My book "Outpost" [UPDATE: Chapter 18: The End] Completed!

[The Raging Sandwich]

Tycho 12c

Gaseous

12 Moons: largest diameter- 862 mi

Diameter- 22,536 mi

Atmosphere- yes: 148 mi

Gravity- 4.5 g

Main color- light brown

Surface temp- -478 F

Surface majority- helium

Solar orbit- 523. 12 million mi

This smaller gas giant was discovered on accident while monitoring Tycho 12b. Due to the planets' identical sizes, it wasn't until recently that the planet had been discovered. All the moons are tiny compared to the planet making planetary scientists unsure of their actual existence. A thin red ring encircles the planet about 17,000 miles to 21,000 miles away from the planet. The planet has an unusually strong gravity, about 2 times stronger than Jupiter's. Because of its strong gravity, its rings are probably made up of trillions of super-tiny rocks. It also provides a strong jump to other planet in its solar system with a gravity assist.

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

Due to the shower being the best place to think, I now have the rest of the book planned until the end. Stay tuned! 

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

HI, just discovered this and read the lot, my only gripe is too many paragraphs(new thoughts) and too few longer sentences(continuing thoughts). Of course just my opinion, I have an instant way to tell if something's worth reading that has yet to fail, turn to the middle of the book and read any four pages, if that triggers my interest reading the book is usually enjoyable, not so many pages here so the middle chapter would do and it's a pass for me, I'd read the whole thing.  (I'd enjoy the longer sentences more though)

[The Raging Sandwich]

Right now I'm working on incorporating Voyager 2 into the story. Don't worry, I'm hard at work on the book! Stay tuned!

[The Raging Sandwich]

Tycho 564b

Rocky

2 moons: Largest diameter - 1,665 miles

Diameter: 9,682 miles

Atmosphere:Yes- 64 miles

Gravity: 0.84 g

Main color: Greenish-brown 

Surface Temp: 67 F

Surface majority: Organic material

Solar orbit: 343.62 million miles

This larger rocky planet is in the upper 90 percentile for rocky planets. With its large diameter of 9,682 miles wide, it is larger than 90 percent of all other rocky planets discovered. It is a pleasant average 67 degrees year-round because of its perfectly circular orbit and its lack of any axial tilt. It is home to Outpost 2, the second permanent base on an exoplanet. It has plenty of titanium-rich deposits, most of them located in deep canyons, maybe showing evidence of past life building on it. However, planetary scientists think that is inplausible. Its giant ring system surrounds the planet, something rarely seen for rocky planets. One of its two moons is highly volcanic and has a high possibility of completely exploding in a clataclysmic event that could wipe out the whole planet system.   

[The Raging Sandwich]

Tycho 12849b

Rocky

2 moons: largest diameter - 763 miles

Diameter: 920 miles

Atmosphere: Yes- 45 miles

Gravity: 0.4 g

Main color: green

Surface temp: 201 F

Surface majority: Acidic water

Solar orbit: 313 million miles

This tiny planet orbits a blue supergiant - the largest star known to have planets. The waters on the planet are very acidic and can melt you alive (if the scalding temperatures don't beat them to it). The temperature is just under boiling point so the water doesn't evaporate. Its small atmosphere is a lot like a gas giant's as it contains gasses like them - like hydrogen.

[The Raging Sandwich]

Tycho 12849e

Gaseous

62 moons: largest diameter- 1,970 mi

Diameter: 100450 miles

Atmosphere: yes-259 mi

Gravity: 6 g

Main color: orange

Surface temp: 34 F

Surface majority: helium

Solar orbit: 678 million miles

This planet is one - if not the - largest planets ever discovered. It is too big to even be considered a planet; planetary scientists actually think it is a brown dwarf star. However, its bright orange color debunks that. It is home to a wide variety of 62 known moons (there are more that have definitely not been discovered). It had many more moons in the past but due to the planet's tremendous gravity, they were sucked into the planet and were destroyed. Normally the destruction of moons cause planetary rings, but the gravity completely vaporizes anything remaining.

 

Tycho 12849e1

Moon

Diameter: 1,970 miles

Atmosphere: Yes- 39 miles

Gravity: 0.79 g

Main color: White

Surface temp: 40 F

Surface majority: Salt flats

Planetary orbit: 1.34 million miles

This moon was the first moon of Tycho 12849e to be discovered. It is almost entirely covered in salt flats. During the rainy season of the moon's nearly half-year orbit, rain falls almost constantly. The topography on the salt flats are so low that the rain stays on top of the ground in a perfectly flat layer. The water is also so clear that it reflects the entire sky like a giant natural mirror. After the rainy season comes a long cold period taking up most of its year. Giant raging blizzards typically appear during this time.

[The Raging Sandwich]

CO 167849c

Rocky

No moons

Diameter: 610 miles

No atmosphere

Gravity: 0.3 g

Color: Dark silver

Surface temp: 31 F

Surface majority: crystal titanium

Solar orbit: 19 million miles

This tiny planet has a very elliptical orbit. The lowest point in its orbit cruises just 900 thousand miles away from its red dwarf star. During its closest approach, its completely crystallized titanium surface melts into a molten titanium goo. As it gets farther away from the star and gets colder, the titanium starts to freeze into a crystalline solid again. It takes about 353 years to complete one orbit and everytime the molten titanium freezes, it forms all new crystal structures.

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich
Had to find the picture again

[The Raging Sandwich]

CO 123572b

Rocky

1 Moon: Diameter- 1300 miles

Diameter: 2503 miles

Atmosphere: Yes- 43 miles

Gravity: 0.78 g

Surface Temp: 71 F

Surface majority: Fresh water

Solar orbit: 16 million miles

This planet is the very definition of an Earth-like planet. Its surface is near completely covered in fresh water - what humans need to drink. It has a slightly elliptical orbit, therefore giving it two seasons (one longer than the other), a warm and cool season. During its long cold season, the ground is almost completely covered in frost resulting in a lighter colored ground if viewing from space. Its dense atmosphere and lower gravity work counteract eachother if something were launching from its surface. If something were landing using a parachute, they would work together. Its dense atmosphere also means more destructive hurricanes and deadlier lightning.

[The Raging Sandwich]

So I just spent about an hour creating the cover of the book. Hope you like it.

[Spaceception]

12 minutes ago, The Raging Sandwich said:

So I just spent about an hour creating the cover of the book. Hope you like it.

Dude, that looks amazing, excellent work!

[The Raging Sandwich]

1 hour ago, Spaceception said:

Dude, that looks amazing, excellent work!

Thanks! There are still a few small flaws in it, but I think I can get it touched up by someone when I'm done with the book entirely. 

