Stage 1 – Deep Blue
Jake Reed stared out at the bright curve of the Earth from his vessel. The ball-shaped workpod was a tiny, glistening marble next to the huge structure of the half-built space station and nothing more than a mote compared to the blue planet it orbited. But it was Jake’s personal little kingdom and he loved it.
The vessel was no more than three metres tall with bulky manoeuvring drives on each side set at roughly thirty degrees to the ships horizontal axis. The front section had a large circular viewport with a smaller lozenge-shaped viewport directly below it, allowing the pilot to see ahead and directly below. Smaller circular ports were dotted around the inside of the pod and a bank of view screens around the main port, giving the pilot an almost complete view in all direction. On each side was the housing for the four large and two smaller waldo manipulators as well as the landing skids.
Jake manipulated the controls of his pod with all the grace and capability of a concert pianist. Each pilot tended to stay with their own pod throughout their careers as familiarity with its individual kinks and traits was essential. It was said that a decent pilot could tell if he’d put on a pound of weight by the way the pods behaviour would change during a flight.
The tiny vehicle spun about its polar access until it was facing a large storage bay full of rectangular hull section. Jake locked the pod into station keeping and pulled down the repeater system for the waldos. He slid his arms into the exos and tapped the activator with his right index finger. He pulled them back to a slightly more comfortable position and then slowly pushed forward. Outside the vessel the two lower large mechanical waldos extended outwards, reaching for the large hull section. On either side of the hull piece two oblong areas had been painted yellow with blue stripes to indicate secure holding A dull thunk ran through the cabin as the arms locked neatly on.
"This is Papa-Three-Zero. I have fresh lumber." his voice was distant as he drew his hands back out of the exos and tapped at the controls. The arms held the section rock steady and the pod rotated a full one hundred and eighty degrees until the arms were holding the load directly behind him. "Confirm clear yard area one-three-eight, please." His voice held the faint roll of a west country accent. Something he’d suffered much good-natured ribbing for during his vehicle and astronaut training. Though it never went farther than that as his somewhat squat and powerful frame and rather squashed features put people off making more pointed remarks. This tended to make friends a little difficult to find, especially as he wasn’t particularly gregarious and had spent most of his childhood reading, building models or pouring over an extraordinarily large collection of puzzle books.
"Understood Papa-Three-Zero." replied a tinny voice in his headphones. There was a double-bleep as the comms switched to wide net. "All suit operators, confirm yard area one-three-eight clear, please."
As various replies came back, Jake set the pod in a lazy roll. The slow spin gave him full view of the station he - and, he admitted to himself, others - were building. A huge rotating station capable of holding almost one and a half thousand people under nearly two-thirds gee. There were bigger stations planned, but they were still just designs and wouldn’t be operational for years. But this was real now and would be finished in less than six months. Already it was beginning to take shape. Roughly half the skeletal superstructure was covered in the bulky hall plates. Their multiple layers designed to protect the inhabitants from the worst that the solar winds and great corona could throw at them. Within the plated areas, yard techs were pressurising areas one at a time and then equipping them with the latest technology. This wasn’t just an orbital habitat for a small group of scientists. This was going to be the nerve centre of the entire Earth orbit network. Combining traffic control, satellite monitoring, long-range communications and a transit facility for people going to other stations or on to the inner worlds.
"There really is something to making things with your own two hands." he said to nobody in particular.
"Say again Papa-Three-Zero?" queried the voice.
"Nothing control, just getting philosophical with myself."
"Understood." came the humourless reply.
"Do I have yard clearance?" he asked repeating his earlier query.
"Negative. Still pending reply from Operator Two-Six-Nash."
"Okay." he tapped the wide transmit on his console. "Two-Six, confirm query. Phil, where are you?", he paused awaiting the inevitable unrepeatable stream of expletives from his friend. There were forty people working the construction of Clyde - not its official name, that would come later - and they all knew each other pretty well after living together in the cramped habitation module locked to the superstructure for three months.
There was an unpleasant silence.
"Control, beacon check on Two-Six, immediate, please." he said, his tone becoming more clipped and perfunctory as worry started to take hold.
