Helios: 01 - I - This Can't Be Safe
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El Dorado Heavy Industries Node “Devonport”
L4 Point, Mizar Alcor, Nemesis
0645 VST, February 10, 2481
Harold Pahlms looked through the large windows of the node Devonport as he walked towards the ramp where he was to board a dropcraft which would take him to the surface of the planet Mizar Alcor. Beyond the thick windows he could see the rust colored crescent of Mizar Alcor and the slate colored arc of its ring. Although he didn't know the distance between the node and planet he estimated it to be 400, maybe 500, thousand miles.
Although the Devonport was the center of activity for space traffic in the Nemesis system, Harold saw few people on his walk from the room he had been staying in to the dropcraft ramps. The triangular glass windows were framed in thick white phenolic resin panels under which massive structural beams were concealed. The flooring was composed of large black tiles kept in such a clean condition that Harold could see reflections of himself and the surroundings in them as he walked.
When Harold finally arrived at the dropcraft ramps he quickly scanned the illuminated signs and headed through the wide corridor under the sign entitled "Mizar Alcor". The other signs read the same but were followed by Roman numerals, indicating dropcraft ramps for transport between the node and Mizar Alcor's moons. The windowless corridor went on for several hundred feet before opening into a large hangar area containing two aerofoil dropcraft.
Harold looked at the nose of the dropcraft furthest from him and read its name, the Old Crow Express. The nearer craft was named Slow Freight and was the one he was supposed to board. Large shipping containers were being unloaded from the Old Crow Express by automated cargo handling equipment and placed in stacks near the opposite wall of the hangar. Meanwhile the reverse was occurring at the Slow Freight. Walking up the gentle slope of the dropcraft's nose ramp, Harold was met by a man wearing a black spacejumper with a sidearm at his thigh.
“Hold it there mister. I need to see your itinerary,” the man said.
Harold handed the man a plastic card, “I'm heading to Alcor Junction.”
The man scanned the card using a small handheld cargo scanner tablet and returned it to Harold after a brief pause, “You’re really early but you can head up the ladder over there to get to the passenger area. Otherwise you can wait outside for the stairs to be pulled up.”
Harold nodded and strolled towards the ladder near the inner wall of the Slow Freight’s hull. The cargo area of the craft was a stark contrast to the aesthetically pleasing interior of the Devonport. The outline of the hull’s circular frames was hidden only by thin gray insulation while pipes and wire bundles snaked to and from various places. Any exposed metal was painted a sickly yellow-green to protect it from the elements. The dropcraft’s interior smelled of a musty blend of antifreeze, oil, hydraulic fluid, and generations of sweaty butt crack.
Slipping his arm through the second strap of his large duffel bag, Harold gripped the first rung of the 30-foot long aluminum ladder and climbed up; refusing to look down as he ascended.
The passenger area of the Slow Freight was as Spartan as the cargo area below, save for thicker insulation and small windows for passengers to peer out of as they sat. Harold looked at the small itinerary card again to see what bunk area he was assigned to for the flight to Mizar Alcor.
Harold walked towards the bunk areas located just behind the crew rest area of the dropcraft. Passing several other bunk areas he arrived at the one he would be staying in and opened the thin, light door. The room was just large enough for four beds, arranged in two bunks of two beds each, a small sink and vanity, and four lockers for personal items.
After Harold settled his personal items into a locker he took his small laptop computer with him to find his seat. It was a window seat on the left side of the Slow Freight; the window having a tight grid of thin wire embedded into it to protect the people and electronics within the dropcraft from events such as coronal mass ejections from stars.
By the time Harold was in his seat the stairs had been pulled up to the door of the passenger area and about 20 people entered, stored their belongings in bunk areas, and took their seats. About 15 minutes after the stairs had been pulled up to the dropcraft the voice of the senior pilot came over the intercom, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be departing shortly, once the stairs have been pulled back and the craft has been sealed.”
It took no more than five minutes for the crew to ready the Slow Freight for departure. The hangar’s walls and floor lit up with the bluish light of Nemesis that made its way up the walls as the large door opened several hundred feet in front of the dropcraft. The Slow Freight was pulled from the hangar by an automated system once the door had opened completely. The tracked system guided the craft from the hangar to a launch rail pointed in the general direction of Mizar Alcor.
The interior lights in the passenger area went red to signal passengers to take their seats and buckle in if they hadn’t already done so. Two minutes later Harold was pushed back into his seat with such force he couldn’t move his arm forward even if he wanted to. The Devonport rushed by at ever increasing speed as the Slow Freight was yanked down the launch rail by an electromagnetic catapult. He felt the floor tremble slightly when the craft’s main engines fired pushing it to almost 36,000mph in just over two minutes.
- - -
Almost 16 hours passed since the Slow Freight’s departure from the Devonport. Pahlms sat in his seat within the dropcraft and stared out the window at the horizon of the planet Nemesis. A thin bright blue strip above the flat horizon of the planet marked where its cloudless atmosphere effectively ended and space began. Below, a rusty looking continent stretched out to the distant horizon, with few small green splotches of life dotting its expanse.
The smoothness of the flight was suddenly brought to an end by a gentle upheaval of the craft as it hit the planet's atmosphere. Pahlms could just barely feel the shuddering of the craft's floor under his feet as he looked at the back of the seat in front of him.
“This is crazy”, he thought as his hands unconsciously tightened their grip around the front of the armrests of his seat.
