Commander Barret took one last regretful step on the soil of Domos and then
boarded his recon/strike craft.
The cockpit pressurised and filled with breathable air, the engines spooling up
with a low whine, he checked out his flight plan back to the mother ship circling
high above in the upper atmosphere. He could have just spoken, or even thought-
directed his ship to head up there automatically, but he wanted to do this last flight
manually.
Lightning flickered as they rose into the thin envelope of gas that surrounded Domus,
third moon of the gas giant Lalande 21185b.
Well, that's one dirtball the Chinese won't be getting their hands on, he thought
with satisfaction. First to the system, they had seeded all of the ore-rich moons with
transmitters.... Lalande 21185 was now officially an American system, even thought
no American would set foot in the system again for 100 years until the first mining
and terraforming vessels arrived.
In the dim red light of the dwarf star and lit by the constant electrical storms they
flew on towards the mountains. I'll zip through them before we go up, he thought - check
out those great methane clouds.... won't burn too much fuel.
100 years in the saddle! That's a mighty long time, he thought. And another
800 or so in storage. He didn't look a year older than when he'd started out as a rookie pilot
flying supplies among the inner settlements, but he felt a LOT older. But there was a difference - deep inside his oft uploaded - downloaded consciousness. Worn, used up, stale, the spark of innovation lost.... just a competent pilot now, not
a brilliant one any more. There was a good reason why they enforced
the 100 year rule.
He was going back to Aerth to enjoy a long and well deserved retirement.
Ship cut into his thoughts with a quiet chime. It's time to come up, you know.
Barret stepped on the gas, and turned the nose of his craft towards the sky.
Higher and higher they flew, with Barret concentrating hard. It wasn't easy to
hand fly up to rendezvous with something practically in orbit, but he resolved
to give it his best shot. At about 40 km up, he decided to get real and turned over control to Ship.
Lalande was burning brightly and he put on some music and settled back to enjoy the view.
Patiently guiding him in, Ship was also enjoying the view, and looking forward to the long flight
back to Aerth. Ship opened the hangar doors to receive Barret's tiny craft. Welcome back! All drones have returned safely, we've got rock samples and elevation data out the wazoo... time to go!
..... to be continued
Thanks for looking in!
Krigl
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