SET 013: Rojar IV Atmospheric Survey

Posted on 20 Jun 2013 @ 7:27am by Crewman Athlen & Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman
Edited on on 27 Jun 2013 @ 1:21pm

3,523 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: Rojar IV - Shuttlecraft Vincenzo
Timeline: MD7 0900

ON:

The morning was a quiet one. Two hours in sickbay with Kestra had been surprisingly beneficial. Two hours of just sitting there. Looking at kittens. Liyar jumped off the last rung of the ladder. Athlen grinned down at him as they climbed down into the Vincenzo's docking port. "I told you she'd like them," the Rigelian said, rocking back on his heels once he landed on the solid deck.

"She conveyed her gratitude," Liyar said, pulling out his objectives list. They were to complete an atmospheric survey of RIV. Athlen and Coleman were the only ones assigned to the flight, Liyar noted curiously. In his other hand he cradled a thermos of raktajino which he drank from periodically. He opened the shuttle's cockpit and climbed into the pilot's seat, pulling down the safety harness over his shoulders and the headset over his ears. The raktajino found its way into an integrated cupholder. Well, he couldn't fault the Terrans for style.

Athlen sat at the aft seat, leaving the co-pilot's chair open for Coleman. He leaned over on his knees, hyper and bouncy. "What do you think we'll find?" he asked.

"Rojar IV is a class-J planet," Liyar recited from memory. He spotted Coleman entering the docking bay through the same hatch they had just exited. "Roughly the size of 0.71 Jupiters. I expect we will find something very cold, and very large. Good morning, Commander."

Coleman stepped onto the cabin and smiled, "Good morning, Liyar." She then saw Athlen, "Oh good I get to work with both of you today, wonderful! Morning to you too Athlen." She added as she made her way to the co-pilot seat. "We will be using the shuttle's sensors for this mission right? I am not going to put on an environmental suit and be transported in deep space to conduct atmospheric scans from my tricorder. Captain's orders or not...."

"I certainly hope not -" Liyar started in response. Coleman had perfectly described his feelings on a large majority of the SET missions.

"Morning!" Athlen interrupted cheerfully with all the bounded excitement of a four year old child.

"- we will be using the sensors," Liyar confirmed wryly. "I suggest you both strap in. Our inertial damper systems are somewhat outdated." He began deftly running through the preflight checks, flicking several points on the console in front of him and watching the monitor bars rise and fall within normal parameters.

Athlen wrapped his fingers around the safety bar and rested it over his shoulders and lap. "Do you even know how to fly this thing?" he asked warily.

"Negative, Crewman. I do not. I was not even assigned to this mission."

"Smartass," Athlen rolled his eyes. "I mean the Waverider. It's pretty different than the type 9."

"It is not dissimilar to the Trenvik-designated OLVs on Vulcan. I am proficient in its operation, Crewman Athlen, I assure you," Liyar said with edging impatience. "Strap in." He waited until they both did and closed the aft doors and the cockpit over them both, speaking into the receiver by his ear. "Shuttlecraft Vincenzo to Galileo control. We are on standby." All of the controls were embedded in the flat, sleek console in front of him.

"Beginning decompression in 5." A female engineer on the other end counted down before the ventral pod opened to reveal the blackness of space once all of the air and life support had been turned down. "Vincenzo, you're cleared for launch. Good luck!" she said before cutting the feed link. The maneuvering thrusters came online and propelled them from the ground, shooting them out into the empty blackness of space. Athlen pressed his face against the window, watching with enraptured delight.

The planets in the Rojar system spread out all around them on Liyar's main sensor grid, although they were undetectable to the naked eye. The Galileo had moved fairly close to RIV. A couple of hours at Mach 7 would get them there quickly. Liyar began their acceleration, but unlike a Terran pilot, didn't bother calling out numbers, letting their speed speak for itself. Slowly but surely they got closer to their target planet. Once he reached cruising velocity he lifted his hands from the controls and grabbed his raktajino, leaning back into the seat and monitoring with one hand.

Evelyn smiled to herself as the shuttle disembarked from the ship. She turned to look at Athlen who's behavior sparked her curiosity. "You seem more hyper than normal today Athlen... care to share?"

Athlen turned his wide-eyed gaze on Coleman. "Me? Hyper? Nope," he said a little too quickly. He frowned. "Okay, maybe a little. It's been a while since... sleep. This is only the second time I've ever really been out to space. It's amazing. Also -coffee is great," he grinned.

