They Reign - 3
#3 of They Reign (TF Themes)
THEY REIGN - 3
Welcome to chapter 3! This scifi story has been sponsored by Aaron Blackpaw , who definitely found this to be an intriguing idea, for sure! I shall look forward to your feedback!
Have fun!
*
BIRNBAUMER 2 SYSTEM
FEBRUARY, 2280
"25 minutes until orbital insertion," Rina Morrow announced from her station on the front part of the bridge. Ahead of her were the virtual displays that showed the feeds from the external cameras. The planet was already relatively huge and filled most of the field of view with its green and blue disk, partially lit by the local yellow sun of the Birnbaumer 2 system.
"Itching to hit that button of yours that says 'GO', eh?" a ruff voice replied her quip.
Pilot Morrow's feline ears flicked dirtily in the direction of the bear whom had joined the rest of the _Anders Lexell_crew on the bridge. Chief Engineer Burnett occupied a position opposite to Charles Lester, whose main attention was on the sine waves bouncing on his displays.
"Are you part of the Skipper's conspiracy against me flying by paw?" the cheetah suggested.
"No, I just know what the maintenance book tells me about the stress levels in the plasma impellers depending on whether the computer is maneuvering or you are," the bear commented.
The cat flashed him her teeth now.
"And can you name a time when I actually did break your engines, Chief?" the pilot inquired.
"It's extra wear and tear on Rolls-Royce engines that cost 1.2 billion a piece to manufacture at the Moon," the bear replied.
"With plenty of operating hours and cycles to come, Chief," Captain Hodge cleared the air with his own booming voice.
"I'll be really gentle," Morrow purred, "and 23 minutes...give or take on when I will push 'Go'..."
The bear frowned.
"Mister Lester?" the lion decided to distract his bored and nervous crew by introducing a new topic. "Still got that signal coming in?"
The slightly less nauseous badger looked away from his hypnotic waves, and the lion whom sat nearby.
"The beacon is there alright," Lester replied, "still coming in on the standard frequency. Still no reply to our automatic hails, either."
"I suppose we can rule out their communications array as a whole by this time," Chief Burnett said. "We are well within the range of their auxiliary transceiver. And we're only light seconds away."
"Maybe a bad weatherfront got them," Lester proposed. "There's a lot of lightning going on the night side. Looks like proper storm activity on the northern hemisphere."
"And the south?" Hodge asked.
"Cloudy, but it doesn't look too bad," the badger replied. "I can't yet properly image the outpost visually because of the clouds but...I'm doing the other bandwidths now but it takes some time to clean it up and process all the layers."
"So could a hurricane have taken them out?" Morrow asked.
"What do you think, Chief?" the Captain questioned the engineer.
"A standard parabolic planetary dish could've knocked out, definitely," the bear mused, "the auxiliary comms...not sure. Those antennas are not as sensitive because they're more sturdy solid state units. Maybe they've just lost power."
"What about the outpost structure itself?" the Captain elaborated again.
"Those drop and go modules have anchors that deploy after you've put them down. They are pretty sturdy...they can take quite the beating. They can survive moderate earthquakes easy enough because they just ride on top of them. They're reinforced against radiation...lightweight honeycomb...they could spin around and land pretty much intact. Anyone inside might not enjoy the ride, though."
Those on the bridge envisioned a ride in a metal cylinder that clattered around and around in the spinning whirpool of a hurricane's funnel. The chief even conjured up a quip about the pilot's flying skills being comparable to such a journey, but bit it back, considering the gravity of the situation and the fact she was going to use her 'GO!' button to put several thousand tons of spaceship moving at a leisurely 1.6 kilometers per second onto geostationary orbit.
"At least the beacon still works," Lester commented, "but these standard beacons are designed to go through a lot, anyway."
"It's a device that goes beep tied to a small antenna and a nuclear battery, all stuck inside a barrel" Chief Burnett detailed. "You can drop it in from orbit and it'll keep going beep until the thermal couplings degrade below operational levels."
