“On my way,” Narmer replied with a sigh as Ilka closed out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Narmer hand grabbed his way along the passageway towards the commons meeting area as Jegit floated up and hooked into the raised floor of the commons. There were only about thirty people attendance, Narmer had been expecting hundreds. Not that this small commons area could handle that many, it was almost shoulder to shoulder as it was.
“I’ll make this quick; you’ll be further briefed by your section heads after the meeting. To bring you up to date; at precisely ten chirps, midrise, four separate explosions occurred on the station. Nunet suffered catastrophic, non-survivable damage. The site of the detonations occurred roughly mid-span on the rim, between each spoke connection. The result of this was the cutting off the rim at the site of the explosions.”
“This, in turn, allowed each rim segment to flutter due to loss of circumferential tension of the rim. The station design relied on both centripetal tension on the spokes as well as the rim tension to hold the station together. And it did for almost twelve cycles. But as the segments continued to spin around the hub, the tensile strength of the spokes was exceeded. The rim segments essentially spun themselves off the hub.”
“We know that these explosions were not accidental. The air quality monitoring systems detected the use of very specialized explosives in all four cases. This was deliberate.”
“Some good news. The hub is still contained and viable for the short term. As fate would have it, our decision to evacuate the rim sections early saved a lot of people. There were some skeleton maintenance and damage response teams on the rim, and we lost those people.”
“The hub was saved by the automatic spoke hatch closures. They worked as designed. The hub has life support for about twenty chirps, one full rise. We could return now and evacuate the personnel there. However, there have been further developments on Kepteyn.”
“As of the scheduled midrise launches, only five shuttles were able to get off the planet. Of the remaining fifteen, five have been destroyed prior to launch. Ten shuttles are stuck due to various levels of civil unrest and combat in and around their respective launchports. As you know, most of these passengers are the Home Guard responsible for protecting those facilities. Various Vanguard elements are also on those shuttles. You can image their motivation to make it off world. Suffice to say the civilian carnage is high.”
“We are currently formulating a plan to receive this last wave of shuttles. The first of them will be in here in just under two chirps. We need to get the Kamlee in a position that makes it possible for her to take on these passengers. That was the original intention. How we get this done now is the new wrinkle. That is all I have at the moment. Break now to meet with your department and section heads. Let’s get this done.”
Narmer tried to get Jegit’s attention, but he was mobbed immediately. He urgently needed to speak with Jegit now. He had to find out what was happening. Keeping his eye on Jegit, Narmer worked his way through the involved and static crowd. As he got closer, he could start to pick out parts of the conversation.
A tall, very slight older man was talking in earnest “…it will take us too long to engineer a different solution. As it stands now, the hub is stable. We can move the Kamlee out of her parking orbit and have her dock with the hub. She can provide a small but consequential amount of stabilizing forces for the hub while shuttles are docking. We get the benefit of being able to offload and onboard the passengers and cargo simply by moving them from one end of the hub to the other.”
A younger, even more, earnest woman was trying to explain, “But the risk is too high. We cannot leave both sides of the cargo hatch airlock open at the same time while the transfer is occurring. There will be exceptionally high forces on the mating adapter. If it fails, we will lose the hub, the shuttle, and the carrier.”
The older man, “But if we do not have the airlock open, the automatic sensors will cause the doors to shut due to the extra forces, well short of failure. The monitoring systems won’t let us open and close the airlock with any additional forces on the mating adapter. We have no choice but to leave it open.”
“We could set up a sensor message routing to prevent messages that will report a force parameter being exceeded,” Narmer offered. “During the time that we need to have both sides of the airlock opened, we could prevent the monitoring systems from trying to keep the airlock closed. This would allow us to control the airlock operation manually.”
Jegit and the other two people turned to stare at Narmer. “The monitoring systems are specifically designed not to let that happen. It is inherent in the security of the station,” replied the woman, “that routing would not be allowed.”
“That is true,” Narmer agreed, “but there is no message routing occurring right now on the hub. As you know, the brains of the station are slowing moving away from us as we speak. We could have Heeta provide the necessary processing.”
Jegit looked at Narmer, “How do you know all of this? You’ve only been aboard for a couple of chirps.”
“It seems that my wasted youth wasn’t so wasted. I’ve been collecting sensor data for many cycles in my rem and hatmet population studies. I had to come up with alot of workarounds for old and failing equipment. This seems very similar.”
“Counting rem…” Jegit said, shaking his head, “Alright, we will move you over to the Kamlee, and you can handle it better from there.”
“Not really,” Narmer interrupted, “the Nunet controllers are here. They were evacuated with us. I can work on the overview of the routing, but they already have the system knowledge.”
“He’s correct, technically,” said the woman, “and I still don’t agree with the overall solution. Too dangerous. But I don’t have an alternative.”
The older man, “I would have to agree with Citizen Nor-Ven, it will work better from here.”
