The Magellan Project

[Jermus]

Sorry for the wait on the next story installment. My wife and I had a new baby girl and I have been sort of distracted. I pulled my story line back out though and plan to have the next part done and posted by this weekend.

I think you will have your hands full with the next installment of your own story line . Congratulations, and the best wishes for you, your wife and the new family member. May God bless you all.

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Confrontation

Thanks commanders! The new arrival, Kylie has been a real joy. I was able to finally get the current installment done, and have started the next. Enjoy!

Akio and Rand stood staring at each other, neither speaking. Rand tried to gauge Akio’s body language for clues as to how to proceed. Her expression was blank, she only stared into his eyes, revealing nothing. So, how moves first, Rand thought to himself. He knew there was a lot riding on this conversation, both for Akio, and for the rest of the fleet. After a few more seconds he decided to be the first to say something. He had no idea how he was going to handle this, but he senses the silence wasn’t helping.
“How much did you hear?”
Akio didn’t respond, didn’t move.
Okay, let’s try something else. “We weren’t trying to keep anything from you. I was just coming to talk to you.”
“You want me to stand down as pilot?” Akio’s tone had a clear edge to it, somewhere between anger and incredulity.
“Akio, we’re not trying to take your ship from you. We just are concerned for you and wanted you to know that you have a choice. If you want to stand down…”
Akio didn’t let him finish. She nearly exploded with her response coming at him and stopping only three feet in front of him.
“STAND DOWN TO WHERE, RAND!!” Rand was caught off guard by her advance and her outburst. Akio was had a slight build and was nearly 20cm shorter than Rand. But now her whole body was now trembling with rage, her cheeks burned red. She paused only for a second to let her words sink in before continuing to shout.
“What does it matter if I am at the controls of the ship or cowering in the cargo hold! Something about this accursed planet is blowing up ships! Whether I’m flying or ‘standing down’ I die either way if this ship blows up! We don’t know what’s doing it! We don’t know how it works! We can’t see it coming! We have no way of fighting or stopping it!”
Akio paused again. She was still trembling, but Rand though more out of fear now than rage. “Belinski is dead, Rukil was nearly killed, and the Zenith almost blew up! Are we going to be next? Do you have any idea how crazy that makes me? Flying blind, not knowing if we’re next!?” She thrust a finger toward the viewport. “Look out there, Rand! There are wrecked ships all over this planet! Have you looked at them and thought about what the chances of getting out of here alive are?”
Now it was Rand’s turn. He kept his voice calm, almost a whisper. “Yes, Akio. I have been driving by those wrecks for nearly a week now.”
Akio’s whole countenance changed. Her demeanor changes from rage and fear to stunned silence. Rand held her gaze letting his words reach her. Letting seep past her rage and touch her conscious.
“Look, Akio, believe me when I say I know how you feel. More than once while I have been here, I thought the fear dying in a fireball, or of starvation, or of insanity crossed my mind. I was almost ready to give up all hope when you all arrived.”
Akio’s shoulders sagged and she dropped her gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she choked out. She brushed a tear away. “I just…”
Rand continued, “When the fleet arrived it changed everything for me. Before I had no hope of getting of this planet unless I could either find a ship in a repairable condition, or if someone came to my rescue. Once you all were here I knew I had a chance. That’s all we’re trying to do here, Akio. You’re right to say your chances of survival are no different if your piloting your ship of sitting in its cargo hold. But we have some tricky maneuvering to do as part of our plan. If you’re not feeling up to it, we want you to know that none of us will think less of you for letting me pilot your ship. We want to help you.”
Akio was silent for a moment. Then she turned and gazed out the viewport. “You know what’s stupid? I’m and escort pilot for your father. I’ve been in several dogfights with multiple enemy ships. I’ve never lost my nerve before under fire.” She turned back to Rand. “So what’s wrong with me this time?”
“I think you already answered your questions. And it’s the same reason I was going half mad on this planet before you came. In a dog fight you can see your enemy, and you can fight them. Here…” Rand paused and turned to look out at the view beyond, “…here is like a terror thriller. The enemy is unseen, unknown, and you don’t know when it will strike. You can’t fight it or run from it, and it can kill you in an instant.” He turned back to Akio. “But we do know think we know when it’s coming. You heard Jake earlier. He’s been working on the white noise that we keep picking up before a ship blows up and thinks he is on to something. It could mean giving us a few seconds warning, enough time to power down and flush fuel.”
Akio nodded but didn’t respond. The two regarded each other for a moment. Finally, Akio broke the silence, “I’m sorry, Rand. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Rand said with a half-smile. “It would have been nice to have someone to yell at the last few days. Gets the stress out.”
“There are better ways to deal with it than yelling at a friend.”
Rand tried to come up with another comically droll statement but came up empty. Instead he just smiled and shrugged. “Let’s get to work.”
She nodded. “I’ll take the ship.”
Rand stepped past her making the way clear for her to sit down in the pilot seat. Akio sat down and began pulling up the terrain map. Rand took the co-pilot seat and switched on his consol. He glanced over at Akio wondering if she was really up to this. He wanted to believe so, now that she had given voice to her fears. Still, he felt he should keep an eye out for warning signs.