"So it could have been flung hundreds of clicks away and it's still going?" Morrow asked.
"Yes, but I doubt it," Burnett said.
"I'll try to get us a triangulation once we're in range," Lester said.
"20 minutes mark" the pilot noted after a look on her console at its urging for her to check some of the latest inertial guidance readings. "Time to start spinning the turbines, Chief!"
"They are ready," the bear shrugged. "Yates is keeping an eye on them down in the control room."
"So what _are_you doing here then?" the pilot inquired. "Just looking pretty?"
The bear wouldn't take the bait, even if it came in her honey-laced voice.
"I'm running secondary sensor data analysis and reading up on the outpost's structures and systems," the Chief retorted. "I am the on-line tech support for the rescue team, if you happen to remember."
"Hmmm..." she murred.
Captain Hodge tapped the control that activated the ship's PA system.
"Now hear this," he spoke, and his voice boomed in the bridge as well, "we've got...some 19 minutes until we start retrofiring. Secure all station and personnel. I repeat, secure all stations. Thank you. Bridge over."
*
At T minus zero, Morrow's paw tapped on the panel that activated the ship's thrusters. While the computer did the adjustments on thrust level automatically, the cheetah maintained manual control of the thrust vectors and the angle of attack which she felt she could do better than any autopilot in commercial use. The acceleration her maneuvers generated was barely perceived with the mass masking fields in place that protected the crew during the bonebreaking acceleration and deceleration cycles space travel required. A gentle thrumming noise could be heard, but that was simply the coolant pumps running at full power to keep the engines from melting themselves.
A minute passed. Then another. Morrow's paws moved quietly over her controls. The lights from her readouts flickered over her mildly smiling features. She smiled when she was concentrated on the job at paw. She smiled when she enjoyed herself. Flying and enjoyment were synonymous in her brain.
"Coming up to cut-off point at 45 seconds," Chief Burnett noted from his station, where he monitored the burn.
"Still haven't blown the engines..." Morrow snickered.
"Good thing you're only running them at 20 percent," the bear replied.
"I was told to be gentle, so I am," she said without looking away from her instruments. "Still right on the curve. And 6 percent below the fuel budget calculation the computer made before the burn."
She sounded pleased with herself.
"Angle is still good. 35 seconds," the Captain himself commented, being responsible for the overall navigation aspect of the orbital entry, "expected periapsis is within a degree. Point 8"
They had plunged to the night side of the planet, burning fuel behind it so that their speed would decrease to a point where the gravity of Birnbaumer 2 would be enough to grab a hold of them and they would be caught as the newest satellite orbiting the planet. Lacking in natural moons, it would be a particularly novel experience for the dark world below them.
"30 seconds," Morrow said. "Delta-v curve is good."
"I'm picking up some atmospheric resistance," Lester said. "Not much but, we're ionizing a bit. Not enough to destabilize the orbit any time soon."
"Good! Saves me a few grams of fuel," was the pilot's reply.
"20 seconds," the Captain added.
"Engines down to 15 percent.," Burnett said.
"Nice and gentle..." Morrow spoke to herself.
They slipped deeper into the dark shade of the planet. One could have imagined the trail of fire the ship produced from her engines, creating what looked a shooting star if there was anyone looking at it on the night side. Probably not, indeed. The outpost was on the day side, but the crew of the ship would not know if there would have anyone there to witness their arrival.
"And she scores!" the pilot clapped her paws together. "What's the verdict, Skipper?"
"I'm running the numbers now," the tiger replied.
"Impellers are down to idle power," announced the Chief, "everything is on the green. It'll take about thirty minutes to fully cool the coils down."
"Steady as she goes," said the Captain.
He snapped on the PA system again.
"Now hear this," Hodge rumbled, "we've attained orbit and we're wrapping things up here and will launch the probe in a few to see if anyone's home. Stand by for rescue launch. Bridge over and out."
