So following very closely the controllers directions, we had eased into our berth at the Transfer Center where there were already twelve fully loaded cargo barges waiting for us plus fifteen tired engineers and workers waiting to go back to Baclet. We offloaded our passengers still in their crew quarters and picked up the new passengers who effectively had been quarantined for two weeks just by the process of their transport from the surface and their wait for us. There had been the usual regulations and checks before taking the new folks on and leaving the folks we had just brought. Everything from vaccines and diplomatic security needs had to be fulfilled precisely. In these closed mining societies and communities, it wouldn’t do any good to anyone to bring in folks with illness. The facilities on the ground would not be stellar. The ride to the surface itself might take between ten and twenty five days cooped up in a pod with other crew members, slowly descending along a cable from hundreds of miles out in space. A person who got sick could be seriously dead before he or she could get to real treatment.
So as their vessel had just reached the critical point of slingshotting around Tsatvik, there was an awful thump and a bright flash. The alarms had gone off and they saw Tsatvik cartwheeling as they glanced out the window. Actually they were the ones cartwheeling as the blast separated them from the cargo pods. The pods obviously went one direction and they the other. Unfortunately for them, it shot them right at the moon of Tsatvik and all they could do once they tried unsuccessfully to blast their way with their maneuvering jets back into space and their AI warned them of low propellant, was to quickly get their passengers out of their module into the command module and jettison it. Then they dialed in a course for a gentle enough and survivable trajectory to enter Tsatvik’s atmosphere while sending out emergency signals. The problem was that their command module and for that matter the crew quarter module were not expected to go down to nor come up from the surface of moons or planets. They were designed and built in space for transport purposes from one space station to another and only had limited propellant for maneuvering thrusters and those thrusters were very weak. They were not designed to be powerful enough to kick the craft back into space when faced with such a strong push like that explosive kick they had gotten. They were built with enough heat shielding yes, to come in through the atmosphere of a planet in an emergency and survive with enough rations but not for long. So on the way down when the inevitability of their situation hit, was when he had used his telepathy to get to Jongi. He was hoping that if there were to be a group coming to the surface they would be prepared for the wild beasts out there and could somehow manage to get to them before their oxygen fully ran out. Living on a prayer he thought ruefully as he tried to keep calm and use minimal oxygen. He realized it was not particularly helpful to be replaying these things over and over in his mind, but he couldn’t help himself. They have been down here almost twenty hours now and they were all exhausted mentally and physically plus injured and hurting.
6. LOCATING THE CRASH
On our way back we would try to locate the barges which it is suspected might be either hidden by some newfangled cloaking device or just parked out in space in an unexpected location waiting for the right time, possibly years from now to sell the loot to some unsuspecting buyer. There would always be a demand for valuable materials like that. Big factory complexes exists in space away from gravity of planet surfaces to build spaceplanes and large city like complexes like the MCOS that we just came from. Super large and powerful three dimensional printers painstakingly produced the myriad of parts after mixing the proper proportion of metals and ceramics in large vats. Our star produced prodigious amounts of energy and radiation just waiting to be harvested with no atmosphere to attenuate it. So with large robots juiced up with AI, all that energy available and 3D printers to boot, production could be brisk. Most of these materials mined off those moons like Trat were bound for off planet manufacturing. It took lots of investment capital but the profit was bountiful. Lots of people on the surface grew wealthy from these space based mining and manufacturing businesses.
As we slowed down on a track to Tsatvik which is the third moon of Threeme where we believed the heist took place, our sensors were blazing at full. We had opened the pack of clothes sent by Jongi of Mischa’s belongings and had touched and smelt it. There was a photo of him and his family too. We were trying to develop a closeness to him. Jongi had warned us that he may, if still alive be using his telepathy only occasionally to guard his energy. He may be injured for that matter or worse. Our vidcoms were fully charged now off the shipboard power and we had rested our minds and bodies for about two hours. We were the first vessel to arrive as with our high speed we had gotten there before the two that Baclet had dispatched. In fact Captain Ronald told us that he had had a brief communication with those vessels. Interestingly none of us had picked up the cargo pods or any other vessels They were days away still. We on the other hand needed to slow way down in order to make a few turns around Tsatvik and get established in orbit since it’s gravity was fairly weak.
Tsatvik was quite large for a moon, almost planetoid size really and it boasted a thick atmosphere but its low oxygen and high carbon dioxide would not allow humans to free breathe for more than five breaths at a time before needing to huff on pure oxygen. Protective suits were a must too to prevent slow boiling away of one’s fluids. Then again you could survive for five minutes unprotected by pressure suits. Lots of live plants and animals had adapted to live there though and the more delicate ones lived underground. There was significant water, again mostly underground and often frozen. We were ready to suit up and board two mini spaceplanes to get down there if we could find a suitable target. We had carefully outfitted two of the mini spaceplanes with additional gear including two hibernation chambers each in case we met severely injured men down there. Those were ideal field survival tools to support life in suspended animation mode similar to the pods used by us in our immersion. The mini spaceplanes also were equipped with some blaster cannons which could be very useful in extermination of large numbers of predators. We needed to keep our psychic energy and weapons for more precise targeted attacks. First we might have to send a drone though.
