"Midday - The Second Day"

Posted on Mon Mar 6th, 2023 @ 6:26am by Captain Samuel Woolheater

Mission: Season 6 : Episode 1: Circinus
Location: WHAVI REGIO - PLAINS AND FIELDS OF ICE
Timeline: MD08 - 1100 HOURS
3219 words - 6.4 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON: MD08 – MIDDAY – The Second Day]

WHAVI REGIO
The sun is at its apex. A perfect meridian of the star poised exactly above the plain. Endless ice and snow on a perfectly flat plain or ‘regio’. Forests of snow, old as the world itself... meadows of ice heaped with snow drifts... plains endless in every direction - compassless... strange delicate flowers... immense solitudes... profound silence and all nature new to art... a paradise of emptiness and loneliness. A grey sky against a snow white landscape.

There…that tiny speck travelling from East to West. What is kicking up the snow? After another minute it is halfway across our field of view. It must be an illusion on the plain. It must be our imagination. How it travels in a straight line across the vast, empty landscape. There is no other movement save that tiny speck.

That ‘tiny speck’ is Captain Woolheater on a repaired hoverbike with a new motivator to propel him. Travelling at a very high rate of speed, Sam held onto the first waypoint of the day. It was hundreds of miles from the camp and he thought he must be able to see it sometime soon. A featureless landscape might be terrifying for some. There are no markers, no place to get your bearings. It is a frightening prospect. But, it also has a beauty all of its own. Sam had been travelling this direction, trusting in his sensors and his gut that he was still on course.

He was topping out the maximum speed of the hoverbike. And yet, he felt like he wasn’t moving at all. Hours and hours. His only comfort was a blinking green light that someone back at the encampment was tracking him still. He remembered the first Canto from Dante’s Inferno:

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

But there was deep beauty here. And Sam recognized that there was a strange attraction to this place, this regio. Because, you see, the Regio was hiding a secret.

Samuel slowed the hoverbike and came to a stop. The hoverbike, when stopped made no sound at all. Only the tracking beacon that ‘pinged’ every ten seconds. Sam got off the bike to stretch his legs and drink some water. He gulped it down, his allotment for this period and licked his lips. He cheated and gathered some of the freshly fallen snow and putting it into the water bottle that it might melt and give him extra water later. It was pure water, better than any replicator could reproduce.

That’s when he first noticed it. That…..s o u n d …in the distance. Was it the wind? No, it was in a specific direction. Could he be imagining it. Maybe, but the tricorder ruled that out. The sound was emanating from a direction south by southwest of his position. It was…like the roar of a giant waterfall. But that couldn’t be.

Sam altered his waypoint and plugged it into the mapping computer and the machine happily complied. He turned to the southwest and took off, speeding away. He rode for another thirty-minutes, stopped and used the sound, which was louder now, to verify his trajectory. He started up again and rode for another thirty minutes at top speed. Then, there…just peeking above the horizon, puffy, cotton-like clouds that were moving!

As he rode, it started to rain. A light mist at first, then a gentle rain. The ground was all slushy beneath him. It must freeze at night when the sun goes down. Another fifteen minutes and Sam stopped the hoverbike and dismounted to see the amazing sight in front of him.

The reflection in his helmet’s visor was of a massive cloud going from the ground up, up, up and still up into the sky. An incredible vertical cloud. Sam retracted the helmet as the rain fell on him and he was all smiles and in astonishment.

AZHUL VAPOR PLUME ONE AND TONELLY VAPOR PLUME TWO
Water droplets, warm water droplets fell from the sky from the first water vapor plume. Sam’s HUD recorded that the first plume was reaching 120 miles into the sky. And behind it, some further 50 to 75 miles was a second plume. Naming them after the Marine CO and the Marine XO, Sam launched the aerial drone and raced towards the plume.

From miles long fissures in the icebed, were giant cracks. The water pressure from cryo-vulcanisim split the fissures open when the tidal forces on the glaciated planet were strong enough and this was the result. ‘Popsicle One’ had an underground ocean of some kind. It may be just limited to the Whavi Regio but it was there. It was snowing as the water vapor cooled and in many cases, the closer one got to the giant plume, the more like rain it was. But it was warm. It must be superheated from where it was venting.

Sam got off the hover bike and took many, many pictures, and scans. The sound was deafening, it was a mighty roar as the pressure from under the sea of ice was vented helped along by cryo-vulcanisim. Sam was using the binoculars to scan the rupture in the crust of the ice. He saw that it was ruptured upwards. Like two giant icebergs had collided over a liquid bottom and the explosion pushed them up and outward. Sam saw that little islands had formed of floating ice. He had to get closer. He retracted his helmet and let the warm water rain down on him. He opened his arms to the sky and enjoyed the natural shower. He took off the top of his body armor and laid it down. Letting the warm water from the plumes fall on him. He smiled, laughed, and wished that others were here to enjoy this with him. He wished for Andrinn by his side. He let himself relax and fresh in the natural shower of water on an otherwise snowy and cold day and then got back into his EVA suit.

