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Disaster
The tension in the Command Center was palpable. I sat clenching and unclenching my fists, sweating slightly during the unbearable waiting period. I looked around the room.
Mother was standing to one side engaged in earnest conversation with Dr. Lal, who was nervously sipping on another fungal gin, much diluted I hoped. As Chief Science Officer, Mother’s presence was essential, but she would not have missed it anyway. Father was also present. He now is Chief Engineering Officer running a fleet of land and undersea mineral and energy recovery crawlers, and the events of this day had the potential to double his workload if we were unsuccessful. He was chatting to General Rahul Gupta, who commanded our armed forces (General Gupta – then a lowly scout – had made the peacekeepers’ first contact with another faction back in MY 2107). He was concerned, particularly with the recent notice of vendetta by Chairman Yang and his horde.
Father had been busy these last few days. When the reports first came back from the science labs we were skeptical. Mother had intervened, partly to protect her staff, but partly to lend her weight to the discussions, which would now be taken more seriously with her defending the projections. So Father had rallied his engineering corps, and had been busy at every base readying for the event and converting mineral crawlers to energy crawlers, and reassigning drones to the energy farms and solar collectors. His fleet of sea formers were even now deploying the baffles to collect the expected tidal energy flow.
Dr. Lal turned to my Mother. “Zaitun, you’re 100% sure that the solar flare will occur in the next few hours?”
“It has already occurred”, she said softly. “We will be experiencing the effects in the next few hours”.
“Will it be bad?” he asked. “Only time will tell.” Dr. Lal pulled out his comm.-unit and moved into a corner where he could be seen talking in hushed tones to someone.
I too had been busy these past few days. Since the scientists had alerted us to the flare, we had been taking stock. We have 17 satellites in orbit (and are the only faction in space) of which 5 are sky hydroponics labs and 10 are orbital power transmitters. Two were orbital defense satellites, which explained general Gupta’s presence in the command room.
Our scientists were predicting that this solar flare would be gigantic, and while the benefits to us on the ground would be immense, it might do irreparable harm to our orbiting facilities. This is what had kept Father so busy – the scientists estimated that the effects would be felt on Chiron for 20 years, giving an energy boost for that period of time. We were prepared for that, as, we presumed, were all the other factions on Planet. It was the potential for damage to our orbitals that concerned us. That concerned me. I am Minister of Production, responsible for all Nutrient, Mineral and Energy production for our faction.
We had taken every precaution. Commands had been sent out to all 17 satellites, which had resulted in minute firing of the attitude thrusters, tilting each subtly so as to present their solar panels side on to the expected blast wave. Delicate instruments had been powered down and some of the more exposed hydroponics pods had been shielded and retracted.
Rahul was more tight lipped. We knew that Photon shields had been deployed over the sensitive military sensors, and the phaser cannon retracted into their nacelles. Rahul had shared his paranoia with us earlier, and for that reason we were sweating it out somewhat. His fear was:
- Yang had declared vendetta against us;
- Yang had developed planet buster weapon;
- Our only defense was our orbital defense satellites as Dr. Lal had vetoed the build and deployment of our own Planetbusters. (Said it was not congruent with the initial UN charter and ideals which we espoused)
- If our orbitals became inoperative, we were sitting ducks.
We had commenced a rush building program to replace the two Defense satellites in the event that the worst happened, and had converted production in several bases to sky hydroponics labs and orbital power transmitters, but there would be a window of vulnerability that someone as astute as Yang was reputed to be would surely exploit.
We sat with eyes glued to the screens, faithfully recording what was happening thousands of kilometers above planet’s surface.
Pravin Lal snapped shut his communicator, and as we looked round at him he had a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.
“We’re saved the worst”, he said. “Lady Deirdre has agreed to assist us if Chairman Yang tries anything. The Gaians too have Planetbusters”.
A ragged cheer arose. We were delighted of course that Yang would think twice about unleashing his Planetbusters on our bases, but we hated to be beholden to any other faction for our own survival.
We stared at the screens, then Mother softly said, “It’s hitting us now”.
One by one the screens went dark. The last to blink out were the two Orbital Defense screens.
We were at the mercy of Yang and Lady Deirdre
The tension in the Command Center was palpable. I sat clenching and unclenching my fists, sweating slightly during the unbearable waiting period. I looked around the room.
Mother was standing to one side engaged in earnest conversation with Dr. Lal, who was nervously sipping on another fungal gin, much diluted I hoped. As Chief Science Officer, Mother’s presence was essential, but she would not have missed it anyway. Father was also present. He now is Chief Engineering Officer running a fleet of land and undersea mineral and energy recovery crawlers, and the events of this day had the potential to double his workload if we were unsuccessful. He was chatting to General Rahul Gupta, who commanded our armed forces (General Gupta – then a lowly scout – had made the peacekeepers’ first contact with another faction back in MY 2107). He was concerned, particularly with the recent notice of vendetta by Chairman Yang and his horde.
Father had been busy these last few days. When the reports first came back from the science labs we were skeptical. Mother had intervened, partly to protect her staff, but partly to lend her weight to the discussions, which would now be taken more seriously with her defending the projections. So Father had rallied his engineering corps, and had been busy at every base readying for the event and converting mineral crawlers to energy crawlers, and reassigning drones to the energy farms and solar collectors. His fleet of sea formers were even now deploying the baffles to collect the expected tidal energy flow.
Dr. Lal turned to my Mother. “Zaitun, you’re 100% sure that the solar flare will occur in the next few hours?”
“It has already occurred”, she said softly. “We will be experiencing the effects in the next few hours”.
“Will it be bad?” he asked. “Only time will tell.” Dr. Lal pulled out his comm.-unit and moved into a corner where he could be seen talking in hushed tones to someone.
I too had been busy these past few days. Since the scientists had alerted us to the flare, we had been taking stock. We have 17 satellites in orbit (and are the only faction in space) of which 5 are sky hydroponics labs and 10 are orbital power transmitters. Two were orbital defense satellites, which explained general Gupta’s presence in the command room.
Our scientists were predicting that this solar flare would be gigantic, and while the benefits to us on the ground would be immense, it might do irreparable harm to our orbiting facilities. This is what had kept Father so busy – the scientists estimated that the effects would be felt on Chiron for 20 years, giving an energy boost for that period of time. We were prepared for that, as, we presumed, were all the other factions on Planet. It was the potential for damage to our orbitals that concerned us. That concerned me. I am Minister of Production, responsible for all Nutrient, Mineral and Energy production for our faction.
We had taken every precaution. Commands had been sent out to all 17 satellites, which had resulted in minute firing of the attitude thrusters, tilting each subtly so as to present their solar panels side on to the expected blast wave. Delicate instruments had been powered down and some of the more exposed hydroponics pods had been shielded and retracted.
Rahul was more tight lipped. We knew that Photon shields had been deployed over the sensitive military sensors, and the phaser cannon retracted into their nacelles. Rahul had shared his paranoia with us earlier, and for that reason we were sweating it out somewhat. His fear was:
- Yang had declared vendetta against us;
- Yang had developed planet buster weapon;
- Our only defense was our orbital defense satellites as Dr. Lal had vetoed the build and deployment of our own Planetbusters. (Said it was not congruent with the initial UN charter and ideals which we espoused)
- If our orbitals became inoperative, we were sitting ducks.
We had commenced a rush building program to replace the two Defense satellites in the event that the worst happened, and had converted production in several bases to sky hydroponics labs and orbital power transmitters, but there would be a window of vulnerability that someone as astute as Yang was reputed to be would surely exploit.
We sat with eyes glued to the screens, faithfully recording what was happening thousands of kilometers above planet’s surface.
Pravin Lal snapped shut his communicator, and as we looked round at him he had a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.
“We’re saved the worst”, he said. “Lady Deirdre has agreed to assist us if Chairman Yang tries anything. The Gaians too have Planetbusters”.
A ragged cheer arose. We were delighted of course that Yang would think twice about unleashing his Planetbusters on our bases, but we hated to be beholden to any other faction for our own survival.
We stared at the screens, then Mother softly said, “It’s hitting us now”.
One by one the screens went dark. The last to blink out were the two Orbital Defense screens.
We were at the mercy of Yang and Lady Deirdre