Intersection, p.1
Intersection, page 1
Intersection
Joe Ballen, Book Four
David M. Kelly
Intersection: Joe Ballen, Book Four
Copyright ©2021 by David M. Kelly
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1-7778011-0-6
ISBN-10: 1-7778011-0-9
First Published 2021
Nemesis Press
Wahnapitae, Ontario
www.nemesispress.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Dedication
In memory of Teri Lynn Hicks.
A friend and special soul who made the world better just by being in it.
One
I knew date night was over the moment I saw Jimmy Chong's moon-shaped face in the decorative, circular mirror. He hovered near the entrance to the dimly lit Imperial Dragon restaurant and peered around, undoubtedly looking for me. But it was Dollie's first night back from her latest run to Earth, and I'd deliberately left my Scroll in our apartment.
She placed her chopsticks on the ornately patterned serving plate with a click, swallowing a morsel of her Spider Rolls. "Everything okay?"
I slid my chair sideways a little, to keep her between me and Chong. The walls of the restaurant were a moving Solido projection that complemented the small lake outside, making it appear as though the building was on an island surrounded by water, while the roof above showed a sky teeming with soaring dragons. I hoped the visuals would throw my deputy off and he'd fail to spot me amid the red and gold decoration. "Chong just came in."
Dollie frowned. "I thought you took the night off?"
"Something must have come up."
"Well, let him handle it. You're not the only engineer here."
She was right. My position as head of engineering meant I was responsible for the operation of the entire station, but right now I didn't want to know about the problem. It got lonely when Dollie was on her supply trips, and I was looking forward to sharing some intimate time with her. "If he's searching for me though, it must be serious."
A skilled engineer, with an easy-going manner that made him a good middle-manager, Chong was experienced enough that I let him handle many of the day-to-day operations on Taikong Gaogu. He was also a little older than many of the station personnel, the PanAsian Confederation being more eager to ship off its younger population than those who were more entrenched in their existing lives.
I scooped up one of my tempura shrimp and chewed on its delicate flavor. It wasn't shrimp in the sense that it had been fished out of an ocean. The water tanks that formed the station's four outer layers were there purely to provide the population with drinking water and serve as a radiation barrier. Despite that, PAC companies were past-masters at growing artificial meat, and shellfish was one of their specialties, a bonus for any of their employees with a seafood habit like mine.
I edged to the left, peeking around Dollie and a red, tasseled lantern hanging from the roof. There was no sign of Chong. Hopefully he'd taken his search elsewhere.
"He's gone," I whispered.
"Good." Dollie raised her eyebrows, her full lips curving into a pout. "I have designs on your body after dinner."
"You think I'm that easy?"
"Absolutely."
The Imperial Dragon was one of our favorite spots, located on level two, one down from the high-end housing sited at the middle of the hollow station. This deck had a similar amount of landscaping to the high-rent zone, but to me it seemed a better approximation of Earth because the odd effect of the "ground" curving into the sky above was hidden by the fake sky roof.
Our table was near the back of the restaurant next to one of the windows. At this time of day, the lighting was emulating sunset, painting the water a vivid pink, mixed with greeny blues. It was an amazing effect, made more realistic by the fresh breeze drifting off the real water outside. The lakes were one of the station's best features, even though they were a pain in the ass to maintain.
I raised my cup of baijiu in a toast. "Welcome home."
"Ganbei." She clicked her cup against mine and swallowed the contents in one.
I did the same and reached for the bottle to refill our glasses.
"Please excuse this one." Chong appeared from behind a thick bamboo plant, bowing slightly. "There is a big problem, Mr. Ballen."
Dollie gave Chong a look that would have withered the most determined of people, but he was focused on me.
"What is it, Jimmy?" His body language told me it was serious. "Spit it out."
He looked puzzled for a moment, then appeared to realize I wasn't actually asking him to spit. "We must avoid panic."
I glanced at Dollie, and she shook her head as if warning me not to go. I certainly didn't want to but slid my seat back and stood. Chong made for the door, and I hesitated. Dollie's face looked like a thunderstorm closing in, with me set to be at the center of the maelstrom.
I shrugged. "This should only take a minute."
She didn't reply, and I hurried after Chong, eager to get him off my back.
He was outside smoking a pungent SootheStick and looked up as I came out. "Sorry, boss."
"When are you going to start calling me Ballen?" The rank smell of burnt lemongrass in the smoke tingled my nose. "What's the problem?"
Chong shuffled. "We've lost comms with one of the WT100s."
The WT100s were robot barges that fetched raw materials from the asteroid mining operations. "Okay, send a tug to pull it in for repairs."
"It's already on its way in."
"So what's the problem?"
"Collision course." Chong took a long pull on his SootheStick and blew it out slowly. "Impact in three hours."