We were now in high orbit slowing to get down closer to the surface. The AI projection suggested we look along a certain tract over the surface based on the expected route that Mischa filed to fly and how it might have tracked over the planet surface. Six got together in the conference room and while Captain Ronald and two of his Defnet assistants sat together on a separate couch, we took two couches for ourselves, three sitting on each. We sat silently and having warned our Captain and his colleagues not to interrupt, began to synchronize our minds. We pulled into our minds all that we knew of Mischa and even his scent and called out to him. “Jongi sent us, we are here in orbit above you,” we projected. “ Under attack, six miles north of tallest mountain just north of equator, so many of them bring cannons, all of us injured one dead. Weak we are weak, need air, low on air,” Mischa responded promptly. We were overjoyed to hear him still alive.
Cherese broke out of the group session to tell Captain Ronald of the location and the numbers of injured and dead and to plot a course for the spaceplane to go as low as feasible so as to allow the mini spaceplanes to make it back up to rendezvous with enough fuel reserve since we would be carrying so many of the stranded party. Unfortunately we had already passed the safe entry point for descending to their location on this pass so we would have to do one more partial orbit but since we were still lowering our orbit at high speed the next opportunity really would be coming up quickly.
We ran to the mini spaceplanes and boarded, waiting for the main spaceplane to lock in a visual of the crash site. There would not be time to send a drone to check things out first. The folks down there were in too dire of a strait to delay this much. We reviewed the descent profile carefully.
A short de-orbit initial burn to slow down, then a further dramatic but short burn with ou
r tail end facing the planet then the fiery entrance through the atmosphere heat shields facing forward, thirty miles above the surface, first a drogue parachute deployment then large parachute, then jettisoning of those at one half mile above the surface as side jets deploy, burning hydrogen to make a fully controlled landing on deployed legs horizontally within feet of the wreck as quickly as possible guided by our AI programs and if needed manually. Coming back up will involve firing up the jets for lift off vertically, then at a few hundred feet transitioning to a more steep angled climb then to the big rockets in the tail for an almost vertical climb using onboard hydrogen and oxygen to get into orbit. Then recovery to the main spaceplane Celeste waiting up ahead. That was the plan in a nutshell.
Mader, Cherese and Matt would go in the first mini spaceplane and Dillion, Jessi and I would come in right after. Bingo, Captain Ronald had gotten a hot target in a little narrow valley. Coordinates were locked into their computers and the navigation AI made their calculations and these were manually checked on board the spaceplane and the mini spaceplanes. The timing had to be precise to use the least amount of fuel possible as it was all about saving fuel for the ride back up. ‘Thump’ as we separated, ‘thrusters active’ came the callout from the AI piloting us. Our porthole and video feed showed the first mini spaceplane already like a glowing streak in the atmosphere below us. We felt the tug of gravity and the glowing plasma encased us. Our video feed stopped as the cameras had to be hooded behind heat shields. Buffeting growing more intense then calm, floating and our canopies were out- deployed. A great way to save fuel. We were hanging on to our hydrogen and oxygen stores. Far below us we saw our colleagues jettison their canopy and knew they were using their steerable rockets to make a soft landing. We caught a fleeting glimpse of a wreck which had to be the burnt up crew quarters module. There’d be no recovering what was left of that likely, since it was so pulverized. Dillion was on the controls in case our AI needed help and we were all monitoring the phases of transition and the speeds plus looking at the video feed to make sure that we landed real close but not on top of either the wrecked command module or the other mini spaceplane. ‘Touch down’ came in over the speakers accompanied by a slight bump with our legs fully deployed. The hot noisy jets had sent most of the vishes and vinbeests scurrying. A few may have been fried by the heat too. Both mini spaceplanes had pulled up perfectly on either side of the command module on a slight incline but in no danger of us rolling downhill or disturbing the stability of the awful looking command module. My my, they looked like the definition of a hard landing! There was no surface of their command module that looked normal. It was like a huge dented pockmarked tin can.