[The Raging Sandwich]

So I put the first six chapters on the website Wattpad. I also included Chapter 7 on there (not included on this thread, exclusive only to there). Here's the link:

https://www.wattpad.com/story/85680855-outpost

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

First promotional poster made! (4k):

I'm using it as my wallpaper now, feel free to do the same.

[The Raging Sandwich]

Here's the final few promotional posters:

Moon 1 (Chapters not posted here)

Planet 6 (Chapters not posted)

Outpost 2 mountain ranges (Chapter 5)

Outpost 2 landscape (Chapters 4 and 5)

Planet 5 (Chapter not posted)

Hope you like 'em! 

Edited October 5, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich
Chapters mixed up.

[The Raging Sandwich]

So I'm starting a new book. Don't worry! I'm not abandoning this book, in fact, I'm hard at work on it. The link to the other book can be found here:

 

[NSEP]

Oh hey! Thats pretty good! I got brought here by your reply on my "universe" post i made. Altough my universe is quite a bit different than your galaxy, it was not bad you mentioned it. Great work, keep it up!

[The Raging Sandwich]

1 hour ago, NSEP said:

Oh hey! Thats pretty good! I got brought here by your reply on my "universe" post i made. Altough my universe is quite a bit different than your galaxy, it was not bad you mentioned it. Great work, keep it up!

Thanks! I'm working on Chapter 11 of it now. 

[The Raging Sandwich]

I'm adding more chapters here because I underestimated the length of a full scifi novel, so I'm just going to put every chapter here and on Wattpad because there is no real reason to buy or download a short story. Enjoy!

Chapter 7

Spoiler

We all woke up at the same time on the Nighthawk and headed off to the kitchen. We got our food and sat down at the same table.

            “So what’s the plan, Commander?” Mikhail asked me.

            “Well,” I started, “We still have yet to get to CO 123572b. However, we don’t have any fuel to land.”

            “If I may interrupt,” said Quick, “I woke up while everyone was asleep to get some water. I got some, but we only have one eighth of the tank left. We need to incorporate getting more water into our plan.”

            “Well, CO 123572b is too far away to risk not getting any water. We’d be without any water to drink for about a month. NASA still wants us to investigate a few more planets. Out of the planetary systems they want us to explore, only 3 have any traces of hydrogen to use. Only one system has both hydrogen and a source we can get water at.”

            “We’ll have to decide then where to go and what to do,” said Hernandez.

            “We can either visit two different systems to get water and to refuel or we can go to the one system. If we visit two different systems, we’d lose a lot of time. We’d also lose energy from the Alcubierre Drive we can use for something else.”

            “Anything about the one system?” asked Mikhail.

            “Doing what we need to do in the one system is very dangerous. The central star Tycho 12849 is the biggest and hottest star known to have planets. Tycho 12849 is a blue supergiant star.

            “The planet with the hydrogen is the second planet in the system. Its average temperature is about 201 degrees year-round. The entire planet is green, even the water. Before you get excited about the water, though, it’s very acidic. Wading around in it will burn you alive.

            “However, if we decide to go there, we won’t stop for water. We can get the hydrogen we need from there.”

            “How much hydrogen is there?” asked Quick.

             “The hydrogen isn’t found on the surface. The planet’s atmosphere is 34% hydrogen.”

                “Then how would we possibly get any of it?”

                “Our lander is equipped with hydrogen scrubbers. As you all know, hydrogen is extremely flammable. NASA didn’t want to risk any fires happening outside the spacecraft. The scrubbers suck up the hydrogen surrounding the lander and convert it into fuel.”

                “So we’re just going to fly through the atmosphere and collect all the hydrogen we need? Don’t forget reentry. Also, what if we don’t get enough hydrogen?” asked Quick.

                I was actually doing a lot of thinking last night and I came up with a plan. We’d detach the lander with the Nighthawk and use the last remaining remnants of fuel to adjust course. The Nighthawk will also adjust course after we undock. That means someone will have to stay inside the Nighthawk as we do this.”

                “I’ll stay. I can do it,” said Quick.

                “Are you sure?”

                “I’m positive.”

                “Okay, Quick will stay in the Nighthawk. As for us, we’ll descend through the atmosphere. Doing the course correction with the lander, we have to keep reentry in mind. We’ll burn the engines just enough so reentry can do the rest of the correction. We’ll have to just skim the atmosphere so we don’t fall into orbit. I ran the numbers. We can do this.”

                “What about getting the water?” asked Hernandez.

                “Tycho 12849f is a gas giant with a moon covered completely in ice water. It has a dense atmosphere. It has strong air winds; gusts can get up to hurricane-force.”

                “Doesn’t sound too bad; the lander can withstand it,” Quick responded.

                “That’s not the dangerous part. Tycho 12849f is one of the biggest planets known to man. It’s so big that it shouldn’t even exist in the first place.”

                “How big are we talking about?” asked Hernandez.

                “Diameter at the equator measures 100450 miles wide.”

                Mikhail cursed in Russian. Hernandez and Quick were wide-eyed.

                “Planetary scientists say that it may not even be a planet at all. It could actually be a brown dwarf star. What leads me to believe that it’s not a brown dwarf star is its color. It’s bright orange; no brown dwarfs are bright orange.

                “Its gravity is very strong. Any moons close enough can be sucked into the planet in a matter of minutes. We’ll have to be extremely careful there. We’ll have to stay in a wide orbit around the planet before we start orbiting the moon itself.

            “So what do you think? Should we waste energy going to two different star systems or risk certain death staying at one?”

            We sat there in silence for a while pondering my plan. Mikhail was the first to speak.

            “Although it’s a very dangerous plan, I say we go for it. Remember, the government has a 7 month time limit on missions. You said CO 123572b is about a month away. We’ve been in space for a total of 4 and a half months,” he said.

            “I think we should go for it,” said Quick, “The planet’s gravity will save us a lot of energy.”

            We all looked over to Hernandez. “You’re crazy, Commander, but we should go for it.

            “So it’s a unanimous decision. We’ll head over to Tycho 12849 in two days. We still need to fix those panels,” I said

Chapter 8

Spoiler

We finished eating our breakfast for the day and headed off to our quarters to change into our EVA suits. Quick stayed in Shor’s room now that it was vacant. He would be staying inside the Nighthawk during the EVA because none of the other in-flight EVA suits fit him.

            Hernandez, Mikhail, and I congregated inside the airlock with a container full of the titanium. I depressurized it and the fans sucked out all the air, leaving us in a vacuum. “Opening the door,” I said as the outer hatch opened. We gazed out to the silvery titanium of the planet below us.

            I exited the airlock using the MMU (Manned Maneuvering Unit) and Hernandez followed. Mikhail then exited the airlock carrying the container by the handles. He swiveled around with the container towards the outer hull of the spacecraft. He connected the side of the container with a small magnetic rack running down the entire length of the Nighthawk.

