Realtime Traveller: Year 518, Days 335, 336, and 337
Day 335
Location: Starport, Touchdown City, Promise
Sorry it has taken so long to update. This job has been keeping me busy!
I was not disappointed when I saw the air/raft the Professor had chartered. A Skylark D-6, pretty much the same machine I flew the last four years, minus the armor and guns. Not surprising, it is the largest craft a civilian can fly without a commercial license. Fully pressurized and with fusion jets, it tops out a hair over mach 1, with a more sedate cruising speed of 500 kilometers an hour. The rental clerk was Avery, a guy I dated once as a sophomore. Awkward. The Gunsmart drone's arrival was a convenient excuse to get away.
I had put my duffle in the locker next to the tiny 'fresher and was stashing my gun case next to the pilot's seat when I heard the Professor yelling outside. I went to the ramp. He was standing by a grav-pallet loaded with a pyramid of equipment, but apparently not his, "Neptune-damned tunable gamma ray source."
He eventually hung up and reported that we would be delayed a few hours waiting for this supposedly critical piece of gear. We spent the next hour loading up the Skylark. He was very particular about where everything went, and kept referring to notes on his phone.
After that he opened a few storage crates and started attaching things on the bulkhead next to the loading ramp. I took my phone and wandered outside. I had his coordinates for our landing zone. I checked on the weather. A major typhoon and a few smaller ones on the other side of the planet, but nothing in our way, so I filed a flight plan. I was back in the pilot's seat slowly going through my check list when the gamma ray source arrived via courier drone. The professor had managed to use the spare time to set up his computer and other stuff in a spiffy combo folding jump seat and workbench bolted to the bulkhead.
The device sat on the tarmac. A solid matte black cube a meter on the side of plastic that was a LOT heavier than it looked. No wheels, no grav pallet. It took both of us to tip the thing up on one corner at a time and rotate it up the ramp and into place. It slotted neatly into the spot the Professor had left cleared for it. We were both red in the face and huffing as we leaned back against the other cargo. We shared a laugh before we buttoned up the craft and took off for the South Polar Mass.
Illustration by Sparth
Day 336
Location: Houghton, then SPM, Promise
After 10 hours in the air and with two more to go, I checked the weather sats to look at our LZ. Total blizzard. So I redirected to Promise's most southern reach of civilization, the city of Houghton. Nights are short for them at this time of year, but they sure do like to light themselves up! The delay in getting to the South Polar Mass did not make the Professor happy. We slept in the pilot and co-pilot chairs, because there was no other space. His snoring woke me up, but I put in my ear buds and set them on noise cancellation.
The blizzard had passed by morning. We ate from the cereal and milk provisions we had packed and took off. Hela Primary was blazing on the horizon. The low angle of the light made for an easy landing on the ice. I picked a spot well clear of any visible crevasses.
First we dragged that gamma ray source off the ramp, and instead of moving it any further, I moved the 'raft away from it. Then we spent the rest of the 'day' off loading and setting up the emergency shelter and the power hut before retreating back to a hot meal and the warmth of the Skylark. In spite of the cold weather gear, my fingers and ass were freezing. I don't remember climbing into the pilot's chair to go to sleep.
Illustration by Obidanshinobi80
Day 337
Location: South Polar Mass, Promise
The Professor was in a much better mood this morning. Over breakfast I asked him what the gamma thing was for. "Well once I switch it on, it will send pulses of gamma rays down into the ice that's filling up this valley below us. When those pulses hit land or anything else, they will scatter back to the surface, where detectors I set up by the cargo ramp will detect them as we fly overhead."
"That's cool... which of us is the lucky one that gets to go out and turn that thing on?"
"Ha! Don't worry I have a remote."
Then started the most boring day I've had since leaving the Army. Flying a grid search while the professor's sensors built up a subsurface map. Slowly.
Back down on the ice, after dinner, we talked a little more. "Your cousin tells me you are heading off world soon? Why is that?" he asked.
"My former CO once told me there are two kinds of people in this galaxy: Settlers and Travellers."
"Were they a Traveller?"
