When it comes to crashing a starship, two things need to be kept in mind, particularly if surviving the crash is any sort of priority.
The first: air and water are functionally the same thing. Both are fluids, so both behave in a very similar fashion to a body traveling through it. One simply offers more resistance.
The second: Starships aren't meant to interact with either one. Unlike transatmospherics, like shuttles, starships are built in space, work in space, and generally die in space. They never taste atmosphere, nor are they ever intended to. Bad things generally happen when they do.
Both of these items are fighting for dominance in Krista Lackland's mind. The advantage, at least as it appears to her right now, is that she's already sailed past the thing that kills most people in an uncontrolled re-entry: that the ship can be saved. Lackland knows that Aurora is past all hope of salvation. The only thing now is to try and save whomever is still alive aboard her.
"All crew, all crew. This is not a drill. Abandon ship. Abandon ship. All crew report to lifepods. This is not a drill. Abandon ship. Abandon ship."
The automated announcement is barely audible under the blanket of sirens and alarms filling the air in Engineering Control. Clearly, someone else has come to the same conclusion regarding Aurora's future.
"Lifepods on starboard side are out. I don't think we're going to be able to get them back before impact," Åkerman reels off, not taking his eyes off Bigboard, keying in line commands nonstop.
"Focus on the boosters," Lackland says. Systems icons flick between online and offline as Almond pushes and pulls power across the ship and Åkerman keeps changing the computer's mind.
"Right," Åkerman replies. He's barely audible through the hash of noise. His jaw keeps working, like he's trying to gnaw through one of those godawful ration blocks, but Lackland knows this is just him focusing on a problem. Which one is anyone's guess; they have a wide selection at the moment.
"Almond," Åkerman says into his epaulet mic, "I need at least another 60,000 amps. Steal it from the starboard-2 500 kilovolt line."
Sir, comes the hesitant reply, that'll black out the starboard side up to frame 30. Including life support.
"I know, steal it," Åkerman says tersely.
Yessir.
The capacitor charges of the boosters crawl up toward the green diamonds marking minimum ignition power. Unlike Aurora's massive main ion engines, which are designed to apply thrust slowly but steadily, the boosters are dual-mode engines. In flight, they typically operate as high-impulse ion engines - "high" being a relative term for an ion engine. However, in an emergency (and this certainly qualifies), they flip modes into a high-thrust plasma engine. Essentially, splinters of metallic hydrogen are loaded into the engine hohlraum and induced to fusion by massive lasers, just like inertial confinement power plants do planetside. However, unlike a power plant, the plasma isn't completely contained: focused and forced by magnetic fields, the plasma is blasted out the engine bell, providing an incredible amount of thrust in a very short period. Milliseconds after the fusion ignition, a new splinter is fed into the hohlraum and the engine does it again, essentially turning it into a fusion-powered pulse rocket. It's tricky, risky, and outright dangerous, but in an emergency, all three start looking better and better.
It all depends on two things: charging the capacitors that fire the fusion lasers and building up enough charge in the confining magnets to guide incredibly angry plasma in the right direction. By the readings on Bigboard, they're not there yet.
Aurora bucks and shudders under their feet - the atmosphere's thickening fast. The agonized moan of metal under far too much strain briefly washes out even the alarms.
"Do we have any helm control at all?" Lackland asks. According to the computer, Aurora's OMS thrusters are firing, so theoretically she should be moving her nose at least. But the attitude and altitude readings are showing that something's lying somewhere; either the OMS isn't doing jack, or the instrumentation has failed.
"Not much," Åkerman says, his eyes diverting briefly to the opposite side of the board. A new window has opened, scrolled briefly, and scuttled out of the way, "OMS is operating north of 110%, but we're too deep in the gravwell. We need the boosters or this is going to be a faceplant."
"Fire's out," comes a shout from the corner of Engineering Control. Richards, soot-stained and sweat-drenched, flings a dead extinguisher - his fifth - aside.
"Great work, Richards," Lackland says, not taking her eyes off Bigboard. Before she can say anything else, Aurora takes another psychotic jerk. A bass drum roll thunders through Aurora's superstructure, and one of the aux PDR racks blows itself apart in a flash of clashing voltage. Fire billows out of the buckled cabinetry.
