The ARGO EPIC, ending "not"

13. "Here we go again."
      Candice just announced that our break was almost over. The clearing between belts in the passage through the Asteroids that we were using was coming to an end and there were more rocks in our future. So I'll be quick and tell you how we got here, then when we're in the clear, I'll wrap it up.

      It was several months ago and we were approaching the Asteroid Belt on our way home.
      This time they've named the gap we were shooting for after the passage across the tip of South America, the Strait of Magellan.
      And we'd made up enough time that we could slow down a little as it approached us in its orbit with the rest of the band of rocks with nothing better to do.

      "It's not a straight strait," Candice said looking at the images of the field that showed where we were to go.
      "No, it's not. We're going to have to adjust our course as we go instead of just gunning it and making a run for it like we did going out."
      "Up to you," Baxter said looking at the Captain.
      We were all in Command, looking at him.
      "There's no other way to get home. The next gap is at least six months away. The one we used is on the other side of that."
      We were all in command, looking at him, and waiting.
      "We've got to go for it."
      "Yes, sir," most of us answered.

      We had plenty of time to get ready for it so we checked and double checked everything.
      Baxter and Ulrich were worried about my lab pod because it had taken a direct hull piercing impact before and had thusly used up most of its leak sealant inside the hull. So I was under orders to leave the hatch shut unless I was in there.
      Once again, we had to reel in the solar panels and the reactors, and the petals that protected Command.
      Then we took a collective deep breath and plunged in.
      Well. Almost.

      It took a month for what had been empty space ahead of us to begin to return objects on even the most sensitive radars. Then in a week or so there were more.
      Then we began to be able to see various rocks in the telescopes.
      Then the images began to get closer together, and worryingly, larger and faster than last time.
      And what was supposed to be a fairly clear route through the belts of the Belt was a little more crowded than we'd hoped.

      There were several times when we had to pull everybody in from the lab ring because some bits of a failed planet were too close for comfort.
      We took several impacts, and had to use some more of the foam here and there to seal leaks when one of those rocks got way too close.
      We even had to make a couple of course corrections that were a lot more sudden and dramatic than anybody on board was comfortable making. The Argo groaned and shuddered, but it held together, and took more than a few dings and dents.

      Then came the clearing that really was a clearing about two thirds of the way through the field itself. The only sizable rocks on the scopes were a couple of hundred thousand kilometers away from us.
      We had a chance to double check the damage and catch our breath for a day or so.
      Then Candice broke the bad news, and I have to wrap this up and get back to work.

13 part two

      This is Captain Merrick.
      Third Officer Livia Cote of Canada perished not long after finishing that part of her personal log.
      I will attempt to explain what happened.

      We left the relative safety of what we began to call "the clearing" which is the area between the inner and middle fields and re-entered the active area of the Asteroid Belt with only a relatively short distance to where the hazards began to thin out again.
      In space, we were used to the closest solid bodies being millions of kilometers away.
      In our transits through the Asteroid Belt, there were times when we were tracking sizable objects that would pass within a few hundred meters of our ship.
      And then there were times when a small group or even an individual mass of space rock would sometimes come much closer, and sometimes that was without warning.
      And occasionally some of those would damage the ship.

      So it was with what happened to Miss Cote.

      We had only a moment of warning from the high intensity radar, and it was Miss Cote that sounded the alert.

      "Bunch of them, coming in fast," she had shouted over the comm. Then we heard what could only be that final event.
      A small asteroid traveling at great velocity pierced the outer hull of her lab, traveled through the equipment mounted to the panel inside, then it struck her in the area of her right shoulder blade, it continued through her body and came out her left upper chest near her armpit, then continued on to smash its way through the outer hull near the far portal.
      The compartment depressurized and the inner hatch closed immediately. At the same instant, the main computer sensed the problem and cut power to the unit to prevent further damage to the equipment in the pod or even a fire.
      Other small asteroids from that same group impacted several other sections of the ship, a few of them did significant harm to the sections they hit including a cargo pod.
      But Third Officer Cote was the only member of the crew directly injured by them.
      Because of the damage to the rest of the ship, we couldn't get to her for some time. We dispatched emergency service robots to seal some of the leaks while the ship's own self sealing inner semi-liquid filler was able to care of the smaller ruptures elsewhere.
      Later, we carefully opened the hatch and brought her to medical for autopsy. That was when we found out with some relief that she had not suffered. Or at least, not for more than a moment.

