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The First Ring by Mother Superior
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The First Ring: Chapter 1
Date: 16 February 2006, 1:16 am
The First Ring: Chapter 1: Hastily arrival
"This is the OCTF Caligula reporting navpoint 04 reached. We have arrived and cleared grid 14, approaching navpoint 05 and slipspace point 02. Triplog transmitted to UNSC radio beacon 143, relayed to 03. Acknowledge and confirm slipstream jump please."
Captain Jacobs closed the com screen and diverted his attention back to the newspaper article he was halfway through. While he read on, the transmission's final words raced along from the radio dish and out into space. It hit UNSC radio beacon 143 located at the outskirts of Gamma Corpus IV Surveillance station, continued on to another beacon, and another, and another, until it finally hit beacon 03, in high orbit around Neptune and the Outer Colonies Trading Fleet HQ.
As the captain finished the article, a voice crackled through the com.
"This is OCTF Command, confirming Caligula triplog number three six three four. We roger your transmission and you are go for slipstream jump at point 02. You are five five five. Transmission end."
Jacobs sighed and closed down the newspaper. He turned to his navigation officer, ensign Saunders.
"Alright ensign, you heard him. Get us ready for slipstream." The ensign turned his head and nodded.
"Aye captain, powering up jumpengines, ready for jump in 8 minutes, jump point zero five ETA in 12 minutes." The bridge's lighting suddenly changed as panels across the walls lit up in different colours and started delivering copious amounts of information.
Captain Jacobs got on the ship's PA system.
"All hands, prepare for slipstream in 12 minutes, jump crew, report to bridge ASAP. All non-essential personnel and civilians, report to your jump stations. Captain out."
All over the ship, a frenzy of activities erupted. Crew who at other times worked in shifts on the bridge and the engine room suddenly hurried along corridors and down stairs to get to their stations, while maintenance, technicians, miners and colony construction workers made their ways to their jump-shelters. Internal bulkheads sealed off civilian areas in case of an accident in-stream as the massive freighter prepared to leave normal space.
The Caligula was old. A Mark III long distance cargo freighter, she would have been retired a long time ago along with her sister ships, but the Mk III had somehow survived all the recertifications, the cutbacks and the refittings of the OCTF fleet. Now she had been pushed into the role of colony transport, and was flying the second batch of colony personnel to the recently established deep space habitat on Gamma Corpus.
The Gamma Corpus project had somehow also survived against all odds. With the Covenant forces threatening and destorying the outer colonies under human rule, it was the worst of times to found a new colony so far out into uncharted space. But those were Captain Jacobs' orders, and he followed them. His last trip had carried almost only personnel, the one before that had loaded a crapload of equipment and a handful of personnel.
This shipment was carrying both colonization equipment to set up the main domociles, atmosphere converters, generators etc, and the construction crews to set them up. This was another price the Caligula had to pay for being outdated, no cryo-tubes. The entire 400 men strong crew had to share both bunk and workspace with the 300 workers being shipped out. On the second trip out to Gamma Corpus Captain Jacobs had left dock with only a skeleton crew to minmize tension.
In the bridge, Ensign Saunders kept preparing for the jump into slipstream.
"Six minutes to slipjump sir, Ensign Henderson asks to disengage his controls now."
"Permission granted, take over for him, Saunders."
Below the reticule that housed the main bridge was the small, cone-shaped cockpit, a rough-edged dome of thick plexiglass alive with light from dozens of control panels, all alit. Pilot Henderson prepared to disengage his control to Saunders up in the bridge for slipstream flight. He put the thrusters on auto-burn and logged in the heading for jump point zero-five. He leaned back and lit up a cigarette as the flickering lights switched from a steady stream of green and yellow glow and down to a moody, soothing red. Saunders had the controls now.
If he arced his neck up high enough he could see the bridge high above him, and above it, the forward storage bays loomed like giant cliffs, casting dark shadows on the front of the bulky freighter. The Caligula was not a good-looking ship, and by looking at her the one thing that could be determined was that she would never be able to sustain flight in anything but zero gee. On either side of the cockpit, about fifty yards out attached to either one of the short, stubby wings about mid-ship ran the landing jets.
Tall, dark and with a crude look with singed metal at each exhaust point, they were about one third the length of the ship, and pointed straight down. Designed to make the ship land at special docking bays, and with the aid of a magnetic lift, they radiated utter raw power, unlike the rest of the ship, which today mostly seemed reminiscent of an old car, patched together with straps of metal welded in place to cover dents out of shame.
