The Black Pod

By Martin Wilsey

The Black Pod was designed to survive anything, even a direct strike from a nuclear bomb. It had to survive. It held the story of the demise of the Ventura. That was the Black Pod’s purpose. The hull was Polycarbon, and made of an indestructible fiber more than a meter thick. The internal power system was comprised of dual dark matter reactors, and would last 200 years without additional fuel. The internal inertial dampeners were so powerful, Chief Adams never felt the initial blast. There was no sense of the three axis spin that the Black Pod was in, as its orbit decayed. It housed the Ventura’s main data store and Central Artificial Intelligence SYstem, CAISY.

This is a Solstice 31 Saga short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Wilsey
• Release date: Sep 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311034724

Martin Wilsey

Martin Wilsey is a full time author, hunter, photographer, rabble rouser, father, friend, marksman, story teller, frightener of children, carnivore, engineer, fool, philosopher, cook and madman. He and his wife Brenda live in Virginia with their two cats.

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The Black Pod

By Martin Wilsey

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental.

The Black Pod

Copyright © 2015 by Martin Wilsey

All rights reserved, including rights to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Cover Art by Martin Wilsey

For more information:

Blog: http://wilseymc.blogspot.com/

Web: http://www.baytirus.com/

Email: [e-mail]

The Solstice 31 Saga:

Still Falling (2015)

The Broken Cage (2015)

Blood of the Scarecrow (2016)

Short Stories:

The Outer Ring (2015)

Kill Valerie Hume (2015)

The Black Pod (2015)

When it began… I was just a man.

--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: SecTech Chief Anthony Adams, Senior Security Technology Specialist on the Ventura.

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SecTech Chief Anthony Adams witnessed, more than experienced, the destruction of the Ventura and the death of the crew. He watched missile after missile detonate its nuclear payload and never felt so much as a vibration from inside the Black Pod.

The pod was designed to survive anything, even a direct strike from a nuclear bomb. It had to survive. It held the story of the demise of the Ventura. That was the Black Pod’s purpose. The hull was Polycarbon, and made of a fiber more than a meter thick. The internal power system was comprised of dual dark matter reactors, and would last 200 years without additional fuel. The internal inertial dampeners were so powerful, Adams never felt the initial blast. There was no sense of the three axis spin that the Black Pod was in, as its orbit decayed. It housed the Ventura’s main data store and Central Artificial Intelligence SYstem, CAISY.

The Chief’s eyes welled with tears as he watched via the external camera array, as the plasma cannons hammered the life pods and shuttles.

Box, I need a status, Adams said, the words catching in his throat. At his command, virtual computer screens opened all around the dome. He sat in the center, in the single, massive command chair. His fingers flashed across the huge curved control console.

"The Ventura has been struck with a total of eleven Javelin nuclear missiles,"