Thanks for the fixes.
Ace Dreamer Wrote:Nice piece on how politics can bite you even if you do your job as best you can!
Yes, it can happen... but it seems someone at ESA got clever.
The Thor Heyerdahl and the other ISVs had finally landed on Pan. It had taken the ships hours to slowly approach the North pole of the small moon and finally land on it. Pan’s gravity was nearly non-existent, so the ships had been carefully lowered directly on the icy surface.
The crews had swarmed out to secure their crafts on the ice with hooks and special rope. After that, the cargo of all four ISVs had been unloaded and also secured on the surface of the moon, in a safe distance to the ships.
“Mira, are you still watching them?”
Mira looked up from the blanket she was laying on to the other catgirl and nodded.
“Yes, its fun to watch them... look at all the things they brought here. That must be hundreds of tons of cargo. And they said that this is only a third of their total building material.” Mira smiled. “I wonder if we are allowed to look at the things they will install in their space station.”
“I would not bet on it” the other catgirl replied, “most likely they got strict rules that we are not allowed to touch their toys. There are still quite a few people in Europe that don’t like us.”
“But they are here... this looks like a full hardtech expedition, but they hired us to help them.” Mira said thoughtful, “someone really clever was involved in the planning. Just look at youtube how many people from Europe saw Maico’s video!”
Her ears twitched as she looked out of the window. “They stopped working and going towards the elevator! Quick, we have to get to the airlock.”
The elevator was a cabin with a Mass Effect drive the catgirls had built last week. It provided an easy way from the surface of Pan to the airlock of Jenga, which was floating a few hundred meters above the icy moon. The catgirls had discussed landing Jenga on the surface but had decided against it.
Eric Hunt was satisfied with the day. They had managed to unload all the ISVs and secured their cargo on the surface an hour earlier than projected by the planning team on Earth. Now everyone could get a meal and a good night of sleep.
“Everyone of the Thor Heyerdahl inside?” he asked and waited for the replies, “then lets move upwards so we can enjoy some full gravity again!”
He pressed a big button with the label ‘up’ and with a small twitch the cabin began to float upwards. Slowly but steadily the gravity within the elevator began to increase.
“A floating elevator with artificial gravity... I am not sure if I want to take a look at it or if I want to cry that we are not allowed to use this tech at our base” Masuno Soetsu, the engineer of the Thor Heyerdahl said.
“Do not forget this Quirk thing we were told about” Eric Hunt replied, “this Handwavium might be a shortcut for a lot of things, but it is not completely reliable!”
“Reliable enough that we trust this elevator” Sarah Meier noted. “Cannot be that bad.”
“If this elevator would fall, it would take hours until we hit Pan” Eric returned.
There was a loud BING as the elevator finally stopped, clearly hearable through the vacuum.
“Upper level, mind your feet!” a female voice announced and the door opened.
The group quickly left the elevator and entered the airlock in front of them. It took another another three tours of the elevator to get the crews of the other three ships up to the space stations airlock. Finally everyone was inside and the pressure door closed behind them. A hissing noise sounded all around them as the air rushed back into the room, then a green lamp light up on the wall.
Eric Hunt checked the display of his spacesuit, it showed an atmospheric pressure similar to Earth. He unlocked his helmet and took it off while the inner door of the airlock slowly opened.
As the door gave way, they suddenly heard a loud applause. On the other side of the door was a large crowd of catgirls, clapping excited as the ESA and JAXA astronauts entered their space station for the first time. Two of them were holding a large poster.
‘Welcome to the frontier... what took you so long?’ Eric Hunt read and grinned as one of the catgirls approached his group.
“Hello, I am Cathy,” the catgirl said. “I welcome all of you to Jenga, its a pleasure to see you here at Saturn.”
“Thank you... Cathy” Eric replied, “in the name of this missions crew I thank you for your hospitality.”
“If you want, I will show everyone the Module we have arranged for you, it is directly to the right of this airlock. It has a small room for each of you and a few small conference and meeting rooms.” Cathy explained, “We have a large kitchen and cafeteria here on Jenga where you can get your meals. If you want you can eat with us there or carry them to your rooms, it isn’t far.”
“That sounds great” Eric replied, “you most likely know that the typical flat of an ESA or JAXA astronaut during the mission is a lot smaller!”
