Giant of the Stars
26. Hands-on
A few days after the interesting discussion with the special counsel, John and team were set up in a spacious room. A rare occurrence of a wide and lengthy window on the carrier, Irondome had a strengthened armor plating and extra bulkheads everywhere.
The former mess hall, repurposed only for John’s investigation into a conference and work room had the best view every few minutes.
The mangled and broken body of the Giant of the Stars laid below them, positioned like the small moon just embraced her new born baby. A continuous memento for the team, why their work mattered. The thousands, maybe tens of thousands lifeless bodies enshrined in the wreckage, their eternal souls and families in need of answers.
John sipped into his hot tea while staring at the wreckage, a week of Earth days after the ominous talk and the last time he saw the captain. A digital board overlaying sensor data to the window, pinpointing interesting parts following his eyesight, a standard equipment in their mobile office box Hanah brought with her.
John’s assistant, who pulled him out of more problems than he can remember, just arrived to their room.
The experts filing in slowly one after the another. Ben being the last, going to the corner of the office without a single word, he pulled out a tablet larger than a food tray and immersed himself into the code and data world he craved every second.
- “Good morning, team!” — John turned away from the window as the Irondome turned away from the wreckage. — “Let’s kick it off, where are we today?”
- “Happy to start.” — Hanah as always showing the perfect teammate example — “I compiled the initial list of witnesses to interview, with the proposed team members to conduct each and the schedule. Today I have a slot with Captain Sebes to align how to conduct these as per Earth and colonial members want to have oversight.”
- “Please involve me in that.” — interjected John, unable to distinguish his professional motivations from personal.
- “Sure, invite shared. Beyond that, Mark, I have some issues gathering the sensor records of the Perseus Train, it might take a few days to solve that, unsure of the reason, will talk with the analysts today. That is all from my side.”
- “Okey, thanks, Hanah, won’t be blocked on my side, still working on the gravimetric data we got from the observation posts and cross referencing the witness records of the participating rescue ships. However I am going to need more data from the black boxes, John, the data you had proved to be three years old. Ben, could you recover more?” — as Mark finished his status update, the team waited in long silence for Ben.
- “Ben, did you had any progress with the black box?” — Hanah tried to push politely the matter so they can wrap up and start working.
- “Hm? No, too damaged. Need another one from the wreckage.” — Ben talk monotonously as his empty eyes remained unmoved, most of his mind surfing in the virtual worlds.
- “Ben, just focus for a moment. What is next and how can we help?” — John’s firm direction made its impact.
- “Okey, I got the blueprints and internal engineering notes attached, Mark, you gonna love this. Compiling the public discourse with one of my deep dive agent. But we will need an undamaged black box.”
- “The marines searched for the last week, every box was destroyed in the accessible areas.”
- “I don’t like to be the obvious, but then you need to get one from here…” — everyone skipped a heart beat as Ben pulled up the blueprint to the window display and marked a spot next to the frontal Ring’s blow out.
- “I will do that” — Hanah knew very well John’s determined look — “But I need help from Victoria.”
John lamented for a moment as Hanah prepared to close the meeting and send everyone on their work, John looked over the members one by one.
- “Team, after a few days, we got better at the dailies, but… we need to be focusing on impact and not status. We need to answer a few key questions in our report. What happened exactly and what contributed to it, who did what before, during and after the event. And most importantly, what we propose, so this can never happen again.” — John let everyone take a second to internalize — “Now, what are our current hypothesis?”
- “We know a detonation occurred in the forward Ring, the cause could be mechanical failure, foreign object, outside anomaly or… sabotage.” — Mark listed the basic assumptions.
- “Agreed. I know it is not your first barbecue. You know what to do, let’s cross each cause out until we have left with the only real one. Tomorrow is one day off for everyone, but leave a check out note before!”
- “Have a great day everyone!” — Hanah concluded the meeting.
- “Finally.” — Ben submerged himself into the Net.
- “Great day.” — Mark took to another corner he had paper put up to the walls reconstructing and overlaying the Giant before and after the event.
After the space age kicked off, especially in early times, each and every gram of weight counted and paper became a luxury. Yet a few, especially the traditionally trained scientists preferred to work on paper, they were arguing that it improved memory retention better than most implants available on market.
John did not believe in that, though if that is what Mark needed to work the best, he provided. Ben’s continuous Net connection was not a problem, but a stack of paper cost him a few favors to call in.
- “One more thing.” — John raised his voice to get attention before quickly lowering it to whisper — “Hope you all understand, no word of our hypothesis outside of this team, am I clear?”
As the team silently nodded in agreement, he continued in his thoughts to evaluate the likelihood of each scenario. While a good investigator needs to approach the case without a prejudice, creating hypothesis and validating those are a common practice.
And John was mortified of the possibility of a sabotage, so he vowed to focus on disproving that first. He needed a black box first. Hanah can handle the sensor records from Perseus, and witness testaments after months are unrealiable anyway.
- “Between us, I know these are busywork. But I want to set a cadence to our work, we will be here for months.” — just as if Hanah read his thoughts.
- “Yeah, Mark will be fine with that, more worried that Ben jumps ship before final report.”
- “Why worried? He always remain anonymous expert.”
- “This time, I have the feeling we have to be immaculate. I know, but he is the best.” — now John read her mind and preemptively argue the obvious fault in his decision to bring Ben on board of this investigation.
- “Well, you have been attacked before on site.”
- “True, but never from a third party. It was always the person at fault, with an obvious lapse of judgment.”
- “You have a team to help avoid the same. Defer to us when in doubt.”
- “Thanks, knew I can count on you.”
The opening bulkhead interrupted as Victoria and a few analysts entered, just in time for the meeting scheduled with Hanah. Ben muffled a few words and then quickly left behind the analysts in search of a calm and lonely place.
Hanah expertly led the boring meeting exactly to the agenda, getting answers by the minute. John had no reason to intervene at any point so he played the role of a fern. Just be nice and silent on the side. Until the last point was closed.
- “Victoria, one more thing. I need to get back to the Giant’s wreckage.”
- “Can’t let you at the moment, what do you need there? I can direct a marine group there.”
- “This time, I need to be there personally. Need to access a black box, here.”
- “That is unsecured area.”
- “I know, and it is risky due to the ring’s damage. I can’t ask others. The box probably can’t be removed without damaging it so I need to download it from there.”
- “You can’t download anything from there, we still measure extreme electromagnetic radiations, you would get only radio static.”
- “Nope, I have tech that can do it.”
- “What do you… what, you have quantum entanglement comms?”
- “Yep.”
- “Then give it to Lieutenant Commander Rivera, and they execute the mission.”
- “I can not let my QEC module out of my hand. However I can issue an official order to give me a marine unit, just as I ordered the works to stand down.”
- “Okey, but we keep it on the low, without the official order. I just send Michael and team on a patrol where they diverge on their discretion. And you join as unnamed VIP. That is my last offer.”
If you enjoyed this scene, read the story leading up to it so far here:
And sign up to my email list to get the next scene right into your inbox every Sunday!
