Session 16: Atmo-surfing
May. 27th, 2024 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzThe crew returned to the Penelope quickly, where Moira gingerly stripped the vacc suit off. The patched suit held up well enough on the journey back, and now that she had taken it off Qupar could take a look at her shoulder. From Myles and Hasta's cabin down the hall, they could hear the big man muttering at the blood stains on his shirt as he stripped off his boarding vacc suit.
Qupar shook his head, remembering how Hasta had wanted to steal the pinnace. His roots in law enforcement were difficult to pry up and he couldn't help but imagine all the trouble such a theft would get them. At least stealing the vacc suits was a lesser crime. Lysari Laboratories could easily write off the loss of the vacc suits and probably wouldn't come after them.
Dendr's hair was still messed up from wrestling with the vacc suit -- taking off the suit had gone marginally better than putting it on, and he hadn't fallen over this time. The suit was piled in a heap at the foot of his bed, a testimony of his hatred for the thing. Qupar's bunk just held a brand new submachine gun he had picked up at the space port as well as some boxes of ammo. He wasn't about to go into another mission without a bit more firepower.
One by one they entered the bridge, their usual civvies on. Parappa was in his kaftan, which was designed to keep his skin moist. He had overseen the cargo they would be taking.
"Thirty tons of mail, some assorted tools and spare parts for wheeled and tracked vehicles." he reported to the crew as he took his seat at the pilot's station. "All stowed and secure."
"Our passengers are mostly military. Returning to Caladbolg from leave." Moira smiled at Hasta and Myles. "Last time we had this many passengers I couldn't focus on my studies, let's hope this time they'll be less trouble."
"I'm sure they will." Myles replied.
Dendr had communicated with space port control and with Parappa's soft touch the Penelope hummed gracefully towards the blackness of space. "The jump should be around seven days." Moira said.
As they circled around the gas giant, a beeping sound from the comms station caught their attention. "A distress call." Dendr reported. "Calling any ship in the vicinity to come to their assistance. They've run into some problems near the gas giant."
Moira changed course. "If other ships have responded, we could move on - but we should check it out to see what's going on."
"Hello? My name is Alinas Alkini of the Aphelian Orchid. We're having some problems and if you're in the area, could you please come to help? We require immediate assistance."
"Aphelian Orchid, this is the Penelope. Could you let us know the nature of your troubles?"
"We're on the edge of the gas giant and my husband and our crew are on a smaller boat. We had a permit for wilderness refuelling and I've lost contact with them. I can't seem to make any contact whatsoever, and I am quite scared and worried about them. Can you help us please? I really don't know what to do."
Dendr pretended to cover the microphone with a hand, but held it far enough away that it wasn't really blocking any of the sound. "We've got a recently widowed woman giving out a distress call near the gas giant."
"That's very, very rude." Alinas mumbled from the comm system. "That's horrible! No, I really need help. My husband...is out there."
"Oh, sorry. I was on a call to someone else, that wasn't about you."
"Yes, quite." Alinas huffed. "Can I send across our position?"
The data rolling in on one of the screens showed the ship, but it was clear interference from the gas giant was distorting the image. The ship that showed up on the screens was a nobles' yacht. It had sleek lines and looked almost fragile in comparison to the Penelope's work horse build. Clearly a pleasure ship allowing nobles to travel around in space in luxury.
"My husband went down with the crew for some wilderness refuelling, and after we lost contact I started to get worried. I am afraid he is in distress. Could you help me locate him? I am not one of the crew you see, so I don't know what I'm doing. It's not my forte."
"We're on a schedule, soo...." Dendr said hesitantly. "We do have people that expect us, they are paying good money for this cargo. And you're asking for..."
"I will recompense you if you will find my husband!" Alina quickly said.
"Oh! Why didn't you say so?" Dendr switched gears in a heartbeat. "Let's go."
"Wait. Alkini? Lyle Alkini?" Qupar asked. "There were articles in the newspapers on Iderati about this idiot. He's a known noble thrillseeker and risk-taker. I was wondering when he'd get himself killed. Did you hear he does asteroid-jumping? It's when you bounce from one asteroid to the next in an asteroid belt."
