Pencil Sector EL-Y d5 A 5 - 3306-06-11 14:26 Galactic Standard Time
George Smith slapped the power coupling into place on pump fourteen of the atmospheric processor and pushed the big enter key on the diagnostic terminal. He was on a narrow platform forty meters above the ground, wearing a full environment suit making the last of the repairs on the expensive piece of machinery. It was one of his routine tasks, in his current job. The other jobs he had to do was unload supply ships and deliver consumables to the various automated terraforming machinery in his region, which covered an area approximately 120km from his new home, Kaplan's Landing. The diagnostic terminal displayed a big green 'OK' after about a minute and George replaced the panel and packed up his things. He carefully climbed down the ladder from the platform and got into the Scarab SRV parked at the bottom. The manual stated that this sort of maintenance work should normally take about two hours. It took George nearly thirty minutes more than that: Cummings would not be happy. George didn't care, though. He did the job right and everything got done in time. He just had to work a bit longer each day to do it. George didn't mind. It wasn't like there was much else for him to do here. His work rate did mess up the worker efficiency metrics that bean counters like Cummings found so important. On the other hand, his thoroughness did increase the mean time between failure of the equipment slightly, so it more than balanced out. That didn't stop Cummings from giving him grief, though.
The planet was lifeless with a thin nitrogen atmosphere, but it was high in metallic ores and had potential to be a colony world some day. So the little planet was being terraformed. Every hour, a Chaucer class ice transporter would arrive in orbit and release just short of a hundred thousand tons of ice into the upper atmosphere of the planet in a decaying orbit that would cause the ice chunks to burn up after a few revolutions. This added much needed water vapour, oxygen, and simple organic molecules to the atmosphere. The terraforming machinery monitored this process, and converted some of the planets nitrogen atmosphere to ammonia and other nitrogenous compounds which were released back into the atmosphere. This required regular delivery of chemicals and this was George's other primary role. A few decades of this process would get the atmosphere able to support algae and basic plant life, and a few decades of those working and the planet would start becoming habitable. Terraforming was a project for very patient people.
There were just the two of them there at any one time. Their shifts were four weeks long and an operator was replaced every two weeks. George was coming up to the end of his fourth week on his third rotation. In a few days he would be heading up to New Growth for a week off, and then he would be moved to another station on the planet for his fourth rotation. His current team mate was Park Yoon Gou, a tall skinny guy about 15 years younger than George. He was nice enough, but was energetic and couldn't sit still. He worked fast, which Cummings really liked, but occasionally was sloppy and skipped checks. On one occasion, George had to redo a repair to a backup generator, because "Yoonie" had made a mistake and skipped the post fix diagnostic test. Had the primary failed, an entire processor would have gone offline. It took George an extra 45 minutes on his maintenance task, though, and Cummings was annoyed about that. George didn't blame Yoonie and didn't report up the botched repair to head office. He mentioned it to Yoonie directly and the kid promised to be more careful next time, provided George picked up the pace a bit and got their team into the top bonus efficiency bracket.
George drove the SRV back to Kaplan's Landing, the small settlement that was his home. He parked the SRV in the garage, cycled through the airlock, and took off his environment suit in the changing room. He walked straight to the common room that served as the kitchen and recreation area. Yoonie was there, eating noodles, and watching a CQC match on the vid wall. There was a glass of beer on the table in front of him.
"Hey, old man! How's your alien girlfriend?"
"Alien girlfriend?"
"That's the only thing I can think of that would keep you out so long. I have been back an hour!"
"I'm just doing things right, Yoonie! Gotta be thorough, otherwise it'll bite us in the ass later."
"Yeah! I know, man! You are doing good work and I know you've covered my ass more than once. It's just we are so close to the top tier. That's an extra 5% bonus to our salary. It's a lot of cash, grandfather."
"We're already getting 45% extra for our bonus!"
"But the round fifty would nice!"
George went to the food dispenser and selected a food cartridge, the szechuan tofu with rice and vegetable, and grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge. For all the stress of working here, being on a planet had some advantages, like drinking a beer from a bottle. The food dispenser chimed twice to let him know that his food was ready. George took it over to the kitchen's small table and started to eat. It was tasty: spicy with a fruity flavour. One thing you could say for The Company, they didn't skimp on the rations. They weren't especially fancy, but they were above average and tasted really good. Some company accountant probably did an analysis and discovered the extra cost was made up for by increased worker productivity, thought George. Whatever the reason, George was glad. The food he ate over the past four months was the best of his life, aside from the four weeks he spent on the luxury cruise to the California Nebula. That seemed like an age ago, though George had a dream of going back there. In a year or two more at this job, he'd have enough credits to buy a small apartment in Mic Turner Base. If he worked a few more years beyond that, he may be able to afford to live on a planet with an atmosphere. His daydreams of rolling hills under blue skies was interrupted by a buzz from his hand terminal. Yoonie's terminal buzzed too.
