Voyage to Enlil: Log 3

Landing Site, South Polar Region
Petria (Lunara III)
Lunara Star System

Captain’s Log, June 25th, 2330. With our surveying work completed on Petria, Intrepid is making final checks for return to orbit. Once we’ve reached minimum safe distance from the planet, we will initiate a grav jump to the second planet of the Jaffa star system. Located within the habitable zone of the system, incomplete survey records in the Constellation navigational database report the presence of amphibious life. It is my intention to complete a full survey prior to our onward jump to Delta Vulpes.

Grace had scheduled liftoff for 0800 hours, and as the crew made their departure checks she did a walkthrough of her own, please to see that both the crew and the machinery seemed to be holding up well after their first planetary landing. As she passed by the starboard equipment locker, Grace saw Major Sanon inventorying the boxes of parts. The Major turned and caught Grace’s eye.

“Captain, perfect timing. Do you have a second to talk?”

“Oh course, I’ve always got time for you. What’s on your mind?”

“I wanted to talk with you earlier about this, but out paths never really crossed yesterday. While we’re in Jaffa, I’d like for you to help me out with something.”

“Sure, tell me more.”

Hadrian flicked her eyes left and right, seemingly checking to make sure no one was eavesdropping, but then she shook her head and continued. “Sorry, no reason for me to be paranoid I suppose. During the Colony War, the UC funded a, privately operated military base on Jaffa IV called Vulture’s Roost. We believe it’s been abandoned since the armistice, but there’s some concern that classified materials may have been left behind during the evacuation. I’ve been asked to make a landing there and retrieve any residual records.”

Grace pinched her eyes closed for a moment before clarifying, “am I right to assume that by ‘privately operated’ you mean ‘Ecliptic’ and by ‘asked’ you mean ‘ordered?'”

“That… would be an accurate read,” Hadrian confirmed.

“Raiding mercenary bases isn’t really in the parameters of this mission,” Grace pointed out.

“But it’s fully within Intrepid‘s capabilities. And I’m well aware of some of the classified systems that UC SYSDEF allowed Constellation to leave installed on her. You can do this.”

Grace massaged her forehead for a moment before nodding. “I certainly owe you more than a few favors, Hadrian. But I also can’t promise we’ll just fly into the hornet’s nest. What I can promise is that we’ll do a flyby of Jaffa IV and if visiting the old base looks feasible we’ll do it.”

Hadrian exhaled briefly before saying, “thank you. I know it’s a stretch, but there’s some real concern on the Second Floor that the Freestar Collective might attempt their own recovery operation.”

“I thought the UC and the Collective were getting along now.”

“They are, and that’s the point. There are some details about the operations that Ecliptic carried out during the war that, if they became public, could harm the new detente. We’d prefer they not become public.”

Grace nodded slowly. “I can understand that, but I still stand by what I told the cabinet during the xenowarfare hearings – full disclosure of the dirty laundry is the best strategy for getting the Collective to trust your motives.”

Holding up her hands, Hadrian took a slightly defensive tone of voice. “Hey, you don’t have to convince me, but policy inertia is a real thing. Just throw me a bone here, OK?”

“I already agreed, didn’t I?” Then Grace smiled. “I’ll stop badgering you now. Finish up your checks and then report to launch stations – it’s almost time to lift for orbit.”

Once each section relayed their final ready reports, Grace gave Sam the green light for liftoff and Intrepid climbed back up to orbit. After a brief acceleration away from Petria’s gravitational pull, Grace gave the navigational plot a final once over. Picking up on a small detail, she turned from the console.

“Cora, you plotted the jump?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, only partially concealing her pride in the answer. “Dad, I mean Mr. Coe assigned the duty to my training schedule.”

Jasmine interjected before Grace could press further. “I already checked the figures, Captain. She did good, kid’s a fast learner.”

“Alright, excellent. Good work, Cora. Sam, spool up the grav drive and jump when ready.”

