Callisto Deception Read online

  We’d been in space for six weeks. Despite the luxuries, it still would have seemed cramped if it weren’t for the state-of-the-art VR systems. We spent most of our days in a sailing simulation called Tall Ships, a role-playing game set in the year 1778, during the privateering days on the North Atlantic. That kept us entertained for the first five weeks anyway; we spent the last week simply watching Earth get bigger in the window.

  Orbital insertion began a week ago, three million miles from our destination. Ion thrusters eased us into lunar orbit without much fanfare. In lunar orbit, we received landing coordinates.

  The ship rotated 180 degrees as powerful hydrazine rockets brought us down from orbital velocities. The view from the cabin faced opposite the direction of travel. Craters and mountains whipped past, falling over the horizon like ships at the end of the world.

  A descent booster roared and the ship settled onto a regolith tarmac illuminated by the faint glow of earthshine. Restraints retracted and cooling thrusters creaked. I got up, standing on shaky legs, popped another anti-nausea pill, and scanned the horizon. A tower loomed in the distance, like a dark silo on a barren prairie.

  A rover zigzagged down a path, headlights emanating from its roof. Dust pin-wheeled from titanium tires, dropping to the surface in a perfect parabolic arc. The rover came across our bow; on its hull, the words “moon bus” had been poorly stenciled in blue.

  The rover disappeared beneath the transport, coming to a halt below an observation port. A docking ring on the rover’s roof kissed the larger vessel’s belly with a rubber gasket. We stood around the hatch with our luggage piled beside us.

  The pressure equalized and the hatch hissed open. Looking down into the floor revealed a blue ball cap and broad shoulders. I reached down, lending a hand to whoever was below. An arm grabbed my wrist, and I heaved a six-foot man into the cabin.

  “Thank you,” he said, standing with tall confidence, piercing us from cool blue eyes, the epitome of a leader. “I’m Commander Chris Tayler.” A NASA patch glowed proudly on his breast. “Welcome to the moon.”

  “John Orville.” I shook his hand. “This is Avro Garcia, Kevin Patel, and Amelia Shepherd.” Tayler shook hands with each in turn.

  “After you,” the commander said, gesturing toward the hatch.

  Inside the rover, two columns of retro bench seats stretched back twelve rows.

  “So, Chris, what do you do here, on the moon?” Kevin asked, dispensing with formalities as the commander sealed the hatch.

  “Inventory control,” Commander Tayler replied, “basically.”

  “So, you’re an accountant?” Kevin said.

  “Well, to be fair,” Amelia said, “space accountant.”

  Commander Tayler laughed. “I think you’ll be impressed by our new assets.”

  “What assets?” Avro asked.

  The commander gave Avro a self-assured look and said, “You’ll see. Hold on.” He backed the rover from under the ship, turned, and hit the accelerator. The wheels spun, showering the tarmac with dust, as the rover lurched forward.

  We passed the silo, which, on closer inspection, appeared empty. A row of dark windows encircled the structure about half way up.

  “That was the control tower,” Tayler said, “the only surface structure in this facility.”

  The rover curved around depressions and past towering boulders before descending into crater of a kilometer and a half in width. Its walls were peppered with caverns like a wasp’s nest. The rover rumbled along a sloping path turning 180 degrees, and was swallowed by one of the caves.

  Triangular walls glowed blue, illuminated by xenon lights. “Access channels,” Tayler said. “These lead to the lava tubes.”

  “Lava tubes?” Kevin said. “As in, the inside of a volcano?”

  “The moon’s not geologically active,” I said.

  The rover entered an airlock and a sprocket-door rolled shut behind us. Now under standard atmospheric pressure, Tayler guided the rover along a widening road bordered by rough and unfinished walls.

  “When they constructed this facility, they poured regolith cement through the natural channels,” the commander explained. “It was a cheap way to make underground roads.”

  “Who built this place?” I said.

  “Care to take a guess?” said the commander. “It’s someone you know.”

  “Henry Allen the Third,” Amelia said in disgust. I shook my head, thinking of H3’s attempted extermination of the Martian colonists. The commander nodded.