“I am Marda Nor-Ven,” the young woman introduced herself, “and this is Citizen Raf Ael-Trul. I’m the department head of engineering on Heeta. He is one of the department heads of engineering on Prominence. On this ship, I’m in charge of engineering, but I’ll be working for Raf on Prominence.”
“Yes, there will be fewer disagreements once we are on our journey,” Raf said, with a tight smile.
Narmer was pretty sure that that would not be the case. He couldn’t help but notice Marda. Almost his height, slender, light hair, and she obviously spent time outside soaking up the rays of Ria. Her skin was darker than most Kepteyn’s normally would allow.
His p-tab pinged, and he saw that he had a new message. Thumbing it open, he noticed it was from Ilka. “Meet me back in the comms section; I’ll task you with your new duties.”
“Seems that I’m wanted back in my section,” Narmer informed the group, “nice meeting you all.”
He turned and started hand grabbing back down the passageway. Jegit watched him go and then thumbed on his p-tab. He selected a contact and opened a vidcon. “There is something I’d like to discuss with you.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As he worked his way back to the comms section, Narmer checked on his last ping to Deides. She hadn’t opened it yet. “Probably busy,” he said to himself.
He floated into the comms section and headed towards Ilka’s station.
“Seems like you’ve been busy,” she said as she got up from her work and hooked a foot. Ilka stood up to her full height, about even with Narmer’s shoulder. She was lithe, with black eyes, and black hair, cut very close to her head. Her blue, sleeveless ship suit showed her traditional Ancients arm tattoos. Narmer could imagine the full origin story tattoo on her back that some religious people carried. The suit also revealed the trained body of one that was a practitioner amdu, the Ancients study of the melding of mind, body, and spirit.
“I was merely pointing out something obvious,” he replied.
“Well, now it’s ‘obvious’ that you’ve got work to do. It is critical that the shuttles get off-loa
ded to the Kamlee. The Heeta and Kamlee are integral parts of Prominence and Vanguard, respectively. The seed ships look like very large versions of the Heeta and the Kamlee. They could hold five-twenties of the carrier ships. They are built on the same hexagonal cylinder model, with spin gravity while in cruise mode. The carriers dock with the thrust end of the seed ships, seamlessly becoming part of each ship. They will act as the backup bridge and control center while en route. They also provide short-range mobility and cargo transfer to the seed ships as needed on our journey.”
Narmer blanched at this, “I’m not sure that I can be responsible for this. If I messed up counting rem, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m more of an idea person.”
“Every person reaches a defining moment in their life. You seemed to have come to yours. What you do with yours will have an effect on all of us. Some aspire to these challenges; others evade them. Regardless of what you were, now you need to be the one to meet and conquer this challenge. Both inside and outside of you. You are not alone, the Nunet controllers are on their way and will be stationed here with you. I’ll provide operational control, but you are the brains of this mission.”
“Take a few twentynauks to put your ideas in order. We meet in a quarter-chirp, the first shuttles will be arriving one chirp later.”
***
“Narmer has laid out the architecture of the message inputs, routing, categories, and priorities,” Ilka said after Narmer’s presentation to the group, “Nunet has been decapitated and is blind, deaf, and dumb. We will be the eyes and ears and the brains of the hub during all phases of this mission. This team will save the people and cargo of the arriving shuttles.”
“As a final review of this mission:
Phase 1, docking the Kamlee to the hub.
Phase 2, hub attitude control via Kamlee stabilization systems.
Phase 3, shuttle docking and cargo transfer to Kamlee.
Phase 4, Kamlee separation from the hub.”
“If anything, and I mean anything appears out of the selected parameters, get that messaging prioritized and delivered to Narmer. He’ll be directing the workarounds. We have to do this right the first time; we probably won’t get a second chance. Get plugged in. The ship will stay in approach mode through the mission. We will be in a zero-gravities environment for the rest of the ria, at least. Make sure you are prepared for it.”
“I’m not sure about any of this,” Narmer whispered to Ilka as the group broke up and headed to their sections, “you could see on their faces that they don’t think I can to do it.”
“They don’t know you; they are used to working together to keep Nunet working perfectly all those past cycles. You are asking them to perform a job that the onboard systems used to do. They understand the concepts, but putting this all into practice is the question. We have people working as logic devices. We don’t have the time to reprogram any other systems to do this, so you and your team will perform these vital functions.”
“Don’t let this get ahead of you, concentrate on each task as it presents itself. Your design is good; now we have to execute it.”
Performing the hand pull that he learned on the shuttle, Narmer was returning to his section. He had added using his feet to assist his motion. Now he felt like he was getting the hang of moving around the ship in weightlessness.
As he approached his section, his feelings of apprehension began to rise. Then his p-tab pinged, it was a vidcon from Deides. Pausing just outside of his section, he hooked his feet in one of the handholds that covered the ‘ceiling’ of the passageway. It was still odd to be hanging upside down relative to the ‘floor.’ But it was truly only the floor when the ship was spinning to provide a simulation of gravity.
