Visitor, page 1
Visitor
By John Triptych
With
Michel Lamontagne
Copyright© 2021 by John Triptych
All rights reserved.
J Triptych Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, and/or locales is entirely coincidental.
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The Maker of Entropy
The Dying World Omnibus
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Visitor
Watch for more at John Triptych’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By John Triptych
Dedication
Acknowledgements:
New Object and Interceptor Trajectories
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
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Further Reading: The Piranha Solution
Also By John Triptych
About the Author
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. Arthur C. Clarke
Acknowledgements:
WHILE THE STORY AND the characters are mine, much of the research involved with actually planning a realistic intercept of a fast-moving interstellar object, and the complexities with building and launching such a spacecraft in a plausible scientific setting belongs to Michel Lamontagne. Therefore it’s only fitting that I credit him as co-author of this novel.
New Object and Interceptor Trajectories
Prologue
BOTH OBJECTS TUMBLED through the infinite darkness, with the larger one following closely behind its smaller sibling. If someone was to calculate their velocity while moving in Earth’s atmosphere, they would have clocked in at more than seventy-five times the speed of sound. And yet, even at this terrific speed by human standards, the rest of the universe considered it as nothing more than a slow, agonizing crawl.
The distances between celestial objects are so vast it would take eons for either of them to come close to the gravity wells of nearby planets and stars. Yet time didn’t seem to matter, since they were made of neither flesh nor blood.
Upon creation they had been given solid forms, bodies of hardened material sintered by constant bombardments of cosmic rays. If seen on infrared telescopes, their dark, reddish hues meant both siblings somehow maintained a constant supply of internal heat, providing warmth to whatever secrets were being held within their protective shells.
The smaller one measured less than half a kilometer in length, around four hundred meters, its elongated form in the shape of a mangled cigar.
Yet its bigger sibling was ten times larger, with a length reaching close to four kilometers, a near perfect but gargantuan copy of its forerunner.
Perhaps they had formed together more than a billion years ago, until some unseen giant cataclysm split them apart, sending the smaller one hurtling into the void, with its larger relative chasing after it in a vain attempt to bring a lost kin back into its protective fold.
Who could know what both might have encountered while on their endless journey across the vast expanse of space. The smaller one had somehow managed to leap ahead, and would be the first to arrive in an area that was teeming with the strangest of substances—life.
This new star system had a yellow sun according to its inhabitants, but it didn’t matter to the two of them. The smaller one was the first to make its way around this star, right before it made a sudden turn after being affected by the gravity well and thereafter hurtling itself back and away into the surrounding night once more.
Now it was the larger one’s turn.
Chapter 1
WHEN ONE OF THE GRAPHICAL indicators morphed from a positive green into a chagrinned red, Cassie Voges swore under her breath, her gloved fingers reaching out and began tapping on the flat screen controls.
James Rupert was both the mission and spacecraft commander, and he quickly jerked his head to the side and stared at her. “What’s wrong?”
“One of our attitude thrusters just failed,” she said.
Rupert frowned while staring at the control panel in front of him. Cassie was right. The Blueshift capsule they were traveling in had been recovered and refurbished half a dozen times already. It was possible these multiple relentless launches probably took a toll on both the spacecraft and the engineering crews back on the ground, resulting in costly errors such as this.
Yet they were both experienced astronauts, and their training quickly came into play. Cassie began radioing Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and she also sent a quick message to Aether Aerospace’s headquarters in Southern California, since they were officially working for them.
Rupert continued to monitor the screen as the image of the International Space Station became ever larger. “Looks like the computer is revising the autopilot commands. I think we can still make it without a hitch.”
Cassie bit her lip. What was supposed to be a routine supply run to the ISS in low Earth orbit using Aether’s Blueshift spacecraft could just turn into something more dangerous than she had anticipated, and now her nerves were on edge.
Sensing her unease, Rupert smiled as he reached sideways and placed a reassuring hand on her right knee. “It’ll be okay. Pretty much everything is automated these days, so it simply means we’ll switch to manual control only if the computer can’t fix the problem.”
She made a slight nod. “Yeah.” Cassie had logged hundreds of hours on the simulators back on the ground, but she never expected to do the real thing, not on her third trip up in orbit.
A calm male voice was heard over their speakers. “Blueshift, this is Houston. We’re tracking your approach and it still looks like you’re okay.”
The spacecraft had already entered the space station’s “keep out sphere,” a radius of two hundred meters around the ISS that was carefully being monitored to prevent collisions of any kind that could damage the structure.
“We’re now past Waypoint One,” Rupert s
“Roger that, Blueshift,” Mission Control said. “Keep us advised for any deviations.”
Cassie gripped the sides of her chair. Heading into Waypoint Two, that’s just twenty meters from the docking port, she thought. Don’t fail us now.
The graphical image on the flat screen panel showed a targeting reticle around the space station’s Node 2, which was the Harmony Module. The Blueshift’s autopilot continued to make minute bursts of thrust in order to perfectly line up the capsule’s six internal arms and connect them with the doughnut-shaped pressurized mating adaptor.
Rupert’s cool composure continued to calm her as he spoke into his helmet’s microphone. “We’re looking good. The autopilot made the necessary adjustments using the other thrusters we’ve got.”
“Roger that,” the controller from Houston said.
Cassie kept her eye on the reticule as the image of the docking adaptor came ever closer. We’re almost there, she thought. Come on, come on.
They both felt a slight shudder as the Blueshift capsule came to a stop, the spacecraft’s slight velocity finally being halted as the soft capture ring successfully mated with the docking adaptor, locking both the spacecraft and the ISS together like lovers in heat.
Rupert pumped his arms in triumph. “That’s it!”
A female voice from Houston began speaking. “Confirm spacecraft capture complete.”
