22-05-2003, 12:09 PM
warning heavy part detected :oops: :oops:
c'est long mais c'est bon (du moins je l'espère)
5.
Lian’s informal log, day three of the expedition.
Ship repairs are under way, and our fusion reactor is already fully operational. We still receive some news from Lonely Sun. Their heavy emergency shields are closed and cosmic winds make radio communications difficult. The great cargo ship which has arrived yesterday is still in orbit. The mithrillium she gave us has been very useful to repair our damaged hull. She had a full load of it. She is called Tree Nebula, and has left Lonely Sun for two thousand years in order to go and collect the precious alloy. Yet, because of relativity effects, the crew has been in space for only fifteen years. Her ecosystem is far more important than ours, thus she can be independent for many years. Staying outside of the mother ship is not a problem to us, but smaller ship-range spaceships have required our assistance. Tree Nebula has taken most of the endangered crew in. We have learned that tomorrow, Lonely Sun will activate a local magnetic shield on one of her harbour and open the emergency shields to take in the smallest ships.
I switched off my notepad and put it back in the drawer. I caught the pen flying above my hammock, and put it in my pocket, but my moves weren't well co-ordinated so the hammock began to turn upside down. I gripped the wall and returned to a normal position looking forward to our departure and the rotation, which would provide the artificial gravity. Weightlessness may seem funny but after three days of flying objects it can get very boring. It was my resting time. Because of the repairs, we were working fifteen hours a day, and we were so exhausted after such a day that we slept thirteen hours straight. For the moment, I was a kind of local hero, every one was being nice to me especially Thalia, the young biologist. It was quite embarrassing. I rolled up in my hammock and hoped Teebow wouldn't read long so he would switch the light off.
When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that the ship had begun to move, creating variations in gravity. Our apparent floor was the same wall than when we were aboard Lonely Sun. Teebow woke up soon after.
'What's going on?'
'I think we are flying out of Lonely Sun’s influence.'
Gravity was at a very low level. We still felt the weightlessness around us. I carefully jumped from my hammock, and fell very, very slowly on the floor. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost time for us to get up anyway. We decided to have a good sonic shower, get dressed and go have breakfast in the common room. I rolled my dirty clothes into a ball and put them in a bag. I would put all this in the washing machine that night.
We met some other crew members in the common kitchen. Some of them belonged to our shift, the captain’s shift, the others were part of the second shift. We joined Thalia and Lilia who were cooking some graeltru with lemon. The first meal is the most important of the day, I remembered, I should eat something substantial, and the gaeltru smells so good... What was boring on the ship was the lack of solid food. Because of weightlessness we all were condemned to eat soup all day long.
'The morning light shine upon your soul!' Lilia greeted us.
'Your heart open to receive its blessing! Would you mind if we joined you for breakfast?' asked Teebow.
'It would be my pleasure! Just ask for more potatoes and carrots.'
'Lian, could you get us some warm balawe? I think Fush, the medical assistant of the second team, left a full balawe pot in the small oven,' added Thalia.
We sat, fastened our seatbelts and began eating. Lilia, our pilot, explained us that our current manoeuvre was very simple, only the directional reactors were fired, to make our course around Lonely Sun more and more elliptic, until our trajectory became parabolic. I didn't understand all of her explanation. That was a bit too complicated for me. Lilia was a thin, small woman with bronzed skin, dark lively eyes and short dark hair. She was wearing her deep purple suit, the colour of the command department. She was around forty I thought, so she was still young and quick. Compared to her, Thalia looked like a little girl. She was only 26, one year younger than I. She was granted majority just two weeks before we left, yet she already had an important post in the medical research organisation. She had to be a genius. She had a pale skin, deep blue eyes and long auburn hair, which contrasted with her light green suit. She was tall for a girl, around one point ninety five metres, just twelve centimetres less than I.
Then, we received a call from the captain saying the first shift had to take its watch. We quickly finished our balawe and reported in. I went to the control room and took a seat. Lilia sat to her post where the third pilot was working, and put her hood on. The two navigators seemed to be working very hard on their big holo-map. One of them eventually turned back to face the captain and said the course had been plotted.