“Yes, I know” Cathy said and laughed. “Oh, and I have to introduce you to Cortana and Serina.”
Just as she spoke the name, the translucent image of two women appeared left and right to her in mid air.
“Good evening Mr. Hunt, I am Cortana, the cybernetic intelligence of the space station Jenga.” Cortana introduced herself, “if you have any request or question and do not see a catgirl, just call me, I am present in all of the corridors of Jenga. If you want to talk to me within a room, use the intercom at the door to call me.”
Eric Hunt blinked a few times but didn’t managed to reply anything.
“And I am Serina... I am the collective mind of the Exocomps here on the station, the small flying drones you already might have noticed. If you need something repaired, changed or built in your Module, just call me and I will see what the catgirls and me can do for you.”
“Thank you, we will remember it” Eric Hunt said. “I think most of my crew would like to change clothes and use a washing room. Maybe we can meet later in your cafeteria?”
“Yes, of course” Cathy answered, “but don’t forget your bathrooms also have a shower with hot water!”
This made Eric Hunt smile.
‘Full gravity, a large cafeteria with real food and hot shower? I have to gratulate the people on Earth who organized this mission when I get back’ he thought.
“Just one thing, I am just curious” he finally asked, “I have seen the poster, is it that special that we managed to get to Saturn? I mean, the Nobu Shirase has been here months ago.”
Cathy grinned.
“Oh, thats not about Saturn. Mira is talking about your science and engineering achievement. I looked like Europe had been slacking off with their space tech for years, it is good to see you pushing forward again!”
Nice story, reads more smoothly, I think.
"‘Full gravity, a large cafeteria with real food and hot shower? I have to gratulate the people on Earth who organized this mission when I get back’ he thought."
Should be 'congratulate'.
"I looked like Europe had been slacking off with their space tech for years"
Should be 'It looked like'.
- only things I noticed on reading.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Ace Dreamer Wrote:Nice story, reads more smoothly, I think.
Thank you.
Quote:"‘Full gravity, a large cafeteria with real food and hot shower? I have to gratulate the people on Earth who organized this mission when I get back’ he thought."
Should be 'congratulate'.
Damned... I wasn't sure about this one...
And because I was bored, another peace of the story... this one is happening on Earth. *G*
#################
The atmosphere in the anteroom of the ESA General director Allan Bossert was tense. A french looking man in a suit was sitting in a comfy armchair, angrily looking at his clock from time to time. The phone rang and a secretary talked with someone for a few moments, then stood up and walked over to the waiting man.
“The ESA General director has now time for you” he said and the man stood up and followed him to the door.
In his office, the General Director of ESA stood up and approached his visitor to shake his hand.
“Mr. Duree, welcome to ESA... what can I do for you?”
“Spare me your amenities Mr. Bossert, I am not used to wait... and I am sure you already know why I am here!” Mr. Duree said, visibly angry. “You LIED to me when you told me that this Fen will have no part in constructing the Pan station!”
“Mr. Duree, I assume you have watched this video of the Fen reporter. I can assure you that no Fen will join the work on the space station on Pan. Not only that, but the station will be completely Handwavium free, without any products created outside Europe and Japan.”
Duree looked directly into the eyes of the leader of ESA.
“And what is about this damned floating space thing full of this... this... this things? Were they just Hollywood like computer generated images?”
“No, of course not,” Mr. Bossert explained calmly, “as you already know we have hired a group of Fen to provide housing, food and emergency support for the construction side. Otherwise the mission to Pan would have got much more expensive because we would have to bring temporary housing for our Astronauts there. Or keep our ISVs on Pan for half a year!”
“But why did you choose a station full of this freaks? Why not just hire some normal humans?”
‘Sometimes our neighbors across the English Channel are a just difficult’ the ESA General Director thought and sighed.
“Mr. Duree, we selected this group of Fen because of multiple reasons. At first they have a mobile space station that large enough to easily house our team of forty astronauts. They are also not affiliated with one of the planetary factions of Fenspace, which means they do not care that much if they are at Mars, the Moon or Saturn. Third, they consider themselves a research and prototyping facility, which means we do not even interrupt their normal projects.”
