Chief Engineer Milligan Stone had the New Cydonia Terraforming Operations Center to himself, and he floated in micro-gee alone, looking down on New Cydonia from high orbit, waiting for the inevitable emergency to make his day complete. His entire cooperative had been out here for 18 months, 30 light-years from the core, hired by the local Aries colonists as "comet herders" to bring much-needed volatiles to their not-quite-Mars-like adopted homeworld. From day one, it had been apparent that the Planetary Conservation Society had infiltrated both the colony and Stone's co-op, and that they were determined to protect New Cydonia's non-existent "ecosystem" from the ravages of terraforming, even if the world in question was in fact a lifeless windswept rockball. Stone's day was simply not complete without one of PCS's lame attempts to sabotage his project. But the eco-freaks, it seemed, had all taken the day off.
Not that he'd mind, on this particular day, as the first of many comets was finally due to burn up in New Cydonia's atmosphere in 90 minutes, and all his people were frantically busy. Maybe the PCS had all realized it was too late to stop the impact and decided to pack it in for good...
...the alarm came from Orbital Traffic Control, not Security. Not a good thing -- very bad indeed. "Operations. Stone here."
"Chief, we've got a...situation here."
Stone's assistant chief, Riley, wandered in from a meeting, and Stone patched him into the loop.
"Go ahead, traffic."
"A shuttle from one of the low orbit habitats de-orbited twenty minutes ago."
Stone's 'very bad feeling' suddenly got much worse. Riley's coffee went down the wrong way.
"What the hell do they think they're doing? No landings today -- the surface is off-limits! They'll be dead inside of an hour."
"Our words exactly, Chief. It's the PCS -- they're landing in the impact zone, and they're demanding to have the event called off."
Riley snarled, "Oh, no problem, we'll just put that comet right back where we found it...."
"Put a sock in it, Riley, this is serious." Stone snapped, "Traffic, you tell those people they've got just enough time, if they launch NOW, to get out of there alive. It's too late to stop the impact and everyone knows it!"
"Copy that, Chief."
Stone waited tensely for the message to be relayed. OTC pinged him again shortly, and they sounded very nervous.
"Uh...Chief?"
"What?"
"They dumped all their fuel. They say they've got a full hundred 'people of conscience' stranded down there. And they're repeating their demand to stop the impact."
Riley was speechless for once. Stone wasn't.
"I wasn't bluffing, godammit! There's no way to stop it! And no time to evacuate those idiots, even if I wanted to! Riley, alert Security -- if anyone tries to rescue those people, they'll be fired for recklessly endangering company assets."
Traffic replied flatly "What do we tell those people down there, Chief?"
"Tell 'em they're all martyrs to their great and noble cause. Time to pass around the kool-aid. Stone out."
Milligan Stone removed his comm, and put his head in his hands. "Riley, I can't do this any more. It's against regs, but we both need a stiff drink, OK?" Riley nodded and drifted out the hatch for a liquid anasthetic. Stone put his comm back on. "Personnel? This is Milligan Stone. Effective immediately, I QUIT! Cash out my shares and book me on the next ship to anyplace. Out." Incoming call. "Legal? What took you so long? You can't fire me, I don't work here any more. Riley's in charge now, but he just went out for a drink...."
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