Colonists - Leader, part 3

NILE SYSTEM

January 9, 2184 AD

Charon XLR Brevity, ETA 3 hours to Nile

Ying eyed the blue and white marble that was Nile a mere three hours away by the Brevity’s pace. This smaller Hercules-class combat dropship was also much faster. The acceleration of her engines was, for her comparative small size, much greater than that of the Brevity; though in sheer output the Charon rocket had much greater ability.

Ying was seated behind and to the left of the pilot, Pharaoh, in the co-pilot’s seat. Ahead of her was the transparent steel that made the cockpit nearly weapons-proof but also provided a very large field of view. Decatur had worked out the co-pilot sitting in the troop transport area so that she could experience what any pilot would experience coming in and out of atmosphere. Though Ying firmly protested against piloting the craft herself in some kind of romantic semi-training exercise. Decatur hadn’t argued and Pharaoh’s relief was palpable.

“Pharaoh to Control, disengaging locks in 3… 2… 1…” the female pilot said just before a deep clong sounded through the vessel’s hull. The dropship eased away from her mothership under expert precision. Pharaoh then inverted the ship gently so that the two of them could see the Brevity as they drifted apart. “There’s our rocket, Advisor. Hardly the worse for wear, save for some micro-meteor impacts along her hull – nothing too serious.”

Ying was confident in Pharaoh’s assessment as she’d been the pilot to escort the hull engineer and repair team after they’d come out of hyperspace. One section of a solar panel had been damaged but nothing that affected power. The micro-meteor impacts had caused the self-sealing systems to engage so no explosive decompression occurred. And the armor of the vessel was strong enough that those impacts hadn’t damaged anything critical.

Pharaoh piloted the vessel away toward Nile after a couple of minutes of watching the Brevity drift from them. Now it was time for Nile to get a whole lot larger. Ying wouldn’t admit it outwardly but atmospheric re-entry terrified her. She’d only done it once after her initial inspection tour of the Brevity before it launched from Earth. But this was her first time doing so on an alien world.

Still, the flight lieutenant proved why she’d been picked for this critical mission. She was incredibly deft at the art of atmospheric re-entry. Indeed the small dropship had hardly bounced at all from the thick layers of Nile. Ying expressed her appreciation of Pharaoh’s piloting skills.

The pilot smiled and replied, “We like to go easy of civvies their first time through. Next time, though, you’ll get the full and proper combat drop experience. Minus the enemy weapons fire, of course.”

Ying’s nervous smile of a response made Pharaoh laugh in a manner most villainous as the pilot turned back forward, “Okay kids, we’re coming up on our co-ordinates shortly.”

Ying sat up a little to look through the canopy at the wonderfully verdant green world below them. Forests stretched for miles everywhere – absolute virgin land that had never been sculpted by the hands of a sentient species. In the far distance she could see mountains that had white caps to them. Closer, in the middle distance, was a large body of water with some smaller outlets of rivers or creeks.

When the vessel made a final turn left – to port as it were in aviator parlance – the thudding of Decatur’s boots caught her attention. He stood on the access stairs to the troop storage room with a slight smile, “Is she everything you hoped for?”

Ying smiled back in appreciation of his light hearted concern, “It’s quite lovely from up here.”

“Well the boys and I are jealous of the view, so come down here,” he waved her out of the co-pilot’s seat as the dropship leveled out again. Ying unbuckled herself and followed the Infantryman down. He was a little taller and wider today due to his PAF – Power Assisted Frame – that provided extra strength, stamina and versatility. She didn’t wear such a thing and neither did Ilarion, though the pair did both have some basic body armor on.

Decatur walked to the vessel’s starboard side and one of his Infantry clasped a safety belt to her. Ilarion stood and held on to the handhold firmly as Decatur said into his helmet mic, “Alright open it up.”

The starboard armor panel door of the dropship slid open deceptively quickly, given its mass. Once her eyes had adjusted to the harsh light of the sun Ying could have cried at the unbridled beauty of seeing the planet with her own eyes. Below them the ground came closer and the wind was very deafening. Yet she was not distracted from the look of their new home.

Suddenly there was a break in the trees and a very large plain was before them. A herd of some brown, black, tan and white animals – almost like cows – were grazing beneath them. As the engines of the dropship cut through the air above the herd panicked at the alien strangers and began to flee in whatever direction seemed safest to their instincts. Within a few minutes more Pharaoh began circling one area that was flat and elevated above the other areas by gradual slopes on all sides: it was the soon to be landing site for their future homesteads.

“Pharaoh bring her down,” Decatur ordered.