"This is control. Beacon check okay, vitals are slightly elevated but within parameters."
The radio hissed back static silence for a moment and then a voice came hesitantly through as if having to search for each word. “Hi Jake... Yeah, I uh. I.. my feet. Uhmm.”
“What’s that,” replied Jake. Worry and confusion fighting for control. “Say again, Phil? Are you having suit trouble?”
“No, uh.. no. My feet. Uhmm, they’re stuck down. I can’t get untangled...” he muttered something vague and then his radio went silent.
"Can anybody else out there see Phil?" Jake asked.
There was a chorus of ’nos’ and then a voice cut through in a broad Australian accent. "This is Cuddy. I can see him. He’s by strut four... What the Hell’s he doing?!" he asked his voice sharpening with surprise.
"Cuddy, what’s going on?", said Jake. His cracked his knuckles and held his fingers near the control column.
"He looks as if he’s trying to unlock his safety line! Hey Phil! What the bloody hell do you thing you’re doing?!"
"Control," Jake interjected, "what’s his suit condition? Is he venting O2?”
"Negative," came the quick reply, "Everything is working fine. His life signs..."
Jake gripped and let go of the flight stick a couple of times in impatience, "Control?" he queried.
"His respiration is going way up. Suit pressure is fine, but he’s hyperventilating.”
“Oh Crap!” broke in Cuddy, “he’s cut his line.”
“Control, switch on his distress beacon. I’m going to go after him.” Said Jake. He flipped the control cabin back around and within a matter of seconds had pushed the hull section back into the storage bay.
“Confirmed!” replied control. “Beacon reference two-six-echo. Activating distress flare.” This would switch on a bright flashing beacon on the front and back of Phil’s suit. “All hands, all hands. We have man overboard. Repeat, man overboard. Papa-Three-Zero, do you want a flight unit dispatched?” This was an astronaut using a heavy-duty manoeuvring pack which clipped over his normal suit. The standard suits had small manoeuvring units built-in. Enough to get somebody back to a station if they took a wrong step or keep them from tumbling away. But the thrusters in the big units could feasibly transfer somebody between orbital stations and had sufficient life-support to keep them alive for a couple of days. Not that anyone had ever had the nerve to try it. There main task was as emergency rescue equipment, though they were rarely used due to the general paranoia and common sense amongst suit operators.
“No,” responded Jake as he neatly tumbled the pod over and lined up on the flailing figure slowly drifting from the station. “Get him out the lock, but stay on stand-by just in case I miss. Don’t want extra traffic out here.”
“Check.” came the reply. “Trauma team are on standby. Go to the beta dock on the habitation module. I’ll have some people in suits ready to pull him in.”
“Understood control. Going to need some quiet now. This is going to be tricky.” Jake frowned and lined up on the tumbling figure. He tapped a control and a targeting reticule appeared on his view screen. He synched it with his radar and fire an invisible beam of light at Phil. Without any frame of reference it was incredibly difficult to tell how far away Phil had drifted, but the LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) would give him a solid lock. He set the computer to auto-program a course and as soon as it flickered up a confirmation slammed his hand down on the auto-launcher.
The pod wasn’t built for speed and firing the thrusters continuously might get him there quicker, but he’d just shoot by, or even worse, hit Phil with sufficient force to turn his bones into dust. Instead the auto-pilot gave a short pulse burst and set the pod slowly towards the drifting figure at a little over ten meters per second. That would give him around twenty seconds before he got there. Jake tapped in a slight manual course correction aiming to go just past the struggling figure. He couldn’t make a course change too close to him or the outflow of gas from the jets would push Phil further away.
Half way to the target the little pod let out a quick spray of gas from its port thruster and yawed slowly around a half turn so that he was now drifting backwards. Jake tapped in a quick macro-program on the waldos so that both sets of arms would deploy and spread into a wide ‘X’ in an attempt to give himself the best possible chance of catching Phil once he was safely passed him. His attention working three ways at once – programming the arms, monitoring the auto-pilot and watching the struggling figure on the course targeting display.
