Otherwise, if we are not prepared. Well..,” he ended. Leaving the possible scenarios open to their imagination
“That’s all well and good, Tommy. But that doesn’t give us much time to correct any error,” Paul cautioned. “We could end up missing the planet altogether, or even being dragged into the gravity field of the star itself.”
“Have faith, Paul,” Nick said trying to lighten the mood.
“Let’s hope the ship’s structural integrity is better than your attempt at a joke,” Paul retorted.
Traven just gave them an angry look, then turned to speak to Jeff.
“Have you got everything secured for zero gravity conditions in the hydroponics section, including the produce?”
“Yes, as well as it can be Captain. The food is anchored down. And, as well as having enough food to last us until we land, I’ve also got enough to last another six months, but only for the crew.”
“Okay. Nick and Steven? What about the cargo, is there anything at all that could get loose?”
“We’ve doubled checked everything, and lashed down anything we missed before,” Nick answered.
“We’ve also checked the major items again, including the earth movers, scout ships, seed banks, and pre-fab kits. Even the reactor beds. Everything appears to be safely stowed.”
“Well done both of you.”
“Captain, we should start killing gravity,” Tommy urged.
“As soon as we can,” he added, looking at Traven impatiently.
“I agree. We’re getting too close to the star for my liking,” Paul added.
“We all feel the same, Captain,” Henry added.
“Alright, let’s do it, and the sooner, the better.” Captain Traven agreed.
“So, Tony. Are you one hundred percent sure that the anchors will hold the stasis chambers when we decelerate, then land?”
“Yes. They’ll be safer than we will, Captain. And, even if some come loose, they’ve all got backup systems to protect them.”
“Excellent. What about the reactors, Joe..., Trisha…?”
“We’ve decided it’ll be easier to move number one reactor first. So we’ve swapped over to using number two, to allow number one to cool down,” Joe said.
“But we might need some extra help to move it, Captain.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. Anything else that we need to do?”
“No. We’ve already shut down the breeder reactor. It would be too risky to let it run any longer than necessary.” Trisha replied.
“Agreed. Right everyone; get your mag boots ready. We’ll start reducing gravity in one hour.”
“Don’t forget, we’ve still got to launch the two survey probes as we approach the planet.
It is vital that they send back the data on our selected landing area. When we’ve decided where that is, of course. Anything else?”
Everyone looked at each other and then shook their heads.
“One hour,” Captain Traven reminded them, as they all started to disperse.
“Tony, wait one minute, please.”
“Sure, Captain.”
Traven waited for everyone else to leave. Then, speaking quietly said,
“I want you to bring Captain Merance, and Alex Chapman, his nuclear engineer, out of stasis as soon as we’ve decelerated and rotated the ship back to planet approach mode.”
“Okay, and?”
“One other thing, Trisha wants to be placed in stasis.”
“I won't ask why. But I can’t do that until I bring the other two out of stasis.”
“She realises that.”
“Ah, now I see why you want Alex Chapmen activated. You need him to replace Trisha.”
“Yes Tony, spot on.”
“What about the rest of Merance’s crew, are you going to bring them out early?”
“No. We don’t have enough anti-inertia seats to be able to bring all of them out of stasis.”
“That makes sense, Captain. Anyway, they will be far safer staying in stasis until we are down… Then, we can just bring them out as and when we’re able to feed them.”
“My thoughts exactly Tony.”
Chapter 25
Gravity Down
Day 1
The roar of the manoeuvring jets vibrated throughout the ship as they struggled to slow down the spin of the habitation section.
They had to reach Zero gravity without anything happening that would cause the Acarea to veer off course.
Captain Traven felt a bit sick as Zero-G slowly returned to the ship. He had already ensured his boots were in magnetised mode and held his feet to the floor. So tightened his restraining strap to hold him firmly in his seat while he studied the systems data, and fuel consumption rate.
Then a pen started to float off his console. He quickly grabbed it and put the piece of magnetic tape on it, which he had forgotten to do earlier.
He looked around the room. There were just four crew members, including himself, in the control room. The rest were elsewhere, keeping an eye on their designated tasks to ensure the safe running of the ship.
“Nearly there, Captain,” Tommy, informed him, shouting it out loudly as if everyone was deaf.
“Good going, Tommy. But how much deviation do we have?”
“Just two degrees, Captain, easily controllable.”
Captain Traven looked at the elapsed time on his chronometer. Fourteen hours had passed and they still hadn’t been able to correct the slight course deviation that had been caused by stopping the spin.
“Tommy, how long before it’s fixed?”
“Twenty minutes, tops.”
Eighteen minutes later, the habitation section finally came to a halt.
“The habitation drum locks are on,” Tommy confirmed. “We’re at Zero-G.”
“Right. Are we set to flip?”
“Paul, Is it ok to flip?” Tommy called out.
“Affirmative. We’re spot on.”
“So, how much fuel have we used, Tommy?”