Gradually the dropship lowered to the ground but stayed hovering just above its grassy surface. Once the vessel had settled, still airborne, Decatur came over to Ying and reached out his hand, “Would you like to be the first to set foot on this new world, ma’am?”

Ying couldn’t help herself but to smile and nod. She moved to the opened hatch to sit on the edge, her feet dangling just a foot above the wild grass below. She took a breath of courage and hopped down. Her hands moved in front of her when she started to fall forward so as to avoid injury. Ying became very aware of the increased gravity of this world with that one simple movement. Her face came close to the ground and it too allowed her to smell the grass, the winds, and the life of the planet Nile. And she savored the experience as the first human being on her new home.

She stood, fighting against the slightly higher gravity of the planet as the exhaust from the dropship kicked gentle winds around her. Far in the distance, at least half a kilometer away or more, the trees of Nile looked remarkably like Earth’s. Ying looked to the baby blue sky above that was dotted with a few small clouds. The light from Nile’s sun shined on her face and for just a moment she closed her eyes to absorb its warmth.

There was a whirring noise behind her. She turned to see Major Decatur stepping down from the dropship in his frame that made his traversal of the high gravity much easier. His three other infantry jumped out as well. Ilarion followed them out but wasn’t as graceful. She could see him struggle slightly with the higher gravity but only because she knew how to read him. It was likely that the Infantrymen would have no idea he was working harder than any time he’d gracefully moved about the Brevity.

Ying turned back to the open field atop this large but gently sloping hill. She walked forward a few steps to get a feel for the struggle that would be traversing this planet. The movement wasn’t so bad, though, her first steps seemed a little jerky; as if she were wearing magnetic boots to traverse a ship’s hull. It didn’t take long for her body to start to adapt in forming a subconscious habit of how to move her legs. Within a minute she started walking fast and then running through the ankle-high grass.

Decatur came up and stood next to her holding his rifle at a low-ready position. Advisor Oum had jogged and then ran maybe a hundred meters. Decatur pursued her much easier thanks to his Frame. He looked over the untouched land with her at the mountains a dozen miles away or more. Then he turned to seek the landscape in the other direction and saw, far in the distance well beyond the edge of the forest, a reflection of light that caught his eye.

Decatur pulled down his helmet’s monocle to zoom in on the distant light source. It was a digitally enhanced image that was projected into his eye. In the moment that it took him to figure out what it was, a call from one of his men.

“Looks like we’ve got water far out there in the distance,” was said from a number of meters to his left, past Advisor Oum. He turned to look just as she did in the same direction as the voice.

“I was just thinking that,” Decatur said. “Pharaoh, when we dust off let’s take a pass out to our south and inspect that body of water.”

“Copy,” was the simple response.

Decatur turned to Advisor Oum, “Looks like a good place to call a home. What did it feel like being the first human on Nile?”

“Grand, which I didn't expect.”

“It is at that. I never really had a chance to enjoy landing on an uncolonized world. The untouched human worlds I've been to were all combat drops into Kamikaze systems. It's strange not to be constantly searching the skies for hostiles,” he mused.

“It's strange not being on Earth,” she replied. “I've never left our homeworld until now. It's a strange experience.”

Decatur nodded and continued to look around the area. Movement along the northern tree line caught his eye and he raised his IAR-9 instinctively. The weapon was a modified version of the XM-8 used by the now defunct NATO and UN militaries. It stood for Infantry Assault Rifle model 9 and was a versatile weapons platform that could change configurations. The weapon could go from a standard anti-personnel weapon meant for infantry combat, to a longer range semi-dedicated sniper platform, to a full-auto suppression weapon and had a configuration for an anti-vehicle attachment to use against light armor. Assuming, of course, you had the appropriate ammo for each weapon type. As amazing as the Kyu style energy weapons were on the human fleets' warships, that technology hadn't been miniaturized yet.

Decatur tracked the movement through his monocle to see a large furry animal, at least the size of an elephant ponder from the trees into the open field. It was combing the grass for something and hadn't noticed the human intruders. Decatur stepped in front of Advisor Oum as he raised his weapon.

“Mr. Chuvnik please get Advisor Oum back a bit,” Decatur called. The Ukranian security escort did so but Ying resisted without words. She wanted to stay and observe the creature. Ilarion Chuvnik didn't move far enough to keep the creature out of her sight over the hill's slight slope.

When Pharaoh brought the dropship back around and low, in an attempt to scare off the creature, its head came up. It spied Decatur, who had been flanked by his three infantry. The large animal returned its attention to the approaching dropship and bayed upward at Pharaoh's vessel. Its bottom jaw split into two as a deep, solemn moan came forth. It then moved its attention back to the grass and pawed some more.

