The Complete Intrepid Saga: Books 1 - 4: Aeon 14 Novels
Page 70
“This long together and you need to ask?”
Joe sighed and gave Tanis a smile. “Looks like our erstwhile major left us a message on the net. He would like to meet us in the commissary.”
LANDFALL
STELLAR DATE: 3270395 / 12.09.4241 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Gamma Site
REGION: Victorian Space, Kapteyn’s Star System
“How do you feel about a stop-over at Landfall?” Tanis asked.
Joe finished taking a bite of his sandwich and asked, “why dob you awlbays ask when my mouf is fuwl of peanut butter?”
“It’s your punishment for using so much that I never get any.”
Joe finished chewing before responding. “You spend some time in the garden, growing and taking care of my peanut plants, and I’ll share a bit more with you.”
Tanis considered her many responses and decided not to bring up who it was that actually made the peanuts into butter.
“Troy needs to grab a rock and bring it down to Landfall and I wouldn’t mind going along for the ride. I have some folks I need to see down there.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I can tag along, I’ve a new school of cadets starting up and someone has to give them all the right speeches.”
“Ah, that’s right, it kicks off in a few days, doesn’t it?”
“Yup, our first joint class. Luckily a lot of colony families have chosen to come out of stasis, so we have a good crop of Sol-born kids in their twenties and thirties to balance out and mentor the Victorian kids—suffice it to say that their education is not well rounded.”
“Glad to see some are making lives for themselves here,” Tanis commented.
Joe took another bite and nodded contemplatively.
“Think we’ll leave with the same number we came with?” Tanis asked and waited for him to finish chewing.
“I think we’ll leave with more,” Joe responded after taking a sip from his coffee. “I mean, twenty thousand people with a 5% birth rate for seventy years adds about eight thousand or so. Add to that the likelihood that we’re going to see breeding between the Victorians—who will likely be at a quarter million by then and I bet we’ll take on twenty-thousand new passengers.”
“That’s a pretty sizable estimate,” Tanis said with a doubtful look.
“I think it’s conservative. I bet we could take on more.”
Tanis stood and walked to the small galley’s counter where she refilled her coffee cup. “I think we’ll see a lot of colonists who will stay behind. A lot of them really just wanted to get out of Sol and have a fresh start. In sixty years Victoria will be a legitimate colony.”
Joe nodded. “True, that could happen, it’s really going to depend on how families intermingle and how much we can do here. I worry too much that the threat from Sirius will prompt a lot of families to leave with us.”
Tanis sighed. “I really hope we don’t have to contend with them.”
“Well, if we do it won’t be for another thirty years at the earliest, but more like forty. They’re not going to send another cruiser that can barely make it across the black and they don’t really have the ability to launch an interstellar strike without serious preparation.”
“Interstellar strike,” Tanis said and shook her head. “Who does that sort of thing? Especially for a shit system like this. I think with Yusuf it was a revenge play, nothing more.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Joe said.
“Well, if not we’ll be ready. No one’s catching me with my pants down.”
“Interesting suggestion,” Joe grinned.
Tanis sat alone in the cockpit of the Excelsior. It was strange being there without Joe—all of her memories in the heavy lifter had Joe in them.
Outside, Victoria loomed large, dully reflecting the ruddy light from the Kap. It had changed from the barren rock Tanis had fought the Strident Arc above a decade ago—not much, but thin, wispy clouds now encircled the equator as the terraforming efforts began to bear fruit.
It was a large world, easily three times the diameter of Earth and much more massive. However, the density made the surface gravity less than Earth’s—just over 0.6g. For the former inhabitants of the Hyperion it was more than they were used to, but they would adapt.
Victoria orbited close to the inner edge of the Kap’s habitable zone, closer to the old star than Mercury was to Sol. The proximity tidally locked Victoria and the world did not rotate as it orbited. Instead one side warmed in the star’s dim light while the other side froze. The ideally habitable location was the narrow dusk band between the two halves of the world.
Terraforming such a place was no simple task and one not often attempted. Tanis smiled as she remembered how the Intrepid’s geologists and climatologists had been all but giddy at the chance to make the attempt.
Before the surface settlement of Landfall was established, several icy asteroids had been dropped onto the sunward side of the planet—the remains of which were still melting, forming a sea.
Over time that sea would expand into an ocean which would cover nearly a third of the planet. Even now clouds streamed out from the melting ice. Winds, trying to equalize the globe’s temperature, drew them around the equator with what—on the ground—were gale force winds.
Much of the vapor froze on the dark side of the world, slowly covering it in a snow that would persist forever, but some came back around the poles, beginning what would become an ever-constant cycle.