“A quarter of the main tank…”
“We’ll need a third of the remaining fuel in the main tank to flip the ship, Captain,” Henry added, having checked the fuel usage against the predicted consumption.
“Then, another third will be required to flip back again. That won’t leave much for course adjustments as we approach the planet.”
“OK. So, as soon as we’ve flipped back, pump every drop of Jeff’s reserve fuel into the main tank, Henry.”
“Will do, Captain.”
“Tommy. Give me the timeline for each manoeuvre.”
“Well, this is how we see it, Captain. It’s already taken virtually a day to stop the spin. We need a minimum of two more days to flip the ship and to correct any course deviation we’ve introduced.
Then, critically, we need to wait five full days before we start the nukes slowdown process.
After that, another two days to flip the Acarea back again, ready for the landing attempt.” Tommy said.
“Followed by about six to seven days of travelling, at a very low speed, before we reach the planet, and select the landing zone,” Paul added.
“Why can’t we just park in orbit?” Nick asked. “Then, pick the time to land, when it suits us.”
“We won’t have enough manoeuvrability for an orbit insertion with this mass so close to the planet, Nick.”
“And, I should’ve told you, we’ll only be able to make one attempt at landing,” Tommy added, correcting himself.
“You’re right. We can’t keep flipping this tub around. Our only hope is to make it down in one shot.” Paul interjected.
“That’s settled then,” Henry agreed.
“OK. It seems as if we’re all agreed,” Traven stated. “Right. All of our access points are locked open now so the habitation drum locks will remain on for the rest of the journey,” he stated.
“Tommy. We’ll start flipping the ship first thing tomorrow. That’ll give the manoeuvring Jets a rest, as well a
s us.” Traven finished and then tapped the ship’s comms button so he could tell the rest of the crew what was going to happen next.
“Right, men. We’re done until tomorrow morning at 9:00. Then we will start rotating the Acarea. This will entail a forty-hour burn time. Once we’re sure that the Acarea is safely turning, we’ll split our crew into two shifts, with each team working an eight-hour shift, then rotating with the other team
This will provide everyone with adequate time to eat and sleep. However, we don’t have enough fuel to enable gravity generation from here on.
That’s all for now, so, for the rest of the day, just relax,” he said, then switched the comms off.
“H’m, I don’t know about all of you. But, some food, rest and a freshening up all sounds good to me,” Traven remarked, suddenly feeling tired.
“Yeah, same here. It’s been a long day,” Henry agreed.
“I won’t be able to see much from here in the next few days, so I’m going up to the observation dome for a while,” Paul announced.
“Just watch that bony head of yours.”
“Amusing, Tommy. I know how to use mag boots. In fact, I’m pretty good in Zero-G,” Paul replied, then left, sliding his mag boots along the floor as he went.
The others slumped down in their seats and rested.
Day 2.
For the second time, the continuous roar of the small manoeuvring jets sent vibrations throughout the body of the ship.
This continued for another forty-one hours. Then the Jets stopped.
After a pause, they started firing short bursts. Until, finally, the Jets re-positioned the ship, swinging it around one hundred and eighty degrees. With the Pusher plate now facing in the direction of the Delta Pavonis star.
“We’re there, Captain,” Tommy finally announced, his voice sounding relieved.
“Paul?”
“My figures agree with Tommy’s.”
“Good. Henry, nothing amiss on your panel?”
“I’m running a thorough diagnostic scan, so I can’t say for sure at this point.”
“Ok.”
Traven turned the intercom on again to talk to some of the other crew members.
“Nick. How about the ship’s structural integrity and the other things you’re looking after?”
“Everything’s looking good, Captain.”
“Okay. Tony?”
“The stasis chambers are running correctly. Not that I would have expected anything else, Captain.”
“Joe. Any problems with the reactor?”
“No. That flip was child’s play compared to the slowing down.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more. Right, Jeff?”
“Same, Captain.”
“So everything seems to be as we hoped. So far. Right, once the checks have been completed, you can all amuse ourselves, until we are able to start slowing the ship down,” he finished, then turned off the comms system.
During the next five days, while the Acarea drifted on towards Delta Pavonis. The crew members took the opportunity to visit the tracker telescope in Observation Dome 3. The dome had been extended to its highest position, enabling everyone to view the Delta Pavonis star, and all its planets, over the top of the ship’s pusher plate.
Looking through the dome’s windows, they could all see Pavonis shining brightly and looking like a flaming yellowish-orange ball. The star was very close and seemed enormous to the men. They could also see some of its planets, looking like tiny specs in the far distance, as they moved across its face.
The fourth Planet was more readily identifiable. It was larger than the others were and was almost multi-coloured, with blue and yellow being the dominant colours.
Traven, together with Paul and Tommy, were on their second visit to the dome. They were watching the Star and its planets slowly swell in size as their Starship moved closer towards the intercept point with Planet 4.
“Our new home, Captain,” Tommy said, smiling as he looked at the slowly moving yellow-blue and dot-sized planet that would cross their path in eight days’ time.