Henderson put up his feet on a console and stared out into the blackness of space. He focused his stare on a particular bright star and breathed deeply. He closed his eyes and listened as the PA system announced four minutes to slipstream.
His relaxing state was briefly abrupted by the sharp ping of a navigation sensor. He jumped forward and ran his fingers across the bord. Something was approaching through slipstream. Before he could get on the com and ask the bridge if they had noticed the signal as well, a slipstream exit hole opened up.
The entire bridge crew was dumbstruck. Henderson was dumbstruck. Anyone who happened to be glancing out a viewport was dumbstruck as well. It surprise Captain Jacobs most of all when he realized it was Ensign Henderson who was the first to sign the alert.
"Covenant frigate just exited slipstream, dead ahead!" The bridge became a storm of activities, as all bridge personnel stormed to their consoles and jumped in their seats. Jacobs got on the PA system and screamed; "All weapons systems: Ready to fire on my command! Seal all bulkheads, evacuate outer sections!"
Henderson stared at the alien ship as it slowly came about and headed straight for the Caligula. He pressed his nose against the plexiglass dome and almost fell as the ship jerked to the side.
"Aye sir, coming about at two-zero point five, heading directly for jump-point, minus two minutes and thirty seconds sir!" Saunder responded from in front of the captain while Lieutenant Flint yelled out from Jacobs' right side that the Covenant had fired.
"Incoming plasma rounds, impact in forty seconds!" Jacobs stared at the glowing dots that had appeared in front of the frigate in the distance.
"Sir, all gun systems on-line sir!" Jacobs turned to the lieutenant and ordered all batteries to fire.
The eight torpedoes were let loose from the launch bays and moved towards the enemy frigate. The Covenant had not needed to bother shooting the sluggish, antique weapons down, they would't even have dented their sields.
"Time to jump-point?" Jacobs barked the request, letting panic mix into his voice.
"Two minutes sir!"
"Plasma torpedoes inbound, ten seconds!"
"EVASIVE ACTION!" Jacobs screamed at Ensign Saunders at the top of his lungs but Saunders just sat there, staring at the two glowing clouds of death that spun infinately closer and closer, he covered his head as if he could somehow protect himself that way and was knocked out of his seat as a voice screamed at him from the com system.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?" The ship seemed to listen to the voice as she shuddered and roared and the two torpedoes started to drift down, towards the belly of the ship. The Caligula screamed in her joints as Henderson brought both landing jets to full and the engines quickly whined up, the ship jolted back and broke for the high skies.
She crept up and up and up until the two torpedoes were on her. They screamed past the cockpit, headed down past her belly and missed the engine housings at the aft by a mere 20 meters.
"Will you get a grip on things up there? We're showing them our belly!" Henderson was red in his face from anger as he closed down the landing engines. The ship was suspended in space, hanging vertically with her entire undercarriage exposed to the covenant ship.
"Get back on course for the jump-point, maximum engine power!" Jacobs tried to keep a steady voice but failed. His tone broke into panic.
"Aye sir, ETA one minute forty." Saunders tried to shake off what had just happened as he saw two new glowing dots.
"Another round of plasma, thirty seconds to impact!" The Caligula straightened out and headed for her nav marker once again, the engine's being fed extra power from the engine room.
"Engines at 120%, ETA one minute! Saunders' voice was shivering, he fumbled with the controls, his sweaty palms gliding across the touch-screen.
"Give me a randomized exit vector!" Jacobs screamed, suddenly remembering the Cole Protocol.
"Yes sir, give me a few moments!"
"Impact in fifteen seconds!" Lieutenant Flint screamed and kept his stare at the red dot that crept closer to the Caligula.
"Standby emergency thrusters, hard to starboard!" Saunders flew his hand up to the release switch above his head.
"Ready, sir!"
"Ten seconds!"
"Wait for it..." Jacobs watched the two plasma rounds grow closer and closer, this time he was in control though.
"Five... four... three... two... one..."
"Fire thrusters!" Saunders yanked the release switch and the Caligula cringed and turned hard to starboard. The first shot of plasma left a long, bright blue trail after it as it passed silently by the bridge and whooshed passed the port wing.
"First shot missed, second still incoming!" The second bolt of plasma re-aligned its trajectory and swept towards the ship. It passed the bridge much closer than the first one, Jacobs saw his bridge light up in the cold blue light and clenched his teeth. One second passed, then two seconds...
The plasma hit the base of the port wing straight on, the hull gave in, buckled and melted into a twisted heap, the hot plasma ate away through bulkheads and corridors and finally wrenched loose one of the massive landing engines from the misshapen wing.