'Engage the main propulsion particles accelerator!' ordered captain Thyl. The light turned blue and we fastened our seatbelts. The main holo-screen showed us the front view of the ship. Staring at the faraway stars I didn't pay attention to the succession of orders and confirmations until I heard the captain ordering:
'Crown ignition!'
At once, I felt the acceleration. Yet the stars didn't seem to move because of their great distance. The reactive lasers were firing more and more often and the nearest meteorites seemed to accelerate. Now we were gone for good!
Lian’s informal log, day nine of the expedition.
Our acceleration got us back to Lonely Sun's gravity level. The last physical troubles caused by this brutal change in weight have disappeared. The stars in front of us gradually change in colour. They are getting bluer, while the stars behind us are getting redder. The meteorites we encounter now seem to be flat. The ship has begun to rotate so we are expecting a progressive shift in gravity direction. Our reactive lasers are working at the maximum of their abilities. If we don't find a clearer area we'll have to stop our acceleration.
Lian’s informal log, day twenty-two of the expedition.
We have slowed our acceleration as planned. Now, the rotation is the main source of gravity, so our apparent ground is now the ship’s floor. The blue shift has moved some blue stars spectres almost out of visible range. It's quite amazing to see giant stars shining like very little ones. The captain assigned us some routine tasks and said the observers’ training should begin soon. He told me that he will train me himself. I think he looks upon me as his son or his heir.
Lian’s informal log, day thirty-one of the expedition.
We stopped the propulsion reactor and began free flight.
We are back on our course after yesterday’s step aside to avoid a small comet. My tasks and training leave me spare time enough to read and play spherical chess with tribun Cushgrac and Thalia. They are pretty good players. I wish I had real books, but there’s not enough room on the ship, so I can only read books with optical chips on a computer screen.
Lian’s informal log, day forty-six of the expedition.
The flip-around manoeuvre was a success. After one hour of dramatic gravity changes in the ship, everything came back to a normal state. Our reactors are now facing our destination. We are going to propel slowly Solar Wind until she closes enough to use the sail and take us into orbit around the planet.
Lian’s informal log, day sixty of the expedition.
We are still decelerating, no problem has been spotted by now but the strange angle of the gravity direction. We all are walking bent aside. Each day, one of our scientists gives us a little conference to expose his work and teaches us the basics of his or her domain. Today Teebow told us about the groundless ecosystem used in our ship. You cannot imagine how complex it is. Yet, the complexity is the guarantee of its hardiness.
Lian’s informal log, day seventy-four of the expedition.
The blue and red shifts are very diminished. The stars behind and before us have almost their true colours. Gravity keeps increasing so it will reach the planet level in three weeks. It very hard for me to get used to such a weight to bear and such fast fall when we jump or cast something. Yet, it’s only the beginning. Anyway, the captain told me he was very proud of my results to the co-ordination test.
Lian’s informal log, day eighty-nine of the expedition.
We have gone past the planet and stopped. We are now between the planet and the star, so we can use the sail. The third and second shifts will deploy it during our resting time. If everything is right, we’ll reach the planet in four days of navigation. It would have been too dangerous to use our particle accelerator near the planet and its satellites, because they all have a magnetic field, so the reactions of our plasma would have been too unpredictable.
Lian’s informal log, day ninety-three of the expedition.
Our pilots have successfully set us into orbit around the planet… well, the name was definitely too complicated, and as we were the first explorers here, we could choose a more simple name. I could remember the image of the planet on the main holo-screen. It was a little blue spot in the dark and cold ocean of the void. Sapphire was already a planet name, as well as Opal. There were so many blue planets. Maybe the simplest name had not already been used? Blue Island would do well. I would check it out with the captain tomorrow. After all, he was the one who could give a name to the planet.
Lian’s informal log, day ninety-four of the expedition.
The captain decided to call the planet Blue Island. This was the name of a planet which has disappeared more than a thousand years before, in a supernova. We are still increasing our gravity. Our first readings of the planet confirmed the presence of a breathable atmosphere and bearable ground pressure and temperature. We are now checking biological signatures and astronomical data.
Lian’s informal log, day one-oh-four of the expedition.
Our first readings are completed. We have spotted carbon-based life forms in the oceans that cover three quarters of Blue Island’s surface. They are primitive beings, such as bacteria, algae and small boneless animals. Thalia told us that was an early stage in a planet’s life growth. The evolution has not yet created rigid rods and bones which are essential for organisms to live out of water. That’s why no forests have been spotted. Yet, those life forms have already influenced the atmospheric composition. We are waiting for the results of the astronomical simulation.
