Post by Lorpius Prime on Feb 11, 2023 1:26:14 GMT -5
Two months later, Discovery was ready to drop its tether.
The operation was dramatically different from the one originally planned for Discovery when it was to be the primary surface-space transportation hub for the Mars colony. For one, Titania's gravity was only a tenth of the red planet's, and Discovery's orbital distance was much shorter. The monomolecular weave tether had been by far the most expensive single component of the entire colony mission, and most of its length was unnecessary.
Discovery itself also needed extensive modifications to keep its new station. Not only was Titania smaller and lighter than Mars, but it was close enough to Uranus that the ice giant's gravity and magnetic field interfered with the stability of long-term orbits of its moon. The Tadpoles had spent much of the last two months replacing all of Discovery's station-keeping thrusters with their own, more powerful equipment, and bolting on a number of additional engines and gravity generators for good measure.
There had been some discussion of changing locations to the more distant moon, Oberon. But the station-keeping efficiencies would have been minor, and the Tadpoles had already invested precious infrastructure in Titania, even if the bulk of it was toxic.
By far the greatest operational challenge, however, was the physical surface of Titania. On Mars, a base structure carried by the NMC Diligence would have been landed and deployed first to serve as the space elevator's anchor. But Martian ground was solid rock, not too different from Earth. Titania's surface was ice, mostly water and carbon dioxide. It was more prone to shearing and pulverizing from physical stress, such as from supporting hundreds of thousands of kilograms' worth of colony buildings. Landing thrusters would melt and vaporize the ice, potentially compromising safe deployment of any surface structures. Even the ambient heat of the buildings inhabited by creatures as warm as Humans or Tadpoles could threaten their foundations on Titania.
Both Diligence and Destiny remained idle for the time being, as the Tadpoles engineered solutions to all these concerns. Discovery station was large enough to shelter the current flow of evacuees from the arkship for at least another year. Instead, its tether would anchor to a spur of the existing habitat freshly grown for this purpose. The goal was not to provide access to the blighted habitat, though it would, but simply to get the elevator operating as a swifter, higher-capacity method of shuttling supplies to the surface.
Hyong Yaheek had endured social isolation for most of his life. His early military service had naturally been among consequentialists who would have shunned him had they known of his philosophical and communal allegiance. When he was discovered, and political winds shifted against the deontologists on Karee, he'd spent nearly a decade in stockade. Then came the trip to Sol, still as a quasi-prisoner. The immediate assignment to Earth, denying him time among his fellows on the colony. The years spent working for the consequentialists in Hyarahek's embassy.
He'd found company among Humans. They were aliens, but their psychology and culture often felt more comfortable to him after enduring so much bigotry from his own species. He'd made friends, found a lover.
And so Hyong had thought he was prepared for an extended mission among Humans. It would free him from the constant irritations and supervision of colleagues and superiors who only half trusted him at best. Hyong had imagined it would be a vacation, a period of hedonistic rest in Human culture.
Instead, Hyong felt more alone and anxious than ever before in his life. He still liked Humans, or at least thought he did, but these particular Humans trusted him even less than his own comrades. With good reason, he was an acknowledged spy accompanying them on what surely seemed like one of the most critical endeavors in the history of their species. Still, that fact created tensions in all their interactions with him. And for the most part, they did not need to interact with him.
Hyong was nominally a guest of the Humans, not a prisoner. But they had no need for his participation in their mission, and had made no promises to allow him any liberties beyond his quarters and the small common living space in the Barn Swallow. And so the Humans, for the most part, simply left Hyong alone.
He had written several letters to Gracia now, and received several in return. He was sure she missed him as much as he missed her, but there was only so much that could be expressed in writing. She wanted to know everything there was to know about the Kekregka aliens—the Tadpoles as all the Humans had taken to calling them. Hyong had little more to share after his first couple of letters, however. The Kekregka were far less willing to engage with him than even the Humans, although Hyong thought he had been exceedingly polite with his requests and outreach. That was another relationship that his consequentialist fellows had probably ruined for quite some time, the fools.
The Humans had three times allowed him to send an "official" message to the Republic's colony on Titan to demonstrate that he was still alive and unharmed. They required the messages to be video recordings only to prevent transferring any hidden data. How they imagined they would stop him from reporting in full after he returned, Hyong could not fathom. The colony had responded to each message with a simple acknowledgment of receipt, and no further instructions.
Hyong had sent considerably more information than his three official reports, of course. By now he had a reliable way to hijack Barn Swallow's external long-range communications without being detected. It was not an instantaneous process and required a non-trivial effort each time, but Hyong had sent the colony as much information as he could gather about Kekregka biology and the strange interactions with one of the Task Force's officers. His information was very limited, almost entirely description of the events as Hyong had been told. He'd asked the Kekregka for medical details and offered to share what he could about his own species that might help determine if they faced similar risks, but they had not been forthcoming. He had surreptitiously gathered a few physical samples, but he had no appropriate analytical equipment, and it would be quite some time before he could turn those over to the Republic's technicians in person.