“I’m coming up on him.” he said as the distance to target slowly dropped, “Going to stop on the far side and let him come to me. How are his life signs?”
“Still hyperventilating and his body temperature and heart rate are going up. He’s still conscious.”
“All right. Going to attempt catch now.” the pod slipped past the struggling astronaut, “Don’t want to quite stop.” Jake said to himself, disengaging the autopilot and switching to manual control. “Just slow down enough so that we touch.” Jake’s hand slipped to the thruster control and he gently pulled back and released it. He jolted back slight as the ship velocity dropped down to a bare crawl. He made quick, tiny changes until he saw Phil slowly drifting directly towards the forward port and using the lower exos slowly and gently reached around him.
“Gotcha!” he said triumphantly between gritted teeth as the arms wrapped around Phil forming a cage. “DAMMIT!” he swore, “he’s trying to get his helmet off. Hold on.” he stretched a finger forward and flicked on the fine manipulators – a miniature set of waldos only about twice the length of his own arms and set on an extendable boom. He reached out as he saw Phil struggling with his suit helmet. His radiation visor was up and he could see his friend’s face pouring with sweat, blood running from the sides of his mouth. He was trying to undo the seals and pull the helmet free from its mounting. Something that would kill him in scant minutes.
“No you don’t!” said Jake and twisted the waldos around. He managed to grab one of Phil’s arms, but had to stop himself from using the full magnified force of the system as that could tear the arm clean off or reduce it to paste. Instead he slipped the gripper up to the wrist and tried to use it as a manacle. They were powerful, but not designed to hold a struggling man and it took all his concentration to hold Phil in place.
“I’ve got him, but I can’t lock the manipulators. Control, over-ride the auto-pilot and bring me back under remote.”
“Understood Papa-Three-Zero. Bringing you home now.” All at once the pod gave a jerk, bumping Jake to one side and almost allowing one of Phil’s arms to get loose. Jake cursed under his breath. But this was the computer taking the pod under control. It could do the job but lacked the finesse of a pilot.
The next minutes seemed to stretch into hours for Jake as the pod headed for the docking air lock. As it slowly came into view he could see two people floating either side the dock, attached with safety lines. Above them hovered a figure equipped with a heavy-duty flight pack. Standing by in case something went wrong during the handover.
“All emergency teams,” cut in the flight controller, “workpod coming to a halt at four meters. Standby for transfer.
Papa-Three-Zero - retros in 4.. 3.. 2.. 1.. Initiate.” Jake felt the pressure on his seat harness increase slowly as the pod decelerated and then came to a stop relative to the station. At once the two figures by the airlock pushed off and drifted across to him.
“This is Two-One-Kendrick.” A light tenor voice said in Jake’s ear. “Hold him in place until we get a line on, then extend the arms out directly forward. We’ll use them as hand rails to get back. Jake, Alex, got that? ”
“Understood,” said Jake, impressed with idea. Though he had to admit to himself, he’d been rather impressed with Alice Kendrick from the day he first met her three months ago. Never had the nerve to ask her out of course, princesses rarely kissed frogs in his experience, and definitely didn’t go out to dinner with them.
He watched carefully through the portal and the external monitors as they secured Phil by a safety line and then one of the astronauts got behind him, clipped a shorter line between them and then wrapped both arms around him to stop him struggling. The form was too bulky for Kendrick, even concealed by a suit, so he figured that must be Alex, a cheerful New Zealander that seemed to get on with everybody. The smaller suited figure went hand over hand back along the stretched out waldos and then, halfway along took hold of the safety lines of the other two and slowly pulled. It took another couple of minutes of careful work, but finally the two figures drifted into the airlock and Kendrick punched the controls from the outside sliding the heavy door closed.
Inside the lock the two figures drifted from side to side. Inside his suit Alex sweated, more from the adrenalin of the past fifteen minutes than the physical strain. Phil had stopped struggling as he was being carried across and hadn’t been fighting too hard to begin with. That worried him far more. A man who could put up a fight was far more likely to survive.
