That Which Grows Within The Hull - 1

Isobel Perlich looked over the radio-visual instruments on her telescope-mounted komputator. Her fingers fiddled with the dials on the console while she watched the screen of stars, and she focused in on one of the many spots on the occasionally blurring screen's field of stars. "Ah ha," Perlich cheered. "Found you, ya little bastard..." She carefully fiddled with her console's dials some more -- continuously making mistakes and correcting -- and the glowing spot increased in size, more and more until it was a brownish spot -- surrounded by a swarm of smaller glowing spots, and one especially bright orange one -- all partially drowned by the glare of a K6 sun. Checking for the wireless pulses once more, she continued to narrow in on the orb, until it was a large sphere, dominating the screen of the komputator, that was striped between swirling orange and purple lines and was marked by three whitish spirals, which were persistent zones of pressure -- or storms -- she could easily see, the largest of which dwarfed the other two visible spots.

"Whaddya got for me, Perl?" Ohori Ukyo asked, spinning his command chair around to look toward Perlich.

"We got a nice, big, lovely class 2 gas giant -- light-sweeper indicates a diameter of 140,000 kilometers, plus a mass of around 12 Jovian standard... over 30 standard gravities... okay... infrared... and of course a few others... indicate it's got an atmosphere primarily composed of hydrogen and helium -- duh -- but, still it's pretty lookin'..." Perlich responded.

"Could you pull it up on the main viewer for me?" Ukyo asked.

"Sure thing, captain..." Perlich proceeded to press several keys -- loud things on a komputator -- and the main viewer in front of Ukyo came to life with a dim flash and the image of the gas giant came into focus -- as did the tens of glowing dots surrounding it. "Those its moons?" Ukyo asked. "There's quite a lot of them."

"Yeah -- I can read at least 40 of them; basically all of them are captured asteroids. There's only one that's rounded -- it seems pretty Earthlike; komputator calculates its Terran-likeness at 0.78... it has a diameter of 22,000 kilometers, mass of 8 Terran standard--"

"8 standard? That's a pretty dense object for its size." Ukyo interrupted, incredulously.

"Mm hmm... it has a surface gravity of under 3 standard. Atmospheric pressure estimate is between 9 and 10 standard. Average surface temperature estimated at 6 C... its atmosphere is almost 100 percent carbon dioxide." Perlich continued. "So, no life; no biosignature gas," Ukyo commented.

"But 76 percent of its surface is covered by what seems to be liquid water," Perlich responded, with a grin. "Aaah, so no one's home now, but it may be in the future," Ukyo said.

"Given a few hundred million more years, maybe -- I don't know the exact age, but the komputator's best guess is between one hundred and six hundred million years, based on a few things, but mainly the age of the star, which the arithmetical processor -- from its gravity, diameter, mass, luminosity, radiation, and some other junk -- has calculated to be about 530 million years old, give or take a few million years."

"Damn, a world that young?" Tao Drake's thick accent sounded. Both the pilot and the navigator looked to the new arrival to the bridge. "Ah, hello, Drake. What's our status?" Perlich asked.

"Right now, we're coasting at 10 klicks per sec, but we're really running low on hydrogen -- have you located the outpost?" Drake asked, with a sense of panic in his voice. "Yes, yes. We've found the outpost -- well, its parent body at least. Calm down." Said Perlich.

"Sorry, Perlich... sorry, Captain. I just don't like going on dry tanks. Don't get me wrong -- I like the idea of diving into the atmosphere of a giant planet just to get a few tons of hydrogen even less, but there's a far more indirect sense of panic that comes with runnin' out of gas in space."

"I understand, Ta. Don't worry, if we run out of hydrogen half-way there, it'll be my fault for entering in a screwed course for Ukyo, so I'll get out and push." Perlich grinned.

Tao chuckled warmly. "Aye, Perl -- I'll remember you said that for later."

