Prologue and Chapter 1

The explosion bloomed in the darkness of space like a flower in a sudden spring. Visible from the planet's surface by day, the ship blew its store of oxygen as compartments expanded and shattered into the vacuum. The crew watched, horrified, from the safety of two escape pods: the warning had come in just enough time to send them scrambling to safety.

From a thick porthole, the captain watched, with no hint of emotion on his face. There was no coming back from this, he knew. His entire life savings had been sunk into that ship, what would have been the flagship of his shipping line. The first two runs had been enormously successful, and there was no reason to expect that this one would have been any different. Now it was all gone.

Jassmyn Stewart pulled up the news story on her handheld computer as she sipped a cup of coffee. She'd seen the explosion in person, of course. Spirit City was a prime hub for docking ships from the larger ports on Phobos and Deimos, and the Zarathustra had taken off from there only an hour before it unexpectedly blew up. Everyone had seen the explosion.

“Sudden malfunction...no lives lost...Zarathustra Shipping declares bankruptcy...evidence of sabotage...” The last phrase gave her pause, and she pocketed her computer again. This was the third ship crippled or lost due to sabotage in the last month. So far, her own Curious Machine had been untouched, but her runs had all been small ones, running supplies between the planet's surface and its two moons.

Unwilling to let the bad news ruin her morning, Jass tapped a button on her headset and said “Kristin Marshall.” With a beep, the headset acknowledged the command: a split second later the connection was made.

“I guess you saw the news then,” said Kristin without so much as a hello.

“Yeah, I saw it. Not that it said anything I couldn't have guessed,” said Jass, locking her door behind her and stepping out into the street. The sun shone overhead like a copper penny in the dim butterscotch sky. Jass briefly considered catching a cab to the hangar, but decided against it. Nothing got you ready to face the day better than a good morning walk.

“Any change to our schedule, then?” Kristin sounded distracted, and Jass wondered if she were playing a game while she talked. Kristin and Jass had met in college. Jass was a serious student, though she often infuriated her teachers by being less than willing to learn topics that did not hold her interest. She had found herself drawn to Kristin, who had a fondness for old video games. She had stocked her dorm room with ancient machines and gaming system emulators. While their fellow students constructed worlds in virtual reality or interacted with holograms, Kristin taught Jass to play Tetris on a flat screen and lectured about the elegance of the earliest games. Jass had never had the passion for games that Kristin did, but the two rapidly became close friends. When Jass dropped out of college to pursue her own business dreams,Kristin followed. In one month, Jass would command her first supply run as owner of her own ship, and Kristin would serve as payload specialist.

Unless, of course, the ship blew up.

Chapter One

“No, sir, I don't believe we're in any danger of sabotage.” Jass spoke into her headset, trying to ennunciate enough to sound calm while jogging toward the hangar where her ship was berthed. “Yes, sir, we've prepared several emergency plans which should cover any sudden exits, but I don't think it will be necessary. For one thing, this is a small ship on an ordinary mission. There's no reason to blow it up or even damage it. Frankly, I'd be surprised if someone so much as chipped the paint on the logo.”

She walked through the door into the main hangar bay, and her breath caught. One day she supposed she would get used to the sight of her ship, but that day had yet to arrive. The Curious Machine was nearly 100 yards long, and less than aerodynamic: it had the characteristic look of ships meant to spend the majority of their lives in deep space. On one side of the ship, under the cockpit windows, was painted the logo. A dark red circle, on which was superimposed the outline of a machine with a flat body with six wheels, a long mast, and a boxy head with one large glass eye. Jass had named her ship in honor of one of the early robotic explorers of the planet, and smiled as she saw the design again now.

A quick glance down the main hallway beside the hangar told her that the rest of her crew had already clocked in for work.

“Yes, Mr. Nesmith, I have every confidence that this supply run will go as planned. Your investment will not be wasted. Please feel free to come down and inspect the ship yourself at any time. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to meet with my crew. Thank you, you too. Have a wonderful day. Goodbye.”

With a sigh, she switched her headset over to a channel open only to the members of her crew. “It's 9:02, people, time for a meeting. Please meet me in front of the ship in 3 minutes.”

When the crew had gathered, Jass took off her headset and slipped it into her pocket. She could read the uncertainty on the faces of her colleagues.