“Yes. It looks beautiful from here,” Paul agreed. “Let’s hope our analyses of the planet are correct.”
“Agreed, but your 3D images certainly give us hope,” Traven commented.
“Once we’ve slowed down and flipped back again, it’ll be a glorious sight to be sure, Captain,” Tommy added.
“So, you’ve got a touch of the Blarney, after all, Tommy,” he replied, laughing as he did so.
“Seriously, I agree. It will be an incredible sight. By the way, Paul, I still don’t understand why you suddenly decided to reboot the tracking system?”
“I don’t, either. But I swear something told me to or rather, showed me, almost like a picture in the mind.”
Traven, at hearing this, was startled. Realising that, counting Trisha’s incidence when they had found the explosive device on the ship, now there were two of his crew who had seen pictures in their minds. Nevertheless, he said nothing.
“You’re talking rubbish Paul,” Tommy said, trying to joke about it.
“I’m not so sure,” Traven said as he thought about it. “Remember that blue object we saw going across the Pleiades cluster?”
“Yeah. That was strange, Captain.”
Then Paul spoke again. “At the time, I thought perhaps we were being shadowed.”
“Yes, we all thought the same thing. However, now that we definitely believe this Micky was from the future. What if some race is actually watching over us? If so, then, maybe it’s a superior race?” Traven put forward.
“What, with powers that we don’t as yet have, Captain?” Paul asked, with disbelief sounding in his voice.
“Absolutely. Why not, the universe is still expanding, so why shouldn’t there be older, and more advanced races?”
“Well, either way, let’s hope if someone is watching us, they’re friendly,” Tommy remarked.
“Tommy. If they were friendly. They would have let us carry on without prompting Paul to reboot.” Traven added
That’s assuming Paul is right about his vision.”
“Agreed. Anyway, I’m going to get something to eat. Traven said and left them to it.
Then pushed himself out through the Dome’s door, and into the connecting tube, before letting his mag boots hit the floor.
Day 5.
Traven had called a meeting, to discuss the landing area. Ordering all of his crew members to be present.
The meeting started promptly, with Paul standing in front of the control room’s large screen. With the screen displaying an image of the proposed landing area on the planet’s surface.
“This is the most likely location that I can find in the selected zone,” he said, pointing to a flat area that displayed in reasonable detail on the screen.
Then Tommy took over. “As soon as we’ve slowed down sufficiently. We’ll send out one of our two survey probes, and set it to fly along the landing route we hope to take.
Don’t forget, the probe will arrive at least a day ahead of us. So, it’ll give us a fly-through view of what we’re likely to expect before we make the landing ourselves.”
He looked around at the others, making sure they were listening to him.
“Once the probe’s finished transmitting its fly-through data to us, it’ll start mapping the right-hand side of the landing site, and keep going until its fuel runs out.”
“What about the other probe, Tommy?” Nick asked.
“We’ll send the other one on a mapping exercise, covering the surface to the left of the proposed landing site. This probe will also transmit a continuous feed until it also runs out of fuel.”
“So, we should then have a pretty good map of the local area in our memory core,” Captain Traven interjected. “And, this will also help us to decide where we need to construct the underground unit, long before we hit the ground.”
“Bad choice of words, Captain,” Jeff remarked.
�
�Maybe not, Jeff,” Tommy said, “Don’t forget that I’ll have to drop us harder than I’d like to, just because I need the pusher plate to dig in.”
“Yes, and if it works, that’ll be good. You’ll be using it as a natural brake, and not bouncing us all over the place,” Steven said, in agreement.
“Steven. You’re looking after the external rockets,” Captain Traven said. “So, are we going to be able to use them?”
“Both Nick and I have had a good look, and we’ve checked them as well as we can via the cameras on the rocket supports. We can’t see anything that will stop the rockets from working. That is, as long as the propellant heaters still operate, after we’ve slowed down.”
“Yeah. As the ship will actually be going through each nuclear detonation this time. The resultant fireballs and plasma stream will be coming up and over the edge of the Pusher plate. And, damn close to the main hull of the ship,” Nick added.
“Yes. But we’ll make it,” Trisha said, speaking for the first time at this meeting.
Everyone looked at her, then at Jeff, then at Captain Traven.
“Everything’s cool,” Jeff said.
“Let’s carry on,” Captain Traven urged.
“I think we’re about done, Captain,” Tommy added.
“Ok, so we’ll start the slow-down at ten o’clock, by your timings, Tommy. Yes?”
“Correct. All three of us have checked to see when we should start the detonation sequence, several times now. As you’ve already seen in our recommendations,” he replied, sounding slightly frustrated.
“OK, Tommy. I agree we should go for it.”
Captain Traven knew he would have to leave the exact timing to Tommy. After all, Tommy was the pilot, and probably the best pilot he had ever known.
Acarea. A Triumph or Disaster? (SpaceFed StarShips Series Book 5): A Novel by Gerry A. Saunders (SpaceFed StarShips Trilogy) Page 19