He watched the door intensely. Four strip lights running along each side of it glowed red indicating that the door wasn’t sealed and the chamber was still in vacuum. He reached his hand towards a red flap marked in large white letters ‘OXYGEN FLOOD’ and in smaller letters underneath, ‘Emergency Use Only’. He flipped the flap up and it caught on a magnetic latch. Underneath was a bright red handle. He slipped his fingers through it and gripped it tightly. The red strips suddenly flicked to amber and started flashing. He immediately pulled hard on the handle and twisted it clockwise. Normally an airlock would slowly cycle the pressure up as the astronauts suits were at a lower pressure than the station, so it allowed them to acclimatise to the pressure change. In this case, however, there was no delay. An oxygen cylinder by the airlock contained precisely enough O2 to fill the chamber and do it as quickly as possible. At first Alex heard nothing and then there was a faint roaring which grew louder and louder.
He swiveled around, keeping Phil supported in front of him. Through the small viewing port in front of him he saw the face of the stations chief medical officer, Dr Chen, a man who rarely showed emotion, but maintained a constant professional veneer. Fortunately that was matched by equally professional skill.
The lights on both airlock doors continued to flash amber and then, as the roaring sound faded away switched to green. A split second later the stationward hatch unlatched and slid sideways. Hands reached through the port and Alex unlocked the line linking the two of them together. Phil’s now limp body slipped into the suit room on the other side.
Alex stayed in the airlock. He flicked his radiation visor back so that he could see more clearly. It looked as if they hadn’t just brought a stretcher down but half of sick bay. Trauma and monitoring gear had been clipped to every available wall and the ceiling. Two medical technicians strapped Phil to the stretcher by the legs and unlocked the torso section slipping it off without bothering with the helmet first. Alex could see blood crusted around Phil’s nose and mouth and the pallid expression and blue lips of chronic cyanosis before his face was concealed by an O2 mask. Sounds were muffled through the casing of his helmet as if listening from underwater. One of the techs got out a weird contraption that looked like an elongated claw hammer, prised Phil’s mouth open and started to angle it down his throat. At that moment Alex decided that he wasn’t curious any more and wedged himself onto one of the bench sections in the airlock and resolutely stared at the far wall.
---
“He was drowning?!” the head of the investigation panel looked incredulous. She and two other members of the panel – a middle-aged and somewhat over-weight man and rather serious looking woman with hair pinned back into a bun, were sat in the large wood-panelled hearing room. Dotted around the room were various members of the station work crew and at the stand was Dr Chen, immaculate in a grey suit and blue striped tie. Greyish blue light spilled through the tall windows from a typical London April day.
“Yes, in layman’s terms at least,” he replied, “the condition is termed ‘secondary drowning’. It is caused by fluid accumulation irritating the lungs. At sufficient levels this causes pulmonary oedema and reduces the lungs ability to adequately transfer oxygen to the blood stream. This lead to hypoxemia and then finally to hypoxia. That is, a starvation of the oxygen supply to the blood lead to a starvation of oxygen to vital organs, including the brain. I believe the early sign of this was the patients irrational actions during EVA. This also lead to the hyperventilation and tachycardia.”
Jake sat at the back of the room and watched the proceedings curiously. His own business suit wasn’t a particularly good fit and he felt half strangled by his tie but he, like all others present was required to attend and dressing smartly, or vaguely so, felt like the right thing to do. No matter how uncomfortable.
He recognised most of the others. There were a couple of bigwigs from Grumman Technologies – his employers and the station builders – sat up front with a man next to them who had expensive lawyer written all over him. Most of the rest were station crew and Phil’s family. The only oddity was another man sitting at the far right of the room. He was wearing what looked like a Royal Navy uniform, but instead of the solid back it was edged with white piping and the front was buttoned across at an angle a bit like those old films from the age of the sailing ships that his father had insisted he watched when he was little. The uniformed man seemed to be looking not at only at the proceedings, but occasionally glanced around the room. He seemed to be watching everybody and for some reason his face seemed vaguely familiar as though Jake had seen it somewhere a long time ago. Jake couldn’t figure out where or what he was doing here and his attention drifted back to the discussion at the front.