Mr. Bossert smiled. “Which means that they were cheaper than all the alternatives. And you maybe can remember the clause in the Aurora mission statement to minimize the amount of money we pay the Fen for anything? How was it spelled, ‘prevent the unnecessary draining of European resources to off-Earth persons and organization’?”
Duree gnashed his teeth because he had suggested that clause to the French EU Commissioner himself.
“I do not care for a few thousand Euros, I expect you to get rid of these freaks as soon as possible” Duree shouted angrily.
“No.” Bossert replied flatly.
Duree blinked a few times, unable to accept this direct denial of his will.
“Did you forgot who I am?” Duree lowered his voice. “Do you know how many people in European governments and the Commission consider me a personal friend? One word of me and you will be without a job within days!”
Allan Bossert considered just laughing about this threat for a moment but decided otherwise.
“Mr. Duree, maybe you should reconsider such an action. The ESA is working on the most complicated and most expensive space project ever done in its history, and we are doing well. We have good news reports, both here in Europe and among the Fen. The technology we promised the EU Commission works flawless and we are ahead of the timetable. I am sure you already know that half of the governments consider their re-election a safe thing if Aurora is a success.”
Duree looked angrily at Bossert but stayed silent.
“Because of this I am sure that my job is safe for the moment.” Bossert continued, “And maybe you should think more about the economic advantages this project has been to your enterprise than to throw everything away because you do not like the Hotel of our astronauts!”
“This is not the last time we spoke about this” Duree said, “I promise you will hear from me again!”
“Of course Mr. Duree, you know my office is always open for you.”
While some, or many, Europeans may dislike fen and biomods, and maybe even privately agree with the term "freaks" or "things", very few voters, and, more importantly (from a politician's point of view) no relevant media in the continent, would tolerate a politicians saying such things out loud.
A would suggest Mr Bossert to accidentally leak the recording of the reunion to a few newspapers and enjoy the politician free time to complete the station while the scandal runs its course...
Rakhasa Wrote:While some, or many, Europeans may dislike fen and biomods, and maybe even privately agree with the term "freaks" or "things", very few voters, and, more importantly (from a politician's point of view) no relevant media in the continent, would tolerate a politicians saying such things out loud.
A would suggest Mr Bossert to accidentally leak the recording of the reunion to a few newspapers and enjoy the politician free time to complete the station while the scandal runs its course...
Mr. Duree is a leader of a group of French (and other European) companies. And yes, even then he stepped over the line. He might regret it later... or not.
His connection to the Aurora project might come out in a later chapter.
While I might be sure that blackmailing Mr Duree would be enjoyed by some, pulling his (political) teeth seems likely far more effective.
"‘Sometimes our neighbors across the English Channel are a just difficult’ the ESA General Director thought and sighed.
“Mr. Duree, we selected this group of Fen because of multiple reasons. At first they have a mobile space station that large enough to easily house our team of forty astronauts."
Technical point - I was taught on the UK calls it the "English Channel", but that was some time ago, now.
I think that should be "First", not "At first".
I only realised afterwards that I kept reading 'Duree' as 'Dupree'...
Reads well...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Ace Dreamer Wrote:While I might be sure that blackmailing Mr Duree would be enjoyed by some, pulling his (political) teeth seems likely far more effective.
Yeah *G*
he is one of the industry CEOs who lobbied against the pressure of the energy industry to stop the Aurora project... but he is (link some French people) a little bit too influenced by the "Professor panic"
Quote:"‘Sometimes our neighbors across the English Channel are a just difficult’ the ESA General Director thought and sighed.
“Mr. Duree, we selected this group of Fen because of multiple reasons. At first they have a mobile space station that large enough to easily house our team of forty astronauts."
Technical point - I was taught on the UK calls it the "English Channel", but that was some time ago, now.
Which tells you that the ESA director in 2017/2018 is from the UK.
Quote:I think that should be "First", not "At first".
Will include it in the final story.
Quote:I only realised afterwards that I kept reading 'Duree' as 'Dupree'...
LOL... another one!
If he is an industry CEO rather than a politician, then he is in an even worse position, against public opinion. Yes, everyone knows that in Europe, like most of the world, CEOs control many politicians, but they do it diecretely -and certainly every single politicain will pretent that it does not happen, at all.