In the meantime, Hyong was bored.
Pascual accepted the comm request at the monitor in his quarters.
"Commodore Lee," he nodded at the image of the dark haired woman.
"Ambassador Molinas."
Their relationship was not warm, but they had been able to remain cordial these last few months. The shared shock over Lieutenant Muyskens' medical emergency, and the simple fact that they'd had no choice but to continue working together had worn away some of the sharper edges of personal conflict.
"Ambassador," the Commodore continued, "we're going to begin transferring most of the NMC staff to Earth Fleet ships in the next few days. They'll return to Earth with a small detachment of ships to conserve propellant for the rest of the Task Force remaining on station here."
"Is there going to be a relief fleet to keep a permanent presence?"
"Undecided, but I expect so. Even expensive as it is to operate at this distance from Earth, an outpost here is probably even more valuable. Assuming the Tadpoles are willing to continue hosting us, of course."
Pascual tended to agree. His uncle had told him that the OES member states were balking at the bill for further trips to Uranus. But they also seemed even more offended by the notion of simply walking away from the trade opportunities and the giant sunk cost of the Mars colony infrastructure.
Commodore Lee said, "Some of the NMC staff, and some of our own crew who'll be returning with the detachment, asked if they could have a chance to tour the Tadpole arkship before departing. Do you think the Tadpoles would allow that, and would it be safe?"
"Oh I'm sure it would be safe," Pascual said. "I expect the Tadpoles will agree. They usually seem to enjoy giving tours and telling their stories. I think they like showing off in much the same way Humans might. I'll ask Ambassador—excuse me, Elder Rokden."
"Thank you Ambassador," the Commodore nodded politely. "If he does agree, please also find out if the Tadpoles can safely consume alcohol. Admiral Kozlov suggested I offer a gift on behalf of Earth Fleet and the Task Force."
Pascual actually chuckled at that, "I'll let you know, Commodore."
Most graduates of the Earth Fleet Academy had a focus in a technical field, usually a specialized engineering field that would be relevant to operating a spaceship. Lee Xi Feng did not, her program of choice had been pure tactics and military operations. This was the more selective and prestigious (at least in the sense of speeding her rise through the ranks of Earth Fleet) choice. But it also meant she was one of the least qualified people on the Uruguay to operate any of its individual systems.
This was not usually an operational obstacle. Any ship whose Captain needed to perform detailed maintenance or manipulation of a system was a ship that was already in very serious trouble.
Usually.
Commodore Lee rubbed the corners of her forehead as she reviewed the dozens of pages of handwritten notes she had spread across a desk in her quarters, held down with adhesive tack. Most of it was kinematic calculations and scribbles on star charts printed from Uruguay's navigation systems.
Xi Feng had recalculated all of these once each day for the last three days to validate her solutions as best she could. She could only do it herself, with minimal computer assistance, and she had to be right.
In the end, there was no choice but to proceed on the assumption that she had done the work correctly. She picked up a hardcopy of the manual for one of Uruguay's laser communications subsystems, and began feeding adjustment commands directly into its hardware controller. The manual was mostly for comfort than actual reference at this point, Xi Feng had practiced with this particular system many times over the last months.
Once she had the laser oriented where she intended—which she hoped was the same as where she needed—the Commodore typed a message into the subsystem's buffer. It was not long, and mostly numerals, but Xi Feng forced herself to spend five minutes checking and re-checking that she had copied everything exactly as she had written in her notes.
She needed only another minute or two to program the laser's transmission parameters, sweeping a very small arc and repeating only a handful of times. Then she executed the program.
The laser needed only a few seconds to complete its task, but once it was done Xi Feng exhaled as if she had just surfaced from a lengthy dive.
She overwrote, deleted, overwrote, and deleted again the message buffer as best she knew how. Then performed a factory reset on the whole subsystem.
Casey Rukavina noted the receipt of a transmission on one of the many monitors laid out before him. That was important, but not the most interesting thing to him at this moment. Much more interesting was the timer counting down to zero on a different monitor. The countdown was denominated in seconds, minutes, hours, and days, but these units had lost most of their individual meaning for Casey. What mattered was that the numbers were getting less. Eventually they would all say zero.
And eventually, they did.
"Wakey, wakey," Casey said. He reached out with one hand and tapped a bright red button he'd configured on a control screen. Casey had been looking forward to this moment for so long.
Artificial adrenaline flooded into his veins and arteries, a shock of energy that felt like it came from every direction at once. Dim lights intensified to simulate a bright day, and Casey vomited onto the deck.