 

[Jermus]

Good as ever!

[sour] and now it is waiting again for the next installment...

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Gearing up, Part 1

Okay so I was writing the next installment and only got about halfway through. So rather than make everyone wait another week I found a place to put a break in the story while I finish the second half. Here's "Gearing up, part 1"

Akio was looking over the terrain maps and exterior of the Zenith to plan her maneuvers. Rand was working with the sidewinder pilot and with Jake on the code for the synthesizer and the interference patters to scan for. On the Zenith preparations were being made for fuel transfer. Jake was doing active scanning and continued analysis. Even with Rand scanning, both he and Akio would soon be busy with picking up minerals and building a fuel transfer conduit. Jake was to be the eyes and ears of the operation. And sign of interference and both ships were to go to emergency shutdown. As a result, the Tanaka was to keep landing gear deployed at all times during operation until they were ready to make a run for space. Within ten minutes all was ready.
“Jake, this is Akio, we are ready to get underway. Requesting clearance to power up.”
“Akio, Jake. Signal noise is normal. You are clear to power up.”
The crew of the Zenith wished Akio and Jake good luck as Akio powered up the engines. Akio swung the ship around to the heading that would take them back to Rand’s wrecked SRV. Rand sat in the co-pilot position and watched the signal readings as well as scanned the terrain. “The surface scanner is picking up a lot of fragments. Let’s hope enough of my inventory survived.”
Akio slowly glided the ship toward their target. White target indicators started to flash onto their displays as they came close to the wreck site. Rand was able to get a look at this SRV for the first time since the explosion. The SRV rested on its right side. A huge blast mark stained itself across the center of the craft. The left center wheel assemble was blow away with the other wheels twisted from the blast. It was clear the explosion came from the power plant. Given the damage Rand was grateful that he had kept his fuel supply low. From the looks of the SRV he was amazed that he and Rukil had survived at all.
Akio suddenly accelerated and then cut engines and came down somewhat hard at the landing site. Rand glanced over at her.
Knowing his unspoken question, she answered, “I thought I would come in fast and set down hard at the last moment to minimize the down blast from our thrusters. I didn’t want to blow the materials we are after all over the place.”
Rand had to admit that made a lot of sense. With only four minutes of air in their suits they could not afford to be chasing down materials. Akio powered down the ship while Rand signaled the Zenith that they were preparing for spacewalk while downloading the signal locations to his suit computer. When done they both headed to the airlock.
They had worked out their plan earlier while reviewing the layout of the scattered materials. Both would stay together in a buddy system in case they ran into any trouble. They would gather materials and stockpile them near the airlock of the ship first, then load materials once they were all gathered. Their space walks would only last three minutes to ensure they had a one-minute reserve of air.
They both dropped to the ground once the airlock outer door had opened and started to their first target. There was a small clustering of materials on the side of a small embankment. Getting them would be a bit tricky as the ground here was composed of looser material than back where Rand had rescued Rukil. On the flat surfaces it was no harder than walking on gravel, but on the slopes it could be very unstable. Rand and Akio used the twenty meters between them and the materials to practice moving across the terrain.
After some difficulty the both reached the slope with a half dozen material pieces at various places long its slope. The embankment was a steep rise of about a forty-degree slope rising seven meters from their location to a plateau above. Many of the materials they were after were near the bottom having tumbled downhill after their landing. A few has become lodged further up the slope. Akio and Rand started throwing the pieces lower down toward the ship. The lower gravity allowed them to cast the materials most of the way to the Tanaka.
Akio called over the comm., “I show two minutes left on our air.”
“Right, do you want to head back to do you want to try the pieces further up?”
Akio considered the remaining pieces before answering. “Let’s get these on the next walk. We can use the air we have left to load this first batch.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Five minutes later they were back at the slope. “Alright,” Rand said, “Same plan as before, tossing these things clear of the hill?”
“I think that would be wise.”
“Question is how to get up to them. This place looks prone to slides. I don’t think climbing will be fast enough given our air supply, but jumping up there could set of a slide when we land.”
On this small a slope slide didn’t present much of a danger to them physically but they could slow them down and it could bury some of the materials they were after.
After a moment Akio answered, “Do you want to try to jump to that ledge? It looks like a stable place to land?” Akio has indicated a large rock that protruded out from the side of the slope with a flat enough surface that a person could stand on it. It looks like a good alternative to coming down on the slope and risking setting off a rock slide.
“Good idea. And good eye.” Rand gestured toward the rock. “After you.”
Akio to a second to find a more stable piece of ground for her jump. Then crouching partway, she launched herself toward the outcropping. Akio arced slow across the alien sky upwards and then back down again in a parabolic path until, with the precision of a fighter pilot she alighted on the flat surface of the rock. She turn, gave Rand the “OK” sign then carefully move off the rock to the right toward the first piece. Rand coiled his own mainspring and launched himself. Soon he was sailing silently through space, seemingly to travel in slow motion toward his target touchdown. For a while Rand just enjoyed the feeling of freefall. The silence, the glow of the second star in the system burning in the distance, the milky-way painted in a grand arc across the sky. For a few second Rand forgot about the danger they were all in and enjoyed the scene around him remembering what had brought him here in the first place.
His attention soon returned to his landing as he felt his direction of travel change as he floated down toward his landing. Soon he began to realize that his aim was not as good as Akio’s and he was going to land about a meter further upslope than where he intended to. He glanced at Akio and saw her watching him with the same realization playing across her face as well. The ground he was headed for was coarser and jagged like shale rock. This does not bode well. Rand thought to himself and he got closer to the ground.