"Sounds like she's looking for someone a lot more stable." Dendr mused and smoothed his hair. Then he sighed. "With a steady income."
"We used to have an office pool about this guy. How many officers it would take to get this guy out of trouble." Qupar gestured at Dendr enthusiastically. "We always figured we'd get the call, run in, and find that it's just us and he's just gone off on his next adventure already."
Moira turned back to the comms panel with a frown. "What was your husband doing?"
"He took the ship's boat for refuelling. Skimming on the gas giant to get fuel so we can leave the system." Alinas replied.
"Allllright." Myles said, disbelief dripping from his tone. Surely people cruising such a yacht would have ample funds to pay the double price for fuel Datrillian was charging people. They'd have no need to refuel on the star itself. Then he collected himself, almost squaring his shoulders into attention. "We should help these people. As nobles, they will have a lot of pull."
"Can the Penelope actually drag the boat out of the upper atmosphere?" Qupar wondered. He'd never had to orchestrate a rescue mission in space before, and he wasn't briefed on what the Penelope's capabilities would be.
"The Penelope can go into the upper atmosphere of the gas giant, it's streamlined." Parappa pointed out.
"We should locate them first." Myles pointed out.
Parappa calculated a more optimal position to start triangulating the position of the boat, and they set to work. Dendr adjusted the sensors and coordinated with the data the Orchid sent, calibrating them to puncture the interference from the gas giant. He busied himself fiddling with the settings.
Myles went to engineering, to reroute some power to the sensors to boost the signal some more. There was a slight dimming of the lights on the bridge, and Dendr hummed happily as his sensor range increased. He seemed to tap buttons on the console at random, Parappa watching his moves with a frown on his face.
"Oh come here," the bwap sighed exasperatedly; "You don't know what you're doing!"
Parappa took over the comms panel and within seconds the screen changed into a less distorted image as the sensors Dendr had misaligned were calibrated properly from Parappa's expert touch. It took quite a bit longer to actually locate the small boat.
They found them!
The boat was a bit deeper into the gas giant's atmosphere than expected, and Moira asked if they could establish a comms connection with the small boat now that they had the location.
Dendr tried to tune the comms array, but the hiss of static came over the speakers. There was too much interference. Dendr let the Orchid know they had located the small boat.
"You found them!?" Alinas happily shouted; "I'll pay you fifty thousand credits if you can pull them out. No, sixty thousand!"
Dendr muted the comms and looked at Moira and Parappa questioningly. "Can we?"
"It shouldn't be any harder than flying into a volcano." Moira said deadpan. "She's a sturdy girl."
"Maybe I should inform the passengers there will be some...turbulence." Qupar suggested. "Tell them to strap in."
As Qupar left the bridge, Dendr turned up the pressure.
"Dude. This is sixty thousand credits." he said to Moira, ignoring her arched eyebrow at the nickname. "We really need to fucking do this. There's a lot riding on this. Don't fuck it up."
"You know we have a hundred fifty thousand worth of mail in the hold, right?" Moira replied acidly.
"Yeah..." Dendr deflated. "But this is from a rich lady."
Moira rolled her eyes at him, and concentrated on piloting the ship into position. Myles returned from engineering and took a seat at the sensor panel. He studied the screen and directed Moira between the eddies of the upper atmosphere from the gas giant. As they descended the ship started to rattle from turbulence. It wasn't a very smooth ride, and it would only get worse as they approached the small boat.
Myles called out headings to Moira, and she followed his instructions to the letter. Parappa knew it could be a lot worse if she didn't have his guidance, but he still clutched his squeaky pilot's chair nervously. Everyone on the bridge was strapped in, but sometimes a death grip on the arms of the seat could be a comfort in such a tense situation.
Qupar stumbled back onto the bridge and reported the passengers were all strapped in.
Several minutes of tense flying later they got a visual. They saw a figure wearing a hostile environment vacc suit, with a set of personal aerowings attached to the suit. He was connected to the ship's boat by a tether. The figure seemed to be atmo-surfing, an extreme sport only the most suicidally bored would undertake.
"What a fucking idiot." Moira sighed.
