Snow Ball T173

Snow Ball T173

Related 3D art and animation will also be created to go along with the story. You can see more at The Lazy Susan and Lazy Sue Promo Animation.

Snow Ball T173

By Lee Crystal

“You drop head!” yelled a tall dark burly man into the face of a shorter skinny pale fellow he had pressed up against the metallic bulkhead of a narrow dark corridor. The larger man was wearing a bulky light blue, well worn, flight suit while the smaller one was in his bare feet wearing lose black pants, a dirty white t-shirt and a dingy white lab coat.

“Hey man, get off already,” defiantly snapped back the smaller man.

Quickly the larger man grabbed a little vial of liquid from the other ones hand and tossed it to the floor.

“Ah man that’s my last one!” he screamed as he tried to bend down to retrieve it.

Suddenly the larger guy grabbed him and slammed him back up against the wall. “Oh no you don’t. No more dropping for you on this trip!” he said as he stepped on the vial. Its contents quickly oozed out onto the metallic deck.

The skinny one screamed out and tried frantically to get out of the larger ones iron grip.

“Oh man, why did you do that?” cried the pale skinny man still squirming in the large guys hands.

The larger man leaned into the skinny guys face. There was less than an inch between them. He could smell that the other one had not had a bath in a long time. With his small dark eyes he looked intensely into the blue eyes of the smaller one and said, “Its scum eye droppers like you that cost me my commission!”

Smiling the smaller man looked back and snickered, “a dishonorable discharge wasn’t it.”

The larger one tensed up and ground his teeth. Suddenly the smaller guy stopped smiling once he saw the larger man raise up his right fist. The smaller man then violently thrashed around, but was still well pinned to the bulkhead by the larger mans left hand and arm.

“That’s enough!” shouted a voice from down the dark corridor.

They both looked down the hall as another of the few remaining recessed lights in the ceiling flickered out. A short wrinkled old man emerged from the blackness. He was wearing an outdated business suit, a stained white lab coat, and was holding a large data pad. With a long frown he slowly limped closer to them.

“Now gentlemen we have work to do. We are closing in on the target. Mister Itella the Lazy Sue needs you in the cockpit for our final approach and landing,” said the old man pointing down to the end of the corridor behind him.

With a deep breath and a snort the large man dropped his fist and let go of the skinny one. He walked past the old man and melted away into the darkness behind him.

As soon as he was let go the skinny man was on the floor trying his best to retrieve the liquid.

The old man limped up to him and smacked him hard on the head with his data pad. The skinny man recoiled from the strike. The older man then deliberately stepped on the remains of the broken vial and its contents with his left foot.

“Mister Blevins, you know that’s not legal, much less allowed on my ship,” grumbled the old man.

“Professor Lenov that was my last fix of eye candy. I won’t be able to get anymore until we go back for provisions man,” Blevins said softly looking up at the old man with tears in his eyes.

“We won’t be going back for provisions the next time I’m afraid,” the Professor replied with his lips puckered.

“What? What are you talking about?” the skinny man asked as he stood up and wiped away his tears while still looking down at the Professor’s left foot.

“Well Jake you see the University has cut my funding. It seems they don’t think looking for life in comets is a worth while venture any longer.”

“So that means…”

“Yes my research assistant we will all be out of a job. I can at least get some work teaching again,” said the Professor with his bottom lips upturned as he thought about it.

“Ah, bummer man, I guess I’ll just have to go back to human drug trials,” replied Jake with a somewhat happy smile.

“Yes, that was the only place I could find a lab assistant cheap enough,” Lenvo said with a smirk looking at the pale man who continued to stare at his left foot.

“What about old hot head, he’s got no where to go,” said Jake as he pointed down the corridor.

“Yes, I know.”

“As soon as you tell him it’s hard to say what…”

“I already have told him Mister Blevins,” interrupted the old man.

Looking up at the Professor Jake replied, “No wonder Naku has been so irritable and down my throat lately, man.”

“Still you shouldn’t have brought that junk on board. If the military police found that during our inspection we would have been arrested and the ship impounded.”

“Not to worry man, I’ve got a great hiding spot. I just seal the vials in several plastic bags and place them in the water holding tanks.”

The professor raised his data pad up high and snapped, “You idiot what if one of those vials leaked!”

Blevins quickly raised up both of his arms to protect his head and shouted, “Na man, I secured them in a couple of bags, no worries man. It’s a great place to hide stuff because the military scanners can’t scan too deeply through water. That’s why water tanks used to double as radiation shielding on the older ships. Now days the Military require ships to drop their anti-radiation shields so they can be scanned.”

“For such a waster you profess to know a lot,” mumbled the professor as he lowered his data pad. “Come on Jake we’ve still got one more snow ball to check out, you better get to the lab and get setup.”

The professor grabbed his reluctant assistant who once again was gazing back down at his left foot. He pushed him towards the other end of the corridor and said, “I’ll join you once we have landed.”