 

[Jermus]

Thanks for this next installment. I like the action . Things are moving

 

[Tomx]

Thanks! Another good cliffhanger (sorry forgive the pun!)

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Sorry for the wait everyone, new baby and holidays have kept me busy. I picked up my pen tonight to continue the story line. Hope to have the next installment out soon!

On another note, I scored the new Saitek X-56 Pro-Flight joystick for Christmas. Waaaay cool! I used the X-52 before, which I loved for Elite: Dangerous and flight sims. The X-56 was a surprising improvement!

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Gearing up, Part 2

Here is the last part of my previous installment. Working on the next installment...

Rand’s decent seemed like a small eternity, which is was in a way. The low gravity made everything on the surface play out at slow motion speeds. Hopefully this would mean that his impact would have less effect since he had less kinetic energy. Then again, everything else was being held together with less gravity. These rocks may be that much easier to disturb.

Rand came down on loose shale. The force of his impact sent small bits of flat sharp rock flipping up into the air. Worse, the ground under his feet began to slide. Rand tried to get a footing to keep himself upright, but his disturbance seems to be spreading as more rock in every direction began a downward migration.

The outcropping he was aiming for was not disturbed. Rand surmised that it must be part of a deeper formation and began to move, as best he could toward it as the mass of moving rock carried him downhill toward it. The lower gravity made it easier to plan his movements and react to his changing environment as everything moved far slower than in standard gravity. Rand ended up losing his balance and slide for a small distance on his left side before reaching the outcropping. He crouched there trying to make himself a smaller target for airborne projectiles kicked up by the slide, at times having to swat some away from him. If so much was not at stake this would have almost seemed like a new fun game, the rocks coming at him at varying speeds, most slow enough that knocking them out of the way was easy.

“Rand!” Akio called over the intercom. “Are you okay!”

“I’m fine. I guess I just don’t have your grace. Go ahead and move on your first target. This slide I started seems to be slowing. I'll get underway in a second.” At least I hope too. Our air is a third gone! Rand knew this slip up had cost them nearly a minute they couldn’t afford to lose.

Akio began moving laterally again working her way to the first material piece they had come for. She picked it up, turned down hill, and threw it toward the Tanaka. Her throw sent it sailing through space on a path that would take it halfway back to the ship. As she turned toward the next piece Rand felt a sudden low vibration. With no atmosphere the rock slide he had triggered had made now sound. Rand could feel the motion, but heard nothing. Now, even the outcropping he stood on vibrated. He looked up to the crest of the embankment they were on and saw the whole top ridge thirty meters in each direction directly above Akio give way.

 

[Tomx]

That shakes things up (Sorry!)

