Space Slugs

SPACE SLUG FEST

By Len Morgan

 

Somewhere in the Oort cloud, several light years from Earth, a meteor from deep space collided with a mass the size of a small planet.  It shattered like crushed honeycomb. The impact released a shower of debris in the direction of the solar system.   Millions of years later the first missiles arrived in the vicinity of the asteroid belt, just beyond Mars.                                                                                           

    Gemma and Clive Simmons, a married couple, are partners in private enterprise. They are members of a consortium, together with eleven other craft, prospecting and mining metals in the asteroid belt.  The work is dangerous, hard, and repetitive, but financially rewarding. Their days consist of crushing and grinding the rocks on the surface of a likely asteroid, eating into it with diamond drill bits. Like worms eating into an apple, their 'RockHopper', designated RH09, was assigned to sector 9 of the asteroid belt.  They were mining a group of metal rich asteroids. RH09 was in the process of electronically tagging and disengaging from asteroid R09761. They’d just identified deposits on asteroid R09762, when they were bombarded by a swarm of meteorites.  They were unlike anything they had previously encountered.  The missiles struck the hull of the craft, shaking it like an earthquake. They stuck to the RH09's outer skin as if they were magnetic.

    "There's somebody at the door, Clive. Will you get it?"

    "Huh, funny girl!  I'll suit up while you wind in the snorkel.  Let's see what they're made of, could be worth collecting."

    "Feed em into hopper #3 then we can crush and dissect them at leisure.  Should be enough room in there, we don't have a full load yet."

    Clive suited up, checked the air pressure on his tanks, and said "I’m going out..." The ship sucked air from the airlock and on his return, half an hour later, refilled it.

    "Strange little buggers, pretty uniform, about the size of a tennis ball, flattened on one side.  Had to prize them off the hull like limpets, they left trails cleared of dust as they moved. Fortunately, they only hit us with glancing blows as if they all came from one source.  I collected a dozen, they're in the bin, and there are plenty more scattered around on this rock.  Do you need a hand disengaging the hoses while I’m out here?"

    "No thanks.  While you were out gallivanting with your friends, I kept on working as always."

    "Good girl.  So, I'll catch a little shuteye while you set a trajectory for R09762?"

     An hour later, she woke him up "Clive!  There’s something weird happening in H3, I think it’s sprung a leak.  It was three quarters full when you loaded those globes now it’s only half full.  Are you sure one of those impacts didn't breach the hull?"

    "What?  You’re joshing me; there were just a few minor paint scrapings outside."

    "Well something's wrong!  Get off yer ass and check it out!"

    "Yes boss, anything you say, boss." He made his way to H3 and checked the atmosphere, it was stable.  "Well, we're not leaking air so, are you sure those readings are correct?"

    "Sure as your name is Floyd, It is, isn't it?"

    "You know my name!  So, I'll open H3 and find out what's amiss."

    "Careful man, there's not much gravity in there."

     He rolled his eyes, hauled himself up by the rope ladder, hand over hand, unlatched the hopper, and raised the hatch. "That's odd, those balls have tripled in size, what are they doing eating rocks?"  As he watched, one of the balls moved leaving a silvery metallic slime trail.  “The surface of the scrape is covered in their slime.  I don't believe it, they're excreting pure metals and they’ve increased to the size of basketballs."

    "Can you get them out of there before they grow any bigger?  If they're growing at that rate, they'll soon outgrow the hopper and take over the ship."

    "I'll need some help there, Gem, we'll need to set up a winch outside to haul them out.  I’d really like to know where the hell they came from." 

      An hour later they were both suited up, and standing beside the ship watching a dozen boulders slide slowly away from the ship.  They began collecting the slug slime, which proved to be an amalgam of various metals.

    “They’re moving under their own steam, which means they could be alive.”

    “It would be nice to keep one, eh Gem?  Then we wouldn’t need to cart our ore back to the mother ship to be transported to moon base for smelting.  But, there’s a directive somewhere about reporting extraterrestrial contacts to the ECC back on Earth.”

    “We probably need to consult the others, let’s make a collective decision before we relinquish this find.” 

     Two days later the consortium gathered in the mother ship.  Almost all the RockHopper crews there had encountered the balls.  Space slugs was the consensus, and the best description they came up with.

    “So it’s unanimous, we pass the news on to Moon base.  They take the lion’s share of our scrape, so they can have the responsibility for reporting this to ECC back on Earth,” said Voss, captain of the mother ship.

    “Has anybody else witnessed the larger ones fragmenting?  We saw one separate into twenty-seven, small, golf ball-sized pieces.  I thought it had died but the pieces just kept on eating,” said Lin Chou from RH04.

     Three days later, a report came in from Captain Voss.