I got to bed the next evening confident in the navigator’s ability to predict the planet and satellites moves. If all was right, we would send a landing party to collect samples and assess the illness risks. I looked at Teebow who was already asleep in his hammock. He almost worked twenty hours a day despite the medical officer’s advice. The captain had to threaten not to let him land on the planet if he was too tired to make him take some rest. This planet was fascinating him. I put my notepad in the hammock pocket and rolled up to sleep, and the light automatically switched off.
The next morning, as I went to the control room, I met Carl Faejtylo, our shift’s navigator, who looked tired and preoccupied.
‘Galaxy be your guide Carl!’
‘Space be your garden Lian.’
‘What’s going on, you look as if you were to meet the Great Kraantreck?’ I asked, joking.
‘We have…trouble, with the simulation.’
‘What’s the matter with that?’
‘This planet and its satellites are a chaotic system. In addition to the three astronomic bodies gravity problem which is, as you may know, already insoluble, each satellite has its own magnetic field and inner activity which influence and are influenced by the planet and the other satellites. The important amount of liquid water on the planet also make the problem more difficult because of massive tidal flows.’
‘This sounds like a brain killing machine!’
‘I’m going to check this night’s simulation results with Wiat, so if you’ve nothing else to do, you may take a look at this.’
Wiat Quely, the third navigator, was sitting at his post in the control room. The captain and the second officer were talking with him. It appeared that the simple presence of Solar Wind and its magnetic field disturbed the experiments because of the system inherent instability. The simulation results were too scattered to be useful. The planetary system was just unpredictable. Nevertheless, the captain decided to send a landing party. If the situation of the ship changed, we could just move her for a moment and come and retrieve the party later. The first officer would lead and the captain would stay on board.
‘The captain should always be the last to leave his ship!’ he said. They began planning the landing party.
Go to 9.
normalement là il y avait un choix entre rester et descendre sur la planête, mais il y a eu productor's cut.
Enfin, si je m'y était mis plus tôt ça ne serait pas arrivé :roll:
c'est long mais c'est bon (du moins je l'espère)
5.
Lian’s informal log, day three of the expedition.
Ship repairs are under way, and our fusion reactor is already fully operational. We still receive some news from Lonely Sun. Their heavy emergency shields are closed and cosmic winds make radio communications difficult. The great cargo ship which has arrived yesterday is still in orbit. The mithrillium she gave us has been very useful to repair our damaged hull. She had a full load of it. She is called Tree Nebula, and has left Lonely Sun for two thousand years in order to go and collect the precious alloy. Yet, because of relativity effects, the crew has been in space for only fifteen years. Her ecosystem is far more important than ours, thus she can be independent for many years. Staying outside of the mother ship is not a problem to us, but smaller ship-range spaceships have required our assistance. Tree Nebula has taken most of the endangered crew in. We have learned that tomorrow, Lonely Sun will activate a local magnetic shield on one of her harbour and open the emergency shields to take in the smallest ships.
I switched off my notepad and put it back in the drawer. I caught the pen flying above my hammock, and put it in my pocket, but my moves weren't well co-ordinated so the hammock began to turn upside down. I gripped the wall and returned to a normal position looking forward to our departure and the rotation, which would provide the artificial gravity. Weightlessness may seem funny but after three days of flying objects it can get very boring. It was my resting time. Because of the repairs, we were working fifteen hours a day, and we were so exhausted after such a day that we slept thirteen hours straight. For the moment, I was a kind of local hero, every one was being nice to me especially Thalia, the young biologist. It was quite embarrassing. I rolled up in my hammock and hoped Teebow wouldn't read long so he would switch the light off.
When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that the ship had begun to move, creating variations in gravity. Our apparent floor was the same wall than when we were aboard Lonely Sun. Teebow woke up soon after.
'What's going on?'
'I think we are flying out of Lonely Sun’s influence.'
Gravity was at a very low level. We still felt the weightlessness around us. I carefully jumped from my hammock, and fell very, very slowly on the floor. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost time for us to get up anyway. We decided to have a good sonic shower, get dressed and go have breakfast in the common room. I rolled my dirty clothes into a ball and put them in a bag. I would put all this in the washing machine that night.