Interesting - so either a planet quake or is it the same signal that was upsetting the ships - in which case is it geological (and something as a result of that that affects the ships) or artificial (human or otherwise?). Thinking about it how do you affect a ship in space - sound/pressure can't travel, hence the knietic or heat weapons.

You could generate a big EM surge I suppose - would that be enough to cause fuel to explode, plus the ships seem otherwise unaffected and seeing as all ED ships can fly into the corona of stars with no problems they must be pretty severely shielded from EM. You could definitely rupture tanks (like Concorde in Paris) of course the signal detected could be something more sophisticated like hacking the fuel controllers and the shaking ground could be something separate (an earthquake alone). Unless of course we're going with tractor beams (but ED itself doesn't have them.). What is going on?

At the rate they're going though it's not looking good - they seem to be cheating certain death every couple of paragraphs! Suspense-tastic!

 

[Jermus]

Happy new year! (and still reading up on this ).

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Slide

Happy New Year all! I apologize for any grammar errors. Finished this at a late hour...

“Rand, Akio! Get out of there!” Rodrick’s voice came blaring through the comm. Rodrick had been watching the two from the bridge of the Zenith as they began their collecting. He had a clear view of the ridge as it began to crumble away.

“Akio! Above you!” Rand shouted. She saw her look up at the wall of rock now rolling down the hill directly at her. Rand was in no less danger as dislodged earth was also coming down upon him. Akio made an attempt at a jump, but the ground under her feet was already in motion. The result was a clumsy stumble down hill. Rand could tell by the way things were moving that she would be hard pressed to make a jump for it. He wasted no time. Crouching on the stable outcropping he jumped directly where Akio should be in another second. He shot forward like a rocket compared to the slow moving earth around him. Merely trying to catch or knock her out of the way would still keep her too close to the moving mass of rocks. He needed to through her out and away from the face of the slope.

He reached forward and to his left intent of catching her and swinging her to safety. It worked. He caught her around the waist, twisted himself hard in the opposite direction he had come and threw Akio. She flew away from the slope and tumbling rocks toward open space in a arc that would land her well outside of danger. With the low gravity she would have time to orient herself for a landing on her two feet.

Rand however, was now in a real predicament. In changing the direction of travel of Akio by swinging her outward, he had changed his direction by ninety degrees sending him straight into the ground. Rand hit the sliding rock hard, pain registering every sharp piece of rock under him. Above, the mass of boulders and rubble that was the crest of the slope tumbled toward him.

“Rand!” Akio yelled through the comm.

“Rand! What are you doing!” Rodrick came through at almost the same time.

“That leaves only one of us in danger,” was all that Rand could say. He began trying to stand, or find something solid enough to push off with. The longer he took to get out the farther away he would have to get himself. The more the rocks in the slide moved the more they bounced off each other. In the low gravity some were already being knocked far up into the air. Try as they might, he could only manage to get into a crouch position. He turned to look over his shoulder. Maybe he could use the same trick he use to save Akio to save himself. He looked for a boulder heading his way that would be the right size. He saw one that might work amid the torrent coming toward him. This would not be easy. He would have to keep from being crushed or buried in the process. Lower gravity meant that it would take much larger rocks to do damage, but in this slide the lower kinetic energy meant that the rocks were not being broken up by each other as they tumbled. Many of the boulders that where coming toward him we very large and would likely stay that way.

Rand did his best to dodge debris while finding a large rock to launch himself with. This would never work in normal gravity, but here he had a shot. Dodging was a double edged sword as keeping a low profile was the best way to not get hit. However, laying down was sure to get him buried. And if buried, we would undoubtedly run out of air before anyone could rescue him. Perspiration rolled down face as he fought to keep himself above ground and dodge death.

Al at once an opportunity appeared. Out of the deluge of rock and boulders a large rock came tumbling towards him. As it passed overhead Rand turned downhill, reached up grabbing the stone and then threw it down to the ground. The momentum change threw Rand up and over the rock skyward in an arc that would clear him of the main body of rock. Rand caught a glimpse of Akio. She was flying through the air on the down side of her path but still far from touching down. Both she and his father were still yelling through the comm at him, but Rand was focused on his escape enough that he had not registered most of what they were saying. Until now. Two words from Akio registered with him.

“Above you!!”

As soon as Akio’s words were spoken Rand connected hard with a boulder he had not seen above and behind him. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of him for a moment and he felt his trajectory change from moving up and away from danger to being knocked back into the chaos.

