First, thank you for giving me a chance for this book! I had tons of fun writing the book one, and hope this book will be even better.
Becca's Tale in book one was large in scale and have multiple intervening paths. This book should do the same. So far the planned story arcs are: 1. Becca becoming first commander, 2. Bill Cadogan surviving in his bunker, 3. Mount Weather Jason Wallace fighting radiation 4. Ark people against Mars colony... So maybe once again the stories will get huge. No promise how far I will take them though. ~Wink~
Without further ado, please enjoy Chapter 1 - Polaris Falling
October 1st, 2054. Polaris Space Station.
"Damn it! I got only 60 seconds to live, and you are still asking me a pass phrase?!" Becca Franco yelled at the screen with disbelief. The computer still insisted on getting a new voice passcode with sufficient rarity, i.e., couldn't be general words like "open sesame", or "abracadabra". It needed to be a rare phrase, something that no one would accidentally speak it out.
However, at that moment Japanese Alpha Station's nuclear missiles were aiming at the Polaris by the command of the United Ark Federation. The ultimatum was expiring in 1 minute. The powerful missiles would blow the whole station into millions of pieces, but the computer still refused to give Becca a break.
Her eyes dashed around, suddenly saw the motto of the Eligius Group, "Seek Higher Things". OK, let me try that.
"Set it to 'Seek Higher Things'." She quickly said.
"Phrase denied. Too common in the corporation."
Stupid computer! Becca wanted to smashed this dumb thing. After the apocalypse, Eligius Group was no more. Who in the world would say it? Then she forced herself calm down, "How about 'Ascende Superius'?" That was a Latin phrase, which meant "Up Higher", Becca just remembered it somewhere amid her college years.
"Phrase accepted. AI chip ready to deploy." The robot arms loosened. Becca grabbed the chip from their hold. Immediately she took a scalpel and cut an opening in the back of her neck. Black blood dripped down to her shirt.
"Ascende Superius!" She shouted. From the bottom of the silicon matrix appeared many tiny moving metal tentacles. They were twisting and extending outside, almost looked like a living caterpillar. Without any hesitation, Becca put it on her neck, shoving it inside the opening.
Now I am officially a lab monkey. Becca felt the irony. Many monkeys died testing this chip. Will I be the next one?
An excruciating headache was the one came next. She dropped down to the floor, hands on her head, and rolled around in pain. Oh, God! Make it stop!
Seemed the God was happy to oblige. Just one moment later the headache disappeared. She struggled to pick herself up and took a quick look at the clock.
30 seconds to live!
She grabbed the nearest space suit and wore it at a record speed. It was Commander McAdams' but there was no time to choose.
Dashing inside an escape pod, she flipped a few switches. The pod became alive.
BEEP! BEEP! INCOMING MISSILES! INCOMING MISSILES! The computer went crazy. Red lights flashed the whole station.
Becca pulled a lever, and the pod dropped like a rock.
"Forgive me Grace and Cole!" Becca whispered it, while she was watching the 50,000 tons space station Polaris was shredded apart by multiple nuclear missiles above her head.
Burning debris rained down around her pod, it would be a disaster if even a small one hit it. Becca did her best steering out of the major debris field.
Suddenly in her brain she did a calculation like never before: I am dropping from 600 km attitude, and achieving a speed of 10 times supersonic. I need to slow down my descend in 5 seconds, or the air will hit the pod like a hammer.
She didn't even have time to think about how she knew that. Just pressed the retro button right away. A sudden push from below almost crushed her bones. The pod was slowed as many fiery debris passing her like thousands of bullets in a war zone.
Use the atmosphere as a bouncing ground, like the way a flat rock skipping a lake surface, to avoid all the falling objects.
She immediately complied. Her pod changed the direction and went straight forward, leaving all the red hot shooting stars behind.
It works! Becca couldn't help smiling. After 2 years of sweat and blood (literally), my chip finally works!
I wish you could see this, Chris. I am coming back to you!
===#=#=#=#=#===
"What a big waste!" Shaw exclaimed.