*
The pyrotechnics used to release the recon buoy made flashes that the visual sensors under the belly of the Anders Lexell picked up and repeated on the display screens. A moment later, the probe's own thrusters fired.
"And here we go..." Hodge commented. His console continued most of the displays used for the remote control of the probe. The monitor nearby showed both the glow of the probe's engine as it moved away from the ship, and the probe's own visual feed which displayed the rapidly shrinking white hulk of the _Lexell_herself.
"Signal is clear on all telemetry channels," Lester noted. "Recording data."
"Check the flight plan, Morrow," Hodge told the pilot. She might've liked to flaunt her skills, but the Captain also knew that he could count on them.
A few taps gave her a duplicate of the tiger's screens. She transferred the data to the computer to do the actual math part, while she let her piloting instincts do the rest based on the information available.
"It looks pretty good," the cheetah said, "you may want to add maybe 30, 35 meters of delta-v to make sure you don't fall short. The aerobraking values good for the density and speed, and the computer seems to agree."
The Captain adjusted his flight plan accordingly.
"Thanks."
The separation between them began to grow more rapidly. The probe would arrive over to the outpost many minutes before they would themselves glide above it on their endless circle around the planet.
"Retrofiring now..."
The probe's thrusters fired and reduced its speed so much that its perpetual fall would become a ballistic curve, and cause it to enter the atmosphere.
Minutes ticked by before there was an alarm.
"G light," the Captain said, "still looking pretty good on the curve. Going on AUTO...now."
The tiger allowed the probe's own internal guidance to take over the direct flying routine. This way it would have what he considered the best chance to land as close to the target as possible, that being the outpost.
"Deploying the shield."
The probe's heat shield was a gas-inflated convex, round and much bigger than the actual solid spacecraft itself. The G-force indications on Captain Hodge's panel began to rise rapidly, when the probe sank deeper into the atmosphere and the friction grew.
"Comm's getting a bit patchy," Lester said. "May drop the signal for a while soon, especially since it's coming in through refraction."
"It knows what to do," Hodge assured the communications officer. "It'll home in on the beacon either way."
"Looks like it might even overshoot a little," Morrow commented after looking at a display on her console that showed the probe's projected aerial trajectory.
"The canards will deal with it," the Captain sounded confident.
The probe cut through super-heated air and left a trail of fire the_Lexell_'s sensors could read from far away. Someone like Hodge, whom knew his space history, might recall the ancient, grainy photos of entire rooms of engineers cheering when such an event took place, a probe hurtling through an atmosphere into unknown dangers below. His own crew found the probe's re-entry about as exciting as a cup of freshly made coffee.
"Looks like we just passed maximum dynamic pressure," Lester said.
"Canards are out," the Captain said. "Stabilizing..."
Unknown ears could hear the din of a sonic boom when the probe slowed down furthermore, still high above the treetops below, much beyond the lazy clouds.
"Heat shield ejection...now..."
This they could sense in a much more visceral manner than the other announcements. One of the forward screens had been tuned to display direct feed from the probe's camera, and now that the heat shield was gone, the camera was free to show the sea of clouds below. The sun was so brilliant above them that they squinted before the filters came on.
"Well look at that..." Morrow voiced her approval. "It's pretty down there."
The image wobbled briefly when a hatch on the top of the probe casing opened. A shapeless sprawl of plastic emerged before an internal gas bottle inflated the V-shaped wing that became almost rigid in the process. It caught air rushing below it and the whole probe shook before assuming equilibrium and continue on its merry way. No longer was its flight simply ballistic, but the addition of the wing turned the probe into a true aircraft.
"Glider mode is a GO...distance...28 clicks," the Captain read out, "and with plenty of speed to kill, too."
"Woohoo!" Morrow opined. "Told you it'd work with me on the wheel."
"It's going in on AUTO now," the Captain replied. "Any sign of them yet?"
Lester adjusted his instruments.
"It's a bit hazy but I'm definitely picking them up on their radar and laser. Will be in visual range in a bit once it's below the clouds."