  We rumbled onward for another few hundred meters, and Tayler piloted the rover between two parallel white lines. A claw descended from the anvil-colored wall and clasped the rover’s nose. The word “charging” appeared in green on a display.

  “This is it,” the commander said, throwing a few switches. The rover’s interior lights flicked on as the rover’s whining actuators dwindled to silence.

  Tayler walked toward a dark hallway carved from the rock. We followed, dragging our gear behind us like business people at a sales meeting, and stopped above a machine room with a rail separating us from a ten-meter drop.

  “Printers,” Avro said, inspecting the machinery below.

  Kevin said, “There’s nothing special about them; we had a few of these on Mars.”

  “It’s not about the printers,” I said. “It’s what they’re printing.” I looked at Tayler. He nodded, with crossed arms, analyzing us as we pieced together the story.

  “If this is H3’s base. He must have built it to construct his reactor, circumventing the United Nations’ ban on launching fission rectors in space,” I speculated.

  “But you don’t make a facility this big for just one reactor,” Amelia said.

  “Then, what the hell are they powering?” Avro asked, then looked me in the eye, “What do you think, boss?”

  “I’m getting chills just thinking about it.”

  “Hey,” Kevin said, “I’ve been to H3’s underground lair. Nothing, I mean nothing, will surprise me.”

  “I have a feeling we’re about to find out?” I said, turning to the commander.

  He nodded. “Follow me.”

  We continued down the hall to a second observation deck. Unlike the view from the previous deck, this rendered us speechless. It was a hangar, large enough to hold a zeppelin. The floor was level, but the sides were rocky and black. Rows of spacecraft lined the walls, arranged like planes on the deck of the carrier. The spacecraft even looked like fighter aircraft, with stubby wings for holding armaments, and tricycle landing gears. The cockpits, or what we assumed were the cockpits, were opaque spheres bisecting each fuselage like a bubble resting on a pond.

  “Holy,” Kevin said.

  “Shit,” Amelia said.

  “Does each ship have its own nuclear reactor?” I asked.

  The commander wore a proud look, as if he’d just became a father. “Affirmative.”

  A dozen engineers in white jumpsuits scurried around while soldiers in uniform stood guard.

  “And those are?” Kevin said, gesturing to the soldiers.

  “Marines,” Avro and Amelia said in tandem.

  “I’m just going to venture a guess here,” I said. “These spaceships are nuclear powered, with electrostatic thrusters capable of constant acceleration, high specific impulse well into the five-figure range.”

  Tayler nodded.

  “Small, agile, designed for one pilot,” Avro said.

  The commanded nodded again.

  “Fully armed, and fully operational,” Amelia said.

  “Nice Star Wars reference,” Kevin said, winking at Amelia.

  I leaned forward over the rail, as if the distance would help with our assessment. “They even have multipole electrostatic radiation shields,” I said.

  Tayler nodded. “Which means?”

  “It means they’re designed for interplanetary travel,” I said.

  Tayler nodded again, but added a smile this time.

  “W
ith the latest in onboard VR entertainment,” Kevin said.

  “Jupiter Jump Ships, or JJs,” the commander said. “You are right on all counts. The ships are designed to keep one person alive for up to a year. The pilot inside lives operating within a virtual reality metaverse.”

  “But why? What are they for?” I asked.

  “We’re not entirely sure,” the commander said. “The ships are fast and well-armed, but aren’t designed for operation in atmosphere. We’re guessing they’re part of a defense system.”

  “Defense of what?” I asked. “An asteroid? A moon? Or—”

  “Or a planet,” Kevin finished my sentence.

  “Think about it,” Amelia said. “What would have happened if H3 successfully conquered Mars?”

  “You mean after he’s killed the ‘undesirable’ freelivers?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Amelia said. “H3 wanted Mars for himself. This was part of his plan. Wipe out the colonists and fortify the planet.”

  “Possibly,” Commander Tayler said. “We considered that. But now we think H3 may have bigger plans.”

  “What could be bigger than conquering an entire planet?” Kevin asked.

