Marooned on Giri Minor
Here is where Andrade's expertise with communications technology starts to shine. "This tech may be older than your great-great-great-great-grandfather, but the principles are all the same," she explains. "A standard radio signal would take decades to reach Ishtria at the speed of light, so we need to transmit our message through hyperspace. This is all time-tested technology, as old as faster-than-light space travel itself."
The effort to cobble together some kind of operating hyperspace transmitter becomes an all-engrossing project that lasts well into the night. When it gets dark, the commander asks you to hold her handlight. Between the salvageable components you find right there in the old colonial comm station, and the unit and power cell you pulled from the shuttle, the commander is able to assemble a functioning transmitter.
"It will be a weak signal," she cautions. "We certainly can't send a voice message, but so long as we're beaming something out into hyperspace there is a good chance someone will find it."
"So what do we do now?" you ask.
"Now we wait."
Your second night on Giri Minor is even less comfortable than the first. Although the events of the past day were far more positive, you are now out of food and water, and you have only the hard floor of the ancient comm station to sleep on. Once the transmitter was up and running, you volunteered to search the abandoned colony to see what else of use could be found, but the commander cautioned against it, saying it could wait until morning.
And when you heard something prowling around the street outside the station--or rather, a pack of somethings expressing an intense interest in your tracks you left through town--you barricaded the door.
Ever since the moon exploded and the colony failed, no one has ever been back to survey Giri Minor, so who knows which of the planet's native animal species survived the ecological collapse and still roams these derelict buildings? The pawing, snorting, and growling you heard outside the door did not sound friendly. Andrade monitored the pack with her WristComp until the creatures lost interest and dispersed, but when you asked what she thought they were, she replied, "Nothing good."
In the morning, the town seems clear once again, just as you found it yesterday. Commander Andrade checks her make-shift transmitter to verify it is still beaming the homing signal into hyperspace, and then she accompanies you on a search of the colony.
Whereas a day ago the streets appeared trackless, you can now see bird-like footprints all over the place; when Andrade assures you she can pick up no signs of life now, it does not completely put you at ease. Whatever these creatures were, they came from somewhere, and very well could come back again.
Most of the buildings you find are too far gone to offer much of use. A few of the smaller ones had been rocked off their foundations by the massive earthquake that accompanied the shift in the planet's tilt, but the sturdier plascrete structures appear to be more damaged by the devastating dust storms that ravaged the planet for decades afterward.
The two-toed bird tracks all seem to converge on one lopsided house on the edge of the colony, where the foundation has started to crumble and the walls are buckling. To your surprise you hear the trickling of water, and through a gaping hole in the foundation you can see ripples of reflected sunlight in what had once been a basement. It must be the most beautiful sight on the entire planet!
After you have slaked your thirst and filled your bottles with as much water as they can carry, you return to the safety of the comm station, and once again fortify yourself inside in case the bird-beasts--or whatever they are--pay a return visit.
It is too late in the day today to return to the crash site, but the discovery of a pool of water in the basement of that ancient house is too important a discovery to keep to yourselves, you agree. In the morning you decide you will return to the others back in the downed ship and assess whether it's possible to move everyone here. With your NutriRations gone, Andrade is firm in stating she doesn't have the strength to make that hike again.
That night the bird-beasts do return to your street and start scratching and screeching outside your door, but you are both now too tired to be concerned. You almost miss the moment when the creatures are scared away by a large object that descends from the sky and illuminates the street with a bright light. The ship lands outside the station, and although at first you think it's a dream, you hear voices outside the door.
"The signal is coming from inside this building," someone says. "I detect two human life signs," says someone else. "The door must be barricaded."
Several large thuds later, the polysteel door bursts open, and the people who picked up your signal come to your rescue.
"We're from the Starship Orion," someone says as a team of people come to inspect your condition.
"There are others," you say, not realizing just how weak and famished you've become over the last few days, with nothing to eat but the two NutriRations.
"Where?" a lieutenant asks.
"At the crash site," you say.
You and the commander are carried into the awaiting shuttlecraft, which then whisks you into the sky. Within minutes you are back at the wreckage of the EWR210819, where indeed there are more survivors.
The lieutenant in charge of the operation calls the Orion for another transport shuttle, because he can't fit the dozen people he's just found taking shelter in the former cargo hold of the downed transport vessel. The medic who was attending to you and Commander Andrade rushes out to check on these people, some of whom are in critical condition. When the rescuers see the condition of the crashed ship, everyone agrees that it was a miracle that so many people survived.