He looked back out the window and focused on the horizon through the red glow caused by the heat generated from the friction of the atmosphere against the dropcraft's fuselage. Judging by the horizon, he figured the craft was pointed almost straight toward the continent below, and shook his head.
Although he had done several hundred drops during his time serving in the Republic’s Army, he considered it unnatural for man to be mucking around in space. Add to that, he was always strapped into a Mav when making drops; all that metal around him gave him a feeling of safety, even if it was a false sense. This was his first time doing a drop without the safe cocoon provided him by a Mav in ten years.
As the dropcraft approached the desert floor the horizon began to level out and the red glow outside the window faded. Pahlms’ forehead bumped the window as he sat up a bit and tried to look at the featureless terrain directly below. Being able to clearly see the palm trees, he estimated the Slow Freight was only about 1,000 feet in altitude. The floor of the dropcraft began to shudder more than before while a low rumbling filled the cabin.
“First time doing a drop”, the man seated next to Pahlms asked.
“Yes”, he responded, “Well first time in ten years without being belted into a Mav. And honestly, I never paid much attention to drops. I was always busy doing pre-drop system checks in my Mav.”
“Yeah, they tend to dampen the craft’s vibration and movement a bit. Plus you can’t see how the drop-jocks are flying the dropcraft as if it were a fighter.”
Just as the man finished his comment, the dropcraft snapped into a left roll and all Pahlms could see outside were the tops of trees a few hundred feet below.
“As I said, like a fighter”, the man remarked as an antenna appeared below for just a moment.
“That can’t be safe,” Pahlms said.
“What’s that?”
Pahlms pointed at the window, “flying so close to an antenna.”
“That’s normal for aerofoil drop-jocks”, the man snickered, “you’ve probably been in this same situation many times but didn’t know it because you couldn’t see outside.”
The dropcraft quickly glided over the end of the aerospace terminal’s runway, which was obviously designed for craft far wider than the one Pahlms was in. The drop-jocks manning the controls managed to set the 500 ton dropcraft down onto the runway with a gentle bump. Pahlms was pulled forward slightly as the dropcraft’s brakes began slowing it down from over 400mph to about 50mph.
Coming to within a few hundred feet of the runway’s end, the dropcraft turned right onto a taxiway and continued towards the passenger and light freight section of the terminal, a quick burst from its engines pushing it along. After a few short minutes the craft was parked and the drop-jocks up front cleared the passengers to gather their bags and exit the cabin.
The man next to Pahlms stood up and retrieved his small bag from the overhead storage bin then extended his hand towards Pahlms, “well, good luck out here.”
He shook the man’s hand, “thanks, you too.”
Pahlms gathered his backpack and two large bags then walked down the aisle and to the door of the dropcraft. As he neared the door he could feel the temperature rising from the hot outside air entering the cabin through the door. Stepping onto the portable stairs he looked around the facility from atop his perch almost 40 feet up. The aerospace terminal was busy with the activity typical of a large mining and resource extraction operation. Trucks pulled sealed ore container trailers onto the back end of waiting aerofoil-type dropcraft, while other trucks pulled trailers full of spare parts and various commodities from the front of the craft
He looked at the front of the dropcraft he had hopped a ride on as he descended down the stairs. Large parts were already being hauled out of it, painted in the standard deep blue with black and white highlights of El Dorado Heavy Industries. From the looks of the parts, several brand new mega-dumps manufactured by Western Electric had been brought onto Nemesis for use in the mines.
Western Electric was just one subsidiary of the larger El Dorado Heavy Industries, or EDHI as it was often referred to. Composed of several hundred subsidiaries, EDHI was a privately held galactic-scale corporation which produced everything from vegetables to orbital space terminals. It also offered services ranging from private schools to hospitals to military-grade security.
Pahlms had signed on as a Mav pilot for EDHI several years before, just after the end of his service commitment with the Republic Army. The job paid well but he rarely saw combat, something he missed from his days in the Army. He had requested a transfer to the company’s operations on Nemesis because of the fact that it was one of EDHI’s most remote systems, often attacked by mercenary groups, bandits, and even upstart nations.
Walking into the terminal, Pahlms was hit by a gust of cool air from inside as he opened the door. He figured the temperature to be in the high 110s outside, made worse by the expanse of cermacrete which the aerospace terminal’s taxiways and droppads were made from. Inside though, it was a comfortable 72 degrees, or close to it. He looked around for signs telling new arrivals where the Control Center was but only saw one that indicated the facility monorail was straight ahead. Figuring the Control Center was wherever the facility monorail ended up, he sat down on a bench and waited for it to arrive.
He looked around as he waited, observing the layout of the facility outside through the large windows. In the distance was what looked to be a sprawling petroleum refinery and low jagged hills further away. Nearer, on the droppads, several huge spheroid dropcraft sat with flexible hoses extending to them from pipe work buried under the droppads. Pahlms concluded that petroleum was made into various petrochemicals at the refinery then pumped out to the dropcraft for transport off-planet. The craft looked to be well armed and armored, but would almost certainly be escorted to and from waiting jumpcraft by escort fighters. He could see an unfamiliar logo painted on the aerofoil type craft closest to him and wondered who it belonged to. It appeared to be a bastardized version of arms belonging to the family who owned the company he worked for.
As the magrail stopped just outside the waiting area, Pahlms thought to himself, “Ah, no bother worrying about the logo, the magrail is here.”