  “Come with me,” Commander Tayler said. “We have a briefing to attend, and I have some friends I’d like you to meet.”

  We followed Tayler into a conference room sporting a metallic table and a dozen chairs. Holovisions covered the walls and displayed live views of the desolate lunar surface.

  Three other people in blue NASA flight suits stood near the far wall, two men and a woman, each with aviator sunglasses dangling from zipper-down pockets. They pretended not to notice us. The three talked amongst themselves, pouring coffee and eating donuts from plastic plates. The woman turned, and caught me staring at the yellow wings on her chest. Astronauts, I thought, and then averted my eyes.

  Tayler clapped his hands onto the back of a chair. “Take a seat,” he ordered. The astronauts grabbed the nearest chairs and stat down. Kevin walked to the refreshments, picking up the donut tray. All eyes were on him as he brought it back to his seat. He set two chocolate glazed donuts on a plastic plate, and slid the tray out of reach. The female astronaut leaned back in her chair, and began clicking a pen, which was interesting, because I was pretty sure the one thing this base lacked was paper.

  We sat across the table from our new friends and I read the name patches affixed to their chests: “Singer” and “Nash” and, when I was sure she wasn’t watching, I read “Johnson” off the woman.

  Singer wore a skeptical look, like he was about to ask a question, but wasn’t sure what question to ask. When he sat down, he had flipped open a holographic chess game from his wrist, made six or seven moves in rapid succession, against the computer, then swiped the board back into his forearm. He looked around as if it hadn’t happened; he obviously had nerdy tendencies. He was a burly man who looked like he’d just returned from the gym, and with brown hair parted like Captain America.

  Nash, a young, bald African American, wore a confident smile, like a test pilot who’d just landed a prototype. He was tall and lanky, but looked like he could outmaneuver Singer in a fight.

  Serene Johnson put down her clicking pen, and began scrolling through a report on her watch. She had dirty blond hair tied back in a bun so tight that no stray strands escaped the sphere. The watch’s holoscreen flicked back to Johnson’s wrist and she clasped both hands on the table.

  The commander cleared his throat. “Major Singer,” Tayler said. “Introductions please.”

  “Major Luke Singer. Former Arctic Command, NORAD.”

  “Major Singer is also an aerospace engineer,” Commander Tayler added.

  “Colonel Jamaal Nash. Former section lead, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command.”

  “Lieutenant Colonel Serene Johnson. Tactical weapons operations. The Pentagon.”

  “In case anyone has forgotten, I am Commander Chris Tayler, commander of the Advanced Attack Wing in Charleston, South Carolina.”

  Avro leaned over to me and whispered, “I’m sensing a theme here.”

  “We are NASA’s latest recruits, the first in the post-Bradbury world. In typical NASA tradition, I believe they’ve hired the best, of the best, of the best.”

  “The best of the best at what? Killing people?” Amelia said.

  “For this mission?” Commander Tayler said. “Yes.”

  This was followed by an awkward silence, only broken by the return of Johnson’s clicking pen.

  “I’m John Orville, NASA engineer.”

  “And, current president of Mars,” Amelia added.

  Serene Johnson sniffed a laugh. Nash and Tayler chuckled. They all knew who I was.

  “Amelia Shephard, dishonorably discharged member of the MDF.” She seemed to be taking distinct pleasure in her stint as a rebel.

  More chuckles from everyone but Serene, who suddenly wore a look of disgust. Perhaps there was something about another soldier disobeying orders that crossed a line for her.

  “Amelia is a tactical weapons expert,” I explained. “She was key to helping us save the Martian colony. Before joining the MDF, she was in the army.”

  Avro leaned back in his chair, looking bad-ass as usual. “Lieutenant Avro Garcia,” he said, and winked at Amelia.

  “Avro is a SAR pilot, the best there ever was,” I said. “He’s trained to fly everything from the Martian Arachnid to a 797.”

  Kevin held up his index finger while he swallowed the last of his donut and chased it down with orange juice. “Kevin Patel. Drone guy.”

