Scout Expedition
By Stephen Brandon
Copyright 2012 Stephen Brandon
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Chapter 1: My name is Obadiah.
The doctor suggested that I start a journal. His reasoning was that I needed something to do while my legs heal.
Well, I'll start about telling how I got injured. If you know our history you know that we receive intensive hand to hand training starting when we are 9 or 10 ship years old. Our basic education is then completed. Along with the hand to hand training is technical training. I'm not bragging, but I was 2nd in my age group in most areas. Only Elizabeth was ahead of me in a couple. She's a little red headed that is only a month younger than I am, and I'll be 19 next month.
Anyway were were practicing for our semifinals and traversing from the low g to a high g area at full speed. I caught her and had her immobilized when I caught the outside edge of a transfer tube. I had a choice, let her take the full impact on her back or shove her off. I chose to shove her off and both of my legs took the full impact.
The surgeon told me that he quit counting at 23 breaks in my left and 19 in my right. He told me that in the old days he'd have simply amputated both legs. He also claims that I'll be back on my feet and able to run in the 1.5g area in 3 months.
I hope he's right, because I don't want to be assigned as mother ship crew. After all, I'm 3rd generation and we should be entering the target system in 4 1/2 years.
Last evening Elizabeth slipped into my quarters and entertained me. She said I didn't owe her, but she owed me because I had her immobilized. Well that's the rule. I haven't been immobilized by any of the girls since I was 17. Usually the prize is taken at first opportunity. When a guy immobilizes a guy or a gal immobilizes a gal they get IOU's. I've got quite a few IOU's in my book.
It's been 8 days and the surgeon told me after his exam that I could get up, but was confined to the 1g area for 5 more weeks, and then he'd determine what I'd be allowed to do or go.
I was sitting in the library reading ahead on my assignments last night when Elizabeth slipped up behind me and dropped an arm over my head and claimed she had me pinned. I argued that the library was off limits because of the equipment, but she insisted and dragged me over to the archives. When she was satisfied, she had to help me back to the computer room. I've got to check the rules for injured personnel because I think she violated several.
My 5 week check up was great. The surgeon says that I healing just fine, but I seemed to be exhausted. He was going to run a full panel of test until I admitted that I had a visitor in my quarters last evening and she didn't leave til 0300 hours. After looking at me for a minute he handed my a script.
I looked at it on the way out and discovered that it reassigned my quarters to the 0.2g hub.
I got Scott to help me move my trunk. When I told him that his help would take care of some of his IOU's he laughed and said that Elizabeth had told him that his were taken care of by her. She should have been in supply because she'd been trading and rearranging IOU's for the last month and as far as he knew no one owed me. She held all my IOU's.
I must have looked really shocked because he asked me if I was alright.
I then asked him not to let her know where I'd moved to because she'd been visiting me almost every night, and I needed my rest.
When he quit laughing, he told me that I was to late. Janet told him yesterday that Elizabeth had told her she was going to file papers on me.
I realized what she'd been up to. She was going to file on me as a mate. Now I'd never be able to take her down. I'd never be top of my age group because all I could ever do was collect IOU's. We would be teamed together for all the competitions. Her scores and mine would be linked together. I could never pull ahead her her.
It must have occurred to Scott as well. He was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes and it wasn't because he was rolling on the deck.
I kicked at him and told him he still didn't have a chance of beating me out. All this did was cause him to howl louder.
Then Elizabeth stuck her head in the door and announced, I'm here.
She grabbed Scott's leg and tossed him out in the corridor. Then she closed the door and wrapped her arms around me and quietly informed me that I was caught.
With a leg sweep I broke her hold and picked her up and dumped her in the hammock. After fastening the Velcro top I gave it a spin and wound her up so tight she couldn't move. Just for the heck of it I hit all her ticklish spots. None of them worked.
All she did was stick her tongue out at me and then said, I've got double quarters on the 1.2g deck. When are you moving in?
I gave the hammock another spin and sat down and looked at her. Then I informed her that the surgeon had assigned me these quarters. He said I needed to rest.
She wiggled out of her clothes and beckoned me to join her in the hammock. You can rest on my shoulder now, we're paired and I need my rest also.
As I reached up through the hammock for the light control, she said leave it on for now, I want to look at my man.
It's quite a long walk down to the 1g classrooms. After passing all the technical classes for the quarter I finally got another appointment with the surgeon.
He told me to maintain the quarters up on the 0.2 deck, but I should start spending some time on the 1.2 deck also. He looked at Elizabeth and told her to turn sideways.