"They let him ingest caffeine," Liyar muttered under his breath.

Coleman chuckled, "Well it's cute. He's like a cross between a squirrel and the Energizer's bunny." She commented leaning back in her chair. "I'm just glad the gravity is normal inside the shuttle."

"Hold on," Liyar said. He placed his thermos back down and began amping them up from Mach 6 to Mach 7.3. He had a perfectly blank look on his face, but he was leaned over the controls in concentration. Liyar would never say he enjoyed flying, but he did. He rarely got the chance to do so since he was requested to the Galileo. When he realized he'd been assigned as a pilot to a few different SET missions, he had been quietly satisfied. The Vincenzo's less than stellar inertial dampening system meant that they could feel the shifts and eddies of the engines as they rumbled, but the crew remained stable thanks to the gravity plating coating the walls and decks. "I am unfamiliar with the term energizer's bunny," he said once he locked them into a stable trajectory on a parallel course to RIV.

Evelyn glanced at Liyar and looked at the navigational readout on the console. "Liyar, there was no object in our path... if I didn't know any better, I would have thought you were enjoying yourself." She smirked, and leaned back in her seat, "but, to answer your question, don't worry about the term. Ancient Earth expression."

"It is perfectly reasonable to expedite our mission time," Liyar replied blandly.

Looking to the side of her seat where she placed her small bag, she noticed it had slid behind her chair. She turned in her seat. "Athlen, hand me my bag for me please, forgot to secure it for Liyar's fun flying."

Grinning, Athlen leaned over and snatched the bag up before it slid out of reach. He caught it on two fingertips and lifted it up. "Here you go -woah that was so totally unnecessary," he yelped as the shuttlecraft banked a hard turn out of nowhere as Liyar shifted the controls to analog. Better handling, but it was trickier. It relied largely on the conventional engines rather than the impulse drive. He straightened them out and they soared closer and closer, the J-class planet filling up their viewscreen even as far away as they were. Liyar had an utterly serene look on his face. "Oh yeah, so innocent," Athlen mumbled. He looked a tad green.

Liyar's hard turn forced Eve's elbow to hit the bulkhead when she took her bag from Athlen.. "Easy Liyar, I don't want to get too banged up before I head home tomorrow." She replied rubbing her arm, "besides you're making Athlen sick, if he throws up, I'm going to be doing the flying."

After the initial 'speed bump' the craft took a fortunately straight path from A to B. Liyar monitored the controls manually, giving himself something to do rather than merely sitting there for hours. Athlen was just grateful he didn't have to do any flying. "Understood," he said to Coleman wryly. Athlen slouched. He was not going to throw up. "We are approximately three thousand kilometers away from RIV," Liyar reported after checking the navigational system.

Rolling her eyes, Eve opened her bag and looked inside "I don't know why we have to rush getting there, if the Captain wanted the job done so quickly she would have launched an atmospheric probe, you know the ones designed to do these kind of missions." She commented pulling a small cube from her bag, "But since we have a some time, I have a few gifts for you two."

Liyar and Athlen both turned to give her twin vacant looks. "Gifts?" Athlen asked. Liyar spotted the tiny cube from the corner of his eye, wondering what exactly it was.

Smirking up at the two of them she needed, "Yes, tokens of our friendships... with Stone's sudden death, I wanted you two to know you both mean something to me." She took a moment as she thought about Jeremy before continuing. "Athlen, I heard that your ball and chain threw something out that was very special to you.... we will deal with her personally at a later time but..." She tapped the top of the cube and it expanded in size dramatically, the top panel faded and she reached inside, pulling out a stuffed Tarcassian Razorbeast. "here you go, Athlen."

Ball and chain, Athlen repeated in his head, but the Rigelian tugged his head to the side and carefully lifted the item which had been placed in his hands, staring down at it widely. The way his muscles relaxed and he sank back into his seat expressed more than his words could. It may have looked silly, but it represented something important to him. "You know about Zan?" he murmured with a smile.

Liyar watched them both, his question silent but unmistakable.

"Zan was my stuffed kreyabh," Athlen explained reverentially, his attention still focused on the Razorbeast. His hands found the seams and traced them idly. "I had him for years, he was given to me at Senyo'tor. Mari threw him out a while ago, said he was old. Sentimental object, I guess." He reached over and squeezed Coleman's shoulder. "I can't believe you remembered my silly chicken," he grinned. That it had come from Coleman only made it more meaningful. "I've got to say though, the Razorbeast puts Zan to shame."

