The Callisto Run

Chapter 1

A jump of the shuttle jostled Morgan Graham awake. He nervously tracked around the cramped grey cabin, simultaneously blinking off the cobwebs of sleep and seeking the source of the disturbance. Other light sleepers in the shuttle cast confused glances around the structure of the ship and at each other.

Another shake. A green-blue flash outside the window.

He relaxed. It was probably space debris or micrometeoroids. Nothing to worry about with the plasma shields. He rested his head back into the chair and closed his eyes again. The driving rhythm of the New London techno in his ear-pods forced its way into his psyche, reminding him that he’d left his Datacomm running the entire time. Sigh. The battery was almost dead after the five hour trip.

The shuttle captain came over the loudspeaker. “Gentlemen, sorry for that turbulence back there, just a few micrometeoroids. We’ll be latching onto Marsdock in approximately 5 minutes. Please collect your things and prepare to disembark. We try to be courteous and have a fast turnaround for those heading back to Earth Station, and getting you off efficiently helps make that possible. Thanks in advance and enjoy your time in ‘Dock, wherever your voyages take you.”

Oh, I’ll enjoy my time in Marsdock alright, Morgan mused. For a whole day before I’m burning towards deep space on the Gallantry.

Deep space. That meant faster-than-light travel on a battle cruiser. Boring! Pilot types like him would rather be at the controls of one of those needle ships…but anything was better than this shuttle. It smelled like body odor and cheap cologne, courtesy of the fresh recruits surrounding him. They’d be headed downplanet for boot camp. They look flabbier than last year’s maggots, he thought. The fittest of the bunch was no match for his crafted physique.

With only a single piece of luggage taken on his trip from Earth Station, he was able to focus on the view. Marsdock was a testament to humanity’s ingenuity, that’s for sure. Arthur C. Clarke had gotten it mostly right: in the absence of magical gravity control or magnetic boots, the best way to keep your feet on the deck was to spin the whole damned thing. That meant rings, stacks of them. Soon enough, you ended up with a big spinning hamburger. Ugly as sin on the outside, but a modern marvel on the inside.

The ‘Dock was a corporate establishment of the finest quality. After the International Space Station, the national space programs packed it up and corporations quickly filled the void. Space was the next great investment: moon mining programs, asteroid wrangling, and space tourism all became profitable endeavors. As with all things human, crime exploded until regulations and law enforcement arrived. Eventually, a space-faring arm of the military was formed, now known simply as The Fleet.

The clank of the shuttle gantry let everyone know it was safe to depart. Duffel bag in tow, he stepped off the shuttle into the busy concourse. It always took him a minute to reorient his senses. Earth Station was outdated and smelled of oil and decades neglect. Being neurotic about cleanliness, the place disgusted him. By comparison, Marsdock was pristine: full of white glass, brushed metal, data screens, and the scent of lilac. He took one large breath of it, and exhaled the memory of Earth.

This wasn’t his first trip out here, but he had an incomplete mental map of the ‘Dock. Luckily, his Datacomm had enough juice to guide him to his temporary lodging. One of the perks of being a Captain in Fleet meant he wouldn’t have to crash in the barracks with the recruits. Thank god for that. His room was cramped, but it had a charging station for his Datacomm, a shower, and a bed. He threw his bag on the bed and hit the shower.

“No more Earth Station stench!” he rejoiced aloud. Now, what to do tonight? He poured over the station directory looking for anything that piqued his interest. ‘Dock was full of bars, but drinking the night before FTL travel was a poor choice and only ended in misery for several days to follow. The shops didn’t much appeal to him, either.

There was a 2000’s rock nostalgia band playing at a restaurant in the Promenade. Perfect. He threw on some casuals and dialed up the route on his Datacomm. As he walked towards the commercial district of the station, the density of the crowd increased. The several-meter-wide walkways were almost shoulder to shoulder by the time he neared the restaurant.

He worked his way through the crowd and finally made it to the podium of the restaurant hostess. The teenage girl took one look at him and lit up with attraction.

“Just you tonight, babe?” she pried. He flirted back and negotiated a seat near the band. Just as she said, “Follow me,” Morgan caught a familiar face out of the corner of his eye.

“Hold on,” he said to the hostess as he wheeled around.

He scanned the crowd, and locked in on the countenance of a tall brunette twenty yards away. A pit grew in his stomach.

No…that can’t be you.

You’re dead.

*****

Commander Laitz’s scowl was cemented to the frigid dock control window. He’d been peering out into the blackness of space, attempting to will the absent Charon back to the carrier. Tired of seeing nothing, he queried the officer of the watch with a glance and an eyebrow raise.