The figure in the vacc suit was flailing around uncontrollably, and as they watched he nearly collided with the boat several times. The person in the vacc suit had a tight grip on the tether and seemed to be pulling himself along firmly, trying to close the distance to the vessel in an attempt to perhaps board it again.
The boat seemed to be accelerating and decelerating randomly, gaining and losing altitude as they went along. Myles judged it to have engine trouble, probably an erratic drive failure the crew was trying hard to correct. That little boat wouldn't make it. It was only a matter of time for the drive to fail completely and the crew and the eccentric millionaire to crash into the gas giant.
"Can we tether to their boat, have them turn off their engines, and tow it into a safe orbit?" Myles wondered.
"That would have to be one hell of a tether." Moira replied. "Our best bet is probably to attach a tether and evacuate the passengers one at a time. Then untether and let the boat crash, while we get back to a safer altitude."
Moira motioned to Parappa to open a comm channel to the boat. A shrill screech blasted from the speakers.
"Sorry Moira. Lots of interference." Parappa tapped the console furiously in an attempt to establish connection to the boat.
Myles watched the man in the vacc suit frantically try to pull himself along the tether to the boat. His progress was at a snail's pace, and there was nothing they could do yet. He tore his gaze from the figure back to the comms panel just as Parappa managed to get a sloppy connection on his third attempt to establish communications.
"Orchid...skiff...thing that you are. This is the Penelope. Come in?" Dendr asked.
"We can read you... KKggGGGG...We can just ....GGGGKKKK ...barely read you." A voice crackled over the interference.
"I'll be as concise as I can. What the fuck is going on?"
"We were ....KKKKKGGGG...doing some ex..KKggGGGG..nal observations on this boat. We ......crew member outside, Lyle...KKggGGGG... ship's owner. We are exper....ing intermittent drive failure. We can't stabilise. ....crewmember outside."
"We can't stabilise your ship for you, but we are working on a solution to save you guys. Do you have the capability of tethering to other ships?"
"That's a negative...ggGGGG...facility on this ship."
"Well. Hunky dory." Dendr rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Do you have thrust?"
"....slight manoeuvring thrust, yes."
"If they can move close enough to the Penelope, maybe I can do an EVA rescue." Qupar suggested.
Moira flipped a switch on the dash to reach Myles in engineering. "We made contact, so the ship's power can be restored. Qupar is going to do an EVA rescue."
"He what?" Myles' voice came over the comms.
"I'll pilot the Penelopeinto position and try to hold her steady. Can you work on boosting the manoeuvring thrusters?" Then Moira nodded to Parappa, who started to prepare for this dangerous manoeuvre, then turned to Qupar. "You need to move it along. There's no way you can hold on for long out there."
"I'll suit up." Qupar left the bridge. As soon as he entered the airlock he signalled to the bridge he would start his EVA momentarily. The tether was attached to the inside of the airlock securely, and the other end clipped onto his vacc suit. He checked both of the connections, as he learned in his training all those years ago. He wasn't about to go skydiving into a gas giant without being absolutely sure he was secure.
The Penelopewas gliding along, matching course and speed with the small boat just below them, and Qupar carefully drifted alongside the Penelope, slowly making his way towards the first crewmember. They locked their right hands together, and the crewman clipped his safety line to Qupar. They made their way back up the tether hand over hand. After the first crewman was safely in the airlock, Qupar repeated the process with the second. So far so good.
The two crewmen were safely waiting in the open airlock for the third crewman to be collected. As long as Qupar was outside, they couldn't cycle the airlock, so they had to wait for them to return to safety.
Qupar checked where the third crew member was. He was in distress, flailing as he started to drift. There was no room for error - Qupar had to retrieve him right away.
As he finally approached him, he was flailing desperately instead of reaching out to grab Qupar. There was nothing for it. Qupar stretched his arm out and grabbed a handful of vacc suit with his left hand, and when he managed to pull the crewman in, he hooked his right arm around the man's shoulder. Something inside seemed to pop, but at least he had him.
As soon as the crewman was restrained, he stopped struggling and instead held onto Qupar tightly. Qupar started to move the tether between his hands while still holding onto the man, trusting the fellow didn't have a death wish and would hold onto him as well and not let go. When they reached the airlock, he collected the drifting tether and pushed the button to close the outer door of the airlock. Then he signalled the bridge. "All crew accounted for. Outer hatch secure."