            We located the first damaged panel. Mikhail slid the container down the rack. A special drill bit was hanging off the side of the container. I took it off and started chiseling out the perimeter of the damaged panel until I could carefully slide it out. I handed it to Hernandez who then gave it to Mikhail.

            Hernandez then took one of the new makeshift panels out of the container. I grabbed a small box off the side of the container as Hernandez slid the new panel in place of the damaged one. Mikhail but the damaged panel in the rack in place of the new one. I opened the box which contained the material that covered the perimeters of the panels.

            After Hernandez put the new panel into place, I spread the material over the perimeter. The material dries by reacting with the coldness of space. We were nearing the dark side of the planet so the material dried almost instantly because of the temperature difference from the light side of the planet.

            We did the same procedure for all the damaged panels. We then moved onto the panels that were completely missing. I took the drill and got rid of any excess chunks of panel. They served no use to us so I just threw them out into empty space.

            Hernandez took out another new panel and slid it into place. I patched the perimeter up with the material. We repeated the process until there were no new panels to replace. You could tell which ones were newer because of the color difference. The new ones were more dark and gray while the old ones were painted white.

            I looked up at a window and saw Quick observing us. We all waved at him and he gave us thumbs up.

            “Let’s get back to the airlock,” I said. “Copy,” replied Hernandez. Hernandez and I lead the way back to the airlock with Mikhail sliding the container full of damaged panels behind us. The lights of our helmets illuminated the outside hull of the shadowed Nighthawk guiding us along the way.

            We made it back to the airlock. I opened the outer hatch as Mikhail detached the container from the magnetic rack. He maneuvered it inside and Hernandez and I followed. I closed the hatch behind us. “Pressurizing,” I said. Pumps filled the airlock with air. The inner hatch was safe to open.

            The inner hatch opened and we took off our helmets. Quick was waiting as we walked in. “How’d it go?” he asked.

            “It went well. Everything went according to plan,” I told him.

            “You guys were out there for several hours so of course I didn’t watch you guys the whole time; especially because you were out of view. Apparently Washington D.C. is under a terrorist attack. They managed to send a suicide bomber up to the front of the Capital Building. Luckily no one was killed except the bomber.”

            “That’s terrible!”, “How could that happen?”, “Absolutely disgusting,” we said.

            “They’ve evacuated the president and vice president to a classified location. Good thing they weren’t hurt. Especially because they found a bomb inside a lone backpack outside the White House gates. More backpacks have been found all around the city.”

            I walked away shaking my head to my quarters. I took off my EVA suit and hung it up. I sat down and started writing; and here I am now. I’ll write back tomorrow. If I even survive Tycho 12849b that is.

 

            So here I am. Obviously I survived since I’m writing this. Heck, I shouldn’t even be alive right now! I’m actually dumbfounded that I’m sitting here writing this. But back to the point!

            We woke up in the morning after the EVA and ate our breakfast. We talked over the plan one more time before we actually went through with it. We discussed what each of us will do.

            Quick would stay in the Nighthawk while Hernandez, Mikhail, and I would go in the lander. I would pilot the lander, Mikhail was my back-up pilot (he’s an engineer, but he also went through extensive pilot training like I did.), and Hernandez would monitor the hydrogen scrubber.

            We finished eating and changed into our proper apparel and took our seats in the command center. “Alcubierre Drive on,” I said. The Drive activated and shot us through space like a speeding bullet.

            “How far away is Tycho 12849?” asked Mikhail.

            “About 8 lightyears away. The trip there won’t take longer than a drive up the highway,” I responded. In reality for me, a short drive up the freeway normally lasted longer than an hour; and so would the trip there.

            We sat there as the Nighthawk moved space around us propelling us faster than light ever could. The long trip there actually caused us to move about two degrees around the galaxy.

            We finally made it to the star. It was visible to us even from eight light years away due to its brightness and size. About 4 billion miles away from the system, we could see Tycho 12849f, the huge gas giant. We wouldn’t be stopping there, though. We would be stopping at Tycho 12849b, the bright green planet.

            I shut off the Alcubierre Drive about 80,000 miles away. The planet is only 960 miles in diameter, so its influence of gravity is quite low.

            “Adjusting the perigee to 60 miles, just above the atmosphere,” I said. I throttled up the liquid fuel engines to lower the perigee by about 750 miles. “We’ll undock in 7 hours sharp, guys.”

           

            We waited for the seven hours. Hernandez, Mikhail, and I piled into the lander. The hangar bay doors swung open, letting the light green light from the planet illuminate the inside.

            “Undocking. See you later, Quick!” I said.

            “Let’s just hope,” he responded. He waved out the window as we used the RCS to boost away from the Nighthawk. We were at a faraway distance, about a mile, from the Nighthawk when I started a retrograde burn that lowered the perigee to 38 miles, 7 miles into the atmosphere.

            Quick didn’t need to do a maneuver with the Nighthawk because of the trajectory I put it in when I lowered its periapsis. Reentry changed the lander’s trajectory so that it could intersect with the Nighthawk.

            We fell quicker and quicker down to the planet. “We are now entering the atmosphere,” I said. Heat began to build up outside. The windows began to glow red as reentry started. A yellow fire started to cover the hull. The fire quickly began to turn red, then pink, and finally white.

            “Hydrogen collection levels rising; beginning transformation to fuel,” said Hernandez. A press of a button and a flick of a switch started to turn the collected hydrogen into usable fuel. “Fuel levels at 20%… 21% … 22% …”

            “Beginning roll procedure,” I said. A roll procedure was needed to dissipate the excessive heat that was burning up the lander’s hull.

            “Fuel levels 30%!”

            “Hernandez, what are the estimated fuel levels as we leave the atmosphere?” I asked.

            “Estimated fuel levels are 87%, Commander,” he said.

            “We can work with that. Closing in on perigee.”

            The lander sped through the air at blazing speeds gathering up all the hydrogen it could. We finally reached perigee.

            “Fuel levels 43% at perigee,” Hernandez informed us.

            “Mikhail, how’re you doing?” I asked.

            “I’m fading, but I’m holding on, Commander.”

            The flames began to become pink again. “55%,” Hernandez said. The flames outside began to dissipate and turn a bright red. The fuel levels kept rising and rising. “60%... 65… 70…”

            The flames softened into a bright yellow. I could start to see the light green glow of the upper atmosphere as the fire dissipated. “80… 85… 86… 87%! Fuel levels have stopped rising!” Hernandez said in excitement.

            “Leaving the atmosphere.” Everything turned calm. We were lifted out of our seats by the microgravity. The outside of the lander was charred; half of the ablative material was gone.  The last bits of fire disappeared in an instant.

            “Mikhail, run the numbers,” I commanded.

            “Looks like we’re… about 30 miles off course. What are we going to do? We can’t use the lander’s fuel to correct the trajectory!”