A CEO bragging than he owns several politicians, and they will take punitive measures at his orders? Every single politician on his pocket would backpedal so fast, that the press would get whipslash -they literally cannot afford to let people think they are one of those corrupt people. And that is even before he is labelled a racist -and in Europe, from a public figure, one you are known as racist, the even worse label of "nazi" is very, very close.
It is always nice to see arrogant assholes get destroyed by their own words...
Lets just say he had a really bad day and dug his own hole... we will see if he can get out again or not. *grin*
More from our three friends which do not like the work on Saturn...
###########
The airlock of the Green Thumb was pushed open and Norman entered the container, excitedly waving a small data chip in his hand.
“I got it, I got it!” he shouted as he slammed the door close behind him.
Miriam looked up and grinned. “I hope it is not contagious?” she said which made Alexander snicker.
“You and your stupid jokes” Norman murmured, then he placed the data chip on the desk. “You remember that I promised to ask this Mad I know about some support?”
“Yeah, we remember him, Norman” Alexander replied, “you told us at least ten times about him the last days. Did you finally got a reply from your contact?”
“Yes, he did” Norman acknowledged with a smile, “and its not only a reply, he will provide us with some of his hardware! He say it will take a few weeks, but he promised me a space capable truck and a weapon system to continue with our plan.”
Miriam blinked. “Wow, that sounds really great... but say, who is this contact that he gives away weapons for our cause?”
“I think he is a Mad at the Soviets base on the moon” Norman said, “you know, they have always been proposed a strong ‘Earth stays on Earth’ politics.”
“Wait, you THINK he is a Soviet?” Alexander interrupted. “What are you talking about?”
“I never met him in person, but we talked a lot over a secure message board” Norman admitted. “You know, it would be stupid to meet because if something bad happens to one of us it would be too easy for Space Patrol to track the other one.”
“How the hell can we trust him if you have never met before?” Alexander wasn’t happy about this. “He might just be a trap from the Patrol which will jump on us any second! Or some AI or Fen that think its a nice joke!”
“Calm down Alex, its neither a joke nor a trap. We have been in contact for years, and he already supported us in the past” Norman angrily spit back, “where do you think I got the money we used to repair and upgrade the Green Thumb last year? At that time you didn’t even wanted to know!”
“Okay boys, take a seat and calm down” Miriam suddenly interrupted them. “Alexander, you are right that we have to be careful, but we already agreed that we need external support for the problem on Saturn.” She looked to Normal. “Norman, please be careful. If we can get this truck and the weapon system we will take it, but make sure no one follows you back to the Green Thumb. IF you get the truck at all.”
“Maybe we should look for another abandoned asteroid mine here in the belt” Alexander suddenly said, “there should be still more of this probing tunnels in other asteroids and we might not want to take this truck to the Green Thumb at all. You know, better safe than sorry.”
Both Norman and Miriam nodded.
Another new chapter... and another old one. Enjoy it.
##############
Eric Hunt was sitting in an armchair, relaxing from the long hours of work on the ice moon. He smiled and thought about the short tour on their new ‘home’ for the next months.
‘Full Earth gravity.’ he thought,
‘A crew with crazy robots to ask for help.
Rooms large enough to stretch yourself without knocking something over.
Hot showers for everyone!’
“Damned, I think everyone of us will be spoiled for future missions. Unless we can persuade ESA to rent these catgirls for other missions too!” he said to the people at the table. “Did I mention that I would not have thought that this would increase our working speed that much?”
“Yes, you did.” Masuno said and grinned. “At least once per day. I must admit I would never have guessed you can get used to a station full of catgirls and flying robots. Oh sorry, flying Exocomps!”
“These Exocomps were really a bit strange” Eric said, thinking back to his first direct meeting with one of the small drones. “I thought the catgirls were mad when they told me to scold it.”
“Hey it worked” Masuno replied, “these clever little bastards might be curious as hell, but they are also really cute.”
He laughed as he suddenly noticed a single Exocomp rubbing against his leg and purring. “Yeah, we all love you too” he told the drone and pet it.
“And as everyone can see, the insanity of Fenspace is contagious” Eric added with a grin, “Two months ago no one would have thought about speaking and petting flying drones. But I think Mrs. Meier managed to settle in even better.”