We met some other crew members in the common kitchen. Some of them belonged to our shift, the captain’s shift, the others were part of the second shift. We joined Thalia and Lilia who were cooking some graeltru with lemon. The first meal is the most important of the day, I remembered, I should eat something substantial, and the gaeltru smells so good... What was boring on the ship was the lack of solid food. Because of weightlessness we all were condemned to eat soup all day long.
'The morning light shine upon your soul!' Lilia greeted us.
'Your heart open to receive its blessing! Would you mind if we joined you for breakfast?' asked Teebow.
'It would be my pleasure! Just ask for more potatoes and carrots.'
'Lian, could you get us some warm balawe? I think Fush, the medical assistant of the second team, left a full balawe pot in the small oven,' added Thalia.
We sat, fastened our seatbelts and began eating. Lilia, our pilot, explained us that our current manoeuvre was very simple, only the directional reactors were fired, to make our course around Lonely Sun more and more elliptic, until our trajectory became parabolic. I didn't understand all of her explanation. That was a bit too complicated for me. Lilia was a thin, small woman with bronzed skin, dark lively eyes and short dark hair. She was wearing her deep purple suit, the colour of the command department. She was around forty I thought, so she was still young and quick. Compared to her, Thalia looked like a little girl. She was only 26, one year younger than I. She was granted majority just two weeks before we left, yet she already had an important post in the medical research organisation. She had to be a genius. She had a pale skin, deep blue eyes and long auburn hair, which contrasted with her light green suit. She was tall for a girl, around one point ninety five metres, just twelve centimetres less than I.
Then, we received a call from the captain saying the first shift had to take its watch. We quickly finished our balawe and reported in. I went to the control room and took a seat. Lilia sat to her post where the third pilot was working, and put her hood on. The two navigators seemed to be working very hard on their big holo-map. One of them eventually turned back to face the captain and said the course had been plotted.
'Engage the main propulsion particles accelerator!' ordered captain Thyl. The light turned blue and we fastened our seatbelts. The main holo-screen showed us the front view of the ship. Staring at the faraway stars I didn't pay attention to the succession of orders and confirmations until I heard the captain ordering:
'Crown ignition!'
At once, I felt the acceleration. Yet the stars didn't seem to move because of their great distance. The reactive lasers were firing more and more often and the nearest meteorites seemed to accelerate. Now we were gone for good!
Lian’s informal log, day nine of the expedition.
Our acceleration got us back to Lonely Sun's gravity level. The last physical troubles caused by this brutal change in weight have disappeared. The stars in front of us gradually change in colour. They are getting bluer, while the stars behind us are getting redder. The meteorites we encounter now seem to be flat. The ship has begun to rotate so we are expecting a progressive shift in gravity direction. Our reactive lasers are working at the maximum of their abilities. If we don't find a clearer area we'll have to stop our acceleration.
Lian’s informal log, day twenty-two of the expedition.
We have slowed our acceleration as planned. Now, the rotation is the main source of gravity, so our apparent ground is now the ship’s floor. The blue shift has moved some blue stars spectres almost out of visible range. It's quite amazing to see giant stars shining like very little ones. The captain assigned us some routine tasks and said the observers’ training should begin soon. He told me that he will train me himself. I think he looks upon me as his son or his heir.
Lian’s informal log, day thirty-one of the expedition.
We stopped the propulsion reactor and began free flight.
We are back on our course after yesterday’s step aside to avoid a small comet. My tasks and training leave me spare time enough to read and play spherical chess with tribun Cushgrac and Thalia. They are pretty good players. I wish I had real books, but there’s not enough room on the ship, so I can only read books with optical chips on a computer screen.
Lian’s informal log, day forty-six of the expedition.
The flip-around manoeuvre was a success. After one hour of dramatic gravity changes in the ship, everything came back to a normal state. Our reactors are now facing our destination. We are going to propel slowly Solar Wind until she closes enough to use the sail and take us into orbit around the planet.
Lian’s informal log, day sixty of the expedition.
We are still decelerating, no problem has been spotted by now but the strange angle of the gravity direction. We all are walking bent aside. Each day, one of our scientists gives us a little conference to expose his work and teaches us the basics of his or her domain. Today Teebow told us about the groundless ecosystem used in our ship. You cannot imagine how complex it is. Yet, the complexity is the guarantee of its hardiness.