A soft blue glow emanated from the ion drive at the rear of the research vessel. Pushing it silently along through deep space. The old crafts dull metallic skin reflected little of a distant yellow sun’s light.

The ship was made of two inner woven oval shaped hulls. In the main structure was the ships drive, fuel tanks and most of the ships vital systems. Merged into the front of its construction was a secondary hull which housed the ships cockpit, living quarters and the science lab. On the vessels belly was a number of landing and lift off thrusters and a large complicated instrument package. Scattered out along the entire structure of the ship was a number of smaller maneuvering thrusters. A slowly rotating radar dish was mounted on top of the ship. Attached to her nose was a rather large stationary sensor array. Above this, on her nose, in front of the ships cockpit was the ship’s name Lazy Sue and her call number. These markings could also be found towards the top of both sides of the ship.

The ships ion drive abruptly shut down just as a small white dot appeared in the distance. Gradually the dot grew larger and larger. The almost perfectly round ball was now very close. Several thrusters ignited for a few moments to place the ship into a low orbit around the white celestial body. Thrusters fired again briefly to orientate the ship so the belly of the ship faced the terrain of the white ball below.

Thrusters on top of the ship ignited and the ship dropped towards the surface of the celestial ball. After falling for a few minutes the thrusters on the ships belly lit up to slow the ships descent. On the bottom of the ship two large doors towards the rear of the ship and two smaller ones at the front opened to reveal three landing gear bays. Quickly the gear swung downward and out of their bays. Their attached landing pads rotated to orientate themselves so they would be level with the surface. A few hidden lights on the ships belly illuminated the landscape below as it slowly soft landed on the small world. The thrusters kicked up some the powdery white surface just before they shut off.

At the center of the ship was its rather small lab. The square shaped room had a large observation window on its far side. It curved into the room and pitched outwardly toward the top. On the belly of the ship in a recessed area you could see a large round platform full of scientific devices. These instruments will be used to explore the comet. Lit by the ships bright flood lights was the white frigid ground just a mere few meters below.

The room had just three consoles with seats. There was a large one just in front of the observation window and two smaller ones on the sides of the room.

Jake moved from one of the smaller consoles on the left side to the larger one and turned it on. He stared at its simple two-dimensional display screen.

The screen glowed and Jake said, “Any year now man! This slow computer takes over five seconds to boot up.”

Before he could finish talking the console was ready. Quickly he started typing away at the consoles keyboard and stared at the information on its screen.

The lab door popped open suddenly and squeaked on its rusty hinges.

“…he placed it inside the water tanks?” asked a now much cooler headed Itella as he and the Professor entered the lab.

“I’m afraid so. Still I’m glad they never searched the ship on our inspections.” The professor said shutting the lab door with another squeak and a thud.

After Itella and the Professor entered the lab Jake slowly turned around and looked up at them.

Taking one of the empty seats on the right side of the room Naku elaborated, “Most of the syndicates used to have a lot of older ships. That trick worked for a while until the tech was upgraded and we started using lower scanning frequencies. That was when we discovered just how they were smuggling in tons of that junk the addicts call eye candy.”

Wide eyed Jake exclaimed, “What, you mean they can see…”

Itella interrupted, “Relax, don’t freak out, even when we were scanned that little amount wouldn’t show up on their scanners, not at that distance anyway.”

With relief and a nervous twitch Jake turned back around to the console and returned to his work.

“So if they don’t ship it that way anymore how are they getting the drugs into the highly populated planet systems to sell?” asked the Professor standing behind Jake checking on his progress.

“We never figured that out Charles, that’s why some of us became scapegoats during the last Terron administration,” Naku said leaning back in the chair with a deep sigh, frowning.

Jake looked back at Naku and said, “Ah bummer man, so that’s what happened.”

“Afraid so,” Naku replied then looking at the old man he asked, “look Charles what do you need me in here for anyway?”

The Professor stepped back and grabbed the other chair. After sitting down he rubbed his eyes and said, “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but if we happen to find something this time I might be able to push for a new grant. I just thought if we did, it would be nice for us all to be here.”

“And if not we can cry on each others shoulder?” Naka snorted sarcastically.

“Look man,” Jake surprisingly replied. “We’ve been through a lot these last couple of years. Me and the Professor thought we should spend our last few days, you know… together as a team man.”

Slowly Naku began to smile. With satisfaction Charles returned it. Even Jake managed to produce a smile.

Standing up Charles said, “Well let’s get started Jake. Before we take any core samples lets use the laser and create a clean four centimeter hole six feet deep for the scanning probe. It might tell us right away if there’s anything down there!”

Naku stood up and joined the Professor behind Jake at the center console.

“Ok, start a new record in the computer core for the data,” said the old man smacking his lips looking at the console screen.

“Next log number is T173,” Jake said typing away at the console.

“Let’s see what this ice ball has to offer us then,” added the professor.