The operation was dramatically different from the one originally planned for Discovery when it was to be the primary surface-space transportation hub for the Mars colony. For one, Titania's gravity was only a tenth of the red planet's, and Discovery's orbital distance was much shorter. The monomolecular weave tether had been by far the most expensive single component of the entire colony mission, and most of its length was unnecessary.
Discovery itself also needed extensive modifications to keep its new station. Not only was Titania smaller and lighter than Mars, but it was close enough to Uranus that the ice giant's gravity and magnetic field interfered with the stability of long-term orbits of its moon. The Tadpoles had spent much of the last two months replacing all of Discovery's station-keeping thrusters with their own, more powerful equipment, and bolting on a number of additional engines and gravity generators for good measure.
There had been some discussion of changing locations to the more distant moon, Oberon. But the station-keeping efficiencies would have been minor, and the Tadpoles had already invested precious infrastructure in Titania, even if the bulk of it was toxic.
By far the greatest operational challenge, however, was the physical surface of Titania. On Mars, a base structure carried by the NMC Diligence would have been landed and deployed first to serve as the space elevator's anchor. But Martian ground was solid rock, not too different from Earth. Titania's surface was ice, mostly water and carbon dioxide. It was more prone to shearing and pulverizing from physical stress, such as from supporting hundreds of thousands of kilograms' worth of colony buildings. Landing thrusters would melt and vaporize the ice, potentially compromising safe deployment of any surface structures. Even the ambient heat of the buildings inhabited by creatures as warm as Humans or Tadpoles could threaten their foundations on Titania.
Both Diligence and Destiny remained idle for the time being, as the Tadpoles engineered solutions to all these concerns. Discovery station was large enough to shelter the current flow of evacuees from the arkship for at least another year. Instead, its tether would anchor to a spur of the existing habitat freshly grown for this purpose. The goal was not to provide access to the blighted habitat, though it would, but simply to get the elevator operating as a swifter, higher-capacity method of shuttling supplies to the surface.
* * *
Hyong Yaheek had endured social isolation for most of his life. His early military service had naturally been among consequentialists who would have shunned him had they known of his philosophical and communal allegiance. When he was discovered, and political winds shifted against the deontologists on Karee, he'd spent nearly a decade in stockade. Then came the trip to Sol, still as a quasi-prisoner. The immediate assignment to Earth, denying him time among his fellows on the colony. The years spent working for the consequentialists in Hyarahek's embassy.
He'd found company among Humans. They were aliens, but their psychology and culture often felt more comfortable to him after enduring so much bigotry from his own species. He'd made friends, found a lover.
And so Hyong had thought he was prepared for an extended mission among Humans. It would free him from the constant irritations and supervision of colleagues and superiors who only half trusted him at best. Hyong had imagined it would be a vacation, a period of hedonistic rest in Human culture.
Instead, Hyong felt more alone and anxious than ever before in his life. He still liked Humans, or at least thought he did, but these particular Humans trusted him even less than his own comrades. With good reason, he was an acknowledged spy accompanying them on what surely seemed like one of the most critical endeavors in the history of their species. Still, that fact created tensions in all their interactions with him. And for the most part, they did not need to interact with him.
Hyong was nominally a guest of the Humans, not a prisoner. But they had no need for his participation in their mission, and had made no promises to allow him any liberties beyond his quarters and the small common living space in the Barn Swallow. And so the Humans, for the most part, simply left Hyong alone.
He had written several letters to Gracia now, and received several in return. He was sure she missed him as much as he missed her, but there was only so much that could be expressed in writing. She wanted to know everything there was to know about the Kekregka aliens—the Tadpoles as all the Humans had taken to calling them. Hyong had little more to share after his first couple of letters, however. The Kekregka were far less willing to engage with him than even the Humans, although Hyong thought he had been exceedingly polite with his requests and outreach. That was another relationship that his consequentialist fellows had probably ruined for quite some time, the fools.
The Humans had three times allowed him to send an "official" message to the Republic's colony on Titan to demonstrate that he was still alive and unharmed. They required the messages to be video recordings only to prevent transferring any hidden data. How they imagined they would stop him from reporting in full after he returned, Hyong could not fathom. The colony had responded to each message with a simple acknowledgment of receipt, and no further instructions.
Hyong had sent considerably more information than his three official reports, of course. By now he had a reliable way to hijack Barn Swallow's external long-range communications without being detected. It was not an instantaneous process and required a non-trivial effort each time, but Hyong had sent the colony as much information as he could gather about Kekregka biology and the strange interactions with one of the Task Force's officers. His information was very limited, almost entirely description of the events as Hyong had been told. He'd asked the Kekregka for medical details and offered to share what he could about his own species that might help determine if they faced similar risks, but they had not been forthcoming. He had surreptitiously gathered a few physical samples, but he had no appropriate analytical equipment, and it would be quite some time before he could turn those over to the Republic's technicians in person.
