Return to Sol: Star Rise Page 3
Cary muttered something aloud, letting the comms pick up and transmit the sound.
A plume of gas rose so high above the rest of the cloudtops that it cast a shadow for hundreds of kilometers across the world’s surface.
Cary nodded as thin tendrils of cloud began to whip past them, the trio now moving at hundreds of meters per second relative to Roma. It wouldn’t be long before their retro boosters fired and their chutes deployed.
They only had to slow down to under a thousand kilometers per hour for the platform’s a-grav systems to grab them and draw them to safety, where a shuttle ride back to Normandy would await them.
But maybe not right away.
The clouds grew thicker around them, the atmospheric density almost at the level where the chute would be most effective. Large cumulous formations loomed to the north, lightning flickering between them, beams of energy shooting out into space as unimaginably powerful discharges surged through the diffuse gases.
From five AU distant, Canaan Prime’s light on Roma was like a cloudy day back on Carthage, and as they sank deeper into the gas giant, that light grew dimmer and dimmer.
A bolt of lightning streaked through the clouds directly below the trio, and Cary let out a small shriek.
Faleena said.
Her words were interrupted by a system-wide alert coming in over the emergency channels.
Cary turned to look at her sisters only to realize that they were no longer visible in the planet’s deepening gloom.
Faleena’s initial response was more of a grunt, followed by,
Cary felt a tug, and the clouds began to form a funnel around her.
Her sisters sent acknowledgment, and the trio fell silent. Cary was speculating what could be happening above Roma’s clouds, but didn’t want to voice her fears lest they amplify the others’.
Her HUD gave a countdown to chute deployment, and when it reached time, the jerk was almost comforting, pulling her out of her reverie and demanding she focus on the dark clouds within Roma’s atmosphere.
Cary forced herself to enjoy the last few minutes of falling through Roma’s deepening dusk, using her extra-dimensional vision to peer into the planet’s depths, where she could make out flickers of light.
At first she thought it was lightning, but the more she focused on what was directly below her, the more she suspected it was Roma’s core, the liquid metallic hydrogen ball at the center of the gas giant, a state of matter not found anywhere else in the universe.
Probably.
It would be incredibly hot, but that was not the energy Cary could see. It was something else, and she found herself wondering if she could travel that deep to find out—were she not still encapsulated in a corporeal form.
Then something moved across her view, blotting out the light below. For a moment, she feared that there was something alive in the depths, but then a signal hit her Link, and she realized it was the platform.
You’ve been watching too many space monster vids, girl.
The grav field intensified, slowing her down at a rather unpleasant six gs, until her relative velocity was only a hundred kilometers per hour. From there, the final segment of the descent made her feel like she was a petal drifting to the ground. The platform’s lights shone up through the center of the vortex the a-grav field created, lighting up the three sisters.
Faleena said as their feet touched the platform’s landing pad.
A walkway lit up, and the three women strode across the pad toward it, the air almost eerily still around them as Roma’s endless storms raged just a hundred meters away.
The outer door closed behind the trio, and Roma’s toxic gases were vented and replaced with breathable air. Once the green light lit above the inner door, Cary pulled off her helmet and unpinned her hair, letting it shake free.
“Someone needs to get a better anti-fog system in these things,” she said.
Faleena winked as she pulled hers off. “You could just not breathe.”
“Easy for you to say,” Saanvi replied. “A bit harder for us.”
The AI shrugged. “It’s a solvable problem, even for you two. Either way, I imagine that the nanocoating normally used on these things was diverted to helmets for the ISF, not planet-diving.”
Cary nodded absently.
Now that they were within the facility, she tapped into the comm systems and attempted to reach out to Normandy for an update on the situation above.
“Well, that’s not good.” She turned to her sisters to see distraught expressions on their faces.
“I take it you just tried to reach Normandy, too?” Saanvi asked.
They all nodded, and Faleena said, “Looks like that storm spawned a few followers, and they’re shooting too much lightning around. Let’s get to the shuttle and head back up.”
A small gasp came from Saanvi. “That looks to be our second problem.”
She passed the other two a platform status update, which showed no return shuttle docked at the facility. A feed of the bay confirmed that no craft was present.
“That sucks…” Cary muttered. “The thing departed shortly after we did, I wonder what happened.”
“Not sure,” Faleena replied. “But if we don’t get back soon, Normandy will send out an update listing our location as ‘unknown’. Someone will come.”
Cary pursed her lips, trying not to let an impotent rage take her over. “OK…well…I guess we should see what food stores this place has. Diving is hungry work.”
“Lately, everything is hungry work for you,” Saanvi said. “You’re like the carb queen.”
“Huh…I guess I kinda am.”
> Faleena winked. “Probably due to your ascension to goddesshood.”
Cary’s stomach rumbled loudly, and she gave a sheepish grin. “Well, your goddess must be mollified. Let’s find the galley.”
Twenty minutes and a few air-fried BLTs later, Cary was feeling sated and ready to tackle the problem of how to get off the dive platform. While waiting for rescue may not take that long, with the system under attack, she wanted to be an asset not a burden.
She was still reviewing options when Faleena thrust a fist in the air. “I think I have an idea!”
“Is it using the a-grav systems to lift us out of the clouds? Because with the way this thing floats on vac chambers, I’m not sure that’s possible,” Saanvi considered around a mouthful of BLT.