Slowly, the world was being born.
The settlement of Landfall, was on the eastern duskband, a thousand kilometers north of the equator. Already several thousand people lived there, many of them support staff for the terraforming operations, but many were also Victorians who wanted to live on a world after their people had spent generations in space.
Troy deftly navigated the Excelsior into Victoria’s gravity well, approaching over the frozen dark side of the world. Tanis looked down at the beginnings of what would become great glaciers which would eventually cover much of the world’s night side.
The Excelsior dropped lower through the fledgling atmosphere, avoiding the gale-force winds that raced around the equator.
The world’s dusk-band came into view, the ruddy light of the Kap peeked around, casting the world in a reddish hue. Tanis imagined what this place would look like in decades to come when brown forests grew around the dusk band and into the sunward-deserts.
She started as the ship shuddered from the atmospheric drag pulling at the rock they were hauling.
The half-kilometer wide asteroid was full of silicates needed for manufacturing, as well as no small amount of water. Though the elevator was fully operational, it’s single strand could not yet support this type of payload.
A glint in the distance showed Tanis where Landfall’s hard dome lay, and Troy tracked south of it, headed to the drop-off point.
The surface refinery came into view, as did the MDC cradle ready to accept the rock. Over a square kilometer in size, the refinery had taken more of the Intrepid’s resources to build than Tanis would have liked, but was a necessary gesture to show the Victorians that the Edeners did not intend to use them and leave them bereft of any superior technology.
“This is Landfall ATC, we have you our screens, Excelsior, you’re in the pocket and lined up with the cradle.”
“Roger that, Landfall,” Tanis responded. “Our current ETA is three minutes and twelve seconds until cargo is in position.”
“Five-by-five on that ETA, Excelsior, the rock slicers over there are eager and waiting, handing you off to their ground crew.”
Tanis acknowledged Landfall ATC’s handoff and sent a burst to the refinery crew.
“Tanis and Troy here on the Excelsior with that package you ordered. Any place you want it,
or can we just set it down anywhere?”
“Lieutenant Governor Richards?” the refinery crew chief responded with surprise.
“The one and only,” Tanis replied.
<“Tanis and Troy” had a ring to it,> Tanis supplied.
Troy replied.
“Well met, Lieutenant Governor. Chief Bourke here.”
Bourke was a colony-bound Edener; when brought out of stasis she was planning to build this refinery on New Eden’s second moon. Learning she was to build it on the surface of a tidally locked super-earth orbiting a red dwarf star was a task she had taken on with enthusiasm.
A political refugee from an SDO splinter territory, she sympathized with the Victorians more than most and was eager to help them get on their feet in their new home.
“Nice to hear your voice again as well,” Tanis said. “Angela and I are just hitching a ride with Troy here. He lets me talk on the radio for my ego.”
Bourke gave a short snort. “Err…sorry, Lieutenant Governor. Given all you’ve done I’m not sure that Troy needs to stoke your ego, but whatever you say. We’re ready here to receive the rock on our primary cradle.”
During the conversation, Troy slowed and began his final maneuvers to bring the asteroid into position over the MDC cradle.
ES shields around the cradle perimeter sparked and flared as the radioactive wash of the Excelsior’s massive fusion engines splashed against them.
ES fields below the asteroid activated and the massive rock sagged into them as Troy reduced lift. Readouts on in the cockpit showed the decrease in mass borne by the ship and when it hit zero, Troy released grapple and lifted gently away from the refinery.
“A textbook drop-off,” Bourke said over the comms. “The coffee pot hit the floor, but otherwise everything looks good.”
“This may be our last delivery this large,” Tanis responded. “The atmosphere is thickening up ahead of schedule; we got close to blowing pressure seals on the Excelsior.”
“A shame to have an MDC big enough for rocks like this and not be able to use it anymore,” Bourke responded. “Any chance you’re going to approve a skyhook?”
“I would have, but with the accelerated atmosphere it means that the winds this close to the equator may make a skyhook impossible.”
“I guess running at this capacity for six years is still pretty good.”
Tanis agreed, successes in some areas created problems in others. Never before had she needed to juggle so many competing priorities.
“We’re doing research on the graviton emitter tech coming out of Procyon. It’s possible that we might be able to build a gravlift of sorts.”
Bourke laughed over the comm. “I thought that was just a crazy rumor! A grav lift for real?”
“Don’t get too excited, it’s little more than a fantasy that just graduated into myth at this point, but Earnest thinks it has real potential.”
“Hmm…well that says a lot. I hope he figures it out.”
“Our checks are complete,” Troy added on the line. “Landfall ATC has given us our clearances for landing at the spaceport.”