As the airlock cycled and breathable atmosphere surrounded their suits they could hear the Penelope's engines humming louder. Through the small window in the airlock door they could see the small ship's boat hitting the bands of denser upper atmosphere of the gas giant. The nose cone of the boat started to glow brightly as it slowly started to burn up. The angle of descent had finally become too steep, and the boat would be going down and burning up in the gas giant very soon.
"Punch it Chewie!" Dendr laughed.
Moira smoothly raised the Penelope's nose up and to the left, and Parappa could hear her mutter her mantra. "Space is up. Space is safe."
The bridge door opened, and Qupar walked over to Dendr. He still had his vacc suit on, but the helmet tucked under his arm. "Call the wife. Give her the good news."
Qupar was followed swiftly by a very energetic man with a big beard, who from his demeanour could only be Lyle Alkini. "Oh! My! God! Wasn't that the best thrill ever?"
The rich idiot threw the helmet of his vacc suit over to Parappa to catch, and slung his arm over Qupar's shoulders. "Did you see that?! We're all...diving in there! And we're all...pulled around! Wow, the ride! The atmosphere! Ah! I never had one like it before!"
He drew back his arm quickly, which made Qupar stumble to regain his footing. Lyle continued on his manic happy vibes. "And you guys! You guys! Coming along with that... That was just amazing! The way you flew in there.... and just reached out and pulled us across... and rescued the crewmembers! It's just....whoa!"
Moira hung her head and rested it on her console, just groaning at the stupidity of that idiot. He had just wrecked a seven million dollar ship's boat to have a thrill. "Rich kids." she sighed softly.
"It was fifty each, right?" Qupar said with a smile.
"Sixty each." Dendr corrected him.
Qupar turned to Lyle, clasping his hands together and smiling benignly at Lyle. "Well, sir. Did you have a good time? I am...ah...so happy we could assist you."
"This was even better then the time ..." and Lyle launched into a long monologue of his former glorious adventures, with many details about his many death defying adventures of thrills and excitement. Parappa and Moira managed to rendez-vous with the Aphelian Orchid, connecting a crew tunnel to the other ship.
After Lyle's story wound to a close, Qupar carefully placed his arm around Lyle's shoulders. "Well good sir, I don't need to remind you we went out of our way to assist you in your endeavours, and one of your crew injured now as well. It would be so nice if you could help us out with a little show of gratitude while I take a look at your crewman's shoulder."
"Yeah, gratitude." Lyle cleared his throat. "Well, yes. I suppose there is some trifling reward for coming to assist us when you did?"
"I'll never forget this day, I'm sure." Qupar replied earnestly. He moved towards the crewman with the injured shoulder. It was dislocated and quite painful.
"Yes. Quite. Neither will I." Lyle seemed to deflate somewhat.
Dendr appeared from Myles' and Hasta's cabin with a bottle of belter Moonshine that Myles' mother had given them. "Let's drink to your adventures."
"Ah yes. That would be good to do, normally, but er..." Lyle started apologising. "Time to get a move on. If you just eh...let us board our ship and we'll sort out that trifling reward you mentioned and we'll be on our way.
"Oh my stars." Dendr smiled. "Is the great Lyle Alkini shit-scared of some belter moonshine after everything he's been through?"
"I don't think I like your tone." Lyle huffed defensively.
Right that very moment, Qupar tried to pop the poor crewman's dislocated shoulder back into the socket. The man let out an ear-splitting squeal of pain, and Lyle's head whipped around, perhaps expecting to see the crew levelling guns at him. As Qupar had failed to set the joint back properly, the poor young cadet was in horrible pain and tears were streaming down his face.
"Sorry about that." Moira apologised to Lyle and the cadet. "Doctor Qupar is better when people are unconscious."
The Penelope'scomputer happily beeped receival of credits and mister Alkini and crew hurriedly left the Penelope, not deigning to look back.
"Sixty thousand total." Dendr reported sadly. "The most fragile ego I've ever seen. I'm just disappointed."