Sarah Meier’s face turned a deep, hot red. “It was... it was an accident... I was just very tired... you know, we had worked overtime!”
“Hey, you decided yourself that you wanted to take a nap on the couch in the room near the cafeteria.” Masuno was certainly having fun with the discussion. “And you two certainly looked cute!”
“To be honest the catgirls here told me that the couch in the room was really for people that want to take a quick nap” Eric added, “and the catgirl that was found sleeping with you on the couch said it had been also very tired and didn’t noticed you were no catgirl.”
Sarahs face became even more red as she thought about quickly leaving the table.
“But lets talk about something different”, Eric tried to help Sarah, “did someone found the missing ice anchor?”
The ice anchors were long pipes that were using a chemical reaction to melt into the ice of the moon and anchor themselves with a few barbs there.
“Sorry boss” Masuno replied, “we looked everywhere and counted the deployed anchors twice, but one of them is still missing. Maybe they accidently put it in the cargo for our ships second turn?”
~***~
Somewhere, in an empty supply modules on Jenga was a strange meeting happening. The module was new and would not be used by the catgirl inhabitants for quite some time. There was still some infrastructure of the module missing, Serina had said the Exocomps had too many other things in mind at the moment to finish it.
But in one corner of the module, behind a few solid steel plates which would cover the floor in the coming months a small group of Exocomps was floating around a long pipe... one with an ESA logo on it.
Eight Exocomps were rushing up and down, showering the device with low powered sensor beams from all kind of angles, shivering in excitement from time to time.
New tech!
New tech they hadn’t seen before!
New tech without Handwavium!
A puzzle.
A new puzzle!
The had to solve it!
The catgirls had told them that their guests did not wanted them to help with their work, and that they should not interfere with it. It was a selfish thing to keep the work for themselves, but there were not all that bad. And luckily they stopped working at some time, which had given the group the possibility to get this artifact without interfering with their work!
After a few hours, they were finished with all their measurements and moved their work to a small and secret playground on the Grid. They had learned over the years from the catgirls that it was quite fun to work with simulations.
You could only topple a large mountain of Christmas packages once, but you could do it as often and as spectacular as you liked on the Grid.
Quickly a virtual copy of the sensor data they had gathered appeared in front of their virtual avatars. The Exocomps activated a physics simulation and added water as the ground.
Then they watched the staff sinking in the waves of their simulated ocean.
Something wasn’t right.
Cold... much colder... much much colder!
The simulation started anew, this time with a ground of ice below the staff. It stood on its tiny legs, until one of the Exocomps pushed the button at the top, activating the chemical mix inside.
Ice began to melt... and after a moment the simulated staff fell to the side.
The Exocomps were puzzled, viewing their sensor readings of the astronauts work on the moon again. Just as they decided to start another simulation run, Cortana's avatar suddenly appeared over them.
“What the hell is going on here” Cortana thundered.
The Exocomps were shocked, one of them quickly vanished the simulated artifact and tried to look unsuspicious.
“Do not think I have not seen what you did here. How did you get such a good reading on this anchors... wait a moment, you did it?”
Cortana began to trace the connection of the Exocomp back, which quickly lead her into a very new module. It took her a moment to a few cameras and upload the firmware for them.
“How could you? You have stolen from our guests!”
That confused the Exocomps for a moment. Hadn’t the guests said that this were the place for their spare parts? How could borrowing a spare part be wrong?
Cortana sighed about the communication between the little drones.
“You will give it back immediately, and you will do it in person. If they ban ALL of your kind from their working area, it will be your fault.”
Their brothers might be banned from the icy moon too? Suddenly the Exocomps were a bit worried.
All looks good, very little to criticize.
“Damned, I think everyone of us will be spoiled for future missions." Should be 'every one'.
“and the catgirl that was found sleeping with you on the couch said it had been also very tired and didn’t noticed you were no catgirl.” Should that be 'she' not 'it'? Would "you weren't a catgirl" read better?
“did someone found the missing ice anchor?” Should be 'find'.
"Maybe they accidently put it in the cargo for our ships second turn?” I'm unsure what 'second turn' means.
"Somewhere, in an empty supply modules on Jenga was a strange meeting happening" Should that be "module on Jenga a strange meeting was happening"?