A moment later, the low hum of the grav drive’s capacitors started to creep to the foreground of Grace’s hearing and Sam Coe’s voice carried out of the intercom. “All hands, jump stations. Execute grav jump in five… four… three… two… one…”

A brief wave of disorientation passed over Grace as the nearly instantaneous jump to Jaffa initiated. None of the cascading light from the gravimetric distortion outside reached the ops center, but Grace had made more than enough jumps to know what Sam was seeing in the cockpit.

A moment later the drive spooled down and there was just a brief moment of silence before Moara spoke.

“Incoming hail, Captain.”

Sam’s voice, this time just over the ops center comm link, added more context. “Got an Ecliptic Scimitar II at 1100 meters and closing, Captain.”

Grace frowned; this seemed like a strong suggestion that the Ecliptic base at Jaffa IV might not, in fact, be abandoned after all. “Yellow alert,” she said, and noted with pleasure that the team jumped into immediate action adjusting power and getting the shields up to full power, “open hailing frequencies.”

After a short pause to let Moara establish the link, she added, “This is Captain Varley of the CS Intrepid. State your intentions.”

A filtered voice growled back over the speaker. “We’ve finally found you. Now we’re going to bring you in.”

That comment led to a lot of questioning looks between several pairs of people in the ops center – Hadrian to Jasmine, Sarah to Moara, and for good measure, Jasmine to Grace.

The Captain grimaced a little but kept her cool, responding, “I’m sure we can settle this peacefully.”

“You must be out of your mind thinking this ends with you alive,” was the response. Now all the eyes were on Grace.

Looking down at the sensor data now framing the plotting table, Grace just shook her head as a slow smile crept onto her face. “I can take one look at your ship and tell you’re outmatched. Back off.”

An uncomfortable pause followed, after which the other Captain grudgingly said, “ugh, I hate to say it, but you’ve got a lot more firepower than I was expecting. I guess we’re done here… for now.”

“They’re breaking off and accelerating,” Sam reported. “I think you scared them off.”

Grace looked to Moara and as soon as she saw his nod to the unspoken question of whether or not the channel was closed she said, “I want a sensor track on that ship.”

“Got it,” Sarah said, “projected course is… orbital insertion at Jaffa IV.”

“Damn it,” spat Hadrian.

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” said Grace, “I think Vulture’s Roost is very much not abandoned.”

“So… is no one else going to ask the obvious question?” Cora said a little hesitantly.

“Which one?” Grace asked, “I can think of two if I were in your shoes.”

That gave Cora a moment of pause while she thought on that. “Um… I think I’ve got them both. May I?”

Grace nodded and Cora raised one finger. “First, why is Ecliptic gunning for you, specifically?” Then she raised another, “and second, how did they know you were coming here?”

“Got ’em both,” Grace said, pleased with the trainee’s line of thinking. “On the first question, the answer is a man who calls himself The Hunter. He’s an old acquaintance of mine and he strongly disapproves of Constellation’s new focus on deep frontier exploration. He’s also a major financial backer of Ecliptic. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt this will be the last time we run into his goons.”

“And as for the second question, that’s one I am very interested in finding out the answer to. If I had to guess, they got their hands on the flight plan we filed when we left Narion, and set up this picket to intercept us.”

“So there’s a mole in UC SYSDEF?” Sarah asked.

“Or Freestar Security,” Hadrian countered. “Both of them have used Ecliptic for off the books operations; it wouldn’t surprise me if that relationship caused some compromise.”

Grace walked over to the workstation where Hadrian was standing. “This complicates your request for a flyby on Jaffa IV,” she said.

“And Jaffa II for that matter,” the Major responded. “I seriously doubt they plan to leave you alone. Just a matter of time until they come back with more ships.”

“Jazz,” Grace asked, “how long until we’re ready for the jump to Delta Vulpes?”

The ex-pirate checked a readout before answering, “18 hours minimum, unless you plan on hot jumping, and I don’t recommend that for a ship this size.”

“Turn-around time from Jaffa IV?” Grace asked, looking to Sarah.

“8 hours round trip at flank speed.”