Perlich looked back to her console and continued her attempts locate the source of the wireless refueling broadcasts. Finally, she found it. A tiny speck, orbiting at about 420,000 kilometers above the giant. "Found it, captain," Perlich announced, typed several more loud keys, and the speck blurred into focus on the main viewer. "0.6 astronomical units away."

The image highlighted several pings out from the speck every several moments. "It's a temperate asteroid -- has a surface temperature of 13 C. Closest body to the giant, by the looks of it. It's got an amazingly stable orbit for a captured asteroid. Low eccentricity. It weighs..." Perlich whistled. "A little under 650 trillion tonnes, captain. It's got a diameter of over 70 kilometers."

"That's a whole nation," Tao exclaimed. "Indeed. An object that big could hold tens of millions of people. Extensive infrastructure, hydroponics farms -- but could, is the big word there since no one wants to live on an inhospitable rock, drifting in the void." Ukyo answered.

"The wireless message is transmitting the signal for a fuel outpost, so it's my guess the asteroid is not being mined; it's probably just an anchor for the station -- we'll see a few stations built into the asteroid, but that's just for convenience so they don't need to build in space, they can be on an object where they can mine for materials for 3D printers, while boats move to and from the giant to collect hydrogen," Ukyo explained.

"Well, let's lower gravity, and fire up acceleration. Ta, Perl, can we do 500 kps?" Ukyo asked.

"That's... cutting tight it on the hydrogen for 0.62 AU, what with acceleration, then deceleration and all... I know the trip would take far longer, but could we nay settle for... I dunno... 200? 250 kps?"

"How about 300?" Ukyo requested. "Hm... that seems... doable." Tao thought aloud. "Alright. 300 kps it is then. Navigator -- punch that course vector into the arithmetical processor, and let's see what we get." Ukyo requested to Perlich.

Perlich walked over to another console on the tight bridge and punched in a series of numbers. A crude respiration of several planets and large moons in the system flashed onto the main viewer. A glowing line slowly formed from their current position, around several objects, and on to the gas giant system, where the line slowed and stopped, all while this was happening, the planets shifted position slowly. A series of statistics flashed across the screen, showing hydrogen expenditure -- the percent of hydrogen left at the beginning of acceleration, and the percent remaining at the end -- maximum acceleration, highest speed, efficiency rating, and ETA; 8 and a half hours accelerating, 3 days, and 13 hours coasting, and 8 and a half hours once more decelerating. Very little hydrogen was estimated to be expended during the coasting period, aside from some minor course corrections -- reaction control thrusters, and some minor slingshots -- the majority of hydrogen was to be spent accelerating, then decelerating.

"Lookin' good. Alright. I'll send 'em a message, you two are dismissed." Ukyo said.

"Yes, sir." The two crewmen responded, and the navigator Perlich and engineer Drake departed from the bridge, leaving Ukyo to begin directly imputing the directions into his controls with one hand, then picked up his speaker with the other.

"Now hear this. Now hear this. Zero-G in thirty minutes. Repeat; zero-G in thirty minutes. Expect weightlessness for at least ten minutes. We are making preparations for acceleration at one standard gravity for coast across interplanetary distances." Ukyo sounded across the ship. He set aside his microphone and pulled in a keyboard mounted on an arm of his command chair.

Perlich had already directed the ship's telescope at the asteroid station, it was just up to Ukyo to send a message via maser -- a maser for greatest accuracy, and speed. Ukyo thus began typing out his message to the transmitting station, that he could already guess in his head would reach them just five minutes, and he would get a response within a ten to fifteen minute period of sending his message.

"CAPTAIN OHORI UKYO. FAR TRADER VESSEL: CEQOSH. CREW: 7. MASS: 960 TONNES. TECHNOCRATIC UNION OF MAN. DETECTED YOUR WIRELESS DURING PHASE. LOW ON HYDROGEN. REQUESTING PERMISSION FOR REFUELLING."