As she did, he simply said Mm-mm. You're beginning to show. Time to reduce your physical activity by 20 percent. And no more hand to hand training until after. Your doctor can give you alternate exercises so you can keep fit. They will mesh nicely with the ones I gave Obadiah.
Six and a half months later we had a beautiful baby girl. We named her Linda. Just over 3 1/2 years to target. We both hope that we will prevail. The last briefing stated that we would set up one habitat in the Oort cloud of the target system while the initial survey is being completed.
There are over a hundred children under the age of 18 that we'll be moving to the habitats. The initial survey of the system is still going on and the commander estimates that it'll be complete in another month. The initial pass showed above average levels of radiation from the 2nd planet 0.8 AU from the star. The asteroid belt at 3.8 AU showed clumping. The fact that this was the larger star of the binary system didn't matter. There were two more smaller rocky type planets at 5 and 8 AU. The fact that the second star is orbiting at 24 AU means that we'll also have to check it for livable planets and life before entering this system. The Oort cloud surrounding both stars is a mess of clumps with gravitational currents pulling every which away.
First habitat is completed, inflated, and regolith installed. All ships waste and water have been mixed into the 4 feet of pulverized regolith inside the habitat. The next step is vaporizing and spraying the outside with a coating of approximately 1 meter depth.
Stealth survey of the second star found one planet at 1.22 AU with a moon and two asteroid belts. No civilization evident from high orbit, or detectable radiation. Planets atmosphere is high in carbon compounds. Further study will be needed to determine if terraforming can be completed within our lifetimes. It's Van Allen belts are strong.
Target star system initial survey deemed complete by commandant. The second planet needs closer study. Some weak radio signals detected. The planets moon showed signs of settlements and mining. The asteroid belt also showed some signs that it at had been occupied at one time, but was now apparently abandoned. One crashed spacecraft with 6 humanoid occupants located in asteroid belt. It was heavily armed and pr
obably a military spacecraft. Evidently radioactive elements were not in sufficient quantity to be used in a ship size reactor. The complete hull of the spacecraft is similar in compounds to solar cells with four large solar cell panels that could be deployed. The main propulsion rocket was an ion drive. Storage batteries and capacitors took up over half the volume of the ship. Small chemical rockets were positioned as thrusters on the spacecraft. The armaments consisted of lasers and chemical explosive rockets.
We've been here for five years now. Finally the chemist and medical personnel OK'd moving into the first habitat. We analyzed the solar cells from the crashed spacecraft that was recovered and found them to be twice as efficient as our. They also utilize a much wider bandwidth of light and solar radiation that we thought possible. Analysis of the humanoid bodies found indicate that we should not have anything to worry about a far as pathogens. Their chemistry is closer to silicon. Only a major mutation could cause us humans problems, however their pathogens infected the computers in the biology lab and we had to isolate them in vacuum to prevent more cross contamination. We also had to cut the lab and surrounding compartments from the ship and remove them.
Six and a half years and the second habitat is ready to move into. The farm is doing nicely. Exploration of the target system is still continuing. The commandant is still pondering whether to attempt contact with the planet. There was a nuclear war on its surface. We assume that all off world humanoids returned to the planet. Two abandoned habitats in the asteroid belt have been sterilized and we now are being used as outpost for our observers. We are also using one of the mining communities located on their planets moon. If anyone on the planets surface is looking skyward they should have spotted us by now.
It's been nine years since our arrival here and the first report back. Still no answer.
Ten years and still no contact from earth. Observation of target planet indicates that any civilization still remaining on the planet is deteriorating. The commandant has determined that we should try to contact the humanoids by use of their radio frequencies. We have studied their languages enough that we think that we can make ourselves understood. We put a relay satellite in orbit and started last month. So far no reply. We know they intercepted our signal because in less than one rotation of the planet their radio traffic increased dramatically. One station announced that they were thinking about contacting the aliens and within an hour there was a nuclear explosion near the transmission site and we've heard nothing from that site since. We then informed them that we'd detected the nuclear explosions from our star system and traveled to theirs to investigate. We told them that prior to detecting their activity we thought that we were alone in the universe and were happy to find out that we were not the only intelligent civilization. One station answered us and told us to go back to our star system. We informed them that we didn't have the resources and asked them what they knew about the planet around the other star in their binary system. They told us that it was a deadly planet. Both their exploration missions to it had ended in disasters for the crews. When they refused to allow direct contact we asked them if they would at least transmit their history so their species would not be forgotten if we ever made contact with another species. After 3 months of contact we were surprised when a missile was launched from the surface. It impacted our communications satellite and exploded. A second missile was launched at their moon. It exploded right on top of our communications array. The occupants of the mining station were then happy that they'd had to run over a hundred kilometers of cable to find an ideal site to set up the array. Otherwise the nuclear explosion would have destroyed the base. A week later when we put another communications satellite in orbit we transmitted to them that if they were so hostile to intelligent life that it was better for them to die from their own hand on their home planet than infect the galaxy with their hatred. In less than an hour the second satellite had been destroyed. The commandant then ordered several high orbit satellites to monitor the planet for any launches of any type spacecraft.