"Fire's back," Åkerman notes offhandedly. Richards, reeling off a string of curses, yanks another extinguisher off the wall and goes back on the offensive.
That wasn't me! comes Almond's voice over the radio, Looks like there was a short somewhere in D-section, around frame 300. Everything just went dark up there.
"Keep working, Almond. You win or we die," Åkerman replies. Booster 4's lasers are almost there, and the other three are only a few steps behind. Lackland steals a glance at the flight instrumentation display. The nose is up significantly; whatever exploded gave them a kick, although not enough of one. But they're still falling like an anvil - there's only 15 kilometers between their hull and certain death. Given their rate of descent, they have a couple minutes to live. At most.
Abruptly, the booster power indicators start rising sharply. Firing capacitor charge soars, with magnets crawling up slightly slower, but still better than they had been.
"Way to go, Almond! Hold us there," Lackland radios. She shakes her head to knock the sweat off her eyebrows before getting back to work; the heat in the control room is murderous. She glances at Richards, who is fighting his way closer to the had-been PDR rack. He's laying down a carpet of COB gas from his extinguisher, looking like a machine gunner in a sensevid taking on a horde of Kharaa.
"XO, we can boost in fifteen seconds," Åkerman reports. Sure enough, Booster 1's lasers are fully charged. In another few seconds, the other boosters will be charged to fire, and the confinement magnets will be online only a couple seconds after that, so --
Lackland's trains of thought derail in that moment as a titanic explosion rips Aurora. Her whole head is ringing as she realizes she's clutching the edge of Bigboard's desk for dear life because she's weightless. Beside her, Åkerman flails for command keys, but the agrav system's controller is apparently still online, because it drops them to the deck a moment later.
"What is the flaming hell was that?!" Lackland demands.
"Some idiot on the bridge lit Booster 1!"
"How bad?"
"Booster 1 is dead; they blew it to hell. Two, three, and four hadn't charged yet. Still charging."
"Almond! Pull breaker blocks 309, 319, and 329! Right now!" Lackland yells into the radio. "I'm taking the bridge helm station out," she says, more or less as explanation to Åkerman. All in all, the smartest thing to do at the moment, but a move that's definitely not sanctioned in any manual.
The problem, painfully apparent to Lackland and Åkerman without discussion, is that without all four boosters, her original plan is screwed. A ship the size, weight, and shape of Aurora needs a lot of thrust to surf atmosphere. With one booster with its brains blown out, they don't have the engine power. The remaining three, however, show ready. They must've reached charge after the damn fool on the bridge hit the button, otherwise they would've collectively blown Aurora into shrapnel.
"Lackland," Åkerman says anyway.
"I know. Looks like we're going to try surfing for real," she says. Åkerman swallows hard. With the boosters online, there's little left he can do. The feeling of powerlessness coils around his gut.
Lackland's eyes are glued to Bigboard. Aurora's nose is up, at least; only ten degrees above horizontal, but she'll take it. Altitude is way down, four thousand meters under the keel and sinking fast. She's running the numbers in her head, but she knows full well that, at this point, it's essentially going on her gut. Feeling the numbers rather than running them. Maybe Ishimura's insistence on feeling the course had something after all.
Too late to apologize now.
At three thousand meters, she thumbs the ignition key.
Aurora's three remaining boosters light. Aurora is given a brutal shove forward, and she leans into the air. She can't climb; her shape is aerodynamic but generates no lift, so the only lifting power she has is engine power, and ten degrees above flat is so little as to not count at all. But the boosters do confer forward thrust, and a lot of it. The last three kilometers of altitude are gone before Lackland or Åkerman can regain their bearings, but not before Aurora piles on a lot of forward speed. The result is that her near-vertical drop becomes a much flatter diagonal.
When her keel finally makes contact with the waiting ocean, it's not the suicidal belly-flop it was only fifteen seconds ago. The rounded underside of the starship creases, then cuts into the water, finally converting the last of her vertical momentum into horizontal. The ship skates on the surface of the sea, throwing up massive sheets of spray and starting wake waves that will travel for miles.