"Hit, port side, we've lost a landing engine!", the lieutenant next to Saunders read aloud from his console, "Hull breach decks five through seven, coolant leaking into deck sixteen, power grid offline through section twenty-nine to thirty-four, several stabilizers aren't responding, navigational computer offline, switching to backup systems!"
"Fifty seconds to jump-point, randomized exit vector locked in!" Saunders screamed at the top of his lungs to make himself hearable over the screaming alarms and the frantic com chatter in the bridge. In front of them the covenant frigate had gotten closer and was now starting to glide into focus. Saunders adjusted the ship back to a direct heading to the jump-point and the frigate drifted slightly to the side view.
The ship shook and shuttered as the strain on the hull increased. The fractures and ruptures around the wing slowly increased until it melted together. Fire spewed out from a damaged electrical system and from inside the ship you could hear the grinding sound of twisting metal.
"Thirty seconds to jump! Engines revving up!" Saunders looked out into space. Somewhere out there, just a few kilometres ahead was there jump-point they had to hit, the coordinates had been carefully entered into their computer before they even entered the sector. But the Covenant frigate grew closer and closer, he was waiting for Lieutenant Flint to announce another incoming round at any time. "Twenty seconds left..."
"Incoming plasma round, twenty seconds to impact!" Flint yelled at the top of his lungs. Jacobs stared out towards the Covenant ship and there it was again, two flaming blue bodies.
"Redirect all power to the engines, I don't care where you get it just do it!" The crew jumped to the task with their bright death getting closer and closer, they couldn't maneuvre away now, not this close to the jump-point, then they'd miss it.
"Done, engines at 150%, reactor temperatures rising. Entering red zones in two minutes." Saunders studied his console and let out a relieved sigh.
"Revised time to jump; fifteen seconds." It had taken about five seconds to perform the task as well, Captain Jacobs clenched his fists and strapped into his safety harness, it was going to be as close as it could possibly be.
"Get ready to go slipstream the moment we hit the coords!" Saunders nodded quietly and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The seconds ticked by slowly, the blue light again filled the bridge and Jacobs barely heard Saunders call out the five second mark. It was impossibly close, there was no way they could make it.
Saunders screamed at the top of his lungs and brought his hand down on the panel. The ship's engine died down and the ship passed through the bolts of plasma and the Covenant ship, accelerated past impossible speeds and left real space.
The calm, distant humming of the slipstream engines had always put the captain at ease. And so it would this time, had it not been for the dozen or so alarms that joined the already hundred blaring ones the moment they hit slipstream. The floor vibrated like crazy and the Caligula shook like an escape pod passing through atmosphere.
"What the hell is going on?" Jacobs yelled at his bridge crew as the ship tumbled to one side and yet another red light lit up on his monitor.
"The Covenant attack took out several slipstream stabilizers, two magnetic coils and the primary navigational interlocks, we're experiencing a zero point zero five anomaly within the stream and climbing!" Saunders grabbed a hold of his console and heaved himself back up again after the ship tumbled again. "Point zero six and climbing!"
"Slip engine core temperature rising, coolant lines are busted, in the red in four minutes!"
"Cut the engines!" Jacobs cried at Saunders without looking up from his monitor where reports and system diagnostics flickered.
"Mid-stream sir? I need exit vectors!" The ship again started to wail out like a wounded animal as metal twisted under the unfathomable pressures of slip-space. Magnetic fields inside the ship started to give away and the sealed breaches in the wing became un-sealed.
"Lieutenant! Get Saunders some exit vectors now!"
"The computer can't calculate while in the stream sir, we have to use the ones we've got!"
"That'll take hours, we've got four minutes!" Lieutenant Flint's calm, deep voice interrupted the captain, "Three minutes, fifty seconds."
"Well we can't exit slipstream without an exit vector, we could wind up inside a gasgiant!" Saunders shouted back at the rest of the bridge.
"And that would make our situation worse in what way?" The captain looked at Saunders and nodded. He shuddered and put his palm down on the panel again.
"Alright, hang on real tight, we're coming out of slipstream in five... four... three... two... one... hang on! Here we go!"
The Caligula zoomed back into normal space and decelerated to normal speeds. Then the collapsed section in the port wing gave in from the pressure of the moving ship and the wing wrenched itself loose, taking huge chunks of the vessel with it. The moving Caligula lost control of its own momentum and started to spin.
Captain Jacobs was thrown out of his chair. The safety harness gave snapped broken and there was a crunching sound as he dislocated his shoulder against the hard floor. Several other bridge officers were thrown around and banged their heads on consoles and walls.
