by Boris Mosso
—Many other substances; they could be hydrocarbon oceans, for example. Something impossible in this planet in any case, specifically because of its surface temperatures; it’s way too hot for this.
Even in thousands of years of spatial exploration, our ancestors have found planets that are so hot, that have cast iron oceans with tides and all. And others with polymetallic oceans with many metals’ mixtures and layers, thousands of meters deep. Gold, silver, copper; even light metals which evaporate, falling on the planet like rain. All that surrounded by saturated atmospheres, into gaseous mercury.
Trivian felt a chill down his back upon hearing Renar’s descriptions. For a moment, he remembered navigating over an ocean like that, with Tronius and Orben Drak, several decades ago.
—I see.
Lena took the floor again immediately.
—We’ll prepare the probes to send them to those other worlds further on. We’ll visit the fourth planet previously. We’ll investigate that detected geometric defect’s origin. Well, that’s the general plan and we’re literally going to perform it.
Just then, Renar took the floor again:
—Excuse me, Captain, but following your original plan, there are still areas we can’t leave behind in our path towards the center of this system.
—Tell me which ones…
—I’m referring to the gaseous planets’ rocky moons. This civilization’s archeological remains could be found there. Remember that these mysterious beings, spread out to that solar systems’ end, just as the capsule’s archaic files indicate; who might have been able to colonize them. It wouldn’t be convenient to leave them behind without verifying it. Let’s consider that some of those moons are more than four thousand kilometers across; they’re real planetoids.
—It’s true, Mister Renar. Captain Fromdert, you’ll oversee the outer worlds. Send your robotics to the four-gaseous giants’ satellites, orbiting in the system’s exterior area. Begin with these blue world moons; the eight planet.
—Won’t we be going with you to the fourth planet?
—We can’t delve into the system leaving real options from finding traces of this lost civilization behind our backs.
—The other gaseous giants are very far away from here.
—Right, in practice, two of them are found on the other side of the sun, seen from our current position taken there by its orbits.
—Captain, my original orders issued from Espacia’s mission commands, are to escort the main spaceship. They’re direct orders from the Systemic Council. It ultimately turns out to separate just now.
—Captain Fromdert, you do exactly as I say; we don’t have time for all of us to explore together; we’ve already had enough delays. Remember that the Systemic Council is very impatient waiting for our return, we can’t go back with empty hands.
—Very well, I’m sending Krone with some hunting spaceship’s squads. I hope you don’t miss us afterwards.
The old Captain’s disappointment could be seen in his holographic image, not only in his words. Lena felt like sending him back to Espacia, but she controlled herself once more. The Officers and scientists remained attentive to her answer, by which she decided to give the ornery Officer a professionalism lesson:
—Very well, Captain, you’ll maintain a cruising speed moving into the system´s center, while I explore these areas with your hunters. Pranus, do we have a path and coordinates for the quantum leaps?
—We’re verifying the object’s paths running through the asteroids´ belt´s inner area, and the number and dispersion´s gauging from these objects also. We found some planetoids of more than five hundred kilometers in the belt´s inner area. We’ll launch the first advance probe in twenty minutes.
—Very well. Captain Fromdert, once you explore the outer planets, you’ll join us. That will be according to what we esteem, in two or three more days. It’s all for now.
The officers stood up, withdrawing from the bridge without commenting anything amongst them. The small scientists’ group stayed watching the data flowing extensively from the holographics, appearing indifferent to the bitter moments lived some minutes ago.
Officer Drexiliander stopped, looking lost in outer space, to the opposite side of the bluish planet which could be seen more detailed at plain sight each time. Then he moved to the transparent platform to appreciate the surrounding space to its fullest. Lena frowned and moved towards him, when his face was almost touching the alloy.
—Everything okay, Drex?
—I don’t know… there’s something.
—What do you mean? Where?
—Outside, there’s something else out there, Captain… at a distance, in the darkness.
—Something like what? I don’t see anything, and the sensors remain active in permanent alert.
—I know, excuse me, it´s…
—It´s okay, prepare your spaceships, we’ll finally have some action. Once we arrive to the planetary microsystem´s vicinity, I’ll send you in an explorer, you´ll coordinate the maneuvers from there. We won’t take the RMOD´s transporters, so then you will go down to the first OTF´s task force on land.
—At your command.
The thin and lanky pilot turned and disappeared in a few seconds through the main hallway. Lena followed him with her gaze. Then when she turned back to look at the space again, she also felt a slight sting when scanning the darkness, whereby she decided to take some preventive measures.
—Pranus, reaching the planetary quadrant, coordinate approximation maneuvers and map out a second rank stationary orbit.
—Right.
—Oh, tell Captain Fromdert that I’ll talk to him before splitting, I’ll meet him in my berth.
—I’ll let him know right now.
Lena looked for Renar with her gaze on the bridge, finding him sitting by the oval table and in front of his holographics. He adjusted the gaseous planets’ orbits in search of rocky satellites. She watched, a little irritated, that Blesten approached him and although without speaking, she remained very close to him. With no further action, she left to her rooms in a levitator.
