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Chapter 19
The Adventures of the Beer Keg of Science![]
Orbit, Stettin, NMS Beer Keg of Science!
Stettin System, Free Worlds League, 26th August, 3158
The Beer Keg of Science had settled into a comfortable polar orbit over the planet below, using the ship’s sensor suites to sweep every square meter of the planet, looking for signs of habitation. Despite having covered the entire surface of the planet once, it wasn’t going well.
From her seat on the bridge, Captain Lea Carpentier stared at the ship’s holotank, showing a multi-spectral image of the planet below them in real time. On her seat’s multi-function display was a topographical map of the same area, showing where the major metropolitan area and spaceport should be. The MFD showed where they should clearly see structures, and signs of habitation and civilization. The holotank showed none of these things. “It would appear nobody’s home?”
“This makes no sense.” Mo O’Brien-Howard muttered. “Captain, we’ve confirmed, once again, we’re over the right place. The geographic features line up completely, there’s no question of that. There’s just…no sign of people.”
“I can see that, Commander.” Lea agreed.
“I mean, there’s no sign there were ever people here. The amount of ferrocrete in use in the local city, or the DropShip landing pads, or the runways, would have ensured enough ferrous material for them to be blindingly obvious on magnetic anomaly detection sensors. Even after the number of years between when Stettin was last heard from, there should be some signs of wreckage below, too. We’ve got none of that.”
Rozhenko looked up from his station as well. “No obvious signs of WMD use, either. Nothing to indicate use of orbital bombardment, or nuclear detonations, either.”
“We haven’t seen any signs of non-native flora.” Mo responded, “But, at we haven’t seen any signs of land clearing for agriculture, either. We’re also not seeing any signs of the kind of aerosol particulates you’d expect in the atmosphere, even the ones that should still be detectable after three centuries. None of this makes any sense whatsoever, but I don’t think we’re going to get any closer to solving this mystery down here.”
Lea mused silently for several seconds. “Send a shuttle down with one XCT team, complete with Blizzard suits, to the site where we’d expect to see the spaceport, with a squadron of Hornet LAMs in support. They can do an initial assessment, and the Hornets can secure the landing site in the event we decide to send down a DropShuttle with a full team.”
“Permission to join the XCT team?” Mo asked.
“Permission granted.” Lea agreed. “Anyone else you specifically want on your team?”
“Bob.” Mo answered. “He’s XCT certified, and I think I might need someone with his…special skills. I don’t think Ensign Shido is XCT certified.”
From the tactical console, Rozhenko chuckled. “Bob’s more than just XCT certified. He passed his Blizzard qualifications, too.”
“He what?” Mo asked, surprised. “He didn’t tell me that.”
“Interesting. I checked off on permission.” Lea noted. “Prep your team, we’ll make one more overflight in 12 hours, then you’ll drop tomorrow.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Ares Landing Craft, Lower Atmosphere over Target Zone, Stettin
Stettin System, Free Worlds League, 27th August, 3158
Lieutenant Bob Howard sat across from his wife, Lieutenant Commander Dominique “Mo” O’Brien-Howard, in the landing craft’s passenger hold. While he was not, in fact, wearing a Blizzard exoskeleton, like everyone else in the shuttle, he was wearing the Combat Space Activity Suit (CSAS) Mk 3 armored spacesuit, his inner visor snapped shut against emergency depressurization, but its secondary reflective visor still open. The CSAS Mk 3 had several attachment points dotted across the suit for the heavier Blizzard exoskeleton to attach to, allowing the armored spacesuit to provide life support to the exoskeleton. Hopefully, Bob thought, he would not need to make use of them, though.
He carefully looked over at Mo. She still did not look pleased with him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Mo.”
“That you didn’t tell me what, Bob?” Mo replied coldly. “That you’d decided to get yourself checked out on the Blizzard suits, presumably because you thought you’d need to protect me at a research site?”
“I did not, in fact, get my Blizzard certification because I thought I’d need to protect you at a research site, Mo. In fact, I didn’t expect to ever be at a research site with you. That’s a bit outside my MOS, Mo. I can’t really tell you why I thought I’d need the certification. I just had a feeling that, at some point, I’d need to get it. Beside, admit it, they’re cool.”
In reply, Mo grumbled under her breath too low for Bob to understand her.
“Sorry, love. What?”
“Fair point.” she admitted. “They are cool. That’s half the reason I got mine, anyway. I didn’t really expect to take one galivanting about away from a landing site on my own.”
Blizzards were, admittedly, weird, even for Niops. They were odd enough, in fact, that they’d earned the nickname “Blizzard of Odd.” First, the wearer needed to also be wearing the CSAS Mk 3 suit in order to use one, which, by itself, was odd, but had been justified that the CSAS suits were common enough anyway to make it worthwhile, and their use simplified other aspects of the exoskeleton, allowing engineers to add new, experimental features. Like the twin RL-2 launchers, light TAG, and their higher speed overland travel mode, which were all useful, though meant sacrificing their jump packs.
Two squads of Blizzard-equipped Marines had accompanied Mo’s team down to the surface. Surprisingly, Major Stark hadn’t chosen the opportunity to join them. Instead, the squads would be headed up by Marine Lieutenant Riri Thorne, who’d been pointedly trying to ignore the more senior, and married, naval officers she’d be babysitting. Especially since she’d conducted Bob check ride. Like everyone else in the two squads, she had secondary specialties, and was in fact a gifted engineer with a specialty in powered armor, but general knowledge of a variety of electronics, allowing her squads to assist or, if necessary, even take over the mission of the more specialized scientists. Hell, Corporal Watney in Second Squad was even a botanist.
Riki could feel the Ares shift its flight profile and, sure enough, moments later, the flight crew chimed in on the intercom. {“All personnel, prepare for landing.”} By this time, at least two of their escorting Hornets should be on the ground, helping to ensure the site was secure, but Riri would feel a lot better once she and her Blizzard were out of the cargo hold and moving under their own power.
Finally, the Ares landing craft finished its approach and, thanks to the lack of a landing strip, switched to a STOL rough field landing profile, its thrusters assisting it in both cutting its horizontal velocity, while preventing it from just flopping to the ground. The flight crew gingerly set the shuttle down on the ground, and, once the shuttle settled, cut their thrusters.
Unbuckling her harness, Riri stood up. “OK, reminder, people. Check your gear. No unbuttoning your suits until we’ve completed an NBC sweep of the landing site. No wandering off on your own without a buddy. No going anywhere without checking in with the shuttle. We have no idea what happened here, so until we’re sure otherwise, we treat this as contaminated and dangerous territory until we’re sure it’s not. Commander, anything you’d like to add?” she asked, turning to Mo.
Mo, also standing up, and checking her own gear. “Lieutenant Thorne is absolutely correct. To our knowledge, this perfectly habitable world was either completely abandoned, or died off, without, it seems, impacting any of the native life. We may not have seen signs of nuclear fallout, but we can’t rule out a biological weapon targeting native Terran species. Admittedly, we haven’t seen any signs of native Terran species present, but until we’ve determined why that is, we follow contagion protocol. Understood?”
After the chorus of acknowledgements, Mo nodded. “Good. Now, let’s go solve this mystery.”