CHAPTER 2
Finding an object the size of a boulder in the vastness of space was no easy task. This, Sublieutenant Jack Mallory concluded as he eased his control stick to the left and moved his little ship into another slow turn, was probably why micro-asteroid mining had never really taken off, despite all the gaian propaganda over the years. Checking the settings on his dipping probe one more time, he hypothesized that those “save the worlds” protestors had never actually suited up and tried to pinpoint – let alone rendezvous with – one of the millions of micro-asteroids that infest every star system.
And with micro-asteroids you only have to deal with three spatial dimensions: child’s play, really.
Jack centered his control stick and settled into his new course. Training automatically drew his eyes up to sweep the starry sky before him, then down to sweep his flight controls and hunt controls. Everything was clear. His new course had put Sirius astern of his Hawk anti-stealth plane, and it was a relief to not have the sun’s glare in his eyes. The Hawk was steady on course, with enough fuel for another few hours of hunting. No sign of his quarry yet, but with a bit of luck that was about to change.
“Viking-Two ready for dip,” he said over his radio.
“Rog, Two, go for dip.”
The other Hawk, flown by Lieutenant Dan “Stripes” Trifunov, was holding position at the edge of the search sector. Often the two birds would work together to prosecute a contact, but Jack needed to be proficient at solo searches if he was to earn his permanent anti-stealth wings. And today his target was a boulder-sized, automatic device that would simulate the movements of an enemy stealth ship.
“Deploying big dipper.”
He tapped the button on his console and waited for the expected readout of the probe as it began to trail away from his boat. Instead, a red warning light began flashing. Jack cursed and stopped the probe deployment. His eyes scanned the flight controls, the hunt controls and then up for a visual. Nothing seemed out of place. He tapped the button again. The same red warning light flashed. He pursed his lips in frustration. Deploying the damn dipper wasn’t supposed to be hard…
It was not only hard but impossible, he suddenly realized, if the safety lock wasn’t released. Snapping off his restraints he floated out of his seat and pulled himself aft through the Hawk’s cramped interior. Behind him there were two more seats for observers, then two benches lined fore-and-aft along the four cubic metre passenger/cargo space. The dipping probe was mounted on the belly of the Hawk, two-thirds of the way along the hull, and Jack moved with purpose until he was floating above the appropriate deck hatch. He clicked it open, made a simple turn to unlock the dipper, then retraced his path forward to his seat.
He pressed the button to start the dipper deployment, then strapped back down into his seat. Exhaling a long, frustrated sigh, he watched as the familiar blue digits of the probe readout began to populate his hunt control readouts.
“Viking-Two, what’s your status?”
“Big Dipper deploying.”
“A little slow. What’s up?”
Jack shook his head, and forced himself to smile. No point in getting angry – there were lots of other people who were plenty capable of doing that.
“Forgot the safety lock.”
There was a slight pause.
“Rog.”
Not a good way to start the day. Jack turned his attention to the multi-dimensional picture that was now beginning to form on his hunt controls. Despite its innocuous name, the big dipper was one of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment in the entire Terran arsenal. It had already phased into the Bulk and was relaying gravimetric information via its brane-straddling relay system. Jack’s eyes did one last sweep of the visual and the flight controls, then focused in on the hunt controls.