 

[AlaskanPilot]

That shakes things up (Sorry!)

Interesting - so either a planet quake or is it the same signal that was upsetting the ships - in which case is it geological (and something as a result of that that affects the ships) or artificial (human or otherwise?). Thinking about it how do you affect a ship in space - sound/pressure can't travel, hence the knietic or heat weapons.

You could generate a big EM surge I suppose - would that be enough to cause fuel to explode, plus the ships seem otherwise unaffected and seeing as all ED ships can fly into the corona of stars with no problems they must be pretty severely shielded from EM. You could definitely rupture tanks (like Concorde in Paris) of course the signal detected could be something more sophisticated like hacking the fuel controllers and the shaking ground could be something separate (an earthquake alone). Unless of course we're going with tractor beams (but ED itself doesn't have them.). What is going on?

At the rate they're going though it's not looking good - they seem to be cheating certain death every couple of paragraphs! Suspense-tastic!

This is great. So I won't divulge what is going on in this reply, that will come out in the story, but I could help giving some comments. The planet does have volcanism (see a description of the planet on page 6 of this post) which means that earthquakes could be part of the equation for the land slide. The exploding ships have to have another explanation of course. Ships are designed to take the punishment of space which from radiation alone is pretty nasty. So whatever is causing the meltdown has to be able to penetrate current shielding and ship design. Also, hailing back to the original Elite game from the 1980's fuel scopes (as I recall, someone correct me if I'm wrong) picked up hydrogen from solar coronas as ships used some kind of fusion reactor for power. to end that hydrogen fuel is a commodity in the game I am going with this explaination. Here is what we know in the story so far: something is penetrating all shielding and protections to ignite fuel with enough explosive force to destroy a ship. But here is a hint, the explosion is starting in the power plant not the fuel tanks. Hydrogen is very reactive, but not by itself. In a fuel tank it will not have oxygen to reactive with so the normal combustion that we all know and love about hydrogen is not what is going on.

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Slide (continue)

Rand looked as what seemed like the ring of a planet with innumerable tumbling asteroids set against a backdrop of constant boiling, wreathing rock and earth. He knew if he fell into these depths he would not survive. He looked desperately for another boulder to kick off from as he fell.
_____________
One the Bridge of the Zenith Rodrick, Armanda, and Jake watched helplessly as the figure of Rand became more and more obscured by the flurry of rock flowing and billowing down the steep slope.
“Come on Rand get out of there!” Rodrick muttered.
__________
Akio was still calling over the net trying to warn Rand of boulders coming his way and possible escape routes. Everyone was so focused on Rand that they didn't notice a soft alarm coming from Jake’s station. At least not until the comm line started to be filled with a familiar static.
“Say again, Zenith, I didn’t copy!” Akio had to yell into the commlink. The noise on the line was making it hard to hear Jake’s words. She was still focused on Rand, trying to guide him to safety, unable to help him directly. He had thrown her clearly save her life, now he threatened to be consumed by the growing monster of rock and earth.
Suddenly pieces of Jake’s words broke through her focus and lodged like spears in her mind, filling her with a cold panic. “…interference…power down…explode…” Akio turned and bounded towards her ship. The Zenith was out of fuel, but the Tanaka still hade plenty in her tanks. The mysterious interference that preceded every ship explosion had returned. She had to power the ship down completely or risk or risk losing it, and Rukil, in a fireball.
_________
For the next several seconds Rand pushed his dexterity and reflexes to their limits. The sheer volume of material was fast offsetting the slower movements from the low gravity. Rand pushed off, dogged, collided, and fought his way to get clear. Rocks around him were now moving at different speeds, momentum compounding or canceling as collisions increased. To his left Rand caught a glimpse of one of the mineral pieces they needed. Rand rolled and kicked off of a passing boulder shooting through a closing gap in the maelstrom. Grabbing his target he rolled again and threw it toward the distant ship before twisting again to work his way clear of the avalanche.
A few more seconds and Rand was near the ground in front of the majority of slide. Now Rand fought against a smaller shower of rocks moving a high speed, thrown forward of the main bulk of debris. Rand touched down amid being assaulted by pebbles and small stone. Rand tried to get his bearings having been turned around several times during his fight to get clear. He didn't want to end up running back into the maelstrom from whence he had emerged. Rand touched down and immediately kicked off again about fourth-five degrees to his right taking a path directly away from the face of the hill. He rotated in the air to gain a look back at the commotion behind him. The rockslide was still is full motion and Rand could tell even at the slower speed of the advancing rock he needed to put more distance between him and the slide. He finished his rotation and prepared for his next contact with the surface. He angled back to the left to set him on course to scoop up a piece of needed materials.
“Akio, I'm clear,” Rand called through the commlink. Silence. Rand while still bounding away from the hill, started to look about him.
“Akio, do you copy?”
It was Jake that replied. “Rand, Akio…board … powering it down. ...picked up... interference again.” Jake cut in and out his voice becoming more faint in the all too familiar static that spelled doom for ships.
“How long will she have to stay powered down?” With the ship in shutdown the airlock would be sealed and inaccessible. Static was the only reply to Rand's question. “Jake, repeat, how long with the ship stay powered down?”
Only one word came through. “…minutes…”
Minutes, Rand thought to himself. He glanced at his remaining oxygen counting down in his heads up display. 1:17.