"She would have been, but she died."
Illustration by Sparth
Location: Starport, Touchdown City, Promise
Sorry it has taken so long to update. This job has been keeping me busy!
I was not disappointed when I saw the air/raft the Professor had chartered. A Skylark D-6, pretty much the same machine I flew the last four years, minus the armor and guns. Not surprising, it is the largest craft a civilian can fly without a commercial license. Fully pressurized and with fusion jets, it tops out a hair over mach 1, with a more sedate cruising speed of 500 kilometers an hour. The rental clerk was Avery, a guy I dated once as a sophomore. Awkward. The Gunsmart drone's arrival was a convenient excuse to get away.
I had put my duffle in the locker next to the tiny 'fresher and was stashing my gun case next to the pilot's seat when I heard the Professor yelling outside. I went to the ramp. He was standing by a grav-pallet loaded with a pyramid of equipment, but apparently not his, "Neptune-damned tunable gamma ray source."
He eventually hung up and reported that we would be delayed a few hours waiting for this supposedly critical piece of gear. We spent the next hour loading up the Skylark. He was very particular about where everything went, and kept referring to notes on his phone.
After that he opened a few storage crates and started attaching things on the bulkhead next to the loading ramp. I took my phone and wandered outside. I had his coordinates for our landing zone. I checked on the weather. A major typhoon and a few smaller ones on the other side of the planet, but nothing in our way, so I filed a flight plan. I was back in the pilot's seat slowly going through my check list when the gamma ray source arrived via courier drone. The professor had managed to use the spare time to set up his computer and other stuff in a spiffy combo folding jump seat and workbench bolted to the bulkhead.
The device sat on the tarmac. A solid matte black cube a meter on the side of plastic that was a LOT heavier than it looked. No wheels, no grav pallet. It took both of us to tip the thing up on one corner at a time and rotate it up the ramp and into place. It slotted neatly into the spot the Professor had left cleared for it. We were both red in the face and huffing as we leaned back against the other cargo. We shared a laugh before we buttoned up the craft and took off for the South Polar Mass.
Illustration by Sparth
Day 336
Location: Houghton, then SPM, Promise
After 10 hours in the air and with two more to go, I checked the weather sats to look at our LZ. Total blizzard. So I redirected to Promise's most southern reach of civilization, the city of Houghton. Nights are short for them at this time of year, but they sure do like to light themselves up! The delay in getting to the South Polar Mass did not make the Professor happy. We slept in the pilot and co-pilot chairs, because there was no other space. His snoring woke me up, but I put in my ear buds and set them on noise cancellation.
The blizzard had passed by morning. We ate from the cereal and milk provisions we had packed and took off. Hela Primary was blazing on the horizon. The low angle of the light made for an easy landing on the ice. I picked a spot well clear of any visible crevasses.
First we dragged that gamma ray source off the ramp, and instead of moving it any further, I moved the 'raft away from it. Then we spent the rest of the 'day' off loading and setting up the emergency shelter and the power hut before retreating back to a hot meal and the warmth of the Skylark. In spite of the cold weather gear, my fingers and ass were freezing. I don't remember climbing into the pilot's chair to go to sleep.
Illustration by Obidanshinobi80
Day 337
Location: South Polar Mass, Promise
The Professor was in a much better mood this morning. Over breakfast I asked him what the gamma thing was for. "Well once I switch it on, it will send pulses of gamma rays down into the ice that's filling up this valley below us. When those pulses hit land or anything else, they will scatter back to the surface, where detectors I set up by the cargo ramp will detect them as we fly overhead."
"That's cool... which of us is the lucky one that gets to go out and turn that thing on?"
"Ha! Don't worry I have a remote."
Then started the most boring day I've had since leaving the Army. Flying a grid search while the professor's sensors built up a subsurface map. Slowly.
Back down on the ice, after dinner, we talked a little more. "Your cousin tells me you are heading off world soon? Why is that?" he asked.
"My former CO once told me there are two kinds of people in this galaxy: Settlers and Travellers."
"Were they a Traveller?"
"She would have been, but she died."
Illustration by Sparth
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