It had been a long ride, but they had finally arrived at their next destination. The exit from warp had been similarly as unpleasant as the last time, but Leon found himself becoming more accustomed to the strange sensation. It was just as off putting as before, but it seemed to affect him less and less each time.
In front of the UNSS Leif Erikson floated a trio of planetary bodies. Two smaller terrestrial worlds orbited in the extremes of their star's goldilocks zone, the maximum habitable range where one could expect to find liquid water, and the third planet being a distant ice giant that floated alone and lonely out in the far reaches of the solar system's edge.
He looked towards Terry as she reported “The first planet seems to be a dud commander, but the second terrestrial world is giving me an atmosphere return. It looks like there is Oxygen present in the atmosphere as well which is a good indicator for biological processes.” she finished with an excited grin.
Leon nodded to her and pulled up the data on his console. It was still confusing, but after almost a year and a half of pouring over similar data, he could at least point out the small points where it indicated oxygen and trace amounts of several other gasses.
"That's promising, Samuel, set a course for the second terrestrial planet." Leon told the young pilot.
Samuel replied "Aye commander, setting course to the second world, estimated travel time, four point eight minutes."
Leon prepared himself as the yellow alert lights turned on and the ship prepared to drop into warp, as the seconds ticked to zero the ship was enveloped in a field of gravitational force that hurled them towards their target at three hundred times the speed of light. His head swam as for a single instant the color seemed to drain from the world and coalesce into a single point of infinite density and color, his mind unable to fully comprehend the images it was seeing. But like usual, the effects of warp translation were near instantaneous, leaving him wondering if he even experienced it at all.
"Well, that never gets any easier." Leon grumbled out loud.
"You got that right, wow that was unpleasant." Sabine said from the other side of the bridge.
Taylor made a grumbling noise in response and then fell silent. Terry reached over and patted her husband on the arm as she knew how much he hated warp jumps.
Leon leaned back in his command throne and fiddled with the buttons on his console. He pulled up some of the images they had captured over the course of their travels. The multicolored system wide ice rings of Vibrance, the large protoplanetary clouds from the system they had discovered the Glimmer Drorns in. The edges of the protostar nebula glowing red as the gasses were ionized by the heat generated by the spinning core.
Each new image brought with it the memories of the voyage, the struggles and triumphs alike all together making an adventure worth taking. Not for the first time Leon smiled to himself and tried to think about where he would be today if he hadn't decided to take a chance.
It was a Thursday, he would probably have been at the local cafe getting a pastry and a coffee about now. But instead he and his crew were millions of billions of kilometers from home and making discoveries that were beyond the wildest dreams of scientists back on Earth.
Faster than Leon was really prepared for, the yellow alert lights once more flashed on and his concept of reality was shattered as his vision went black and he distinctly heard the sounds of rustling leaves and smelled pine tar. But as always the sensation went so quickly that he was unsure whether or not it had even happened.
"Sensors back online, gathering data now." Taylor said after a moment's pause.
The main viewscreen was blank as he looked at it but it quickly flickered into life as the outside sensors and cameras started to feed data to it.
The world below was partially shrouded in darkness as they were approaching from the top down, but the light portion of the planet immediately stood out to Leon for its vivid green coloration. The entire planet seemed to be a massive jungle, large lakes and extensive river systems could be seen weaving their way through the tangled mess.
"Wow, that looks like a good place to get lost." Taylor said under his breath.
Leon ignored the man's comment and motioned to Sabine as he said "Ship report, anything looking shaky?"
Sabine shook her head as she replied "Ship is green across the board like usual. She is resilient. I'll give it that." Sabine said with a grin.
Nodding to her briefly, he switched his focus to his own console as more and more data poured in.
"Commander, request permission to launch an orbiter." Terry said to him.
Leon replied quickly "Yes please, this looks as promising as any. Do we have an analysis of the atmospheric composition yet?" He added.
She shook her head slightly and pressed some of the buttons on her console in rapid succession before she replied. "Not yet, the orbiter will need a moment or two to get set up. After that it's just a matter of a few scans." She finished smugly.
