Transport 2
slowed to a relative stop over the contact pad on the asteroid. The cargo door opened and the maintenance bot
drifted out.
“Bot is away
Albatross.” The pilot announced to the station.
“Acknowledged,
Transport 2.” Commander Dickerson responded. “We’ll take it from here. Move to your assigned observation position
and link up.”
“Aye, Aye,
Albatross.” The pilot moved the transport to a higher altitude and off center
to afford a better camera angle.
The bot
descended toward the contact pad. A
grappling arm extended in the middle and three landing legs stretched out from
the sides as it rotated around. It
slowed its approach as it neared the target.
The grappling arm grabbed to the mount point as the little craft rotated
to place the landing legs outside the contact pads and located between them as
it touched down.
“Bot is
down.” Kim looked over to Gwen “Ready for the first set of tests.”
“Alright,”
Gwen started punching buttons “Starting initial voltage tests between the pads,
star pattern.”
She
concentrated as the readings were displayed on the console for a few moments.
“Kim, come take a look at this.”
Kim left her
console and floated across the compartment and stopped behind Gwen. “What have you got?”
“Look at
these readings.” Gwen pointed to a couple of pairs. “Voltage and frequency appears
to be going up as impedance goes down across these sets of pads.”
“It is not
consistent across all of those pairs.” Kim pointed to one set “This one seems
to have the greatest change. What
impedance range did you use?”
“I started
at a gig ohm and brought it down to a mega ohm.” Gwen had the display order by
the amount of change and display the correspondence values.
“Alright,
let’s run this pair again and slowly run it down to 100 kilo ohms, and watch
out for dangerous voltages.” Kim gestured down the list that showed no change.
“And then check this set again.” She headed back across the compartment.
“Alright my
little friend,” Gwen started programming in the test process “Let’s see what
you are up to.”
Kim strapped back down in front of her console
and called up the video feed from the observing transport.
“Albatross
station, Shuttle 2.” Sam’s voice sounded slightly nervous.
“Go ahead
Shuttle 2. What have you got?” Kim was
focusing on the bot, looking for anomalies.
“This end of
your asteroid is starting to glow.” Sam was definitely concerned.
“Did you
just say it is glowing?” Kim was startled.
Gwen looked across the compartment.
“Yes I
did. Here is the video feed.”
Kim quickly
punched up the feed to see the slightly blue tinted glow emanating from the end
of the object. It was slowly growing in
intensity. “Gwen where are you in your
measurements?”
“Impedance
is 500 mega ohms, voltage is 90 volts and frequency is 125 hertz.” Gwen checked
the other pads “And pad 3 to pad 5 is showing 10 volts DC, no AC.”
“Ok, knock
it down another 100 mega ohms and re check the other pads.” Kim set the screen to show both video feeds.
The ice on
the far end of the asteroid erupted in a cloud blasting away and out from the
body.
“Did you see
that?” Sam shouted through the radio.
“Albatross,
that thing is moving!” The transport pilot was near panic.
Kim looked
up and remembered the asteroid was lengthwise pointed directly at the station.
“Gwen…” Kim was very nervous now.
Gwen cut her
off by punching the panic button for the station. The klaxons and emergency lights lit up. “Suit up Kimmie! And DO IT NOW!” Gwen shouted and then turned
to the radio “Reykjavik, Emergency Undock!
Unlock and blast clear of the station.
Code Blue 5. This is not a
drill.” She paused “Repeat. Emergency Undock! Unlock and blast clear of the station. Code Blue 5.
This is not a drill.”
Gwen quickly
punched the command for the bot to disconnect then unstrapped and launched herself
toward her space suit.
Beginning of Story
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