"Two hundred metres. Rate of descent, five metres per second. Mass compensators at 25 per cent."
"A suitable landing site has been found, Captain. Heading zero-four-zero. Range, one kilometre."
Cutty Sark banked in a gentle sweeping turn, lining up for landing. According to the GPR readout, the planet's surface appears to be more or less in one piece there. Now that I've had a first-hand look at this place, I'm not entirely happy about parking a Hermes shuttle anywhere down there. JUNO has performed a deep scan of our intended LZ, confirming that it's reasonably solid to a depth of 500 metres. Unfortunately, that's about as solid as the ground gets on Damocles.
"Ten metres... Five. Contact."
"Sir! Surface penetration by aft port landing gear! Sixty-five centimetres!" JUNO cried in alarm.
"Whoa, Nellie!" I yelped. "Correcting trim. Mass compensator output increased to 50 per cent."
A faint crunching sound carried through the hull as Cutty Sark resettled itself on the surface.
"Like landing on a bloody meringue." I muttered. "How's our situation looking now, JUNO?"
JUNO frowned. "Extremely tentative at best, Sir. Before we leave the immediate area, I strongly recommend planting an array of seismic probes to continuously monitor the landing site."
"Aye. We're no' equipped to haul a ditched shuttle oot of a crevasse." I admitted. "Having said that, it might be worth suiting up with this terrain firmly in mind. Ground's far too risky to use ExoSuits. We'll have to make do with full HAZMAT environment rig, abseiling gear and repulsion cannons."
"Under these circumstances, a most sensible precaution, Sir. The atmosphere has a very high concentration of suspended silicon dioxide dust. Average particle size is around 0.25 microns."
"Hmm... Our standard atmo filters would clog solid in about ten minutes. Ah've nae mind to spend the weekend dusting off ma nooks and crannies with a compressed air jet, thanks verra much."
Alien soil crunched underfoot as I stepped off the gangway's landside plate. I bent down, scooping up a handful of silicate dust finer than talcum powder. As I closed my hand around it, nearly half of the dust puffed out in a cloud, swirling away on the faintest whisper of air. A desolate world, unrelentingly grim and cheerless.
Unconsciously, I allowed the remaining dust to fall from my hand.
There is something horribly wrong here. I cannot put my finger on it. An undefinable sense of isolation and a growing unease. I have never seen a world so utterly lifeless as Damocles. Even the most barren plains of Mars carry a hidden potentiality about them, but here there is... Nothing.
I watch JUNO as she plants the seismic sensors around Cutty Sark. Merely a precaution. There is absolutely nothing here to hold our attention for any appreciable length of time; no life, no natural landmarks, no ancient cities lay buried beneath shifting sands. Only a desolate, forbidding expanse.
"All sensors are deployed, Sir. No further ground subsidence is detected. The LZ is currently stable."
"Thank you, JUNO. Time to take a wee stroll, then. I could definitely use a change of scenery."
It's a hard slog. Shin-deep dust drags at our legs, the ground beneath crumbles underfoot. We're raising so much dust that we have to stop and wipe our helmet visors clear every fifty metres or so. Coated from head to foot in that gorram dust, we are effectively invisible to the naked eye.
Damocles is trying to swallow us whole.
"Och, this is bloody pointless!" I growled. "Next time I suggest something as daft as this, belt me."
"That thought has occurred to me, Captain." JUNO replied candidly. "However, using our environment suit EDF systems to repel the dust may provide a far more beneficial outcome."
This reminds me of the planet cracking process in Dead Space where entire planets are literally ripped apart by enormous mining ships, but whoever did this practically teleported the resources they wanted straight out of the ground, leaving a crumbling, hollowed out shell of a celestial body behind.
I can only assume that Damocles has been mined by Torgalijin (It's been established that the Belters hollow out asteroids and build inside them) or the Precursors, the latter seeming more likely to me. Sorry about speculating, Bugzapper!
Man, I don't think I have ever posted before, but both this and the first story are amazing. I actually copied the first one into a word doc then converted it to an epub so I could read it on my tablet(hope that's ok)!
Man, I don't think I have ever posted before, but both this and the first story are amazing. I actually copied the first one into a word doc then converted it to an epub so I could read it on my tablet(hope that's ok)!
Not a problem. As long as either story doesn't get published elsewhere under someone else's name or pseudonym, I'm perfectly cool with that.
When is the next one gonna come out? It’s been seven days since the last page. What’s going on?
In a word: life. Dude has other stuff going on; this isn't a paid gig for him-- it's a labor of love. And if he's anything remotely like me, he's spending a lot of time getting his story exactly the way he wants it before posting it. He'll post it when it's ready, and not a moment sooner. Just sit tight.
