The Cosmic Bullet: The Enigma Series, Part One by Andrew C. Broderick

Author:Andrew C. Broderick [Broderick, Andrew C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-04-20T18:30:00+00:00

****

“You’ve gotta let me do this, Chris,” Drew said as the pair floated in his tiny cabin. “Even putting a hole in it shows it’s inert. No gases came out. It’s completely dead.”

“Which is what you might be if you go inside. The rest of us could be too.”

“Chris— ”

“And NASA property could well be destroyed.”

Drew closed his eyes for a moment and breathed, then looked at Chris again. “I will give you whatever you want. They’ll likely be clamoring to publish my memoirs and put me in movies as the first person to enter an alien spaceship. I will give you half of that money. You have my word. I’ll even have a lawyer draw up a contract when we get back. Nobody needs to know; it’ll be a private arrangement between us.”

Chris sighed. “Well. I was wondering how I was going to put Adriana through Harvard. Though you know they’re gonna fire me for this.”

“Then you can get a new career commanding private ships. They’d have you in a heartbeat with your background. Chances are you’ll be swamped, too, with requests for books, rights deals, films of your life.We’ll be heroes,” said Drew, thumping Chris’ shoulder. “All the more so if this ship or whatever it is turns out to be more than an inert lump of titanium-plated carbon.”

Chris sighed. “This is a hell of a game of Russian roulette. And that’s even before the Russians show up.”

“Then what are we waiting for? There’s only ever going to be one person who gets to be first in. We’ve beaten them to everything since the Apollo program. This is where we fall behind?”

“I should ask Houston first.”

“Nuts to that. Forgiveness over permission. Do you want to be a footnote in history, or the captain of the first mission to actually enter an alien vessel?”

****

Q-carbon, Drew thought, as he finished suiting up. A form of carbon even harder than diamonds. That’s what’s under the titanium skin.

He pulled himself through the hatch into the exploration pod’s tiny airlock, which was barely larger than an airplane bathroom. Once the hatch was closed, he was sealed off from the Sigma. He opened the inner hatch into the bubble-like interior of the pod, pulled himself through, and turned around to face the controls. The hatch closed automatically behind him with dispassionate finality, sealing Drew in. This place could easily become his tomb if anything went wrong.

“Running preflights, comms check,” Drew said, keying in his entries on the datapad. Various readouts appeared as the van-sized, ovoid ship checked its health.

“Roger, Pod 1,” Holly said. “You’re go to undock once preflights are complete.”

Drew’s tiny ship poked up through the Sigma’s exterior like a half-laid egg. As it continued running its diagnostics Drew lowered his eyes from the display to the view through the window below. The Enigma looked very much like a giant nuclear submarine with no conning tower: colorless, inhumanly large, cold, and unyielding. He had to remind himself of its scale: it was nearly ten times the length of the largest submarine, and twelve times the width.

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