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    Observation: Space Agent Jonathan Bartell, #2
    Observation: Space Agent Jonathan Bartell, #2
    Observation: Space Agent Jonathan Bartell, #2
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Observation: Space Agent Jonathan Bartell, #2

    By Patty Jansen

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    About this ebook

    Space biologists Jonathan Bartell and Gaby Larsen arrive at Johnson Base at the Moon’s south pole for a project with Professor Isaacs that is so secret, he cannot share the details with them. However, the professor does not show up to meet them.

    Vijay Singh borrowed money from a local council man who uses the debt to make continued threats to Vijay. In his despair to pay it back, Vijay gets involved with one of the most lucrative crime schemes in the solar system.

    However, the capsule he retrieves from a crater near Johnson Base contains more than smuggled rare elements. But no one is going to talk about it for fear of getting on the wrong side of the crime lords. Even if keeping the secret will endanger the entire base.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPatty Jansen
    Release dateSep 19, 2017
    ISBN9781386618645
    Observation: Space Agent Jonathan Bartell, #2
    Author

    Patty Jansen

    Patty lives in Sydney, Australia, and writes both Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has published over 15 novels and has sold short stories to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact.Patty was trained as a agricultural scientist, and if you look behind her stories, you will find bits of science sprinkled throughout.Want to keep up-to-date with Patty's fiction? Join the mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/qqlAbPatty is on Twitter (@pattyjansen), Facebook, LinkedIn, goodreads, LibraryThing, google+ and blogs at: http://pattyjansen.com/

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      Book preview

      Observation - Patty Jansen

      Chapter 1

      THE SURFACE HARVESTER was a huge, imposing chunk of metal that combined high-tech electronics with heavy-duty crunchers, grinding blades and harvesting arms. It rumbled over the concrete, inaudible in the vacuum of the dock, but Vijay could feel it through the soles of his boots. A spear of sunlight slanted onto the metal-plated side, showing the blazing logo of LE—Lunar Exploration—and fine moon dust that spilled from the crevices in its caterpillar wheels as the machine lumbered out of the dock onto the lifeless plain.

      Vijay pressed himself into the black shadow behind the door where he knew the driver couldn’t see him unless he checked his side or rear cameras, and those cameras stayed focused long enough to adjust for the sharp contrast between sunlight and shadow. His heart beat quickly in his throat and in the absence of any other sound, the hissing of his breath through the mask was deafening. He checked his pack. Water—check, tools—check, computer—check, keys—check.

      Tonnes of metal passed and passed and passed.

      He held his breath.

      Come on, come on . . .

      There was the rear of the vehicle.

      Vijay judged the distance, bent his knees, and, when the harvester was almost out of the dock, jumped.

      His gloves slapped onto the telescope beam that held the rear scoop. The non-slip surface allowed him to grip the smooth bars. He pulled himself up by swinging his legs, climbed over the lip of the scoop and tumbled unceremoniously into the darkness within the giant metal maw.

      He hit the bottom of the scoop on his side. Oof.

      Now to hoping that no one had seen him, or there would be all sorts of hell to raise. Anyone who left the base was meant to sign out and comply with a million safety regulations. Warnecke would have his head if he found out.

      Vijay shuffled against the side of the scoop that was closest to where, three levels above, the driver would sit in a little cabin. There was a camera mounted on the outside of the vehicle that allowed the driver to see if the scoop was full, but it couldn’t see right to the bottom on this side. Vijay had tested that.

      He waited. He only saw the black sky with its unblinking firmament of stars. Earth was too low on the horizon for him to see it from his position.

      The harvester lumbered on. These types of vehicles were not fast. It would take half an hour to cover the distance to the mining base. Vijay checked his air. He should relax because the tank would last an hour at least. He also had an emergency air maker, but that would require him to spend valuable time looking for water and that was something he wanted to avoid. He could refill at the storage shed.

      He checked his PCD for the coordinates. He hoped the message he’d received about the pick-up spot was correct, otherwise he was taking a whole lot of risk for nothing.

      Those thoughts went repeatedly through his mind while he sat waiting, hoping not to be discovered. Half an hour was an eternity if you checked the time every couple of seconds.

