Sargasso of Souls – Session 4
As soon as Mark and Veldin completed their analysis of the probe data they excitedly called a meeting to relay their findings.
A lot of it was just scientific mumbo-jumbo to me, but the gist of it was that, with a few minor modifications, they believed the Salvation was capable of repeating the probe’s descent to the planet’s surface.
Despite the fact that the final moments of footage from the probe camera showed it being eaten by a large predator with metallic teeth and gaping maw, both Ramsay and Phipps were more than keen to attempt a landing as soon as the necessary modifications could be made.
Feeling significantly less enthusiastic about this proposal than they were, I looked across at Morris and tried to gauge whether he was asleep or just pretending. I’d been around long enough to know that planet-fall was hazardous and that if something dangerous needed to be done it would be us grunts that would be in the thick of it.
A lengthy debate went on between Ramsay and Razor regarding whether to let Stanford Enterprises in on the deal. Mark believed that the information we now had was a powerful bargaining chip and that to make the most of it we should keep it under wraps until later, while Razor maintained that we didn’t have the clout to exploit the planet on our own and would need to form a partnership with someone to get anything useful from it. Bill Stanford was an obvious choice and, if we were up-front with him from the start, his dealings with us were liable to be pretty fair.
Personally I was inclined to go along with Razor. Thus far he’d demonstrated that his business instincts were sound. Ramsay on the other hand seemed to have largely forgotten that, for the moment, Nessence Transit was a small fish in a very big pond.
Eventually it was agreed that we would inform Bill Stanford we were making an attempt to reach the planet surface and ask him if he would consider a partnership should the mission prove successful.
And so, over the next few days, while Razor and Samantha Wiles were keeping on top of the day-to-day running of Nessence Transit, Ramsay and Phipps eagerly began preparing for the mission.
Ramsay scrutinized the probe telemetry and plotted what he believed to be a viable route to the planet surface, while Veldin sourced as many charge capacitors as he could obtain and had them installed on the Salvation to protect it from the extreme atmospheric conditions.
As I had suspected, though nobody had cared to mention it to us, it was assumed from the outset that Morris and I would be taking a security team along to baby-sit in case there was trouble with the wildlife. Like I said, it’s always us dumb grunts that end up doing all the dirty work. Consequently we were busy putting our newly formed security team through their paces and selecting a small number of them for the mission.
Amidst all the preparation Razor attended his first meeting of the station executive council and, by all accounts, made quite an impression. He made a number of proposals including reintroducing currency in order to stabilise the system’s economy and setting up a system-wide council. However for those present the steadily worsening refugee problem was the largest concern. It was decided that construction would immediately commence on additional habitation modules, though this was merely a drop in the ocean. A long-term solution would need to be found… and soon.
After the meeting, as had been discussed, Razor made our intentions known to Bill Stanford and negotiated a gentleman’s agreement concerning the exploitation of Esperi IV. Should our mission to the surface prove it a viable proposition Bill was very interested in a partnership. Ramsay remained sceptical but I for one felt more secure knowing we had at least some support from Stanford Industries. I think the same went for most of the others.
And so, on the 9th July 2106, after preparations were completed, we left Bharat Station heading for the planet Storm.
On board the Salvation was an eleven-man crew composed of Ramsay, Phipps, Maya Zakowski (a recent recruit to Nessence Transit’s team of medics), John Harris and Ford Strauss (mining specialists), Franz Bauer (the data analyst who had given us the probe data in the first place) and a five-man security element consisting of myself, Morris, Barbara Hollis, Ian Bell and John Pietersen.
We didn’t know what to expect but we’d done our best to prepare ourselves for whatever might lay ahead.
A few hours later the Salvation was above the planet making its final approach.
The shuttle bucked violently as it hurtled into the outer atmosphere, juddering and lurching from side-to-side as it passed through ferocious turbulence. Dark clouds boiled all around and huge arcs of lightning repeatedly lashed against the hull. Visibility was almost zero. I held on tightly and prayed that the charge capacitors would hold. Not that we would have known much about it if they hadn’t. It would have all been over pretty quickly. A single mistake in Ramsay’s flight-path calculations would have had a similarly catastrophic result. The whole of the descent was blind so if he got it wrong by a fraction we would have become intimately acquainted with the planet’s surface.
However, after the buffeting had continued for some time, with the Salvation’s engines screaming in protest, we began to level out and then suddenly erupted from the turbulent morass of darkness to find ourselves streaking between jagged peaks, across the rocky, alien landscape.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I’m no pilot but that had to have taken some pretty nifty flying.
With lightning still arcing down from above to strike the Salvation’s hull, Ramsay wasted no time and headed directly for the canyon where he intended to make a landing. Even with the charge capacitors soaking up most of the energy, the shuttle could not take such punishment for long.
We passed over a flat plain littered with strange, conical rock formations and then entered the mouth of the canyon. At least, once we were in the defile, the pummelling from the lightning strikes relented.
Ominous rock walls loomed either side of us and, as the canyon narrowed still further, Ramsay brought the Salvation in for a slightly heavy landing. The shuttle lurched to one side and there was a shriek of rending metal. Then everything was silent except for the deep rumbling of thunder and the howling of the wind.
A moment after I had registered the cessation of movement I was up and prepping the security team for disembarkation. While we suited up and checked our weapons, Ramsay and Phipps took bio-readings to ensure it was safe to venture out into the atmosphere.