Two minutes afterwards she entered her rooms and sat in a comfortable couch. A droid waited for her with a glass of Frambas juice, she grabbed it and drank it almost all at once. Then she activated the communication’s holographics.
Fromdert appeared immediately.
Greetings, Captain Lena.
—Captain Fromdert, we’re about to perform the close-range quantum leap maneuver, and I require the following from you. Upon separating, you’ll deploy half of your robotics: one hundred and fifty.
—Do you have any predecessor who I don’t handle? I’m asking, as we haven’t detected any danger or latent threat from this spaceship.
—You should trust me, we don’t detect anything either. You’ll activate the defensive shields once Kroner has left and you’ll assemble the supernova torpedoes and the one hundred megatons thermonuclear, for an upcoming combat. You’ll also activate all your spaceships’ defensive weapons.
—Are you sure? There’s nothing threatening nor suspicious in the navigators. It could be a cause of unnecessary stress for the crew, due to how delicate…
—Captain Fromdert, I don’t have time for this. It’s an order; proceed the way I just asked you to. We’ll communicate with each other in a limited way, after getting specific news; If everything goes well, we’ll meet in a few days in the red planet’s vicinities, if we don’t find anything there, we’ll continue to the third planet exactly how the Professor and Mister Renar suggested. I´ll inform you if this is the case. If your hunters are the ones that discover something, interrupt the quantum silence and let us know on the spot. See you later.
—Greetings.
She couldn’t avoid smiling after cutting off the communication. No matter how much he resisted her opinions and criteria, Captain Fromdert would obey the orders to the very detail. Even if he felt nauseous, he would do it, he was from the old school.
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2 - Koner’s Squad
After an hour passed, Drexiliander couldn’t get rid of the overwhelming feeling that overcame him in the bridge, at the end of the other Officers and scientists’ meeting. He watched the outer space now somewhat anxious, through the broad side port’s transparent screens, very close to the main hangars.
He waited impatiently for the takeoff and Koner’s force deployment out of the Vector’s escort, which was located at five hundred meters from the main spaceship.
He contacted his friend by intercom when noticing the sister ship’s deployment latch’s opening.
—Koner, can you hear me?
—Yes, Drex, perfectly.
—Who are you with?
—With Tradia and Dertian.
—I have a weird feeling… be careful.
—Don’t worry. I’m always alert.
—May the forefathers go with you.
—Same to you, Drex.
Drexiliander wasn’t really a very mystical Espacian and didn’t have much faith in the forefather’s protection, despite that, he pleaded fervently for his colleague.
Renar entered in the big room then, followed by Professor Trivian and Doctor Zenda, escorted at the same time by Dantori. They had both become inseparable when Dantori wasn’t in the simulators performing individual or group drills with the other STF’s, or was hidden somewhere in the spaceship with Elenda, along with the linguist at the diners or in the bridge. Sometimes they could be seen taking long strolls on foot throughout the spaceship, amidst endless conversations.
The newcomers approached the pilot’s leader promptly. They were anxious before the unavoidable departure of the three squads commanded by Kroner. When Drexiliander saw them, he didn’t show his discouragement when greeting them with a subtle head movement.
—Officer Drex, your colleagues have a lot of work.
—Why is that, Professor Trivian?
—There are many moons; more than one hundred sixty in the gaseous giants, and the count continues.
Zenda, who watched amazed the sister spaceship’s one hundred fifty robotics’ takeoff maneuver, broke her silence while approaching Drexiliander. He observed her a few seconds before answering, since he still couldn’t belief that the beautiful ancient tongues’ expert, was sixty-five years old like he was told. When looking at Professor Trivian with his more than four hundred years old, he stopped marveling and concentrated on the question.
—Drex, what is the deal with these robotic spaceships? Are they controlled from the Vector?
—Not exactly Doctor Zenda. Each squad composed of fifty hunters, is commanded by a fleet’s flight Officer. A war pilot in one of the spaceships, who is like the robotic ones. Those spaceships are called hybrids, as they also function robotically.
—The Officer in charge controls fifty devices from his spaceship?
—No, Doctor, that would be impossible. The hunters, to put it somehow, know what they must do and possess resolution skills. They organize and adapt to each setting in a very brief time; the mission is imputed, and it’s done.
—Then why do they include a squad biological leader?
—The biological presence factor, like you say, intends to complete the existent potential gaps in the practice. He has direct mission controls and corrects the maneuvers in real time. For example, general maneuvers or lastly, the battles, can be developed in a range of a couple of light minutes or more, spatial time. Also, a recognition mission will be developed within several light hours, since it involves going through the entire solar system, crossing behind the main star to the other side, where two of the gaseous planets we must explore, orbit now; in other words, its rocky moons. Whereby Koner will be at some seven light hours from here, behind the sun.
It might be, and indeed is, that a decision should be made for the squad or part of it, with few seconds leeway; outside the resolution realm from the robotic spaceship’s programs. It would be impossible to take that decision in time from the mother spaceship’s bridge or from a destroyer like this Vector. The signal travels at light speed and takes minutes, in these cases, to get there and return, or hours.