In the meantime, Hyong was bored.
* * *
Pascual accepted the comm request at the monitor in his quarters.
"Commodore Lee," he nodded at the image of the dark haired woman.
"Ambassador Molinas."
Their relationship was not warm, but they had been able to remain cordial these last few months. The shared shock over Lieutenant Muyskens' medical emergency, and the simple fact that they'd had no choice but to continue working together had worn away some of the sharper edges of personal conflict.
"Ambassador," the Commodore continued, "we're going to begin transferring most of the NMC staff to Earth Fleet ships in the next few days. They'll return to Earth with a small detachment of ships to conserve propellant for the rest of the Task Force remaining on station here."
"Is there going to be a relief fleet to keep a permanent presence?"
"Undecided, but I expect so. Even expensive as it is to operate at this distance from Earth, an outpost here is probably even more valuable. Assuming the Tadpoles are willing to continue hosting us, of course."
Pascual tended to agree. His uncle had told him that the OES member states were balking at the bill for further trips to Uranus. But they also seemed even more offended by the notion of simply walking away from the trade opportunities and the giant sunk cost of the Mars colony infrastructure.
Commodore Lee said, "Some of the NMC staff, and some of our own crew who'll be returning with the detachment, asked if they could have a chance to tour the Tadpole arkship before departing. Do you think the Tadpoles would allow that, and would it be safe?"
"Oh I'm sure it would be safe," Pascual said. "I expect the Tadpoles will agree. They usually seem to enjoy giving tours and telling their stories. I think they like showing off in much the same way Humans might. I'll ask Ambassador—excuse me, Elder Rokden."
"Thank you Ambassador," the Commodore nodded politely. "If he does agree, please also find out if the Tadpoles can safely consume alcohol. Admiral Kozlov suggested I offer a gift on behalf of Earth Fleet and the Task Force."
Pascual actually chuckled at that, "I'll let you know, Commodore."
* * *
Most graduates of the Earth Fleet Academy had a focus in a technical field, usually a specialized engineering field that would be relevant to operating a spaceship. Lee Xi Feng did not, her program of choice had been pure tactics and military operations. This was the more selective and prestigious (at least in the sense of speeding her rise through the ranks of Earth Fleet) choice. But it also meant she was one of the least qualified people on the Uruguay to operate any of its individual systems.
This was not usually an operational obstacle. Any ship whose Captain needed to perform detailed maintenance or manipulation of a system was a ship that was already in very serious trouble.
Usually.
Commodore Lee rubbed the corners of her forehead as she reviewed the dozens of pages of handwritten notes she had spread across a desk in her quarters, held down with adhesive tack. Most of it was kinematic calculations and scribbles on star charts printed from Uruguay's navigation systems.
Xi Feng had recalculated all of these once each day for the last three days to validate her solutions as best she could. She could only do it herself, with minimal computer assistance, and she had to be right.
In the end, there was no choice but to proceed on the assumption that she had done the work correctly. She picked up a hardcopy of the manual for one of Uruguay's laser communications subsystems, and began feeding adjustment commands directly into its hardware controller. The manual was mostly for comfort than actual reference at this point, Xi Feng had practiced with this particular system many times over the last months.
Once she had the laser oriented where she intended—which she hoped was the same as where she needed—the Commodore typed a message into the subsystem's buffer. It was not long, and mostly numerals, but Xi Feng forced herself to spend five minutes checking and re-checking that she had copied everything exactly as she had written in her notes.
She needed only another minute or two to program the laser's transmission parameters, sweeping a very small arc and repeating only a handful of times. Then she executed the program.
The laser needed only a few seconds to complete its task, but once it was done Xi Feng exhaled as if she had just surfaced from a lengthy dive.
She overwrote, deleted, overwrote, and deleted again the message buffer as best she knew how. Then performed a factory reset on the whole subsystem.
* * *
Casey Rukavina noted the receipt of a transmission on one of the many monitors laid out before him. That was important, but not the most interesting thing to him at this moment. Much more interesting was the timer counting down to zero on a different monitor. The countdown was denominated in seconds, minutes, hours, and days, but these units had lost most of their individual meaning for Casey. What mattered was that the numbers were getting less. Eventually they would all say zero.
And eventually, they did.
"Wakey, wakey," Casey said. He reached out with one hand and tapped a bright red button he'd configured on a control screen. Casey had been looking forward to this moment for so long.
Artificial adrenaline flooded into his veins and arteries, a shock of energy that felt like it came from every direction at once. Dim lights intensified to simulate a bright day, and Casey vomited onto the deck.