A handful of seconds and nearly a kilometer later, Aurora plows into a barely-submerged sandbar. The ship rides up the incline, buckling ventral frames and tearing loose broad swathes of skin. Water and sand rush in as the ship grinds to a halt. The water boils from the heat, and the sand trapped under her bulk is quickly fused into gritty, irregular glass. Through the holes of the initial impact, as well as a thousand new rents and tears, the sea rushes in to take possession of the ship.
Lackland opens her eyes, and the world comes into a blurry sort of focus. She has the odd sensation of floating. Floating and warmth, like she's swimming in a warm sea. After the chaos of the landing, it's a lovely feeling, and she's more than happy to go with it.
Åkerman floats past her eyes, sound asleep. That's fine; he's earned a rest. Although he's going to have to get back to work soon. But he has the right idea for now. Lackland feels her eyes drift closed again.
With a deep breath, Lackland opens her eyes and straightens up. A quick glance around shows Engineering Control in perfect order, spotless as a new pin and everything in its place. Bigboard is nothing but green status indicators and nominal continuous readouts. Straightening her uniform and making sure her hair hasn't slipped out of place, she steps to the doors, which slide open.
A rolling sound of applause flows in from the corridor as she steps out and turns right. Aurora crew, all in their Alterra dress blues and whites, are assembled and giving her the ovation. Ahead, off slightly to the side, Richards and Almond stand proudly, adding their sound to the swell of cheers. Each of their uniforms sport a new, bright copper hexagon with a single star cutout, the Alterra Spacemanship Award, first class.
A bit further along, Åkerman is beaming at her and applauding. Around his neck, hanging from its diaphanous blue ribbon is a silver medallion, a star whose points trail around a planet like angel's wings. It's a medal rarely seen, the Alterra Superior Service Award. Lackland nods in recognition, smiling not so much as to be unseemly, but enough that it's a warm gesture. He's certainly earned that medal.
Ahead, Captain Hollister stands, smiling paternally at her. He holds the big brother to Åkerman's medal, a similar motif but in gold and with a laurel wreath border. The Alterra Star. The single highest award the trans-gov can bestow. In her lifetime, they've only handed out one, and it was posthumous.
Hollister waits for the applause to die down.
"Commander Lackland," he intones, "in recognition of your unswerving bravery in the face of danger, your selfless commitment to ship and crew during the crisis, and exceptional spacemanship in dire conditions, Alterra is pleased and proud to present you with the Alterra Star. This is not an award that is ever given lightly, but must be earned through singular bravery, skill, and fortitude..."
Hollister's voice fades as the world slowly dims, cloaks itself in black satin, and finally goes silent.
A new chapter appears! Once again @scifiwriterguy brings it home with a wonderful chapter, and adds in zesty twists. I have to admit, every new entry makes me crave for more - I must know what happens with the entire crew!
But what got me most, was the "abrupt change" of the final part. At first I thought it was a St. Elsewhere style ending at first... then it slowly dawned on me what was REALLY happening...
Very rarely having that happening to a character affected me so... Farewell, Lackland... you will be very much missed.
Alright, everyone, I've gone and counted the amount of bump memes between chapters. It appears that the magical number is approximately 7 over a period of time, or 17 for an immediate drop. Scour the Interwebs, my friends!
*T-10, T -9, T -8, T -7, T -6, T -5, T -4, T -3, T -2, T -1*;
*T - 0*;
<=Systems check finished=>;
<=All systems operational=> ;
<= Satellite launched=>;
<=Satellite firing Thrusters=>;
<= Satellite in position=>;
<=Connecting...=>;
<=No new story detected=>;
<=Satellite systems shutting down=>;
Here's hoping @scifiwriterguy has an decent amount of free time around release, so I can binge Downward Spiral in addition to gorging on the reactions of green Subnautica streamers who are playing through for the first time. XD
Here's hoping @scifiwriterguy has an decent amount of free time around release, so I can binge Downward Spiral in addition to gorging on the reactions of green Subnautica streamers who are playing through for the first time. XD
This story is great. I never really 'followed' the story/messages/characters in the game; more focussed on tasks, and building.