“So if they come back looking for trouble, Ecliptic will be here ten hours before we can jump away safely,” Grace said. “Recommendations?” she said, turning to the crew.

Sanon didn’t waste time expressing her preferences. “Chase ’em down, intercept before they reach Jaffa orbit. Intrepid has enough thrust to out-accelerate an older design like the Scimitar.”

Andreja offered up a different suggestion. “I took the liberty of examining Jaffa II while the standoff was happening. As our long-range scans suggested, the planet has an extremely strong magnetosphere as well as dense forest belts in its northern hemisphere.”

Continuing, she explained, “if we find a suitable landing site, it is unlikely that Ecliptic will be able to locate us from orbit. That will give us time to safely recharge the grav drive, after which we can proceed on our voyage. At worst, we may have to evade an orbital intercept, but with the drive refreshed, we can simply jump away.”

“You’re simplifying the situation substantially,” Sarah observed, “but you’re not wrong. Stealth seems like a wiser solution than aggression.”

Hadrian seemed disappointed at the direction the conversation was turning. “What’s the point of arming Intrepid as well as you did if you aren’t going to use it? Commander Otero, you know Ecliptic. Back me up here.”

“Major, I’d like nothing more than to give Ecliptic a black eye or two. I’ve been on the receiving end of their hunter squads too and it’s not a fun experience,” said the first mate.

“But we installed those weapons for situations where we had no option but to use them. If we can avoid a confrontation, that’s the way we should go. Frankly, Constellation isn’t the UC Navy or even UC Vanguard. Combat is not our primary mission.”

Sam cut in, “look, Captain, if we’re going to touch down on Jaffa II, we should do it soon. That picket ship definitely reported back to their base as soon as they broke off. It’s 860 light-seconds to Jaffa IV, which means we’ve only got a few minutes before the base learns we’re here and starts training ground-based sensors on this location. It’ll be a lot easier for them to find us if they track us during our descent.”

That settled things for Grace. “Sam’s right,” she said. After briefly reviewing a map plot of the planet, she pointed to a region in the northern hemisphere. “Set us down… here. Besides, call me paranoid, but I want a full inside-outside sweep for tracking devices. Just in case.”

“Alright folks, you heard the Captain,” Moara said. “Everyone buckle up and prepare for high gravity landing. Locals are… 1.61 G, so I hope no one’s been cheating on their PT schedule.”

They followed an abbreviated landing procedure from there, and soon Intrepid settled heavily onto its landing gear. Even with the grav drive providing an artificial 1.0 G inside the ship, everyone’s bodies felt subtly heavier. This made the sight of what Andreja called Grave up to the observation deck to see that much more surprising.

“I know they say that ‘life finds a way,’ but this must be a rare feat,” she said, pointing to the flock of green stingray-like creatures lazily flapping through the air.

Captain’s Log, Supplemental. Intrepid has landed in one of Jaffa II’s dense deciduous forests while we recharge the grav drive. While we had known for some time that this planet harbored life, the sheer variety of plant and animal life in our landing zone greatly exceeded our expectations. While the crew conducts maintenance and checks for any unauthorized components, Doctor Tannehill and I will conduct a survey of the immediate area. My only regret now is that the emergent Ecliptic threat prevents a full survey of this remarkable ecosystem.

“It’s approximately 1630 local for this time zone, on a 27 hour day,” Moara explained as the three of them discussed the mission. They’d met up in the infirmary so Tannehill could pack her emergency kit, and the completeness of his excursion briefing revealed that Grace’s first mate hadn’t wasted the time since landing.

“Talk to me about the atmospherics. The oxygen concentration is higher than I’d like,” Grace said.

“Yeah, global average is 24%, which is up in the fire hazard range. No using jump jets or discharging firearms except in emergencies. Local surface temperature is 31 degrees, well inside the habitable range.” As Moara ran through the information, Tannehill peeled off her medic’s apron and put it on a wall hook. That paused the presentation as Moara asked, “you need some privacy, Doctor?”

“No, I’m fine, keep going,” she said.

Grace felt compelled to point out, “you don’t need your pressure suit here. You can keep your clothes on. And… do you own anything other than clubwear?”