Back on the hoverbike, the aerial drone recording visual data, atmospheric data, and water composition. The water was not salty like ocean water on Pacifica or Earth. Rather, it was pure, simple warm water. There were trace elements in it. But nothing that one wouldn’t find at a fancy-pants health spa with $20 Martini’s and mud baths. Then, he spotted…movement. He stopped the bike and dismounted and without thinking, he grabbed the sniper’s rifle from his back.

The ground here was chaotic, snowdrifts, ice berms and then open sea water pools. It was from these pools that something was emerging. Sam landed on a soft snowdrift to reduce his profile and aimed his weapon at the unknown movement. He used the sniper scope and focused in on a herd of creatures that looked like very large artic seals on Earth. They were grey, huge, like…Las Vegas all-you-can-eat huge. There were four…no…five of them now. They didn’t spot Sam and he planned to keep it that way. The sniper’s scope was superior to the binoculars in that the scope only had to process visual data and get distance to target. It has a much clearer picture. Just then, the aerial drone flew overhead and noticed the creatures. Sam watched to see what would happen. The drone would stay at a safe distance and gather images and scan their life signs. But how would the creatures react.

STHILG SEALS
The creatures who were looking more and more like seals, except for that very large fin in the middle of their backs, having never seen a drone before were not frightened by it. They made a honking sound, reminiscent of Canadian Geese. Only their honk was as a loud as an 18-wheeler truck full of beer and pork rinds. Sam decided that these amazing creatures should be named after the ship’s Chief Medical Officer, Commander Sthilg. Life was here and in the most unusual places. What Sam did not know and would only be discovered later, is that the Azhul & Tonelly Plumes were actually more like 150 miles (241.4km) tall and the plumes could reach low orbit by ejecting the water beneath the ice. Tidal flows and stresses from the planets star caused the plumes to shoot like this when the forces were strong enough and there was enough built up pressure. That cycle would turn out to be about every fourteen rotations. This is why there was so much snow and so much rain. The planet’s atmosphere was dense with water. Sam knew none of the science, but the data he was collecting would help explain this.

He decided not to approach or interact with the creatures, these ‘Sthilg Seals’.

He chronometer beeped at him it was time to start heading back to base camp. Sam looked at the map data and did not want to return the same way he came. The Whavi Regio at night did not sound all that pleasant. But it would probably make a hell of a place to look at the night skies. The Azhul and Tonelly Plumes were the only landmarks for many miles. He did not want to get lost and have to get rescued. Sam sent the aerial drone aloft as high as it could go. Which was high. Connecting his sensors on the hoverbike to the sensors on the drone, he was able to get a slightly better long range image. Enough to know that he could head north by northeast and return along a similar path but also investigate a large area that he had not been to before. Sam considered if the weather were to turn nasty and decided that they were here to learn and discover. It was worth the risk. As long as he held an easterly course, he was heading back to camp. And if the hoverbike crapped out again, he could make a call for help.

The risk was acceptable. He took final pictures of the plumes from the high vantage point of the drone and then, returned the drone to the hoverbike and the charging station inside. Mounting the hoverbike, he turned and set the new waypoint and speed off. Enjoying the warm water from the plumes one last time.

ARRIANNA CHAOS
The return trip across the plains of ice and snow was interrupted by a new area. Ridges and cracks, chasms, and lines, smaller mensae and little valleys, some with small pools of clear frozen water. Sam wondered if those were windows to the ocean beneath and how deep that ocean went. It was a difficult navigation. He had to launch the drone again so that he would not lose his way home. The hoverbike was doing better. But the temperature was dropping. When he looked at the maps, he realized he was approaching a large river. Yes, an unfrozen river that issued from a fissure in the ice.

Stopping the hover bike and collecting a sample of the moss and what looked like algae into a specimen container, he had to choose a place name to go with the lat & long. He chose to call this large area after the ship’s Chief Science Officer, Commander Arrianna Salannis an Vantar. However, that would never fit on a vacation or holiday brochure inviting people to come and visit and spend a week. He shortened it to her first name as that would fit comfortably in the space on the label. Chaos terrain, or chaotic terrain, is a planetary surface area where features such as ridges, cracks, and plains appear jumbled and enmeshed with one another.

The wind was picking up and Sam figured he had about an hour of daylight left. He gathered the specimen cannisters and loaded them back onto the hoverbike. Mounted again and sped away towards home.

The sensors pinged again. They were picking up some vegetation near a very rocky area amid the Arianna Chaos that was proving to be more challenging than he thought. The hoverbike was working hard and so was Sam to keep it on course. He deviated slightly in order to get to the rocky area ahead. He slowed and the rocks were at an angle. He had seen this before, somewhere. The strata in the rock were at a 45-degree angle to the rest of the plain. He didn’t know why or what that meant but he had seen images of when very large objects impact the ground. It was strange because, the sensors were reading an increase in the temperature.