            “No, but I can radio in Quick.” The communications system was back online. “Quick… Quick do you read me?” I said.

            The sound of radio static filled the cockpit. “Coming in lander crew! Looks like I’m coming in too shallow!” Quick replied.

            “Copy, Nighthawk. We’re thirty miles off course. You’re going to have to use the ships fuel to do a course correction. Lander out.”

            “Copy, lander crew. Doing it now.” Quick maneuvered the Nighthawk into the correct angle. The main engines fired and sent the Nighthawk into a steeper trajectory. “How does it look now?”

            Mikhail took a look at the readings. “We’re only 0.3233 miles off target. However, we’ll be going at nearly 120 miles per hour faster than target speeds. We really need to slow down, and quick.”

            “Nighthawk, do you copy?” I asked.

            “Copy that, lander. What are we going to do now?”

            “Well, we’ll just have to slow down sooner than I thought. We’re going to have to work together slowing down. We’ll both use our engines to slow down. We’ll save fuel in the Nighthawk and the lander that way.”

            “Copy. See you there, lander!”

            We drifted towards each other. The Nighthawk was coming into view a couple miles out. “Okay, Nighthawk, commencing velocity matching,” I said.

            “Roger, lander! Main engines start.”

            A bright plume of white appeared behind the Nighthawk. I throttled up on the stick and the engine came on. The velocities were slowing down. The Nighthawk got closer and closer, as did we to it. Suddenly, it seemed as though we stopped moving all together. However, we were still moving tremendously fast away from the planet.

            “I see you, lander! You look a bit burned.” said Quick.

            “Roger, we see you too! We’re about 1/4 mile out. Starting RCS transfer.”

            The RCS ports moved us to where we needed to go. The hangar doors opened. I maneuvered the lander inside and connected the nose with the docking port. “Hard dock achieved!” I said. The doors shut behind us and the flood lights came on.

            The docking hatch opened. Quick was waiting for us on the other side. We all patted each other on the backs. “I can’t believe that worked!” said Hernandez.

And Chapter 9!

Spoiler

“So refueling mid-reentry, check! Next up, landing on a moon of the biggest planet ever discovered,” said Quick.

            “Right, but we’ll do it tomorrow. We can all agree that we need some rest.” We all went to our quarters. I looked out the window next to my bed. The twirling planet below the Nighthawk was mesmerizing. The light-green color was the most awe-inspiring thing I think I’ve seen.

           

            We peered out the windows at the sight before us. A giant ball of twirling gasses awaited us. Huge multicolored storms dotted the surface. Thousands of tiny moons seemed to orbit it. However, we were only here for one thing. A shiny moon could be seen over the bright orange clouds.

            A quick course correction with the Nighthawk sent us falling towards the moon. We waited nearly an hour before we got close enough to see the features of its surface. White swirling clouds covered nearly half of the moon. Huge parts of the uncovered surface were very reflective like giant mirrors.

            “Those are salt flats,” said Hernandez. It rained not too long ago over them. The ground is so level that when it rains, the entire surface turns into a huge mirror. However, the moon is going through a period of extreme cold. The water has frozen into crystal-clear ice. The giant clouds there is a huge blizzard. Our planned landing site will be overtaken by the blizzard in a few days.”

            “We can land somewhere else, can’t we?” asked Mikhail.

            “No we can’t. We’ve already entered the coordinates into the landing tracker. We’ll get there before we can inform NASA and but in the new coding. We’ll have to take the risk,” I said.

            The Nighthawk plunged towards the moon. The gas giant planet took up nearly half of the sky. “Our perigee is nearly 50 miles above the surface. Preparing for orbital insertion,” said Quick.

            I started up the Nighthawk’s main engines once more. We were falling into orbit. After a nearly three-minute burn, we were in a near perfectly circular but inclined orbit. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go! It won’t be too long until we get stuck in a giant blizzard!” I said. We all took off and got whatever we needed for a trip to the surface. We took extra supplies too in case we got trapped by the blizzard.

            We all climbed into the lander. We had already stored our supplies in the cramped cargo hold. The lander was also carrying the MBM, or Miniature Base Module, which can be used to stay in instead of the lander. It is a miniature version of the Outposts but can still hold six people.

           

            The lander glided gracefully through the cold atmosphere. From its altitude, the giant blizzard could be seen even though it was still a couple hundred miles off. No reentry was made because of the thin atmosphere. After passing through the whips of clouds at the upper atmosphere, the reflective surface could be seen.

            Quick, Hernandez, and Mikhail peered out the windows. The crystal-clear reflection of the lander could be seen even from the high altitude. I spiraled the lander around to lose speed. We got lower and lower until the lander was just a mile above the surface. I activated the bottom engines.

            The lower gravity meant the engines could barely be thrusting at all. The landing legs came out of the bottom of the hull. The feet made a soft splash in the reflective water. The water rippled outwards on contact distorting the reflections of the clouds. “Engines off,” I said. The quiet sound of the engines stopped and all was quiet.

            For the first time, I gazed out the window and took in everything. The giant mirror was awe inspiring. I looked upwards and saw the giant planet, this time a light blue color because of the atmospheric distortions. To the east was the blizzard. The side of the clouds were visible; the sky underneath them a dark gray.

            We exited the airlock and stepped outside. The atmosphere is barely breathable so we kept our helmets on. We’d only take them off for emergencies. The water came up to our ankles. Each step we took made a small splash in the water. Ripples extended far off to where we couldn’t see them.

            Hernandez bent over and dipped his hand in the water. He ran his fingers across the ground. His fingers were covered in wet salt. The only salt that is in the water is only near the ground.

            “Looks like the blizzard is coming sooner than we expected,” said Quick. The ominous storm seemed to be darting towards us very quickly. We stared out at the gray skies in the east. Small flashes of light occasionally lit up the clouds.

            “The water may freeze any minute. Temperature levels are dropping at .3 degrees a minute,” I said. We got to work unloading the lander with our supplies. We took with us clothes, food, personal belongings, scientific experiments, surface sampling tools, and much other useful equipment. A fold-out platform was placed in the water to keep the equipment on so they wouldn’t get wet.

            The thin icy clouds above us were starting to turn gray. The wind levels were starting to pick up. The blizzard seemed to be coming at us at blazing speeds. From orbital surveillance before, it seemed to cover half the moon’s surface. From end to end, the storm was thousands of miles wide. If we get hit by hit, we could be stuck here for months. Maybe years! The faster we completed everything we needed to do, the sooner we could leave. But I wish that’s what happened.

            Several hours later after we began harvesting the water, temperatures began to drop drastically. The surface water began to turn to icy slush. The sky began to darken, but not because the sun was setting or the planet was blocking the sunlight. Snowflakes began falling. We all looked up into the sky. The giant clouds overhead were choking out the bright blue skies and the planet.