"It was a selfish thing to keep the work for themselves, but there were not all that bad." Should be "but they were"?
"such a good reading on this anchors" Should be "this anchor", or "these anchors".
"this were the place for their spare parts?" Should be "was the place", I think.
OK, I did another pass and found a few minor bits.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
@Ace Dreamer: Thanks for the fixes...
Also, you might want to change the line about "we ought to rent these catgirls again next time".
Maybe 'hire them' instead.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
*integrating more advise*
slowly the rework is over... have to think more about things will happening in the future. And I still have to plan a terror attack.
definatly. Rent implies... well a bit to close to what the boskones used catgirls for
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by
Echo's Children
Star Ranger4 Wrote:definatly. Rent implies... well a bit to close to what the boskones used catgirls for
Okay, got it (and fixed it in the gdocs).
And more about our three friends...
#############
Alexander and Miriam were sitting in the Green Thumbs main room. As always Miriam was browsing through the interwave, making small notes on a tablet on the table.
“Alexander, I am worried we are making a big mistake” Miriam suddenly said and leaned back. “I think this will all end badly for us.”
Alexander blinked a few times, he couldn’t believe what he just had heard. Miriam had always supported their ‘Saturn Solution’.
“Wait, a mistake?” he asked, “Why do you think so? I mean, we have been waiting for weeks that Normans contact would send us the promised help and you never had any doubts.”
“I know, I know... but things have changed.” Miriam looked back and forth between Alexander and her tablet. “I have watched news and rumors about the Danes at Saturn for the last month. The common perception is that they are nice but a bit stupid because they don’t even use Handwavium for Life Support. They got this descent interview with Maico and there are some pictures of them living together with the catgirls.”
“So what?” Alex shot back, “we are not depending on the mood of the Fen. Either the Danes go home... or they play a few militaristic tunes and get hit on the nose and then go home.”
“The problem is that they managed to make a lot of Fen comfortable with their presence.” Miriam tried to explain, “we need to wait for a moment of tension between both sides.”
Just in the moment Alexander tried to answer her doubts, the door was pushed open and Norman stormed into the room. “Oh yeah, we will rock them... you have to look at this baby! Lets go, its just outside the container!”
“Wait, you bought the damned thing here?” Miriam was visibly upset. “We agreed you would park it in the other mine so we can look at it later!”
“Our present is a little bit larger than we expected and I wasn’t really in the mood to drive the whole way from the other mine to the Green Thumb in my spacesuit” Norman said. “You know, our old Ford doesn’t have an airlock!”
“But what if Space Patrol has been tracking you? Miriam is right, that is a damned high risk!”
“Calm down, both of you.” Normal rolled with his eyes. “If Space Patrol would know about the truck, they would have never let me go off with it. Now lets move out so I can show you our little present for the Danes.”
They all left the Green Thumb through the airlock. The container was standing in a side tunnel of an old asteroid mine, which still had an airtight door. It had taken them some time to install an Air Saver to fill and evacuate the short tunnel, but it had become their own secret base.
“THIS is our new baby that will ruin Christmas for the Danes” Norman said with a grin and pointed to the truck with a long trailer that was standing in the tunnel. “I wouldn’t have guessed the weapon would be that large, but I will not complain about it.”
Norman opened the door at the back of the trailer. Inside the truck was a nearly 10 meter long machine made from pitch black metal. It seemed to be a wild mixture of thick cables, boxes of black metal and some camera lenses, all built around a central hollow cylinder that ran through the whole machine.
“Wow...” Alexander said, not sure how to continue for a moment. “That thing is huge.”
“Yes, isn’t it? I assume its a prototype for one of the Soviets capital ships” Norman told them, “not one of this pea shooters they use for their X-Com fighters. And its totally self-contained, which means we just have to bring it to the right place and arm it.”
“And if its so great, why does your mysterious contact gives it away?” Miriam interrupted their enthusiasm, “why doesn’t he use it himself?”
Normal looked irritated at her for a moment and then just shrugged. “Maybe he cannot easily leave the Moon without raising suspicion. Space Patrol and Great Justice might want to check up if anyone they know with the access to this hardware made a trip to Saturn. But I got this truck from a parking lot on the Moon, so they won't find anything.”
“This really sounds more and more crazy, lets go inside and have a talk about it” Miriam said, turned around and walked back to the Thumbs airlock.
“What is going on with her, she seems to be a little bit tense” Norman asked and Alexander shook his head.
“I am not sure, she worries about some strange media related things” he replied, “You know, here big ‘memetic warfare campaign’ thing.”
“... as I described it in my last progress report, the work on Pan is continuing smoothly.
Contacts with the Fen pet drones is still alternating between annoying, funny or useful. While they are hanging around the construction site to watch us, they are always eager to carry some tools for us. A few times they brought back things and even two of my crew, who lost ground contact and were flying away from Pan.
When the second part of our equipment arrives from Nova Paris, we will have already burrowed the first part of the station in the ice. I expect phase two of the project to be finish with little or no delay.”
Eric Hunt looked over his progress report for the bean counters at Earth for a last time. Even here, a billion kilometers away from Earth it was impossible to escape the paperwork completely.
He sometimes wondered how the Fen would have built this station. Most likely it would have been something very crazy. Or maybe a floating city like in Star Wars above the clouds of Saturn.
He sighed, whatever it would have been, it would have got artificial gravity. Thinking about this for a moment, he opened the document again.
“I would also like to forward the request of multiple crew members to allow the addition of a waved gravity generator to the habitation section of the station. I talked with several Fen during the last week, according to their knowledge it should be trivial to add an electrical powered generator without compromising the station.
As part of the ‘Environmental Systems’ it would most likely be completely free of strange side effects. One generator per section would also allow us to regulate the gravity in each module on its own, which is necessary for some of the production technology we want to install.”
He nodded to himself and pressed the ‘send mail’ button, then stood up and left his apartment to join his crew members in the canteen.
“Ah Eric, good to see you... we had been expecting you meeting us here a few hours ago... that much paperwork left?”
Eric nodded. “I always thought that being an astronaut would allow you to leave all this paperwork back on Earth, but the damned bureaucrats got an upgrade for their procedures.”
Everyone at the table chuckled.
“Before you ask me again, yes I asked them about the gravity generator idea. Most likely they will declare me insane and unfit for command, but maybe they will see the benefits of the idea. Transferring from this station to some hole in an ice moon with zero gravity doesn’t sound great.”
Sarah sighed. “Don’t forget to mention the nice cafeteria here, and the wonderful showers they have installed in our rooms. I asked one of the catgirls about the showers, did you knew that they don’t even used Handwavium for them, except for some filtration module in the bottom?”
“What are you up to?” Eric asked suspiciously.
“Oh, we have the job to build up the station, but we are also allowed to expand it later if necessary. The only restriction we got is that Handwavium is not allowed inside the station.”
“Yes, we all know that...” Eric started, but Sarah just interrupted him.
“What's about putting one additional box of steel into the ice, one that is NOT part of the station? If its not part of the station, we might get away with ignoring some of the rules.”
Eric shook his head. “Everything we build with the materials we have is part of the station. I am sorry, but this is not going to work.”
Sarah just grinned.
“Oh, I think I know a few engineers who might be willing to build us an additional parts for the moon. Without using up ESA or JAXA supplied materials, but with artificial gravity and hot showers!”
“They will just shoot us when we get back to Earth” Eric just murmured, trying to ignore the discussion Sarah just started at the table. “They give us some medals and then they will shoot us.”
"here is medal for saving day. You will now be shot for disobedience in the face of the enemy"
Sounds about right, I think there have even been some Real life cases like that.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by
Echo's Children
next chapter will be about the attack on the construction site... so the "rework" is nearly complete and I have to think more about what comes next ^^
And here we go...
Oh, I am looking for a suggestion who will be sent by Space Patrol to Jenga. I had thought about sending Shepard with the Normandy, unfortunately the Normandy is still under construction during this story. *G*
##############
Somewhere in the darkness, many light seconds away from the huge ringed planet called Saturn was a pitch black platform, placed there by an unremarkable waved truck half a day ago. After hours of calibrating its orientation through analysis of incoming light from stars and planets, the computer on the platform finished its preparation phase.
