Lost Among The Stars

CHAPTER 4 – GLIESE 667C-1

Gliese 667C as viewed from one of its planets, with Gliese 667A and B further away.

CHAPTER 4 – GLIESE 667C

00:14 (Universal Time)

Tuesday, April 20, 2320

Bridge of the A.M.S. KOSTROMA

On the fringe of the Gliese 667C System

‘’Attention to all aboard, this is your Captain! We have just arrived safely in the Gliese 667C system and will now start a detailed survey of the star system. You are thus the first Humans to travel outside of the Solar System. Thank you for your attention.’’

Tina then switched off her microphone and got out of her command chair to quietly go congratulate each of the crewmembers present on the bridge, ending with an emotional accolade with Shanandar.

‘’I hope that this will mark the start of a successful rescue mission, my friend.’’

‘’And my people will be eternally grateful to you and your crew for your willingness to risk yourselves in order to help my compatriots, Tina.’’

Shanandar then took a step back to look up into her eyes.

‘’How do you intend to proceed from now, Tina?’’

‘’We will first make a passive sensors sweep of the system while approaching the inner zone, where the remaining planets and moons are. From what you told us two years ago on Eris, I understand that there are zero chances of anyone having survived on Shouria itself, but what about on other planets and moons of the system? Did your people have space installations off Shouria?’’

‘’We had a few, nearly all of them being mining centers, dispersed on a few select planets and moons. What you called Gliese 667Ce, which was originally the fifth planet of the system but is now the fourth one, thanks to the original second planet having been vaporized in a direct impact with the wandering brown dwarf, had our biggest mining center underneath its surface. Maybe the miners there somehow survived and had descendants since the disaster 361 years ago. I think that it should be one of the first places to check on as we go.’’

‘’That sounds logical. I however promise you that we won’t leave this system before visiting every surviving planet and moon in it. If there are by a miracle some survivors, then we will find them.’’

‘’Thank you again, Tina: you are a real friend indeed.’’

‘’Well, we better get to our survey now. Go sit next to Anwar Duharto and Patricia O’Neil, at the sensors and communications stations, and help them by pointing out to them where the Koorivar space facilities originally were.’’

‘’With pleasure, Tina!’’

With her bridge crew fully occupied with its survey work, Tina returned to her command chair and started reviewing carefully the readings from the ship’s sensors. After some thirty minutes, with passive sweeps not giving any clue about possible Koorivar survivors in the system, Tina ordered the active sensors to be switched on as well, in the hope of getting a more complete picture of the situation in the Gliese 667C System. That new active sensors sweep only confirmed the chaotic nature of the damaged system: the orbits of the surviving six planets were all drastically changed, with some showing serious instability as well. Shouria, originally the third planet from its star, was now the second one and was following an elliptical orbit while wobbling severely on itself, being reduced to a ball of magma from which protruded parts of its old moon. Accepting with a pang of her heart that nobody could have possibly survived on Shouria, Tina then had her bridge crew concentrate on the remaining four planets turning on orbits outside Shouria’s new orbit.

Using her new ‘booster’ anti-matter engines to move quickly and economically from one planet orbit to the next, Tina was watching Gliese 667Ce, originally the fifth planet but now the fourth one, grow on the spherical display screen, when Patricia O’Neil suddenly spoke up, excitement in her voice.

‘’Captain, I am detecting a weak, repetitive radio signal coming from 667Ce. It sounds like some kind of automated radio beacon.’’

‘’Quick, switch that signal to Shanandar’s station! Maybe he will be able to identify it.’’

‘’Right away, Captain!’’

Shanandar had to listen for only a few seconds before he looked at Tina, his face full of emotions.

‘’It is one of our standard radio distress beacon signals, Tina.’’

‘’Where is it coming from?’’

‘’From the surface of Gliese 667Ce, near the eastern terminator. That’s where our mining complex was.’’

‘’Frida, accelerate towards 667Ce and place the ship in orbit above the location of that beacon. With any luck, this will prove to be more than just an old automated beacon signal. Shanandar, how long could such distress beacon emit before emptying its batteries?’’

‘’This type of distress beacon emitter is powered by an isotopic generator with a half-life of over 6,500 years. It thus could still emit long after any survivors would have died, but we must go check by ourselves on the spot.’’

‘’Agreed! Shanandar, you and Kazmiriel will lead a reconnaissance party down to the location of that beacon and search for any traces of survivors. You will be accompanied by my husband, Michel Koniev, and four more rescuers. Go equip yourself down at the Hangar Deck and bring with you a few space medical gurneys and digging tools.’’

The mature Koorivar eagerly got up from his seat and bowed briefly his head to Tina.

‘’Thank you for giving me this chance to save some of my compatriots, Tina.’’

Shanandar then nearly ran down towards the elevator shafts as Tina called up the ship’s security section, where Michel worked.

‘’Security section, this is the Captain! Is Michel Koniev present with you?’’

‘’Yes, Captain! One moment, please.’’

A few seconds later, Michel’s face appeared on Tina’s intercom display screen.

‘’Yes, Tina?’’

‘’Michel, we just detected a Koorivar automated distress beacon signal coming from an old Koorivar mining complex on the fourth planet. I have put Captain Shanandar in charge of a rescue team, along with Doctor Kazmiriel and you. Select quickly four more rescue team members and collect a few space medical gurneys and digging tools, then join Shanandar and Kazmiriel on the Hangar Deck. Your goal will be to find and save any possible Koorivar survivor in that mining complex. Do not bring any weapons except for a few stun pistols and follow the orders and directives from Shanandar.’’

‘’Understood! Our team will be ready in a few minutes. I will call you when ready to leave by shuttle.’’

‘’Thanks, Michel, and good luck!’’

Her heart now beating faster, Tina then cut the video link and concentrated back on her ship’s course and the fourth planet.

Some 52 minutes later, a personnel shuttle flew out of one of the four small craft airlocks of the KOSTROMA’s Hangar Deck, with two Koorivars, five Humans and four mining robots as passengers. With the KOSTROMA now in orbit above Gliese 667Ce, the shuttle immediately started its descent towards the Koorivar mining complex from which the beacon signal was emitted. Shanandar, who was like Michel examining the surface of the planet on the shuttle’s sensors displays, spoke up as they were down to an altitude of about six kilometers.

‘’Originally, this planet sat outside what we would consider to be the so-called ‘habitable zone’ of my home star. However, the passage of the brown dwarf has completely destabilized the planet’s orbit and sent it down to near the old orbit level of Shouria, which itself went down nearer our sun. 667Ce has thus spent over three of your centuries in an orbit much nearer to its star than usual. This is bound to have seriously affected the conditions on the surface of the planet. Temperatures will be up from the usual freezing climate and water ice may have liquefied in places. Right now, our instruments read a breathable atmosphere with a pressure of 1.2 times that of your own Earth and an ambient temperature of minus seven degrees Celsius.’’

Michel smiled on hearing that.

‘’Hey, it sounds like a balmy day in Siberia! I certainly can live with that. What kind of gravity is there on the planet?’’

It was then the turn of Shanandar to smile.

‘’A comfortable 1.1 G. Me and Kazmiriel will be just fine. By the way, nice thinking about the four mining robots you brought with us.’’

‘’Hey, these big brutes were built to dig: if we encounter some collapsed tunnel on our way, they will be perfect to open the way for us.’’

The members of the rescue team, wearing space suits with their visors opened, then fell mostly silent as the shuttle approached the surface of the planet. Michel however had one more question for Shanandar as their shuttle was about to land next to a rocky cliff, in which the main entrance of the Koorivar mining complex was visible.

‘’What kind of mining operation was this, Shanandar?’’

‘’This complex extracted and smelted a few various types of ore containing heavy metals like iridium, platinum, tungsten and vanadium. It was one of our most productive and valuable mining centers and employed up to 460 Koorivars, plus thousands of robots.’’

‘’The surface of this planet shows little damage from the catastrophe which destroyed Shouria. With luck, most of those Koorivars survived and then lived to have descendants.’’

‘’I fervently hope so, Michel. As the captain of a cargo ship which frequently came to pick up finished metal ingots from this complex, I know that it had its own hydroponic gardens and a water source. Hopefully, the shockwaves caused by the planet changing orbit will not have collapsed the complex on itself.’’

Michel did not reply to that, as he fully realized how likely such a collapse would have been in this case.

The shuttle finally landed a mere forty meters from the entrance of the mining complex, which was marked by two concrete towers flanking the mouth of a large tunnel. A number of abandoned and rusty heavy vehicles lying around the entrance however reminded the team that all was not well with the complex when they got out of their shuttle with their four mining robots and an anti-gravity sled carrying various excavating tools and five space medical gurneys. Those gurneys could seal and transport patients within a safe, breathable atmosphere and floated around thanks to their anti-gravity generators, thus could prove useful during this mission. Using a portable radio direction finder, Michel scanned his surroundings and soon pointed at the top of one of the two concrete towers, where a number of antennas and radomes were visible.

‘’The beacon signal comes from that tower to the left of the entrance. I also can see that it is safe for us to open our suits’ visors: the oxygen content and air pressure are well within safe limits. We might as well save our reserves of air in case we hit sealed or inundated tunnel sections.’’

‘’I agree!’’ said Shanandar, who then opened the visor of his own spacesuit. The other members of the team imitated him before following him towards the entrance to the complex. Going to the large, armored double sliding doors of the entrance, the team was not surprised to find them without power and thus inoperative. However, Shanandar then led the team to a much smaller airlock door on one side that could be opened manually. The door emitted some rusty noises but otherwise proved usable when he opened it. Passing through an airlock large enough for the whole team and its sled, the rescuers soon ended in a long and large gallery which was barely lit by a few Koorivar red overhead lamps. Only one in four of the lamps functioned, forcing the team members to light their helmet lamps to see around them.

‘’This place is really looking run down.’’ Said Leo Sanchez, one of the members of the team, as he looked up at the dead overhead lamps. Michel Koniev was about to agree with him when a detail struck him.

‘’Wait! Only one in four of the lamps are functioning, but those lamps are all equally spaced between dead lamps. This is statistically implausible, as lamp failures should be random. Somebody had to replace or move lamps during all those centuries.’’

‘’By the stars! You are right!’’ exclaimed Shanandar as he looked up. ‘’We thus could rightly hope to find some survivors after all those years. Let’s go down the main gallery: there is an administrative complex and a bank of elevators at the end, some 250 meters away.’’

Feeling growing hope inside them, the members of the rescue team followed Shanandar at a steady pace down the gallery, which gently curved towards the left as they went. On their way, they encountered more immobilized heavy mining vehicles, all abandoned and empty. As the team was finally in sight of the administrative complex, which consisted of a four-storey building standing along one side of a large rotunda in which multiple heavy cargo lifts ended, Michel suddenly froze and pointed at an office on the third floor of the building, while speaking in a near whisper.