CARMICHAEL HOT SPRINGS
The rocks were easily visible here because the ground was hotter here. In places, in big pools, the water was steaming. Sam scanned the water to make sure that it wasn’t too hot to burn him and that it wasn’t acid. It was neither. Mineral water would be the best term for it. Like the hot springs found in Japan on Earth. High mineral content. Bubbling areas of muddy baths and then crystal clear pools of warm water. Some pools had a layer of ice on the already.

The vegetation that the sensors had detected were thickets of what Sam thought must be shrubbery. But like nothing he had seen before. The leaves looked like the human symbol for “love”. The heart shape. And there were so many leaves. In fact, when he stood up he realized that the shrubs and bushes with this heart shaped leaf were nurturing and protecting the pools from getting iced over. They had no flowering buds. Their entire expression was in those leaves. He took a few clippings, carefully and he apologized to the plant saying, “Forgive me sister plant, I need a piece of you to figure out what you are. This won’t hurt you I hope.”

Sam named the bushes, the shrubs with the big heart shaped leaves “Kelia-Salik Love Leaf” for the ship’s Chief Counselor. Lieutenant Commander Alicia Kelea-Salik. Everyone knew how nurturing and lovely Alicia was. And while Sam had only brief interaction with her, he knew that those waters ran deep. How appropriate that these “love leaves” protected a place for relaxing and healing. Fetching a new vail from the sample container, Sam got a water and temperature sample and added it to the specimen kit. He wrote down the lat and the long and named the place after Doctor Carmichael. Sam remembered the doctor saying to many patients while in marine medical, “Try and get some rest…”. Well, here, one could actually do that. Saddling up again and the speeding away he was back on course.

RIN TOWER
It was late. Sam was going to be late. And it was getting dark. He was almost out of the Arianna Chaos and up ahead, there were tower-like structures that stood up from the ground. As he got closer, he realized that there were a few tall ones that could give him a vantage point on the areas up ahead of him. Now, the terrain was more like before. Ice and snow for miles. He would, once again, be reliant on instruments alone to get him home and back to the encampment. If only he could set another waypoint and triangulate his position. He would be sure. The communication array had crapped out and was frozen solid. He started to feel very alone. Not lost just yet, but that thought was creeping in his mind. This was just a feeling of being alone. Because no one knew exactly where he was.

Sam slowed and pulled next to the tall, tower-like structures. He shone the lights of his hoverbike at the towers and started to scan them. As the sensors penetrated the ice, they revealed that these were actually dead coral. Millennia ago, it must have been, that this was once a sea or an ocean. That once could support organisms like coral. That sea water must have frozen or been sucked out by the plumes a long time ago. Now all that remained was the hollow, dead coral skeleton. But, the ice and rain had, over many years, gotten caught up in the lattice structure, frozen solid and formed around it. The shape was like a tower but not exactly round. As he scanned the tower and walked around it, he saw footholds and handholds.

He realized that he could put a marker beacon here on the top, if he could get to the top, and then triangulate his position back to the encampment. He got the last marker beacon from the hoverbike. Hanging it from his waist, he climbed the tower-like structure. It was about 150 feet tall (44.4m) and it was made of ice. As he climbed, the winds buffeted around him and the snow accumulated on his face visor. He clung to the tower and the footholds and handholds. As he climbed, again and again, when he thought he could go no further, he would find purchase for his foot or a hand. Until, with much difficulty, he reached the top. It was not roomy for him rest here. There was not enough space. The hoverbike and the lights were far below. His helmet provided the light he needed to see by.

Far off in the distance, he could see the Elysium camp. He could see the last of the shuttle traffic for the day going up and down. It was just a blip on the horizon but he knew he was close now. Setting the marker beacon here, affixing a solar panel for longer operation and battery recharge, he activated it and the signal was strong. Back at camp, if anybody was watching the sensor grid, this would have lit up their screens. Sam smiled. He felt smart.

When he climbed back down he put in the lat and the long for this location and named it after the ship’s Chief Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Rin. Now, for as long as they were here, this location marked the beginning of the explored territory at the edge of the chaos field and the beginning of the Whavi Regio. It was an important marker. Possibly the most important marker beacon he had set since beginning the mission.

Back on his hoverbike, Sam made his way back to camp. The hoverbike and he were home now. It was so good to come back and see people. The hoverbike needed repairs again but it didn’t breakdown. Sam’s EVA suit was frozen. He dropped off the specimen collections to the appropriate Science and Geology and Biology teams. He uploaded all the data from his hoverbike and EVA sensor arrays. And, at long last was done. Day Two was over. He sought out Andrinn and finding him hugged him tightly.



[OFF:]

Captain Samuel Woolheater
“Saepius Exertus, Semper Fidelis, Frater Infinitas”
Division VI, MARDET 62nd Company "Spartans", 1st Platoon CO
=/\= USS ELYSIUM - NCC-89000 =/\=

 

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