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Previously: the expedition crew made good progress and test fly the drone. They also wonder about the vast expanse of the unexplored solar system.
October 2056
“You can thank me when you get back,” said Aiden, glancing over his shoulder at the screen at the end of the table behind him. He scraped the last of the mashed potato from a packet and sat down to join Lana and Joanna.
“Yeah, well, honestly dude, I thought my mission was over when I fell off that lander,” Brant went on.
Pieter, who had been out of shot, came into view beside Brant and Zawadi. “We actually got the cores drilled within the time we had originally allocated anyway.”
“That’s great. It’ll keep Mission Control off my back,” said Lana.
“We also checked out the drone, and it flies great. The sensors are all working correctly. Once when we’re in range I’ll send it out to start surveying some of the blue ice areas.”
“Did you get the procedure I sent over for removing the heater control unit?” asked Aiden.
“Yes, I had a read over it this afternoon on the drive,” replied Pieter.
“You’ve probably got longer arms than me so hopefully you should find it a bit easier. Not that you should have to do it.”
“Nope. Appreciated though. It’s good to know these things, just in case.”
Lana glanced at Joanna, who was shuffling uncomfortably in her chair. “Well, all things considered, it’s going pretty well. We'd better let you all get settled in for the night.”
“Ok sounds good, we’ll check in before we head off tomorrow,” said Pieter, and the connection cut.
“Seems like our bad luck might be behind us,” said Aiden.
“Yes, but don’t jinx it,” replied Lana. “I’m just glad they all seem happy together. I was worried about the crew dynamics.”
“Me too,” said Aiden, “but Pieter seems to have mellowed a little since we got here. He’s in his element now. He likes to be leading.”
“You are sure about that heater control?” said Joanna.
“As sure as we can be. I ran all the diagnostics I could, and Mission Control couldn’t find anything either.”
Joanna glanced at the floor, avoiding eye contact. “I just have a bad feeling about it, that’s all.”
Lana placed the coffee down gently in front of Aiden. He looked up from his tablet and set it down on the table. Lana pulled a chair closer. As she sat, they exchanged a glance reserved only for those who had shared the most intimate of times together.
Over the last couple of days they had given up trying to hide their involvement from Joanna. They had been considerate - no sickening public displays of affection - but there was no hiding it. Girls were too intuitive Lana kept telling Aiden. Joanna had been gracious, but also somewhat withdrawn.
Aiden picked up his tablet again. “They’re all packed up and underway,” said Aiden as he swallowed his first mouthful of coffee. “They might reach the mountains tonight or probably tomorrow, depending on how many cores they drill.”
“Good. Have you seen Joanna this morning?”
“She headed out to the greenhouse while you were in the shower.”
“Did she seem ok?”
Aiden reached up, kneading the back of his neck. “Same as usual.”
“She’s been spending a lot of time there the last few days.”
Lana picked up her tablet and started to scroll through her messages whilst sipping her coffee. There was one from Christian Larsson to the whole expedition, praising them for how well things had been going over the last few days. There was also a personal one from him telling her how well preparations were going for the first launch when they got back. She wondered if he messaged the rest of the expedition crew individually as well.
Next she skimmed her news feed. The Philippines had just been hit by its second Category Six cyclone this year. Lana opened a new message to Samantha Fernandez and began typing. She knew Samantha would be ok back at FASS headquarters, but she couldn’t remember exactly where in the Philippines her family was from.
As she began to type, her tablet chimed with an incoming message from Joanna.
Morning Lana. When you guys have finished breakfast do you mind heading out to the greenhouse to give me a hand with a few things?
“Did Joanna mention anything about needing help in the greenhouse this morning?”
“No, she didn’t really say much this morning,” said Aiden disinterestedly as he went back to scanning through the status of the hab and the rover’s systems.
Lana sent a quick reply to Joanna then went back to her half-written message to Samantha. No matter how hard she tried to put it out of her head, something was bugging her. She couldn’t concentrate on what she was trying to write. After five minutes she gulped back the remainder of her coffee and stood up. She put her hand on Aiden’s shoulder.
“Suit up astronaut Woods, we’re going for a walk.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said theatrically.
Five minutes later, they were in the EVA prep room.
“Have you any idea what this is about?” said Aiden as he pulled his suit up and pushed his head through the neck ring.
“No. Something’s up though. That greenhouse has been Jo’s place of solitude. Especially since Brant has been away. Now she is asking us both to head out there and rather cryptically.”
“Are you sure you’re not reading too much into this?”
Lana stopped fastening her boot and looked up.
“Ok, ok. Girl’s intuition.”
“They’re getting a lot bigger,” said Zawadi, pointing to the mountains on the horizon with one hand, the other clutching a packet of food she had just rehydrated.
“Yep. We should be within range to make a useful reconnaissance flight with the drone after lunch,” replied Pieter. He turned in his seat. “Why don’t you sit up front for a bit while you eat. I need to use the bathroom and get something myself.” As he got up, Pieter patted Brant on the shoulder. “You want me to grab you anything?”
“I’m good. I’ll keep driving for a bit, then we can swap when you’ve had lunch.”
