SET: Rojar II Atmospheric Survey (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on 09 Apr 2013 @ 6:16am by Petty Officer 3rd Class Kareel Gan & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Petty Officer 3rd Class Justin Smoak (KIA)
Edited on on 09 Apr 2013 @ 1:35pm

2,506 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: Rojar II: Orbit, shuttlecraft Vincenzo
Timeline: MD5 0800 Hours

ON:

"Let's hope these things work as well on a planet," Gan joked as she keyed in a similar sequence to before, in an attempt to identify the planet on the small viewfinder in front of her. It slowly materialized and several numbers popped up outlining trajectory, course, speed, interstellar objects - of which there were numerous, it looked like the planet was a monster, eating and absorbing everything in its path. Like Pac-Man, Gan grinned to herself. Zaren would find it charming. The computer emitted a beep as the sensor sweeps localized and focused. "Okay, so far we've got... helium. That's helium, yes," she said, talking to the computer. "Good computer. Okay, helium, hey, look at this." She pointed at the strange composition in front of her. The planet reminded her of a swirling, holographic painting. Many years ago, she remembered how they flowed out of her, through entire rooms. Gasses, molecules, rain. A wave of nostalgia washed over her, but she let it go, bittersweet on her tongue and in her hands. "And we've got temperature," another beep informed her. "About minus 130 degrees celsius, with a core of 10,000 degrees celsius. So not the next Risa," she smirked.

"No...not quite." Lamar replied with a light chuckle. He would have been very happy to have found an immensely super-gigantic version of Risa, but apparently the cosmic Gods had other plans for them today.

Following the directions, Smoak hoped he was getting what the eggheads back on the ship needed for their analysis. Still, on a ship with so many science personnel, he found it extremely irritating that he was here doing their job while still trying to deal with all the vagaries of his job and his department head.

"Alright guys, let's take as many scans as possible before we enter the atmosphere." Lamar ordered as the senior-most crew member in the shuttle. "Can you boost our power to sensors?" he asked Gan. "You can take it from the engines if you need to; we won't be needing much power for thrust since we're already in orbit."

"On it," Gan replied, fingers working smoothly over the sensor controls. She fiddled with it for a few minutes before prodding it with her finger. The entire system lit up, as though she'd done it only by accident, but the numbers began feeding in much faster and clearer than before. "We're good to go. I rerouted the main EPS tap to these units here, and the external sensor pods," she told them promptly.

Lamar didn't say much but simply nodded instead as his console registered the redistribution of the Waverider's power systems. "Looks good so far." he finally replied, then let out a light sigh and leaned back in his chair. Stretching his legs out in front of him, he grabbed a water thermos from a side compartment and took a long drink, then offered it to Gan and Smoak. "You know," he began to say to the armor-clad security officer, "you can take all that equipment off if you want. I'm pretty sure Petty Officer Gan and myself won't be running to tell your chief as soon as we get back. And it's not like there's a live vid-feed in here or anything..." he offered.

"He knows," Smoak said, though he was very tempted. So very tempted. "You'd be surprised if there was a live feed or not. That guy is..." he shook his head before he could say anything more. "You ever have a nightmare only to realize you woke up before it started?"

"Yea...happens to the best of us." Lamar answered in direct reference to dealing with strange department heads. "I know we've had a few concerns about possible Borg presence, but doesn't he know that they use melee combat and that your armor will probably do nothing but slow you down?" he asked. "I don't think any of that would stop a tubule from going into your neck come assimilation-time." he said with a chuckle.

"I think it looks fetching," Gan interjected with a smile.

"You're welcome to see about getting your own set when we get back," Smoak said to her, but still grateful for some support in the issue. He turned to Lamar. "Yeah, I try to tell him about that, he complains that I didn't train enough to be able to use my 'equipment effectively'. But, the stupid armor is supposed to have some sort of one time anti-Borg protocol. Not sure how it works but -"

"It's fifth gen energen weave though." Smoak tried to shrug but the motion was unrecognizable under the armor.

Lamar decided he would let the issue go. He knew a great deal about personal body armor and combat techniques from his time in the Marine Corps, but didn't want to step on anyone's shoes. Closing his eyes for a long moment, he relaxed and drank more water while he waited for Vincenzo to complete its first orbit.