"I'm sure the royalties for your book will make up for it." Qupar smiled. "That poor crewman though. I'm so sorry. Can you imagine working for such a man?"
They undocked from the Orchid and resumed their original course to leave the system.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Read the first entry in this campaign.
Qupar shook his head, remembering how Hasta had wanted to steal the pinnace. His roots in law enforcement were difficult to pry up and he couldn't help but imagine all the trouble such a theft would get them. At least stealing the vacc suits was a lesser crime. Lysari Laboratories could easily write off the loss of the vacc suits and probably wouldn't come after them.
Dendr's hair was still messed up from wrestling with the vacc suit -- taking off the suit had gone marginally better than putting it on, and he hadn't fallen over this time. The suit was piled in a heap at the foot of his bed, a testimony of his hatred for the thing. Qupar's bunk just held a brand new submachine gun he had picked up at the space port as well as some boxes of ammo. He wasn't about to go into another mission without a bit more firepower.
One by one they entered the bridge, their usual civvies on. Parappa was in his kaftan, which was designed to keep his skin moist. He had overseen the cargo they would be taking.
"Thirty tons of mail, some assorted tools and spare parts for wheeled and tracked vehicles." he reported to the crew as he took his seat at the pilot's station. "All stowed and secure."
"Our passengers are mostly military. Returning to Caladbolg from leave." Moira smiled at Hasta and Myles. "Last time we had this many passengers I couldn't focus on my studies, let's hope this time they'll be less trouble."
"I'm sure they will." Myles replied.
Dendr had communicated with space port control and with Parappa's soft touch the Penelope hummed gracefully towards the blackness of space. "The jump should be around seven days." Moira said.
As they circled around the gas giant, a beeping sound from the comms station caught their attention. "A distress call." Dendr reported. "Calling any ship in the vicinity to come to their assistance. They've run into some problems near the gas giant."
Moira changed course. "If other ships have responded, we could move on - but we should check it out to see what's going on."
"Hello? My name is Alinas Alkini of the Aphelian Orchid. We're having some problems and if you're in the area, could you please come to help? We require immediate assistance."
"Aphelian Orchid, this is the Penelope. Could you let us know the nature of your troubles?"
"We're on the edge of the gas giant and my husband and our crew are on a smaller boat. We had a permit for wilderness refuelling and I've lost contact with them. I can't seem to make any contact whatsoever, and I am quite scared and worried about them. Can you help us please? I really don't know what to do."
Dendr pretended to cover the microphone with a hand, but held it far enough away that it wasn't really blocking any of the sound. "We've got a recently widowed woman giving out a distress call near the gas giant."
"That's very, very rude." Alinas mumbled from the comm system. "That's horrible! No, I really need help. My husband...is out there."
"Oh, sorry. I was on a call to someone else, that wasn't about you."
"Yes, quite." Alinas huffed. "Can I send across our position?"
The data rolling in on one of the screens showed the ship, but it was clear interference from the gas giant was distorting the image. The ship that showed up on the screens was a nobles' yacht. It had sleek lines and looked almost fragile in comparison to the Penelope's work horse build. Clearly a pleasure ship allowing nobles to travel around in space in luxury.
"My husband went down with the crew for some wilderness refuelling, and after we lost contact I started to get worried. I am afraid he is in distress. Could you help me locate him? I am not one of the crew you see, so I don't know what I'm doing. It's not my forte."
"We're on a schedule, soo...." Dendr said hesitantly. "We do have people that expect us, they are paying good money for this cargo. And you're asking for..."
"I will recompense you if you will find my husband!" Alina quickly said.
"Oh! Why didn't you say so?" Dendr switched gears in a heartbeat. "Let's go."
"Wait. Alkini? Lyle Alkini?" Qupar asked. "There were articles in the newspapers on Iderati about this idiot. He's a known noble thrillseeker and risk-taker. I was wondering when he'd get himself killed. Did you hear he does asteroid-jumping? It's when you bounce from one asteroid to the next in an asteroid belt."
"Sounds like she's looking for someone a lot more stable." Dendr mused and smoothed his hair. Then he sighed. "With a steady income."
