Star Trek: Bendross
Episode 06 More training:
(Fall 2072)
By
And
The Bendross Players
Hamilton watched the control readouts as the excursion craft settled into Mars orbit.
He'd never been to Mars. Until recently the trip took weeks. Life support isn't cheap, so the only way anyone ever went to Mars is by having something desperately vital to contribute to the colony there.
Now, they'd made the trip in just under a day. Hamilton's head was spinning. One of his ancestors had been one of the first men to walk on the moon. It had taken them three days to go from Earth to the moon. Now Hamilton had crossed the big empty in just over a third of the time.
Hamilton put his excitement away into a corner of his mind and focused on his job. Hamilton had a power of concentration that was exceptional. It had kept him alive more than once, so he practiced it. He was training how to fly the excursion craft.
The excursion craft was the latest thing from Boeing. A three story tall shallow cone. It was designed to travel across a solar system and support a scouting mission on a distant planet. It was luxurious and fast as such things went. Moreover, it handled about like a medium sized three-story house might if you stuck a fusion drive on it.
It had the new Continuum Displacement Drive. On the big ships this drive could actually break the speed of light. The excursion craft could never generate the amount of energy necessary for the feat, but it could truck around the solar system with great enthusiasm.
Hamilton looked at the reentry profile. It had been calculated by the excursion craft's own sensors and the on board calculations of Eric Stillwell, the Physics genius on their squad. "I cheated." Eric said gravely "I know the atmospheric data for Mars like the back of my hand. I helped design a meteorological station for the Mars Colony."
"Will you be able to calculate the atmosphere qualities of an unknown Earthlike planet?" Kerenski asked.
Eric shrugged. "I don't see any serious problems at this time. We'll probably have first in probes to gather data with. With enough preparation work we should do just fine."
"That will have to do." Kerenski said resignedly.
Now they were heading into the atmosphere. A condition which Hamilton only had theoretical training about.
The training would have been easier had they been allowed to land and take off from Earth, which was the prototype of the sort of planet they were looking for, after all. However, the Excursion Boat's maneuvering drives were fusion rockets. Relatively clean, but still outlawed by ancient treaty.
Therefore, they were making a practice run to Mars.
Hamilton looked at his copilot, Ruddy the Celebrity. The small hairdresser turned out to have a very good dexterity and coordination. He was a decent pilot on his own. With a little bit of training Hamilton supposed that Ruddy was as good as anyone with out the over bearing, god - given talent of a fighter jock was ever going to get.
The buffeting of the atmosphere got worse and Hamilton adjusted their course very, very slightly. Then he checked the instruments. He'd over compensated slightly. Using the instruments he pulled the excursion craft back onto course. "Need more practice" Hamilton grunted to himself.
The excursion craft thundered into the thin Martian atmosphere and eventually began its landing approach. Hovering on a jet of heated water, the excursion craft handled about as well as could be expected. Kerenski was in one of the turrets taking a sighting.
"Forward a little. Rotate starboard about thirty degrees. Starboard. Starboard. To your right, gentlemen."
The turrets were not weapons emplacements. They were bubble of the newest wonder metal Transparent Aluminum, that were held inside the craft during re-entry mode. They were for visual observation, start sightings and to visually scout landing sites and whatever else you could imagine a transparent dome stuck on the side of such a ship being good for.
Eventually Rudy and Hamilton put the ship down on the spot designated by Kerenski.
"Jets safed. Operations batteries report full. Restart batteries report full. Reactor entering powered down mode. Reactor safed."
With that the excursion craft had become a headquarters for the exploration of their new planet.
As the mission Commander Kerenski was the first to step off the excursion craft onto Martian soil. Hamilton was in the line. He didn't need to rush. The first man to step foot on Mars was fifty years ago, and he'd been killed in the war. However, Hamilton did make a point of stepping onto Mars and grabbing a little handful of Martian sand. He'd put it next to his handful of Moon dirt taken during the earlier sessions of landing training. Hamilton's snorted to himself "Collect all Nine Planets!" Then he sobered. He'd have to remember to grab a hand full of the Earth to go with him too. Probable that he'd never be seeing the old girl again.
Hamilton felt unaccountably misty at that.
The rest of the two week training cruise was a drag for Hamilton and Rudy. They had used up their supply of critical skills getting the Excursion craft to Mars. Now they were space suited manual labor. But they gamely hung in and learned what they could while Michelle Gibbons and Eric Stillwell ran all the tests, or simulated tests that the improvised manual suggested that they ought to on a new planet.
[To be continued]
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.