7. THE RESCUE
We grabbed our cannon, blasters, donned our rebreathers plus extra tanks of oxygen which we had prepared prior with each tank being attached to three masks. Using the video feed we located the remaining wild animals and as planned all of Six concentrated our power on drawing out their energy. There were about forty which had not run off very far and we drained them. Most of them flopped over lifeless or very nearly so. We opened our hatches quickly and eased out, closing them behind us. Slowly walking over to the command module, we again concentrated and woke up Mischa from his half asleep situation. ‘Open open the hatches, we have oxygen ready for everyone.’ We saw a hatch opening slowly on the side of Mader’s craft and so we had to walk around the nose of the command module to get to it. Mader, Cherese and Matt were already inside strapping oxygen to everyone’s faces and we did the same too. We then closed the door behind us. Finally we gave an infusion of energy that we had taken from the life forms out there into everyone. People were waking up from the fresh oxygen and the ‘energy shot’.
The interior was in shambles and the emergency evacuation protocols called for removal of as many of the electronic computer trays as possible and the crew of the command module were able got started on that with our help. Six in the meantime was also busy checking limbs that needed splinting. Mader, Cherese, Jessi and I concentrated on helping pump healing energy into their crew and passengers alike to speed up their recovery from pain and bruises. Dillion stayed at his outpost keeping an eye out for approaching vishes and their smaller cousins the zinbeests. We figured though that they would start on their severely weakened or dead brethren who were scattered about before coming back to the stricken command module. That proved to be the case. We carried the dead engineer passenger out in a body bag and put him in the cooler on Mader’s mini spaceplane. The stricken crew member with the spinal injury was very gingerly moved to Mader’s as well and into the hibernator. Then the rest of the crew and engineers were as evenly as possible distributed among both mini spaceplanes. All easily salvageable computer data storage systems were stowed in our mini spaceplane. Limited power was sent to two beacons for easy location of the wreck from space. They were programmed to beep once every five minutes. If the Trat Mining conglomerate decided that salvage was deemed appropriate they could send for it. We took photos from every angle inside and outside uploaded those to the orbiting Celeste. Then we closed the sad looking command module and once everyone was back onboard, began the before takeoff checklists. Thank goodness with clean fresh filtered oxygen our rescued personnel were in great spirits though still suffering some anxiety. That was completely understandable. They were facing death by asphyxiation inside or outside their module and or being eaten by vishes and zinbeests.
Mader’s mini spaceplane fired up after its thirty minute warm up and checkout. We watched as it gently lifted off, slowly oozing further north and away from the big mountain. Then it’s skids tucked into the fuselage and it’s nose tilted up and it was gone on a pillar of fire. Ten minutes later with all indicators green, we too eased away from that Tsatvik valley and tilted upward through the only slightly turbulent atmosphere. We had had the very good fortune of having bland Tsatvik weather so there was no hindrance to our plans coming or going. The main spaceplane Celeste was in orbit above us and would adjust as needed to rendezvous with us. It took us eighteen minutes to get to the orbital height of the main spaceplane and then we still had a few hours for us to actually draw close enough to visually spot it, after they had snagged Mader’s mini spaceplane. Shortly thereafter we found ourselves directly off their right flank and with minimal thrusters we eased inside their cavernous bay where their mating arms clamped us down stern and bow. We were back! There was a celebration of sorts from the rescued, coming up on twenty six hours after their crisis started. After the bay was declared safe and pressurized, we opened the hatch and our bedraggled band of rescued filed out all headed for the infirmary and a warm meal. The main spaceplane crew who were assigned to help with that chore, came for the electronic parts and computer guts that we had carried up to start securing them for the forensic teams to pore over. All weapons were carefully inspected and double checked for safety. An accidental firing of a blaster or worse a cannon on the spaceplane could result in a catastrophic disaster. Our whole loading dock would depressurize killing everyone here but safety doors would protect the other modules, giving others on the spaceplane time to get into rescue rebreathers and pressurize themselves individually.
8. LOCATING THE HIJACKERS
For Six it was time to strategize. It seemed imperative to start looking for the missing cargo as we trekked back toward Baclet but we also didn’t want to delay getting the injured there for the best treatment too. So we would do both. In the meantime, it was necessary to scan all of the rescued to ensure that none of them deliberately or inadvertently helped the criminals who created this issue. Then Six would start testing their long distance space skills to try to locate the missing cargo and whoever might have spirited it away.
So we walked into the sick bay where virtually all of the rescued had gone. We greeted everyone ostensibly checking on their health and one by one read their thoughts. They were a bunch of concerned folks who all were just grateful to be in a huge vessel with lots of room and not scrunched up in a
tiny vessel for weeks on end as they have been. They were also thrilled to not be slowly suffocating from low oxygen and high carbon dioxide with vicious animals working hard to get in to feast on them. Concerns for their family was a big portion of their mind traffic. A few were worried about the valuable cargo that had been lost. None were hiding any nefarious thoughts that we could tell. So we felt that they were a clean bunch who had nothing to do with aiding or abetting the hijack. The Captain Mischa was similarly just grateful to be alive and well too.
Invisible Hijackers Page 4