"How are you going to intercept that much mass at that rate, Zainal?" Kathy asked.
"I do have to allow for momentum, velocity plus mass, but it shouldn't be too high for the mesh to handle if it's standard Catteni issue. As for the KDM, the winches are built much heavier than that. Chuck, have you got the net in the cargo hold?"
"Gimme a few, Zainal," Chuck said, obviously puffing from phys-ical exertion. "Had to stuff it on a lift platform. Unhandy thing." "Steel mesh?"
"Yup, standard Catteni issue."
"That's what we need," Zainal said, feeling more confident about all this. Kris gave him a look, implying that he was doing what she called "showing off" but what he called "proving" his skill as a pilot. "It'll also discharge the static on the comm sat in space instead of in the cargo hold."
"Zainal, got it in place against the hatch. We're getting back to the lock. Ah, now, we're all safe. Ready when you are. The net's rigged to go."
"Grab hold, crew. I've got to go weightless." He snapped off the ship's gravity, then opened the hatch and watched while first a bulge of the net cleared the starboard side of the KDM, and then the rest followed, ballooning into space but still tethered to the vessel. "Park-ing" the KDM in front of the object he wished to capture, he "puffed" the thrusters just enough to catch the rectangular comm sat in the mesh. There was an almighty flash as the steel mesh encoun-tered the comm sat and discharged static.
Mpatane floated at a porthole, watching the mesh close around the satellite. Suddenly she was blinded by a burst of light, and she clenched her eyes shut.
"What was that? Looked almost like lightning," she exclaimed. "What you saw was the voltage potential on the satellite equaliz-ing. Visible here, too," Chuck explained. "Those things can build up quite a charge sitting there, what with all those solar storms and rela-tivistic electron flux bombarding them all the time. It's a good thing we didn't send someone out on EVA! That would have been nasty." Zainal grunted, as if dismissing the prospect of danger.
"Wow!" Kathy exclaimed, blinking against the sudden blue-white glare.
"Neat fireworks," Ferris said, awed.
Watching carefully on his starboard screens, Zainal saw the net tighten around its catch and slowly be reeled back to the ship. With a deft hand on his thrusters, he edged the ship so that the netted comm satellite entered the hatch.
"Mitford, make sure you get the satellite on the floor of the hold as closely as you can," Zainal said. "I don't want it smashing our deck plates when I turn the gravity back on."
"Will do. I'll need a minute or two. Got to repressurize the hold and whatnot."
"Take your time," Zainal replied, the model of Catteni patience. After a few minutes of silence, Chuck said, "Zainal, this thing's heavy as hell. Can you push the ship up so it will drift toward the floor?"
"Get clear, and make sure there's nothing between it and the cargo flooring."
After two quick puffs of the thrusters, a dull and satisfying thud echoed through the ship.
"We've got it now, Zainal, thanks," was Chuck's enthusiastic reply. "Wait one while we get it braced with something: Okay: good to go now"
"The KDM," Zainal murmured to Kathy, "is a workhorse but you can get it to do more than just haul stuff from one planet to another." "To be honest, Zai," Gino Marrucci said, and he'd already flown KDMs between Earth and Botany, "I didn't believe you could do that with this."
"Can we see what we snared?" Mpatane asked. "I've only seen pictures of the comm sats before they were launched. Never one on site, so to speak."
"Crew, gravity's coming on. Three, two, one." Zainal flicked the toggle to the "on" position. "Mitford, secure the hatch. Don't want that thing rolling out on us."
"Couldn't roll if it wanted to, Zainal. It's too heavy. And besides, it's square blocks stuck together, not a ball."
Those in the lock with Chuck were busy examining the catch be-fore Zainal, Gino, and Kathy Harvey arrived.
"Hey, it's a Boeing 601. We can mount just about anything on this baby. Some of the parts for these things are on that wish list," Mpatane said with respectful delight.
"Can we service it then?"
"If we had the parts, we could," Mpatane said, circling the unit, putting her fingers through the holes some target practice had made in the "ear" and sighing at the blatant vandalism. "I wonder how many more fell to some Catteni's notion of fun. Ooops, sorry, Zainal." "Not to worry, Mpatane. But it can be serviced?"
"If we can find the spare parts, sure. I don't notice any holes in the mission package or the control units, but you did keep a record of its orbit, didn't you, Zainal?"
"Yes, it's logged. So all we need to do is repair it and put it back in space."
"We'll have our work cut out for us," Mpatane said with a heavy sigh. "This one is one of many, you know. Do we get to do them all?" She cocked her head impudently at Zainal.
"As many as we have to to extend the working footprint needed to ensure worldwide communications. We'll need some sort of con-ference with someone down there to figure out how many satellites will be required to make a big enough footprint."
She exhaled over the enormity of the task.
"Well, it's a job," she said with such resignation that everyone chuckled in semi-agreement, semi-sympathy.
"Check the unit over, will you, Mpat, and see what else has been damaged. I'm hoping we can just unscrew, detach, and/or replace faulty parts."
"Plug in and go," Gino said, pushing a triumphant fist in the air.
"Now, crew, lash it down so when we enter Earth's atmosphere, it doesn't buck its way about the hatch," was Zainal's final remark as he turned to go back to the cockpit.
Part of the inbound journey was then occupied by a full exami-nation of the comm sat by the communications experts, with an em-phasis on how to replace damaged solar vanes and restore power to the damaged equipment. They kept a list of the deployment of those that they thought they could repair. If they had the spare parts.
"I never imagined we had so much orbiting the planet," Kris said that night in the mess hall as she served the assembled crew.
"Junk, a lot of it," Harvey said with understandable contempt. "Too far out to be burned up in the atmosphere:"
"Raining hot metal down on unsuspecting folk," Gail said. "It did happen, you know. Australia got quite irate over some instances."
"I thought Australia was sparsely populated outside of the major cities."
"There are people and sheep in the outback, as well as Abotigi-nals who didn't like their turf being pummeled by junk." "Expensive junk," Jax added, "still makes trouble."
Chuck came into the cockpit then with a sheet of notes in his hand. "Look, guys, in the category of 'once bitten, twice shy,' we ought to get contacted soon. Those NOR-AD boys in the Cheyenne mountains are sharp. Catteni couldn't even budge them."
"You mean, they have a space station backup?" Kris said.
"Of course we do," Kathy said, almost contemptuously. "First world community project, called Watch Dog, with sensors at about forty-two kilometers from Earth. No one is ever going to catch Earth unawares again. Only, does anyone know what to say?"
"Of course I do," Chuck said, clicking his tongue. "I arranged a code before I came back to Botany. That's why I had a radio put on board. It's all set up. They ought to make contact about now. We are forty-three thousand klicks from Earth's surface, ain't we?"