User:Cesrate/The New Future/Laythe ascend
After a bath, I walk to the window. The room temperature is comfortable. Quark City, the first colony on Laythe. Rather than calling it "city", it's more like a village. The majority of the building is made of concrete and bricks, and the thermal coatings are inside to keep the room warm. There're also a geothermal station and several bases landed from orbit, like the Picker Base B-5 landed there just a few minutes before the C-2's landing (C-2's place is about 40 kilometers eastward) yesterday, aiming for nuclear fuels.
The Picker B-5 is the "artificial gravity partner" of Picker C-2. During the past 280 days B-5 and C-2 was attached to the VASIMR[1] stage by fifty-meter-long ropes, and as C-2 is a little heavier than B-5, the rope for C-2 is a few meters short. C-2 and B-5 were rotating during the travel like binary stars to simulate a comfortable gravity, and their barycenter is VASIMR stage, the thrust provider.[2] Quiet neat, isn't it?
Well, as B-5 is mentioned... From the news, there was a breathtaking interlude when it was executing the final descend. After the deployment of parachutes, one out of the six airlocks of heat shield was failed to release. In such an emergency, the commander promptly ordered to fire the descending engines to their rated thrust. The heat shield turned over with the effect of engine exhaust and the failed airlock was twisted, but the shield was still hanging there. Then when approaching the Quark City, the airlock suddenly broke. The shield dived fast and hit the ground heavily. The residents were pretty scared although it didn't hit Quark City.
"Space flight isn't safe, though..." When I'm talking to myself, the door bell rang, it's Stephen.
Having changed clothes, I'm now having tea with him. There are a few tea bushes in greenhouses, and drinking the tea reminds me of Kerbin. Stephen talks about the mission.
The mission to Vall... It's a secret. Although the picture of Nightingale Satellite[3] has been made public and caused a shock. The pictures came from Nightingale Satellite showed a group of unexpected geometric shapes near the south pole of Vall. This thing had not been discovered until some bored fan-boys noticed it. KSA kept trying to pursuade people that's most likely to be a mapping error, but on the other hand, ten days before, the closest unit, us, got the command to discover it.
And that's why we landed on Quark. Three hours later, we will be armed to the teeth for the exploration.
"I'm quiet worried. What about you?"
"We will do this." Said by me with confidence, at least seemingly.
"Yes, we trust you." Stephen seems to be a little relaxed now. "And... nice dress for you."
"Well... That's good..." Looking downward, I have no idea on how to respond for a while.
Four Rockomax 1X has been in 100% thrust, and we are straightly to LLO[4] now. Pegasus now have a whole set of detecting tools installed, and next to us is also tools, and... weapons. Although we all agree small arms won't help much if we really meet ultra-advanced aliens. It's rated payload has been reached, because there's an EV-2 ground vehicle[5] hanging at the bottom. All of these give me a sense, we are not going for an outing today.
As for the plan... We're going to LLO to dock with Albatross 23a, the heavy space mining ship.[6] It is NTR-powered[7] and equipped with a laser cannon for breaking hard surface of some asteroids and moons. It's designed to carry heavy minerals payload, and now its "mineral" is Pegasus. Its crew have been ready, and we will dock at LLO then transfer to Vall. We will separate upon arrival and Pegasus will land near the target. We will launch back to Vall orbit if we're still alive, then dock and go back.
"Hope we can..."