She must have finally gotten to my ping; he thought as he thumbed open the vid con.
“Sweetness, don’t tikt this up,” she said without smiling, “we have a long way to go, and it is a sorry start. Meet up with me later and tell me your tales of how you saved us. If we survive this.”
“Thanks, I guess,” he replied as Deides closed the connection. Narmer made his way to his section.
The ship alarms went off to signify that a course change would begin soon. This was to get Heeta in position relative to the Nunet hub. The ship would then be able to be close and to maneuver as needed to support the Kamlee. Everything and everyone needed to be strapped in.
Narmer got to his station and strapped in just as he felt the ship move.
***
“Controllers, this is Heeta Command, status check,” said Ilka as she started the mission.
“Docking control?” she inquired.
“Ready”
Attitude Control?”
“Ready”
“Environment Control?”
“Ready”
“Logistics Control?”
Ready”
Kamlee Control?”
“Ready”
“Nunet Control?”
“Ready,” Narmer replied to the message stream, still feeling unworthy of the task, and now the name.
The team had decided to keep the name of the station for this mission to honor all that she had been and also all those that were lost when she was destroyed. Now he was feeling the weight of his responsibility even more. Something that he was genuinely not used to.
Ilka opened the message streams, and the controllers plugged in and immersed themselves in their relative streams.
“Heeta Command to Kamlee Control, execute docking approach,” Ilka directed.
“Kamlee Control, affirmative, executing docking approach.”
“Docking Control, affirmative, approach is within parameters.”
Strapped into his seat at his station, Narmer was watching the approach on the vid screens as well as watching the message streams in his head. The simultaneous and various inputs were becoming second nature to him by now. A vid screen was showing the Kamlee approach to the cargo docking hatch on the hub. It was a feed from the Kamlee herself. Now the sensor message data began streaming to him from the Nunet hub. He was able to match up both the views of the docking approach and the sensor data streams to provide instant feedback on the operation. Everything was working as designed.
“Kamlee Control to Docking Control, you are cleared for capture.”
The Kamlee slid up to the to the massive cargo hatch, aligning her hatch on one of the flat sides of her hexagonal hull.
“Docking Control affirmative, initiating capture.”
“Docking Control to Kamlee Control, capture complete.”
“Nunet Control to Docking Control, open outer airlock hatch.”
“Docking Control affirmative, opening outer airlock hatch.”
“Nunet Control to Attitude Control, initiate attitude systems control transfer from Kamlee Control.”
“Attitude Control affirmative, we have systems control. We can drive the station.”
“Nunet Control to Attitude Control, put us in station keeping mode.”
“Attitude Control affirmative, Kamlee stabilizers firing, we are in station keeping mode.”
“Docking Control to Nunet Control, mating adapter stress levels are climbing, still within normal parameters.
“Nunet Control affirmative.”
Narmer relaxed his breathing; the first two phases were completed. The Kamlee was providing positioning control of the hub, stabilizing it and preventing tumbling or spinning. Now all they had to do was wait for the shuttles to start to arrive. The first five that had launched on schedule would begin to arrive within the next half-chirp. He had seen the data stream that tallied only seven of the remaining ten that were able to launch successfully; the other three were destroyed as they were being loaded. What was happening down on the planet was incomprehensible to him. But he had to maintain his concentration; there was a long way to go yet.
Sensor message data streams on Nunet where beginning to show a slow degradation of performance as had been anticipated. Not everything was worki
ng at peak efficiency, mainly due to the loss of the embedded systems and tuned operations when the station was destroyed. But the Nunet controllers had been able to give Narmer parameters that he could work with and that he was now monitoring. The controllers were responsible for keeping the various systems within these new precarious boundaries, while Narmer would provide any emergency backup and temporary fixes to keep it all working. The hub could not survive for too much longer like this, but it had to last long enough to accomplish the mission.
Message data relative to approaching shuttles began to show up in the data streams.
“Docking Control to Nunet Control, three shuttles are requesting to dock.”
“Nunet Control affirmative, three are cleared for docking,” Narmer confirmed.
The hub could accommodate five shuttles simultaneously, but the team had decided that to keep the stress on the cargo dock within safe parameters, they would limit the number of docked shuttles to three.
For almost a complete chirp, he watched each shuttle perform the docking approach, capture, hatch openings, and offloading. All the sensor message data showed that the sensors were indicating acceptable levels.
“Docking Control to Nunet Control, all shuttles offloaded, cargo is staged in the hub, ready for onboarding to Kamlee.”
“Nunet Control, affirmative, initiate shuttle departure.”
“Docking Control, affirmative, initiating shuttle departure.”
As part of the station keeping requirements, the shuttles were going to be released, unmanned, and remotely directed to return to their launch sites on Kepteyn. This was to provide the remaining Citizens some technology to assist them during the End Times. As things were going on the planet now, Narmer didn’t have much hope that they would be put to any real use. But at least there was a chance.
Pilgrim One: Prominence (Project Pilgrim Book 1) Page 9