“I know you all heard the news about the Zarathustra. Most of you probably saw it. You know as well as I do that this is the third ship we've heard of to suffer sabotage recently. It may be true that there's a pattern to these attacks, some sort of bizarre conspiracy. Whether it is or it isn't, it doesn't matter. The Machine is going to make her first supply run a smashing success. To ensure that we are able to perform to the peak of our abilities, I want us to check the ship weekly until launch, and every day for the three days leading up to it. Today, Kristin and Denjiro, you check the engines, cargo hold and the landing systems. Merriam and Martina, check the science lab and all of the communications equipment. Dani and Aaron, go over the cockpit. Kara, you stick with me and we'll check with each group in turn. Got it, everyone? Alright, let's get to work.”

The crew went to their assignments, except for a dark-haired young woman. “Are you sure you don't want me to help Merriam and Martina with the communications equipment? No one knows that equipment better than me.”

Jass nodded. “I know you do, but I need someone to back me up as I make my checks. I need to ensure that no one person is solely responsible for one area.” The two made their way inside the ship, Jass checking every inch of the walls. Kara was silent for a moment. “You're afraid of sabotage.”

The words were spoken quietly, but to Jass, they seemed to ricochet around the interior of her ship. She shook her head. “Not afraid, just taking reasonable precations. I want to make sure that I can tell Mr. Nesmith and the other investors that while I trust my crew implicitly, no one has even had a chance to tamper with the ship. We can't afford for them to back out now, and they're getting nervous.”

From time to time, they could hear the sounds of the other crew members going about their tasks. After inspecting all of the hallways and other unassigned places, Jass and Kars headed to the cargo hold. Kristin and Denjiro were waiting.

“Hey, captain,” said Kristin, brushing an unruly lock of brown hair out of her eyes, “we've finished the checklist. I figured you'd want us to stick around while you verified all of it.”

“Good call, Kristin, yes.” Jass took the checklist and scanned the room, marking off items as she went. “Denjiro, good to see you looking better this morning. Finally kick that cold?”

He nodded and pushed his glasses further up on his nose. “I decided just to go to the doctor and get it over with. I was tired of feeling groggy all the time.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” Jass said, continuing the checklist. “I'm not really comfortable with an engineer who can't take as good care of himself as he takes of his engines.” He laughed. “I didn't want to risk a runny nose in zero g. That is no fun at all, I can tell you. Once when I was interning on Squyres Station...” He launched into a story, animatedly gesturing, and Jass smiled. Most engineers she'd met were quiet, awkward, or difficult to deal with. Denjiro, on the other hand, loved to talk and tell stories. She'd asked him to join the crew not just for his knowledge of spaceship engines, but also for the effect he tended to have on crew morale. It was hard not to cheer up when Denjiro Takahashi entered the room.

After finishing her walk through the cargo hold, Jass handed the clipboard with the checklist to Kristin. “Everything looks good here. Denjiro, I'll check the engines on my way out. I'm going to check on Merriam and Martina.”

He nodded and waved as Jass and Kara made their way out of the hold and forward to the science lab. It was one of the smallest spaces on the ship, but it was one of the things that made the Curious Machine special. Most other cargo ships used every available space for cargo or fuel, but Jass had insisted on keeping one small space available. This allowed her to hire a scientist as part of her crew and sell use of the space to anyone with experiements to be run in zero gravity. She could charge less for use of the space than most science vessels, and it had rented quickly. Jass had hired Merriam Stone, a recent Mars University graduate, to run the scheduled experiements and record the results. He was good at practical science, but he always struck her as being high-strung. Today was no exception.

“Why did you have to use purple ink, Martina? It looks so unprofessional.” Merriam was complaining as Jass climbed into the small space. Kara stayed in the hall way: it was impossible to have four people in the science lab, and three was a real squeeze.

Martina Olesson, an intern who'd been hired for odd jobs and to learn about interplanetary shipping, shrugged. Her hair was pulled back in a messy braid, and her sweatshirt had several holes in it. She looked more like a college freshman than the business management major she was, but Jass had learned that Martina was almost incapable of looking polished without ridiculous amounts of effort, starch, and hairspray. She was a girl who seemed almost to exude happiness, and had assured Jass that the low pay for an intern was fine, since she was taking the job more for college credit and “real world experience” than for the money.

“It's fine, Merriam, it's not like anyone's even going to see that checklist except Jass. It's going to go in the archives and no one will ever see it again, and no one will care that I used a purple pen except you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Sorry, captain, little miss sunshine here has a lot to learn about accuracy and professionalism.”

“That'll be enough, Merriam.” Jass stood on the top rung of the ladder, bracing herself against a corner of the room. “Let me go ahead and take a look at that checklist.” He handed it over, and Jass began double-checking it.

“Have we received all the components for the experiements that have been paid for, Merriam?” Jass scanned the shelf on the far side of the room. It was solid and bolted into the wall so that it would not move during launch or any sudden maneuvers. It was filled with rows of small boxes, all measuring 10 centimeters square.