When is the next one gonna come out? It’s been seven days since the last page. What’s going on?
In a word: life. Dude hasother stuff going on; this isn't a paid gig for him-- it's a labor of love. And if he's anything remotely like me, he's spending a lot of time getting his story exactly the way he wants it before posting it. He'll post it when it's ready, and not a moment sooner. Just sit tight.
@baronvonsatan Nailed it. My output has slowed down noticeably over the past few months, mainly because I've been feeling a bit burned out lately. Real-world hassles, mainly.
"I'm all for calling it a day, Lass. We've come a fair distance already, and there's nae change at all."
"I concur wholeheartedly, Captain." JUNO sighed, sounding genuinely disappointed. "Apart from some isolated traces of element 171, there is absolutely nothing remarkable about this terrain..."
I stopped dead in my tracks. Whoa. Hold the phone.
"Did you just say element 171?"
JUNO's brow furrowed with concern. "Yes, Sir, I distinctly recall saying it. Is there anything wrong?"
"My bloody oath, there is." I murmured. "Element 171 is a primary constituent of Precursor structures and much of their fine technology. One thing's certain, 171 does'na occur naturally. It's a synthetic composite material, no' an actual element as such. We fair ran intae a brick wall trying to figure oot the go of it, if ye recall rightly."
"I do indeed, Sir." JUNO replied. "Furthermore, I fear that I may have made a serious error in judgement by rejecting significant data without rigorous evaluation. An error I shall rectify immediately, Sir."
I patted JUNO's shoulder comfortingly. "Fair do's, Lass. I completely missed it too. Nae harm done."
The polarised fields emitted by our environment suits works like a charm. That talcum-fine dust refuses to settle anywhere on our bodies, instantly repelled by low-intensity electrostatic pulses generated by the EDF system. Even the dust crowding around our legs backs off to a respectful distance. Effective as it is, JUNO's clever solution can't be maintained for any great length of time. For one thing, it's playing merry hell with our internal sensors. It's also a hefty drain on our suit power cells in the long run. Even though our gear is using those superb ion batteries and power cells, I estimate we'll have chewed through at least eighty per cent of their total charge during our return to Cutty Sark, still some 3.5 kilometres distant.
JUNO has launched another three recon probes, making good on her promise to provide a coherent picture of what has happened here. My first guess was a catastrophic volcanic event, but there is no rational explanation how Damocles could puke out such a large and relatively homogenous mass of silicon dioxide. True, there are miniscule variations in its composition from site to site, as JUNO and I are now discovering... Much to our mutual chagrin. As it turns out, I wasn't seeing things after all. There were buildings here.
Precursor buildings.
With all four recon drones deployed, we are now able to accurately map a strip of terrain four kilometres wide. Remote sensors have been re-tuned to screen out everything but the presence of element 171, and the results are staggering. Believe it or not, this featureless plain was once a city.
A pretty substantial city, at that. Judging by the ghostly outlines that remain, these buildings were constructed on a gargantuan scale, easily eclipsing all of the structures we've found on Manannán. We're getting excellent data. I conjure it would be possible to construct a 3D map of the former city, although this is not the ideal time or place to start crunching the numbers. Not a high priority, especially since there's less than an hour until sunset. We'll take what we've got and call it a day.
My mind keeps coming back to the idea of some cataclysmic event. Definitely not a natural phenomenon. The destruction here is absolute, and utterly chilling in its precision. There is nothing random about it. Massed fire from intrinsic field disruptor rifles would have blown half the planet away, so they're crossed off my suspect list. No known explosive device could destroy everything in such an orderly manner. It's as if these buildings were ripped from the face of the planet and crumbled into a fine powder. It has to be a weapon we haven't seen yet...
Just joined the forums, partially because I had to compliment this amazing story! I’ve lurked around this forum for a while now, and I’ve just recently got up to date on borealis rising. Seems I joined at the exact right time, too! *grabs popcorn* Can’t wait to see what happens next!
This is a novel experience for both of us. Running for our lives.
"I'm bringing the ship in on remote to meet us halfway. JUNO, take charge of the drones and begin scanning for EM energy signatures, broad spectrum. Something tells me we're no' alone out here."
JUNO nodded, patching the drone video feed directly to my HUD. The drab scenery disappeared, instantly replaced with a ghostly expanse of swirling, shifting colours. Viewed in this manner, the planet's surface takes on the appearance of a soap-bubble, the HUD's false-colour image indicating EM field amplitude and proximity. An ancient evil stirs from its slumber of aeons. Its hunger is huge.