  I caught Serene slowing mouthing the letters O and then K. Kevin always brought a certain awkwardness to first impressions. I’d since learned this was intentional.

  Commander Tayler rose and pushed in his chair. “As you may have guessed, we’re here because we have intel regarding H3’s whereabouts.” He tapped the table and the holovision behind him flickered. The live view of the moon vanished and the brown marble of Jupiter appeared, circled by its four brightest moons. “Can anyone name this object?” He gestured at a point of light on the far side of the display.

  “Callisto,” I said. “Jupiter’s fourth largest moon.”

  “Correct,” Tayler said. “Tell us about it.”

  “Ah, sure, okay,” I said. “Twenty years ago, NASA looked at Callisto as a candidate for a deep space outpost. That was before the funding was cut. It wasn’t until World Minerals Corp. began sending drone ships that anyone considered going there at all.”

  “What became of their ships?” asked Nash.

  “We don’t know,” I answered.

  “What do you mean, we don’t know?” Serene Johnson said.

  “The corporations keep their operations confidential in case they discover any large reserves. Since you still can’t ‘own’ space, it’s difficult to stake a claim. It could be years before a corporation sets up a colony.”

  “Thank you, John,” Tayler said. He drew his hands together and pulled them apart. The images of Callisto grew, filling the room in front of us. The moon’s surface was dark brown, and speckled with thousands of white and yellow meteor impacts.

  “These images are from the Tyson Space Telescope. In the visible spectrum, we see nothing out of the ordinary, but here’s the infrared.”

  Tayler hit a button in the table, and Callisto morphed into night-vision green and red. The image centered on the equator, where a fuzzy red band appeared like a line of longitude on a map. The blur indicated the limits of the telescope’s resolution.

  “Here is the same image over time.” The commander hit a button, and a date appeared on the screen: 2068. In this image there was no band. The image progressed to 2069 and a hint of red appeared on the moon’s surface. By 2070 the band began to stretch west and by 2071 the band stretched a quarter of the way around. The animation ended in 2074, with the band stretching westward, almost half way around the moon.

  “I was at JPL before I left for Mars,” Kevin said.
“If I remember correctly, we still had a few legacy probes around Jupiter. If we can tap in to any of those, maybe we can get a local feed.”

  “No,” Tayler answered. “The mining corporation terminated all scientific missions when it arrived in the system. Mr. Orville was correct. This is not entirely unusual for these companies, as they didn’t want to generate competing interests in the local resources.”

  “So much for the free market,” Singer grunted.

  Avro asked, “If that is a strip mine, how is it generating heat?”

  “It’s not a mine,” Tayler said. “We believe they’re constructing a Ring habitat, three kilometers in diameter. In a few years, the Ring will stretch the entire circumference of Callisto.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “Callisto has a circumference of, what, over twelve thousand kilometers?”

  “Fifteen thousand, two hundred and eighty-eight,” Tayler corrected.

  “It’s R.I.S.C.” Kevin said, pronouncing the acronym carefully while marveling at the design.

  “Correct, Kevin,” Tayler said. “Care to explain?’

  “Robotic In Situ Construction,” Kevin explained. “This is how the Japanese built the first moon base, with a kind of all-in-one drone. The rocks and other materials pass through a nuclear arc terminal which separates the elements. The slag is ejected and the ore and silicates are used to fabricate the structure.”

  “Trenching in the front, building in the back,” Nash said.

  “Exactly,” Kevin said. “Theoretically, as long as you provide it with power, the machine can run indefinitely.”

  “That’s exactly what we believe is happening,” Tayler said.

  “If it’s three kilometers wide, what’s holding up the roof?” Amelia asked.

  “Callisto’s gravity is one-ninth of Earth’s and it has almost no atmosphere,” I said.

  “The habitat is essentially one long balloon,” Kevin clarified.

  “And what happens if it pops?” Amelia asked.

  “These things aren’t like the domes on Mars, which were just flexiglass. They have spacecraft walls, a series of layers, like the walls on a house. One of the layers is highly compressed vinyl polymer. You could hit that thing with a MOAB and in less than a second the gap would be closed.”