This story brings the history right up there and makes me interested. You should get UW to add all the story as a text file for people to read when they buy it (when it's complete of course).
[In the 'old days' it would have been a shiny-paper booklet in the box...]
Comments
When it comes to crashing a starship, two things need to be kept in mind, particularly if surviving the crash is any sort of priority.
The first: air and water are functionally the same thing. Both are fluids, so both behave in a very similar fashion to a body traveling through it. One simply offers more resistance.
The second: Starships aren't meant to interact with either one. Unlike transatmospherics, like shuttles, starships are built in space, work in space, and generally die in space. They never taste atmosphere, nor are they ever intended to. Bad things generally happen when they do.
Both of these items are fighting for dominance in Krista Lackland's mind. The advantage, at least as it appears to her right now, is that she's already sailed past the thing that kills most people in an uncontrolled re-entry: that the ship can be saved. Lackland knows that Aurora is past all hope of salvation. The only thing now is to try and save whomever is still alive aboard her.
"All crew, all crew. This is not a drill. Abandon ship. Abandon ship. All crew report to lifepods. This is not a drill. Abandon ship. Abandon ship."
The automated announcement is barely audible under the blanket of sirens and alarms filling the air in Engineering Control. Clearly, someone else has come to the same conclusion regarding Aurora's future.
"Lifepods on starboard side are out. I don't think we're going to be able to get them back before impact," Åkerman reels off, not taking his eyes off Bigboard, keying in line commands nonstop.
"Focus on the boosters," Lackland says. Systems icons flick between online and offline as Almond pushes and pulls power across the ship and Åkerman keeps changing the computer's mind.
"Right," Åkerman replies. He's barely audible through the hash of noise. His jaw keeps working, like he's trying to gnaw through one of those godawful ration blocks, but Lackland knows this is just him focusing on a problem. Which one is anyone's guess; they have a wide selection at the moment.
"Almond," Åkerman says into his epaulet mic, "I need at least another 60,000 amps. Steal it from the starboard-2 500 kilovolt line."
Sir, comes the hesitant reply, that'll black out the starboard side up to frame 30. Including life support.
"I know, steal it," Åkerman says tersely.
Yessir.
The capacitor charges of the boosters crawl up toward the green diamonds marking minimum ignition power. Unlike Aurora's massive main ion engines, which are designed to apply thrust slowly but steadily, the boosters are dual-mode engines. In flight, they typically operate as high-impulse ion engines - "high" being a relative term for an ion engine. However, in an emergency (and this certainly qualifies), they flip modes into a high-thrust plasma engine. Essentially, splinters of metallic hydrogen are loaded into the engine hohlraum and induced to fusion by massive lasers, just like inertial confinement power plants do planetside. However, unlike a power plant, the plasma isn't completely contained: focused and forced by magnetic fields, the plasma is blasted out the engine bell, providing an incredible amount of thrust in a very short period. Milliseconds after the fusion ignition, a new splinter is fed into the hohlraum and the engine does it again, essentially turning it into a fusion-powered pulse rocket. It's tricky, risky, and outright dangerous, but in an emergency, all three start looking better and better.
It all depends on two things: charging the capacitors that fire the fusion lasers and building up enough charge in the confining magnets to guide incredibly angry plasma in the right direction. By the readings on Bigboard, they're not there yet.
Aurora bucks and shudders under their feet - the atmosphere's thickening fast. The agonized moan of metal under far too much strain briefly washes out even the alarms.
"Do we have any helm control at all?" Lackland asks. According to the computer, Aurora's OMS thrusters are firing, so theoretically she should be moving her nose at least. But the attitude and altitude readings are showing that something's lying somewhere; either the OMS isn't doing jack, or the instrumentation has failed.
"Not much," Åkerman says, his eyes diverting briefly to the opposite side of the board. A new window has opened, scrolled briefly, and scuttled out of the way, "OMS is operating north of 110%, but we're too deep in the gravwell. We need the boosters or this is going to be a faceplant."