“Doctor,” said the central lady on the panel – a grey haired lady with the bad habit of staring over her glasses, “do you know what lead to the condition suffered by Mr Nash?”
“From what I can tell, he appears to have aspirated – “, he saw the expressions of the panel members begin to blank and corrected himself, “that is inhaled sufficient liquid to cause the lung irritation. The liquid we extracted during intubation contained a number of chemicals which were identified as artificial colourants and flavourings. I have no idea how he came to inhale this, however.”
“Thank you, doctor. If there are no further questions...”, she turned to her two colleagues who both shook their heads, “Then you may step down."
As doctor Chen stepped down from the witness stand, a tall, skinny man with thinning close-cropped hair and an aquiline nose stood up. This was Charles Beaumont, the operation manager on Clyde. His posh name and oddly aristocratic appearance were mis-matched by a strong Birmingham accent and an infamous sense of humour.
“I beg your pardon” he said as he rose, “but I think I can help with the last bit of this puzzle, if I may?”
“Very good. Please take a seat.”
“Right,” he said, “well, after we’d retrieved Phil Nash and everybody was back in, we started going over everything. His suit went down to the techs for a full diagnostic, his pre-EVA med check was pulled and we even took a look in his cubby.”
“Cubby?” the over-weight man said, the first time he’d spoken throughout the entire proceedings, “What’s that? His locker?”
“No, sir. Its his cabin. If you can call it that. You see space is at an absolute premium, so crew personal space has to be pretty compact. What you get is a small sleeping cubby hole. Each one is about two meters long by a meter high. There’s some drawers in their for personal stuff and a monitor unit, but that’s it. It may seem cramped, but they’re fine if you’re in zero-gee”
“I see. And what did you find in this ‘cubby’?”
“Blue stains on his pillow.” said Charles matter of factly.
“What did this have to do with incident?” asked the head of the panel.
“Well, the stains were still slightly damp, so we looked for a container, but couldn’t find one. Then we checked the rubbish and found this!” he held up a small, transparent plastic bag. In it were shards of curved plastic and what looked like a spring and a handle. Charles passed it across to the woman.
“And this is..?” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Parts of a press-beaker. We use them for drinking.” Charles slipped an intact beaker out of his coat pocket that looked a little like a toddler’s sippy-cup. “You can’t use a normal mug, of course, and the old squeeze bags were two wasteful. So, you put your refreshment of choice in this. When you want a drink, you squeeze the handle and that puts a mouthful into the top, then you close your lips around the spout and suck. That lifts a valve inside and Bob’s your uncle - you get your drink!”
“But how does this connect with him nearly drowning in deep space?”, asked the panel head.
“Well, it looks like there was something wrong with his mug. He’d taken an isotonic drink before going EVA. You have to take an antihistamine before putting your suit on and need something to help the pill go down. So, he took his pill, picked up his mug and it shattered in his hand.
"Now, this would’ve left liquid floating all over his cubby. Normally liquid stays together in zero gravity because of surface tension, but in the confined space it must’ve hit a wall, or something and broken up into a lots of smaller particles. In his rush to clear up the mess, he inhaled some of the liquid. Now normally this wouldn’t be a problem. He’d just cough it back up. But because of the lack of gravity, fluid dynamics are somewhat different. Sufficient fluid stayed within his lungs to effect him. Then when he was suited up, the lower oxygen pressure aggravated his symptoms to the point where he started to drown.”
“I see. So in your opinion this was an accident?”
“Absolutely. I don’t see any other way it could’ve happened. Not many ways for a man to accidentally drown in space.”
“Thank you, Mr Beaumont. You may step down. Unless there is any other testimony, I think we can tie this up.” She looked around the room, but no-one raised a hand or went to stand-up. “Very well.” She flicked off the microphone and then went into a huddle with that two other panel members for a moment. After a few moments she looked up and looked across the room. Jake followed her glance and he saw the man in the odd uniform almost imperceptibly nod his head. She flicked the microphone back on and cleared his throat. “It is the opinion of this enquiry that the incident on the ‘Clyde’ construction was caused by accidental equipment failure. Being the case, this enquiry is dismissed.” she and the two other members stood and filed from the room through a small door. Undoubtedly to somewhere where a good dinner waited for them, Jake thought to himself ruefully. Cooking was not really his forte. Usually he stuck with things that could be cooked in their packet or ordered on-line.