"Send the drones up to 250 metres. We're still too far away to establish an uplink with the shuttle."
"Aye, Sir." JUNO replied. "Drones are now in position. Detecting a significant increase in subsurface EM activity surrounding the ship. Warning. Stern sector seismic probe has ceased transmission."
"Confirmed. Portside probe is gone too. We'll be cutting this one mighty fine, Lass."
Cutty Sark has been completely encircled by an immense swarm of nanites. The two remaining seismic probes winked out in quick succession, and then the entire mass converged on the shuttle. I watched in horrified fascination as the swarm grew rapidly in volume, boiling up from the depths of Damocles like lava. With nothing left to consume, the nanites must have lain dormant just below the surface or clustered around the molten core of Damocles, passively drawing on its thermal energy to sustain them in a low-power mode. Whatever the case, our arrival has provided them with additional resources and fresh targets. I am uncertain whether these wee horrors have the physical capacity to gain control of Cutty Sark, although it's a contingency that I'm fully prepared to prevent. As soon as I can uplink with the shuttle, there will be an unpleasant surprise for everything within a ten kilometre radius. If we're lucky, Damocles should remain mostly intact afterwards.
More bad news. Scans have revealed an offshoot of the central mass of nanites homing in on us. Even though we're loping along at a steady 30 km/h, it would be extremely unwise to step up the pace. The ground underfoot is treacherously fragile. Doubling our running speed would increase the amount of kinetic energy we deliver to the ground with every step, and there's a maze of crevasses waiting to receive our artfully-wrought bodies. I'm sensing a definite hare and tortoise motif at work here.
We finally have a clear visual on Cutty Sark. I should be getting a handshake signal any moment now. JUNO has parked the drones at an altitude of 50 metres, and we're getting a close look at what we're up against. Our shuttle is surrounded by a churning lake of green-tinged silvery fluid, which appears to be sending out multiple tendrils in an attempt to penetrate the graviton barrier generated by the ship's mass compensators. However, that field is currently counteracting fifty per cent of a 15,000 tonne shuttle's mass.
Good luck getting through that, ye nasty wee buggers.
If we weren't in such a dire pickle, I could watch these nanites for hours. The main mass behaves exactly like a ferrofluid, forming a bewildering array of elaborate spikes and spires on its surface. Fortunately, my Engineer Gene kicks in at this point. The nanites aren't putting this display on for their own amusement. They are now attempting to create stable structures that will penetrate or circumvent the graviton barrier. Furthermore, the swarm has expanded to a radius of nearly 500 metres and is extending a tendril directly towards us. I can only assume that we have been selected as the dessert course. Still not close enough for an uplink handshake with Cutty Sark.
Comments
"A suitable landing site has been found, Captain. Heading zero-four-zero. Range, one kilometre."
Cutty Sark banked in a gentle sweeping turn, lining up for landing. According to the GPR readout, the planet's surface appears to be more or less in one piece there. Now that I've had a first-hand look at this place, I'm not entirely happy about parking a Hermes shuttle anywhere down there. JUNO has performed a deep scan of our intended LZ, confirming that it's reasonably solid to a depth of 500 metres. Unfortunately, that's about as solid as the ground gets on Damocles.
"Ten metres... Five. Contact."
"Sir! Surface penetration by aft port landing gear! Sixty-five centimetres!" JUNO cried in alarm.
"Whoa, Nellie!" I yelped. "Correcting trim. Mass compensator output increased to 50 per cent."
A faint crunching sound carried through the hull as Cutty Sark resettled itself on the surface.
"Like landing on a bloody meringue." I muttered. "How's our situation looking now, JUNO?"
JUNO frowned. "Extremely tentative at best, Sir. Before we leave the immediate area, I strongly recommend planting an array of seismic probes to continuously monitor the landing site."
"Aye. We're no' equipped to haul a ditched shuttle oot of a crevasse." I admitted. "Having said that, it might be worth suiting up with this terrain firmly in mind. Ground's far too risky to use ExoSuits. We'll have to make do with full HAZMAT environment rig, abseiling gear and repulsion cannons."
"Under these circumstances, a most sensible precaution, Sir. The atmosphere has a very high concentration of suspended silicon dioxide dust. Average particle size is around 0.25 microns."
"Hmm... Our standard atmo filters would clog solid in about ten minutes. Ah've nae mind to spend the weekend dusting off ma nooks and crannies with a compressed air jet, thanks verra much."