“Oh, I heard Commander Otero. But 31 is still pretty warm, and neoprene gets pretty uncomfortable when its sweaty.”

Grace smirked a little, not just at the doctor’s flippant response but also about how her dignity as a Captain was going to force her to not change into something lighter, lest she seem to be following Tannehill’s example.

“How are you even going to carry your medkit if you’re… ‘dressed’ like that?” Grace asked.

Patting her right hip, Tannehill didn’t miss a beat, “I put on these D-rings just for that reason. The kit clips right now. Now… hmm… bandages. Anchored immobilizer. Analgesic poultice. Trauma kit… better make that two trauma kits. Yes, I think that’ll do nicely.”

Grace looked to Moara and shrugged, but decided not to give Tannehill any more of the attention that she was obviously thriving on.

“Do we have anything in the armory that won’t start a forest fire?” she asked at length.

Her first mate screwed up his face in thought for a moment before shaking his head. “No, a few personally owned knives here and there, but it might not be a bad ‘lesson learned’ to see if we can acquire some magnetics.”

“You know what,” Grace said, “you just reminded me of something. Doc, I’ll meet you at the garage, I need to get something first.”

There was, in fact, one high-O2 safe firearm onboard Intrepid. During her time undercover with UC SYSDEF, the charismatic leader of the Crimson Fleet had given Grace a customized magnetic induction pistol as a reward, and the still fully functional weapon was mounted on a plaque in her cabin. She only had one box of ammunition for it, but she hoped it would be enough to deal with an emergency.

Slipping Keelhauler into her gun belt, Grace made her way back to the airlock, picking up a boxed lunch from the galley on the way. Turkey Marsala, she observed with approval – evidently Barrett was trying extra hard to impress.

Tannehill was waiting outside by the rover, clearly content to take in the scenery for the moment. When Grace joined her, her eyes couldn’t help but fall on the large death’s head logo on what could be (very) generously described as the doctor’s top.

“Isn’t that kind of off-brand for a physician?” she asked, pointing at the grim logo.

Tannehill shrugged. “Hey, I had a very limited budget based on the stingy signing bonus you gave me.”

“I gave you fifteen thousand credits!” Grace blurted out, “how is that in any way stingy?”

“Well, first I had to break the lease on my apartment-“

“You lived in your parents’ basement. You told me that.”

“Yes, and they held me to a very strict standard. So first I had to pay them to break my lease. And then, well, good clubwear is very hard to find on Akila, and I’d had my heart set on this outfit for ages. And I also had to pay the remaining principal on my education loan.”

“You know,” Grace said, “it says a lot that your order of priorities is parents, then fancy clothes, and then student loans.”

“I know, right. My parents are very important to me.”

Grace laughed, “OK, now I know you’re just teasing me. Fine, but when we get back to the Settled Systems, we’re going to do some work on your wardrobe. Consider it career development assistance from your Captain. For now though, let’s walk the perimeter.”

Tannehill seemed a little disappointed. “We’re not taking the rover?”

“Not yet. I want to go through the immediate area on foot – harder to miss small details that way – then we can range out further on wheels.”

The first order of business was getting close enough for readings on the flyers that Andreja had spotted earlier. They were filter feeders, just big sacs of membrane over lighter-than-air gas cells that floated on the wind gobbling up unseen microbes.

“Oh, that’s interesting,” Tannehill said. “The mucous layer around the gas bags contains a lot of orotic acid. I bet if you penned in some of these guys you could farm the secretions to make cardiac medicine.”

“But for the swarms of bloodthirsty mercenaries, this might be your million-credit business opportunity. All kidding aside,” Grace said, “that is very interesting. Make sure you highlight that application in the survey report. Oh, and speaking in million-credit opportunities, look at this.”

Grace leaned over to show Tannehill the geological scan results for a patch of early a hundred meters in front of her. “Looks like we landed right on top of a gold vein. I’m getting other metallic returns in the area, too. So lots of fairly easily accessible minerals in the area.”

