Chapter Three
Mars.
"The Red Planet", Dayton had called it, apparently because of the high content of iron oxide on its surface giving it its ruddy hue. The atmosphere was light, composed of ninety-five point three percent carbon dioxide, two point seven percent nitrogen, one point six percent argon, plus small amounts of oxygen, carbon monoxide, and water vapour, along with other trace elements not even worth mentioning. There were traces of microbial life in isolated spots on the surface, two tiny moons, and the whole place was cold!No, it wasn't exactly the garden spot in this solar system.
In the cockpit of the Wraith, Starbuck was also picking up various unmanned spacecraft in the planet's orbit, some operational, others not. By Colonial standards they were small and primitive, most appearing to be satellites or probes, probably sent out for research and reconnaissance. In fact, the closer the Colonials drew to Earth, the more manmade space paraphernalia they encountered. A guy couldn't swing a dead felix without hitting some kind of space debris. Well okay, maybe he was exaggerating just a bit. All the same, the old Colonial Salvage Company could have made a fortune . . . and for a brief micron he entertained the idea of a secondary career in scrap, more out of habit, than any real desire.
He studied the data, knowing that not far off his starboard, Luana would be running the same scans. It was downright weird to be, first, on a mission with his wife, and, second, to be maintaining communications silence. Sagan, by comparison he'd blathered his way through several star systems, even those occupied by Cylons. Still, he told himself as they left Mars astern, that these Earthlings seemed to launch electronic felgercarb into space the way that other cultures did fireworks for festivals, each piece seemingly searching for . . . something. He knew that by now the Endeavour would be running its own geotechnical survey of the planet as they passed by, apparently searching for evidence of man's existence, either present or past. Over the last number of sectars, while listening to old tales of Earth, Dayton and his men had told the Colonial Warrior that once their people had reached the moon, and then established an International Space Station, that they had then set their sites on Mars. When the Space Shuttle had launched in 2010, Mars—as a mannedmission—was still the unattainable dream. Budget constraints in a dour economy had made the future of manned space flight tenuous. Also, space exploration had been treated as some kind of international "competition", leaving the planet's technological resources split between a handful of major players, all of them strapped for funds. Of course, all of the Earthmen were anxious to find out if the journey to Mars had ever been completed.
A flash in the bottom of his face shield's optical display demanded his attention. He was picking up a signal . . . from Mars. Briefly, he tried to decipher the message, shaking his head at the static as the signal broke up repeatedly. As much as he was tempted to check it out, he knew he didn't have the time to spare. Instead, he sent a Unicom short burst transmission to Apollo to follow up on it.
An instant later, he picked up another signal. This one on a bearing straight for Earth. The computer identified it as an emergency beacon, the frequency looking alarmingly familiar. He frowned as he analysed it.
Well, coincidentally, he happened to be going that way. Sort of.
xxxxx
Cold.
Silent.
Inert.
Or so it first appeared.
The WASA probe, Seeker Four, neared Deimos, continuing on a path it had been following for over ten years. Moving silently around the cold moon below, it gave no indication of being anything but a derelict craft from another time, its purpose long spent. It came around over the sunlit side of the distant world, trailing less than a hundred miles behind the alien-built behemoth.
Beep.
xxxxx
In the Control Centre of the Endeavour, Coxcoxtli was running a scan on yet another old Earth probe they had spotted. He was fascinated with the history of space flight, and this particular machine was no exception. What particularly intrigued him was that his first assessment of this antiquated craft, it seemed, was somewhat in error. It wasn't completely dead.
There was power.
Minimal, scarcely worth mentioning, but the old relic wasn't quite so dead as initial scans had first indicated. He gave it a slow once-over with the main scanner suite, probing the old machine right down to her paint job. As he analysed the data, and was mulling whether this was worth informing his superiors about just yet, one of his readouts spiked.
Beep.
"What the. . ." he said, running the scan again. Sure enough, something inside the Earth spacecraft was operational.
And was scanning them.
"Cox?" asked Pierus.
"This is weird, Pierus. That old probe. She's suddenly started scanning us."
"Better inform . . ."
"Better inform what?" asked Dorado, entering. "Yes?"
xxxxx
What the. . .
Lee looked down at his console where a light was flashing. He pressed a control, and did a double take.
"What the everliving . . .?"
"Shung?" asked Hayashi in the Guiana Space Centre. "What is it?"
"Incoming transmission. From Seeker Four"
"Seeker Four?" Hayashi felt the colour drain from his face. "You mean . . ."
"One of the probes we sent out almost ten years ago. She's sending something."
"Define 'something'."
"Better take a look."
"What is it?" Hayashi got up, and went over to the other's station.
"Well, let's . . ."
HOLY SHIT!