      Come on, come on, come on.

      He found it impossible to stay seated. Too impatient, too cold or too hot, so he stood in the scoop, pressed against the wall. The gentle movement of the vehicle made him sway.

      At last, a couple of low buildings came into view over the lip of the scoop, unassuming concrete bunkers without the telltale domes of the modern residential habitats. A long time ago, Moon colonies had started in places like this, underground bunkers where people spent their days with not even a glimpse of daylight. It must have been miserable to live in.

      Vijay clambered onto the lip of the scoop and jumped out. He landed in the grey dust, dropped to his knees and crouched, trying not to move. The harvester rolled on, oblivious, underway to the mining sites.

      When it had gone a good distance, Vijay rose and carelessly walked away from the main route, where the regolith was crisscrossed with many caterpillar tracks, to the buildings. Outside the concrete bunker’s airlock, he put down his pack and found his computer, turned it on and sent the falsified code to the communication panel, so that it would show that he’d come here yesterday when he was on duty.

      Lights flashed. A crack appeared in the concrete surface and widened and widened.

      Vijay entered the airlock. Lights came on. He pressed the code on the panel and the doors moved closer together again. Phew. Part one of the plan was complete.

      Chapter 2

      JOHNSON, AT THE MOON’S south pole, was primarily a commercial mining base. Seen from the air, the habitat looked like a honeycomb of interconnected tubes and domes basking in low, near-horizontal sunlight that made glass and metal glitter with all the harshness of the airless atmosphere.

      The shuttle flew over the grey landscape and turned to line up with the landing pad, giving the passengers a view of the large base housing about thirty thousand people—functional but not particularly elegant.

      Look, there are the night shutters, Gaby said, pointing out the window past Jonathan.

      She was right. On the shadow side of the nearest dome stood a huge rolling segment, like a piece of orange peel, covering about a quarter of the dome’s surface. The Moon’s poles had eternal light, and the bases used the shutters to force Earth-like days. At midnight, the entire shutter would be rolled out, covering ninety percent of the dome’s surface. Over the space of 12 hours, the shutters would roll behind one another to let full daylight into the dome and would then reverse the process.

      The craft turned sharply, giving Jonathan a view of star-dotted sky. A brief wave of dizziness reminded him that his stomach didn’t like space travel but, so far, Gaby’s medication had worked exceptionally well since they left Earth, despite moving between all different kinds of transport.

      Oh, there’s the industrial dome, I think. Gaby was looking out the window on the opposite side of the cabin, like a child flying in a plane for the first time. A man across the aisle gave Jonathan a you’re such noobs look. In truth, Gaby probably had flown far more often than any of the passengers on this shuttle. But Gaby was naturally inquisitive.

      There were things to be seen and to be learned. Gaby was always ready to learn them. That was why she had first spoken to him when no one else would, when he was the dumb new kid at the Orbital Launch Station, and why she had been willing to give up a secure job there to come with him to be taught by the Habitat Systems Emergency Response Unit of the Space Corps. They had learned all about recycling, about all the things that could go wrong, the tolerances of human life and the management of infections and pests within bases.

      They’d finished last month, and now they’d been sent to Johnson for their first engagement.

      They would be working with a local researcher called Professor Isaacs, who worked for the base’s recycling and atmosphere control plant. The precise nature of the project would be discussed when they arrived. Jonathan figured there might be sensitive commercial interests involved.

      The ship went in for the landing. The downward rockets came on. The dome structures and interlinking tubes took up more and more of the view.

      Pitted, rock-strewn grey regolith came closer. The only colour in the landscape came from the base: the colour-coded entry docks, the brightly coloured orange mining trucks, the red transport shuttles, and, yes, company logos, the most prevalent that of LE, Lunar Explorations.

      The craft sank lower and lower. Then there was a brief shudder and Jonathan was poised to complete his next milestone: to set foot on a body other than Earth.

      While a cheerful female voice welcomed the passengers to Johnson, several of the jaded travellers had already unstrapped themselves from their seats and grabbed their bags.

      Jonathan rose and bounced

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