“Nope, we’re good. The air should clear in a few minutes,” Piper replied.
Once dressed, Virginia and Sam began to stow the samples, most going into a freezer already set to the same ambient temperature as the atmosphere outside.
“Everyone ready to head to the northern hemisphere? That Ligeia Mare is the one that’s supposed to be over a hundred-fifty meters deep,” said Benjamin. “Shall we go find Sam’s monolith?”
“Right behind you!” Piper radioed back.
The two jumpers rose, leveling off a kilometer above ground, then turned toward Titan’s north pole. Along the way, Lois was studying the results of the gravity survey recorded near the flight path as Sam and Joy were preparing meals.
When the mission arrived at the northern lake, the first thing they did was eat and discuss the results of the mission. Deep analysis of the collected samples would wait for their return to the hab, where several of the construction crew doubling as members of the colony’s research departments would assist in the lab work.
“You know, a few thousand liters of this hydrocarbon soup could revitalize polymer and plastics production back home. It’s like striking the biggest oil field in the solar system,” said Lois distractedly as she scanned preliminary test results.
“Are you saying that we should tap that?” Sam asked.
“Petroleum is used for a hell of a lot more than fuel. We’ve never had a source for it before now. But yes, it’s an issue to take up with the sciences and manufacturing departments,” Lois replied.
“And the council. When we get back to the hab, I’m thinking we store several thousand liters to bring back,” Benjamin added.
“As long as we’re sure there’s nothing dangerous lurking in the mix. That’s the first thing Ops is going to ask us, so we had better be damn sure that the worst of what this liquid has to offer is a bad smell,” cautioned Piper. “I’ll send Ops at the hab a message, if they decide to, they can forward it to the colony. If they agree, and we find nothing toxic, I’m going to recommend we have a tank built and installed in the whale so we can grab a few thousand liters to haul back to the colony. If it turns out it can’t be used, they can dump it into space or send the tank into the sun.”
Lois enlisted Joy and Benjamin to assist with her analysis, so that the chemical makeup of the lake’s fluid could be forwarded to Ops as soon as possible. In the other shuttle, Virginia was transcribing notes from Sam and Piper’s testing of the solids they collected for upload to the hab’s Ops team.
“According to data obtained by the Casini probe, this lake is supposed to be pure methane. It could definitely be used to manufacture a host of other organic compounds. I’m wondering should we start mining operations on Titan? It seems like there’s a lot of potential for chemical processing and manufacturing, but we definitely don’t need it for fuel, cooking, or heat,” Sam said.
When they finished eating, everyone took an hour to finish notes and relax. When they were ready, they decided that Piper would lead to the middle of the lake. The jumpers settled on top of the surface, which was completely flat; there were no ripples moving across the surface.
“Well, no time like the present,” Piper announced. “Navigational and landing lights on full.”
“Roger that. Ready when you are.”
Both crews were strapped into their seats, with the cabin lights extinguished for maximum visibility out of the forward portals.
As the jumpers sank, what little light available rapidly disappeared. There was a slight murky cast to the fluid as they descended, but other than small specks of granular particles, there was nothing to see.
“One hundred meters,” Piper announced.
No one spoke as the jumpers descended deeper toward the floor of the lake.
“Slowing descent. See anything, Ben?” she radioed.
“Dust and dirt. Nothing living—unless it’s microscopic,” he replied.
“I’ve taken a dozen samples on the way down. We can check them later,” Lois added.
“Hang on, I see bottom,” Piper announced.
“Slowing descent,” Benjamin reported.
“What the hell are those?” Sam exclaimed as a carpet of round objects was spread out on the lakebed came into view.
“Holding at three meters above the floor. I’m not squishing whatever they are,” Benjamin said.
“Hold here, I’m going to head away to see how far this extends,” said Piper.
“Roger that,” Benjamin replied.
“Joy, let’s get suited up. I want to get a few samples of those ball things. Ben can hover and you can hold my feet,” Lois said, getting ready to suit up.
“Piper, be advised that the girls are suiting up to get samples of these things. What say you?” radioed Benjamin.
“Tell them to hang on until we get back,” she replied.
“Roger that.”
The ladies got into their space suits, leaving their helmets off. Meanwhile, Benjamin was rotating the jumper in place, trying to see the lights of the other jumper but he couldn’t spot it.
“Hey, how far away are you from here?” Benjamin radioed.
“Over four kilometers. These little balls are all over the place. They vary in density, but they’re pretty regular,” reported Piper. “Sam’s been researching to see if anything like this has ever been observed on Earth, but he’s found nothing on Earth that even remotely resembles these things.”
“What’s the chance they’re some kind of life?” Benjamin quietly asked.
“Hard to say without analysis,” said Lois. “But I can’t think of anything nonorganic that could account for this kind of formation.”
“How soon before you return, Piper?” asked Joy.
“Heading back now,” she replied.
Benjamin got up to double check Joy and Lois’s suits and discuss the best way to capture not only the balls, but the underlying structure beneath the lake floor intact. They could barely wait for the other jumper to return.