Smoak kept referring back to the instruction manual Lamar gave him to keep trying to get good scans the ship could use. Though, his thoughts were that if they screwed up the scans somehow it would only serve them right for not having a science person out here doing this. Didn't the ship have an atmosphere person? He knew there was an oceanologist and several people doing biology. What good was that on a starship except for cases like now? Why not an atmosphere person who should be doing this?

Almost thirty minutes passed after which the shuttle had finally traveled all the way around the huge planet while collecting a variety of data. Now, it was time to get up close and personal with the swirling ball of gas. "Alright team," he announced, "I'm going to take us into the atmosphere so we can get more detailed scans. How's the weather looking down there?" he asked Gan.

"Very... large," Gan supplied with a grin. "Storms, covering thousands of kilometers. Winds at over 360 kph... some of these look like they've been there for centuries. Ammonia crystals over here, that brown-whiteish spot," she pointed at an area on the map in front of her. "The terminal is saying those are tropical regions, that dark blue color that takes up the rest of it are ice crystals, belts, and clouds. And we're also seeing lightening, so there must be some water clouds underneath all that."

"Well, looks like this might get a bit bumpy then." Lamar replied with surprising indifference. "I'm ready when you are, just buckle up and say the word."

"Buckle up?" Gan asked dubiously.

"Your harness." he clarified with a sideways grin, then waited for her to strap in before descending into the atmosphere.

Gan peeked over at Smoak, who was slumped over to the side. "I think he's asleep," she mock-whispered curiously. She looked up at the safety harness, and pulled it down. "As far as I'm aware, this has inertial dampeners, yeah? I think we'll be all right." She hoped.

Lamar looked behind him and sure enough, Smoak was passed out in his seat. The warrant officer shook his head and grinned, then turned back to Gan when she strapped in. "Yea, we're going to need those dampeners. Let's bring them to full power for our initial descent." he instructed her.

Another few seconds of searching later, Gan tapped a numerical sequence into the side typepad. "Got it," she told him with a thumbs-up. She was vibrating with visible excitement, her body angled forward toward the window, elbows on her knees as they approached the planet's atmosphere.

Putting the shuttlecraft into a shallow decline, Lamar focused all of his attention on the controls as they approached the outer layer of the atmosphere, the thermosphere. "Here we go!" he called out, just in time as the shuttle began to vibrate from the initial turbulence. "I'm taking the impulse engines offline and switching to conventional propulsion. Prepare for a slight...jolt." he added, then tapped a small sequence of commands.

"Conventio-- aand that explains that," Gan's voice rose an octave as the waverider jerked into a steep descent out of nowhere, and she wrapped her fingers around the panel in front of her.

Streaking into the atmosphere, the Waverider's glowing red impulse engines faded to darkness, and the conventional jet turbines came online with a loud, high pitched whirr. Inside the cockpit, Lamar was suddenly pressed into the back of his seat as it took the inertial dampeners a brief moment to compensate for the initial G forces of the powerful engines. "Mach one-point-five...mach two...two-point-five..." he began to call out as the picked up speed. The shuttle burned its way through the outer layer of the atmosphere with a bright, fiery flare which was visible through the cockpit's large windshield. "Four-point-five......five-point-five...descending into the stratosphere." he continued, his heart starting to race as bluish white clouds blurred past the viewscreen.

"Woo," the Trill shouted over the sudden barrage of fire against metal. She could hear the cabin shaking, and kept her eyes focused firmly on the window closest to her. How could Smoak possibly sleep through this? she wondered, and inspected his safety harness to make sure it was keeping him snug.

"Mach seven...eight...nine..." he continued to call out as they reached the craft's maximum velocity. A huge grin slowly spread across his lips as the childish adrenaline-junkie within him slowly took over. Vincenzo finally broke through the stratosphere and the flames outside the cockpit ceased, signaling their arrival into the main atmospheric layer. With not as much friction left to slow them down, their shuttle continued to gain speed while sequential white puffs of hydrogen flared around the craft's exterior. Had they been on an M-Class planet with spectators beneath them, they would have been treated to an awesome display of rapid sonic booms as the Waverider reached hypersonic speeds.

