New to the series: start here
From the ashes of forgotten space dreams, a new era of exploration begins.
Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss any future episodes.
Previously: the crew wake up on the morning of the first expedition. Whilst they are excited to get going, Lana worries about the crew dynamics on the expedition.
September 2056
Lana picked up her helmet from the shelf above where her EVA suit had been hanging. This was only the second time she had been outside in the week or so they had been at the hab. The others were getting to have all the fun. But this was her mission to run and she was determined to do it to the best of her ability. “Don’t be afraid to delegate things. You are the commander,” Larsson had said in his video message a couple of days after landing. It was amazing just how much “admin” there was to keep five other people working in something that loosely resembled a harmonious group. She was finding her feet though, and helping out the others where they needed. Lana felt it was appropriate that she went outside to see off Brant, Zawadi and Pieter. It would also allow her to do the morning's external inspection of the facility.
She slid the helmet over her head and snapped the neck ring closed. To her right, Zawadi already had her helmet on and closed her visor. Lana slid hers down and glanced at the display on her wrist. The suit was running through its self-test sequence.
“Lana, do you read on the EVA loop?” came Pieter’s voice through her headset.
“Got you loud and clear Pieter.”
“We are ready here, so we’ll head out while you guys do your suit checks.”
“Ok.”
The EVA prep room was only really big enough for two people to move around comfortably, so Pieter and Brant had put their suits on and headed out into the open space of the lower floor to do their suit checks. The suits did a self-test but unless it was an emergency, standard operating procedures required a once over with human eyes.
Pieter trudged past Zawadi and Lana, first to the airlock door, followed by Brant. Through his visor, Lana could clearly see the barely concealed smile. He closed the airlock with his good hand, his bag of personal items hung from the hook which was attached to his mitten.
Lana spun around so Zawadi could inspect her suit before she reciprocated. “Aiden, do you read on the EVA loop?”
“Strength five Lana.”
The hab had several communication loops. They worked in much the same way as an air traffic control frequency or the comm loops in mission control. Each crew member wore a headset or an earbud and could select which loops they wanted to listen to. When they wanted to talk, they pushed their push-to-talk or PTT, which was in reality a button on the touch-screen of their watch or tablet. Or they could just set it to open mic. The hab central computer relayed the communications through the most appropriate available data connection, depending on the crew member’s location. This could be through the hab’s wireless network, through a satellite connection if they were too far away or through a rover and then through a satellite link.
The loops normally in use were an “all-crew” loop so the crew could communicate throughout the complex, and an “EVA loop” specifically for crew members outside. One of the crew members inside was required to be monitoring this at all times. The crew could also set up ad hoc loops where required for specific things they were doing so they would not saturate the other loops unnecessarily. Or they could call each other directly. A separate “expedition loop” had been set up to communicate with the rover once they got underway. Back in the hab, it would mainly be Aiden who was monitoring this.
The airlock had finished its cycle and was now empty again. Lana followed Zawadi into the airlock and closed the door behind them. She pushed the key on the airlock control screen by the door and the pressure began to drop. Lana then selected the comms menu on the display on her wrist. She tapped Zawadi’s name to open a private loop between them. Zawadi turned to face Lana even though she did not need to in order to hear her. It just felt more natural.
“Zawadi, can you do me a favour?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Keep an eye on the guys. If you think they might start taking any unnecessary risks, let me know.”
“It’s funny. You know Joanna asked me to do the same thing? Well, keep an eye on Brant that is.”
“She really cares about him.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry Lana, after the landing event, I think we all understand the risks here are real.”
The airlock control turned green and Zawadi opened the door. They stepped down onto the ice. In front of them, Rover 1 waited patiently.
“Are you guys inside yet?” asked Zawadi.
“Yep, come on up,” replied Brant.
“I’ll have a last walk around the rover for you. Let me know when you are ready to disconnect the umbilical,” said Lana.
“Ok. Just give us a couple of minutes to get squared away here boss,” replied Pieter.