"Hull breach decks eleven through seventeen and twenty-four through thirty-one, we're loosing atmosphere in habited sections! Emergency sealing procedures not activating!" Flint got up in his chair and surveyed his console with one hand on an ugly gash across his forehead.
"Core temperature rising, red lines reached! Meltdown in two minutes!"
"Shut down the engines!" Jacobs groaned as someone helped him back up on his feet.
"I can't, the system is locked up!"
"Re-route coolant!"
"All coolant tanks are reading empty, we must have sprung a leak!" Jacobs grunted and sat up in his chair again.
"Where are we?" He looked at the cameras and the window in front of him, all he could see was a bright red colour filling all the space around the ship.
"A nebula sir, I can't get an exact reading, the sensor system is down!" There was another alarm, louder than the others. It kicked into life with a deafening blaring, red lights switched on all across the bridge consoles.
"Sir! Radiation warning in main engine room! The lead casing for the main core has been cracked, radiation reaching lethal levels!"
"Dump the engines!" Saunders, Flint and all the bridge crew turned to him, staring.
"Do it." The captain barked between clenched teeth and one hand carefully covering his shoulder.
"Aye, aye sir." Saunders reached a trembling hand to another safety switch, encircled with black and yellow diagonal stripes and flicked the glass lid open. He paused for a second, prayed for the first time in his life and pulled the switch.
The massive engine housings rumbled and moaned and finally let go of the ship. The mid one, the largest one, brought with it the engine room. They drifted apart, the ship and her engines. The Caligula's remaining thrusters whinnied to life, the jets rotated until they were in a position to stem the ship's crazy rotation and ignited.
She slowly, slowly stopped spinning. Missing a wing, a good portion of her port side, and one fifth shorter without her engines, the Caligula looked like a maimed animal. Un-symmetrical and ugly, with chunks of twisted metal in her ends and edges and glowing hot metal where her port wing should be. She quietly and slowly drifted through the red cloud for twenty minutes until she cleared the nebula.
"Entering clear space. Stand by for minimal thruster burn. We can't afford to lose what little momentum we have left from our engines." Jacobs order was followed without question. The bridge had grown completely silent for the last ten minutes. Before the ship cleared the nebula the crew didn't know where they were, or just how bad the damage was, the nebula prohibited sensor activity.
The view cleared to a faint red and then the darkness of space returned. The bridge remained completely quiet. Slowly Captain Jacobs stood up and walked across the command centre until he stood only inches from the window screen.
"What is that Lieutenant?" Jacobs whispered, but in the stunned silence it was perfectly audible.
"I don't know sir, sensors are still offline, I'm rebooting the grid now." There was a whinnying sound as the sensor grid booted up and the lieutenant started checking his screens. "The object is roughly four thousand kilometres in diameter, and about 10 kilometres thick. I'm not reading lifesigns, a few smaller structures and that's about it. The ring is of unknown materials and construction, it doesn't match Covenant ships' materials though"
The captain just stared at it. A perfect ring, lined with a cruel-looking metallic pattern on the outside. The inside was partially covered in landscapes, much like Earth's. Very much like Earth, in fact, but the seas, plains and forest seemed to end abruptly here and there, like a house that hadn't been completely painted. The ring simply floated in space, leaning ever so slightly to the side from the captain's view, dead in space at the mouth of the nebula.
"Does it have an atmosphere?" Jacobs turned to Flint, still at work by his station, engufled by his console's glow.
"Yes, oxygen and gravity, even the sections without a landscape. I'm reading structures here and there but nothing concentrated enough to be cities or even primitive settlements."
"You don't think that's a natural phenomenon do you, Flint?" Saunder objected from his seat.
"Do you think someone 'built' it then, 'ensign'?" Flint put emphasis on both the words 'ensign' and 'built'. Saunder only rolled his eyes and returned to the ring.
"Alright, first things first, what the status of my ship lieutenant?" Flint set the sensors to scan internal, hooked the results back up to the diagnostics systems and shrugged.
"Not good sir, electrics down and running on backup power all across the ship, main generator packed in long ago, radiation levels still high in the aft sections of the ship, hull integrity extremely low in most areas, we've lost atmosphere in large sections of the ship, civilian and crew casualties are high. Air filters are failing, we have dropping temperatures all over the ship and the main computer has completely crashed."
Jacobs scratched his head and made his way back to his chair. He carefully sat down, avoiding any contact with the chair and his left shoulder.
"Ensign Saunders, can you put us into an orbit around that thing?"
