Chapter 2

We had just finished harvesting 10000 bushels of rice and were in the process of cleaning and maintenance on the equipment when I was interrupted by Freddy Mays in surveillance. “Boss, I think we’ve got an incoming bogie.”

“Ok, Freddy, what makes you think that?” Freddy was young, 16 years old, and had been standing watches in the surveillance shack for the last month. Usually, Freddy was a steady kid. Good school grades, and he wasn’t afraid of hard work. If he did have a fault, it was an overactive imagination.

“Well, sir, I noticed an anomaly on the shadow detector. Several background stars blanked out and then returned. The books put whatever it is as close. not too close, but close enough, I thought I’d better let you know.”

“Alright, son, I’ll be up in a minute.” that minute turned into an hour. You don’t just walk away from an active hydroponics system without securing it. Even a small leak can be disastrous.

When I finally got to the surveillance shack. Not a shack, more of an oversized closet. Stuffed with electronics, a monitor, and a seat for the operator. There was barely enough room for me to stand. Freddy was sitting there watching the shadow monitor. He was so single-mindedly absorbed with his task that he didn’t even hear me come in. When I cleared my throat, he jumped like he had touched an electric wire.

“Well, Freddy, let’s see what you got.”

Freddy started bustling around with the computer keyboard. “Well, sir, as I said, I’ve got this anomaly here.” the secondary monitor started playing a recording. A moment passed, and then a star blanked out. Followed quickly by two more before the first star returned.

Freddy had also pulled the reference book up on his e-reader and had it keyed to the correct section. Given the three stars that were shadowed, the order they were shadowed, and the time it took. The bogie was moving slowly and towards our Homestead.

“Good job Freddy I concur. We have a slow-moving inbound object. Any idea when it’ll get here?”

“Well, sir, and this would be a guess sometime around noon next Wednesday.”

We used Earth time references for no other reason than it worked. When we settled Homestead, which was our name for our home, the consensus was to stick to what we were used to. That and it was such a hassle shifting electronics over to oddball time frames.

“Ok, noon on Wednesday. next question, what is it?”

“No way to know, sir. It could be an asteroid or comet that is about to go stationary. It could be an old-style satellite. Or it could be a ship that, for whatever reason, is taking the scenic route through the belt. The only way to know for sure is to paint it with radar and lidar. that would give us a heck of a lot of info.”

“You’re right, Freddy, but it might irritate the pilot, if there is one. I think we should first see if they’ll talk to us. Is a remote comm-package available?”

“Yes, sir. I ran a diagnostic on it while I was waiting for you.”

“Good, go ahead and give them a shout. Let’s see what happens.”

Freddy reached over to a panel on his control board and flipped the security cover off a power switch. He looked at me, and I nodded. Throwing the switch, a new hum started up. Freddy watched the dials on a meter above the switch jump and then head up. When they stopped, he picked up his mike.

“Sawyer Homestead calling inbound ship. Sawyer Homestead calling. please respond.”

Freddy turned to me, “This is going out on the standard hailing and emergency frequencies. They may not be on the hailing freq., but everybody is required to, at least, monitor the emergency freq.

We waited for 5 minutes with no response. “Freddy, could they be calling on a different band?”

“If they were, sir, I would see it on the emissions detector. we’ve got a clean board.”

“Courioser and courioser. Well, Freddy, what should we do next?”

Freddy sat for a moment thinking. He knew this was a test. “I don’t think we’ve got a choice, sir. We need to look at them with our active systems.”

“Maybe, maybe not. We could just let them just slide on by without bothering any further. Here’s a question that you need to answer, though. Why should we proceed further? Why verify what we’re looking at?”

“Well, they could be a disabled ship. Unable to transmit and in trouble. Then we would have an obligation to respond and render aid.”

“Good answer, son. There is no such obligation. But we’re nice folks. So, pull up the actives, and let’s light this sucker up.”

Freddy pulled a chain from around his neck. On it was a key. He inserted the key into the slot on his panel and then looked at me. I stepped across the room and inserted my key into the slot. “On 3. one, two, three,” we both turned our keys at the same time.

As with the radio, another new hum started. Freddy watched the dials, and when they were in range, he looked at me. I nodded, and he pushed the button next to his key and immediately released it. The center monitor overhead cleared. In a moment, a line-by-line picture started to form. When it finished, there was a picture of a standard cargo/passenger hauler. To the side was a display of where it was headed and how fast it was traveling.

“Well, Freddy, it looks like we have visitors. And because they won’t talk to us, they are either unfriendly or unable to talk to us. In either case, we need to investigate.”

“I don’t know about that, sir. If you look at the numbers, if this thing is under someone’s control, they would have to be drunk. Granted, she’s a ship. But the way this thing is tumbling, I think it’s a ghost ship. If there’s somebody aboard, they’re long past caring.”

“You’re probably right. But they could be alive and have lost control or even be damaged beyond control. Either way, it goes, I don’t think we need to worry about it being a threat. the course will take it out of our space with a comfortable distance from us.”

A hopeful look came to Freddy’s eyes. “I guess that means someone needs to go and check on them?”

I sat for a moment considering the situation and how to handle it. “you’ve done a good job here, Fred. Go ahead and write everything up. Let your boss know about it and clear your board. I’ll handle it from now on.”

I could see the disappointment in his eyes, but as much as I would like to include him, he was too young and too green to handle what had to happen next. I needed a professional now. Or the closest that I had available.

While Freddy was writing up his report, which included the recording from the radar scan, he reviewed the scan recordings. He thought he saw something on the very edge of the scan. He wasn’t sure was it was. It might have been another ship. Or more likely a ghost from his own equipment. The setup was old and needed a factory calibration. But with nothing conclusive, he decided not to mention it. Besides, if he did, it might look like he was chasing glory. His last thoughts as he posted his report were, “It’s probably nothing but my imagination.” He rationalized.

My son Thad was waiting for me as I left the command pod. “what’s the word, Dad? I think we need to check it out. Up close and in person?”

“I don’t know yet, son. As it stands right now, I think we need to check her out at the very least to check for survivors. If there’s someone alive aboard, they’re in serious trouble. But, on the other hand, if they’re beyond help, we would be risking a ship and crew. We can’t afford to lose either.”

“There’s something else, Dad. If we recover that ship, she’s ours, salvage. If there is a live body aboard, well, to be cold-blooded about it, we could possibly get a reward for their rescue.”

“That is a pretty cold-blooded thought, son.” At that point, my mind was made up. “All right, go rig up the Cat, son. We’ll launch as soon as I talk to your mother.”

Forty-five minutes later, most of which involved convincing Martha, we launched and headed towards the bogie.

Most of the trip was boring. I napped for the majority of it. Thad was a good pilot. Two years earlier, he had spent a month on Mars Station taking his exams. In the following years, he had shown a real talent for it. He had snagged and brought in a couple of small iron-rich asteroids that we were mining and making a decent profit on.