Leon looked at Samuel and asked "Are we in a stable orbit, Samuel?"
Samuel shook his head and said "Not as of yet, but I'm maneuvering us into a stable polar orbit, we should be in a good overwatch position in another twenty minutes."
Leon smiled and thought to himself 'Good, that will give Terry time to set up the satellite connection at least.' He turned back to his console and tried his best to remain interested in the information the ship was pouring in. Atmospherics, temperature, and even some photographs of the surface. The huge world spanning jungle seemed to coat the world in a carpet of vivid greens.
Leon wondered to himself what kind of creatures must inhabit such a huge territorial space. And with no world spanning oceans like on Earth, the various species would be freer to intermingle and would likely be quite similar across the entire planet's surface. Well, aside from those few locations where the rivers or lakes cut off small islands from their surrounding terrain. But even those gaps were small and easily traversable for any creature determined enough to swim it.
After a few more minutes of this activity, Leon sat up as he heard Terry say "Connection established, and the satellite is now in a stable orbit over the planet's equator. We should be getting more precise data momentarily."
He watched as the reading from the planet suddenly spiked far into the red and he heard Terry exclaim "Woah, that's not normal."
Taylor leaned over towards her console to see as Samuel asked from across the bridge "What, what is it?"
Leon frowned as he saw the readings, according to these readings the planet's atmosphere contained vastly higher concentrations of oxygen than was normal. Well over the twenty percent that Earth currently had.
Terry scrutinized the readings intensely for another minute before looking at him and doing a quick double check on the console. She hesitantly said "According to the readings the planet's atmosphere is just over forty one percent oxygen. That's high enough to cause hyperoxia if we were to go to the surface."
Taylor nodded but Sabine frowned and asked "What's Hyperoxia?"
"Hyper oxygenation of the bloodstream causing, among other things, blurred vision, coughing, nausea, chest pains, lung damage, and random seizures." Taylor rattled off in list form.
Sabine opened her mouth for a moment but closed it as she heard the list. Leon frowned, the planet looked so inviting, but if the air was toxic to breath, then going to the surface was out of the question without the armored environmental suits they had.
"How soon can we send a probe down to the surface?" He asked after a moment's thought.
Terry looked towards Sabine as she started tapping on her console. "Well, it depends on when we are in a good position. Samuel?" She finished looking towards the pilot.
Samuel tapped at his console and said "If I alter course now, I can have us in position in about eight minutes."
Leon nodded to him and said "Great, do it."
Samuel nodded and Leon went back to pouring over the readouts as Terry and Taylor conversed mutedly. He scratched his chin and looked at some more of the close up pictures from the orbiter. The plants seemed to be tree-like in structure and looked remarkably Earth-like in appearance. He wondered to himself if the creatures on the surface would be recognisable as well.
Leon was staring intently at a slightly blurry image of something in the upper branches of one of the trees when he heard his name. Looking up he noticed Samuel looking at him and said "Yes?"
Samuel said "We are in position Leon."
He nodded and waved to Sabine "Launch the probe when ready Sabine. I think there are large life forms on the surface."
Sabine did not respond immediately, instead just pressing a series of controls on her console as the ship slowed to a halt relative to the planet turning below. After a few additional moments she nodded to herself and announced "Probe launching in five, four, three, two, one…" there was a slight shudder as the powerful electromagnetic launcher flung the probe towards the planet on a pre calculated trajectory. "Probe is away, go on little guy." She added quietly.
Leon smiled at the comment. It was her duty to maintain the probes and check them for damages on a monthly basis. So far she hasn't reported anything but it was always better to be safe rather than sorry, especially since they had a limited number of the drones.
He watched the drone's progress on the trackers as it dove towards the planet at a high velocity that continued to increase steadily as it slipped further and further down the planet's gravity well.
Taylor perked up and said "I'm getting a signal error on the probe, it's out of position." He stated suddenly.
Leon watched as the reading dipped below eighty-five kilometers from the planet's surface, he continued to watch as it started to veer off course.
Turning to Sabine he barked "Sabine, what's happening down there?"