Having the auxiliary trailer connected made getting in and out a little more cumbersome than usual. Zawadi climbed up the couple of steps onto the coupling between the rover and the trailer. From there, she climbed up to the rover’s back door.
Lana walked around the rover. She didn’t expect to find anything wrong. If there was, it would more likely get flagged by the rover’s self-diagnostics before anyone noticed anything. Still, it made her feel like she was doing something constructive.
As she rounded the front of the rover, Pieter’s voice came through her headset, “Ok Lana, we’re ready to disconnect when you are.”
Lana continued down the left side of the rover to where the external power cable was still attached. She pulled the large plug out of the socket, replaced the protective cover over the end of the cable and placed it on the ground. Closing the access hatch, Lana looked up at the giant rover towering over her. She patted it gently, then picked up the cable and pulled it clear of the rover’s tracks.
In the cab, the “External PWR” annunciation disappeared from the display in front of Pieter. Brant was already in the right seat next to him. Zawadi took the jump seat behind Brant. They had removed their helmets, but were still wearing their EVA suits.
“Ok, here we go.”
Pieter tapped the screen to put the rover in drive, then gently pushed the accelerator. With a low whine, the rover, its auxiliary trailer in tow, gracefully moved forward. Pieter brought the speed up to twenty kilometres per hour and hit the speed hold button. He took his foot off the accelerator pedal and relaxed in his seat. One hand lightly holding the wheel, the other resting on his thigh.
“I’ll keep it on manual for a while.”
Brant looked down at the map. “We’ve got a three-hour drive to the first drill site, so I think I’ll get out of my suit for a while.”
“Me too,” said Zawadi.
The rover’s active suspension and the flat ice of the Antarctic Plateau meant moving around and working in the cabin whilst underway was not an issue.
Five minutes later, Brant returned to the cockpit. Pieter’s nearly two-metre tall frame dominated the driver's seat, his posture exuding calculated nonchalance. A half-smile played at the corner of his mouth as he surveyed the endless white landscape through the windshield. He had taken his hand off the wheel and was resting one foot on the frame of the perspex footwell.
“Want me to take over so you can get out your suit?”
“Sure. Auto-drive seems to have everything under control. Two hours and fifty minutes to the first site.”
As the last of the cable retracted into the reel that was mounted on the side of the hab, Lana took her gloved finger off the retract button.
She selected the EVA loop. “Do we need anything bringing in while I’m out here?”
“I don’t think so Lana,” replied Aiden.
“Ok, I’ll just check on the telescope then head back in.”
She trudged round the side of the hab, past the storage sheds and greenhouse to the telescope. The extremely dry air of the Antarctic Plateau made it one of the best places on Earth to locate a telescope. Although it was daylight twenty-four hours a day during the summer, useful infrared observations could still be made. At the South Pole, and the relatively nearby Concordia Station, there were sizeable telescopes used by the international scientific community. The small telescope the crew had to work with was nothing compared to these, but operating it in the extreme environment was providing excellent experience.
When Zawadi first started to make observations, she had some issues tracking objects. The extreme cold was causing some of the exposed gears to jam up ever so slightly. Even the smallest interruption to the smooth movement of the telescope could cause the target to move outside the field of view.
Lana looked over the telescope. The movement was so slow it was almost impossible to discern with the naked eye. If there were any problems, the computer would notify her or Zawadi. She decided to apply some more grease just to be on the safe side.
Once she had finished, she selected the expedition loop. “Lana to Zawadi.”
“Go ahead Lana.” There was a slight delay in the response. They were now far enough away that the communication was now going through the satellite link.
“I just thought I would check on the telescope before I headed in. Everything looks ok. I’ve just greased the bearings again to be sure.”
“Ok thanks Lana. I’ll check in on the observations after we have reached the first drill site.”
“How’s the drive?”
“It’s pretty smooth. I’m sat in the back reviewing some drilling procedures to get up to speed. Pieter and Brant seem to have it all under control.”
