Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [6]
“Dammit! What happened?” Jackson wanted to hurry, but this was where zero G got really annoying—he would have been running if his feet could have found any traction. Instead, he pulled himself along by the handrails, propelling himself as quickly as he could down the passageway while Harris sailed along beside him and continued to explain.
“He’ll be okay, sir. That young ensign pulled him back to the station with a dive like an Olympic gymnast. Saved his life, no doubt about it.”
“Sanders?” Jackson was pleased but not surprised. He’d seen the quality of the young officer and knew that he just needed some seasoning. Apparently, outside the station, he’d just gotten some. “Well, let’s go see—”
“Lieutenant?”
Jackson looked up to see Captain Carstairs coming after him out of the docking bay, gliding smoothly along with an air of unmistakable urgency.
“Yes, sir?”
“We picked up a dispatch from MS1 thirty minutes ago. Seems like an SOS of some kind. We just got follow-up orders from the JCS.”
“Orders? Already?”
“Yes, indeed, Lieutenant. Your SEALS are needed—on Mars. Apparently, our first mission together may well turn out to be a live one.”
Two: Mission to Mars
“We’re going to be activating the inertial dampener in about five. You two want to ride up top?” asked Captain Carstairs, addressing Lieutenant Jackson and Ensign Sanders as they gathered their notes and stood up around the small, crowded table in the wardroom.
“You’ll fly her from A Deck?” Sanders asked. “Not the CIC?”
Carstairs allowed himself a hint of a smile. “Truth is, you can’t beat the view from up there. My exec will handle the engine controls, which involves turning a knob very carefully.”
Jackson answered for both of them. “Thanks for the invitation, sir. We’d be glad to join you.”
Jackson was already familiar with the Pegasus, courtesy of the full ten-dollar tour the captain had given him during the shakedown cruise. The ship had a long cigar-shaped hull that was not unlike a submarine’s, with one crucial difference. Whereas a sub’s three or so decks were arranged in line with the full length of the hull, the space frigate had twelve much smaller decks, each of them perpendicular to the length of the hull. Thus, A Deck was “up top,” in the very nose of the ship, while K Deck supported the three massive engines and L Deck was the Aft Con, a bubble similar to A Deck in the stern, or at the very “bottom” of the ship.
Conditions were still weightless, as the ship had just broken free from the SATSTAR1 dock but had yet to begin making way. Gravity would not be restored until the vessel began accelerating. The three officers had been going over orders and plans in the officers’ wardroom on B Deck. The orders were simple: The SEALS were to go to Mars, land at Mars Station 1 (MS1), and investigate the call for help that had come from there. Details were sketchy, but apparently there had been some kind of disaster at another research station on the red planet (MS3), and initial reports indicated a suspicion of some kind of attack.
Who or what would attack a peaceful research station on an essentially uninhabited planet? All three officers knew that was the million-dollar question. The Mars installations were multinational projects created and managed under the auspices of the United Nations. It was difficult to imagine that any individual country with hostile designs on those research facilities would have had the resources to manage such an attack. A terrorist group was even more unlikely. But what, then? Space pirates? The idea seemed like something out of a comic book: How would they get to Mars, and what would they be trying to gain there? The Shamani were already on Mars, by invitation from Earth. What could they possibly gain by attacking the research station? After three years of peaceful and productive relations, along with their willingness to share some of their advanced technology, it seemed highly unlikely that they could be involved.
The Shamani had informed the people of Earth that they were one of three great empires, all of