“Okay, we’re hovering around back of your jumper. I’ve got our lights on the seabed floor right below your airlock door. You’re going to have to drop a little over a meter, Ben. I’ll call height,” Piper radioed.
“Be careful out there ladies,” Benjamin cautioned as he took the pilot’s chair. “Okay, Piper, call my height,” he said, switching to the fine control to incrementally lower the jumper.
“Okay, I’ll wait until you two are in position before I begin to lower the jumper. Please, be careful out there. If anything happens, or if you feel anything happening to your suits, close up and vent that stuff outside as fast as possible,” said Benjamin, with a trace of worry in his voice. “Keep a close eye on them, Piper.”
“Absolutely! All three of us are watching, Ben.”
Both women and their sample containers were inside the airlock. “Ready to go, Ben. Inner hatch is secured,” said Lois.
Benjamin triggered the airlock to fill, then when the pressure was equalized, he triggered the outer door.
“Okay, I can see them both clearly, Ben. Begin dropping,” said Piper.
“Easy, Ben. You’re a meter above the floor. Slow—slow, okay, hold it right here,” said Lois, leaning out the airlock door, with Joy holding tight to her legs, even with the safety straps buckled to the airlock wall. Lois took about twenty pictures all around several of the mysterious balls, then focused on a single ball, shooting as close as possible.
“It doesn’t really look anchored to the bottom. Piper, can you swing around about ninety degrees? I’m getting too much glare and I don’t want to use the flash yet.”
“How’s your suit? Any cold spots?” Benjamin asked.
“Not at all. But when you equalized the pressure in the airlock, I did feel a little squeeze,” she replied.
“Me too. Like the pressure divers feel I’m guessing,” Joy speculated.
“We’re a hundred eighty meters down. Let’s
not linger. I don’t want to press our luck,” Benjamin warned.
“Right,” said Joy, handing Lois a sample container.
“Okay, I’m going to see if I can roll one of them into this case. It doesn’t feel attached. It rolled free pretty easily. Got it,” she said, then handed the container to Joy.
“This next one is going to be a little tricky. I want to get a couple of these balls still in place in case they’re attached by some kind of micro filaments underneath. Hand me a small shovel or trowel, Joy.”
Lois dug around the perimeter of several of the balls with the trowel. Then she scooped everything up with a flat shovel. Joy carefully slid Lois into the airlock while she held the sample level. While Lois was laying on her stomach, Joy reached over and placed the flat lid of a sample container on the floor. Lois carefully slid the contents on the shovel on to the lid.
“Okay, lower the box over it. Good, now get the seals on the other side, I’ve got these,” Lois said, getting to her feet. “Piper, was there anything different away from here with the sea floor?”
“Not that we could see. I think whatever you have should be pretty representative of whatever this stuff is,” Piper replied.
“Good. Ben, please close the outer hatch and vent this stuff back outside. Wait, do we need any samples?” Lois asked.
“No, I’ve been gathering samples as we’ve gone along,” Sam replied.
“Ready to vent. Double check all sample seals,” Benjamin warned.
“Good to go,” said Joy.
The airlock quickly emptied, then ran through its decontamination cycle. When the inner door opened, Benjamin was waiting to help them out of their helmets and bring the sample containers inside.
“Put them all in the freezer. I don’t want to look at them until we get back to the hab. Joy, you going to shower? If so, go ahead, I want to take a close look at the images I shot. Piper, you still online?”
“Right here, Lois.”
“Thanks for the assist. I’ll send the pictures over as soon as I get them sorted out,” she promised.
“Can’t wait, Hon.”
Piper led them to the surface and into orbit, then they opened the intercom between jumpers.
“How many samples do you have over there?” Piper asked.
“Fifty-four. You?” asked Lois.
“We have eighty-one. How does everyone feel about returning to the hab, offloading and storing what we have so far?” Piper asked.
“That’s fine with me. I want to take an hour-long shower and sleep for a day. I think we should check with Ops about filling a tank with the fluid from the lake and bringing it back to the colony,” suggested Benjamin.
“Yeah, it would be nice to sleep somewhere other than a jumper,” added Sam.
“You hear that ladies? It appears the gentlemen don’t appreciate our company,” Virginia said.
“You’re right. And after Joy and I have been throwing ourselves at Ben the whole mission!”
“Damn shame if you ask me,” said Joy with a playful pout.
“Okay, we give. What do you ladies suggest?” Benjamin said in surrender.
“Good question. What do you all think, should we give the fellas a break?” Virginia asked.
“From a pragmatic point of view, I don’t want to waste travel time going back and forth. We still have some groundwork to do, especially those few mountains we spotted. There’s theories about Titan being geologically young, maybe because of an active core. We have seismic sensors to plant and three more of the mini weather stations. There’s plenty left to do in the mission plan, we’ll definitely finish up quicker if we don’t leave Titan until we’re done.” said Piper.
“That’s reasonable. I don’t know about anyone else, but I could use a warm meal and a good night’s rest. I must have been clenching all day. It’s not easy just sitting back and watching, hoping like hell nothing goes wrong,” Benjamin said, tiredly.