“Nothing on the scanners yet, sir.”

“Damnit, they’ve been gone for over 14 hours. What the hell is the holdup?” The young lieutenant, with no clue how to respond to the towering man, shrugged his shoulders and lowered his gaze to the scanning platform built into his desk. Laitz grunted and returned to the window and his own version of sweeping the stars, even though he couldn’t possibly detect the small frisbee-shaped vehicle until it was right on top of them. The Charon was intentionally covered in a matte black exoskin that absorbed almost every frequency of radiation coming its way, including light. Technicians were known to walk into the damned things in the bays when the lights were dimmed. In the darkness of space, it would be impossible to find without its Fleet transponder sending its location back to the carrier.

Laitz glanced at his watch. Thirty more minutes and it would be official: Fleet would consider the ship lost, and the search and rescue teams would be launched to find whatever there was to find. For a moment, he considered that he might even have a dead crew on his hands.

Goddamnit.

His anxiety skyrocketed as he played out how that scenario would likely unfold. The investigation board, the hearings, the media coverage. His competence would be questioned by politicians that didn’t have a clue as to what was at stake. His name would be dragged through the mud as he was the easy scapegoat for the loss. The project would certainly be delayed for months, and it might even be scrapped.

He couldn’t afford to let that happen. He had seen what was beyond the Blue Line, the limits of current human expansion in space. There were things out there that would give those same politicians nightmares. They still wake me up in a cold sweat, he thought.

The four Deathscythe-class ships, including the Charon, were designed to contend with those horrors. Small, agile, fast, and armed to the teeth with the best energy weapons the Fleet could dream up, a single one could take out several carriers with the right crew.

The right crew…if there even was such a thing.

Getting the best mix of four people to fly the damned thing with this new software was turning out to be quite the test of the Fleet’s assessment personnel. They hadn’t found one that worked yet.

A single ping rang out from the lieutenant’s station. Laitz practically flew to the desk. “Is it them?”

“Aye, sir! We’ve got her on intercept. 50,000 km and closing,” he exclaimed. “Good. Get them on the Comms.” Laitz wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to let them know that he was extremely annoyed.

“Charon, this is the Bethesda. We have you on approach. Please acknowledge.” After a few moments, the lieutenant’s face reflected confusion. “There’s no response, sir. The channel is open, but they’re not replying. Scanners show that they are still on approach vectors.”

Laitz pressed a button on the console to turn on the intercom. “Charon, this is Commander Laitz. Acknowledge.”

Silence.

“Goddamnit, Devereux! Respond! I need to know you’re alive out there and that ship isn’t just a damned Hearse!”

More silence.

“Lieutenant, get the medics and engineering team up here now.” He wasn’t going to let this get out of control. He began to pray that they were all only unconscious. The lieutenant was in the process of paging the medics when there was a mic click.

“This is Devereux. Charon in-bound, landing in 200 seconds.”

“It’s about time. What was the damned holdup?”

“Sir, I’d rather not discuss over open channel. It was, uh, personal.”

“What do you mean, personal? Did you get your period?” The commander was not in the mood for games. He wanted an answer now.

Devereaux switched to his stern command voice. “Sir, again, we’d prefer to wait for debrief.”

“Who the hell cares what you’d pref…” Laitz stopped himself. They were alive and the ship was intact. There was no need to push. “…alright, understood. Do you require any medical assistance?”

“Negative on medical assistance, sir.”

“10-4. You’re cleared to land Bay 1. Get your asses in here ASAP.” He clicked off the intercom and turned back to the lieutenant. “Cancel the medics, but get the engineers up here to perform an inspection.”

Laitz headed for the door. “And have that crew in my office the moment after they complete post-flight.”

*****

Morgan shoved his way through the Promenade crowd. The girl was maybe a hundred meters ahead of him, but getting through all these people was like walking through quicksand.

There was no doubt in his mind that it was Cora. The high cheekbones and pointy, turned-up nose were a dead giveaway. The raven-colored pixie cut didn’t throw him off. It actually suited her better than her natural strawberry blonde. Something else hadn’t changed one bit: even though she was damned near six feet tall, she still carried herself weakly, as if to shrink in size and be less exposed to the world.

That had always baffled him. She was extraordinarily gifted, especially when it came to the digital realm. Her talents should have helped to bolster her confidence over the years, but it would appear that was not the case.

They were approaching the limits of the Promenade and the crowd was starting to thin out. He was beginning to gain ground on her when she abruptly turned off of the main walkway. This would eventually lead into the residential district where the station staff and retail workers lived. He had been there before with some Academy buddies on his last trip to the ‘Dock, so he wasn’t lost.