“Yes, as you said, except for the mercenaries this planet sounds like its begging for settlement. Oh, and I think I found where to take the rover. About a kilometer northwest I’m getting a large organic return. Some kind of biological, but I can’t tell more from here.”

Grace turned to Tannehill, then looked down at an alert on her scanner. Turning back she said, “uh oh, I think I found our actual first rover stop.”

“What?” she asked, looking a little concerned.

“Well, you might end up wishing you brought some body armor.”

Tannehill scowled, “OK, Captain, you’ve teased me enough about my clothes. It’s not funny any more.”

“I wasn’t teasing,” Grace said, her tone getting more serious. “There’s some kind of man-made installation to the northeast. We need to cut this walkaround short and check it out… if we managed to land near an Ecliptic outpost, that’s going to really complicate our plans.”

“In fact,” Grace added, “if you want to back to the ship maybe I should bring Major Sanon with me instead.”

“No!” Tannehill said, a bit sharper and louder than she strictly intended, “at least bring me along to scout it out. I… I don’t get to do things like this much.”

The rover didn’t speed up their travel all that much – between Intrepid and the sensor return was a tangle of dense vegetation that was too thick to just power through. While they picked through the underbrush, Grace thought through the situation out loud.

“Odds are, this is a remote outpost. We landed close enough for them to see us coming down, and we didn’t detect any radio transmissions that would suggest someone was reporting our descent. But we should still be careful, they might be keeping a low profile – especially if its just one or two people stationed there – passively gathering information on us.”

“Got it,” Tannehill said, “be careful. I like that plan.”

“And keep working your scanner while we go. If we have to bug out we might not get another chance to gather survey data.”

When they got to a little over a hundred meters from the facility – and it was clearly a facility – Grace parked the rover behind a thick screen of shrubs and crept up to a place where she could see the building.

“I got another good news-bad news for you, Doc,” Grace said. “The bad news is that there’s a communications array on top of the main building. It could report our location to the Ecliptic base.”

“And the good news?”

“I don’t see any people. Looks like an automated facility, just maintenance robots. Must be a mining or pumping station gathering resources. You stay here, I’m going to get a little closer and see what I can find out.”

Keeping low and slowly crossing the field of purple flowers, Grace watched for anything that looked like an intrusion detection system. The robots seemed mostly occupied with clearing vegetation that was encroaching near the building and with inspecting machinery, but she knew from past experience that they were likely also programmed to remove trespassers.

Circling around the perimeter to avoid the robots’ work area, Grace closed in until she reached the access catwalks around the site. Sparse clues such as abandoned stepladders and tool kits suggested that this wasn’t a fully robotic facility, but it was a specific and grizzly discovery that answered most of her questions.

“Not an Ecliptic base,” Grace whispered into her commlink, “but they’ve been here. Looks like this was a wildcat mining outfit… until the mercs rolled in and wiped them out. The bodies are still mostly fresh – this might have been the work of the pickets they sent to watch for us. I need to get into the main module to make sure, but I think we’re in the clear.”

“Be careful,” Tannehill said, “the robots are aware of your presence. They’re acting agitated and seem to be spreading out into a search pattern.”

Almost immediately after Tannehill said this, Grace turned a corner and found her face to face with a utility robot. It didn’t waste any time challenging her, instead swinging at her with a metal fist. Grace ducked, rolling out of the way, but she could see two more closing in on her, and knew they were faster than her – especially in this high gravity. Concentrating on the secrets she’d learned in Temple Omicron, Grace… vanished. The robots stopped, shuffled around for a moment, and then split up into a textbook grid search.

Grace could only hold the void form for so long, so she dashed towards the main hab, leaping behind a stack of crates just before the inner pressure grew too strong and she was forced to release the power. Squeezing under a set of pipes, she emerged in front of a computer station… and another dead colonist.

Careful to be as silent as possible, Grace made her way to the computer and glanced over its controls. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for, and she pounded the “disable robot workforce” button on the dashboard. After a moment, the console chirped and a new window appeared confirming that the shutdown code had been transmitted.