Decatur made a bold assumption about the animal's temperament given its seemingly distracted movement. “Pharaoh I don't think it's hostile but scare it off, would you?” Decatur called into his mic.

His pilot complied by lowering the dropship more to a point where she could blast the engines a bit to make more dirt kick up from the ground. And the engines let out a sharp whistle every time she gunned the exhaust a small bit. Her skills were superb, as she nudged the craft forward and then hopped it back a small distance. The beast groaned once more before turning ponderously back towards the trees, occasionally pawing for something or other in the alien dirt.

“Very well handled, Major,” Advisor Oum stated. “I thought you might have shot at it.”

“I would've shot it and killed it if it had turned hostile or charged us, make no mistake. But I'm not a man who kills for sport or fun - only when needed,” Decatur explained. He believed it better to only exert force when absolutely necessary. “Besides, for all we know that thing could've been pregnant or killing it might cause a hidden pack of similar creatures in the trees to come after us.”

“Or maybe it would have sprayed out a swarm of hornets, like those buggers on Cetini-4,” one of the other infantry chimed in to support his leader's decision. “I wouldn't fancy flying back to the ship covered in hornet sings.”

“Your experience does you credit, Major. As does it for all of your men, it seems. But perhaps that's enough excitement for now. Should we return to the Brevity? She should be in orbit by the time we arrive, if I'm not mistaken,” Oum advised.

“I agree,” Decatur said turning on his mic again, “Pharaoh we're ready for dust off.” The pilot had already been setting her bird down.

Advisor Oum climbed into the troop compartment before moving to the cockpit. As she took the seat she asked the pilot, “Are you sure you don't want to get out to stretch your legs? It's very pretty.”

“Thanks for the offer, ma'am. I'd rather have wings than legs any day – I was a woman made for flying!”

“A talent and skill that is exceptional from what I've seen so far. Thank you for your skill and coming with us on this expedition, Lieutenant,” Oum said.

“You should go ahead and learn the dropship motto now: we deliver!” she said with some gleefulness.

“That you do, Pharaoh,” Decatur said standing behind Advisor Oum. “Now let's go see that body of water before we make for orbit.”

The Hercules-class ship was airborne again before long and moving south to inspect the water source. As it turned out the body of water was not a river or lake but a rather large sea. It was still stretching out into the horizon when Pharaoh starting breaking through the cloud layers.

“Well at least we won't go thirsty,” one of the infantry stated. “We could have a beach day!”

“Assuming it's not got contaminants in it,” Ilarion chimed in.

“Let's assume the nothing until we test it, okay? Once we're sure it’s pure we can talk vacations and beach parties. Until then, think happy thoughts and keep your safe water nearby,” Decatur said. None in the troop compartment offered complaint.

NILE SYSTEM

January 11, 2184 AD

Charon XLR Brevity, Nile orbit

Pharaoh watched from the transparent aluminum canopy of her dropship’s cockpit as the Brevity released two more of it’s pre-fab support structures. The white and black coned hulls slowly adjusted themselves using their positional jets. Within a few minutes they would be dropping through the atmosphere to land on the planet of Nile at the coordinates they had agreed upon two days before. The movements were calculated and unhurried in the pure-logic precision of computers. The pair coasted away from the orbiting colony ship into the upper atmosphere.

The Flight Lieutenant decided now was the time to adjust her heading. She double-checked her coordinates and re-entry vector for her vessel. It all came out green so she turned her bird around to begin it’s travel into Nile’s atmosphere in an almost opposite direction. Her mission was to give a fly-by survey of the alternate landing zone that had been scrubbed due to its uneven terrain.

The whole flight would take just under an hour as all Pharaoh really needed to do was wait for the optimal orbit location as Nile spun beneath her, then she would simply drop her vessel into position. The process was routine and she’d done it many times across various worlds. Granted, usually she was under fire from Kamikaze vessels or ground defenses.

With her were her co-pilot Jenner and two of the combat grunts. Decatur had originally wanted four to go with her but since they weren’t planning on landing she saw it as extra weight that would unnecessarily burn fuel. In space, as an object's acceleration changed so too did the weight of the object and anything within it. Hence, it would take more fuel to speed up and more to slow back down. Therefore, fuel burned was similar to how weight increased almost exponentially as G-forces increased.

Once in position in orbit Pharaoh dropped her craft into the atmosphere, breaking through the bottom clouds a few minutes later. Here her piloting skill of the less-than ideally aerodynamic craft started to take show. She opened the cockpit hatch that lead into the troop compartment before saying into the local comm-net they had setup, “If you boys want a look come on up.”