            “Guys, we need to move the lander!” I said. “Everyone get in! We’re relocating!” I said. We pushed everything back in the cargo hold in a messy fashion and jumped inside the cockpit. “Engines on!” The engines started up. However, the freezing water had something else in mind. The back of the lander started to rise but the front of it started to sink. I cut off the engines. If we tipped any farther forward we would flip over.

            The front windows were submerged in the shallow water, now freezing right in front of our eyes. The windows began to frost over as the water totally froze. The rock-hard ice kept the lander tilted in the diagonal position. “Mikhail, what’s the temperature outside?” I asked.

“18 degrees and dropping fast!”

I cursed out loud, not caring if anyone heard it. Snow was falling fast now, covering the lander in a thin sheet. “Okay, Hernandez, you and I will go outside and make sure the hatch stays clear of snow. Quick and Mikhail, you stay in here!” I said.

Hernandez and I climbed up the seats into the airlock. We opened the outer hatch. As it opened, it flung a plume of bright snow into the air. The entire sky was now a dark gray color. Snow was falling fast; you couldn’t see 20 feet in front of you. We carried small shovel-like tools with us and began scraping the snow off of the hatch.

We kept doing it for about 20 minutes but the snow just kept falling faster and faster, caking us and the lander in white fluff. We eventually quit, realizing that it was just wasted effort. We came up with a plan, though.

“Quick, Mikhail, come out here! This isn’t going to help anything,” I said. The outer hatch opened and Mikhail’s helmet peeked out at the snow-covered landscape.

“The solar power has run out in the lander, commander. The solar panels are receiving no light,” he said. I looked around. The blizzard was now blocking all light from the sun. Large clouds spanned over the skies everywhere.

“We’re going to deploy the MBM. It has a built in generator that can run on simple evaporation,” I said. Mikhail and Quick climbed out of the hatch. They closed it behind them. Due to the rising snow, we could jump off without harm.

The MBM was in a large hatch on the side of the lander. It was already near the surface of the snow so it was easily accessible. I opened the hatch and a flap of the inflatable habitat flopped out. We worked together to pull it out of its small storage compartment. It was heavier near the back, where all of the electric components, supplies, and generator were stored. We pulled it out carefully, making sure not to rip the inflatable hull.

The last bit of it fell out of the compartment with a soft thud against the snow covered ground. We fumbled for the air hose until Quick happened to find it. Equipment to blow up the habitat was put in the back of the compartment. I took it out and plugged it into the nozzle. The habitat began to be filled with air. Noticeable features began to take shape like windows and airlocks.

Small legs could be attached to the bottom to keep it upright. The MBM finally inflated to its full size and the blower stopped. We closed the nozzle and fitted the legs into place. The finished product looked like a large brown box at the end of a large inflatable tube with legs. An odd sight, really, but it got the job done.

We entered the airlock. It seemed to be bigger on the inside, but that was just a superstition. The equipment container was on the opposite side of the tube. I unlocked the door and supplies flooded out. Microwaves, sheets, food boxes, and fold-up beds toppled out. We took out the supplies and started putting them in their proper places.

We only needed four beds instead of six. We put two on either sides of the tube. Next we took the fold-out tables out of the wall. We put experiments and food preparers on them among other things. Water tanks, a large food pantry, and two generators stayed in the back room.

We looked out the window. Snow was coming down fast. The wind was starting to pick up. The whole MBM began to rattle. “Commander, we could use the snow outside for generator power so we won’t waste the water we have,” said Hernandez.

“Yeah, good idea. I’m freezing!”

We exited the airlock with shovel and sampling tools. Hernandez took a small sample while Mikhail, Quick and I gathered as much snow as we could. We took what we had gathered back inside the MBM.

Hernandez too the sample to the Sample Composition Device, or SCD. It tells what elements any material is made of. “Getting the data readings now,” he said. He paused for a moment. “Looks like this snow is made of 99 percent H₂O and 1 percent carbon. It should be safe for generator power, just not drinking.”

“Well can we treat it to make it safe?” I asked.

“With our most advanced filter, we can reduce it to just .6 percent carbon, and even that is a risk.”

“We’ll find a way.”

We took the bundle of snow from what we had collected. Because the generator only works on evaporating fluids, we had to boil it. A small cooktop can do just the thing. We bundled all the snow in a container (we didn’t have to worry about it melting, everything here is fire-proof) and set it on the cooktop.

Mikhail turned it on. The snow seemed to be melting almost instantly. It only took about a minute for the snow to turn into an icy slush like the mirror water was before. Eventually, the icy slush turned to water. Then the water started bubbling. Trace amounts of steam started to rise from the container.

“What temperature is the water now?” asked Quick.

Hernandez stuck a thermometer in the water. The red mercury inside rose quickly. “About 203 degrees,” he said. The temperature kept rising until the whole surface was bubbling and a large cloud of steam was rising from the top. “It’s 212 now.”

Mikhail had thermal gloves on that protects your hands from intense heat. He carefully took the container making sure none of his bare skin was touching the heated container. The generator had a small recess to put the container inside. The evaporation rose into the generator and it started humming softly. The lights came on and the heater started blow warm air all throughout the MBM. We all had a sigh of relief as we felt the blast of heat on our faces. There were small vents on the floor and ceiling.

We stood there silently letting the heaters warm us up. “So what water are we going to drink?” Quick asked finally.

“Well,” I responded, “The snow isn’t the only source of water here on this planet. Obviously, the frozen rain water won’t do us any good. However, there are mountains on this moon. From orbital surveys before, there appears to be a mountain range nearly 200 miles away. It may have icy frost on it that doesn’t have any carbon in it.”

“With our dinky little rover onboard the lander, it would take weeks to get there,” said Mikhail, “even months.”

We all pondered this for a moment. “Obviously, the 7-month time limit is shot. But this isn’t about getting there on time anymore, this is about our survival. We miscalculated the speed of the storm and here we are now,” I said.

“A few things to ponder, Commander,” said Hernandez, “The rover can only fit two people. The available snow tracks won’t work in this loose snow and without any snow tracks, it wouldn’t get anywhere! Since we can’t use the rover, we’d be walking there. We’d also have to carry everything! Should we just wait this blizzard out?”

We all pondered the points Hernandez made. Finally, I spoke up, “Good points there,” I said, encouraging him. As Commander, I need to keep the mental stability of my crew and check, and encouraging them keeps all our hopes up. “What difference does it make that we’re stuck in a blizzard? We’d still need to get there anyways, rover or not. We’d be waiting for nearly 5 months if we sat here until this storm blows over.

“Yes, the rover can only carry two people, but it can carry supplies. We can modify the rover to carry what we need. We can change the wheels up with skis and put up a makeshift snow plow on the front.”

“If we do that, Commander, we’d have to push it all the way there and back!” said Mikhail.