"Fire's out," comes a shout from the corner of Engineering Control. Richards, soot-stained and sweat-drenched, flings a dead extinguisher - his fifth - aside.
"Great work, Richards," Lackland says, not taking her eyes off Bigboard. Before she can say anything else, Aurora takes another psychotic jerk. A bass drum roll thunders through Aurora's superstructure, and one of the aux PDR racks blows itself apart in a flash of clashing voltage. Fire billows out of the buckled cabinetry.
"Fire's back," Åkerman notes offhandedly. Richards, reeling off a string of curses, yanks another extinguisher off the wall and goes back on the offensive.
That wasn't me! comes Almond's voice over the radio, Looks like there was a short somewhere in D-section, around frame 300. Everything just went dark up there.
"Keep working, Almond. You win or we die," Åkerman replies. Booster 4's lasers are almost there, and the other three are only a few steps behind. Lackland steals a glance at the flight instrumentation display. The nose is up significantly; whatever exploded gave them a kick, although not enough of one. But they're still falling like an anvil - there's only 15 kilometers between their hull and certain death. Given their rate of descent, they have a couple minutes to live. At most.
Abruptly, the booster power indicators start rising sharply. Firing capacitor charge soars, with magnets crawling up slightly slower, but still better than they had been.
"Way to go, Almond! Hold us there," Lackland radios. She shakes her head to knock the sweat off her eyebrows before getting back to work; the heat in the control room is murderous. She glances at Richards, who is fighting his way closer to the had-been PDR rack. He's laying down a carpet of COB gas from his extinguisher, looking like a machine gunner in a sensevid taking on a horde of Kharaa.
"XO, we can boost in fifteen seconds," Åkerman reports. Sure enough, Booster 1's lasers are fully charged. In another few seconds, the other boosters will be charged to fire, and the confinement magnets will be online only a couple seconds after that, so --
Lackland's trains of thought derail in that moment as a titanic explosion rips Aurora. Her whole head is ringing as she realizes she's clutching the edge of Bigboard's desk for dear life because she's weightless. Beside her, Åkerman flails for command keys, but the agrav system's controller is apparently still online, because it drops them to the deck a moment later.
"What is the flaming hell was that?!" Lackland demands.
"Some idiot on the bridge lit Booster 1!"
"How bad?"
"Booster 1 is dead; they blew it to hell. Two, three, and four hadn't charged yet. Still charging."
"Almond! Pull breaker blocks 309, 319, and 329! Right now!" Lackland yells into the radio. "I'm taking the bridge helm station out," she says, more or less as explanation to Åkerman. All in all, the smartest thing to do at the moment, but a move that's definitely not sanctioned in any manual.
The problem, painfully apparent to Lackland and Åkerman without discussion, is that without all four boosters, her original plan is screwed. A ship the size, weight, and shape of Aurora needs a lot of thrust to surf atmosphere. With one booster with its brains blown out, they don't have the engine power. The remaining three, however, show ready. They must've reached charge after the damn fool on the bridge hit the button, otherwise they would've collectively blown Aurora into shrapnel.
"Lackland," Åkerman says anyway.
"I know. Looks like we're going to try surfing for real," she says. Åkerman swallows hard. With the boosters online, there's little left he can do. The feeling of powerlessness coils around his gut.
Lackland's eyes are glued to Bigboard. Aurora's nose is up, at least; only ten degrees above horizontal, but she'll take it. Altitude is way down, four thousand meters under the keel and sinking fast. She's running the numbers in her head, but she knows full well that, at this point, it's essentially going on her gut. Feeling the numbers rather than running them. Maybe Ishimura's insistence on feeling the course had something after all.
Too late to apologize now.
At three thousand meters, she thumbs the ignition key.
Aurora's three remaining boosters light. Aurora is given a brutal shove forward, and she leans into the air. She can't climb; her shape is aerodynamic but generates no lift, so the only lifting power she has is engine power, and ten degrees above flat is so little as to not count at all. But the boosters do confer forward thrust, and a lot of it. The last three kilometers of altitude are gone before Lackland or Åkerman can regain their bearings, but not before Aurora piles on a lot of forward speed. The result is that her near-vertical drop becomes a much flatter diagonal.