Cassie let out a deep breath. “That was close.”
Rupert chuckled as he began to remove the restraints from his torso. “What did I tell you? These things are fully automated. We’ve got multiple maneuvering thrusters and if one fails the computer automatically compensates.”
She finally let out a smile while undoing her chair restraints. The last time they were together on the ground Cassie was in his arms, locked in a sensuous tryst inside a hotel room where they had written down their aliases when signing up for the registry. Now it felt like time was the enemy since she couldn’t wait until they were back on the ground.
He drifted over to the side of the capsule and began to untie a number of container boxes that was secured before launch. “Hey, let’s focus on the task before we—”
a loud thump shook the entire capsule. Both astronauts stared at each other for a few confused seconds as their minds tried to register what just happened.
Cassie was sure it came from the outside, in the hard vacuum of space. “What was that?”
Chapter 2
ANOTHER VOICE FROM Houston came over the speakers while they opened the hatch leading into the space station’s Harmony Module. This time it was from Al Traynor, Mission Control’s trajectory operations officer, or TOPO for short. “Everyone, I have bad news. It seems India shot down one of their satellites and screwed it up big time.”
Rupert had just managed to shake hands and hug the ISS’s current commander, Salvatore Mangini, when they all heard the TOPO’s voice coming from the speakers. The Blueshift mission commander quickly put on a headset and plugged it onto one of the radio ports to talk back. “What do you mean, Houston?”
Traynor seemed to be keeping his cool, but his voice carried a sense of urgency. As TOPO, it was his job to keep track of anything that might pose a threat to the space station. “I’ll give you a summary. Approximately sixteen hours ago, India decided to shoot down one of their military satellites without informing us.”
Mangini was from the European Space Agency, and he was the commander in charge of the entire station. His fingers reached over and switched the speakers on so everyone could hear. “Were they successful?” he asked.
“Only partially. They did manage to destroy the satellite but they created a very wide debris field, and Vandenberg just informed us that several large pieces might be heading directly at the ISS.”
Mangini looked at the seven others that were gathered around the module, and the color drained from his face. “What... what are the chances for collision?”
“Threshold is red.”
Cassie was still inside the Blueshift capsule, but she managed to hear everything, including the audible gasps coming from the others. Red thresholds meant that it was highly likely a collision would occur.
“According to our computers, we’ve pegged the odds to one in a hundred,” Traynor added.
One of the ISS crewmembers let out a shout. The odds were not good. One in ten thousand meant that the space station needed to be moved from its current orbit. A hundred to one odds was still a longshot, but no one wanted to be under the gun when it happened.
“How much time do we have to perform an adjustment?” Mangini asked.
Traynor began to hesitate. “We’re... we’re not yet certain. Possibly within thirty minutes, over.”
A series of cries and curses erupted from the small group. It meant that even if the ISS would begin to use its thrusters, there wouldn’t be enough time to bring the station out of harm’s way due to the low burn ratio.
Rupert thrust his head down to the nadir so that he could be seen by both Cassie and the rest of the crew. “I’ve got an idea. We still have Blueshift and our spacecraft’s thrusters are more powerful than the Zvezda Service Module’s. If we do a controlled burn together, it might be enough to get us out of the way.”
Igor Koltsov was the crew’s Russian flight engineer, and in charge of the Zvezda Module, a permanently attached Soyuz that normally serve as a backup thruster. The bald, middle aged man shook his head slowly. “It might work, but if you put too much thrust, then it might damage the structure. Many of the modules are twenty years old.”
“We’ve got to try, dammit!”
One of the American astronauts assigned to the crew remained in denial. “One in a hundred, still good odds for us, right? Let’s just do a standard burn.”
Rupert grimaced. “A routine correction won’t get us out of harm’s way. It’ll take at least ninety minutes to complete it and we can’t afford that.”
“It’s a very big risk,” Mangini said softly.
“Would you prefer to take your chances against incoming debris?”
Igor pursed his lips. “He is right.”
Rupert pointed towards the other modules. “We’ll need to bolt everything down. Can these compartments get sealed?”
“Not all of them,” Igor said. “The Russian part has many hoses that stick out from the hatches.”
Mangini gestured at the others. “Close any portholes, especially the Tranquility Module’s copula. We’ll also need to fold up any of the solar panels and radiators if we can.”
Everyone began to drift away, heading out in an attempt to try and keep the station alive.
“And get your breathing masks on,” Mangini ordered. “Everyone needs to be inside the Soyuz escape craft in fifteen minutes.”
Rupert glanced in Cassie’s direction before returning his gaze towards the Italian station commander. “I’ll need to be at this end. I’ve got to monitor the station’s structural integrity when the Blueshift begins an emergency burn.”
Mangini sensed what he was going to do. “Very well, good luck. Our orders during this kind of emergency means we have to seal ourselves in one of the Soyuz modules.”
As the ISS commander floated out of earshot, Cassie threw a shocked glanced at her partner. “What do you mean you’ll be at that end, Jim?”
Rupert stared into her blue eyes. “You’ll do a manual burn from inside the capsule, Cassie. I’ve got to monitor the station’s structure and coordinate with Mission Control from here.”
“But you’ve got more experience than me, I should be the one who—”
He shook his head. “Shush now. I’m the spacecraft commander, so you’ll follow my lead. Let’s get this done.”
Chapter 3
CASSIE’S FINGERS TREMBLED as she inputted new commands on the Blueshift’s flat screen console. The forward hatch had been already been closed, and Rupert remained inside the ISS. Although the avoidance maneuver would typically be done by Mission Control in Houston, she needed to be ready, just in case.
Rupert’s voice came over her helmet speakers. “Cassie, I went ahead and secured what I could. I’m making my way over to the Zvezda service module now.”