—But we’ll all communicate through thousands of years then in real time, using an application derived subsequently from the same technology from quantum spatial leaps. That’s public knowledge.
—It’s true, Doctor Zenda, quantum communication. In fact, we developed a military communication technology in real time between two distant spots, in thousands of light years, however, a potential enemy can always have another technology to override ours or intercept it; without going any further, the Browns have it. That would leave us without our robotics’ control in real time. It could mean a complete battle disaster, if we didn’t have the Spacial squad’s lead pilots watching everything is in order each second.
—I see, Officer Drex. Then real-time communication is not safe?
—Right, Doctor. We’ve already seen it during battles between them and our allies.
When things don’t turn out so easy for the Browns, they open the powerful dark energy core in some of their bigger spaceships, which we erroneously called gamma cores at the beginning of this war, sacrificing these spaceships to free a huge amount of energy. Following that strategy, they have destroyed the unified fleet’s communication systems, massively and irreversibly. Ever since before the war, these combat procedures were prepared for a similar contingency; reason why and in all event, the squads are commanded by a flight Officer since ancient times.
Dantori stepped forward and intervened to conclude the explanation to the linguist.
—The same thing happens with the RMOD’s, Doctor. The battle squads are composed by fifty units, where a standard terrestrial force soldier goes wearing a combat armor. Concerning special forces, like us STF’s, it happens the same way.
—I understand now. Thanks for your patience, Officer Drex, you’ve cleared up all my doubts.
—It’s a pleasure, Doctor. I’m at your disposal.
Renar, was quiet listening to Officer Drexiliander’s explanations. He already knew all that and therefore, his mind side-stepped for a moment.
The hunting spaceship’s formation taking off from the Vector’s escort, brought Lestar to his mind. He felt disheartened upon theorizing about the fate that his only brother would have had at this point, at more than a month from the Vintar Constellation fleet’s leap. His parents’ faces appeared in his sight likewise, and he was forced to hide an appearing sad and dismayed grimace.
—Do you believe we’ll find Commander Terilian in this system, Mister Renar?
—A melancholic Renar was able to understand Drexiliander’s question, looking at the Professor for a minute before answering. Only him, Trivian and his agents, knew that such expedition never took off, being only another designed misinformation cover up, and achieved by the Spacian’s Foreign Intelligence Office, with the purpose of misleading the invader’s espionage structure. Trivian already felt seriously guilty for hiding something like that from Lena, but Director Umbaga had been very persuasive about it and, it was already evident that Renar would also comply with the almighty director’s orders.
—I wouldn’t know, Officer Drex. This solar system complies with the requirements to be System X by over seventy percent; they’re good figures. At least we have a chance to find this lost civilization’s home and maybe the object. About Commander Terilian? I don’t know, that’s something I couldn’t tell you…
The last robotics’ spaceship’s squad ended up taking off from the sister spaceship and in few seconds, the one hundred and fifty spaceships disappeared into the depths.
3 - The Geometrical Defect
After a couple of approach leaps in a little more than fifty minutes of silence and fast journey, the Vector burst into the planetary micro-system’s influence area, hosting the fourth planet and its two moons.
They positioned at one side of the smallest and furthest rocky satellite, the one which orbited at more than tw
enty thousand kilometers from the planetary surface.
Pranus watched the maneuver’s performance with utmost attention.
He was somewhat uneasy after witnessing the tense conversation in the recent meeting. He didn’t like Fromdert’s tone used with Lena, and he sensed that other Officers will begin to disagree also to whether the search was taking too long, just as it was settled in the uncomfortable and worrisome conversation held with Estrader and Lesir, a couple of weeks ago.
For the time being and at plain sight, the smallest satellite’s surface looked grey and with many different size craters. Some higher terrain could be also detected, suggesting smooth hills. The readings delivered hundreds of figures per second; measurements, temperatures, surface components, but nothing about the geometrical defects previously perceived.
An alarm was activated unexpectedly, and the hologram switched satellites dramatically.
The crew looked stunned at each other for a few minutes, including Elenda, who entered the levitator just then.
Without previous notice, the tracking systems and the spaceship’s observatory, diverted from its goal, leaving the distant moon’s scanner, and monitoring the second moon, automatically, the biggest and closest to the red planet. This rocky moon orbited at tremendous speed and did it at barely six thousand kilometers from the world, whose surface at plain sight, looked dramatically and massively ripped by huge canyons and craters.
Pranus, conscious of his orders, changed its course and the Vector approached it.
—Andra… take us to the nearby moon, at a speed of nine hundred thousand kilometers per hour.
—Right.
The Vector, boosted by the gravitational differentiation of the now nearby rocky planet, positioned itself at some three kilometers from the small moon. The movement between both satellites had taken them thirty seconds only.
They still couldn’t understand what was happening when the sensors aimed to a specific place on the surface.
Pranus, incredulous, approached to look almost on top of the tridimensional image.