"Without main engines, only one third of my thrusters left and limited navigational sensors? No sir. I wouldn't even consider it." Saunders' voice was calm and to the point, he was simply stating a fact. It was not possible. And Jacobs accepted it.
"How long will the structural forcefields hold lieutenant?" He turned to Flint.
"They could give in at any moment sir, the power grid is fluctuating constantly, it could die without warning."
"Alright then. Ensign, take us in towards the object. Divert all available power to the thrusters and head straight for it. Put is right through the ring." The Captain sounded confident and sure. At least he hoped he did, he was scared out of his mind. His ship had barely survived a Covenant attack, it was tearing itself apart, and now he had encountered this... thing in space.
Maybe it was a covenant battle station of some sort? Maybe when they got close enough all they would be able to see would be glimpse of a plasma round and then they would simply boil away in space, alone and far out where no-one would ever find them. He wasn't a hero. Had he been a captain of a UNSC battlecruiser, then maybe he wouldn't have been this terrified or lost as of what to do.
"Sir, fires on deck twelve and thirteen are spreading, fire control teams are unable to stop it." Lieutenant Flint awoke him from his trail of thoughts. "Soon it will reach the generator control rooms."
"Ensign, how far to the object?" Saunders checked his screens.
"Thirty minutes sir."
The ship moved at a crawling speed through space, leaving a trail of debris and smoke in its wake. Twenty minutes passed and the captain stood.
"Lieutenant, prepare all lifeboats for launch, set the times for five minutes on my mark. Lay in several possible approach vectors and find a good spot on the ground for our pilots. Send pilots to the cargo runners as well, tell them to load up any equipment thay can, including food, and take as many passangers as they can fit." Jacobs again tried to keep his voice as steady and "command-like" as he could. He was pretty certain he failed, he stumbled and stuttered ever so slightly.
"Yes sir. Plotting courses and landing markers. Pilots report that they are on their way." Flint again got busy with his controls.
Crewman Mike Henderson was one of the first pilots to arrive in the hangar. Debris, girders and various equipment lat scattered across the hangar, one girder had fallen and crushed the cockpit of one cargo runner. He headed for his own runner, Ellen.
Cargo runners were simple vessels, ship to ship or ship to station cargo freighters, mostly designed to simply do just that, ferry small amounts of cargo to ships or station in space. They had no landing gears but were known for being able to take a beating and were often used as evacuation crafts on older ships like the Caligula. Mike didn't really like the idea of bellying in the dirt on that... thing but it didn't look like he had a choice.
He got inside Ellen and started powering up the controls. He synced up with the hangar's controls and linked up with the main com channel. Another pilot crewman jumped into the seat next to him.
"Thought I'd give you a hand." He started fingering the controls, downloading sensor data on the object's trajectory.
"Thanks but I've got things under check here, get back and start loading as much food and equipment as you can fit into this thing, I'll get back and help you soon." The man nodded and jumped out of the seat and went back. Mike looked to both sides in the cockpit. All cockpits by his sides were also filled with pilots and people were loading crates. Mike finished the pre-flight check and was about to go back and help his new co-pilot when he heard a rumble above him.
The ships, cranes and beam shook and rumbled as a giant explosion shooked the Caligula. A line of fire erupted on her scarred port side and blew open several compartments. Men and equipment came flying out and the ship veered slightly to the side.
"Explosion on port side, deck 21, plasma conduit! We're venting more plasma. The explosion took out six lifeboats. We're losing power across the ship, reading heavy hull damage in adjacent sections. Sir, I don't the ship has got much longer. I do 'not' think the ship can handle fifty lifeboats jettisoning at once."
Jacobs nodded silently. He closed his eyes and got on the com system.
"All hands, this is the captain. We're abondoning the Caligula. Lifeboat controls will be launched at pilot's discretion. All cargo runners: Do not launch until you have got as much supplies and people as you can! I also ask that one of you remain to pick up my bridge crew and I. But I want all crew off the ship in five minutes. Head for landing marker zero zero six. Good luck. That is all."
The PA system snapped off and the captain opened his eyes again. The bridge was silent again.
Mike got back to the cargo space in the runner, there were five or so hangar personnel helping load crates, first aid-kits, tents and weapons. He helped load some heavier stuff then got back to the cockpit as the ship next to them reported ready for flight. He checked in he wasn't ready, as did most others.
The Caligula's thrusters sputtered as their final powers were spent. The system shut down and froze. They had done their part, they felt, and so they retired. The Caligula was now running on sheer momentum, getting closer to the ring, about to pass over by the landscape on this patch of the ring. Lifeboat pilots got ready and sealed off the doors. Soon they would launch, just as they got close enough.