Faleena deflated a modicum. “Well, yeah, I mean that’s obvious. But the question is how. It’s one thing to keep the platform in place—which is buoyant at this depth—but quite another to even reach low orbit. The a-grav system doesn’t have enough thrust for that.”
“Now you’re just getting all fancy,” Cary said as she rose and walked to the chiller, selecting a fruit drink. “Talking about buoyancy and thrust.”
The AI cocked her head and gave her sister a puzzled look. “Uhhh…OK?”
“It was funnier—and less lascivious—in my head.”
“Do you need a nap?” Saanvi asked with mock concern before turning to Faleena. “I have an idea too, but what’s yours?”
Faleena gave Cary a final, measuring look before continuing. “Well, there are four pads like the ones we landed on. They have high-projection, low-energy a-grav emitters. However, I think we could swap those to release some serious waves of negative gravitons.”
“That’s not really going to do much,” Saanvi said. “It’ll just pull clouds down toward us. Sure, it’ll make the platform a little more buoyant, but it’ll probably just pull us up a few dozen kilometers.”
“I think we could get fifty,” Faleena replied. “And that might be enough to get above the interference and send out a signal.”
“I’d rather get out of here ourselves,” Cary said. “A signal just takes someone from more important work.”
Faleena cocked an eyebrow. “Or it lets us call down another shuttle from Normandy.”
Saanvi shrugged. “I guess there’s that. Worth giving it a shot.”
“Wait,” Cary asked. “What was your plan, Sahn?”
“Uhh…it was a bit more radical.”
“How so?” Faleena leant forward, chin resting on her hands. “Were you thinking of flipping the platform?”
“How’d you guess?!”
The AI shrugged. “Because it’s my backup plan.”
“So…” Cary took a long draw from her fruit drink’s pouch before picking up her helmet. “I assume we have to get out there to reconfigure the emitters?”
“Yeah,” Saanvi replied, nodding as she stood. “And there’s another storm coming, so we’d better do it fast, or the platform is going to have to cross from the equatorial zone to the next band down to pull this off.”
Cary drew a deep breath.
Like with most hydrogen gas giants, the lighter zones and darker bands traveled in opposite directions around the planet. The wind shear they’d experience transitioning between the two was not something she would look forward to riding out in a ship, let alone a floating platform.
“Well, then, girls, let’s get to it.”
* * * * *
Cary double-checked the emitter’s configuration before re-inserting it into the platform’s perimeter ring. Behind her, one of the repair bots was resealing the casings and running stress tests on the housings to make sure that the pads—which normally caught a few humans’ worth of mass—would handle the strain of pulling up a sixty-thousand-ton platform.
The clouds had changed in color, shifting from their customary light blue hue to a deeper, almost purple color. That meant there was gas from the southern band being drawn into the equatorial zone, a sign that the storm approaching was changing course along with them.
With the emitter back in place, Cary clipped her secondary tether to the pad’s outer railing and then moved her primary tether to it. Her suit’s maglock boots were likely enough to hold her in place, but with the winds now gusting at over three hundred kilometers per hour relative to the platform, she wasn’t interested in taking any chances.
Back at the outer railing, she worked her way around to the final emitter, taking a moment to glance over the edge at the depths lurking below. The strange glow was still visible, dancing like sunlight reflecting in water, the shifting patterns both enticing and somehow a warning.
An urge to jump over the edge came over her, a sensation that the solution to all her problems lay in Roma’s core, though she knew not what that could be. Even if she were to shed her mortal coil, there was no guarantee that it would be possible to claw her way back up from the depths.
I’d ask Tangel, but…well…
It occurred to her that Bob would likely know what lay in Roma’s heart. She wondered if he would be honest with her if she asked. The multinodal AI had a history of only sharing what he thought was pertinent when asked a question.
Cary gave a derisive laugh.
Cary slipped her timeline a bit, taking a few extra minutes due to the repair bot finding microfractures in a housing. The replacement didn’t take long to install, but with the storm closing in, the minutes felt far longer than they had any right to.
Her sisters were waiting for her at the airlock, and they gave her welcoming nods before closing the outer door and cycling it.
The platform had a small control center, rarely used since the structure had been under automated control for most of the time it had been in service. Inside, there was a single console with two seats, and a holodisplay on the wall they faced.
Saanvi laughed as she fastened her seat’s harness.
Cary nodded soberly and brought up the readings from the platform’s a-grav emitters, both the ones that held it aloft, as well as the units set into the landing pads.
First, she increased output for the main a-grav emitters beneath the platform, pushing it higher into the atmosphere, and giving it a slight angle to increase velocity. If they could travel with the clouds rather than against them, it would consume less energy and help them rise further aloft.
ust tear themselves out of the housings.
The deck lurched up beneath the three women as the first wave of negative gravitons surged out of the upper pads. Cary scanned the readings and breathed a sigh of relief to see that the emitters were all still in place and functional.
Cary nodded as another wave fired, jerking the platform upward again. A low groan sounded around them, but all the structural integrity readings remained steady.
The response elicited a laugh from Faleena.
Cary nodded as she triggered another surge, using it to shift the platform and slow their movement to let the storm’s updraft throw them higher.
The platform was now over a hundred and fifty kilometers higher than its original position, reaching the point where the buoyancy created by its vacuum chambers began to lose effectiveness.