A few hours later, Mel was in sight of Commbase3. He could see Will’s ship parked alongside the squat structure, so was reassured that Will was still around. “Call despatch” he said to his comm unit, as he approached Commbase 3.
“Hi Mel. Any news on Will?” asked a worried-looking Beth.
“Hi Beth. Just approaching the asteroid now. Will’s ship is parked up next to the comm block, so he should be here somewhere. I’ll let you know more once I get inside and have had the chance to take a look around.” With that, he closed the call and prepared for landing.
Once landed, he moved across to Will’s ship and saw the open airlock, so knew he wouldn’t be inside — the inner door wouldn’t close unless the outer door was firmly sealed, to stop the air inside from being lost and to stop anyone and anything inside from being sucked into space.
He propelled himself the short distance across to the low building and entered the airlock door, cycled the air and opened the interior door. When he entered the lobby just inside the airlock, he saw Will’s suit, helmet and power pack hanging there, so entered the door into the equipment room. As he did so, a scene of chaos met him. Smoke and fire had damaged large sections of the room. Apart from the lingering burning smell, the fire had gone out, just leaving smoke and the mess behind. Just to be sure, though, he went to the master power switch at the end of the lobby to turn off the power to the communications equipment racks, and put the air purifiers up to their maximum setting to clear the air.
“Will, are you there?” he called. As there was no response, he called again. Again, there was no sound from Will.
After about thirty seconds, he re-entered the room and walked across to the far wall, looking at the floor beyond the racks as well as in the aisle he was in, in case Will was lying on the floor on the other side.
As there was no sign of Will, he checked in the washroom and the store room. There were no signs of life in either. In fact, Mel hadn’t seen anything to suggest that Will had ever been in the room.
As he turned around to face the door he had come through, he noticed that there was a small amount of blood on the door frame and on the floor nearby. He moved to investigate further. He was no expert but there seemed to be a lot more there than if Will had simply cut himself. He was perplexed.
“Call despatch” he said into his comm unit.
After a few seconds, Beth replied “Hi Mel. Success?”
“ ‘Fraid not, Beth. I’ve looked around the comm building and there’s no sign of Will. There’s a small pool of blood just inside the equipment room door. It’s almost dry, which suggests it hasn’t been there all that long. I don’t understand it. I think we need Security to have a look, after all.”
“Are you sure?
“His suit’s in the lobby, so he hasn’t gone outside as I’d thought might have happened and his ship’s outer airlock door is open, so he’s not in his ship. I don’t know where else he can be if he’s not in the building and there’s nowhere in here that he can be that I haven’t looked.”
“OK, I’ll call them out. I’ll get them to call you as they get near. While you wait for them, can you look at the equipment? It’s being shown as entirely offline now.”
“The room was full of smoke, and the damage is quite extensive. There’s obviously been a lot more damage here than you thought when you asked Will to have a look. I turned the power off the systems to be safe but the fire seems to have already knocked most of them out anyway. It’s going to take me a while to figure out what’s happened, what’s failed and what needs fixing. I just hope we have the spares up here to fix everything but I very much doubt it. I’ll start on that while I wait for Security to turn up.”
“Oh, hell! Thanks, Mel. Keep me posted. Good luck. Beth out.”
It was clear that it would take some time, even with the spares he had in the storeroom, as well as on both his and Will’s ships. Some of the damage was so extensive that the usual method of simply replacing damaged parts couldn’t be done and if he didn’t have the spares he might have to go back to Shackleton once he had a clear idea of what would still be needed, unless he could get someone to bring the stuff up to him. Along with sorting out what needed repairing inside the Commbase, he would also have to check the antenna farm outside to make sure they were all working properly. Otherwise, the comm relay network might still not work. All in all, he reckoned he was going to be here for a few days at least.
Security Sergeant Bridget “Bridg” Powell was more than a little bored. She had signed up for a life of adventure but spent most of her time staring into space. She had enjoyed the view at first, but after 25 years on the job, the magic of it had palled somewhat. Her job was to help patrol the Aquarius system and keep an eye on the rookie on her left, Officer Aurelius Truran. Whilst he was a rookie cop, he was going on thirty years old and had been a lab rat for several years, undertaking backroom forensic work for the service. He had requested a change of assignment which, unusually, had been granted. Since they started their shift four hours ago, absolutely nothing of interest had happened. It was as if everyone in the system was asleep, even though it was now mid morning, Ohio time.
The comm unit squawked “Sergeant Powell, please respond to a call about a missing person from the ‘roid Theta 4. A Galactic Comm Technician, Melvyn Smith, is already there and will fill you in with the details when you arrive.”
“Will do. We’ll be there in about an hour” responded Bridget, as enthusiastically as she could.
“At last, something to get our teeth into, Aury” she exclaimed, looking at her partner. Neither felt particularly enthusiastic but it was better than nothing.
Bridget steered the patrol ship towards the asteroid and set off at full speed.
“Can you grab us some food and a drink? Might as well make sure we get something inside us before we land. These things can drag on and I hate working on an empty stomach” she said to Aurelius.
“No problem, Sarg. Anything in particular, or your usual?”
“The usual will be fine, thanks.”
Ten minutes later, he returned with a tray with a vegetarian bolognese and a steaming mug of white coffee for each of them. Like most people living on the Shackleton space station, most of their meals were vegetarian. Real meat was too expensive a luxury for most people, at around three times the price of meat substitutes, making it something of a luxury. Meat substitutes were normal, although it also made it a lot easier to feed everyone this way, when the station residents and visitors held a wide range of religious and ethical views, some of which forbade meat-eating. Whilst meat could be obtained for those determined enough to get it, few on the station did so on a regular basis, unless they were trying to impress someone.
As they ate, they discussed what little they knew and tried to guess what they would be dealing with when they arrived on Theta 4.
Once they were able to see the asteroid, Bridget called the Commbase to let the waiting Melvyn know they were almost there, then did a routine sweep of the immediate area with a scanner, to see whether there was any sign of any unusual activity around the comm station. All they identified was the usual space dust, a few small lumps of rock and the two space ships resting on the asteroid. Satisfied that there was nothing floating around the area that would help or hinder either her landing or investigation, she manoeuvred the patrol cruiser into position next to the two Galactic Comms ships and killed the power. As she and Aurelius always travelled suited up, it was then a quick task to put on their helmets and propulsion systems.