Zawadi settled herself into the front seat of the rover next to Brant. They had been stopping for a break from driving during mealtimes, but the schedule had slipped a little when the drill had become stuck at the last drill site. Now with the Transantarctic Mountains in view, they were also keen to reach their destination, so they pushed on.
Brant looked across at Zawadi. She was shovelling the food into her mouth.
“You really are in a hurry, aren’t you?”
She stopped and swallowed.
“Aren’t you excited to get there and start collecting some meteorites?”
“Yes. But they have been there for millions of years, they’re still going to be there in a few hours.”
Zawadi smiled and then continued gulping her food down. By the time Pieter had returned with his own pack of rehydrated food, she was finished. She got up as he came back to the rover cockpit.
“I’ll start prepping the drone,” she said as she slid past him.
After quickly disposing of her empty food package, Zawadi plonked herself down in the jump seat and activated the drone’s pre-flight self-test. While it dutifully checked out all of its systems, Zawadi wriggled in her seat to get comfortable and put the VR headset over her head.
Brant looked over his shoulder at Zawadi.
“Ready for the doors?”
“Ready when you are,” she replied.
Brant tapped the control on the centre console to open the doors. Zawadi slid the headset down over her eyes.
“Just waiting for a GPS fix, confirming I’m ok to launch?”
Pieter glanced down at the screen in front of him showing the met conditions outside.
“Verifying no constraints to launch,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Roger.”
The four propellers on the drone began to spin, slowly for a couple of seconds, then they rapidly increased to flight speed. The drone rose gracefully from the top of the rover. Zawadi eased forward, and it came into view through the roof of the rover cockpit. For a few seconds, she matched the speed of the rover.
“Looks good from here,” said Pieter.
Zawadi hit the translation control, and the drone accelerated rapidly away in front of the rover and began gaining height. Over the last few days, Zawadi had set up predefined search patterns for the areas of blue ice around the Mulock Glacier. The drone flew towards the closest of these. Now that it was within a flight time of half an hour, the drone could spend a useful amount of time on station. The flight plan showed twenty-eight minutes to the start of the first search pattern. Zawadi activated the sensor package. Best not to miss anything they might come across on the way.
After a few minutes, Zawadi lifted the headset up. The drone was doing fine on its own. No need to get queasy unnecessarily. She sat with it on her head for a few minutes longer while she monitored the flight parameters. Satisfied, she took it off and hooked the head-strap over a hook on the bulkhead behind her.
“Anyone else want a drink?” she said as she got up.
“Yeah sure, can I have a juice?” replied Brant.
“No thanks,” said Pieter.
“What flavour?”
“Surprise me.”
Zawadi rummaged through the compartment above the sink where the sachets of powdered isotonic drinks were stored. She grabbed an orange and then stuck her hand in the back and pulled another out at random. Glacier Freeze - how appropriate.
The alarm sounded just as she was about to tear open the second sachet. She dropped it on the counter and jumped back into her seat, silencing the alarm as she went. The drone had found something. She grabbed the headset from behind her and put it on.
“Looks like we’ve found something.”
“Already?” said Brant. “It can’t have reached the search area yet.”
“No, but I activated the sensors so they would scan on the way, just on the off chance. I’ll take it down for a closer look.”
“Check it out, but we don’t want to get bogged down any further, we need to keep pressing on to the blue ice primary search area,” said Pieter.
“Roger, won’t be long.”
The headset’s augmented reality view highlighted the object the drone had found in purple. Zawadi used a hand controller to select it and commanded the drone to perform an initial inspection and then hover five metres away at a height of two metres.
As it closed in, the drone circled the meteorite, which was now obvious to Zawadi even without the augmented reality assistance. It built a three-dimensional model of the rock and estimated the mass based on the average density of meteorites found in Antarctica.
“Wow! Ten point five kilos. That thing is massive,” exclaimed Zawadi.
“Are you sure?” asked Brant.
“Let me do another scan, just to check.”
The drone circled the meteorite again, repeating the process.
“Ten point six kilos. We’ve got to stop and pick that up.”
“How far off track is it?” asked Pieter.
“Only a hundred metres or so.”
“Ok, forward the coordinates through to the nav computer. You’d better bring the drone back onboard and start suiting up.”
“Roger that!”
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Elseware
I hope you enjoyed the latest episode of Orphans of Apollo. Apologies again for the disruption. Hopefully, I can stay on schedule until the end of this season. I estimate there are probably around three to four episodes left, depending on how I cut the scenes together.
Foundation season three is out, and this week we watched the first episode. If you haven’t seen the first two seasons, they are worth watching. I’m not sure what to make of the first episode. It definitely looks like this season is going to be a bit different to the previous two. I would be interested to see what anyone else thinks.
I have also started to read a new serial on Substack this week: . It’s a geopolitical thriller, and from the first two episodes, it’s really promising. This and hard science fiction are the normal fiction genres I read. Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong places, but the fiction on Substack seems to lean more towards fantasy, so it’s great to see this.
That’s probably about it for this week, other than I got to do some flying for fun - not that all flying is not fun - but it’s nice to decide where you want to go for yourself. I truly am lucky to have the opportunity to do this, and days like this make me realise it. Even if the kids think it’s somewhat normal!
Have a great week.
Thanks for reading - the future belongs to the optimists.
Alex
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