“I agree. Let’s call it a night but be ready to go bright and early in the morning,” Piper said, then broke the connection to join Virginia and Sam to eat.
God Bless The Child
The Chairman of the Joint Chief’s plan to capture one of the colonist’s spacecraft involved several branches of the military and fortuitous timing. Only the chairman knew all the pieces of the operation. This caution was designed to prevent anyone from stopping him, which included the Commander in Chief, a woman with no military experience, lacking the balls to get the job done, he thought.
General Archer had no respect for President Wilcox personally, even though he respected the Office of the President. But to take orders from her or to allow her to set military policy was beyond the pale as far as he was concerned. His attitude was no secret, but what he was planning was. And keeping his nose clean was his first priority, because there was no sense in getting canned for insubordination for something stupid before he could execute his plan. The first thing he had to do was get a launch scheduled from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
* * *
Aidan was surprised Valerie called on his mobile.
“Howdy, ma’am. To what do I owe this embarrassment of riches?”
“I have a question to ask. How long do you think it will take to put together a portable display unit that I can take around to do demos?” she asked.
“Wow! I’m not sure. Are you looking for further miniaturization, too?”
“That would definitely be helpful.”
Aidan thought about it for a few moments, “About the only thing I can think of would be to mount the laser arrays vertically and use mirrors or prisms to shoot the images out horizontally. Send me the tech drawings and I’ll get to work on a redesign as soon as I can,” he promised.
“Thanks, Aidan. It will be great to have you out here again. Thanks again for giving me a hand. I want to do something special when you come out again,” she promised.
“Not necessary, but I do appreciate the sentiment. You think Bob Nakamura can help? He was great on cross-integration of some of the components.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged. Let me know what your schedule is going to be, and I’ll check on his availability. Be sure to give my greetings to Constance. I’m way overdue on a return visit,” Valerie said.
“I sure will. Give me a day or two to figure things out, and then we can work on my coming out there.”
“Okay. Let me know,” she said, then disconnected.
She must have some very high-ticket clients she wants to do demos for who she can’t get to come to her studio, he thought.
* * *
“Okay, everybody on the other side of the yellow line,” Peanut warned as a red strobe began to blink.
Those assembled quickly moved into the safety zone as the deck chief energized the force shield around the observers. “The weapon is loaded with the standard metal projectile, and we managed to duplicate the exact speed that projectile would be traveling on Earth. At the other end of the hanger is a compressed steel plate one meter thick, and a meter behind it another plate, and behind that is a third plate of the same specs as the first one. Okay, everyone please put on your goggles and ear protectors,” directed Peanut.
Once the observers donned their protective gear, Peanut gave a countdown from five. When he reached zero, the railgun fired with searing light almost exploding from the muzzle, followed by an expanding cloud of superheated, burning air. The projectile was traveling too fast for the eye to follow, but the target at the other end of the hanger, erupted with a deafening explosion a microsecond after the muzzle flash. Even with the protective force shield, the sound was deafening.
When Peanut gave the all clear, the force shield was dropped. Christopher, Chuck, Bernice, Lucius and Sydney followed Peanut over to the steel plates.
“Don’t get too close, that is molten steel dripping to the floor,” Peanut warned.
“That projectile just about made it through the back of the thi
rd plate. How fuckin’ hard did it hit?” Chuck asked. “And what would it do to the shields we have installed on the jumpers and whales?”
Several technicians rolled the damaged steel plates away and replaced them with another set with a G-wave shield projector mounted at the base of the steel target assembly. When the target was properly positioned and anchored, Peanut led everyone back to the protected safety zone. When he turned on the safety shield, a power light lit on the shield generator mounted below the steel targets.
When the countdown reached zero the railgun fired again. This time the target broke free of the clamps holding it to the deck and tipped over, crashing to the deck.
Rocking gently on the curvature of the invisible shield, the steel target appeared intact. When Chuck reached the target, he shut down the shield generator and the target clanged as it fell to the floor. Three techs approached and hooked chains attached to what looked like an auto mechanic’s engine puller to stand the heavy target back up.
Christopher walked around the target, seeing no damage other than a slight dent where the target smashed into the wall, or perhaps when it tipped over, otherwise the target was unmarked.
“Before you ask, we calculated that six or more of those hitting at the same time would overwhelm standard shields,” Peanut said soberly. “A dozen will even tax the shields on the jumpers you equipped for Jupiter, Chuck.”
“Those assholes have a first strike weapon to use against us,” Christopher growled.
“Easy, Chris. You don’t know that for sure,” Sydney said, laying a hand on his arm, trying to head off a full-on angry fit.
“No one on Earth can stand up to this—this thing! This is for attacking the Earth station and our jumpers stationed there. Those projectiles hit like a freight train! They’re worse than nuclear ordinance,” said Christopher. “At least nukes we can outrun or dodge. Peanut, you any closer to figuring out how to detect these things when they’re fired?”
“Some sort of offset radar is the best bet. Or, hopefully the Genesis clone will be able to spot the orders to fire coming through the military network to give our people a heads up.”
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