Gan had her hand over her stomach, eyes glittering brightly. Unfortunately, the excitement of Gan didn't exactly translate into Gan's host, who looked just a bit nauseated. Gan stuck with it and breathed it out, squaring her shoulders. "How fast are we going?" she asked, pursing her lips against the odd sensations floating around her head.

"We're at mach ten and holding steady." Lamar reported. They had finally achieved a nice cruising velocity and the red-collared pilot engaged the autopilot to allow him to go hands free for a moment and drink some more water. "Holy shit that was fun..." he added in between gulps with a big smile.

"Something tells me that's not exactly regulation," Gan smirked, looking down at the terminal. Its readings were more intense than ever, registering gigantic, miles-long storms, raging and slowly engulfing the planet below. It looked like a scene out of a holovid.

Lamar smirked. "No, not exactly regulation...but it was fun." he replied, then leaned back in his seat. "Let's get some more detailed scans now that we're within the atmosphere."

"Aye, sir. Look at this. These storms, they must have been here for thousands of years. This planet just... eats everything in its path, making it bigger and bigger.... the pressure is so enormous it's creating pockets of liquid metal helium and hydrogen. You see that? At least, I think that's what it is. It's diameter is 518,520 km, and -" she broke off to check the input again, "- density is 1.33 g/cm^3. Whatever that means. Its velocity is 29.0 km per second, weighs as much as 51 Jupiters, and dating is still coming in but it's nearly three billion years so far."

"Three billion years?!" he asked incredulously. Lamar knew that some planets were very old, but even still...

"I think so," Gan said, tucking a strand of hair behind her hair. "Three-point-four billion," she read again once the scanners fully calibrated and calculated their results. "I mean, I'm guessing not always in this state," the Trill shrugged.

"Well...damn. I'm 34 and I thought I was old." he replied with a chuckle and a shake of his head. "All things considered, I think Mister Rojar II is aging quite well. No gray hairs in sight, except for that bald patch down there." he said, and pointed to a giant, distinctive swirling spot several hundred-thousand kilometers in the distance.

"Look at this," Gan said enthusiastically, bringing up the small holographic display so Darius could see. "I think those are storms, right? But these ones just go on and on. They suck in elements and that makes the... swirls. That one is huge, I bet it's been there for thousands of years." She called up the rest of the planet's telemetry, including placement statistics. "Parenthesis, 78.6, 117, 0.01, parenthesis, million kilometers," she read off with a smile. "Its rotational period is 2.9 days, with an orbital period of 329 days. Its axis is X,Y,Z, 2.77, -1.44, -27.4 degrees."

Lamar looked over at Gan's display with much interest. He understood the basic data about the gas supergiant which was being displayed on the monitor, but some of the more advanced readings were unfortunately beyond his comprehension. "I guess this is a planet of all planets...if I've ever seen one. How are we doing on our data collection? Do we need to get deeper into the atmosphere to collect more data, or do you think our scans so far are sufficient?" he asked.

"Well, it looks pretty good to me, if I do say so myself," Gan said with a nod. "I'm sure if they find it lacking, they'll send another team back, right? But I mean, what else is there to catalog?"

"I have no idea...I'm just a pilot." Lamar answered with a lighthearted shrug. "But, we've been out here for a few hours now so I'm ready to head back to Galileo if you are." he added, not sure what else they could accomplish after recording detailed atmospheric scans of the planet.

She looked back down to the readings. "I think they'll be happy," she agreed. "Okay, let's head back," she said more firmly, making sure to save the data they'd gathered on a backup copy.

"Copy that, heading back home." the former-Marine repeated with no objections, then tapped several commands into his console and brought the Waverider into a vertical ascent out of the atmosphere. As far as he knew, they had completed their primary mission with no casualties, and that, in Lamar's book, meant a job well done. "Heading back to Galileo." he called out as the shuttle pulled its silver nose up and towards the stars.

OFF:

--

WO Lamar Darius
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
NPCd by Lirha Saalm

PO3 Kareel Gan
Engineering Officer, SCE
USS Galileo
(PNPC Liyar)

PO3 Justin Smoak
Security Officer, SFS
USS Galileo
(NPC Stone)

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