Alien soil crunched underfoot as I stepped off the gangway's landside plate. I bent down, scooping up a handful of silicate dust finer than talcum powder. As I closed my hand around it, nearly half of the dust puffed out in a cloud, swirling away on the faintest whisper of air. A desolate world, unrelentingly grim and cheerless.
Unconsciously, I allowed the remaining dust to fall from my hand.
There is something horribly wrong here. I cannot put my finger on it. An undefinable sense of isolation and a growing unease. I have never seen a world so utterly lifeless as Damocles. Even the most barren plains of Mars carry a hidden potentiality about them, but here there is... Nothing.
I watch JUNO as she plants the seismic sensors around Cutty Sark. Merely a precaution. There is absolutely nothing here to hold our attention for any appreciable length of time; no life, no natural landmarks, no ancient cities lay buried beneath shifting sands. Only a desolate, forbidding expanse.
"All sensors are deployed, Sir. No further ground subsidence is detected. The LZ is currently stable."
"Thank you, JUNO. Time to take a wee stroll, then. I could definitely use a change of scenery."
It's a hard slog. Shin-deep dust drags at our legs, the ground beneath crumbles underfoot. We're raising so much dust that we have to stop and wipe our helmet visors clear every fifty metres or so. Coated from head to foot in that gorram dust, we are effectively invisible to the naked eye.
Damocles is trying to swallow us whole.
"Och, this is bloody pointless!" I growled. "Next time I suggest something as daft as this, belt me."
"That thought has occurred to me, Captain." JUNO replied candidly. "However, using our environment suit EDF systems to repel the dust may provide a far more beneficial outcome."
I can only assume that Damocles has been mined by Torgalijin (It's been established that the Belters hollow out asteroids and build inside them) or the Precursors, the latter seeming more likely to me. Sorry about speculating, Bugzapper!
Not a problem. As long as either story doesn't get published elsewhere under someone else's name or pseudonym, I'm perfectly cool with that.
Glad to have you aboard.
patience young padawan
In a word: life. Dude has other stuff going on; this isn't a paid gig for him-- it's a labor of love. And if he's anything remotely like me, he's spending a lot of time getting his story exactly the way he wants it before posting it. He'll post it when it's ready, and not a moment sooner. Just sit tight.
Ok, but what is a padawan?
I understand that very well.
Ok, but what is a padawan?
[/quote]
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Padawan
Oh, ok. It’s a Star Wars thing.
[EDIT:] The quote thing is kinda broken. I had to edit this and put in the quote code to fix it. I wonder why it didn’t work?
I'll put in another page later tonight.
Your patience is greatly appreciated.
Because it's ongoing, and as such shows it's latest timestamp when being sorted not oldest.
"I concur wholeheartedly, Captain." JUNO sighed, sounding genuinely disappointed. "Apart from some isolated traces of element 171, there is absolutely nothing remarkable about this terrain..."
I stopped dead in my tracks. Whoa. Hold the phone.
"Did you just say element 171?"
JUNO's brow furrowed with concern. "Yes, Sir, I distinctly recall saying it. Is there anything wrong?"
"My bloody oath, there is." I murmured. "Element 171 is a primary constituent of Precursor structures and much of their fine technology. One thing's certain, 171 does'na occur naturally. It's a synthetic composite material, no' an actual element as such. We fair ran intae a brick wall trying to figure oot the go of it, if ye recall rightly."
"I do indeed, Sir." JUNO replied. "Furthermore, I fear that I may have made a serious error in judgement by rejecting significant data without rigorous evaluation. An error I shall rectify immediately, Sir."
I patted JUNO's shoulder comfortingly. "Fair do's, Lass. I completely missed it too. Nae harm done."
The polarised fields emitted by our environment suits works like a charm. That talcum-fine dust refuses to settle anywhere on our bodies, instantly repelled by low-intensity electrostatic pulses generated by the EDF system. Even the dust crowding around our legs backs off to a respectful distance. Effective as it is, JUNO's clever solution can't be maintained for any great length of time. For one thing, it's playing merry hell with our internal sensors. It's also a hefty drain on our suit power cells in the long run. Even though our gear is using those superb ion batteries and power cells, I estimate we'll have chewed through at least eighty per cent of their total charge during our return to Cutty Sark, still some 3.5 kilometres distant.
JUNO has launched another three recon probes, making good on her promise to provide a coherent picture of what has happened here. My first guess was a catastrophic volcanic event, but there is no rational explanation how Damocles could puke out such a large and relatively homogenous mass of silicon dioxide. True, there are miniscule variations in its composition from site to site, as JUNO and I are now discovering... Much to our mutual chagrin. As it turns out, I wasn't seeing things after all. There were buildings here.