 

[Tomx]

This is great. So I won't divulge what is going on in this reply, that will come out in the story, but I could help giving some comments. The planet does have volcanism (see a description of the planet on page 6 of this post) which means that earthquakes could be part of the equation for the land slide. The exploding ships have to have another explanation of course. Ships are designed to take the punishment of space which from radiation alone is pretty nasty. So whatever is causing the meltdown has to be able to penetrate current shielding and ship design. Also, hailing back to the original Elite game from the 1980's fuel scopes (as I recall, someone correct me if I'm wrong) picked up hydrogen from solar coronas as ships used some kind of fusion reactor for power. to end that hydrogen fuel is a commodity in the game I am going with this explaination. Here is what we know in the story so far: something is penetrating all shielding and protections to ignite fuel with enough explosive force to destroy a ship. But here is a hint, the explosion is starting in the power plant not the fuel tanks. Hydrogen is very reactive, but not by itself. In a fuel tank it will not have oxygen to reactive with so the normal combustion that we all know and love about hydrogen is not what is going on.

Yep - the fuelscoop is still alive and well as you know as is hydrogen fuel - in the game the powerplant is a fusion reactor - so lots of hydrogen in there (but no combustion). All very interesting! I'll carry on reading as it comes out with interest!

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Countdown

“Rand, estimate less than three minutes for shutdown. Rand, this is Jake, do you copy?”

“Do you think he got the last communique?” Rodrick leaned over Jake’s console watching the interference wave patterns play across one of Jake's read outs. Rand’s signal had been breaking up rapidly once the interference had reappeared.

“It’s hard to say sir. We’re not getting anything in return.”

Rodrick straightened to look out the view port to spot Rand. His son was bounding toward the Tanaka in the low gravity seemingly intent on getting to the ship as fast as possible.

“Sir,” captain Tomika interjected, “I’m showing the Tanaka in complete shutdown. Only emergency life support is still functioning.”

“Akio, shut the ship completely down?”

“It would appear so.”

“Why didn't she just go to battery? That should be safe during this interference storm?”

“No idea sir. One thing is for certain, however. In complete shutdown the airlock will not be functional. Rand will run out of air before the interference passes.”

Rand closed the distance between him and the ship as quickly as he could manage. By the time he reached the underside of the ship he was down to fifty seconds of air. The hatch was closed, the ships power was off. This is incredible! He thought to himself. Only inches of ship plating stood between him and air. Not for the first time on this planet he had felt salvation so close and yet a galaxy away.

He leapt up turned nintninetyh degrees, and kicked off one of the landing struts and shot out from under the ship parallel to the ground. As soon as he cleared the underside of the ship he turned again and kicked off the ground changing his direction to shoot vertically in front of the ship. He drifted downward toward the canopy of the Tanaka. Akio caught sight of him and he began trying to signal to her his plight. He made a deep breathing motion with his lungs, pointed to his helmets HUD and tapped out the sign for thirty.

Akio watched Rand, sudden understanding and terror filling her. She had shut the whole ship down leaving the one they had come to rescue trapped outside and without enough air. But what now? Do nothing and Rand dies, power up the ship and she, Rand and Rukil could die. She turned to the Zenith looking for a sign from the bridge that the interference was over and she could start the power up of her ship. She was met by the rapid pulse of a light.
Jake was holding a flashlight clicking it on and off in the very old but still employed Morse Code.

Commander Tomika close at his side dictated the message. “…Restart on battery only. Will signal again when danger is gone.”

“Looks like she starting to move.” Rodrick commented.