"We will pass over the ring in two minutes sir, my thrusters have all died, we're running on Newton now sir."
"Alright. Evacuate the bridge! Get to the hangar and find a cargo runner. I'll follow you shortly." The bridge crew filed out as ordered. Each of them shook the captain's hand on the way out. When the automatic doors closed behind the last of them, Captain Jacobs walked around the bridge and stood and stared at the ring. He drew a deep sigh and headed for the door. He paused as hit slid open, took one last look around the bridge and headed for the hangar.
The ship cringed and moaned as lifeboats took off one by one. Most of them launched at once from sheer group pressure, but some remained to pick up as many survivors as they could. The bridge crew, led by Lieutenant Flint made their way through trashed, empty corridors and climbed over falled girders and ruptured floor board until they reached the hangar. Two more cargo runners were there. They headed quickly into the closest one and the lieutenant ran up to the pilot.
"The Captain is on his way, we have to wait a little longer." The pilot turned his head around her and looked at her like she was insande.
"What? He's not with you? Screw him, he can take a lifeboat then, I'm leaving!" Flint was about to protest but she fell backwards as the engines roared to life and the ship swivelled up in the air in the light-gravity of the hangar and headed out through the forcefield that separated the hangar from the vacuum of space.
Mike saw the last ship take off after having received the bridge crew and buckled himself in. He told his co-pilot, whose name he had learned was Hank, to do the same.
"Get ready back there, we're taking off!" He yelled at the intercom and heard the passengers shuffle behind them, grouped together between boxes and crates.
He brought the engines up to twenty percent and switched to manual control. Hank jabbed his fist into his ribs just as he was about to fire her up. Out from the gantry below them a small figure came running, his left arm stiffly to the side of his body. Hank got on the outside speakers and yelled into the mic.
"Captain! We'll wait for you, hurry onboard!" The ship shook again and the cargo runner almost hit a support strut that came crashing from the roof, more rumbling noises came from somewhere far off behind them. The captain ran as fast as he could and the last few yards were intolerably long but he finally grasped a helping hand reaching out from the ship. He hauled ass inside and someone sealed the door shut.
"He's in, get us out of here!" Mike nodded, slapped on his crash helmet and fired up the engine. Ellen swivelled up into the air and rotated in the low gee of the hangar, she turned to face the exit and blasted out into space. An explosion licked her body as she passed down past the ship's battered belly and she shook violently from the pressure of the released gasses and coolants that splashed down on top of her. Hank jammed his controls and gave Mike a damage report.
"We've lost one stabilizer but I think we're good." Mike nodded and wrestled with the controls. The Caligula was already well into the ring's atmosphere when they left and he immediately felt the forces of this ring fight their craft. He steered her upwards, facing the belly of the runner to the ring and tried to hold her steady on course towards the marker. She shook horribly and the gee forces forced the nose down again and again. He had been given no choice. They were going into this mess head first and there was no way out.
"Hold the hell on, we're going down!"
The First Ring: Chapter 2
Date: 19 February 2006, 9:05 pm
The First Ring: Chapter 2: New surroundings
The small cargo transport shook and whined as the belly of the vessel was battered and burned by the ring's atmosphere. Mike called out to the cargo hold and shouted into the mike at the same time.
"Forty seconds! We're coming in over the landing marker now!"
Hank was sitting next to him, sweat dripping down his face, hammering at his controls, trying to bring the navigational computer back online. The screen showed two blips, a red one indicating themselves, and a green one indicating the landing marker for the designated rally point.
"I think we're gonna overshoot Mike! We're coming in way to high!"
"I know, I'm gonna aim for another field! This ring ain't so big, we can walk the last..." Mike's voice faded out as the roar of a lifeboats burning jets filled the cabin and a big clumbsy body filled the overhead windows. The pilot had blew the brake engines way too early, they were still high in the air and it came down on Mike and Hank's transport like a bird wounded mid-air.
Mike hit the manual controls and Emma tumbled clumbsily and slid away from underneath the lifeboat. As the collision alarms died down there was a bump, a thud and an explosion as the lifeboat's hull cracked and the little emergency vessel went up in a cloud of smoke and fire. The cargo runner shook and took a hit by a piece of debris. Alarms rang into action and Hank's console went dead.
"We lost guidance! One engine is hit, emergency shutdown in progress!"
