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AD 2506 Term 3
Mission Briefing: Investigate Star System JUC-5262 for suitability for colonization. Prepare survey results, make formal recommendation.
Ship: JSS Extrapolator, Corvette Class, Hyperdrive mkII
Pilot: Pia Reed
Ground: Virgil Grokovsky
Sensors: Argan Brooks
Specialist: [vacant]
Previously: All hands on deck: a mostly new crew venture into a new system, hoping for a more conventional survey. What could possibly go wrong…
In This Episode: After another survey is interrupted in an unexpected way, the Extrapolator has to make a quick exit.
INDEX | Mission 1 | <(Mission 8) Previous | Next (Mission 10)>
Emergency
Argan was starting to think the war wasn’t going so well for the Jovian Union, so he returned to the Extrapolator with a heavy heart. His own home system, Tyn’s Star, had been ‘liberated’ by Theyst. His family had sent word for him that they were safe, but his trust in the Union was shaken. He’d taken for granted that Theyst was in some far reach of innerspace, so it came as a shock to realize they were already knocking on the door of the JU—that they were already knocking on his door. He wondered what would happen if the Union lost…would he be considered an agent of the enemy for being in the Surveyor Corps? He hoped there was some time yet to negotiate before the new maps were truly final.
He was grateful to be interrupted by the ship shuddering as it dislodged the drone shuttle from its belly and Virgil headed to the surface of yet another world. Pia stomped past Sensors on the way back to her station. Argan caught her eye, and she stopped. “Anything on the sensors?”
“The gas giant in this system is humming at a surprising frequency, but that’s not exactly earth shattering. How’s Virgil?”
“Mouthy as usual. The man doesn’t know when to stop joking.”
“Maybe he does.” Argan said, surprising himself with the observation. Pia didn’t say anything, but furrowed her brow.
“Anyway after the last mission I wonder if Theyst is moving away from blocking the Jovian Union and moving…in.”
“Yeah, I heard about Tyn’s Star—how are you holding up?”
“I’ll be glad to go home. They managed to get a message out in time to say they were okay but it’s not real until you get there.”
Pia nodded again, her brow betraying her deep thought.
“Better go check in with Virgil. Come on to observation whenever you’ve got sensors under control.”
Argan nodded, listened to the clang clang of Pia’s footsteps down the causeway, looked at the screen brimming with sensors data. He perceived none of these things—he was thinking of home.
Virgil was bad at the art of reporting in. Pia paced up and down the causeway, clattering loudly and muttering to herself. Then she would look at her watch, grab the radio, and say “Ground, this is Extrapolator. Come in ground. What’s your status?”
And Argan was amazed that Virgil had something new to say every time.
“Extrapolator, this is ground. Status is Single and ready to mingle. You? Over.”
After the third affront, Pia exasperatedly sat down in Navigation and found the bodycam feed. Argan had relocated to observation, so had front row seats to the whole ordeal. Through grainy footage, Virgil set up some sensors on the ground, and then began walking towards a deep crater.
Virgil’s shadow stretched out ahead of him on the viewscreen, towards the crater. Slowly, cautiously, he approached. Argan couldn’t tell what drew him to it, and Virgil didn’t report. They watched, rapt, as he took cautious, low gravity steps over the grey landscape.
WAAAP WAAAAP—the hyperspace alarm sounded from sensors, and Argan just about jumped out of his skin. “Not again!” he muttered as he scanned the surroundings.
He panned the view around the ship, searching for signs, engine flares, anything. There! A new constellation of lights that weren’t there before.
“Talk to me, Argan. What are we working with?” Pia asked, her voice strained.
Argan enhanced the view as best as he could. The ships were— he sighed relief. Boxy, utilitarian. “Jovian! These are Jovian ships. We’re okay.”
Pia sighed audibly too. “Keep an eye on them. I don’t want to be in their way, and I don’t want them to mistake us for Theysians.”
Argan nodded even though Pia was in another room. “Got it. I’ll see if I can resolve their trajectory. I wonder what brings them out this way.”
“Wonder about it later, let’s just keep a low profile.”
“Should we tell Virgil?”
“Not unless there’s something to worry about. Man could be shot and make a joke about it.”
Virgil finally reported in. “Extrapolator this is Ground, just a bunch of dead rocks. Sensors seem to confirm what I could have told you from orbit. I’m going to—”
Virgil’s report was interrupted by a sickening noise: WAAAP WAAAAP, Argan’s sensors station reported more hyperspace signatures. “I’m going to check it out,” Argan whispered to Pia, who was trying to listen to Virgil and Argan at the same time.
Argan panned around the field of view in observation. He first checked out the Jovian Union ships, which had moved from their initial point. They were now all slowly turning, coming about in a synchronized maneuver. There were no new ships—what had tripped the hyperspace alarm?
He panned in the direction the JU fleet was turning, and there it was: A Theysian fleet, not just an expedition but a proper fleet, now looming on the other side of the planet Virgil was on. If there was going to be a battle it looked like it was going to happen right over them.
