Chapter 30

Pan stared after her, daring to hope but realistic enough to realize that she had avoided the issue. If Helios had just now been heard from, that means that there was some trouble with that meeting they had planned. Pan dressed as quickly as he could, tossing his sweaty garments, and the wet towel, into his locker to deal with later.

He sprinted the distance from the medical wing to Minerva's office, arriving right on her tail and out of breath. Minerva glanced at him, rolled her eyes, and allowed him to open the door before striding through the outer office and through a connecting door into the command center.

The control center was a was staffed around the clock and whenever Pan had come here, there was always a low buzz of activity. The various screens around the room showed a variety of images and video, some with sector maps showing ship locations, others with new broadcasts from across the entire Union.

Today, there was an island of more frantic activity, directly in front of the center, and largest, vidscreen. Minerva headed straight to the small know of people gathered there.

"Mr. Jenson, what is the latest?"

A mountain of a man, who clothing was skin tight over a huge, muscular frame and who looked like he should be competing in strongman contests, turned to face Minerva.

"We should have a live video feed in just a couple of minutes. The rescue ship is just pulling the pod aboard now. The EVA team was able to establish rudimentary communications through tapping on the hull, but the damage to the exterior means that he cannot transmit on regular Comm channels. Hell, he can't even see outside, much less maneuver. Thank the engineers that design the emergency beacons. That they were functioning at all is almost a miracle."

"We have EVA visuals coming in now" a voice from the group behind the muscle man called. All eyes went to the main screen as a picture came up of a loading bay aboard a ship in space. The exterior door was open to vacuum and the bay's cameras were focused on the activity just outside.

At first it resembled a group of ants crawling on a rock. It took a minute for the eye to recognize the ants, then reconcile the scale of the tableau. The ants were Extra-Vehicular pressure suited rescue personnel and the rock was a very damaged, six seat escape pod, like those used on the larger civilian passenger liners. The outside of the pod had been blackened and melted, in places the outer couple of layers of shielding had been destroyed, exposing the under layers and a tangle of broken conduit.

The rescue crew was using a powered sled to guide the pod into the open bay and on to a cradle that was designed for exactly that kind of vessel. As they watched the slow movement, a command center tech handed Pan a data pad that listed the details known so far.

The CPS Altair had not arrived on time in Calysto orbit and the space port had reported the fact to the local authorities, just as they would for any vessel. The ship, because it had been carrying two Agents, had been flagged in the Agency intercepts as important, so that report set off a chain of events. The Calysto planetary government was contacted by the Beta Sector government about the missing ship, and it was suggested that it would be better to launch a rescue effort now, as opposed to the forty-eight hour window that was the norm in missing ship situations.

Three rescue ships were dispatched immediately. These were specially equipped ships that had advanced sensor suites. They would make staggered jumps along the route, leap-frogging each other and stopping to run a scan every time they reentered n-space. They would continue until one or another found the ship, found evidence that it had been destroyed or until they reached the other end of the planned route.

If they were unable to locate any information, they would spread out in a fan patter and repeat the process, taking three different routes in case there had been an astrogational error that took the ship off course.

They were unable to locate the ship on the normal route, and were on the way back when one of the rescue vehicles sensors picked up a cloud of debris. When they closed to the leading edge, the pieces they were able to pick up were all too distorted to positively identify the Altair. As they were investigating the site of the explosion, tracing the trajectories of the pieces back to the computed point of origin, the other two rescue vehicles arrived to assist.

They began a spherical search pattern, hoping to pick up traces of larger bits, and maybe, just maybe, an escape pod or two. That they found Helios at all was nothing short of amazing and a tribute to the skill of those sensor tech aboard the rescue ship.

A very faint signal was detected, barely above the background noise of an older star system. It was the regularity of the pulse that clued in the sensor tech and as the ship tacked back and forth to triangulate the origin, they were able to filter out the background and confirm that it was a standard rescue beacon, though transmitting at very low power.

It took four more days to track it back to its source, the pod that was being brought aboard on the large vidscreen at that moment. EVA personnel had been sent out immediately, and by banging on the hull, they confirmed that there was someone inside, awake and alert. Morse code, a holdover from ancient times, was still used far and wide, and it allowed them to get the names of the passengers. Or, in this case, the single name. That name was transmitted back to Calysto and, of course, was intercepted by the Agency.

By the time Pan had finished catching up, the pod was snugly in its cradle and the outer bay door was almost closed. When it was sealed, and the atmosphere was being pumped back into the bay, it was obvious that the artificial gravity was being reengaged at the same time. The rescue personnel slowly floated to the deck, and began preparing tools to clear away the damaged hull plating and get to the hatch.