Around him everyone got up and stretched. There was something stifling and stiffening about the court room and he wouldn’t be sorry to get some fresh air and a decent mug of tea. The two men from Grumman Tech walked past chatting with Charles. Jake suspected that his boss would be in for a promotion sooner than later after saving the company an embarrassment. He didn’t really mind – Beaumont hadn’t been a bad boss as bosses go.
Jake grabbed his coat and headed out through the double-doors into the lobby area. Wide, oak railed stairs ran up and down to various locations, probably full of very important people making very important decisions. As Jake headed for the exit he suddenly noticed a familiar figure hanging around behind a pillar. The tall, grizzled haired man in a slightly crumpled mac, spotted him and gave a half-smile of greeting.
“Hello, Phil.” said Jake, shaking the proffered hand, “thought you’d still be in hospital?”
“Nah,” said Phil. “I’m fine. Well,” he hesitated slightly, “fairly fine.”
“What’s up?” asked Jake, worry colouring his voice.
“Well, I’m okay, but apparently there was still lung damage. Not enough to cause serious problems.” Phil said quickly, seeing the look of alarm on Jake’s face. “But enough that I won’t be putting on a suit again.” His face fell as he said it.
“Really sorry, Phil.” said Jake. He knew how much Phil had loved working on the big rigs in space. Some people were incredibly agrophobic about working in orbit. The sense that you could fall into forever was something that filled many with horror. But not Phil. He’d loved the sense of freedom.
“That’s okay. The company is going to give me a land job. The wife seems happy about it.” he said with a rueful smile.
“Well, that’s something.”
“Look,” Phil looked awkward for a moment, “I just wanted to say ‘thanks’. I haven’t had a chance to say anything ‘til now. You know how it is – too many people around.”
“Sure, don’t worry about it.” Jake smiled.
“Well, anyway, better get back home. See you around Jake.”
“You too.” They shook hands and Jake watched as Phil wandered off with his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets. He sighed, irritated at himself for his own negative thoughts. It was too easy to start feeling down, to turn in on yourself. Thankfully life went on.
Jake wandered down the stairs and pushed open the large wooden doors. Outside he was caught unawares by the coldness of the air and a few drops of rain spattered across his face. He pulled his coat tight around him and tried to remember the best way to the nearest underground station.
“Mr Reed?”, Jake started suddenly, jerked out of his reverie. He turned to see the man in the odd military uniform standing at the top of the steps. He was wearing a peaked naval officers cap now, completing the uniform.
“Can I help you?” said Jake looking at him curiously. The air of familiarity grew stronger as the officer walked over to him a hand outstretched. He took it automatically and in mid-shake suddenly froze. “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed, “Your Alex Carter!”
“Well, most people call me commodore these days.” said Carter, smiling. His hair was grey and his face was a crazy paving of lines, but his eyes were still the unmistakable piercing blue-grey that they had been twenty-five years ago. “You’ve heard of me, then?”
“Heard of you?!” replied Jake incredulously, “I was only seven years old during the Freedom incident, but my parents couldn’t tear me away from the tv. I ate up every news report and documentary, even though I didn’t understand most of what they were saying. I remember us all gathered around the tv, watching the re-entry. My God, when the engines didn’t re-start I think everyone in the country held their breath. Then when you managed to get them started again and were flying back in escorted by those three fighters and the lead jet suddenly flew up and did a victory roll, I must have cheered myself hoarse.” Jake faltered to an embarrassed stop as he realised that his words had tumbled out at an incredible speed. He’d been reduced from jaded adult to over-enthusiastic school boy in a matter of seconds.
“That was a very long time ago.” said Commodore Carter, carefully disengaging his hand from Jake’s.
“You all just seemed to drop out of sight afterwards. I thought you and the others on the mission would’ve been on chat shows and written books?”