"I'm not sure Leon, it's not responding to my flight corrections, it's like its transmitting antenna got destroyed. But that should be impossible, it is behind the heatshield… the heat shield…" she stopped as she seemed to think heavily. Turning to him she said "The heat shield on the probe is made of hafnium diboride, it should be able to withstand temperatures in excess of three thousand degrees centigrade. But what if the high oxygen content in the atmosphere is causing it to reach temperatures beyond that?" She finished with a questioning look.
Leon leaned forwards as the signal from the probe was lost. The ship's scopes that were following the probe detected multiple fragments as it broke up more than sixty kilometers above the planet's surface.
He finally asked "Oliver is a biochemist, but he must be familiar with general chemistry as well. Taylor, send a message to Oliver to come to the bridge please."
Taylor nodded quickly and moved to do so as Leon leaned back and rubbed his eyes. Here he was just thinking about how valuable the probes were and they managed to lose one to some unforeseen event. Now he just needed to figure out if it was a one-time thing and if it wasn't, how to prevent it from happening again. He and the others waited a few terse moments before the bridge airlock cycled and Oliver came floating in.
"Oliver, thank you for coming, please put on a void suit and grab a helmet for your own protection." Leon stated, he had protocol to follow after all.
Oliver complied quickly and after a moment of struggling, managed to get the suit on and picked up a spare helmet. As he moved over towards them, Leon motioned to an empty console next to him and Olver strapped down into it.
Shaking his slightly shaggy sand blond hair, Oliver asked "Okay, what was so important it couldn't wait."
Leon just smiled at the Australian man's rough demeanor and explained "See the planet on the scope? Well, we just launched a probe at it that was destroyed before it could even reach fifty kilometers. We were wondering if you and your background in chemistry could help us solve the problem." He finished with a look of hope.
Oliver looked around the bridge for a moment exasperated and finally said "What does this have to do with organic chemistry?"
This time it was Sabine who spoke as she explained "Well, first of all, the planet seems to have an abnormally high concentration of oxygen in its atmosphere…"
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Oliver nodded and said "Okay then, that might do it, how high are we talking? Twenty-six, twenty-eight percent?"
"Ermm, forty-one percent actually…" Terry said quietly before Oliver blew up.
"FORTY-ONE!?! Well no wonder the probe failed, under those concentrations the heat shield probably oxidized and got vaporized before the probe could slow down enough. Strewth! Forty-one percent, fuck me…" he exclaimed once more.
Leon asked a bit concerned "Is there something we can do to overcome it?"
Oliver shook his head and started to tap on the console in front of him before he said "Ah, just as I thought, the problem ya got is that the shield is made of hafnium diboride, great I know. But what you may not know is that under high temperature and concentrated oxygen, it quickly forms into a layer of hafnium and boric oxide, both of which vaporize at temperatures vastly lower than the shield is rated for. So what's happening is that the shield is being eaten away until it develops holes and that will make a dog's breakfast out of about anything you throw at it." He finished with a snort.
Sabine slapped the console in front of her and exclaimed "Of course, the heat shields are not reactive under normal conditions, but this planet has literally double the oxygen concentration of Earth. We just need to find a way to stop or at least slow the oxidation down enough for the probe to slow and release its chutes."
Taylor and Terry looked at each other before turning to Leon. He just nodded and said "Sabine, you and Oliver go get Chad and see what you can come up with. Terry, you and Taylor are dismissed for now, you can watch the situation from the first ring's secondary monitoring station. No need to be in zero g more than you have to." He said as he waved them off.
They nodded and started to move out with the others. Leon then turned to Samuel, the only one still sitting and said "I'm going to check with Chris and see if he has any ideas that might help, you are free to head back to habitation if you like. We are in position and may be here a while."
Samuel nodded and started to unstrap himself. Leon did the same as the bridge airlock cycled open, the others were heading off the bridge having already disrobed from their void suits. As he moved towards the locker area with his helmet he felt something tap his shoulder. He turned to see Samuel right beside him and raised an eyebrow.