“I don’t know what you did,” Tannehill’s voice filtered through her commlink, “but the robots all just dropped. I think you’re in the clear. And… ah… I don’t know what you did.”

Grace groans quietly. “Saw that, huh?”

The doctor just mumbled a “mmm, hmm” noise.

“I’ll explain later. For now, come join me at the central hab. I might need your help.”

When Grace emerged from the hab, she’d expected to see Tannehill walking across the field. Instead she was greeted by the hum of an electric motor as the doctor maneuvered the rover right up to the front of the facility. Hopping out, she waved as Grace approached her.

“That was great!” she said, “you need to let me drive more often.”

Grace couldn’t help but smile, though she warned, “don’t count on it. I paid for that rover so I get first call on driving. Now come on, I need you to help me search this facility and figure out if we need to move the ship.”

The two of them walked the facility looking for more evidence, but there wasn’t much more to find. The habitat module was the center of a distributed network of drilling rigs and storage containers. It had been a ‘mom and pop’ wildcatter operation run by the two dead colonist they’d found, and Ecliptic must have taken them completely by surprise because their computer logs didn’t offer the slightest hint of danger or trouble. Fortunately, there also wasn’t any sign that the mercenaries had tried to do anything with the comm array… they just got rid of the wildcatters and moved on.

Around that time, Moara radioed the two, advising them to return to the ship.

“Wind’s picking up,” he said. “We’re running in low power mode to further hide our sensor returns so I can’t do a full meteorological workup, but I think you’ll want to get back.”

“Agreed,” said Grace, “we’ll be home in 30.”

Then she turned to Doctor Tannehill and made a point of ensure she could see Grace had turned off her commlink. “OK, Doc, serious grown-up talk time.”

Tannehill lowered her eyes a little. “I saw something I wasn’t supposed to, didn’t I?”

Grace sighed. “No. Jesus, no. I said I’d explain later, and I meant later later, like back on the ship later. No, this is about you taking the job seriously. And this is just me counseling you, no teasing, no witty reparte.”

“I get that this is literally your ‘leaving the nest’ adventure and I can tell that you obviously lived a very sheltered and tightly managed life before you signed on with Constellation. I respect that you want to spread your wings.”

That managed to make Tannehill look even more downcast.

“I’m older than you think,” Grace continued. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff and lost a lot of friends, and I don’t want you to get added to that list. So here’s the deal. I’m going to stop ragging on your about how you dress on the ship – though I also won’t stop Moara from taking you to task. But when you leave the ship, you will dress appropriately for a potentially dangerous environment. Since you don’t own any appropriate clothes, I will give you appropriate clothes. You will not complain about them being fashionable. You will not complain about them being uncomfortable or hot or sweaty. You will wear them so you are safe. Or you will not participate in excursions outside the ship. Understood?”

Tannehill looked like she was going to cry. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“No,” said Grace. “You made some rookie mistakes, but you were OK. Now you’re going to learn from them and do better in the future. Now, I’m going to turn the comm link back on and we’re going to pretend we didn’t have this conversation, OK?”

Tannehill nodded, and Grace flipped the comms back on.

“—you read? Wind speeds increasing, recommend immediate return.”

“Sorry, Intrepid, lost you for a second. We’re firing up the rover now. See you soon.”

Before they handed off the rover for Vasco to park, Grace too in a last pull of the crisp night air and watched the shadows of the filter feeders lazily across the sky.

“You know, I’m of half a mind to pay Ecliptic a visit.”

“Because of the colonists?” Tannehill asked.

“Partially, but also because this world is gorgeous, and we’ve only seen one corner of it. We were supposed to survey all of its major biomes, put together a full survey report. And now we can’t because those damned mercenaries are breathing down my neck.”

Grace shook her head. “I need to talk with Moara and Sanon, go over our options.”

End Log
Days Elapsed: 3
Fuel Consumption: 55.86 kg
Fuel Obtained: 0 kg
Fuel Remaining: 390.64 kg
Injuries Acquired: 0
Lifetime Injuries: 1