"Any radio signals?" Burnett asked.
"The probe is repeating a standard hail, but it's not receiving any radio signals from the outpost at least as of yet," Lester said.
"The signal strength would be so high by now that it should be picked up by any functional radio gear over there," Burnett commented. "Their manifest includes hand sets and wearable gear, and something on their buggies as well."
"They got cars?" Morrow asked. "Sweet."
"Some sort of ATVs that should definitely pick up the signal if there's anyone listening," Burnett said.
"But could they answer?" Hodge asked.
"Once we're closer," Lester said, "then the probe can act as a relay."
The sea of clouds became darker and more solid, and then it was no more and the light levels dropped when the gliding probe passed through the layer and was then buffeted by rain. A crack of thunder passed the field of view of the probe, far away.
"Wow!" Morrow exclaimed.
"Welcome to Birnbaumer 2, where it rains...every day..." Hodge said, "Or so I read."
"Let's hope it won't fry the instruments," Lester grumbled.
"The casing is ceramic, it should be enough if anything comes too near," Burnett noted.
"Five clicks," the tiger noted. "I'd really like a proper visual by now..."
"Cycling through filters."
The image of the jungle below received a new reddish hue. Then blue, and a green that made the greens look yellow instead.
"There it is..."
The display showed a dark patch in the now yellow jungle ahead of the probe's path.
"Is that a positive?" asked Hodge. His eyes were too busy with the flight data to do more than take the occasional glance at the visual. The others were less constrained, and drank in the images of their mythical destination.
"It looks intact, at least from this angle," the Chief rumbled, "I can see the whole base. All the different modules look to be in place. The antenna cluster too."
"I'll try not to crash into anything," Hodge commented. "Coming in now."
The hazy image ahead of them became larger with their approach. With the probe's altitude dropping, the still considerable speed came more apparent, looking at the treetops rushing by.
"I can see the landing area," Hodge said.
"Are you still coming in on AUTO?" Morrow asked.
"Moooore...or less..."
"You're going to overshoot it!"
"Nnoooo..." the tiger pursed his lips, "just a bit..."
The probe had little thrust left, but combined with the angles of the gliding wing and a quick nose tilt, it made contact with the ground. The wing was released and flung away by a gust of wet wind, and the probe bounced a couple of times - to the excitement of the crew watching onboard the ship - before it finally skid to a halt, with the camera pointing somewhat lopsided at a squat gray building perhaps a hundred meters away. There was only a brief lapse before the image corrected itself for the position of the probe, and the image feed became perfectly level.
"Touchdown," Hodge commented mostly to himself, while he hurried to secure the probe's noxious fuel systems so as not to harm anyone who might approach it later on.
"And you didn't crash," Morrow winked.
"And I didn't break it either," Burnett said, "all system are GO."
"It's going to take a couple of minutes to cool down before I can pop the top and initiate the surface search mode," Lester noted.
"Good," Hodge said.
He tapped his comm panel.
"Bridge to Wong," he stated.
Down in the rescue room, where the team had followed the probe's descent with equal intensity, the rescue engineer's own comm piece chirped with the Captain's voice.
_"_Wong here," the horse replied.
"Tell me what we're looking at," the Captain said.
The horse studied the monitor in front of him carefully. Franklin's leonine presence hovered nearby.
"It's the lab, sir," the stallion said, "the probe came down facing it, I think. That's the lab. You can see the greenhouse behind it."
"The doors are closed," Franklin noted. He pointed at the spot on the static image on screen, the shiny metal of the twin doors. "And I can't see any lights on the windows or the outside..."
"Wonder if anyone's home..." said Wong.
"We'll find out soon enough," Franklin said.
*
On the surface of Birnbaumer 2, surrounded by the outpost, the small probe sat still on the end of a groove it had slashed onto the hard-packed soil it had landed upon. It looked quite dormant for the moment, but that was not to last. With puffs of coolant gas, panels on the top opened and two mechanic arms emerged. They reached for opposite angles before rising towards the rainy sky and locked themselves into place like the strange antennas of an oversized beetle.