Lian’s informal log, day seventy-four of the expedition.
The blue and red shifts are very diminished. The stars behind and before us have almost their true colours. Gravity keeps increasing so it will reach the planet level in three weeks. It very hard for me to get used to such a weight to bear and such fast fall when we jump or cast something. Yet, it’s only the beginning. Anyway, the captain told me he was very proud of my results to the co-ordination test.
Lian’s informal log, day eighty-nine of the expedition.
We have gone past the planet and stopped. We are now between the planet and the star, so we can use the sail. The third and second shifts will deploy it during our resting time. If everything is right, we’ll reach the planet in four days of navigation. It would have been too dangerous to use our particle accelerator near the planet and its satellites, because they all have a magnetic field, so the reactions of our plasma would have been too unpredictable.
Lian’s informal log, day ninety-three of the expedition.
Our pilots have successfully set us into orbit around the planet… well, the name was definitely too complicated, and as we were the first explorers here, we could choose a more simple name. I could remember the image of the planet on the main holo-screen. It was a little blue spot in the dark and cold ocean of the void. Sapphire was already a planet name, as well as Opal. There were so many blue planets. Maybe the simplest name had not already been used? Blue Island would do well. I would check it out with the captain tomorrow. After all, he was the one who could give a name to the planet.
Lian’s informal log, day ninety-four of the expedition.
The captain decided to call the planet Blue Island. This was the name of a planet which has disappeared more than a thousand years before, in a supernova. We are still increasing our gravity. Our first readings of the planet confirmed the presence of a breathable atmosphere and bearable ground pressure and temperature. We are now checking biological signatures and astronomical data.
Lian’s informal log, day one-oh-four of the expedition.
Our first readings are completed. We have spotted carbon-based life forms in the oceans that cover three quarters of Blue Island’s surface. They are primitive beings, such as bacteria, algae and small boneless animals. Thalia told us that was an early stage in a planet’s life growth. The evolution has not yet created rigid rods and bones which are essential for organisms to live out of water. That’s why no forests have been spotted. Yet, those life forms have already influenced the atmospheric composition. We are waiting for the results of the astronomical simulation.
I got to bed the next evening confident in the navigator’s ability to predict the planet and satellites moves. If all was right, we would send a landing party to collect samples and assess the illness risks. I looked at Teebow who was already asleep in his hammock. He almost worked twenty hours a day despite the medical officer’s advice. The captain had to threaten not to let him land on the planet if he was too tired to make him take some rest. This planet was fascinating him. I put my notepad in the hammock pocket and rolled up to sleep, and the light automatically switched off.
The next morning, as I went to the control room, I met Carl Faejtylo, our shift’s navigator, who looked tired and preoccupied.
‘Galaxy be your guide Carl!’
‘Space be your garden Lian.’
‘What’s going on, you look as if you were to meet the Great Kraantreck?’ I asked, joking.
‘We have…trouble, with the simulation.’
‘What’s the matter with that?’
‘This planet and its satellites are a chaotic system. In addition to the three astronomic bodies gravity problem which is, as you may know, already insoluble, each satellite has its own magnetic field and inner activity which influence and are influenced by the planet and the other satellites. The important amount of liquid water on the planet also make the problem more difficult because of massive tidal flows.’
‘This sounds like a brain killing machine!’
‘I’m going to check this night’s simulation results with Wiat, so if you’ve nothing else to do, you may take a look at this.’
Wiat Quely, the third navigator, was sitting at his post in the control room. The captain and the second officer were talking with him. It appeared that the simple presence of Solar Wind and its magnetic field disturbed the experiments because of the system inherent instability. The simulation results were too scattered to be useful. The planetary system was just unpredictable. Nevertheless, the captain decided to send a landing party. If the situation of the ship changed, we could just move her for a moment and come and retrieve the party later. The first officer would lead and the captain would stay on board.
‘The captain should always be the last to leave his ship!’ he said. They began planning the landing party.
Go to 9.
normalement là il y avait un choix entre rester et descendre sur la planête, mais il y a eu productor's cut.
Enfin, si je m'y était mis plus tôt ça ne serait pas arrivé :roll: