I killed the man that wasn't there Read online

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  Two Billion years ago an intelligent virus left it’s dry dieing world and came to our solar system. It found that the fourth planet was cold and wet, just perfect for it to flourish. Although small and nearly defenseless, they had the ability to take over even the most complex organism from inside the host’s own cells.

  They had also developed a communication network more advanced than the nervous system used by inhabitants of Earth, allowing them all to think as one collective individual even if they were spread out over many organisms.

  Their only weakness was they turned water into hydrates; they flourished for a while on Mars until they consumed all the free water just as they had on their home planet. The few surviving members of this once powerful collective lay dormant until they could find the right host.

  Inside Tom’s brain the intelligent virus had finished mapping out his hypothalamus, the fight or flight reflex of his brain. While they were mapping it out they accidentally stimulated it, making him paranoid. They could now map out the basal ganglia, or pleasure center of his brain.

  It would be less than two weeks before they had Tom’s entire brain mapped out and were able to take complete control of his body. After that they could start spreading out to the rest of the crew.

  In mapping out Tom’s mind they had seen images of a world with billions of people and trillions of other life forms. They would retain the crew’s technical skills and memories so they could pilot the spacecraft back to Earth, which would be ripe for the taking.

  As far as their planet destroying side-effects, they were sure they wouldn’t make that mistake a third time.

  CURSED SHIP

  There is an old saying, “nobody believes in a curse until they are living under one.”

  I didn’t believe in curses either before I had the misfortune to be selected as the first commander of the Moon Shuttle “Columbia”. If you think naming a spaceship after one the most spectacular space disasters in history is a bad omen, you’d be right. But you also would only have half the story.

  The “Columbia” started service as the “Armstrong”, the first of the legendary three stage Moon Shuttles.

  The idea behind the three stage Shuttle is simple enough. The first stage, the service module, carries all the supplies, fuel for return, the Lander, and the cargo. It is incredibly efficient using solar sails and ion engines. It is also slow; it takes three weeks to build up the speed necessary to go to the Moon. It's low impulse engines take it into higher and higher orbits until it is going fast enough that it just needs the nudge of a few pounds of chemical rockets to take it the rest of the way.

  The second stage is the crew capsule. It has the bare minimum supplies to keep the crew of four astronauts alive for a week. Powered by chemical rockets to shoot it at the Moon where, after two days, it meets the first stage, and docks with it. The combined ship uses the first stage’s engines to enter orbit around the Moon.

  In case there is a problem, the second stage can skip the orbital insertion and slingshot back to Earth and use the Earth’s upper atmosphere to slow down enough so that an orbital rescue ship can rendezvous with it. Everything is designed so that this rescue maneuver can be done even if the crew is incapacitated. For the “Armstrong” this turned out to be true.

  Like most disasters it takes more than one problem to overwhelm the safety systems. In the “Armstrong” disaster there were three separate problems that when combined lead to calamity.

  The first problem hit 6 hours before the scheduled docking. A meteor the size of a pebble punctured the fuel tank of the Lander sending the whole second stage spinning faster than its gyros could compensate for. Then both the Lander release and its back-up failed to engage, turning the first stage into a spinning space hazard. The onboard computer calculated that would take 21 days to stabilize the ship by using its gyros and thrusters, rendering it useless for the crew of the “Armstrong”. Once it recovered it could pilot itself back to Earth.

  The worst problem had nothing to do with the ship but happened 93 million miles away. The sun had a surprise outbreak of sunspot activity, sending stronger than expected radiation throughout the solar system. If the “Armstrong” had been able to dock with the first stage it would be able to keep the bulky second stage between the sun and the crew shielding them from the deadly radiation. Without it the crew had only minimal protection.

  The solar storm lasted three days and the crew could do nothing but live under the deadly radiation. By the time the “Armstrong” hit the Earth’s atmosphere the crew was unconscious. When the rescue ship recovered the capsule, mission commander Al Chu dead, and his three crewmates were in comas. They never made it back to Earth.

  Despite the tragedy, the $5 billion ship was still in fine shape. It only needed some quick repairs to make it ready for its next mission.

  But she sat, fully assembled, for six months at the International Space Station while the PR people tried to gloss over the fact that we would be putting a ship that killed four people back into service.

  The scientists at the ISS were delighted to have the ship docked as the large service module provided additional room for experiments.

  I’ve no idea who the PR genius was that knew enough about space history to know that “Columbia” was name of the Apollo Ship that brought Neil Armstrong to the Moon, but didn’t know it was also the name of the Space Shuttle that burned up on re-entry.

  So now I’m the commander of the Moon Shuttle that killed four people and shares the name of a Space Shuttle that burned up, killing seven.

  I’ve since wondered if I believed in curses before the mission would I still would have taken the assignment. The answer I always come up with is yes. I worked my whole life to command a space ship and even if it were a cursed one, and even if I knew the curse would keep me from ever commanding another, I would still jump at the chance.

  My mission started perfectly; not the slightest glitch in the operation of the crew capsule. Even the docking went so smooth I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a simulation. Until we did the inspection of the first stage and I noticed something was wrong.

  The Lander release monitor started switching from Pass to Fail. I watched it turn on and off in a pattern. Fail - Long Pass - Fail, Fail, Fail - Long Pass - Fail, Pass Fail, Fail,Fail, - Long Pass – Fail - Pass – Fail – Pass - Very long Pass – Fail, Fail, Fail, - Long Pass - Fail – Long Pass - Fail, Fail, Fail - Long Pass - Fail – Very Long Pass – Fail – Pass – Fail – Pass – Fail – Pass – Fail – Pass – Very Long Pass – Fail – Pass – Fail – Pass – Fail, Fail, Fail. Then back to being a constant pass.