There was still that one nagging detail: he had watched her die four years ago.

Cora was flying back to Madrid on a shuttle from Lisbon, where she had completed a meeting with the EnviTech management on a new project. She was excited to tell him all about it, “a total game changer,” she had said.

He never got to find out what it was. A minute before landing, the shuttle’s engine exploded, sending it plummeting into the ground.

Morgan had been waiting at the shuttleport for her to arrive. He saw it all. He watched as the craft smashed into the concrete at 300 meters per second and erupted into flames and mangled metal. There was nothing he could do from behind the barricade. The shuttle and five people onboard were instantly incinerated.

There was nothing to bury.

It was reported in the news as a “freak accident,” a statistical necessity. Every so often, things had to break down, they had said.

That didn’t help.

Morgan noticed that he was no longer catching up to the girl. He was merely keeping pace now, following her. He could feel his heart racing. Was he terrified to find out if it was her?

The girl turned and headed into a long corridor. By the time he got to its entrance, she was gone.

He started exploring the nooks of the corridor, hoping to uncover some cleverly disguised exit. He was so engrossed in his search that he didn’t notice the girl slide in behind him.

The racking of a pistol changed that. “Who the fuck are you, and why shouldn’t I blow you away and leave your corpse for the rats? Talk fast, I have places to be.”

“Do that and you’ll never find out who won the 2017 Super Bowl.”

“What the fuck are you on ab…” She grabbed him by the shirt collar and spun him around.

Her eyes went wide. “Morgan, is that you? No. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit!” She jumped away from him and started pacing in circles.

He made a move to get closer to her. “Cora, I thought you were dead!” He could feel the tears coming.

She refocused and trained the gun on his chest. “Someone fucked up. They told me they’d keep you away!”

He straightened up. “Who did? What the hell happened, Cora? Where have you been for the last four years?”

“Morgan, I can’t tell you anything! They’ll kill us both if they find out this happened!”

“What happened? Who? Who will kill us?” Give me something, he thought.

“The Alliance! I can’t say any more, just stay away!” She turned and ran off down the corridor. “Forget I ever existed!” she yelled back.

Morgan instinctively started to follow. Cora looked back to make sure he wasn’t. She spun around, leveled her pistol, and shot at his feet.

He threw up his hands in surrender. “Shit! Okay! I’ll go. I’m just glad to know that you’re alive.”

She turned off the corridor and disappeared. Morgan slunk into the corner, weak and unable to process what had just happened.

What actually happened that day? Where had she been all that time? The Alliance? Why would they have any reason to harm Cora, or him for that matter? All they do is facilitate the stations’ trade with the Planets. A bunch of clerks, for God’s sake. And when the hell did she learn to fire a gun?

None of it made any damned sense. He was completely lost in a daze, but eventually he rose and made his way back to his room.

As he opened the door, something on the floor caught the light from the hall. He picked up the envelope and noticed the official Fleet seal.

A Fleet communique? A hardcopy of a Fleet communique? What is this all about?

Opening the packet, he found they were orders:

Fleet Order 5B05092227

Subject: Captain Morgan Graham – Meeting Request

Body:

Captain Graham,

You are hereby ordered to report to the office of CMDR. GOTTFELD on 06092227 at 1000 hours. Strict radio silence shall be observed. Do not inform anyone of your status or location. This order supersedes previous orders and is considered HIGHEST PRIORITY.

FLEET COMMAND. Verification: 7361696C73206F6620636861726F6E

What in the hell? He had to be on the Gallantry at 0800! They were going to head off into deep space without him. He’d lose his chance to pilot one of those high-speed attack ships!

It was 2300. Damnit. Fleet offices were closed. He couldn’t even bitch someone out over this.

He collapsed onto the bed and turned off the light.

Cora was still alive.

*****

The four-man crew of the Charon filed into Laitz’s office, lead by Devereaux.

“Alright, I gave you your damned privacy, Captain. Now tell me what the hell happened out there.”

He eyed them over. This was his best crew, with not a weak sister was among them. All four were very intelligent and physically fit. Devereaux could have easily swapped places with an American football quarterback and no one would have known the difference. His chiseled jaw and wavy blonde hair wouldn’t hurt his chances in acting, either. But right now, they were noticeably exhausted from the extended and troublesome flight.

“We appreciate that, sir. Thank you.” Devereaux appeared to notice that Laitz was sizing them up, so he straightened and pushed his shoulders back to improve his presentation.

“As you know, at 0730 Universal Coordinated Time, we departed Bethesda and engaged the FTL drive to head to our practice reconnaissance run at Callisto. The drive performed properly, and we arrived at Jupiter at 0830 UCT. We engaged the Neural-Network System at 0835 and began the pre-run NNS checklist. Hendricks, Watson, Allene, and I all verified proper stage one and stage two interlinking. The interlink depth was left at stage two, per mission parameters.”