"How the hell did it get so close without anyone knowing it was faulty?"
"It was working fine until about thirty minutes ago." Chong shrugged. "Then it failed a routine comm check. The techs are trying to re-establish control, but it doesn't look good."
"Blow it up."
"Destruct circuits are dead." Chong examined the gravel below his feet. "Besides, it's too close."
Now I knew why he looked so sheepish. When the asteroid mining project first started, I'd recommended the barges were equipped with a secondary backup control system and had been overruled. If the barge was as close as he said, the point defense systems would be virtually useless too, as destroying it would create a cloud of debris that would tear through large sections of the station. And with so little time, it would be impossible to move out of its path.
"What does Iwasaki say?"
"The commander has ordered evacuation of the docking ring, and areas adjacent." Chong shook his head. "I don't think there's enough time."
Iwasaki was the municipal leader and ran the station with a strict by-the-book approach. His background was one hundred percent military, and imagination wasn't one of his strong points. It was his decision not to implement the backups, claiming it was too costly, but the truth was he didn't like me. And although the PAC had signed up as part of the Combined Earth Settlement Authority, he still treated Dollie and me like the enemy.
"If we lose the ring, the station will be shut down." A chill breeze seemed to crawl up my back. "And if we can't get supplies in, people will be dying in short order."
While the station's systems were designed to ruthlessly recycle, filter, and scrub as much of its atmosphere and water supplies as possible, we were dependent on the steady flow of raw materials from the nearby Liànzi asteroid field.
Chong crushed his SootheStick into the receptacle by the restaurant entrance, then lit another. "I've explained, but..."
I shook my head, imagining the response Chong would have received from Iwasaki, and knowing all too well that the engineer would always defer to his authority, no matter how bad a decision it was.
"So, what do you want from me? We have an entire crew. Hasn't anyone got any ideas?"
Chong’s face flushed and he cleared his throat. "They think it's too late and the only option is evacuation."
"And lose half the station?"
I glanced back at the restaurant. Dollie would be wondering where the hell I'd got to. But if nothing stopped the barge, the whole section could blow out.
"I'll be at docking port eleven in"—I checked the time—"seven minutes. Make sure there's a Hopper ready for me. And get my wife to safety."
"What are you going to do?
I grimaced. "The impossible."
Without looking back, I jogged to the nearest elevator, the movement making me dizzy as the station spun lazily on its axis. I stabbed the button for the floor connecting to the docking ports, and felt giddier as the elevator rapidly rose toward the center of the drum that made up what was called the eastern section of Taikong Gaogu.
What took the most getting used to in a rotating habitat was the odd shifts in gravity. For the most part, it wasn't pronounced, but as you moved into or out from the center, the gravity decreased and increased. Do that slowly and you didn't notice it, but do it fast and it could leave you as wobbly as a cruise passenger experiencing their first Nor'wester.
When I reached the center, I was in ZeeGee and my stomach settled. I've plenty of experience in microgravity. It was only moving between the different levels of spin that affected me. The docking ring was a stationary structure between the two contra-rotating east and west sections. Spokes led to a ring of docking bays, both large industrial ones, as well as the smaller ones used by passenger ships or maintenance vessels. Eleven was one of the latter, but more significantly, the one closest to my suit locker.
The locker area was deserted, not surprising given the fact that a thousand tonnes of assorted asteroid ore was scheduled to arrive like an out-of-control express train at any moment. My locker slid open when I brushed my thumb over the lock, and the rack trundled out holding my suit.
This wasn't my old suit that had taken me through many years of working in space. After my adventures on and off the Shokasta, that one was so beat up that not even its mother would have loved it. Luckily, when I took on the job of herding cats on Taikong Gaogu, the Nakaji-Wei company insisted on equipping the senior staff with brand new suits, complete with the finest lime green corporate color scheme. While the color reminded me of the aftereffects of too much cheap vodka, it was certainly a good high-viz option, and the suits themselves were decent quality.
After pulling on the lower half, I wriggled into the upper, locked the connecting ring closed, and moved toward the airlock holding my helmet. If Chong had done his job there'd be a Hopper sealed against the outside. I clicked my helmet in place and switched the comm-set to a frequency usually used for diagnostic purposes by control technicians.
"Bob, where are you and the boys?"
"Waddya want, ya bum?"
The voice had a distinct Brooklyn accent. "LocRep. Immediately."
"I'm scanning the outer shell, rib thirty-three, one-seven-nine degrees. Harry's over by—"
"Joe? Is that you?" Harry's voice cut in. "Boy it's good to hear from you again. We've been working on the outer surface scans for weeks now."
"This gig is for the boids," Bob said. "Never anything to blow up."