You look at the commander, relieved that your ordeal is finally over. "We did it!" you say, with all the enthusiasm your weakened state can muster.
"Yes," she says, "and what you did here was no small accomplishment. I think you have a strong future ahead of you, Starman."
The effort to cobble together some kind of operating hyperspace transmitter becomes an all-engrossing project that lasts well into the night. When it gets dark, the commander asks you to hold her handlight. Between the salvageable components you find right there in the old colonial comm station, and the unit and power cell you pulled from the shuttle, the commander is able to assemble a functioning transmitter.
"It will be a weak signal," she cautions. "We certainly can't send a voice message, but so long as we're beaming something out into hyperspace there is a good chance someone will find it."
"So what do we do now?" you ask.
"Now we wait."
Your second night on Giri Minor is even less comfortable than the first. Although the events of the past day were far more positive, you are now out of food and water, and you have only the hard floor of the ancient comm station to sleep on. Once the transmitter was up and running, you volunteered to search the abandoned colony to see what else of use could be found, but the commander cautioned against it, saying it could wait until morning.
And when you heard something prowling around the street outside the station--or rather, a pack of somethings expressing an intense interest in your tracks you left through town--you barricaded the door.
Ever since the moon exploded and the colony failed, no one has ever been back to survey Giri Minor, so who knows which of the planet's native animal species survived the ecological collapse and still roams these derelict buildings? The pawing, snorting, and growling you heard outside the door did not sound friendly. Andrade monitored the pack with her WristComp until the creatures lost interest and dispersed, but when you asked what she thought they were, she replied, "Nothing good."
In the morning, the town seems clear once again, just as you found it yesterday. Commander Andrade checks her make-shift transmitter to verify it is still beaming the homing signal into hyperspace, and then she accompanies you on a search of the colony.
Whereas a day ago the streets appeared trackless, you can now see bird-like footprints all over the place; when Andrade assures you she can pick up no signs of life now, it does not completely put you at ease. Whatever these creatures were, they came from somewhere, and very well could come back again.
Most of the buildings you find are too far gone to offer much of use. A few of the smaller ones had been rocked off their foundations by the massive earthquake that accompanied the shift in the planet's tilt, but the sturdier plascrete structures appear to be more damaged by the devastating dust storms that ravaged the planet for decades afterward.
The two-toed bird tracks all seem to converge on one lopsided house on the edge of the colony, where the foundation has started to crumble and the walls are buckling. To your surprise you hear the trickling of water, and through a gaping hole in the foundation you can see ripples of reflected sunlight in what had once been a basement. It must be the most beautiful sight on the entire planet!
After you have slaked your thirst and filled your bottles with as much water as they can carry, you return to the safety of the comm station, and once again fortify yourself inside in case the bird-beasts--or whatever they are--pay a return visit.
It is too late in the day today to return to the crash site, but the discovery of a pool of water in the basement of that ancient house is too important a discovery to keep to yourselves, you agree. In the morning you decide you will return to the others back in the downed ship and assess whether it's possible to move everyone here. With your NutriRations gone, Andrade is firm in stating she doesn't have the strength to make that hike again.
That night the bird-beasts do return to your street and start scratching and screeching outside your door, but you are both now too tired to be concerned. You almost miss the moment when the creatures are scared away by a large object that descends from the sky and illuminates the street with a bright light. The ship lands outside the station, and although at first you think it's a dream, you hear voices outside the door.
"The signal is coming from inside this building," someone says. "I detect two human life signs," says someone else. "The door must be barricaded."
Several large thuds later, the polysteel door bursts open, and the people who picked up your signal come to your rescue.
"We're from the Starship Orion," someone says as a team of people come to inspect your condition.
"There are others," you say, not realizing just how weak and famished you've become over the last few days, with nothing to eat but the two NutriRations.
"Where?" a lieutenant asks.
"At the crash site," you say.
You and the commander are carried into the awaiting shuttlecraft, which then whisks you into the sky. Within minutes you are back at the wreckage of the EWR210819, where indeed there are more survivors.
The lieutenant in charge of the operation calls the Orion for another transport shuttle, because he can't fit the dozen people he's just found taking shelter in the former cargo hold of the downed transport vessel. The medic who was attending to you and Commander Andrade rushes out to check on these people, some of whom are in critical condition. When the rescuers see the condition of the crashed ship, everyone agrees that it was a miracle that so many people survived.
You look at the commander, relieved that your ordeal is finally over. "We did it!" you say, with all the enthusiasm your weakened state can muster.
"Yes," she says, "and what you did here was no small accomplishment. I think you have a strong future ahead of you, Starman."
END OF PART I