"We used to have an office pool about this guy. How many officers it would take to get this guy out of trouble." Qupar gestured at Dendr enthusiastically. "We always figured we'd get the call, run in, and find that it's just us and he's just gone off on his next adventure already."
Moira turned back to the comms panel with a frown. "What was your husband doing?"
"He took the ship's boat for refuelling. Skimming on the gas giant to get fuel so we can leave the system." Alinas replied.
"Allllright." Myles said, disbelief dripping from his tone. Surely people cruising such a yacht would have ample funds to pay the double price for fuel Datrillian was charging people. They'd have no need to refuel on the star itself. Then he collected himself, almost squaring his shoulders into attention. "We should help these people. As nobles, they will have a lot of pull."
"Can the Penelope actually drag the boat out of the upper atmosphere?" Qupar wondered. He'd never had to orchestrate a rescue mission in space before, and he wasn't briefed on what the Penelope's capabilities would be.
"The Penelope can go into the upper atmosphere of the gas giant, it's streamlined." Parappa pointed out.
"We should locate them first." Myles pointed out.
Parappa calculated a more optimal position to start triangulating the position of the boat, and they set to work. Dendr adjusted the sensors and coordinated with the data the Orchid sent, calibrating them to puncture the interference from the gas giant. He busied himself fiddling with the settings.
Myles went to engineering, to reroute some power to the sensors to boost the signal some more. There was a slight dimming of the lights on the bridge, and Dendr hummed happily as his sensor range increased. He seemed to tap buttons on the console at random, Parappa watching his moves with a frown on his face.
"Oh come here," the bwap sighed exasperatedly; "You don't know what you're doing!"
Parappa took over the comms panel and within seconds the screen changed into a less distorted image as the sensors Dendr had misaligned were calibrated properly from Parappa's expert touch. It took quite a bit longer to actually locate the small boat.
They found them!
The boat was a bit deeper into the gas giant's atmosphere than expected, and Moira asked if they could establish a comms connection with the small boat now that they had the location.
Dendr tried to tune the comms array, but the hiss of static came over the speakers. There was too much interference. Dendr let the Orchid know they had located the small boat.
"You found them!?" Alinas happily shouted; "I'll pay you fifty thousand credits if you can pull them out. No, sixty thousand!"
Dendr muted the comms and looked at Moira and Parappa questioningly. "Can we?"
"It shouldn't be any harder than flying into a volcano." Moira said deadpan. "She's a sturdy girl."
"Maybe I should inform the passengers there will be some...turbulence." Qupar suggested. "Tell them to strap in."
As Qupar left the bridge, Dendr turned up the pressure.
"Dude. This is sixty thousand credits." he said to Moira, ignoring her arched eyebrow at the nickname. "We really need to fucking do this. There's a lot riding on this. Don't fuck it up."
"You know we have a hundred fifty thousand worth of mail in the hold, right?" Moira replied acidly.
"Yeah..." Dendr deflated. "But this is from a rich lady."
Moira rolled her eyes at him, and concentrated on piloting the ship into position. Myles returned from engineering and took a seat at the sensor panel. He studied the screen and directed Moira between the eddies of the upper atmosphere from the gas giant. As they descended the ship started to rattle from turbulence. It wasn't a very smooth ride, and it would only get worse as they approached the small boat.
Myles called out headings to Moira, and she followed his instructions to the letter. Parappa knew it could be a lot worse if she didn't have his guidance, but he still clutched his squeaky pilot's chair nervously. Everyone on the bridge was strapped in, but sometimes a death grip on the arms of the seat could be a comfort in such a tense situation.
Qupar stumbled back onto the bridge and reported the passengers were all strapped in.
Several minutes of tense flying later they got a visual. They saw a figure wearing a hostile environment vacc suit, with a set of personal aerowings attached to the suit. He was connected to the ship's boat by a tether. The figure seemed to be atmo-surfing, an extreme sport only the most suicidally bored would undertake.
"What a fucking idiot." Moira sighed.
The figure in the vacc suit was flailing around uncontrollably, and as they watched he nearly collided with the boat several times. The person in the vacc suit had a tight grip on the tether and seemed to be pulling himself along firmly, trying to close the distance to the vessel in an attempt to perhaps board it again.