“Great. Call in when you reach the first drill site.”
“Will do,” the connection dropped.
Kevin Valenti touched the thumb scanner to unlock the door and slid into the small “ops” room at True Genesis headquarters. He liked to think of it as the hub of the organisation. Others turned a blind eye to it, and some simply pretended it didn’t exist at all. It was really just a small windowless room in the centre of one of the floors True Genesis occupied in the Blaustein Building in downtown Baltimore. But it was from this room that Kevin ran the sometimes sanctioned paramilitary operations of True Genesis.
William Ashworth had selected the thirty-storey nondescript office block as an office for his fledgling organisation in 2021. It was close enough to Johns Hopkins to be convenient, but far enough away so as not to cause suspicion. There was plenty of space available at a reasonable price and the building was nothing out of the ordinary. A typical 1960s downtown office block.
Kevin was responding to a message from Owen, who turned his head slightly to make eye contact with Kevin, then nodded at the screen in front of him.
“They’re on the move.”
The screen showed an overhead view of the Lunar Analogue base, with Rover 1 slowly making its way south, away from the hab. To the right was a readout of the rover’s vitals, battery charge level, motor speed, current draw, cabin pressure etc.
Kevin peered at the screen over Owen’s hunched shoulders. He had the bad posture of someone who had spent hours so engrossed in what they were doing on the screen that they barely moved. He was overweight with a scruffy, unkempt beard. These attributes all slightly irritated Kevin, but the thing he hated the most was the smell of fast food. It permeated the small room. He tolerated it, barely. Owen Fisher was about as good a software engineer, come hacker, as there was. Kevin understood the personality type, sometimes you just had to make them feel comfortable in their environment in order to get the best work out of them.
“Any luck with getting more than just the rovers?”
“No can do Kev. As I said before, we are lucky to have got this far. Their systems are incredibly well-engineered and siloed from each other. We’ve pretty much everything on the rovers, but that’s all.”
“How many are on board the rover?”
“Difficult to say exactly. Based on oxygen consumption, I would say three to four Kev.”
“That makes sense. They are unlikely to leave only one behind, so unless they all went?”
Owen turned to look at Kevin, who seemed deep in thought. “So what do you want me to do, boss?”
“Nothing,” said Kevin calmly. “They are still close to the hab and potential help. Let’s keep our powder dry.”
“As you wish, my Lord.”
Kevin knew it was some obscure sci-fi reference, which he didn’t understand. Another thing about Owen which irritated him.
If you know someone you think would enjoy “Orphans of Apollo” or any of the other writing in “Explorations” please share this publication with them.
Elseware
I hope you enjoyed the latest episode of Orphans of Apollo. I have to confess I realised just before publication of this week’s episode that I made a slight error. For writing, I use a piece of software called Scrivener which is excellent for long-form writing. Especially if you write out of order, as I often do. Scrivener lets you drag the scenes around and then compile them into a finished manuscript. However, the one downside I have found is that there is no easy way to have multiple permutations in one Scrivener file. If someone knows how to do this, please let me know in the comments. As a workaround, I have copied my scenes into another file and used this to play with structures for the finished book.
To cut a long story short, I realised just before publishing I had actually changed the order of this week’s scenes and some of the next few weeks around. It will still make sense and hopefully be an enjoyable read, but it is not the final version I had planned on.
In other news, I found out this week that my phone is now on the list of supported devices for satellite text connectivity. I don’t have a particularly new iPhone, so this is not Apple’s own emergency connectivity. This is direct satellite connectivity from a phone that was never designed to connect to satellites. When you stop and think about it, this is truly amazing and science fiction in action.
Ironically, I haven’t been able to test it yet, as I haven’t been anywhere without coverage. The remote locations that I regularly visit with my day job recently got conventional cell phone coverage.
I hope you all have a good week.
Thanks for reading - the future belongs to the optimists.
Alex