Ortega and another soldier, Private Grelski, both shuffled up after a fashion to peer out of the cockpit windows. They crammed themselves to be standing behind their pilots’ chairs to get a view of the landscape. Both were wearing their PAF except for their helmets; nor did they have their weapons. Those had been locked up next to their seats in the troop bay. It would do no one any favors to have one go off in-flight and punch a hole in the hull while still in vacuum.

Pharaoh brought the vessel into a modest altitude of about 150 meters. Hopefully, this was low enough not to run into a flight of indigenous birds - if this place even had birds. She traveled a relatively slow 200 KP/H to make sure their cameras and sensors were getting a good view of everything around them. After a while she noticed some of the land was “shattered” - that was the only thing she could think of at least.

The orange, brown, red and yellow landscape was cracked in numerous places and wildly uneven. She’d seen the satellite images but it was very stark to actually see. Her gut reaction was that it looked like a Kamikaze series of high-orbit shatter-rounds had bit the place, causing a circular series of deep crust canyons. The roughly concentric rings weren’t in any kind of pattern, however. And the cracks themselves ran far too deep to be caused by any Kamikaze weapon humans had ever seen.

“Damn, that’s some impressive geography,” Ortega said.

“I didn’t know you knew big words,” Jenner quipped.

“No, sir, the Infantry don’t much learn us our letters and numbers none too good, sir,” Grelski shot back, firing off a left-hand salute; which was an insult.

“Hey private, want to learn how to fly?” Jenner asked looking at the Infantryman’s reflection in the canopy.

The young man looked at Ortega then returned to the back of Jenner’s helmet, “With or without the ship?”

“What do you think genius?” Jenner stated flatly.

Pharaoh smiled at the jeers. It was the way military brothers and sisters got along: perpetually teasing each other. Combat did that to you, it forced you to bind into a very specific family-like organization.

“Heads up,” Pharaoh then said as the ship started passing directly above the crust fractures. Deep below could be seen an eerie yellow-orange neon glow. “That’s impressive. Looks like these canyons go all the way down to a magma flow.”

“Wonder how deep that is?” Ortega asked absently.

“Too deep for me,” Pharaoh said. She turned her head to Jenner, “Are we getting good images of this?”

“In all four spectrums,” Jenner replied. He meant that the visible-light, infrared, X-ray and semi-quantum bands were all being recorded.

Pharaoh kept up the pattern of slowly flying around the various fractures for over 40 minutes, when she saw in the distance that the land flattened out again. The odd part was that it was recessed down further into the crust by several hundred feet. It was like a sheer cliff face that, for many miles in both directions, just dropped off to another flat landscape. A few miles inward, the terrain did the same thing. This region had three distinctly lowering levels.

“Now that’s interesting,” Jenner spoke.

“Yes it is,” Pharaoh agreed. “This might explain those fractures we’re seeing that go so deep: some sort of massive sub-surface cave-in that caused this whole region to collapse in on itself. That would explain the crazy seismic activity the satellites have been recording for years.”

“Maybe it didn’t happen too long ago?” her co-pilot asked.

“I’m no geologist, but I’m pretty certain that the ongoing activity is surely a result. This place is probably no good at all for a backup or secondary settlement; anyone down there would probably experience earthquakes for years,” she speculated.

“Agreed. Should we pop a couple of those seismic sensors for the brainiacs on Brevity?” Jenner asked.

“I think so,” Pharaoh replied as she armed the seismic pods for deployment.

The dropships on this excursion had been heavily modified for any number of mission roles. At this point they were almost considered combat craft as a tertiary capacity - personnel and equipment transport were the two primary functions, followed by scouting and survey roles. As such, the typical weapons pods - normally used for missiles or direct-energy weapons - had been partially replaced with scientific survey gear.

For this particular flight the modular pods had been fitted with geological mini-missiles that would deploy themselves into a surface. Their geological monitors would record the findings and small transmitters would spit the information up to the orbiting satellites or the Brevity before the data was then re-transmitted down to the colony landing site.

“We’ll drop three seismic monitors - one on each level of this region - then bang out and head to the colony,” Pharaoh instructed. Jenner began working on the commands needed to deploy the sensors.

Before much longer Pharaoh had the sensors in place and she was making back for orbit. She opened her comm to Brevity who acted as a relay point for the landing zone, where she and the small crew would be headed next.

"Scotland Plains" was found using an online search under"Public Domain." The original image was taken by Felix Roser and is hosted on wordpress.com. I am not the original artist nor do I own the image.