Beyond Sol

Chapter 11K

"Hey, hey, hey, hey!" The five of us danced around in a circle, arm's linked together, the large window overlooking the structure letting in the glorious K-light. I'll give you a rundown on what happened–The five of us escaped via the Tram to the Spectrum, couldn't get the chains off, Commander Alex Zukker's apparently didn't care of our kill streak, assigned us staterooms, now we're here. No, we didn't turn ourselves in, what the hell do you think we are? Losers? Yes, we are, but we unfortunately just got caught, womp womp.
On brighter news, it's christmas! Yeah! I don't think anyone bought anything, or I hope so...that was a lot of any's, eh, two. Don't stereotype me for the eh either! Little shit! Yesterday we received our squadron roster, each crew has six people (minimum,) hence, we were put into a squadron with one other guy. His name was uh...what was it? Oh right. Owen Harker. He's just an engineer, which means he's not involved in any flight duties. He'll be happy to have a newer ship onboard.
I looked into his file beforehand, cool dude. Just turned 23, so a bit younger, better for us though, kids tend to be more respect based...mmm, I don't like that word. Intimidated! Yeah. Intimidated. Funny for us, first op down to KLMA-3E is tonight. I'll give you the details; Two day operation down to the planet to explore a non-visited region before due to ice complications, with an 'experienced' crew they felt confident they could send us down. I mean, logic is sort of backwards but whatever floats your boat, right? I don't even remember Sol Terminology anymore.
I checked the time after the little celebration we had, 14:00 hours. Two o'clock for normal people, jealous. Depart at 18:00, we should get moving. "Four hours until launch–we're late. Leave the stateroom in pieces, move!" I hurried everyone out of the room, most of them were in their normal clothes rather than the suits we were instructed to wear, (bravo James.)
The hallway was crowded with gobyers, most of them there to see, well, us. We waved and such, god I want to get out of here. "Move faster, this place is hell, let's go back to living alone," I sighed. We hung a right suddenly into the elevator that I didn't even see. (Christ, James is being an actual human today?! Chocolate for him!)
Muhammed pressed 1, yeah, floor one. Although floors are weird here, floor 1 for your side of the ship in the central core module, (that's what they call the massive 'tube' that runs down the middle of all the rings, remember?) Anyways, your floor one is directly ontop of floor one for the other side of the ship. It's weird.
The elevator released, free falling downwards. Normally you'd start panicking, but they figured that catching it at the end instead of a slow cable release is so much faster. Sounds like human engineering? The five of us just stood there cramped. "When is launch again?" Eliza asked, toppling over onto the ground as we slowed down.
"18:00 hours, listen!" Muhammed looked down at her, breaking out in laughter. The elevator doors opened, letting us out. We hung a right, into a right...the room is directly beside the elevator shaft, christ. I hate explaining, okay listen, from now on we speak in german okay? Just me and you!
That was a joke.
See!
Oh, that was weird too.
wOaH.
I followed the four into the suit room, a soldier of sort's waiting at ease in the middle of the small room. "Owen Harker!" I walked over, arms spread out.
"Carter Allan!" I hugged him, patting him on the back.
"When will the technicians arrive?" I asked, sighing.
"Now." The door flung open, seven technicians entering, lab coats dawned, clipboards in hand, smart people stuff y'know? The room went silent, the technicians writing something down, gazing up at us every few seconds.
Hell, probably writing down our appearance. 'James, dumb and stupid, Carter, dumb and stupid.' I coughed. They stopped writing, looking up at us. "Everyone take a seat." The lead commanded, pointing at the familiar zig-zag white inclined beds.
I walked over, laying in one closest to the door. One of the coated hazmat technicians walked over. "Name?"
"Carter Allan."
"Date of Birth."
"December 11th, 2097."
"Date of Entry?"
"December 2nd, 2125."
"Ship name?"
"Spectrum."
"And lastly..." He looked down on his clipboard. "Do you have a dick or not?"
"What?"
"Dick or not?"
"Yes I have a dick."
"Okay, that wasn't on the list, I just wanted to know if you were a tranny."
"Rude."
"Are you?"
"No."
"Okay." He walked over to the side of the room to retrieve my exo-skeleton conveniently stolen in our little heist. He placed it on the floor. "Alright...I don't deal in Alien Technology, so find your way into that suit."
"Hey! You were born here, I was born on Earth, you're the alien!"
"So you weren't born on the ship."
"No."
"You're an alien to me." He walked to the next person, Eliza. After ten minutes of struggling and persisting I sealed myself into the suit, dickhead. At the end once everyone was suited and ready, he announced callsigns. "Carter, 90-David Commander, Muhammed, 91-David, Elizabeth, 92-David, Amelia, 93-David, James, 94-David, Owen, 95-David, understood?"
"Yessiiiir." A long groan from the group of us.
"Move." I swung my feet out of the zig-zag bed to the door, sliding it open with my wrist key, which is an annoying little microchip that sticks out of the top of your hand and hurts like hell for a month touching anything. The door slid open, revealing the dimming hangars. The Spectrum sat in peace just ahead.
"Owen, get up here." I radioed on the open line, looking down for a minute, waiting for Owen to catch up. A 150 metre walk has enough time for this type of stuff.