“Let’s hope both she and Rand move fast enough.” Jake said. As he finished his message there came a crackle from his station behind him. The white noise was starting to subside and spikes of static mixed with someone’s voice started coming through. Jake jumped back to his station once he had completed his message to Akio and started making adjustments to the comm trying to clear away the noise.

Rand saw the message from the Zenith and Akio’s fingers start to fly across her controls. That was all he needed. With under fifteen seconds of air left he lept forward at an angle aiming to clear the side of the ship about where the entrance hatch was located on its underside. He would have to hold his breath to make this last leg to the safety of the airlock. His flight seems like eternity as he watch the last seconds of his air meter tick away. He landed with only two seconds left. With a quick turn and a forward jump Rand flew toward the hatch.

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Company

High above the planet surface Miriam desperately tried to raise the bridge crew of the Zenith.

“Zenith, this is Miriam. We have five unidentified bogies inbound to our location! Commander Tomika, do you copy!”

Zach watched Miriam work at the controls a tense expression on his face. Three Vultures and two Asp had arrived in the system and were vectoring toward the planet below. He had ordered not to make contact with the ships until they had established contact with Rodrick and the Zenith. Should they put out a distress call or drop from super cruise and try not to attract attention. There was a chance they had been spotted already. The question was by whom? Most people out this far were either explorers or some sort of criminal. Given that Vultures were not the explorers choice of ships Zach was inclined to think these people were not friendly.

“I’m not getting through. Interference down there must still be too high.”

“What’s the plan?” One of the sidewinder pilots call over the comm.

Miriam turned to Zach. “They have us out classed, our Fer de Lance and four sidewinders to their fleet. Good chance if their hostile they have us out gunned too.”

Zach looked to the planet below. Down there were the friends he was supposed to protect, along with two ships that would change a battle in their favor. If they stayed in cruise they would be spotted, if they dropped they would not be able to track the inbound ships. Zach exhaled.

“We keep formation and provide screening cover.” Zach announced. He turned to Miriam, “This is your area of expertise. Take command.”

“All ships defense pattern delta, slow to safe drop speed. Zach,” she said turning to face him. “Keep trying to raise the Zenith.”

***

“Do you think it’s Miriam?”

“Likely. That is the direction of the signal.” Jake continued to work the controls at his station trying to clear the noise from the inbound transmission to make any sense of it. “There’s still to my interference to her what she is saying.”
Rodrick could hear that form himself. Smooth white noise nearly concealed her voice, but enough came through to tell it was Miraim, and she sounded concerned. What else was going on in this strange and hostile system. “Keep trying to establish contact.” Rodrick straightened and turned to Commander Tomika. “And sign from Akio or Rand?”

Tomika was looking out the side viewport with digital binoculars. “Nothing since Rand jumped over the side of the ship. By now he had to be out of oxygen. I just hope Akio got the airlock open in time.”

***

Akio sprinted down the main corridor of her ship toward the airlock. Batteries! Why did she shut the whole ship down when she could have just gone to batteries!

“I’m coming Rand.” Akio skidded to a stop at the airlock controls and punched the unlock sequence. “Come on, come on…” There was a light hiss and the inner door slid open. She bolted into the open airlock, the inner door sliding shut behind her. “Come on Rand be there.” The outer door began to side open. Akio held her breath ready to drop to the ground.

Before she could move Rand was scrambling through the hatch as it slid open. He was through in a flash and fell forward to the controls to reseal the airlock. Akio caught his arm to steady him as the door sealed and fresh atmosphere began to re-pressurize the room. Rand to a deep gasp of air as his suits supply replenished from the flood of air filling the room.
“Rand, I’m sorry! I…”

Rand quickly held up a hand to cut her off without turning to look at her. He then tapped his ear. She stopped, listening. Rand continued to take deep breaths, but besides his breathing into the comm and the dying rush of air finishing to bring the airlock to a normal atmosphere, she could only here the even white noise of static that always accompanied the destruction of ships. She was about to speak again when she heard it. Voices. Voices she thought she recognized. Was that Miriam? The sound was so faint it was hard to make out. Whoever it was they sounded urgent, worried.

“Akio, I think we may more problems than just transferring fuel.” He took another deep breath punched the Airlock controls to open the outer door. “I think we need to gather minerals a lot faster that we have been.” With that he stepped to the opening to the outside and dropped from view.

 

[Jermus]

Your story is still being followed . And as ever it is fun to read to continuing story of Rand Jasc (well, the story is a bit bigger by now, but so far the additions have been a welcome complement).