"Well stop it, I can't land this ship with one working engine Hank!" Mike pulled his controls and tried to get the ship under control again but it was starting to slide to one side no matter what he did.
"I can't, override isn't working!"
The landscape beneath slid into focus, the ship was only a mere thousand feet above the ground now, but instead of the friendly, hopeful open plains near the rally point, the ground beneath them was mainly rock, mountains and cliffs. In the distance Mike could see the rim of the landscape, where the harsch metal features of the ring took over from hills and rock.
"Oh crap... Hank, give me that other engine now! We can't land there, I have to turn her around and head back to the rally point!" Mike was tearing at the joystick now but the ship was gaining speed in a sharp dive, nose first towards a particularly nasty-looking piece of mountain side.
Hank did his best at trying to get the wounded engine come alive again but his efforts were in vain. The ship stayed on course for the mountain and there was little or nothing anyone of them could do about it.
The mountain side grew closer and closer as the transport ship raced through the air, ever faster until the surface was only a few hundred metres ahead.
"Hold on everyone! Here we go!" Mike cried and held on, he closed his eyes at the last second and made ready to die.
The lifeboats slowly spread out and crewman Anthony felt the ship jolt as the braking rockets kicked in, she screamed and yelled and slowed down. The ship hit the grass, lurched back and skidded across the open field, bounced a few times and finally came to a rest in the middle of the clearing.
Inside it was quiet apart from a few groans and the sound of the braking rockets cooling off. Anthony slowly got to his feet, fell down and got to his feet again. He carefully made his way to the door, pulled the switch and forced the doors open. The shine of some distant star seemed sufficient to bath the ringworld in a light and warmth similar to Earth. Birds were tweeting somewhere in the woods not far from their crasch site, and the low murmur of landing rockets told him more lifeboats were inbound.
The other passengers had started to crawl out of their seats now. Anthony helped some of the wounded out, there were several broken legs and arms, the pilot had a big gash in his forehead but only one fatality. Overhead more lifeboats and cargo runners loomed past. Long running trenches of dug-through soil revealed where other lifeboats were.
Pockets of survivors gathered outside. A cargo runner made a successful belly-landing in the middle of the field and people fled out, going to help the wounded. Anthony helped drop off a man with both legs broken and then went back to findsomeone else to help.
He stopped halfway there. His gaze fell upwards and followed the ring as it bended uppwards and all the way back to behind him. He saw where the Earth-like landsape ended and the grey metal took over. It was like the edges of an open wound, where it blends into the smooth, healthy skin.
"Look! The Caligula!"
Someone had screamed from across the field. Anthony along with everyone else turned their gaze to the direction of the scream. Up there in the sky, amidst the trails of smoke from the lifeboats still inbound was the smoking wreck of the Caligula, in an unsteady course. She had escaped the ring's gravity initially but had entered it again on the other side. Pieces of her came loose and created little smoke trails of their own as the burning heap of metal continued onwards. She disappeared against the dark metal surface of the ring and everyone remained quiet as the minutes ticked by.
One minute, two minutes, and after three minutes an explosion could be seen on the surface of the ring.
"Well, it looks like we just lost our ride." Someone said quietly. Some murmured in response, and the people went back to work. Anthony stood there and watched the plumes of smoke spread out. He first expected them to fall down towards them but he realized that the vertical "wall" where the Caligula had crasched had its own gravity, just like this place. He stared as more lifeboats started to come in and another cargo runner bellied into the woods.
The air was full of ships, boats and debris that all came down in a constant stream. The sun shone down on the bizarre world from impossible distances and managed to brighten and warm the survivors. And somewhere on this world, a downed cargo runner had started a chain reaction that would destroy them all.
Silence. It was completely silent. Completely. Not a sound in the world. And then Mike woke up. His head immedately broke the peaceful trip into unconsciousness and reminded him of the duties of the real world. He looked around, felt the blood trickle down his chin and lifted one arm to his head. The gash went up somewhere in his hairline and he decided not to follow it any further.
"Hank?"
He turned to his copilot and choked on what he saw. A piece of the hull from the nose had caved in and cut straight into his stomach. The pilot seat was covered in blood as was his pants and lower torso. Long streams of dried blood ran down from his mouth. He felt for his pulse but found none. He reached up to the man's pale face and gently closed the open eyes.
He then turned to the consoles. No lights were on. He tried the backup power supply but nothing went on. Under his seat was an emergency radio, he pulled it up and connected it to the console, in hopes of using the ship's transmitting array. The radio console powered up with help of the battery-powered hand-held pack and tried his mike.
