by Jason Bourn
He called up the details of Stickney crater and finally thought he understood why he was having trouble seeing the ship. Within the huge crater was a smaller crater. Conveniently, at least for the ship-builders, it was about two kms wide – just the right size to fit the ship into. The top half would stick out, but since it was spherical, the bottom half would fit right into the smaller crater’s depression. As they were getting set to land, he thought he could barely make out the outline of the ship. They had placed a cover on it and placed the fine sand/dust combination, found all over Phobos, on top of the cover. Hence it blended right in. They were almost right next to it and it was still almost impossible to see anything distinctive.
The shuttle’s system warned everyone to remain in their chambers until the shuttle had fully stopped. It went on to remind everyone that there was only minimal gravity. Calaes chuckled when his persa helpfully showed that he would weigh a grand total of two ounces. For all intents and purposes, they needed to treat this just like zero gravity. No wonder they had been able to build the ship on this moon. It was never intended to survive planetary gravity, but this was far from being a planet. They had chosen the perfect place to build this ship!
The shuttle stopped under the ship’s cover. There were several buildings there, one of them with a standard tunnel – just like the settlement had. The tunnel was quickly attached to the shuttle and the system announced that everyone was allowed to get up and exit.
After the safety restraints loosened, Calaes cautiously sat up in the chamber, stretched and looked around. He held back a laugh to see some of the candidates exuberantly get up, only to keep going up until they collided with the shuttle’s roof. He noted that Hope was looking at him with a smile. She said, “Always assessing other people’s actions and reactions. That is one of the many things I like about you.” Then she added sadly, “If only I could see my father here. He worked so hard and so long to make this come about. He knew for some time that his health and his age would be an issue. I’m just glad he was able to see us successfully escape from the settlement and get up here to the ship.”
Calaes really didn’t know what to say. Instead he carefully got up out of his chamber, holding tightly on to its side, and stretched. Trying to lighten up the mood a little bit he bowed deeply, holding on tightly to make sure that he didn’t foolishly start floating away, and said, “Hope, let me be the first to officially welcome you to Mars’ largest moon, Phobos.”
PART 8 – PHOBOS
CHAPTER 40
Calaes finished his bow, looked at Hope and said with sincerity, “Yes, your father was truly a good man and his efforts are what allowed us to get this far. Now it is our responsibility to finish what he started. We are going to have to hurry, there isn’t much time until the mining ships get here.”
Hope looked at him and smiled thankfully. Calaes helped her out of her chamber and they scooted hand in hand toward the tunnel and the boarding gate. Calaes, of course, had experienced zero gravity many times in VR so he was adept at the scooting. Hope, however, was not used to it. She kept trying to walk more than use the typical pushing-off method, which was an acquired skill. She kept bouncing up off the deck, since she too weighed about two ounces, pulling Calaes up with her.
It was fine while they were in the shuttle, since there were many things to hold on to. When they entered the tunnel, they made much more of a humorous spectacle, as they slowly rose in the air, finally colliding with the tunnel roof, then pushing off back to the floor.
Calaes held her hand the entire time, trying to recall his first time in zero G. It had been so long ago, he just couldn’t remember exactly what it was like. Hope, of course, was used to always being in control. She became more and more frustrated, until finally she just laughed and said, “You know what? I’m just not very good at this. I’m going to let you do all the work.” She grinned broadly at him and stopped trying to help.
Calaes smiled back – it was nice to be better than her at something. He had always felt that she was perfect at everything. It was good to know that she was human after all.
With gentle pushes, he guided her through the tunnel and past the boarding gate. At the end of the boarding gate was another tunnel. This one was very long, as it led to the starship itself.
Calaes quickly maneuvered both of them along the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel they finally saw the entry to the ship. Calaes said to Hope, “Well, this is it. We’re finally to the ship itself.”
Calaes looked around trying to orient himself. He had spent so much time on this starship – albeit in VR. Still, the only difference between VR and real life was the tunnel. They had always boarded the ship via shuttle before, and always at zero gravity. He saw that the tunnel led directly into the shuttle port – which made sense. It was the natural place to enter the ship, even without a shuttle. The huge shuttle bay doors were being held open and the tunnel snaked through to the environmentally-controlled door to the rest of the ship. This made sense, of course, since there was already an emergency airlock there in case the shuttle bay was exposed to deep space. The emergency airlock was fitted to the door using the standard tunnel interface. This allowed someone to enter the ship when wearing a space suit, through the emergency air lock. Currently the emergency airlock was disconnected to make way for the tunnel connection.
It was a shame they couldn’t just land the shuttle directly in the shuttle bay. But even though there was not much gravity, there was still too much to be able to attach the shuttle to the ship – as was done in zero G. His weight was down to two ounces, but the shuttle’s weight which started out at over a million pounds on Earth was still about one thousand pounds on Phobos. This was still too much to try to land the shuttle as if in zero gravity, since it had never been designed to be able to do so.