The scans indicated that contaminants were present and it would most likely be harmful if we weren’t suited, but the atmosphere wasn’t corrosive and radiation was well within tolerance levels, so Ramsay gave us the thumbs up to go. We cycled the air lock and stepped out into a dust-filled gale. Even with our suit lights the visibility was extremely poor. Through the storm we could vaguely make out the dark brooding skies boiling in fury above us, and every few seconds our surroundings were briefly illuminated by flashes of lightning that arced overhead beyond the rim of the canyon. Everything else was just a roaring of wind and darkness.
We completed a sweep of the area immediately surrounding the shuttle although it was impossible to be sure we hadn’t missed something. In the conditions, if there had been an alien creature nearby, we could have passed within a few metres of it without seeing anything.
We maintained as tight a perimeter as possible while Harris and Strauss emerged and deployed the charge dissipation rods. According to their calculations it would take around thirty-six hours to discharge the capacitors, so we would be stuck on the planet for a while.
Also there was some minor damage to the right wing that needed to be repaired.
Fortunately Veldin had the necessary skills, since there were no flight crew other than Ramsay aboard. An omission that I found rather startling once my attention had been drawn to it. I wondered on what basis Ramsay and Phipps had put the mission team together and kicked myself for not ensuring we were better prepared. Due to my reservations about the mission I had left them to get on with it. I hoped I would not have cause to regret it and told myself I would not let it happen again.
Since Phipps was chomping at the bit to explore the wonders of the alien world, we conducted a number of surveys a short distance away from the ship, up and down the canyon. After all that was the reason we were there.
Each survey team was comprised of two scientists (Phipps and either Harris or Strauss) and a three-man security detail. The remaining two members of the security team always stayed behind to protect the Salvation.
Bauer and Zakowski also remained on the shuttle, as did Ramsay, who despite his initial eagerness to get down to the planet surface now complained of headaches and argued vehemently that, as he was the only pilot, he should stay with the ship.
It appeared that Ramsay wasn’t exactly a “lead from the front” kind of guy.
Still, it was his and Phipps’s show so Morris and I got on with it and did what we were told.
To Phipps’s growing excitement, over the course of the day, we discovered a variety of intriguing facts about the planet and its ecology.
Our radio comms were next to useless at anything over about twenty metres. Combined with the atrocious visibility, there was a significant risk of losing someone if we weren’t extremely careful.
The canyon floor was smooth and glass-like, almost as though the rock there had been seared with plasma, and there was a small river flowing along a gully at its centre. To all intents and purposes the liquid in the gully was H2O.
Among other things, Bauer analysed the dimensions and distribution of the strange conical rock formations that we had observed during our descent and determined that, though their size and dispersal appeared largely random, they were all regular in shape.
We also encountered expanses of a red lichen-like substance that grew in large patches on the plain beyond the canyon. It seemed that this lichen acted as a reservoir for electrostatic energy and that the charge that built up was released upon contact, apparently as some kind of natural defence mechanism. The indigenous life forms appeared to be largely resistant to damage from electricity and hence the effect was primarily a deterrent, but if one of us should stumble into a field of the stuff it might well prove fatal.
Our final discovery of the day was potentially the most concerning. As it seemed that those that had been outside the ship for any length of time started to feel fatigued and mildly disorientated. At first we thought it was just the lack of visibility playing on everyone’s nerves and making all of us a little edgy but as the day wore on it seemed to be something more.
Veldin and Maya Zakowski gave everyone a thorough examination but could find nothing wrong other than a slight chemical imbalance. However Veldin observed that little was understood about the effects of extreme electromagnetic forces on the body and he theorised that fatigue, headaches and disorientation might well be brought on by the intensity of the electromagnetic fields that surged across the planet’s surface.
Despite remaining aboard the Salvation the whole time, Ramsay seemed to be the worst affected.
After a meal and liberal application of painkillers we started to feel a little better and did our best to get some rest. However sleep didn’t come easy that night. I lay in my bunk listening to the wind thrashing against the Salvation’s hull and watching the continual strobe of the lightning outside.
The next morning Harris proposed venturing further into the canyon to see how far the strangely flattened, glass-like surface extended. Once again Ramsay felt this was a good idea, despite being disinclined to participate himself. Consequently it was Morris, Phipps, Harris, Pietersen and I that left the Salvation a few hours later and trudged off into the swirling dust storm.
Acting on an idea that he and Strauss had come up with, Harris carried a reel of fibre-optic cable that he unwound behind us in order to maintain communications with the shuttle. It seemed to work pretty well, though I wasn’t the one who had to lug it around with me.
To my delight we discovered that the flattened area only went a short distance up the canyon; beyond it a field of red lichen blocked our path. We were just about to turn round and head back to the Salvation when Harris spotted a dark recess in the canyon wall.
“What’s that over there?” he said, pointing.
Upon investigation it turned out to be the entrance to a cave. Morris and I moved up to the opening and dubiously surveyed the dark interior. At least it was sheltered from the gale.
“Might as well take a look”, Veldin suggested hopefully.
“Affirmative” squawked Ramsay over our headsets. “Go ahead”
I debated telling him to “F**k off” but then Morris shrugged and went in so I followed him. Being a grunt that was my job.
Inside the cave was largely non-descript other than at the very back. There the wall was almost entirely smooth and made up of hexagonal crystalline tiles. According to Phipps it was a phenomenon similar in nature to ancient designs that had been found on Mars.
“We’ve hit the jackpot here!” he exclaimed with far greater enthusiasm than I felt the circumstances warranted.
“I guess we won’t be going back just yet then?” I muttered to no one in particular.