“Well, none of us were really interested in that. After the mission we all just went back to our lives.” Carter looked wistful for a moment and then focussed back on Alex. “But, I didn’t come here to discuss what I did decades ago. I wanted to talk to you about what happened on the Clyde station.”
“Is there some sort of problem? I thought everything was sorted out?” Jake asked.
"There isn’t exactly a problem, but there is something that I need to sort out." replied Alex. "I know that all sounds a bit mysterious. Tell, you what, there’s a place just down the road that does a really unhealthy fry up and tea that eats the spoon. Let me buy you some lunch and I’ll explain."
---
“You’re drafting me?!” asked Jake incredulously his mug of dark brown tea half-way to his mouth.
“Not exactly drafting,” corrected Alex, “more, asking you to consider a change of career. You’d be doing pretty much the same thing, just in a uniform and, I hope, something even more rewarding than orbital construction.”
“I’m still not sure I understand,” said Jake, “you’re talking about an organisation reporting to the Royal Navy, but in space. I didn’t think military organisations were allowed in space. There was some sort of UN convention..?”
“Earth orbit and Solar system military limitation treaty – ratified by the United Nations in 2038. I know it very well. Painfully well, actually. Reading a UN treaty requires a brain that can handle tongue-twister legalese and all the patience of rock. Preferably igneous, not any of those fly-by-night sedimentaries.” replied Alex. He smiled, pleased with the joke, but then noticed the blank expression on Jake’s face. “Little geology humour there.” he finished, rather lamely.
“That says that the military are limited in space though,” insisted Jake, emphasising his point with a fork which had just speared a slice of crisp bacon. “They can launch as many spy satellites or shuttles as they like, but no armed vessels. So, if you can’t have any military ships, why have any military personnel?”
“Actually the treaty is pretty specific,” replied Alex. “You can’t have an armed vessel designed for operation against ground targets, other vessels or manned orbital installations or any non-military facility. That still lets any of the superpowers have their spy satellites and monitoring stations. They’re just not allowed to shoot at one another.”
“So they’re allowed military vessels, just not allowed to have guns on them.”
“That’s about the size of it, though there are even ways to get around that. But what I and the section of the navy that I work for are looking at is something rather different.” Alex paused for a second gathering his thoughts. “Look, do you remember the Seahawk incident?”
“Yeah, every spacer remembers that. Freighter running from Mars to Earth suffered a meteor strike and nobody could reach them. The entire crew died when their power failed.” Jake forgot his lunch as the memories of the news reports re-surfaced. The distress calls from the stricken ship, the voices of the crew slowly going from desperation to despair and the eventual silence.
“It took six weeks for them to die and another eighteen months before another vessel managed to reach them. I was on the board of enquiry into what happened. Going over the crews transmissions and personal log recordings. It gave me some pretty bad nightmares for years afterwards. But there was something else as well. he paused, re-living the horror. “I never want that to happen again. If there’s even the slightest chance of saving someone then we should be able to do it.” he smiled and Jake saw a faint gleam come into his eyes. “That” he said, “is why I need you.”
“You need me? Wait... I see where this is going. You’re talking about the coast guard.”
“In a manner of speaking. Clyde is more than a traffic control and transit facility. Its going to be the base for a new service. A combined operation that will be able to not only deal with disasters in orbit and between the inner worlds as well. A chance to save anyone who no-one else can reach. Deep Space Rescue.”
Jake sat back in his chair, amazed at the audacity of the suggestion, but equally amazed that it had never been made before. He remembered how it had felt when he’d caught Phil as the injured astronaut had tumbled away from the station, the sickening horror that his friend would fall forever and face a lonely death and then the fierce exhilaration when he had caught him and brought him home.
“Well,” said Alex, interrupting his reverie, “does it sound like an interesting job? I won’t lie, It will be dangerous and tough. But you should see the ship they’re building in dry-dock. She can make 0.2 cruising acceleration and reach any of the inner worlds faster than any ship in the skies.”
Jake thought back to his small apartment and his even smaller life and something clicked in his brain. After all, why not?
“Alright.” he said and reached out to shake Alex’s hand, “I guess I have to call you ‘sir’ from now on?”