“All present and accounted for.”

“Have they been inspected and scanned for explosives or other forms of sabotage?”

He nodded. “Anything that could be opened was. Any box that is supposed to contain sensitive equipment that is not to be opened by us has been subjected to x-rays or other scans and been determined to be safe. It's all in our service agreement, so no one has any room for complaint. I personally conducted the scans and checks to ensure that none of the instruments or components were damaged.”

Jass checked a box on the checklist. “Very good. Incidentally, when you were scheduling the experiments, did anyone refuse to have their units scanned or opened?”

“Yes, one or two. I wouldn't read too much into it, though, scientists are never anxious to have their work handled by anyone else.”

“Never would have guessed that,” commented Martina with a grin. Merriam twitched but didn't respond. Jass climbed the rest of the way into the science lab and told Martina to join Kara in the corridor so she could have the space to finish the check. In a few minutes, she climbed back down the ladder, followed by Merriam. “Everything in there looks good. Let's head up to the cockpit so I can double check the communications systems.”

The group made their way single file toward the cockpit. The corridors were narrow and bare, with cables and panels running the length of it. Only the top luxury liners generally bothered to add paneling to their interior walls. Jass preferred it this way: she wanted to have access to anything that might go wrong as soon as possible without having to punch her way through drywall to get at a problem.

She kept her eyes on a set of blue cables that were strung near the ceiling. These cables were the blood vessels of the communications system, carrying information to all parts of the ship, and to the transmitter outside. A single break in a cable could leave the Curious Machine and her crew all alone in the vastness of space. All of them appeared to be in good condition, and Jass made another mark on her clipboard.

When the group arrived at the cockpit, Jass waved to the two crew members already there. “Hello again Dani, Aaron. I'll be with you in a minute, just need to finish checking the comm desk.” To make the check easier, Jass slipped into the seat reserved for the communications officer. From here, she could reach every component of the comm board. After running a few system checks, she got up again. “Comms check out. Thanks, Merriam and Martina, you can go back to your work.”

She heard them head back to the science lab, arguing as they went. Jass hoped that this wouldn't become a problem on the long supply run, but both had passed their psych evaluations with flying colors.

She settled into the captain's chair and turned to speak to the remaining members of her crew. “Dani and Aaron, are you ready for me to check your work?” Dani nodded silently: a young woman with a thick curtain of dark hair, Dani Chiappari was soft-spoken but Jass knew that she could easily become irritated if she felt that she wasn't being listened to. She was an excellent programmer, able to think quickly and accurately. Both were skills that would be needed on this mission.

Aaron DeWitt leaned back in the navigator's chair and grinned. “Do we have a choice, boss?”

“Not really.” Jass took the clipboard from him, and began going down the list. “Are you going to continue you tradition of being a smartass on this run, Aaron?”

“It seems pretty likely at this point. I went into asshole rehab at one point, but I don't think it took.” He turned back to face the navigation console and started running a few routines that Jass would need for her check of the system.

“Is he ever anything else?” muttered Dani, but Jass and Aaron chose not to acknowledge it. The three worked in silence for a few minutes. Kara slipped into the cockpit and into the communications console. The four of them had trained as a team and almost anticipated each other's actions.

Finally, as the last of the system checks was finished, Jass leaned forward. “I know you are all concerned about the increase in reports of sabotage lately.”

“Chill, boss, we already heard your 'everything's going to be fine' speech, you don't have to give it again,” Aaron said, powering down the navigation console.

“I'm worried, too.”

Aaron looked at her. Dani and Kara didn't look up from their work, but Jass knew they were listening. “Yes, of course I'm worried. A lot of the little shipping companies seem to have experienced a major disaster in the last few weeks. Maybe it's nothing, a statistically insignificant blip on the radar.” She leaned back in her chair, and looked at her core crew. Her long dark braid hung down over the back of the captain's chair.

“But maybe it's more than that. Maybe someone's trying to get rid of competition. Maybe someone has a grudge. Maybe someone's just crazy. Just...keep your eyes and ears open. Around the crew, around the hangar, everywhere. Let me know if you hear anything.”

“What are we supposed hear?” asked Kara, leaning over her desk. “We're just crew on a small supply ship, no-one takes any notice of us.”

“I don't know if you'll hear anything, Kara,” Jass said, stretching as she got up to leave. “But if you hear anything that sounds odd, or even out of the ordinary, just let me know.”