Samuel hesitated before speaking. "Commander, Leon. I was just wanting to tell you that I think you have been doing a remarkable job, but that I think you should look into getting someone to help you make command decisions."
Leon frowned and asked "Where is this coming from?"
Samuel ducked his head and said "Well, remember when you told me to go and talk to Natalia? Well I did and she might have mentioned that you seem a bit overworked. Please don't tell her I told you that, she would kill me…"
Leon waved a placating hand and said "My lips are sealed… she really said that? Overworked?" He hadn't gotten that impression that she was worried about him, but maybe that was precisely why. Maybe they were right, plus a second in command would really help take some of the strain off his shoulders. 'But who to choose?' He asked himself.
He barely noticed as Samuel left the bridge so ingrained in his own thoughts as he was. As he looked around and realized he was alone he blushed slightly in embarrassment and stripped out of his void suit. It was still pretty clean so he hung it in his designated locker and hung the helmet next to it.
Leon moved off the bridge into the airlock using the handholds on the edges of the hall to pull himself along in the microgravity of the bridge. Moving through it and into the core of the ship he started towards the last location Chris's locator had pinged him.
Moving along the long core of the ship slowly so as to avoid any painful stubbed fingers, he soon reached the connecting spokes to ring five which contained among other things, the aquaponics and mineral extraction chamber.
Chris looked like he was in the mineral extraction chamber, probably working on the various asteroid and meteoroid samples they had collected on their travels. The man really did like rocks, he said that minerals don't lie like people. Leon had often wondered who had hurt the man so in his past, but he wasn't going to be the first to ask the grumpy old man.
Making his way down to the ring was now a simple affair, his arms barely even registering the long climb after his strength training and constant use. Flexing slightly in a little indulgent self-pride, Leon started walking along the gently curving floor of the ring towards the refinement rooms.
Chris wasn't likely to solve their current problem, but it never hurt to test the older man's temperament every now and again to make sure he wasn't too unpleasantly grumpy.
As he made his way down the hall he caught a glimpse of someone walking into the aquaponics but didn't make them out before they were out of sight. He ignored it and kept walking.
Pretty soon he had reached the sliding door to the mineral extraction chamber and entered into the room's airlock. As the room had direct access to space via a cargo airlock, it had extra reinforcement in case of decompression. Leon walked into the large room full of machinery and other devices and called out "Hallo Chris, you there?"
A slight exclamation was heard from behind a large shelving unit along with the sound of clattering. Walking around the shelf he came across Chris stooped over and gathering specimens of rock from the floor.
"Nice job, there was no need to startle me like that." The older man growled as Leon walked over.
Leon smiled and said "Well it wasn't my intention. I guess I forgot how absorbed you get when you are working on these things. Anyways, I had a quick question." He began but was cut off by an angry noise from Chris.
"Nahh, first you are going to help me clean up this mess you made…" Leon tried to apologize but was cut off again "No, not now. Help first then I might just hear you out. I'm incredibly busy you know right?" The geologist said gruffly.
Leon just sighed quietly and began helping Chris organize the samples. Leon didn't recognise most of them and if they hadn't already been labeled then he would never have figured them out.
"No, the carbonite samples go there and the iron/nickel alloy samples go there." Chris said in exasperation as Leon tried to figure out the complex labeling system.
"Whoop my bad." Leon muttered as he rearranged the dense fragments. After another moment of fumbling with the various chunks of asteroid, Chris shook his head and sighed.
"Just leave them on the countertop there, I'll fix them myself later." Leon gladly dropped the remaining samples on the countertop.
Chris leaned heavily on the back of a nearby chair before pulling it out and taking a seat. "Alright, now what did you come disturb me for Leon?"
Leon ignored the man's slightly grumpy attitude and said as pleasantly as he could "Well, the first reason was that I was curious to see what you were working on, and the second was to ask if you were aware we are currently stationed over a planet with some, interesting, atmospheric conditions."
Chris nodded absently and said "Yeah, and what makes it so interesting? Toxic gas, some sort of airborne particulate matter?" He speculated quickly before Leon said anything.