Once they passed through the shuttle bay door and through the airlock door to the ship, Calaes rapidly regained his bearings. He felt right at home since he had been on the VR version of this same spacecraft for more than five years. Looking around, he had expected to see everything amiss, but he was happy to see everything was in excellent shape. It dawned upon him that since most of the candidates had been on the first two shuttles, they had been here for almost a full day and had time to get everything stowed in its proper location. This also meant that they had already taken over the responsibilities of running the ship. The years and years of training now paid off handsomely.
Calaes guided Hope up to the bridge. Looking around, he was shocked to see Lorenzo Romano, one of the candidates that had gone missing from the training campus, working on the bridge.
Lorenzo looked up, smiled and said, “Hello Captain, bet you didn’t expect to see me here, did you?”
Shaken, Calaes looked at Hope. She shrugged and said, “We didn’t want all those who were outspoken to be culled from the ranks. If we did that too much the gene pool would be lacking the killer instinct that is needed for any society to survive and thrive. If everyone acts like a sheep, then a wolf will have no problem decimating the entire herd.
Calaes shook his head again. As he thought about it, he realized that she was right – but he didn’t have time to think about the implications of this right now. It also shook him that he was officially the captain. The last time anyone had called him captain, it was in a simulation and it immediately ended.
Looking at the ship’s status he saw that the ship was almost ready to take off. All systems were nominal. The only unusual thing was the ship’s proximity to Phobos – hopefully this was as close as it would ever come to such a large mass.
“Well, what do you think of it?” Hope asked. “We’ve been working on it for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve been able to actually visit it. I’ve seen pictures and videos of it of course, but it is quite impressive in person. What do you think?”
Calaes smiled and said, “To be perfectly honest, it feels like I have grown up in this ship. As you know, I spent more than five years on this ship. But
the thing that I can’t get over is just how incredibly accurate the VR simulation was.”
“Well,” said Hope, “that is very fortunate for us, isn’t it? Otherwise it would take months if not years to get everyone trained.”
Calaes chuckled and said, “Agreed, since we have a little less than two hours until the first asteroid mining ships reach us. If we haven’t lifted off by then, we are not going to be able to.”
“Yes, I know,” she responded biting her lip. “I’ve been thinking about that non-stop the entire trip up here. We have enough time to lift off, but I haven’t figured out how we can evade their ships. We are going to start off slow, and they are going to be coming in fast. We can never hope to build up enough speed to get by them.”
Calaes replied, “That has been really bothering me as well. We have a far faster ship than any of theirs, but it’s the time right after liftoff before we can get going fast that is the problem. With their lasers and mining munitions, they could totally destroy us before we could get away. Unfortunately, our ship was never designed to have armaments. Our only real hope is to get enough delta velocity, with respect to them, that they can’t use their lasers for more than a quick burst. Our nanite-based outer walls should be able to regenerate themselves if the damage is not too extensive. Also, the faster we’re moving with respect to them, the harder it will be for them to try to use their ore-blasting nuclear munitions. Their munitions were only designed to be fired in a straight line with no maneuverability and with a very limited range – both of which limit their effectiveness the faster we’re moving. What we need is to brainstorm a solution where the delta velocity is the highest – and we need to do it quickly.”
Calaes set the ship’s AI to run simulations on how to leave Phobos, with the object to get away from the incoming ships as quickly as possible. After several minutes, an awfully long time for an AI to run, it was done and Calaes looked over the results. It was clear that any conventional liftoff from Phobos to get away was doomed, independent of which direction they chose. The approaching ships would easily be able to stay with the starship long enough to totally destroy it. There was, however, a highly-dangerous maneuver where the ship lifted off Phobos and headed directly towards Mars. By using the planet’s gravity and momentum they could quickly build up speed and slingshot themselves past the other ships. There was just one opportunity to perform this maneuver so they would pass the mining ships with the highest delta velocity. They had to lift off in slightly more than twenty-nine minutes.
Calaes quickly made his decision and set up an emergency address to everyone on the ship:
“Attention everyone. We will be lifting off in twenty-nine minutes. All equipment and cargo must be stowed and everyone must be in their suspended animation chambers by that point in time. The ship will be making multiple high G maneuvers, so anyone who is not in a chamber by that time will most likely be killed. Therefore, it is imperative that everyone get into their chambers as soon as possible. A general alert will be broadcast ship-wide prior to liftoff at T minus five minutes and at every minute thereafter. The final countdown will commence at T minus sixty seconds and will continue until launch.
“Obviously, once you get into your chambers you won’t wake up until we have arrived at the new planetary system, assuming we survive this encounter. At that point we will be able to set up our new society, free from those that would keep us from doing so. I am proud of everyone that has worked so long and so hard to get us this far. Good luck everyone and God speed.
Captain Calaes, out”
It felt good to use the “Captain” moniker. Calaes realized that he had never had a chance to use it, and it might just be the last time if things did not go well.
Calaes answered questions and addressed administrative issues, when finally the ship’s system announced “T minus five minutes.” At this point he judged that time was getting too short and everything else would just have to wait. He turned to Hope and said, “Well, now is the time. Are you ready for the big sleep?”
She replied, “You know, after all this time I can’t just go to sleep without knowing what is going to happen. Isn’t there any way we can stay out of the chamber just until we see what happens with our confrontation with the mining ships?”
Calaes frowned. He had been thinking the same thing. “No, I was absolutely serious that if anyone is not in the chambers, they would be killed. We will be pulling multiple G’s and only by being in a chamber is it safe.”
“There must be some other way,” Hope persisted. “I just couldn’t stand it knowing we might all be killed and we might never wake up.”
Calaes quickly thought about it and came up with a compromise. “How about if I set our two chambers to delay the suspended animation initiation for one hour. The chamber will still protect us and it is unlikely that we will be permanently harmed by being awake. The body can take quite a pounding when in suspended animation, but there is a good chance we will be all right if we stay awake, as long as we are fully protected in the chambers.”
Just then the ship’s system announced, “T minus sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight, ...”
Working quickly, he overrode both of their systems to delay the suspended animation and Calaes gave Hope a long, tight hug. She hugged him back, then surprised him with a deep kiss. He gave her a dazed smile and he helped her into her chamber.
The ship’s system continued the countdown, “twenty-seven, twenty-six, twenty-five, ...”
As her chamber lid closed, he quickly entered his own chamber.
Normally sleep came very quickly once the chamber was entered. For the second time sleep did not come and Calaes felt somewhat claustrophobic. He asked Hope, “How are you doing?”
She answered, “Well enough I suppose, but I don’t like being cooped up in here. But not enough,” she added hastily, “to go to sleep now. I have to know what is happening.”
The countdown got to “five, four, three, two, one, Liftoff.”
Calaes felt a rumbling and could feel the power of the ship’s engines. There wasn’t much gravity, but the ship was definitely moving.
It was rather eerie being in the chamber and feeling the ship push and pull on his body as it maneuvered towards the planet’s surface. Unlike in the shuttle, the ship was already starting to spin, which started to increase the gravity due to the centripetal forces. Calaes thought about it for a moment, wondering why the ship would do that when he realized that it was reacting to his earlier commands. He had told it to do everything it could to minimize the damage of the lasers and mining munitions and that by rotating as fast as possible the ship would never only show one side to the enemy ships, so they could not concentrate their fire on any single ship surface. Since the nanites could repair damage, as long as they had enough time and the damage wasn’t too extensive, minor damage to any surface was tolerable. What they couldn’t tolerate was to allow the enemy ships to burn all the way through the protective honeycomb walls and get into the unprotected portions of the ship.
Calaes’ persa automatically provided the entire situational awareness picture on his chamber’s display, gathered from all the ship’s sensors. The ship rapidly approached the surface of Mars, moving much closer and much more rapidly in the planet’s thin atmosphere than they ever could do near Earth. They had almost reached the low point of their trajectory when he suddenly felt a hard pull on his body. They had evidently started their high G maneuver.
He felt his body being almost pulled apart. He had intellectually understood that high G’s could kill an unprotected person, but actually feeling his body being pushed and pulled so hard the pain was off the scale brought the reality home. There was no way he could have survived this outside of his chamber.
As more turns brought about more G’s of force, he almost blacked out several times. He urgently asked Hope, “How are you?”
She didn’t respond and Calaes was very concerned, but couldn’t do anything about it. Finally, she responded as if in
a daze. “I’m OK, I guess. I’ve never really experienced this before and I think I may have lost consciousness. I feel really funny, and not in a good way.”
Calaes realized that the ship was not holding back on its maneuvers, since all the passengers were supposed to be in suspended animation, where they could take much more acceleration than someone who was awake. For example, he chuckled to himself, someone in suspended animation didn’t have to worry about blacking out, did they?
Calaes smiled to himself and said to Hope, “If you can form coherent thoughts and you can talk, then you’re doing all right. Just lie back and enjoy the ride. We’ll be passing through the first of the ships soon, but if you want, I can reprogram your chamber to put you to sleep right now.”
“No,” she quickly replied, “I don’t want to miss out on this. I would never forgive myself if anything happened and I didn’t know it.”
Calaes didn’t bother to point out that if anything happened, they might be blown up and never know what happened anyway. Instead, he said, “OK, hold on tight.”
The first mining ship was closing in and sensors showed that it would be within weapons range in five seconds and would remain in weapons range for fifteen seconds. Calaes was thankful for their extra speed from the slingshot technique. Without it he had calculated that the first ships would be within weapons range for up to a half an hour – more than enough time to totally destroy their ship.
Calaes heard and felt a shudder go through the ship for what seemed like minutes. He realized that it must have been only fifteen seconds when his persa announced that there was minor damage to the outside protective wall, which would be repaired within two hours by the nanites.
“The next ship,” his persa said, “will be in weapons range in five seconds and will remain in weapons range for ten seconds before we can pull away from them.”