Bob, Harry, and the third in the team, Moses, had originally been part of the mining operation I'd worked on at my last job. Technically, their programming belonged to that project, but I always liked to keep my own backups. I'd uploaded them into three of the maintenance bots and had them running safety checks outside.
"Sorry, Bob, but we've got some excitement happening. Thought you guys might want in on the fun."
"We're going to blow something up? See, I told you not to bad-mouth Joe when he wasn't around." Harry was always the most tolerant of the three personalities.
"Not exactly." I glanced at the display showing the outside of the airlock. A crew Hopper was docked there, and I silently sent thanks to Chong. "Mose? Where are you?"
"Hello, Joe. I'm at the West solar array, section five."
As usual, Moses sounded like his pet cat had died. I checked my mental picture of the station. He was too far away to get to us. "Okay, you stay put. We'll handle things."
"Ballen?" The new voice had the unmistakable sharp, nasal quality identifying it as Reiji Iwasaki, the station leader. "Report to me your whereabouts, please."
"I'm in heaven..."
"I have no patience for your injudicious attitude, Mr. Ballen. We have a serious situation on our hands."
The airlock slid open and I pulled myself through, squirming over to the pilot's chair and strapping myself in. "Injudicious? That's a new one. I'm aware of the problem."
"How quickly can we evacuate the docking ring and surrounding areas?"
"Not fast enough, and if you make a public announcement we'll lose as many people in the panic as the collision."
Iwasaki was silent for a minute. "We are making every effort to contact the rogue barge. The technicians tell me they're confident that given time they can regain control."
After closing the airlock, I undocked the Hopper, spinning the craft around and moving away from the station. Time was the one thing we didn't have. "Let me know how that works out for you."
I brought up a list of transponder IDs and picked out the nearest. When I checked its approach, it was closer than I'd expected. Iwasaki's men must have sat on this before releasing the information.
"Ballen? Have you left the station?" Iwasaki's voice was tight with scorn. "I have a report from traffic control of the launch of an unauthorized utility vehicle."
"Donut run. Want me to pick you something up?"
"Whatever madness you're planning, Ballen, I advise you to reconsider and leave it to the people who know how to handle these things."
I made several squeaks and buzzes. "Please repeat. I'm having difficulty with the radiation." I switched channels to talk to the bots. "Bob, Harry? I'm in Hopper HG-665A. Lock on my signal and hold station. It's Friday night and we're going to run blocker."
"You're nuts, it's Tuesday," Bob's voice came back.
"Just do it, Bob. We're short on time."
"Alright already, don't lose your chute."
Ten minutes later, the ball-like bots sidled up alongside the Hopper. "Grab on," I said. "No point you guys burning up your fuel."
A couple of metallic clunks reverberated through the hull as they fastened themselves to the craft, and I double-checked the barge's trajectory. It was closing steadily, and I wasn't sure we'd get there in time to do anything useful. After feeding the numbers into the flight computer, I told it to execute a long burn to close in quickly. It was a wasteful maneuver, but every second would make a difference.
The gray surface of the eastern section slipped under the ship as we hurtled forward. The acceleration was hard enough to push me back into the seat, but I wished I had more Delta-V available.
As we traveled, I ran through the options. I could move in front and use the Hopper's engines to slow the barge, but a few calculations told me that wouldn't be enough to stop it in time. The difficulty was overcoming the inertia involved. The barges were twenty meters long and ten wide. Loaded they had about as much mass as an office block. Not something to simply bat away.
I did some ball-park calculations. At thirty meters per second, the barge had a force of a medium-sized asteroid, and the Hopper didn't have enough Delta-V to stop it, even with Bob and Harry helping. Luckily, I wasn't planning on stopping it.
It took over an hour to match speeds with the barge. By that time, the ranging system told me there was less than sixty minutes until impact. Precious little time to do what was necessary.
Barges were rudimentary vehicles with a thin shell supported by a frame of girders to provide the rigidity for handling. I brought the Hopper up to the barge's framework and used the manipulator arms to grab it from below at the waist supports—the strongest part.
The tubes were pitted and scraped from multiple trips to the asteroid mines, making me wonder how well the skin would hold up to the inertia of the ore inside when I tried to move it. I directed Bob and Harry to grab hold of the front and rear stanchions and was all set to give the word when my comm-set buzzed into life again.
"I don't believe you stood me up, you bastard." It was Dollie, and she sounded madder than hell. "How could you leave me like that?"
"I didn't have time to explain. I'll make it up to you."
"You couldn't resist the chance to be a hero again, could you?"
"It's not like that." I stiffened at Dollie's frosty tone. "I'm trying to save the station."
"You should have married this station instead of me. You spend more time taking care of it."
"Can we discuss this later?" A strident edge slipped into my voice.
"You think there'll be a later, Joe Ballen?"