    “I’ve contacted moon base, they’ve been bombarded with the little buggers. They’ve been landing on Earth as well but the heat of entry has turned them into glass balls. They are confirmed to be a silicon-based life form.  ECC has named their various compounds as Silicarb’s.  Left to their own devices, they will decimate the asteroid belt in a hundred or so years, depending on their rate of reproduction.” 

    “S’pose we could seal them in metal tanks, and limit their food supply.”

    “Maybe we could fire them into the Sun.”

    “Yea the heat would sure stabilize them,” said Gem.

    “Or, we could fire them back into the Oort cloud where they came from.”

    “What if the Oort wasn’t where they came from Clive?”

    “What if they are left unchecked, what could they do to the moon?  Will they eventually die off, or will they just go on forever, and devour everything…” 

     It was an amateur astronomer, Constatine Christodoulou, who discovered an asteroid, not on the NEO listings.  It will either pass very close to, or collide with Earth.  It’s a rock the size of Mont Blanc.  A hit would have a devastating effect, likely resulting in the extinction of all life on earth.  The asteroid was designated as ‘Christo2175’.

    “Gem, I’ve just received a vid from the mother ship about asteroid 2175.  Did you hear it?” Clive asked.

    “No, What?”

    “According to Voss the ECC have procedures in play to change its course but it’s coming from an unexpected direction.  It leaves little time for them to redeploy their missiles.”

    “Why is he telling us?”

    “Moonbase has an alternative backup plan in the event ECC’s plan fails.”

    “Involving us?”

    “Their plan is for us to gather medium sized slugs and aim them towards 2175,” said Clive. 

    “It’s a shot in the dark.  We have no way of guiding them.  But, we have to find 2175 first, it will be like finding an ant in the Sahara desert.” 

    “Voss says we need to come up with a method of delivery, all suggestions will be considered, we have only weeks to save ourselves and the Earth.”

    “What if we empty our hoppers and fill them with the small ones…” Gemma said.

    “It’s a suggestion, I’ll pass it on.” 

    Two hours later, “There’s a vid from Voss coming through, Clive. He says others have come up with the same idea, but Moonbase doubts we will be able to carry enough Slugs to eat the bulk of the asteroid in the time remaining. They suggest that if they supply us with steel nets we could drag a much larger quantity between us.  At a guess, we could double or even treble our payload.  They think that would help. Your thoughts Clive?” 

    “Well, that might still be marginal, but if ECC’s nukes don’t succeed we might be humanity's only chance of survival. Are our twelve ships the only ones available, Gem?  ”

    “No, apparently they’re sending every available craft including the junkyard collectors.  In all there are over 200 craft; we leave at 1200 SST (Sol Standard Time).  So let’s spread our nets and cart as many slugs as we can carry to the flotilla at the meeting point they’ve given us.” 

    “I bet RockHoppers are the only ones dragging the slugs Gem.”

    “Horses for courses, Clive.  They’ve spotted asteroid 2175 crossing the orbit of Venus.”

    “Let’s get out there and sling our load in its direction.” 

     The flotilla had previously agreed on the slingshot method of delivery.  It took them two days to reach asteroid 2175 and shower it with slugs.  They stood off to watch them do their thing.

     Voss here “Three hours later, ECC has calculated that the metallic mass remaining could still result in an extinction event on Earth.  They can’t give us any further help they used up their stock missiles before we arrived.  They are reduced to praying for a miracle!”  The airways were silent. 

    “Gemma went over the open mike! Does anybody have suggestions of something we could try?  If we don’t come up with a plan, we’ll have no home to go back too” 

      The airways remained silent but RH09 nosed in towards the meteor, and slowly nudged into a crater.  They’re executing a Slo-Ram, a technique routinely used by prospectors to nudge smaller asteroids into a stable state before mining operations could begin. 

     Gemma broke the silence.  “RH09 doesn’t have enough power to change its direction, but if we all Slo-Ram, we might be able to move it!” 

    “Come on RockHopper’s let’s see what our combined weight can do at full thrust.” Voss encouraged.  Then slowly the ‘dirty dozen’ nosed in.  With full jets thrusting they fired for an hour, the asteroid moved, but according ECC on Earth, it was still not enough.

    “Our fuel is getting low,” said Clive.  At this rate, we’ll soon be stranded here in the back of beyond.”

    “Back off!  Pull away!” said Voss.  The RockHooper’s backed away, “Any other suggestions?” 

    “This Slo-Ram is a new one on me,” said Captain Heeney one of the freighter captains, “Let’s give it a try.   

    Within half an hour, a hundred ships of all kinds were doing a Slow-Ram and their combined thrusters moved it several degrees in an hour.  They backed off while the remaining ships moved in to do their stint. 

    “ECC say if we can change its direction by a further 5 degrees, it will miss Earth entirely and be on course for splashdown on Sol.” 

    Heeney drew in a deep breath, and yelled, “Thank goodness for Rockhopper’s; and for prayer.” 

Copyright Len Morgan