Coleman smiled, "I had a real one when I was younger, anytime I was afraid, sad, I would curl up beside him... his name was Rusty. When I first left my world I had that stuffed animal made to look like him so if I ever needed him... well I haven't needed him for a long time, so he's yours." Eve reached to touch the hand on her shoulder, squeezing it.

Her eyes then shifted to Liyar, "I didn't forget about you, my inquisitive comrade." she hovered her hand over the opening of the box on her lap and the lid materialized in place. Her hand pressed a side of the cube and a section began sliding out like a drawer, pulling out another box, "This practically one of a kind." She handed it to him, "in this container are fifty data rods that contain the complete El-Aurian encyclopaedia."

Liyar's eyebrows rose comically, and he blinked hard. The immediate impressions of the box felt as topsy-turvy as Coleman did. El-Aurian, without a doubt, blowing dust off of an antique desk, suspended in time. He studied it, immediately engrossed, sliding out one of the rods and holding it in his hand, his head jerking to the side abruptly as he realized it was genuine. "Why?" he asked, not turning to look at her. He was still fascinated by what was in his hands. This had to be some kind of artifact, surely it would benefit a library or a school rather than him.

"You suck at getting gifts," Athlen smirked, amused. "You know that?"

Only then did he look up at Coleman. "I cannot say I understand why you have given it to me -"

"Thanks Commander Coleman," Athlen singsonged.

"But thank-you."

Eve snickered at the exchange between Athlen and Liyar, "Hehe, don't mention it. But Liyar, I gave it to you because of everyone on the ship, I feel you'd be the one to appreciate the knowledge and information my people have gathered the most."

"It is certainly accurate that I appreciate it," Liyar said with a small nod. Knowledge was something even the most hardened kolinahr master could appreciate. Knowledge on this proportion was simply amazing. Both of them had matching looks (well, Liyar had a blank, semi-zoned out stare) of enraptured fascination, both studying their respective gifts to the detriment of the outside world. Liyar had to remind himself not to stare at the archived information and pay attention to the instruments in front of him.

Eve turned her attention to the shuttle's consoles. "I just wanted the two of you to know, I value our friendship. If anything were to happen to either of you, I'd wouldn't be able to get over it as quickly..."

Liyar turned to give her an odd look, while Athlen remained obliviously content. "Then it is a simple matter of ensuring that nothing happens to any of us," Liyar said. It was illogical of course, no one could do that. "Your friendship is similarly important to me. Are you certain you are well?" he asked. The aura of Strange was misting over her again.

Eve leaned back in the chair and nodded, "Yes, I just, for two hundred years I watched close friends grow old and die, and it never gets any easier. I guess I'm being sentimental."

Athlen's hands stilled over his console and he placed the razorbeast on top of the glass material to watch Coleman. "Well, the good news is that you'll get to put up with us for at least a couple hundred more years," he grinned. "No getting rid of us yet."

Liyar brought their shuttle to a parallel trajectory to Rojar IV as the planet slowly morphed into shape in front of them. Against the blackness of space, it was a gigantic specter of color and form, more magnificent than any picture or scan could justify. Liyar spent a few moments observing the class-J gas giant, perhaps a few more than were strictly necessary, before he began the finnicky process of aerocapture. The mathematics of speed, descent, velocity and trajectory popped up in his brain in thought bubbles, transforming the movement of his fingers into action until the shuttle was directly in front of the transfer orbit path. He allowed the planet's gravity well to guide them into the final orbit pattern. "Hyperbolic trajectory stabilized, eccentricity nominal," he announced simply as the Vincenzo drifted along.

Evelyn's eyes fixated on the gas giant. "This is why I love missions like these, it's only here when you see beautiful things like that."

"How many worlds have you seen?" Liyar asked before he could stop himself. The question was a purely idle one, personal curiosity.

Eve turned her head and eyed him, "I'm sure I'm in the thousands." She grinned, ''Anytime I'm granted extended shore-leave I like to take my personal shuttle and travel. Do my own exploration."

"What would you say is the most interesting planet you've ever been to?" Athlen asked, absorbing the large body in front of them with wide-eyed fascination.

"Oh there are many planets, but I must confess, Earth does rank high on my list. I am just fascinated with Humanity." Eve answered, beginning to run a few sensor scans.