Recessed on the belly of the Lazy Sue was the ships research package. It looked like a round table with a thick top full of scientific instruments. It also had two mechanical arms and a large sensor array in the center. It slowly descended from is bay on a long thick shaft. It rotated until the laser was right in front of the lab window.

Naku walked away from the three-dimensional representation of it all on the screen to the lab window behind the console to see everything first hand. He quickly shut his eyes as the laser fired. A small hole in the icy ground smoldered as the instrument package rotated again. Once it stopped two mechanical arms were in front of the lab window.

One of them had a multi-fingered claw while the other had a metal tube on its end. After a few seconds the arm without a claw flexed and stretched out towards the surface. The pilot strained to see what the arm was going to do. The tube lined up over the fresh hole. Slowly a thin line dropped from the tube with a very small sensor on its end. If not for its slight glow Naku would not have been able to see it descend into the hole.

He watched it for a few moments as the sensor continued to be lowered deeper into the small hole.

“Hum,” said the professor looking at the data on the display screen, puzzled by it.

Turning away from the window to look at Charles Naku asked, “Well?”

“Now that’s weird man,” added Jake.

Naku walked away from the lab window and stood behind Jake, beside Lenov. He looked at the complicated lines of data on the console screen and tried to understand it all. “What is it?” he asked smiling with anticipation

“Oh,” said the old man once he realized that Naku didn’t understand the information being displayed on the screen. “In simple terms Naku it’s H20, water.”

“It’s a comet, so sure there’s water I…”

“Forgive me Naku,” Charles interrupted looking at the dark burly man. “You don’t understand. The funny thing is its just water, an almost 100 percent level of it in fact. There seems to be only a trace amount of carbon residue on the immediate surface.”

“How is that possible?” asked Naku. “I thought these things were like dirty snow balls?”

“That’s a crude way of putting it, but yes,” replied the old man as he bent over Jake’s shoulder and intensely gazed at the screen.

The data on the screen abruptly started to change. Both Charles and Jake let out a gasp.

“What the heck is that?” asked Naku while the Professor and his assistant stood there with their jaws dropped.

Finally the Professor said, “It’s synthetic, but I don’t recognize the atomic…”

At the same time both Jake and Naku shouted, “Its eye candy!”

Charles limped back and forth in his tiny office as Jake and Naku looked up at him from the only two chairs in the room. One was before a cluttered desk while the other was in the far corner between the door to the main corridor and the Professors bedroom.

The old man walked over to one of only two side windows on the ship and looked out on the frozen landscape and asked, “Ok, so why would an entire comet sized ball of frozen drugs…”

“Covered with a frozen layer of pure water,” added Jake.

“Right, covered with pure water wind up out here?” the old man finished while he turned around to look at the other two men.

“It makes perfect sense,” Naku said as he stood up and offered his seat to the Professor.

After Charles took his seat Naku explained, “After all these years we now know how the syndicate has been getting its drugs past the military and into the highly populated star systems like ours. I was wondering why the orbit of this comet was so strange. It’s perfect for any deep water salvage ships to pick it up inside the system past any inspection teams.”

“I see, so they have been doing this for how long man?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know, maybe for several years now.”

Jake suddenly stood up and offered Naku his seat.

Surprised Naku sat down with some hesitation.

“This is it man, our big chance.”

“What are you blabbering about?” asked the old man staring up at his assistant.

“Since we are all broke and have few prospects man, I have a suggestion...”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Naku interrupted.

“Man I happen to know a few guys that…”

“What are you suggesting, we become drug dealers?” snapped Lenov.

“Just long enough to make a pile of credits for us all, we could…”

“No way, I used to bust plenty of punks for that crap,” snarled Naku.

“I’ve seen to many young men like yourself succumb to those things. I don’t want to be a part of that,” growled the Professor.

Jake smiled and said, “It’s not much worse then the legal stuff they tax man.”

“What happens when the owners of this stuff come looking for it?” asked the Professor.

“Good point,” Naku added.

“Hey man, I’m sure comets disappear all the time. There are always impacts from other stuff knocking them around and off course. Besides man we just take a few centimeters off the top and cover it all back up with water. That little would never be noticed, but could make us all rich men. We…”

“No Jake I will not be a part of this!” interrupted the old man.

“Nor I,” added Naku.

“Oh, ok man I just thought since we are out of work…,” Jake paused to look at both of his colleagues.

He then turned to stare at Naku and said, “Sure I understand man you have your principles, who cares if the same authorities you were loyal too stripped you away from your life. You’ll always still have your principles even if you don’t have anything else.”

Quickly turning to the Professor Jake said, “And you will still have the University. Maybe they will scrap the Lazy Sue since you won’t be using her anymore. I’m sure someone else will eventually find what you’ve spent your entire life looking for.”

Both Naku and Charles stared at each other to consider what their burned out associate had said.

“Well?” asked Jake smiling at them both.