"Yeah?" He asked, panting beside me,
"Don't touch the sensitive equipment, don't touch anyone's quarters, and log in as your account on the monitor."
"Monitor?" He asked, looking over.
"Newer model has monitors attached to the seats, got a lot of cool gadgets." I arrived at the stairs, jogging up them, or what I could in the restraining suit, these were meant to be flexible man! Like OK, I get it, the suit might have to be bulky, but don't promise us otherwise!
The exterior ISRO airlock door was already wide open, ugh, better not have been snooping around in my room. I squished into the corner of the tiny airlock, pulling Owen in. "Just open the interior," Owen said, confused.
"Safety features. They didn't want anyone killing the whole crew while committing suicide."
"What about the person doing suicide."
"Let 'em laugh."
"Comforting."
"Very." The airlock piled with the six of us, a technician on the outside pushing the door closed. That's when you know it's bad. Without a second thought I popped open the airlock, spilling into the hull.
"Woah, it smells good in here," Owen exclaimed in surprise.
"That's just Eliza's sweat." Muhammed shuffled past, towards the bridge.
"He isn't lying." Eliza pushed the two of us out of the way, walking past.
"Move." I walked a little bit ahead of Owen past the greenhouse. They killed all the plants with pesticides, fuckers. "They killed all the plants!" I shouted to Muhammed.
"Would've died anyways, locals say the average down there is -32 Celsius." Muhammed slipped into his seat.
"Fair. Hey Owen, they put a piece of tape on your seat, horrible handwriting but that's yours." I walked past to the front, bumping into Eliza and Amelia's monitors on the way.
"Watch where you're going dickhead."
"Who shit in your oreo's?" I shuffled into my seat weirdly, doesn't matter. I held down the power button on the keyboard connected to the monitor. I logged in quickly, booting up AETHER, and over to the flight plan.
"Good morning AETHER." Amelia sighed, stretching back in her seat, purposely waving her hands all in James's monitor.
"Dick." James swatted her hands, tempted to pull on her hair, I'm surprised he didn't honestly. She started laughing in her seat.
"Evening, Amelia, are you aware of the time?"
"Oh you know what she means." I pushed forward the Main APU, the batteries right after. The lighting system booted, shuddering and shaking as it started. The Nav screens lit up with the NASA, CSA, ESA, and the JAXA emblems, an annoying process. "Good battery, good battery startup."
"90-David Spectrum, are we performing a full manual launch?" I radioed into the bridge, my index finger over the VTOL deployment switch on my left-hand panel.
"90-David Affirmative, full manual."
"10-4." I flicked the switch backwards, two rows of two switches just ahead of it, I pushed them forward, the gas lines flowing a liquidy sound through the ship. The VTOL engine modules whirred and clanked, slamming into place.
I positioned the countdown over to the Nav screen aligned with the centre console, you know, so everyone knows the second they get spun around like a tumble dryer! So fun! I think. T-4 minutes 22 seconds...19 now.
"David-90 to Command, go/no-go poll." I stopped the clock. "Flight."
"Go."
"Guidance."
"Go."
"EECOM."
"Go."
"Surgeon."
"Go."
"FIDO."
"Go."
"CAPCOM."
"Go."
"Control."
"LRD."
"Standby." The LRD called out. (Landing and Recovery Director,) "LRD, halting the countdown, standby." The LRD threw on his glasses, closely examining the data. "Might be looking at an unstable landing zone, ship could weigh too much, we don't have any data on it."
"Chance?"
"Low."
"Command Override, Spectrum is a go for launch." Alex called out, watching the clock tick again.
"10-4, Spectrum entering 10-8." I dimmed the lights down, gripping the main and side stick. Like nothing the clock was below a minute.
"Godspeed." The CAPCOM murmured under his breath in a prayer, pushing over his office chair to his station.
T-10
T-9
T-8
T-7
T-6
T-5
"Engine ignition." I pushed the throttles to idle, a plume of gas flying out the engine nozzles. Flames erupted from them, rumbling the ship underneath us. "Liftoff." I set the throttles to TO/GA, the nozzles tilting backwards a little, the flame growing out. The suspension eased up, lifting off the ground.
The Spectrum pushed out of the hangar into the, well, void. Once the front VTOL modules exited the bay I switched to nuclear, the VTOL engines cutting off. "VTOL cutoff, nuclear running." I pushed the throttles to full, the Spectrum's related velocity skyrocketing.
"Don't hit the rings." James sighed, logging onto his NASA account, fuckin' American. Rebel! Okay, I probably shouldn't of said that, considering their funding this, shit, we don't wanna be here, yeah! Rebel!
I narrowly avoided Ring 118 and 119, which is basically two thirds of the way to the front of the ship. And I don't need no mathematicians telling me it's not basically! For all you could know there could be 354 rings, it's 300 though, oh.
"Pushing full." Muhammed set the main engines to a hundred, letting me manually turn starboard to the planet. The black ice wobbled and glistened in the shine of the thin atmosphere. The Event Horizon passed quickly.
"No need to." I dialled it back, shifting the side stick ever so slightly every other minute. "Eliza, show Owen to his room, make sure he doesn't have a bomb while you're at it."
"Ah, the Christmas surprise."
"Literally."