“Talk to you later,” Tanis said to Bourke.
“Until next time, Lieutenant Governor.”
Troy brought the ship around and Tanis watched the landscape pass beneath them on the route to the spaceport.
Landfall was situated in the midst of a low line of hills. The feature was the result of a tectonic plate which had buckled under stress almost a billion years ago.
The event had pushed up many strata of rich minerals to the surface, and the hills also protected the settlement from the winds of Victoria, which—even when the terraforming was complete—would never completely diminish.
The refinery was near the eastern edge of the hills with the spaceport between it and Landfall. As the fledgling settlement grew into a city, it would expand west, toward the sun, with the manufacturing to the east spreading into the dark side.
A splash of brown showed against an east-facing rock and Tanis cycled her vision to get a closer look.
Moments later they passed over the last hill and the meager spaceport came into view.
It was little more than several cradles, an air traffic control tower, and refueling plant. A few low buildings housed repair and maintenance facilities.
Someday this would be a bustling port serving private spacecraft and surface to surface transportation. Tanis imagined what that day would look like, how the world would be shaped once it was finally alive and people could walk outside and stand in the sunlight.
The ship slipped through the ES bubble and Troy lowered the Excelsior into its cradle like it was a feather and moments later an ES field snapped over the ship.
Tanis stood in the cockpit and gave the instrument panel a salute.
“Well piloted Troy. You will forever be my favorite ship… next to the Intrepid of course.”
Tanis laughed.
Tanis walked down the Excelsior’s ramp where the ground crew was running microfracture inspections of the Excelsior’s grapple arms and frame. She shivered for a moment when the cold air hit her. Things may be coming along, but the temperature was rarely above freezing between Landfall’s low hills.
“Quite the thunder you brought there,” the crew chief said with a nod. “Your purple-haired friend is waiting for you in the hanger.”
“Back to purple is she?” Tanis asked.
The chief paused. “I think she is…I don’t know, I can’t keep track of you Sol types…you all look the same.”
Tanis knew that the chief was joking. She had traded jibes with him many times before, but there was a truth behind the words that were not jokes for many Victorians.
She navigated the catwalk through the cradle struts and entered the low maintenance hangar where Jessica stood waiting, fingers drumming on her forearm.
“Took your sweet time getting here,” she said.
“We could have gone faster, but I hear it’s bad form to bake the planet your terraforming with your ship’s fusion burners.”
“Bah, it was just a minor tremor, you could have jacked it up a notch.”
Tanis fell in beside Jessica and the two walked to the maglev station. “I’ll be sure to pass your cavalier attitude onto Bourke. She lost a coffee pot in this latest drop-off.”
“That’s it? Let me know when the plas breaks and then we’ll talk.”
Tanis gave Jessica a warm smile—the former TBI agent had become her strong right hand and a trusted friend. Nearly every downworld success was in part to Jessica’s credit.
“Things are well ahead of schedule down here; I saw moss fifteen klicks east of here.”
“That far out eh?” Jessica said with mild surprise.
“We’ll get grass and little scrubby plants before you know it—at least around here in the tropics.”
“Tropics you say?” Tanis laughed. “I seem to remember my last visit to a world’s tropics involving a beach and warm sunshine.”
“We have warm sunshine here, you just have to go a few thousand klicks west and you’ll have all the sunshine you can bear.”
“Somehow I think I’ll pass on being blasted by the Kap’s x-rays.”
Jessica shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
As they spoke, the pair had walked to the small maglev station. They boarded the single maglev car and settled into a pair of seats facing one another.
“How is Trist?” Jessica asked.
“She’s doing well; she can really keep a lot of prickly personailities in line.”
“I can’t believe you roped her into being a some sort of politician. She still steals things, you know.”
Tanis nodded. “Yeah, but they’re little things, and most of the time she puts them back.”
“Calls it keeping sharp,” Jessica said with a nod.
“Never know when we might need her deft fingers,” Tanis replied.
“So now that we’re alone, I trust that your special delivery went well,” Jessica said.
“Just as planned. Earnest has his grubby little hands on his favorite toy.”
Jessica knew of the gamma site, but Tanis was using her to seed information that Earnest was at the beta site; and he often was, but usually his presence there was faked by sensor ghosts and falsified travel records.
Jessica would leak information in small bites about the existence of the secret research lab on Beta. If they were lucky Myrrdan would pick up on them and make an attempt to breach the facility.
They exchanged other pleasantries and eventually moved on to the purpose of Tanis’s visit.
“Markus is concerned with the rate of technology disbursement to the Victorians,” Jessica said.
Tanis shook her head. “We’re almost on schedule, to the day, with the updated plan from just a few months ago.”