Leon waved a hand to slow Chris’s speculations for a moment and said “Actually the planet has an atmospheric oxygen content of over forty one percent. When we launched a probe it burned through the probe's heat shield like it wasn't even there.” Leon said dejectedly.
Chris looked surprised for a second before turning thoughtful. The older geologist turned and looked at some of the machinery further away in the room. The UNSS Leif Erikson had refinement capabilities and could produce steel plates from raw meteoric iron if necessary. Chris seemed to mull something over before walking to a large hopper near the far edge of the room next to the large airlock. He rummaged around for a few minutes while Leon watched curiously from the table.
After a short while Chris returned with a hunk of dark black rock. He placed it down on the table with a thunk and smiled as he said “Here, this ought to do the trick.”
Leon frowned and picked up the asteroid fragment. He raised an eyebrow as he lifted it, it was much heavier than it looked, way heavier than he would have expected even a chunk of pure metal to be.
“Wow, what is this? It's so heavy.” Leon remarked to Chris.
“It's meteoric wolframite, or asteroidal wolframite I guess.” Chris said as if that cleared up everything.
Leon placed the dense price of rock down and glared at Chris as he smiled. “And what in heaven's name is wolframite and why has it got you so excited.”
Chris let out a small whoof of air at his comment and looked at the stone briefly before explaining. “Wolframite is the primary ore that elemental tungsten is extracted from. What you have there,” Chris said, pointing at the unassuming black rock “Is the key to making your probe land on that planet.”
Leon looked skeptically at the enigmatic hunk of rock and said “So, how are we going to do that? Specifically?” He added for emphasis.
Chris rolled his eyes and continued as it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Well, me and Taylor can refine the wolframite and extract the tungsten and use it as extra ablative armor to keep the heat shield from oxidizing. It's simple!” He exclaimed.
Leon nodded as the pieces started to come together in his mind. He was sure Chris knew what he was talking about, but he wasn't so sure the execution would be so ‘easy’ as Chris had put it. It was sure to be a somewhat time consuming process.
“Ah what the hell, let's do it and see what happens.” Leon said suddenly, causing Chris to smile.
“Finally, I get to do something useful on this ship.” Chris said.
Leon noticed the man was smiling now, the creases on his normally dour face seeming to melt away as he watched. Leon realized that Chris had been feeling down because he had nothing useful to do that required his knowledge or skill set, and now that he had a task, he was as happy as a kid on Christmas.
Leon asked “Is there anything you need that you don't already have?”
Chris shook his head “No, I have all the necessary equipment here. I will send a message to Taylor and we will get started on the extraction right away."
Leon nodded and started to walk away before turning back to Chris and asking "About how long do you need?"
Chris waved an arm and said "A few days tops. No more than three."
With that answer, Leon was satisfied and left the older man to his own devices. He figured he would go tell Sabine and Chad at least so they would stop worrying over the probe.
Leon was moving out into the hallway when he noticed someone walking in his direction. He slowed as he realized it was Joice.
"Hey, hey Joice." He said as she neared.
She looked up from the datapad she was carrying and took a second to recognise him. "Oh Leon, how are you? Are you on your way to see Natalia?" Joice asked him in her motherly voice.
Leon jerked slightly and looked around, he liked Natalia, as much as he wouldn't admit it to himself, but the last thing he needed was the fierce French Coalition woman following him around. "I ahh, no. But I am glad to see you. I was thinking about asking for your opinion on something if you would be willing?" He finished as she gave him a bright smile.
She shook her head slightly causing her bright blond hair to sway and asked "Alright, what is it. Here, walk with me." She motioned and started down the hallway.
The rings of the ship were one hundred and twenty meters in diameter giving them a total circumference of over three hundred and sixty meters. This distance was hard to grasp as the rings curved gently up and so the entire length was always concealed. As such, the walk was a bit lengthy and Leon talked to Joice as he and she walked.
"I have been putting some thought into a second in command and was wondering who would make the best fit." Leon said to her.
She scratched her cheek with her free hand and said "Second in command, for what purpose? Commanding in your absence?"