A blue and red strobe light went off on the tip of one of the antennas, that was followed by a very deep, mournful screech of a horn. Brids were scattered in terror from nearby trees, as well as other critters who had been enjoying their afternoon before the landing, and had slowly begun to relax afterwards. Now the blazing horn broke their peace once more.
The blast of the horn lasted for six repeats, before the probe stopped its bellowing.
"NOW HEAR THIS, NOW HEAR THIS!" Captain Hodge's massively amplified voice filtered out of the loudspeakers upon the probe arm. "THIS IS THE SEARCH AND RESCUE VESSEL ANDERS LEXELL SPEAKING TO YOU FROM THE ORBIT! WE HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED TO ASSESS YOUR CONDITION! IF ANYONE HEARS THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, PLEASE APPROACH THIS PROBE! THERE IS A RADIO COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE VISIBLE ON THE PROBE YOU MAY USE TO SPEAK DIRECTLY TO US IN ORBIT! I REPEAT, IF YOU CAN HEAR THIS VOICE, PLEASE APPROACH THE PROBE!"
The horn began to blaze again.
*
The crew on the bridge of the rescue ship could not hear the alarm horn. The audio circuit had been automatically muted for the duration of it. They were quite busy, besides the Captain who had just finished speaking his message into his comm headset. He could command the probe to repeat it at intervals to try and rouse anyone who might hear it.
"Everything looks structurally sound as far as visual and laser can tell," Burnett commented. The bear was looking at a series of displays, upon which the surroundings of the probe slowly spun about while the sensors made a full 360-degree pass on the arm they were connected to. "Going to start echo probing next."
"The bio package is still running the assay but the air comes clean of hazardous gasses and radiation," Lester offered his own choice words, "air pressure and composition compares to the base values. It's 25 degrees Celsius and relatively humidity is 100%. Probably an average day down there."
"I'm glad I'm not going down," Morrow mused. "Sounds too damp for comfort."
"They're probably more used to it," Burnett said. "These modules come with a very efficient environmental control system, too. They're quite comfortable under all weather conditions."
"As long as they are monster-proof," the pilot hissed.
"I'm sure they'd be happy enough with just dry," the Captain replied. He could see on his monitor that the siren was going off again.
*
"Damn..." Franklin muttered, eyes on the display screen showing him what the probe saw. "Franklin to bridge."
He tapped his comm key at the same moment when he touched the controls of the console so that he could run a playback of the live feed.
"Hodge here."
_"_I'm looking at the wide angle visual at...210 degrees pan angle," the lion spoke into his comm, after checking the numbers on the overlay, "looks like the fence is broken."
"We'll look at it", came the Captain's reply.
Franklin zoomed in on the now frozen image. The picture quality remained excellent, to a degree that they could've counted each individual eye on the fence. Part of it was very obviously missing, though, with the edges broken into torn tatters.
"Well, damn," Lynch commented at the sight.
"Something's gone straight through," Franklin said.
"And from the inside out," Wong was quick to note, "the edges are curled outwards. Something smashed onto it from the inside."
Franklin tapped his comm open again.
"Do you see that, bridge? Looks like something went through the perimeter fence."
"We see that," the Captain replied. "Any ideas?"
Franklin look at his engineers. Lynch tapped her comm.
"Probably one of their vehicles," the mare said. "I think there's some track marks on the ground too."
"We'll try to find the ATVs," the Captain said on the intercom, "Burnett says they've got an inflatable garage."
_"_Gotcha."
"I'd say that you should start to prepare for launch," the Captain's voice returned, "I don't think we're going to be finding out what's going on unless you go down there and see what's happening."
"Roger that," Franklin rumbled.
He turned to face his crew.
"You heard it," he told the assembled staff, "we're GO for launch."
Some of them were stern. The others looked eager to get on with it.
"Gear up!" Franklin ordered. "Move it!"
*
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