Eleven years and still no contact or reply from earth. The humanoids from the planet in the target system are still trying to shoot down our high observation satellites, however we think they are running out of resources. Their rockets are less accurate and the last two didn't even make altitude. The commandant wants us to concentrate on the binary stars planet. Probes are being prepared for atmospheric and surface evaluation. I get to command the shuttle for the mission. Departure scheduled for next week.
The probe mission went off without a hitch. Data and pictures are great. However, what we saw was extremely disturbing. This wasn't a volcanic planet as we'd surmised. It showed the same architecture in its ruined cities as we'd seen in the target system home planet. Now we wonder which was the home planet. The ecology of the planet was dead. All of the cities were in ruins, but the pattern was there. Someone had killed this planet!
Upon return to the habitats, Elizabeth told me about the death of Scott. He was one of my oldest friends. He was on patrol and they spotted another missile launched from the planet. However this one was larger and didn't attempt to knock down any of our spy satellites. Neither was it aimed at our moon base or asteroid belt bases. After reporting the sensor data he intercepted it and used his ship to nudge it on another trajectory away from impact with the star. He was transmitting the sensor readings and pictures of the rocket when it exploded. The commandant considered the explosion more than just an attempt to kill us. The first analysis of the pulsed explosion made our analysis nervous. They'd never heard of or imagined a three step nuclear explosion from a single missile or bomb. Ant the fact that it was on a direct course for the star was even more disturbing. The commandant doubled the patrols around the plant and ordered that any missile launched was to be destroyed as soon as it cleared the atmosphere.
That with the data we brought back from the other planet will be presented to the command council tonight. I've been ordered to attend.
Data and discussion have continued for over 5 hours. Finally the commandant called us to order and stated that we only had 3 options. First was to exterminate the humanoid species on the planet. Second was to continue monitoring them and shoot down any missiles they launched. Third was to leave this binary star system. In his opinion these humanoids were so self destructive that we were now their target and they'd destroy themselves to kill us. To the layman, he could only conclude that this last missile launched at their star was designed to do something to the star that would make this area of space unlivable. The commandant then ordered the communications section to transmit all the information back to earth using not just the laser, but all the radio frequencies that our equipment could generate. That way anyone listening on any radio frequency would be warned.
Since genocide was a crime that he didn't want on his soul, we would prepare all our habitats and stations and depart the star system. Second, patrols would remain doubled until we depart. Third, if we could determine the launch location, we would bomb that location only to try to destroy the missile launching and manufacturing facilities. We must leave some type of defense here to prevent them from launching any missiles after we depart the binary star system.
The last year and a half has been was real hectic mess. We built ion drive engines for all three habitats and solar sails. We also built six space platforms with several dozen missiles each. Five of them were placed in orbits inside the planets orbit and one in high orbit around the planet. The habitats break orbit tomorrow and are headed out. Our main ship is scheduled to follow in six months. The commandants advisers think that as soon as they detect us departing they will launch another missile at the star hoping to catch us before we get to far out into interstellar space.
It's been 30 years since we left the binary system. The latest generation wonders why we left. Some of them think that we should have just sterilized the planet.
I now have to explain to every class that the humanoids on that planet had a much older civilization than we did and their technology was better than ours. Only their blood thirsty nature and pride prevented them from swarming out into interstellar space and conquering less technologically advanced species.
Last year when the ship caught up with us it relayed how they'd had to attack the planet 19 times in the year they stayed. They figured they'd destroyed at least 8 manufacturing and launching sites before the humanoids started launching their missiles from remote sites. They replaced all the used missiles on the platforms and even built 4 more platforms.