"Eat up grandfather! There's a supply drop coming in in thirty minutes. Cummings has managed to schedule it at short notice to get our numbers up.", Yoonie said. He knocked back the rest of his beer and headed off to his quarters to get changed into a clean undersuit, leaving the vid screen on, and his noodle bowl and beer glass on the table. George sighed, finished his meal and put both their dirty dishes in the washer.
Twenty minutes later, the two of them were suited up and standing in the airlock. Yoonie was bouncing on the balls of his feet, impatient to get started. A Lakon Type 5 transport was just touching down on the settlement landing pad. As soon as the docking clamps engaged, the airlock door opened and Yoonie ran out to the automech control station.
"Come on George! If we get these thirty six tons of supplies delivered to the processors in under six hours we hit the top bonus tier."
The two of them worked quickly to load twelve tons of chemicals and spare parts for the atmospheric processors into each of the two rugged Magnus Transporting Long Haul trucks. As soon as the first truck was filled, Yoonie ran off towards it, climbed aboard, and started driving. George unloaded the remaining twelve tons of cargo from the Type 5 and transferred them to the vehicle bay, thanked Manus, the pilot, and finished up the docking documentation and lift off procedures, before he went to his own truck. He was about thirty minute behind Yoonie and it was about forty five minutes since the Type 5 touched down. Without the time pressure to earn bonuses, this part of the process would be the most fun for George: four hours of driving to two atmospheric processors and then returning to base. However, to get under the six hour target he would have to cut the time a bit. Yoonie could do the deliveries to these processors in under three hours, but that pace made George nervous, there were places where the truck could tip over or get stuck if the driver wasn't careful. George was aiming for three hours and thirty minutes. With luck, he would complete the delivery to the sixth atmospheric processor before the six hour deadline had elapsed.
Three hours later George was driving back to base. He had completed his deliveries to the first two atmospheric processors in a reasonable time. George was driving faster than he felt comfortable and was feeling tired, but was determined to at least try and meet the deadline. His stomach churned with the stress of it. Still he drove on, the suspension of the truck bucking under him over the uneven terrain. There was an alert from the comms system. It was Cummings. George groaned inwardly and accepted the comms request. A channel opened to Cummings, who was in orbit above in New Growth and also to Yoonie. A conference call then. That wasn't so bad.
"I need a sitrep!", barked Cummings
"Delivery completed to processors one and two.", replied George, "I am about thirty minutes from base to pick up the delivery for processor five."
"I have finished the delivery to processors three and four, and I am just finishing up the delivery to processor six.", Yoonie responded. "I will be heading back to base in ten minutes. There is some damage to axle there on my long truck, but it'll hold."
"Okay! Good! Better than I expected, but it is still tight.", Cummings replied after a slight delay due to the distance to New Growth. "Anything you guys can do to pick up the pace? Can you drive a little faster George? Push that long truck a bit? You will both have time tomorrow to do repairs if you need to?"
"I am driving as fast as I can.", replied George. "Any faster and I risk tipping the truck over."
"I can take a quicker route back to base via the Solens Badlands", responded Yoonie. "With a bit of hard driving I will be there about the same time as George. We can load up and the two of us can make the last delivery, with me driving. It'll be much quicker."
"If you make through the Badlands without an accident. That's very rough terrain with narrow canyons and lots of caves. We don't know how stable it is there."
"Relax George. I scouted out a route last week in an SRV. I won't get lost. I have done it twice. It'll be no problem."
"An SRV is a lot lighter than a long truck, Yoonie!"
"You worry to much!"
"Yoon Gou, your plan sounds good. Run with it. With a competent driver on the last leg, success is much more likely.", interjected Cummings. The comms channel closed.
George pushed back feelings of shame and anger and focused on driving. He still had a long way to go to get back to base. Besides, he was well ahead of targets, so Cummings couldn't fire him and life under the Official Tewantan Order for a decade was much worse and more humiliating than this. He'd live, and enjoy a cold beer when the work was done. He was worried about Yoonie, though. The Badlands were gnarly. The company had done some surveys and detected a large cavern network beneath the surface of a lot of it. It had baffled the scientists a bit, since the planet had no known geological activity and not enough liquid on the surface for erosion to be involved. However, the science took a back seat to business, and further investigation was put off until later. It was recommended to avoid the area until then and to focus on the terraforming effort.
Twenty minutes later, the comms unit in George's truck lit up and connected automatically. It was an emergency call. George's heart sank.
"Panpan! Panpan! Panpan! My truck has fallen through the roof of a cavern. Axle three has cracked and the truck is pretty beaten up. I appear to be stuck and without all the wheels working I don't think I can get free."
There was a loud rumbling of rocks falling, over the comms channel, and Yoonie started talking again.