Leon answered quickly "No no no, nothing like that. Mostly someone who will be given the authority to speak in my place on matters. Break up arguments, assign basic tasks. Things I could do but don't need to, you understand?" He said.
She nodded and looked at him with her startlingly blue eyes "I wonder, Samuel seems like a good fit."
Leon shook his head "Samuel is a good lad, but he is much too impulsive still. He needs a few more years to calm down before he would ever be fit to command."
Joice shrugged and remarked "Okay, that's fair. What about Chris, he definitely has experience." She said with a smile.
"Ha ha, yes he's well old enough for command but it doesn't suit him. You know as well as I do that he would reject it." Leon said as he brushed her joke aside.
Seeing that he was serious, Joice sobered and asked "Okay then, all jokes aside. What about Sabine? She knows you well and she has some military training as well. I imagine she would make a good second."
Leon thought it over for a good dozen steps before he answered "No, the fact that she knows me so well actually works to her disadvantage. She might subconsciously make decisions based on what she thinks I would do rather than on her own merit. And that could be very dangerous in a crisis scenario." Leon said impassively.
Joice nodded and said "Yes, you bring up a fair point, but I don't think that should be mutually exclusive do you? I'm sure if you gave her a chance she would…"
Leon cut her off "I said it's not going to happen. And I mean it, I'm not going to put the poor girl through that. What if something happens and someone gets hurt, or worse. We both know her well enough to know she would blame herself." Leon said, his tone softening as he revealed his true reasons for excluding Sabine.
Joice smiled sadly "She's like a daughter to you isn't she." Leon just nodded mutely and they walked another few paces in silence. Joice slowed and then stopped as they reached a ladder hatch and said "Well, I need to go back to work Leon. You keep thinking it over and I'll see if I come up with any better ideas." Leon nodded and waved to the Canadian woman as she entered the water recycling plant.
Moving to the ladder hatch and starting to climb, Leon thought about her comments. Sure Sabine would make a great second, but he just didn't have the heart to put that much responsibility on the poor girl. She already had so much to do on the ship. Anyone he asked to be his second would be asked to give up most of their own free time for administrative duties. But at least he would get a little free time now and again when he did.
He entered into the core of the ship and called Chad on his wrist worn cams device and waited till it connected.
"Yes commander?" Chad's voice came through the speaker.
"Hello Chad, I assume Sabine is nearby?" He heard a bit of rustling followed by a loud clunk and a German swear before Sabine's voice came across the line as well.
"Hey Leon, what happened? Is everything okay?" She asked concernedly.
Leon chuckled and said "I do use these things for more than just bad news you know." There was an answering bit of laughter as the other two chucked. "Actually it seems that our good friend Chris might have actually solved the heat shield problem" he said, leaving a bit of an air of mystery about the plan.
"Well then, feel free to tell us ya big lout." Sabine said through the cams device.
Leon chuckled again at her lack of patience and said "Chris thinks we can refine some of the asteroid samples we gathered and use the tungsten as extra ablative to get the probe slow enough to deploy its chutes."
Chad replied "Hey, that's a great idea, how is he going to get enough though?"
He heard Sabine say "One of the asteroids was almost pure wolframite Chad, there should be enough tungsten in there to upgrade three or four probes."
Chad responded to her "Well then, I guess that's settled." Speaking directly into the mic his voice came through clearer as he said "Leon, tell Chris that we will need the sheets to be at least three millimeters thick. We need to get back to work, now that we know what we are doing we need to find a way to mount the Tungsten to the heat shield so it won't fall off during ren…" he cut off as the link was severed and Leon shook his head. Those two could get lost in the middle of an empty room when you got them excited on a problem.
He knew the problem was being solved now and saw no reason to delay it any farther as he pulled himself along. His job was done and he had ship reports to go over to make sure there wasn't any waste happening on the ship. He sighed, the privileges of responsibility. And he had told the Director that he didn't want his room to be any bigger, he could have had a hot tub if he had asked probably.
Leon shook his head sadly at the thought and began to descend the ladder towards his waiting desk.