“Pia—we need to get out of here.” Argan said.
Pia was still talking (or arguing) with Virgil, but stopped short. “What did you say?”
“There’s a Theysian fleet now in addition to the Jovian one. We need to go, now.”
Pia was on the radio before Argan finished speaking. “Ground this is Extrapolator, we’ve got a priority one evacuation, need you off the ground in 60 seconds.”
“What? It’ll take me 60 seconds to get back to the shuttle, what’s going on?” Virgil’s departure from radio etiquette betraying what may be a hint of concern.
“JU and Theysian fleets in the system, we’re in the crossfire. I’m going to be changing orbit, get moving.”
“Affirmative,” was all Virgil said, and on the screen you could see that he began to run, as much as ‘running’ was possible on a low atmosphere and low gravity world.
“What are we going to do?” Argan asked.
“You’re going to watch those fleets and tell me when anyone starts firing shots. I’m going to get us into a more elliptical orbit—Virgil returns we can be far away from the action and hit the Emergency Escape.”
Argan sighed a breath of relief. The Emergency Escape was an automatic subroutine that took the ship back to home base on it’s own. It was designed as a last resort, a safety mechanism. This would get them out of trouble faster than they could do on their own. “Good plan,” he said. “I’ll start monitoring.”
It took five excruciating minutes for Virgil to pack up all the equipment, and by then the two fleets were facing each other across the gulf of space.
“Extrapolator this is Ground, I’m in the shuttle.”
“Copy Ground, the shuttle should rendezvous at the apogee, and we can get out of here. It’ll be a little longer, hang in there for us,” Pia replied.
Pia had maneuvered the ship into an elliptical orbit, speeding quickly over the surface at the nearest point and slowly cresting the ellipse around the south pole. This kept them far away from the standoff between the fleets, but still able to monitor. Since it was different from the usual orbit, the drone shuttle would take more time to find the ship, much less dock with it.
Argan found himself holding his breath1.
Pia came into observation behind him. “Virgil’s on his way, nothing now but to wait. Anything happening with the fleets?”
“It’s hard to say. They clearly are aware of each other—I don’t know why this system had to be the one to fight over. Maybe it was an accident,” Argan said.
“Everyone’s trying to snap up as many systems as possible.”
“Well, maybe—” Argan said. As he did, a small puff emanated from one of the larger Theysian ships. Had they been shot?
“What was that?” Pia asked.
“I don’t know. Is that a capital ship? I always figured space battles would be brighter.”
“You watch too many movies,” she quipped.
A moment later, one of the Jovian ships evaporated into a cloud of debris. Immediately, a Jovian ship fired a bright laser, but the Theysian fleet was too far away. Engines flared to life on both sides, and more puffs emerged from the capital ships.
“What was that? Did you see that? A Jovian ship was just obliterated!” Pia shouted.
“I think Theysians are using railguns. That had to have been it. I’ve never seen one in use before.”
“What’s a rail gun?” Pia asked, as a second Jovian ship caught some projectile at a strange angle and began to spin wildly, flinging debris into space.
“They use electromagnets to accelerate some kinetic mass at incredible speeds. They’re effectively throwing rocks at the Union. For all their lasers and shields, there’s not much you can do when a 50 ton rod is flying towards you.”
“Well that debris is about to be a huge problem.” Pia said, running back to the controls of navigation.
“Where’s Virgil?” Argan asked.
Argan greeted Virgil in the shuttle bay. Virgil stepped out and took his helmet off casually. “Heck of a light show going on out there.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet. Get your hyperspace harness, we’re using the Emergency Escape.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Afraid so.”
“Alright out of one pod into another I guess. See you after the jump.” He started taking off his space suit.
Argan rushed back to observation, and started securing himself. “Virgil won’t be a moment,” he told Pia.
Pia was already secured, just waiting for Argan and Virgil to give the all clear. “Alright, let’s get out of here.”
Argan watched from his harness as Pia pressed the Emergency Escape on her console.
Red lights flooded her screen, but he couldn’t see what they said.
“What? What is happening? The Hyperdrive is charged but the Emergency Escape routines are failing.”
“What? What do you mean? How could they fail?”
“Someone had to mess with it! Who would mess with the emergency escape? What is WRONG with this ship!” Pia was furious. She grabbed the controls and fired the thrusters. “At least we can get out of the battle. I guess we can just fly home manually at this point.” She swore under her breath.
Argan turned his attention to the observation screens, where lasers fired intermittently, little puffs of explosions marked the doom of some ship or other. Whoever was winning, he found himself less sure about the Union.
To be continued…
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God bless!
AJPM
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You may appreciate some inspirational mood music for this point in the story
See, I...I would not tamper with the emergency escape routine of a ship I was on. *UNLESS * it's a sabotage or hacker thing, in which case the JU's got even more problems.
Also I can't help notice the absence of the angel. That can't be a good sign.
Urk