Jass walked out of the hangar and into her office. Calling it an office was, in fact, being rather generous. The room was small, only 6 feet by 6 feet, but it was large enough for a desk and a filing cabinet, and that was all she needed. Jass sighed as she edged past the cabinet. She had argued that having a physical archive of documents that were stored electronically in several secure places, but since several inspection agencies required hard copies of documentation, she was forced to keep it. She had covered it with a woven mat and tried to pretend that it was simply an end table. There was a small pot on top, with a single sickly plant, struggling to stay alive in the meager sunlight from the one high-set window. It wasn't enough to give the plant all the energy it needed, so Jass had bought a sunlamp and turned it on whenever she was in the office to help the little plant. It had stayed alive, but never produced a single bud, much less a flower. She made a mental note to arrange for someone else to care for the plant while she was away.

On impulse, she pulled up a video of the explosion of the Zarathustra. She had a wide range of choices: hundreds of landbound observers had uploaded videos of varying quality, in addition to observers on Phobos and Deimos, various ships, and even a few security cameras. Over and over, she watched the ship slow, eject the escape pods, and then blow itself into a charred husk.

_________________________________________________________________________________

“Thank you all for coming today. As you know, this is the last meeting of the investment board before Ms. Stewart and the crew of the Curious Machine begin their supply run. You all have handouts detailing the current route planned, but of course, this can change at any time. Ms. Stewart is here to give us an update.” Andrew Nesmith gestured to Jassmyn, who was dressed in a stylish suit rather than her usual casual slacks and pullover. She smiled, and stood.

“Thank you, Mr. Nesmith! I would just like to take a moment to express my gratitude that the Nesmith Investment Group has committed to backing our small company to ship supplies to the asteroid mining colonies. I assure you, you will profit from this investment.”

Polite smiles greeted her, and she saw one older man check his watch. She clicked a button on her handheld computer, and the screen in the room lit up with a map of the route that Dani and Aaron had set for the Curious Machine's maiden supply run.

“As you can see, my programmer and navigator have set an efficient route. This exact route could change at any time, of course, due to solar weather, uncharted asteroids, or any one of a number of challenges, but I am confident that my crew is up to the task. We will start the supply run in Spirit City, as one of eight ships hitching onto a booster from launchpad 78B. Once we are free of Mars' gravity, we will take on fuel at Phobos. From there the journey really gets going.” She clicked the computer again and the display zoomed in to show a miniature ship flying through the void and docking with a pitted rock.

“The first stop on our supply run is the crawler on Cybele. We're dropping off a load of food, water, compressed oxygen and other suppliers for the miners there. They have a very tight operation there, so we won't stay docked long, just enough for the asteroid to rotate into the right position for launch again. Gravity there is minimal, so we won't use much fuel getting away. Next up is the outpost orbiting Gaspra. Some of the experiments that we've contracted to carry onboard will be off-loaded there, and we'll take others with us. We're also delivering oxygen, water, and a small amount of emergency fuel to the station. Same situation as with Cybele: minimal gravity, only docking for a few hours.”

The animation advanced, the ship speeding up as it flew through a starry background toward a large rock in the distance. The rock was rounder than the others had been, though the south pole appeared to be flattened, with a single peak rising from the center of the crater.

“After the two light drop-offs, we'll head for the two major asteroid colonies, stopping off at Vesta first. The outpost Andronivi, which is located in the largest of the Snowman Craters, is large enough for us to dock at and disembark for a few days. The crew will need the opportunity to experience some Gs again, and stretch their legs. We'll be taking on a few supplies from the colony there, as well as making a delivery. More scientific payloads will be exchanged, and we'll spend a few days on the colony there. They have a doctor and full medlab there, and everyone on the crew is required to have a full checkup. We'll also have their mechanics go over the ship to check for any damage or stress.”

The animated ship leaped off the rock and back into space. “This is our longest period of uninterrupted flight, from Vesta to Ceres. We'll be sure to upload some new entertainment from the Vesta colony before we leave!” A ripple of laughter sounded throughout the room, and Jass breathed a sigh of relief.

“Ceres has a fair amount of gravity, so we'll expend some fuel docking and taking off again, but we'll still be within our fuel allowances. We'll have a quick checkup there, too, and offload the rest of the payload. They don't have any science payload for us, so that'll simplify things.”

On the screen, the animated ship changed course and sped towards a small red dot that rapidly grew larger.

“We'll use Ceres' momentum to help propel us toward home to minimize the use of fuel. Once in Mars orbit, we'll dock at Phobos for final customs and checkups, then land back here. Total estimated time, 9 Earth Standard months.”

The lights came back on, and the glowing screen faded back into the wall. Jass held her breath as the gentlemen glanced at each other. Finally, Mr. Nesmith rose.

“Ms. Stewart, on behalf of the investment group, allow me to wish you Bon Voyage.”