The only thing they hadn't expected was the electrical charge that the habitat had built up when they docked. It knocked out half the computers on the ship. One of the young scientific crew figures that with the solar sails and the ion drive both running the habitats built a charge. He and his crew checked and found that each habitat had a magnetic field. Their only explanation was that the rock and metal we'd vaporized and added to the outside of the habitats created the field because of the rotation and the electrical charge.
Yesterday was my 65th birthday. I was planning on retiring, but my advisory council said that I was still needed as commandant.
This morning the scientific council called me saying we had an emergency developing. They'd picked up some disturbing fluctuations in the target stars light spectrum. Their suggestion was that we separate the habitats by twice the distance now separating them. They also suggested that we increase the rotation of the habitats and hope that the magnetic field increases. Their estimate is that the star system we left was going to explode. They hoped that even as advanced at the technology of the humanoids was, it wasn't advanced enough to nova a star. They also hoped that the 2.6 Ly we'd traversed would spread out the radiation and shock wave enough so it wouldn't destroy us. They estimated that the destructive energy fields would be in the range of 30 to 50 million electron-volts (eV). All electronics should be placed in Faraday cages and all personnel should be in spacesuits or in insulated rooms half way between the center axis and outer hull of the habitats. All core reactors should be shut down and the ion drive run off the charge differential between the solar sails and habitats. Their best guess was that the first waves would hit us in about a day.
The first electromagnetic radiation wave in the gamma frequency range hit us 2 hours ago. It measured in the 20 to 22 million eV range until all outside sensors quit functioning. We are now flying blind and unable to even measure future radiation waves.
It's been 2 weeks and the scientific wiz kids estimate that the radiation waves and heavy particles should have passed us by now. They suggested we ask for volunteers to go out and check the solar sails for deposited elements and then set up an observation post to look back at the binary system.
Their reports confirmed that the outer layers of the star blew off. We now had what appeared as a main sequence binary pair with the target star the size of approximately 0.9 solar diameters. It previously was 1.22 solar diameters. That's a lot of mass and we must have been lucky not to be in the main path of the stars outer layers when they blew off into space. They wanted me to send a shuttle outside the magnetic field of the habitat to take additional readings. I agreed to ask for a volunteer if they furnished the second crewman to take the readings.
Three days to modify the shuttle and they departed. After 2 days out they returned with a lot of data to be analyzed. However the scientist claimed that we could reduce the magnetic fields around the habitats by reducing their rotation back to normal and stand down from the heightened protective status we were in. It should be safe for to resume normal operations. He'd have a final report within a day or two.
My pilot had hes own report. We were now traveling at almost 8 times our original velocity. We'd jumped from just under 1/10th the speed of light to just over 7/10ths the speed of light.
Their conclusion is that we are being carried by one of the radiation or gravity waves created when Alpha Centauri A lost its outer layers. We will pass close to Iota Horologii in about 2 years ship time. Our best guess is that we'll be carried until this wave we are riding dissipates, hopefully. To prevent the habitats from being separated we recommend that they draw as close together as they safely can. It would be even better if we could join the habitats physically. We don't know how we can slow down without unknown factors causing a dangerous situation.
After a month of study and running through a hundred possible scenarios it was decided to manufacture cables and connect the habitats using them. Then tension would be placed on the cables to draw them together. At a minimum safe distance we would use the shuttles rockets to stop movement. We thought this would work fine until the first shuttle towing a cable disappeared. It was only a little over two kilometers from the station when they started reporting strong magnetic fields, the cable they were reeling out snapped, and then the shuttle disappeared. They reported that the habitat turned blue just before radio contact was lost.
Six months later the science wiz kids claimed they had the answer. The magnetic fields created by the rotation of the habitats was holding us in the magnetic wave we were riding. To drop out all we had to do was stop rotation and the habitats would immediately slow down. However we should gather in the solar sails to prevent damage to them prior to decreasing rotation.
This information was transmitted to all habitat commanders and it was decided that we'd wait until we were 1 shipboard month out from Iota Horologi. Then sails would be gathered in at the same time. The ion drives would be shut down and then habitat rotation would be reduced by 0.1 RPM per hour until 0 RPM is established. If the habitats separated all would make their own way to Iota Horologi and transmit their location by radio. If the magnetic fields did not dissipate then reverse rotation would be started using the station keeping thrusters up to 0.5 RPM at the rated of 0.1 RPM per hour. Each step would be synchronized with habitat 1.
As soon as the solar sails were gathered in the habitats starting separating. Slight red shift was first detected by habitat 3 and radio communications was lost.
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