"Okay things don't seem to be too stable he... Oh no! Mayday! Mayday! May..."
There was a weird buzzing sound followed by a loud bang and the screeching of metal and the comms channel disconnected.
George checked where the distress call came from and changed heading to go straight there. There was no time to go back to Kaplan's Landing first. Things sounded bad and Yoonie needed help straight away. Seconds later a comms request came in from Cummings. George accepted it.
"Okay, George. I need you to continue with the deliveries. I know Yoon Guo logged an emergency call, but he can wait for a few hours. The truck has oxygen and power that'll last for days. Besides, I think Yoon Guo would rather you not blow ten percent of his bonus to divert to help him fix his truck."
"That was a mayday call, Mr. Cummings. That means imminent danger to life! I am going straight there."
"But...", started Cummings, before George dropped the connection. Cummings tried to reconnect for the next ten minutes, but George ignored it. He foucsed on driving as fast as he was able to Yoonie's last known position. Eventually the comms unit went quiet. Just in time too, as George was entering the Badlands. The incessant beeping was distracting and George needed all his concentration. He stopped to take stock. He did a search for the geological surveys of the Badlands and overlaid on the map. The survey indicated that there was a large cavern right beneath Yoonie's last known location. Better yet, mapping drones had determined that there were a few paths through the cavern network to there from cave entrances on the surface. One of the nearest was big enough to allow his truck through. George steered the truck towards it. George didn't get his hopes up, though. The drone survey was done eighteen months ago and things could have changed. Besides, the drones weren't doing high resolution scans: the margin for error was a meter or so. However, it as his best option. Going to where Yoonie fell through the cavern ceiling on the surface would probably result in the same fate for him.
A few minutes later George reached the cave mouth. It was definitely big enough for his truck and a disconcertingly even triangular shape. George buried his misgivings and drove the truck in. It went down at an even twenty degrees for about a kilometer an entered a large cavern. The beams from the trucks headlights barely illuminated the far wall, but George turned the truck in the direction that the survey map indicated the next tunnel should be. The truck crossed the cavern bouncing and shaking over the uneven floor. The next tunnel was also large enough for his truck and it snaked for about two kilometers in the direction of the cavern where George believed Yoonie was. It was a tight fit and he had to take things slowly, but eventually it opened up into a huge cavern. Georges truck detected Yoonie's truck's emergency transponder on the other side, about 800 meters away. George steered towards it.
The headlights of his truck illuminated a strange series of objects about 100 meters ahead: three rows of triangular shaped columns about a 1.5 meters wide and 3 meters tall. The didn't look natural, definitely something manufactured. George's curiosity was piqued, but he had no time to stop: ahead in the darkness Yoonie was in trouble. George drove his truck along the avenue between two rows of the triangular pillars. Half a kilometer further on he came across the rubble where the roof of the cavern had fallen in and a hundred meters beyond that he found the wreck of Yoonie's truck. It was on its side and almost crushed flat. There were some large rocks nearby, but nothing that explained the damage. There didn't seem to be any obvious danger so George parked about five meters away and cautiously stepped out of his truck. He walked around to the front of Yoonie's truck. The windscreen was gone and the cab roof was bent dangerously low. George peered in. He could see Yoonie lying unconscious on the side wall of the truck's cabin. His left arm was bent at a strange angle, but the life support indicator on his environment suit was orange: Yoonie was alive, but life signs were outside safe parameters. He was injured, a broken arm, at least and needed medical attention. In addition the oxygen indicator was flashing orange: Yoonie's suit had a slow leak. If he did what Cummings had asked Yoonie would have certainly died. As it was, he would have to work quickly to save him.
The cabin of the truck was so badly flattened that gap where the windscreen used to be was too narrow to squeeze through in an environment suit. George doubted that the doors would open at all. He was going to have to get creative. He ran back to his truck and got the hydraulic jack. He inserted it into the gap where the windscreen was and activated it. Metal squealed and groaned and scraped against rock, but after about three minutes the gap was big enough to climb through. George quickly assessed Yoonie's condition, deemed it was safe to move him, and hoisted him over his shoulder, taking care of the broken arm as much as possible. George carried his tall friend back to his truck, and by the time he had lifted him in George's lungs and legs were burning from fatigue. There was little time to stop for a rest though. George pressurised the truck's cabin, which fixed the most pressing danger to Yoonie's life. Then he carefully removed Yoonie's environment suit and checked for injuries. With the help of the medical expert system in the medkit he diagnosed two broken ribs and a concussion, in addition to the broken arm. George carefully applied splints for the breaks, and hooked up an autodoc, which would monitor and stabilize Yoonie until he could get proper medical attention. He then strapped him into the cabin's sleeping berth. He sat into the driver seat and buckled up his harness. He was just about to get the truck moving again when he noticed the pale blue glow moving in the distance.