Free Trajectory Book 1 (New Providence) by Robert M. Campbell Page B

bay below. Carl turned and looked at his captain. “This is crazy, isn’t it? Like, what if it’s something else?”
    Edson raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
    Carl leaned over, conspiratorially. “Like, what if it’s aliens?”
    “That’d be a problem, wouldn’t it?”
    Carl laughed and backed up. “Just sayin’!” He went to the hatch and pushed himself down. Nervous laughter drifted up as he slipped between the decks. That laugh made Edson uneasy.
    “MSS18 this is Control.” It was Nolan. “Glad to hear your voice, Edson. We want you to know we’re all working hard trying to figure out what happened up there.” Pause. “Find data attached. Watchtower visuals show the Pandora event but not at much resolution. Ortega and team currently think Pandora might have come into contact with a high speed extra solar body moving in system. Over.”
    Edson flipped his communications on. “Control, Calypso. We thank you for your update. Will analyze and report back. Calypso out.”
    Incoming messages on his console now that the ship’s data feed was active. Two, three, ten, twenty messages. He scanned the headers looking for the data blob from Control. And found a message from Emma. He opened it first.
    Hi Dad,
    Tam and I think we know something about what happened to the Pandora. We found something moving through the belt from Olympus’ recordings. It seems to be fast moving on a trajectory headed for our ships. Including yours.
    We need to get messages to all the inbound ships. Consider altering your course to avoid this object as much as possible. Use whatever fuel you have to move outside your current trajectory.
    I’m beginning to think it’s a ship of some kind. Only thing that makes sense to me, but take a look. See what you think. Find our data attached below.
    Love you Dad. Please be careful. Please please please come home safe. Mom’s been going crazy in the kitchen.
    XOXO
    em
    That kid. Damn. He opened up the attachment and took a look at the grainy video. A blinker. Didn’t look like much. Flipping through he found Greg’s trajectory predictions.
    Some clanking and swearing drifted up from below decks. “Damnit Carl, secure those tools. I don’t want to go outside with a fucking screwdriver floating around in my suit!”
    Edson ignored it for the time being. He’d deal later.
    He opened the attachment from control and watched the video of Pandora. He didn’t blink during the entire twenty second playback. He played it again.
    Flash, was that a smaller flash? Bloom. Then something drifting out. Piece of the ship? Piece of whatever hit it? Not enough resolution at this distance to make anything out beyond a pixel. Why two flashes? Why different sizes? He squinted and ran it again.
    How could he use this?
    “Control, this is Calypso. What is your science team saying about those flashes? Over.”
    Edson hollered down the tube, “Carl, come up here please”. More clanking below.
    Carl re-emerged through the hatch, muttering, “can’t do two things at once.”
    Edson put the Watchtower video up again. “Hey, focus on this for a minute. What do you see here.” He played the video.
    While he watched it, he had an idea, and put up Em’s orbital data beside it.
    Carl watched, gnawing on a stubby fingernail.
    Edson put the video from Olympus at the beginning of the Watchtower video and played them both in sequence.
    Carl had to ask. “Ok, what’s this other data? This doesn’t look like Control telemetry.”
    Edson watched Carl studying the screen. He tapped on the grainy footage from Emma now occupying the display. “This is from a project my daughter and her friend put together. Data from Olympus Mons’ big ‘scope and some ballistic projections.”
    Carl watched. Edson tried to coach him through this, hoping he’d come to the same questions he had. “Just ignore the telemetry for a second. Look at this.” He pointed at Emma’s repeater. “That’s happening really regularly,