When her keel finally makes contact with the waiting ocean, it's not the suicidal belly-flop it was only fifteen seconds ago. The rounded underside of the starship creases, then cuts into the water, finally converting the last of her vertical momentum into horizontal. The ship skates on the surface of the sea, throwing up massive sheets of spray and starting wake waves that will travel for miles.
A handful of seconds and nearly a kilometer later, Aurora plows into a barely-submerged sandbar. The ship rides up the incline, buckling ventral frames and tearing loose broad swathes of skin. Water and sand rush in as the ship grinds to a halt. The water boils from the heat, and the sand trapped under her bulk is quickly fused into gritty, irregular glass. Through the holes of the initial impact, as well as a thousand new rents and tears, the sea rushes in to take possession of the ship.
Lackland opens her eyes, and the world comes into a blurry sort of focus. She has the odd sensation of floating. Floating and warmth, like she's swimming in a warm sea. After the chaos of the landing, it's a lovely feeling, and she's more than happy to go with it.
Åkerman floats past her eyes, sound asleep. That's fine; he's earned a rest. Although he's going to have to get back to work soon. But he has the right idea for now. Lackland feels her eyes drift closed again.
With a deep breath, Lackland opens her eyes and straightens up. A quick glance around shows Engineering Control in perfect order, spotless as a new pin and everything in its place. Bigboard is nothing but green status indicators and nominal continuous readouts. Straightening her uniform and making sure her hair hasn't slipped out of place, she steps to the doors, which slide open.
A rolling sound of applause flows in from the corridor as she steps out and turns right. Aurora crew, all in their Alterra dress blues and whites, are assembled and giving her the ovation. Ahead, off slightly to the side, Richards and Almond stand proudly, adding their sound to the swell of cheers. Each of their uniforms sport a new, bright copper hexagon with a single star cutout, the Alterra Spacemanship Award, first class.
A bit further along, Åkerman is beaming at her and applauding. Around his neck, hanging from its diaphanous blue ribbon is a silver medallion, a star whose points trail around a planet like angel's wings. It's a medal rarely seen, the Alterra Superior Service Award. Lackland nods in recognition, smiling not so much as to be unseemly, but enough that it's a warm gesture. He's certainly earned that medal.
Ahead, Captain Hollister stands, smiling paternally at her. He holds the big brother to Åkerman's medal, a similar motif but in gold and with a laurel wreath border. The Alterra Star. The single highest award the trans-gov can bestow. In her lifetime, they've only handed out one, and it was posthumous.
Hollister waits for the applause to die down.
"Commander Lackland," he intones, "in recognition of your unswerving bravery in the face of danger, your selfless commitment to ship and crew during the crisis, and exceptional spacemanship in dire conditions, Alterra is pleased and proud to present you with the Alterra Star. This is not an award that is ever given lightly, but must be earned through singular bravery, skill, and fortitude..."
Hollister's voice fades as the world slowly dims, cloaks itself in black satin, and finally goes silent.
But what got me most, was the "abrupt change" of the final part. At first I thought it was a St. Elsewhere style ending at first... then it slowly dawned on me what was REALLY happening...
Very rarely having that happening to a character affected me so... Farewell, Lackland... you will be very much missed.
via Imgflip Meme Generator
*looks around*
"Nothing yet. Down scope!"
“Together we sail! Onwards!”
You can't tell me what to do, you're not my dad!
Bad Scope!
*T - 0*;
<=Systems check finished=>;
<=All systems operational=> ;
<= Satellite launched=>;
<=Satellite firing Thrusters=>;
<= Satellite in position=>;
<=Connecting...=>;
<=No new story detected=>;
<=Satellite systems shutting down=>;
My thoughts exactly
Thanks for all the support! And prodding. Bumping. And especially...the memes.
*Unzips magic meme bag*
Need more?
This story brings the history right up there and makes me interested. You should get UW to add all the story as a text file for people to read when they buy it (when it's complete of course).
[In the 'old days' it would have been a shiny-paper booklet in the box...]