"Rojar IV," Liyar recited as the Vincenzo's sensor pods swiveled to life and began a comprehensive analysis of the planet's composition and atmosphere. The planet was surrounded by a dense field of rings, debris and scattered space dust pooling together in the planet's gravity well. It was a bright amber color with swirling clouds and mist. He recalibrated the forward sensor array to bounce a signal from one of the larger rocks and get a better picture of their gas giant. "8.8-8.67-19.94 AU. Its age is 3.2 billion years, and it is roughly the mass of 0.71 Jupiters. It is approximately 116,886 kilometers in diameter, with a density of 0.69 grams per cubic centimeter. Its velocity is 7.96 kilometers a second."

"Helium, liquid metallic hydrogen core, and it's temperature is averaging about -190 centigrade. Most definitely a Class J..." Evelyn read off the sensor information, she shook her head, "Remind me again why we didn't just send a sensor probe?"

"Isn't it nice to be able to see it up close?" Athlen had his fingers wrapped around his terminal, enchanted by the large buttermilk planet in front of them. It was easy to grow accustomed to such a simple thing as a planet, in this time, growing up in space made that a commonality. In contrast, Athlen found it rather thrilling.

"15 moons, 4 rings, and an orbital eccentricity of 11%," Liyar tapped a few buttons on the console to activate the reflective scans. "If you wish, we can descend into the atmosphere," he said to Coleman. "We may be able to observe and document changes first-hand in Rojar IV's weather and geography."

Evelyn smirked at Liyar, "That sounds very fascinating, proceed." She casually looked away when she added, "it'll also give us the opportunity to experience more of your fancy flying."

"I fail to understand the meaning of that statement," Liyar replied innocently. He broke through their orbit and guided them down through the atmosphere. Gradually the shuttle increased in speed as they cut through cloud layers, the stratosphere and then the troposphere of the planet. Outside, dozens of sonic booms resounded as they hit supersonic speeds. All around them buffeting currents of wind, gasses, clouds and geisers, spires and mills all created a vortex outside their tiny shuttlecraft, bright and incandescent. The shuttle whipped down and straightened out, rocketing across the eddies and turrets that made up a severe spiral hurricane that doused them all in glowing red, orange, yellow and green. The sensors took readings of the experience while Athlen could only sit at the edge of his seat and watch, mesmerized.

Evelyn slowly turned her head to face Liyar directly after the shuttle twirled about, "What, no loop-de-loops?"

Liyar frowned. "That would hardly be logical."

"Ohh you Vulcans!" Eve shouted shaking her head with mild amusement, "every time you all get called out for doing something superfluous you all utter that same excuse. I know Logic dictates this and that, but is it so wrong to admit you're enjoying something whether logical or not?" She asked.

He paused with his hands over the controls, and looked at her with a small glint in his eye. "Was that an order, Commander?"

Athlen pressed one of his palms to his forehead.

Eve leaned forward, her eyes looking directly into Liyar's. "Liyar, I order you to fly this vessel anyway you wish on the basis that any twirls, loop-de-loops and other aerial superfluities will be a non-verbal acknowledgement you enjoy flying regardless of how illogical it is."

Orders were orders, Liyar shrugged to himself, as if that perfectly justified it. The shuttle zipped and zoomed all throughout the planet's atmosphere, catching on the trails of swirling storms and murky, charged clouds, dodging storm fronts, wind shears and air pressure vents, hanging the vessel to a large left as they came between two opposing fronts. They flipped almost directly over between them and managed to escape unscathed. Meanwhile, Athlen was clutching onto his seat as though it were the only thing separating him from life and death. "Our rotational axis is approximately 19.2, 19, and 46.4 at X,Y, and Z coordinates," Liyar said as the information fed in the longer he flew.

Eve was very fortunate that she had her console to hold on to as Liyar tested the shuttle's stabilizers with rapid turns. Eve was glad she was never prone to motion sickness. Instead she started laughing, "I am getting a sudden urge to mimic the little piggy that went home."

"I am unfamiliar with that metaphor," Liyar told her serenely as the shuttle looped over a large air current and Athlen swallowed against the sudden jolting motion. At least he hadn't thrown up. Yet. Liyar stabilized the shuttle and flew them out toward a stable area of swirling gasses. "Orbital radius 12.4 AU, orbital period 46.5 years, rotational period 0.34 days," Liyar finished their scans and then swooped them back into orbit. Their scans were almost complete, and soon the planet would be fully charted. Barring some additional vomit on poor Athlen's part.

OFF:

Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Coleman
Chief Intelligence Officer, SFI
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Diplomatic Officer, VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

Crewman Athlen
Sociologist, SSC
USS Galileo

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