“We can take turns. Two of us will spend an hour pushing it and the other two will spend an hour and so on. The gravity here is weaker so it requires less effort to do anything physical. We can do it,” I assured him, but not only him, but all of us.

Quick’s eyes began to flutter. They began to close but he jolted back awake. He gave everyone a shy smile and we all gave a small laugh. I did not even realize how long of a day we just had. The last time we had slept was after we had just gotten into this solar system. When we had all woken up, we were already overtaken by Planet F’s gravity.

We all went to sleep soon after. The sky was beginning to get darker than it already was with the setting of the blue star. I’m staying awake just a little while longer to write this. In the morning, we’ll begin to modify the rover for our trip.

Enjoy! Chapter 10 coming soon!

Edited October 16, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich

[The Raging Sandwich]

Added a prologue in the OP that introduces Voyager 1 into the story, go check it out!

[The Raging Sandwich]

Chapter 10

Spoiler

January 1979

Thousands of minds had gone into this project, and it was beginning to all be worth it. Voyager 1 had survived its two-year journey crossing 365 million miles of space including the dreaded asteroid belt. Even though most of the asteroid belt was empty space and space rocks were thousands of miles away from each other, it was uncertain whether the spacecraft would make it.

Finally, the spacecraft approached the largest planet in the solar system. The spacecraft’s camera turned on and was aimed at the planet, making its first image of the planet. It was already better than anything that had been taken from Earth, so even it was ground-breaking.

As it was continuously being pulled downwards to the planet over the span of 2 months, a time-lapse was recorded showing the clouds swirling in a hypnotic pattern. Even though the rotation period of Jupiter was only about 9 hours, the clouds barely even moved at all in that time.

It finally made its closest approach of 172,000 miles on March 5. It passed over the orbital height of the four tiny moons Amal, Melisa, Adrastea, and Thebe. It gained tremendous speed coming into Jupiter and being shot out like a slingshot by its huge gravitational influence.

As it sped away from the gas giant, it came into a close flyby of the closest of the four Galilean moons Io. It was a moon only known by its yellow color through telescopes. Close-up photos suggested that the moon was volcanic, dotted and littered with pockmarks of craters and volcanoes. As it sped away from Io, the cameras peered back at it.

It seemed like another celestial body was creeping up behind Io, but there was no such thing. In fact, it was the first volcanic eruption seen on another world besides Earth. It was spewing molten sulfur high into the airless void of space. It rained back down on the moon, pelting anything that was unlucky enough to be caught by it.

It traveled further and further away from the planet Jupiter, awaiting its next destination, Saturn.

As I'm nearing the end of this book, I'm going to be spending all of my writing time on it, so you'll just have to wait for anything else in Fly Higher.

Edited November 19, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich

[The Raging Sandwich]

Chapter 11

Spoiler

A lot of work had been done to prepare for the trip. First off, the lander had to be broken free of its icy prison. A large pile of snow had been placed under the back of it which was risen into the air to cushion its fall once it was free.  Then we chipped away at the ice, but to barely any result; it would take hours via any method to break the lander free.

            Then we got the idea of melting the ice. In the lander’s utility storage were spotlights. We had them for many reasons, but that isn’t the point. We set up a tarp over the area so that no more snow would keep falling on it. We set up the lights and let them do their work for a couple hours.

            We then got to work setting up a beacon tower. We need one just in case we can’t find our way back to base using radar. Our suits send and receive radio signals to the lander and the Nighthawk whenever it passes over us in orbit. Just in case that fails sometime while we’re gone, we need a backup plan. It’s also a risky one just in case we come back during the day time and we can’t see the light. The terrain is so flat here, though, that we could probably just see the tower from miles away.

            We raided the lander for its floodlight. It was used for leading the crew back to the lander in case of some sort of flooding, dust storm, blizzard, and other extreme weather. We took it off the top of the lander. It came with its own power supply which runs on any sort of gas around it (which means it doesn’t work in any airless environments).

            We then salvaged a truss structure from an emergency tent and straightened it out into a tall tower about 60 feet tall one part at a time. We attached the light to one of the trusses. To build up the tall tower, we needed scaffolding to reach the top. We clumped the vast amounts of snow around us into a big lump and climbed up it whenever we put a new piece on the tower.

            When Mikhail and I finished setting up the last part of the truss tower, Quick and Hernandez through up cables used to automatically set up the tent the trusses came from. We used them to make sure wind wouldn’t push the beacon over. We attached the cables to the tower and Quick and Hernandez harpooned them in place to the ground under the ice which they had chipped away.

            They then piled up a large lump of snow to cushion our fall. We jumped off the “scaffolding” and landed safely in the snow. I hurt my ankle a little bit but it felt better after I walked it off. We got rid of the snow tower by just plowing it over with the rover. A bit crude with driving through the snow and all, but it worked (plus it was the most fun thing we did all day other than jumping off the snow pile).

            We looked up at our creation. The light could be turned on remotely by a switch in the lander. Mikhail went inside the lander and activated it. A bright light swept across the barren landscape in a circular path like a lighthouse back on Earth. It worked like a charm.

            When we were done with that, the ice around the front of the lander had almost completely melted. We kept watch (having a snowball fight) of the lander until a loud crack sounded as the lander’s nose broke free of its icy snare. The back of it fell onto the pile of snow below safe and sound. Other than the probable mess inside the lander, everything was find and functional.

            The next thing to do was to prop the lander up on a raised platform to keep it over the snow. We turned the spotlights off and put them away along with the tarps. We made another large pile of snow from the ground around us as large as the pile holding the back of the lander in place. We placed it just next to the nose of the lander and drove the rover up next to it.

            Quick and I got into the lander and powered it up for the first time since we landed. Water and partially-melted slush fell out of the front engine nozzles. With a loud shriek, the engines fired slightly pushing the lander up level. “Now!” I said, and Mikhail drove the lander forward pushing the snow underneath the front of the lander. He immediately backed up and I turned off the lander’s engines.

It came to a firm halt as the front of it was lying on the snow. “How does that look Hernandez?” I asked.

“It’s level. Perfect,” he responded.

“That’s good to hear,” Quick said, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling as he stood up. He was the tallest out of all of us, Hernandez being the shortest. We got out of the lander (normally this time!) and Mikhail crawled out of the rover and we inspected our work.

“It is nice, but do you think the lander’s engines melted any of the snow?” Mikhail asked.

“We had the engines at low-power, so if they did it was just barely,” I said.

“So the structural integrity is weakened,” Mikhail said.

“Yes, but only for a little bit. It’s so cold out here that the melted water will freeze almost instantly,” I explained. It was actually getting colder by the minute, dropping about a degree every five minutes as the moon continued to pass behind the planet. It was still in complete darkness, the side facing what would be the star only receiving ambient light from the planet and other moons.