The boat seemed to be accelerating and decelerating randomly, gaining and losing altitude as they went along. Myles judged it to have engine trouble, probably an erratic drive failure the crew was trying hard to correct. That little boat wouldn't make it. It was only a matter of time for the drive to fail completely and the crew and the eccentric millionaire to crash into the gas giant.
"Can we tether to their boat, have them turn off their engines, and tow it into a safe orbit?" Myles wondered.
"That would have to be one hell of a tether." Moira replied. "Our best bet is probably to attach a tether and evacuate the passengers one at a time. Then untether and let the boat crash, while we get back to a safer altitude."
Moira motioned to Parappa to open a comm channel to the boat. A shrill screech blasted from the speakers.
"Sorry Moira. Lots of interference." Parappa tapped the console furiously in an attempt to establish connection to the boat.
Myles watched the man in the vacc suit frantically try to pull himself along the tether to the boat. His progress was at a snail's pace, and there was nothing they could do yet. He tore his gaze from the figure back to the comms panel just as Parappa managed to get a sloppy connection on his third attempt to establish communications.
"Orchid...skiff...thing that you are. This is the Penelope. Come in?" Dendr asked.
"We can read you... KKggGGGG...We can just ....GGGGKKKK ...barely read you." A voice crackled over the interference.
"I'll be as concise as I can. What the fuck is going on?"
"We were ....KKKKKGGGG...doing some ex..KKggGGGG..nal observations on this boat. We ......crew member outside, Lyle...KKggGGGG... ship's owner. We are exper....ing intermittent drive failure. We can't stabilise. ....crewmember outside."
"We can't stabilise your ship for you, but we are working on a solution to save you guys. Do you have the capability of tethering to other ships?"
"That's a negative...ggGGGG...facility on this ship."
"Well. Hunky dory." Dendr rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Do you have thrust?"
"....slight manoeuvring thrust, yes."
"If they can move close enough to the Penelope, maybe I can do an EVA rescue." Qupar suggested.
Moira flipped a switch on the dash to reach Myles in engineering. "We made contact, so the ship's power can be restored. Qupar is going to do an EVA rescue."
"He what?" Myles' voice came over the comms.
"I'll pilot the Penelopeinto position and try to hold her steady. Can you work on boosting the manoeuvring thrusters?" Then Moira nodded to Parappa, who started to prepare for this dangerous manoeuvre, then turned to Qupar. "You need to move it along. There's no way you can hold on for long out there."
"I'll suit up." Qupar left the bridge. As soon as he entered the airlock he signalled to the bridge he would start his EVA momentarily. The tether was attached to the inside of the airlock securely, and the other end clipped onto his vacc suit. He checked both of the connections, as he learned in his training all those years ago. He wasn't about to go skydiving into a gas giant without being absolutely sure he was secure.
The Penelopewas gliding along, matching course and speed with the small boat just below them, and Qupar carefully drifted alongside the Penelope, slowly making his way towards the first crewmember. They locked their right hands together, and the crewman clipped his safety line to Qupar. They made their way back up the tether hand over hand. After the first crewman was safely in the airlock, Qupar repeated the process with the second. So far so good.
The two crewmen were safely waiting in the open airlock for the third crewman to be collected. As long as Qupar was outside, they couldn't cycle the airlock, so they had to wait for them to return to safety.
Qupar checked where the third crew member was. He was in distress, flailing as he started to drift. There was no room for error - Qupar had to retrieve him right away.
As he finally approached him, he was flailing desperately instead of reaching out to grab Qupar. There was nothing for it. Qupar stretched his arm out and grabbed a handful of vacc suit with his left hand, and when he managed to pull the crewman in, he hooked his right arm around the man's shoulder. Something inside seemed to pop, but at least he had him.
As soon as the crewman was restrained, he stopped struggling and instead held onto Qupar tightly. Qupar started to move the tether between his hands while still holding onto the man, trusting the fellow didn't have a death wish and would hold onto him as well and not let go. When they reached the airlock, he collected the drifting tether and pushed the button to close the outer door of the airlock. Then he signalled the bridge. "All crew accounted for. Outer hatch secure."