He and Michael Jaha stood in front of the big window of Jaha's quarter. They were watching the behemoth, Space Station Polaris, got blown up like a firework show.
"50,000 tons of best space alloy and material. Gone." Shaw shook his head. "I went to Asteroid Bell 5 times, and only fetched 400 tons of rough irons. Now we just let go of all these!"
Jaha smiled, "Shaw, those are not ours to begin with. Becca Franco had ironclad control of the station. She never traded or gave us anything for two years. And she never attended any of our meetings. Every station sees Polaris as a thorn in their eyes, and now we just learned that she's developing another advanced AI? That's the most treacherous crime against the whole Ark."
Shaw suggested, "But we can just send someone to arrest her and float her like her old man. No need to do things this extreme."
"You think we didn't try?" Michael Jaha watched the exploding Polaris slowly broke into huge pieces, and said, "She wouldn't let a single ship get near. The only exception was those shuttles with new born babies."
"Yeah, talk about that." Shaw wondered. "Now how do we give babies the radiation-resisting gene without Polaris?"
"Well, Miss Franco was not the only genetic scientist in space." Jaha answered confidently. "It turns out copying genes are much easier than creating one. Becca did the hard part for us already."
Shaw nodded. Seemed the future Chancellor Jaha had thought of everything before approving the missile launch.
Then he thought of something else, "Hey, Jaha. Do you still have the wine?"
Michael opened a safe and took out a bottle, "Yeah, here you go. It's yours anyway."
Shaw put his fingers on the bottle lip, then hesitated, "Jaha, are you going to drink with me?"
"Love to, but no." Jaha pointed at a gigantic metal ring in the space. "Today, after the Polaris is down, all 12 stations will attached themselves to that big rig. I will be very busy. Save some for me, OK?"
"Then I won't drink it alone." Shaw shook his head, "Maybe I should drink it with my son, when he returns from space."
"Your son?" Jaha was surprised. "I never heard you mentioning him."
"Well, I think he won't mention me either." Shaw sadly said, "Last time I talked to him, he said he became a spaceship pilot to get away from me."
Jaha patted his back gently, "Don't give up easily. Maybe one day he will come around."
"I really hope so." Shaw grunted, "I don't even know which ship he was on. He just disappeared on me without a goodbye." He gave the bottle back to Jaha.
You were a gambling addict back on earth, I wouldn't be surprised if he did so. Jaha just kept it to himself. "Well, then, you just let me know when you want to drink it." He locked it up again in his safe. "At the meantime, I have to go and start the stations joining process. There is a good chance things can go very wrong."
Shaw had a little smile, "Relax, we all trust your engineering skill. Do you know we can see your wind turbine farms on the ground? Even after the nuclear war they are still standing."
"Glad to know that. I designed this massive ring based on those turbines."
"Then we have nothing to worry about." Shaw walked out of the door, "I really enjoy coming here. You have a big room with a window all to yourself, while mine has 10 other guys."
"Just a perk of being the Chancellor." Jaha shrugged, "Do you want my job?"
"No, no, " Shaw waved his hands, "I just want to be a common space miner. Bye, Michael!"
Jaha gave him a little grin. Yeah, it's not easy to be a leader at this difficult time. Too many problems to solve. Today will be especially challenging.
He looked with pride at the gigantic city-wide metal ring, which took them 2 years to build. It seamlessly connected all stations' conduits and gates, making it easy for anyone to go from one station to the other. Once all stations were joined together, the whole rig would start to rotate. Everyone would finally feel the Earth's gravity again. Every job would be easier to do, and no more bone and muscle fragility. After all, we human bodies work best with 1 G.
He gave himself a pat in the back. Yeah, we don't need the ship Exodus to be the trading market any more. After this, we can exchange things to anyone at anytime, thus it increases our survivability tremendously. Today is really a great day for our people. What should I called it?
The PA speaker shouted, "Everyone in American Musk Station, let's go celebrate this Unity Day!"
Hm...Funny! Jaha couldn't help smiling. Someone just beat me to it.