      There was never any discussion of doing anything except to put her body in cold storage to be returned to Earth.
      Finally, we elected to put her in one of the cargo pods with the internal heat turned off and allow space to freeze her until we got home.

      Doctor Dira De La Rosa gathered up her stuffed animals and some of her other favorite items and put them in the container with her. Of all of us, I think the doctor took it the hardest and she confided to me that doing the autopsy was the hardest medical procedure she'd ever had to perform.
      Senior Lieutenant Pyotr, who everybody calls Ivan, said he'd take care of cleaning up her lab so it could be used after Mission Specialist Schulz fixed the leaks and took care of some errant electrical sparks that appeared when the power to the unit was turned back on.

      The duty of saying the official goodbye to her fell to me.

      We gathered in command and watched as Engineer Baxter undocked the otherwise empty cargo pod that had the outside adorned with a couple of Hawaiian shirts and some other items that we thought would remind us of her. Then he used two of the robotic arms to move it just slightly away from the ship so that it could get down to a sufficiently cold temperature to preserve her body.

      Once the pod stopped moving I turned to the rest of the crew.

      "I had recommended her even though there were a dozen or so individuals who were even more qualified for the position she had applied for here with us. But I knew from her video that she was the sort of spirit that we needed. We had specialists, engineers, technicians, but we didn't have a free spirit. I think she made us what we've become. I know it sounds corny, but it is true none the less. We're not just a crew, not just friends. We have become a family, and she was a large factor in that transition."

      Mission Officers Candice Anderson and Szczepaniak organized the rest of her personal effects and mission logs and files.

      The Prime Minister of Canada said that they would bury her with full honors at Beechwood in Ottawa. It wasn't an hour later than somebody from the US sent a message about wanting her to be buried in Arlington. Then the Governor of Michigan sent a message wanting her body to be delivered to be interred at the Great Lakes National Cemetery as a hero of the people of the State.

      It was my decision. I have told all of them that I take full and sole responsibility for the action.
      I took control of the robotic arms and used them to aim the cargo pod back toward Jupiter, then I had it fire its engines and released it. Then I saluted it and held the salute until it disappeared from view.
      I sent her to join Dr. McCarthy.
      It was the only appropriate thing to do.
      And, reassuring to me, the rest of the crew agreed with my action.

      What are they going to do? Court Martial me? Once we're on Earth, they can do what they want. They won't be fighting over her.

      The rest of the trip to Earth was joyless.
      We didn't have the party that Miss Cote had mentioned a couple of times. If anybody mentioned it the rest of us would just shake our heads. Other than getting a couple of the shirts and the table cloth to decorate the outside of her pod, I'm certain nobody even went back in the beach container.

      The accident changed Mission Officer Candice Anderson. To describe her in a word now I would have to say "sullen".
      When Miss Cote died, Anderson had been on the command deck in a tropical print T-shirt. She spent the rest of the journey in uniform.
      There was no third shift any more. One of us simply worked extra to cover it. Again, if that violated mission protocol, so be it.

      I knew that Miss Cote and Senior Lieutenant Pyotr had had a relationship on and off over the last half of the mission. After her death, he spent most of his time either in his laboratory or in his quarters. I do not recall even seeing him come to the rec pod for a meal.

      Several of the rest of us spent the remainder of the mission in similar manner, immersed in duty. Flight Engineer Baxter summarized it best when he was up in Command not long after the accident and commented that being out here wasn't fun any more.
      I asked him if he had taken the moonshine still apart before the decommissioning techs found it.
      He said, and I am quoting, "No, hell with it. What're they going to do?"
      He had a point on both.

      Once we entered orbit of the Moon we gathered on the Command Deck and said a final goodbye to the Argo and the two crew members who are continuing the mission.

      We put Miss Livia's remaining personnel effects in a bin. I'd take them to her family myself and thank them for her service on the mission.

      With that, I looked around the ship one last time, I'll finish this log, and sign off with one last statement.

      Miss Livia, I for one, will miss you for the rest of my life.

End of log.

the other ending "home"

Book Two:
THE TWO PLANET MISSION OF THE ARGO EPIC.

[Note: All rights reserved, including the right to further publication. Distributed copies to proofreaders and editors remain property of the author. No infringement of copyright is intended. All persons are fictitious, all other planets and similar bodies are actually there or may be presumed from available data.
thank you
Email- drleftover{~at~}hotmail{~dot~}com   - Selah ]

http://themediadesk.com