starting up every week and most of them don’t last long. But the guys from Indonesia sound serious about putting pressure on the other low cost nanosat launchers and they’ve got state backing so they might survive. That could be good for us.”

  “What about investors?” Molly asked.

  “I had a good chat with some guys from Mitsubishi,” Dennis replied, “but although they’re interested in us, I’m not sure I want to get in bed with another big firm. Tony made a contact at a boutique investment firm that I’d never heard of. And we saw several of the usual Silicon Valley VC’s. Andreessen Horowitz’s space resources guy was ok but the rest were clueless. I don’t really expect anything to happen until we announce a successful salvage.”

  Molly nodded.

  “Anything else?” Dennis asked again.

  “Ok, thanks everyone,” Dennis concluded when no one else replied. “Let’s hit that ship date and salvage ourselves an asteroid!”

  “Ar!” Ricky exclaimed before Mike poked him in the ribs.

  Six

  “You what?!”

  Dennis Li held a bagel in his left hand and his right clenched the mouse. He stared at his monitor. Tony Vincent’s face stared back against a bland white backdrop. Tony was leaning in too close to the camera in his laptop, distorting his face like a fish-eye lens.

  “I told Jessica she could visit the office and observe us packing the latest batch of spacecraft,” fish-eyed Tony explained patiently.

  Dennis took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment and then continued. “Tony, the launch is four days from now. We’re racing like hell to make the expedited shipping date tonight. There is exactly zero slack left in the schedule. We don’t have time for distractions right now.”

  “I know,” Tony reassured calmly. “I already told her we’re in crunch mode. She understands and won’t take up much of your time. She just wants to see the team in action.”

  Dennis forced himself to take a bite of bagel to prevent himself from saying what was on the tip of his tongue. He chewed and swallowed.

  “Tony, I shouldn’t need to remind you that we have certain… sensitive information in our office. Information we don’t share outside the team. If we’re going to have a visitor then I’ll need to tidy up a bit, right? That will take time that we do not have.”

  “Sorry, Denny, but this is important. She’s going to be writing a report on us. A report that will strongly influence our ability to get funding from her firm and maybe others. It’s important that she sees us as a fully functioning legitimate asteroid prospecting company. Seeing the office and the team and the craft getting prepped for shipment is critical. Especially before certain news goes public.”

  Tony was right,
Dennis knew. They ran a lean operation but even so, they were down to fumes. They’d need to raise capital almost immediately after they announced that they were salvaging asteroid 207302. And Excelsior still hadn’t publicly announced that they’d lost contact. Which meant that Jovian couldn’t say they were “salvaging” anything. Not yet. Dennis and the team needed to continue to operate as if they were running their own prospecting mission - which they were but with no hope of capturing their own asteroid and bringing it back to earth with their current budget. Having a strong analyst report written ahead of their announcement would help a lot.

  “Ok,” Dennis sighed. “When is she coming.”

  “Um,” Tony looked up toward the clock in the corner of his screen and then back to the camera. “We’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  “What?!” Dennis nearly choked on his bagel as crumbs flew from his mouth. “Wait, where are you now?”

  “Well, I’m at her hotel room just now,” Tony replied with just a trace of sheepishness. “She’s staying at the Hilton near Atlantic Avenue.”

  “Aw hell, Tony. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Tony grinned and replied, “See you soon, buddy.”

  Dennis clicked the button to end the videoconference and leaned back in his chair.

  “Shit.”

  Taking a deep breath, Dennis stood up and raised his voice.

  “Everyone! Listen up! We’re about to have a visitor. Clean your workspaces. Now!”

  Molly, sitting closest to Dennis swore and started typing rapidly. Tabitha sighed, got up from her desk and started erasing a whiteboard. Ricky looked confused but Mike quickly directed him to put several of the components they were working into a cardboard box which Mike closed and slid under the worktable. He pulled a different box out from under the table and hoisted it, with a grunt, into the tabletop. He and Ricky carefully removed a mechanical assembly that ended in a long drill shaft and laid it out in the table.