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Having fun with Beta 2.3

Hello all!

The next installment is nearly ready for posting. In the mean time I have also been having fun with the Elite Dangerous: Horizons - Commanders Beta 2.3. I was fooling around with the Holo Me feature creating different commander profiles when I had the idea to create characters for each of the main people in my story. I wasn't able to get people to look exactly like they appeared in my minds eye, but these are close. Enjoy!

(and yes I noticed I have been spelling Roderick's name wrong. I'll fix this in future story line posts. At least I got it right in his picture!)

 

[Jermus]

This gives definitely more body to the story!

 

[AlaskanPilot]

Sprint

“I see him! He’s emerged from the Tanaka again moving towards mineral pieces,” commander Tomika called over her shoulder.
Rodrick sighed a relief. Rand was okay.. “And there’s Akio. Looks like we're back in business. Probably not a moment too soon. Keep an eye on them, Commander.”
Commander Tomika nodded while Rodrick moved back to Jake’s side. “Any luck?”
“Not much but the interference is waning. And it's Zach talking now. He seems as urgent as Miriam was.”
“So what could they be worried about?”
“My guess, sir, would either be a problem with the fleet, or inbound ships.”
“Your probably right. We know others have come this way. Let me know when you have made contact with anyone. I'm going to check repairs at Armanda’s station.”
“Will do sir, it shouldn't be long now.”
Rodrick moved to the pilots seat. If there were hostile inbound they would be a sitting duck. The fleet in orbit could also be in trouble with only one Fer de Lance and three small fighters. He checked the status of the repairs knowing what the answer would be. The damage to internal systems was superficial. Repairs were complete. Now they only needed fuel. Rodrick rejoined Armanda at the window. Rand and Akio could be seen running back to her ship with pieces of raw materials. The materials so important to their survival. Rodrick turned to look at Jake. He still busied himself about his controls trying to get a good signal. An idea had been forming in his mind. There was little value to him remaining on the bridge. Armanda could fly and fight without his help. Jake didn't need him to help with comms. But if he could speed the work of Akio and Rand, he could improve their odds of getting home.
“I'm going to help them.” He announced.
Commander Tomika turned to face him. “What?”
“Commander I'm not doing any good here. Yes you can fly the ship and Jake doesn't need my help.” He pointed to Akio and Rand. “But out there I can make a difference.”
“if you don't break your legs getting to the ground.”
“With the low gravity we have here I don't think that will be a problem. We need materials, and fast.”
Armanda knew he was right. And that protesting was pointless. Rodrick was already halfway to the bridge exit.
Akio and Rand were on their third gathering trip, bounding as quickly as they could manage across the airless terrain. The comm channel had been filled with the mysterious interference occasioned by faint murmurs of voices from the other ships fading in and out of a featureless sea of noise. Try as he might Rand could still not make out any of the conversations. He could only tell something was wrong. Rand scooped up two metallic pieces and started back toward the Tanaka. He glanced over his shoulder at Akio who was still heading away toward a distant piece of tin they needed. She moved with the grace and determination of a fighter pilot having already mastered the correct amount of force to put into every jump. She always seemed to land right on target and had a noticeably better return rate on collection fragments that did he. Was it a twinge of jealousy or a streak of admiration for a skill he did not possess that caused him on more than one occasion to observe Akio’s prowess?
He shook himself of the distraction to focus on again on the urgent task at hand. Voice on the comm link were becoming more clear. Zach started to break through the noise, “…you read?... and two…estimate…until contact… your status…please acknowledge!” Until what contact? Two what? What was going on up there?
A new thought started to push its way into Rand's mind. Until now had assumed that what ever was causing ships on this planet to explode was the result of some natural phenomena. Now a chilling new prospect presented itself. What if the explosions were not freak accidents? What if Zach and the other high above were coming face to face with who or what ever caused these accidents? And how could they escape, let alone fight something that could cause the destruction of a ship with full shields and hull integrity?
Rand thought he could now hear Jake Burr trying to respond. Two more bounds brought him to the Tanaka and he replace his bounding jumps with smaller hops to move to the airlock. Suddenly a figure dropped from the opening landing right in front of Rand. Rand released the rocks he was holding and made a grab for the ship ladder to stop himself short, the low gravity offering him little traction with the ground. The figure caught the discarded rocks and straightened. Rand found himself face to face with his father.
“Dad! Seriously!? You scared the…”
Roderick cut him off. “There's trouble topside. This is now a sprint.”