"This is cargo runner C-14, can anyone here me, over!" Static filled the speakers. He tried again.
"This is cargo runner C-14 calling any survivors from the Caligula, do you read me? Over." More static.
Mike sighed and keyed of the hand-held mic and turned on his helmet mic to the internal radio.
"Pilot to cargo hold, pilot to cargo hold, can anyone hear me? Bang on the wall if you're alive back there." He waited for a few seconds then he heard three faint bangs against the hull.
He got out of the pilot seat and stood on unsteady legs. The ship tilted heavily forward and slightly to the side. He pushed himself up through the doorway and down the stairs that led to the cargo hold. He pushed through some boxes that had fallen and stumbled into the cargo area.
Boxes, crates and equipment lay all over the floor. A pair of legs were sticking out from under a particularly heavy-looking box with blood running out from underneath them. Another crewman lay on the floor with a piece of pipe through his stomach. Blood from some unknown body trickled down the reffled floor and glittered menacingly in the soft glow of the emergency lights in the small compartments. He called out for survivors and got a response from some voices in the corner.
He made his way between more of the fallen cargo and bodies and found Captain Jacobs, a crewman by the name of Holly and a colony engineer whose name Mike didn't know. Holly was taking care of the colonist's leg and she turned to see Mike only after the captain nodded to him.
"Thank god. I thought I was the only one who made it." Mike smiled at the small crowd then hastily added; "Sir." The captain was carefully massaging his arm, presumably Holly had re-set that before she went to work on the engineer.
"What's the status pilot?" Jacobs inquired.
Mike paused for a second and tried to recap everything in his head.
"I don't know exactly sir. Somehow we survived the crasch, my copilot is dead however, along with most of the passengers, we've got nothing but emergency light and wherever we are, no-one else can read us on the radio. Either that or they're all dead." Mike finished his report and considered if he should have added that last bit. But the captain didn't look like he had taken notice of it.
"Where are we then?" The captain slowly got to his feet and looked around. The closed space seemed hostile in the faint flashing red light, he wanted to leave.
"I don't know sir, the cockpit is half-caved in with rocks, I can't see anything and all the instruments are dead." He sighed and looked around cargo hold. "Maybe we should take a look outside sir?"
The captain nodded and motioned to one of the side doors.
The door was jammed but they forced it open and climbed outside. It was pitch black. The red light cast ghostly shadows on the floor right outside the door but everything else was dark. Mike disappeared inside the ship again and returned with a couple of flashlights. They jumped down from the ship and started examining the outside.
The cargo runner had come down through the roof of a large cave. The passage ahead was completely rectangular in shape, the ground was smooth, as was the walls and, as far as they could see the roof was as well. The corridor was maybe twenty feet high and roughly the same length wide and ran for fifty or so feet before it made a turn and continued deeper into the mountains.
Mike aimed his light at the floor and slid his boot across it. Smooth and flat. He could glide across it. It was very safe to assume this cave was not a natural phenomenon, like the ring itself was not natural.
"Captain, what do we do now?" Mike turned to the captain who had his hand flat against one of the walls. He turned around and looked almost surprised. He studied the ground for a few moments then turned his gaze up again, with a determined look on his face.
"We follow these tunnels. They have to lead to the surface right?" He looked at Mike who nodded but then added;
"Well... what if 'that's' the way that leads to the surface?" He let his flashlight hit the caved-in section of the tunnel where the transport lay half-buried in rocks.
Jacobs followed his beam of light and understood the pilot's concern.
"Well we don't have much of a choice do we?" The captain turned his light to the other end of the tunnel again. And again Mike cleared his throat to talk.
"Yes sir, but what about Holly and that wounded colonist? Should we leave them here and come back with help?"
Captain Jacobs stopped in his tracks. He shut his eyes and felt a rock in his stomach. A military officer had probably made the decision that it would be wise to split up and leave the wounded man with someone to look after him. But he wasn't a military officer, and he felt safer the more people were with him. And apart from the purely selfish option, he also didn't like the idea of leaving two of his men behind without any way of alerting them to danger, least of all in an unknown place like this.
He walked past Mike and climbed back into the crasched cargo ship.
"Crewman Mendez? Can that man walk?" The woman looked up and put her hand up to shield her eyes from the bright flashlight until the captain turned it off.
"Yes sir I think so, his ankle is just sprained." She looked at him as if to verify it.
"Yeah I think I'm good to go, just no quick jogs alright captain?" He grinned and the captain nodded with a smile.
"Alright, good. Grab some medkits, some guns and flashlights and meet us outside. We're going for a stroll."
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