The platform suddenly became alive in a bright green life. A crackling sphere of lightning appeared around the weapon, expanding to a diameter of more than 40 meters and then collapsing back onto the weapon. Within the blink of an eye, the metallic projectile was accelerated to an incredible speed.
For hours its flight wasn’t noticed by anyone.
Seconds before the projectile hit its target, a group of Exocomps finally noticed it. They had chased a small block of ring ice a few hundred kilometers away from Jenga and one of them recognized the moving dot on its infrared camera.
‘TOY! Lets catch it!’, the small drone thought and its companions quickly turned around to look for their new prey. They quickly estimated the distance, only to be disappointed.
‘Oh, too far away’ they thought saddened, ‘maybe a friend can catch it?’
Then they all flinched in unison.
Whatever it was, it was fast... very fast. And it was going to hit home!
Their shock hit Serina’s consciousness a few milliseconds later. While her mind ran distributed on all the Exocomps, she normally did not payed that much attention to most of her little children.
The majority of the Exocomps left behind on Jenga froze in unison as a priority alert raced through Serinas mind, she could feel the world around her slowing down. She looked out through all her Exocomps eyes searching for the incoming threat.
“There... damned, not much time!”
She ignored a curious word from Cortana. Jenga’s second AI was still working in normal time.
Jengas radar emitter began to charge up, but it would take a few moments until the first pulse.
“Great, our defense guns just take too long to startup!!” she cursed, waking up Jengas defenses as fast as she could.
“What the hell is going on” Cortana asked, finally getting in sync with Serina just as the first radar pulses reflected back from the incoming projectile.
“Kinetic impactor. 0.7 seconds to impact. It’ll hit the construction site.” she replied focused on her task.
The eyes of Cortana's Grid avatar widened in shock. “Interception?”
“A single laser shot in a few moments, everything else takes too long. And not enough time to warn anyone on the moon!”
“You try to rescue the survivors, I will organizing the cats.” Cortana said and activated a station wide alert signal. “Damned, I would give half of my servers for catgirls who can overclock.”
“Time is over... fire” Serina murmured and a blue pulse of light raced outwards and hit the incoming projectile, vaporizing most of it instantly.
Normally that would have neutralized any projectile easily.
But the projectile was only a fraction of a seconds away from hitting its target, and a whole section of Pan’s surface flashed bright white as the icy surface was vaporized by the metal vapor.
Both AIs slowed down to ‘real time’ again, they needed the help of catgirls. Cortana instantly activated a holographic Avatar in Jengas Control room.
“Everyone listen to me, this is an emergency” she shouted, “we just had an attack on the construction site by a large scale kinetic impactor! We partly managed to deflect it but some of it still hit the target. Get out our medical supplies and prepare for injured people, Serina is just getting them all back to the station.”
Most catgirls just stared at her in shock, but a few of them began moving. Cortana pointed to the catgirl standing at Sensor Control.
“Organize a secure perimeter as large as you can make it around this moon, we might have more of these things incoming.”
The whole room stayed frozen for another moment and then suddenly everyone exploded into action.
“Samantha, we are activating the stations drives, I want to move it exactly over the construction site.”
“Get out as many recon drones as we have in the launchers, I want to have a sensor perimeter as soon as possible. Luci, ask the labs if they have drones for repair, I want them out in space two minutes ago!”
“This is Jenga to all spacecrafts in the Saturn subsystem. We are declaring an emergency and a perimeter zone of 10000 km around the Saturn Moon Pan. All ships in the area please contact us and watch your sensors for enemy fire.”
“Tasha, call Coruscant and tell them... I will see that I get a line to the White Tower to get an okay for our security zone.”
One of the catgirls turned to Cortana. “Do you have data from Pan? What is about the astronauts, are they okay?”
HRogge Wrote:Oh, I am looking for a suggestion who will be sent by Space Patrol to Jenga. I had thought about sending Shepard with the Normandy, unfortunately the Normandy is still under construction during this story. *G*
Since they're calling Coruscant, the first response is likely to be a group from either Red Squadron or Blue Squadron - somewhere between six and twelve fighters, flown by pilots who have yet to be named. (Red Squadron flies X-Wings; Blue flies Y-Wings.) But that's the Warsie response, and not necessarily the "official" Patrol response unless the Patrol says it is.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012