By then, we had been working in the bitter cold of the blizzard for nearly 5 hours. “I think we deserve a break. We’ll start on the rover tomorrow,” I said. We went back to the lander this time to sleep.

We woke up the next morning to see that everything was still intact. It was early in the morning so it was still very dark out instead of just dark out. The beacon was still on shining its bright light all around the camp. The lander still sat firmly on its pedestal of snow. Then again, we would’ve known that when we would’ve woken up on the ceiling.

All we had left to do was modify the rover. It was a huge undertaking. The night before, we had drawn out our own blueprints on the modified rover. We voted on Quick’s which combined the MBM and the rover. It had skis on the bottom and a snow plow on the front. We all agreed it was the best design. We then set to work on improving the design until we got the final results.

We had a lot of work ahead of us, especially since we needed to take off the whole entire back portion of the rover. It was cramped already for 6 people, taking the back portion off would only leave room for three people in the front, four if we all huddled together. We left the front on so we could get in and out. It would also serve as a sort-of emergency capsule in case something happens to the MBM.

The next problem was weight. We’re going to be dragging this thing around for nearly 200 miles every day, occasionally taking breaks along the way. To make this manageable, we had to strip nearly half of its weight. Using ultra-light materials and making it electric powered, it was only about 600 pounds. What we planned to do was strip it down to just 350 pounds, the weight of the MBM (about 200 pounds) included.

Taking off the back portion would leave about 350 pounds in the rover. Taking out the engines and the wheels would bring it down to about 200. Taking out various seats and driving components in the front part would bring it down to about 100 pounds. Adding skis and the snow plow made from thin leftover parts from the titanium panels would bring the weight up to about 155 pounds. Adding the MBM would bring it up to the final 355 pounds, but multiple things could be left behind leaving it at only 310 pounds, more than manageable.

It’s easier said than done, however. All of this would take days, probably about a week (I’m writing this as we progress on). We started with the wheels, suspension, main battery, and the engine. After taking it out gently (yanking the whole thing apart) it knocked out 55 pounds. The day was already almost done when that was completed, so we had time to take out a few seats which took out 20 pounds.

The next day, we took out the other seats and disconnected all the systems in the front console and took them out of the rover. We cut off the console completely to make more room using the electric saws we used at the titanium planet. By then the rover was 445 pounds and another day had passed.

After that, we emptied everything from the back of the rover. It was only a few seats and containers for experiments. That left 395 pounds. With the saws again, we started cutting away at the hull of the rover. We got barely under halfway completed doing that before night time.

We woke up earlier the next day and completed the task, making the rover only about 150 pounds. By then, it was only midday. We then dragged the MBM to the rover. From then on, we would be sleeping in the lander until we left. We began to modify the base of the MBM. It was a lightweight rectangle-shaped frame that could be screwed into the ground at the corners. It could easily be mounted onto the rover.

We started to take out everything in the MBM so we could lift it onto the rover. “We should’ve put all that under a tarp,” said Hernandez when he saw the snow cluttering onto his bed. After quickly bolting the MBM onto the rover, we cleared off the snow on everything that was inside of it. Hernandez complained the whole time. We didn’t mind; Quick, Mikhail, and I were complaining in our heads.

We moved everything back into the rover. Hernandez’s bed was waterlogged, but somehow the rest of ours wasn’t. The day had ended yet again and we went back to the lander. The next day we would attach the skis and the snow plow and prepare for our trip.

We woke up again the next morning (always a plus) and ate whatever we had in the lander. We had food that could last for several weeks for 6 people, but several months for just 4 of us. We also had several bags of water that would last the same amount of time.

Luckily, we still had excess titanium panels that were too thin for use. They would make excellent skis and snowplow. We got straight to work on shaping and cutting the panels. They were hard to cut them in the snow, but we eventually did it. Be bent the panels by bending it (kicking it forcefully) against the edge of the rover.

We bolted the skis and the snowplow onto the rover. We stepped back and admired our work. “Hey guys, you know what?” I said.

“What?”

“We haven’t taken any pictures since the disaster.” I got out the camera in my utilities pouch on my suit and snapped a picture of the rover. It wasn’t that good looking with the dark clouds behind it, but it was alright the way it was.

We got back inside the lander and MBM and started packing for the trip. As I’m writing this now, we only got finished a couple minutes ago. We packed up every bit of food and water we had. We packed all 4 of our clothes with us. Everything was ready. I’m going to sleep now; it was an exhausting day.

Tomorrow, we’re heading for the hills. God help us.

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

Chapter 12

Spoiler

“Hey Johnson, you sick?” Quick said. Commander Johnson was hunched over his bed in the rover with his hands up to his forehead.

            “No, just praying,” Johnson said without moving.

            “Ah, thanks. We’re going to need that.” Quick patted him on the shoulder and crawled outside to join Mikhail in one last check of the rover. “It looks like crap,” he said with his hands to his hips, “but it’ll get us where we need to go.”

            “Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Everything looks good, I just did a stress test on the skis,” Mikhail said.

            “And by stress test you mean…”

            “Kicking it as hard as I can.” They both laughed.

            Hernandez crawled out of the lander and closed the hatch behind him. He jumped off into the snowbank below him and looked at the lander one last time. He sighed and turned towards the others. “Rock paper scissors for who gets to push first,” he said.

            “Johnson, get out here!” Mikhail yelled.

            The Commander climbed out of the dinky rover. “What?” he said sounding a little irritated.

            “We’re playing rock paper scissors for who pushes first. You’ll be with Hernandez and I’ll be with Quick.”

            Johnson and Mikhail stood in front of each other. “So is it 1, 2, 3 –” Johnson started to say. Mikhail started, Johnson starting one second later. Mikhail used rock while Johnson used scissors.

            “Gotcha.”

            “Hey, no fair,” Johnson protested.

            “As Americans would put it, you lose you snooze.”

            “Actually, it’s ‘You snooze you lose’,” said Quick.

            “I don’t care. Let’s go.”

            Johnson and Hernandez got behind the lander, Quick and Mikhail staying in front. They began to push at the rover, but it wouldn’t budge. Quick and Mikhail stopped and looked behind them. Hernandez backed up and ran towards the rover, slamming himself into it with a shoulder tackle. It sent the rover forward a little bit, loosening itself out of the snow. “Got it,” said Hernandez.

            They began pushing it; it was a little lighter than what they imagined. The light atmosphere of the moon made working and moving a lot easier. The snow being a lot less dense and clumped together helped a lot, also.

            They trudged on through the waist-high snow for hours. Johnson and Hernandez had gotten hot so they opened up their faceplates a bit to let in the cool air. It stung their nostrils, but it felt good to be cooling off. “When are you guys going to help us?” whined Hernandez.

            “Soon enough,” Mikhail replied. It was another two hours when he and Quick grudgingly agreed to push for a change. They pushed onwards with seemingly a lot more ease than Johnson and Hernandez had done the last few hours.