Precursor buildings.
With all four recon drones deployed, we are now able to accurately map a strip of terrain four kilometres wide. Remote sensors have been re-tuned to screen out everything but the presence of element 171, and the results are staggering. Believe it or not, this featureless plain was once a city.
A pretty substantial city, at that. Judging by the ghostly outlines that remain, these buildings were constructed on a gargantuan scale, easily eclipsing all of the structures we've found on Manannán. We're getting excellent data. I conjure it would be possible to construct a 3D map of the former city, although this is not the ideal time or place to start crunching the numbers. Not a high priority, especially since there's less than an hour until sunset. We'll take what we've got and call it a day.
My mind keeps coming back to the idea of some cataclysmic event. Definitely not a natural phenomenon. The destruction here is absolute, and utterly chilling in its precision. There is nothing random about it. Massed fire from intrinsic field disruptor rifles would have blown half the planet away, so they're crossed off my suspect list. No known explosive device could destroy everything in such an orderly manner. It's as if these buildings were ripped from the face of the planet and crumbled into a fine powder. It has to be a weapon we haven't seen yet...
OH HELL NO.
"RUN!"
Same...
Any reason why you changed your comment? Speculation wouldn't be a spoiler
It would be.
That's a very good theory, I hadn't thought of that!
I agree.
"I'm bringing the ship in on remote to meet us halfway. JUNO, take charge of the drones and begin scanning for EM energy signatures, broad spectrum. Something tells me we're no' alone out here."
JUNO nodded, patching the drone video feed directly to my HUD. The drab scenery disappeared, instantly replaced with a ghostly expanse of swirling, shifting colours. Viewed in this manner, the planet's surface takes on the appearance of a soap-bubble, the HUD's false-colour image indicating EM field amplitude and proximity. An ancient evil stirs from its slumber of aeons. Its hunger is huge.
"Send the drones up to 250 metres. We're still too far away to establish an uplink with the shuttle."
"Aye, Sir." JUNO replied. "Drones are now in position. Detecting a significant increase in subsurface EM activity surrounding the ship. Warning. Stern sector seismic probe has ceased transmission."
"Confirmed. Portside probe is gone too. We'll be cutting this one mighty fine, Lass."
Cutty Sark has been completely encircled by an immense swarm of nanites. The two remaining seismic probes winked out in quick succession, and then the entire mass converged on the shuttle. I watched in horrified fascination as the swarm grew rapidly in volume, boiling up from the depths of Damocles like lava. With nothing left to consume, the nanites must have lain dormant just below the surface or clustered around the molten core of Damocles, passively drawing on its thermal energy to sustain them in a low-power mode. Whatever the case, our arrival has provided them with additional resources and fresh targets. I am uncertain whether these wee horrors have the physical capacity to gain control of Cutty Sark, although it's a contingency that I'm fully prepared to prevent. As soon as I can uplink with the shuttle, there will be an unpleasant surprise for everything within a ten kilometre radius. If we're lucky, Damocles should remain mostly intact afterwards.
More bad news. Scans have revealed an offshoot of the central mass of nanites homing in on us. Even though we're loping along at a steady 30 km/h, it would be extremely unwise to step up the pace. The ground underfoot is treacherously fragile. Doubling our running speed would increase the amount of kinetic energy we deliver to the ground with every step, and there's a maze of crevasses waiting to receive our artfully-wrought bodies. I'm sensing a definite hare and tortoise motif at work here.
We finally have a clear visual on Cutty Sark. I should be getting a handshake signal any moment now. JUNO has parked the drones at an altitude of 50 metres, and we're getting a close look at what we're up against. Our shuttle is surrounded by a churning lake of green-tinged silvery fluid, which appears to be sending out multiple tendrils in an attempt to penetrate the graviton barrier generated by the ship's mass compensators. However, that field is currently counteracting fifty per cent of a 15,000 tonne shuttle's mass.
Good luck getting through that, ye nasty wee buggers.
If we weren't in such a dire pickle, I could watch these nanites for hours. The main mass behaves exactly like a ferrofluid, forming a bewildering array of elaborate spikes and spires on its surface. Fortunately, my Engineer Gene kicks in at this point. The nanites aren't putting this display on for their own amusement. They are now attempting to create stable structures that will penetrate or circumvent the graviton barrier. Furthermore, the swarm has expanded to a radius of nearly 500 metres and is extending a tendril directly towards us. I can only assume that we have been selected as the dessert course. Still not close enough for an uplink handshake with Cutty Sark.
Gorram it.