NNS interlinking was an incredibly complicated topic, and Laitz struggled to keep current. Over the last century, neuroscientists had figured out some of the tougher challenges of “mind reading,” such as mapping every individual’s unique patterns of thought. With modern technology, a computer could be trained to quickly identify the rapid-fire thoughts of the connected user after only a few days.

In relatively short order, Fleet discovered that could be used as an incredibly efficient way of communicating between a ship’s crew. The seconds previously wasted in talking were scaled down to the nanosecond as a thought from a navigator could be instantly processed and broadcast to the pilot. Stage one interlinking applied this to the entire craft’s crew, including weapons and communication. The recipient’s interpretation and reaction time was still a limitation, but that would always be the bottleneck with a human in the control loop.

Stage two interlinking was an attempt to remove that constraint. In certain cases, priority thoughts could override the recipient’s commands. For example, if Nav noticed that the ship was about to collide with a huge chunk of debris, the pilot’s console would be bypassed and the ship would divert its course.

EnviTech, the developer of NNS, had worked long and hard to filter out relevant thoughts and assign priorities so that they would only generate overrides in critical situations. You wouldn’t want the communications officer’s craving for Neapolitan ice cream firing off any of the ship’s nukes.

As Devereaux paused to collect himself and check his notes, Laitz noticed him slouch.

Here comes the bad news.

“We began the reconnaissance run at 0845. Three minutes later, there was a Interlink-Directed Override. The IDO cascaded into an unscheduled and uncalculated FTL drive engagement, which we had to manually shutdown. That sent us into the Sol System Oort cloud. It took us until 1230 to restart the drive and head back to the Bethesda.”

Laitz sensed his own body tensing with frustration. IDOs meant formal meetings with EnviTech engineers and likely more delays in the program.

“Another IDO? Damnit! We were supposed to be finalizing this platform in the next month! What did you get from the trace report?”

“That’s the private part, sir. Our superficial diagnostic shows that the IDO originated from Watson’s node. I’ll let her fill you in on the details.”

Watson, who had been to this point staring off into the distance, focused and looked towards the Commander.

Laitz could tell she was not comfortable at all. He and Lilly Watson had been ship mates on the Bethesda for nearly four years, and they had always been close. He certainly fancied her. Lilly’s fit and petite frame, playful demeanor, and intelligence did nothing to help. It was only the regs that held him back from pursuing her.

He took a softer tack line. “Lils, what do you recall happened?”

“Sir, I’m not sure, sir. We were in the middle of the run, and I was reminded of something from my past. Something that shouldn’t have been broadcast over the Net. It was.”

Laitz’s eyes went wide. “Are you telling me that not only was there an improper priority override, there was a broadcast violation? Shit! What were you thinking about?”

It was one thing for the network software to screw up prioritization of a command. They’d seen plenty of IDOs before as they tuned up the software for the Charon. But broadcast violations…those were almost unheard of these days. That meant the computer that filtered thoughts had let one slip through that it shouldn’t have. EnviTech had been perfecting thought filtering for the last several years. Apparently, not only had the filter found her random thought as relevant, but necessary for transmittal and override. This wasn’t good.

“Commander, do you remember when I told you about the siege in Detroit?”

Laitz nodded. “I do. That was a hell of a time to be in the States. A deep scar in the planetary history. I’m sorry you were there to witness that.”

“Thank you, sir. The firing patterns we used reminded me of the fighting. I felt the same flight response I did when I was eight.”

Deep memory imprints and involuntary reactions. This might be a challenge for the EnviTech software. A killer, even.

“You couldn’t keep your reaction under control?”

“Sir, I was fine, it was a fleeting feeling. But I felt it very intensely for the few seconds we were firing.”

“Understood. I’m going to have the technicians look over the logs and see what’s going on. All of you make sure you file your situation reports.”

Devereaux jumped in. “Commander, if I may: we’d rather not fly until this is sorted out. If I’m honest, this event scared the shit out of me. We lost complete control of the ship and we couldn’t disable the NNS for several hours. What if the plasma shields had been disabled instead of the FTL? The Charon would’ve been toast in the Oort cloud. We could have died!”

“I understand your concern. I’ll pass that along to Command.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Dismissed.” They saluted and turned to leave.

As they exited his office, Laitz tried to piece together a strategy for bringing this up to the General. He really wasn’t going to like this one. This had the potential to shake up the entire kernel of the NNS program. The EnviTech guys were going to lose their damned minds.

*****