As the airlock cycled and breathable atmosphere surrounded their suits they could hear the Penelope's engines humming louder. Through the small window in the airlock door they could see the small ship's boat hitting the bands of denser upper atmosphere of the gas giant. The nose cone of the boat started to glow brightly as it slowly started to burn up. The angle of descent had finally become too steep, and the boat would be going down and burning up in the gas giant very soon.
"Punch it Chewie!" Dendr laughed.
Moira smoothly raised the Penelope's nose up and to the left, and Parappa could hear her mutter her mantra. "Space is up. Space is safe."
The bridge door opened, and Qupar walked over to Dendr. He still had his vacc suit on, but the helmet tucked under his arm. "Call the wife. Give her the good news."
Qupar was followed swiftly by a very energetic man with a big beard, who from his demeanour could only be Lyle Alkini. "Oh! My! God! Wasn't that the best thrill ever?"
The rich idiot threw the helmet of his vacc suit over to Parappa to catch, and slung his arm over Qupar's shoulders. "Did you see that?! We're all...diving in there! And we're all...pulled around! Wow, the ride! The atmosphere! Ah! I never had one like it before!"
He drew back his arm quickly, which made Qupar stumble to regain his footing. Lyle continued on his manic happy vibes. "And you guys! You guys! Coming along with that... That was just amazing! The way you flew in there.... and just reached out and pulled us across... and rescued the crewmembers! It's just....whoa!"
Moira hung her head and rested it on her console, just groaning at the stupidity of that idiot. He had just wrecked a seven million dollar ship's boat to have a thrill. "Rich kids." she sighed softly.
"It was fifty each, right?" Qupar said with a smile.
"Sixty each." Dendr corrected him.
Qupar turned to Lyle, clasping his hands together and smiling benignly at Lyle. "Well, sir. Did you have a good time? I am...ah...so happy we could assist you."
"This was even better then the time ..." and Lyle launched into a long monologue of his former glorious adventures, with many details about his many death defying adventures of thrills and excitement. Parappa and Moira managed to rendez-vous with the Aphelian Orchid, connecting a crew tunnel to the other ship.
After Lyle's story wound to a close, Qupar carefully placed his arm around Lyle's shoulders. "Well good sir, I don't need to remind you we went out of our way to assist you in your endeavours, and one of your crew injured now as well. It would be so nice if you could help us out with a little show of gratitude while I take a look at your crewman's shoulder."
"Yeah, gratitude." Lyle cleared his throat. "Well, yes. I suppose there is some trifling reward for coming to assist us when you did?"
"I'll never forget this day, I'm sure." Qupar replied earnestly. He moved towards the crewman with the injured shoulder. It was dislocated and quite painful.
"Yes. Quite. Neither will I." Lyle seemed to deflate somewhat.
Dendr appeared from Myles' and Hasta's cabin with a bottle of belter Moonshine that Myles' mother had given them. "Let's drink to your adventures."
"Ah yes. That would be good to do, normally, but er..." Lyle started apologising. "Time to get a move on. If you just eh...let us board our ship and we'll sort out that trifling reward you mentioned and we'll be on our way.
"Oh my stars." Dendr smiled. "Is the great Lyle Alkini shit-scared of some belter moonshine after everything he's been through?"
"I don't think I like your tone." Lyle huffed defensively.
Right that very moment, Qupar tried to pop the poor crewman's dislocated shoulder back into the socket. The man let out an ear-splitting squeal of pain, and Lyle's head whipped around, perhaps expecting to see the crew levelling guns at him. As Qupar had failed to set the joint back properly, the poor young cadet was in horrible pain and tears were streaming down his face.
"Sorry about that." Moira apologised to Lyle and the cadet. "Doctor Qupar is better when people are unconscious."
The Penelope'scomputer happily beeped receival of credits and mister Alkini and crew hurriedly left the Penelope, not deigning to look back.
"Sixty thousand total." Dendr reported sadly. "The most fragile ego I've ever seen. I'm just disappointed."
"I'm sure the royalties for your book will make up for it." Qupar smiled. "That poor crewman though. I'm so sorry. Can you imagine working for such a man?"
They undocked from the Orchid and resumed their original course to leave the system.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Read the first entry in this campaign.