            Suddenly, Johnson realized something. “Guys, I forgot my log,” he said.

            “Too late now,” said Quick.

            They continued on for a couple more minutes when Johnson spoke up again. “How far have we gone?”

            Hernandez looked on his suit monitor which had been logging their whole trek. “About 6 miles,” he said.

           

            “If we need to keep our morale up, I suggest having actual conversations,” said Johnson. By then, he and Hernandez were pushing the rover again.

            “What’s wrong than the ones we’ve been having?” said Quick.

            “’When’s the next time we eat?’ is not really a conversation to me.”

            “Well a break sure does sound good right now,” said Hernandez.

            “Sure, we can stop here.” Hernandez gave a sigh of relief and everybody stopped walking. “Something meaningful, not just asking something and getting one reply and starting all over again in an hour. I mean like, full face-to-face conversations.”

            “Well it’s sort of hard to do that when I have my face to the rover,” said Hernandez.

            “I’ll start,” Johnson said ignoring him. “So Mikhail, how are the kids?”

            “I haven’t seen them in a year,” Mikhail responded irritated.

            “Now I know why conversations are a bad idea,” Johnson said. They got some food from the back of the MBM and sat down to eat for a couple minutes until going on.

 

2 days later

            “Ow, hell!” yelled Quick. He grabbed his boot and started hopping around, yelling and swearing.

            “What?”

            “What is it?”

            “Are you alright, man?”

            Quick kept yelling and hopping around, falling into the snow. The other crewmembers rushed to his side.

            “What’s the problem?” asked Mikhail. “Calm down and tell me what’s wrong.”

            Quick took a few deep breaths. Hernandez tilted him up into a sitting position. “I think I broke my freaking foot!” he yelled.

            Johnson, Mikhail, and Hernandez all looked at each other. “Okay, let’s not panic,” Hernandez said. “How did you hurt your foot?”

            “I hit it against something hard, it must’ve been a rock or something!”

            “I’ll go see what it was,” Johnson said. He got up and started digging through the snow until he found something. It was burnt and slightly bent; metal nonetheless. He looked at it harder, even opening his visor. Surely it can’t be, he thought. But… it must be. “Guys… I think it’s metal.”

            “Hernandez, help me get him up and go see what it is,” Mikhail ordered. They took Quick by the arms and dragged him to the foot of the rover and Hernandez headed over where Johnson was to investigate.

            “It’s definitely burnt metal,” said Johnson when Hernandez squatted down next to him. “It can’t be anything else.” He pulled the slab of metal out of the ice with some force, eventually breaking it free. He twisted it around multiple times, looking at both of its sides.

            “Let me see it,” said Hernandez. He handed the metal over to him. He observed it closely, holding it mere inches from his visor. “It looks like part of something. The edges are jagged like it was just ripped loose.”

            “But why is it burnt?”

            “Yeah, it definitely is burnt, but I don’t know. Could it be… reentry maybe?”

            “Like it was an asteroid?”

            “No, it’s too perfectly flat. Definitely not an asteroid. Maybe – this sounds a little farfetched – but maybe a spacecraft?”

            They stared at each other, bewildered at their realization that this was the best conclusion to what the artifact was. “But… What spacecraft could possibly be here? No Explorer missions ever came remotely close to this star system. Could it be…” Johnson trailed off.

            “No, I just got a radio ping from the Nighthawk not even thirty minutes ago,” Hernandez said. Johnson gave a sigh of relief.

            “Was it a rock?” asked Mikhail.

“Take a look for yourself,” Johnson said. He grabbed the slab and handed it over Mikhail. Both he and Quick got a good look at it.

“It looks like some sort of aluminum-copper alloy to me,” said Mikhail.

“Yeah, less on the strange metal and more on the fact it shattered my toes,” said Quick.

“Yes, definitely broken. Fractured at the least. We’re going to half to stop here and bandage him up. No more pushing the rover for you until you heal up,” Mikhail told him. He picked up Quick and brought him inside the rover, Johnson and Hernandez following close behind.

“Get me some bandages,” said Mikhail putting Quick down on a bed. Johnson rummaged through the back storage area as Mikhail took off Quick’s boot. He twisted the boot and pulled it off with a shriek from Quick.

“Careful, man!” he yelled. Johnson tossed him the bandages. He carefully positioned Quick’s foot and started quickly but carefully wrapping the bandage around Quick’s foot. “Any reason it’s wet?”

“Soon, it will dry and conform around your foot fixing it in one position. Don’t move at all for about an hour. Here, prop your foot up on this pillow,” Mikhail said, making Quick rest back on his bed and putting a pillow under his foot. “And remember, don’t move.”

After sitting for a while inside the MBM reading books and magazines, Hernandez asked, “How far have we gone?”

Johnson grabbed his suit at the foot of his bed and looked on the EVA monitor. “So far, about 23 miles in three days. At this rate of... let’s see, 7.7 miles a day, we’ll get there in about 27 days.”

“A bit sooner than I thought,” Hernandez said.

“Don’t forget the other 27 days back. That’s almost two months there and back.”

Hernandez’s head drooped and he continued looking at the old book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The burnt slab of metal sat on a desk at the end of the room, still an unknown mystery.

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

Chapter 13

Spoiler

November 1980

            Now in the third year of its mission, Voyager 1 had reached Saturn. It took 2 years to get to Jupiter. Jupiter’s immense gravity acted as a slingshot boosting the spacecraft by thousands of miles an hour to decrease the time to Saturn. Because of the increased speed, Voyager 1 would be speeding past Saturn far faster than it had Jupiter, so it was a narrow effort to do all that it had to do.

            It monitored all it could about Saturn. It took images of its more boring clouds but beautiful ring system. Just those images gave more information than what was ever known by anyone at Earth.

            From the Pioneer 11 mission which had did a flyby of Saturn a year before, it was deduced that Saturn’s largest moon Titan did in fact have an atmosphere. It was speculated for some time and widely believed that the moon did have an atmosphere. Further proof was given by the missions.

            Titan was by far the most intriguing moon in all the Saturn system. So much so that it was planned for Voyager 1 to have a more extensive survey of Titan. That, however, would come at a cost. Doing its special flyby of Titan would throw it out of its trajectory that would send it to Uranus and Neptune. It would also send it into an inclined trajectory up out of the solar system. That would also mean it would just become further ahead than Voyager 2 which would continue on to the icy gas giants.

            Unfortunately, the Titan flyby provided little new data. The radar systems could not penetrate through the thick cloud layer. What was provided though, was the theory of liquids on its surface. That would lead to further speculation and theories to be proven in the future. Voyager 1 disembarked from Saturn and its rings and moons on December 14.

 

[NSEP]

Wow, a chapter bundle! Nice!

Awesome book.