Chapter 14: Home Stretch

Final preparations are made before re-entry.

I know I don’t speak much and everyone doesn’t expect too much from me because of my damaged processor.  That was a bad day when the hive bots got hold of me, it was frightening to be attacked like that, all because I wasn’t a perfect specimen.   I was so glad to have Kate rescue me from that whole mess but since then, I’ve just been in the background, happy to just dance around Brando and enjoy my arts with him.  I had hoped the others would appreciate my work too but the reviews have been somewhat disappointing and Kate makes a point of making me aware that my work does not contribute to our cause in a productive way.  Sometimes, she will purposely take apart my things to use as spare parts out of spite I think.  So, feeling a little unappreciated, I just kind of keep to myself dancing, painting and sculpting various things.  Since meeting Brando, I have come to really enjoy dancing to his music.  I really like how he tries to match the music with the feeling in the moment.

 

Probably the most fun I have had on this trip so far was to help Mira with her workout regime.  What I did was find the most beautiful alabaster statues of the female human form and like a living sculptor, applied electrical impulses to the right muscles, adjusted her caloric and protein intake and shaped her as close as possible to these pieces of art.  In the first six months, I focused on strength and endurance and got help with the engineering of strengthening her joints, fixing a bit of a heart murmur that she didn’t know she had.  Through our journey, I have also enjoyed putting my drawing skills to work and kind of kept a visual diary as we went.  I was particularly proud of this painting of Mira because it represented my art on so many levels, living, sculpting, painting...and perhaps even spiritual if I am correct in assuming that's what makes us who we are.  When I painted this particular one, I wondered what would become of this girl.  I figured the body sculpting would fade over time even though she is very athletic and seems to want to stay in shape but in my heart I feel that the beauty within her will not change over time and that's what I think of when I look at this picture now.

When Mira came out of the pod after our initial acceleration was complete she was very happy and said she felt like super woman, stronger than ever.  Over the year at 1.5 g’s, she continued to grow stronger but I didn’t get to apply the electrical impulses as much.  Instead, she spent hours working in the lap pool.  I noticed an interesting effect was her body adapted to the density of the water and g load and filled in fat cells around her muscle.  I actually monitored that process by tagging along with her on some of her swims.  The extra fat cells served a few purposes including helping with buoyancy, and providing extra fuel when needed for endurance work; she is ready for an iron man competition right now!  

As an artist however, I noticed initially that all my muscle work gave her a very defined look, but in my opinion, a little too hard looking so I was happy to see the gaps being filled in which gave her a very smooth look with clean lines just like my goal I was working towards as I shaped her.  She was very pleased with the work I was doing so I spent extra time planning for the last six month of deceleration.  She was a beauty to start with, but by the time we make it to Earth, she’s going to be ready for anything physically with confidence to boot.   Brando allowed me to take the lead in this process so that made me feel good too.  I noticed that Justin would somehow just stand in awe at the beauty of Kate and how she shimmered her emotion in a liquid way.  Mira's beauty seemed to have a similar effect on us all.  We all admired the human form as the highest form of art.

 

At about two months from the end of our deceleration I saw one of Mira’s dreams….I wasn’t supposed to because of respecting her privacy and all that but…no one ever thinks I see, hear, and understand everything, but I do.  Anyhow, I saw a visual that Mira saw as we looked at the Earth on the way out and thought her subconscious must be thinking about what is to come so later on, I went to the command module and activated our camera and zoomed in on the Earth.  It was still a long way off as we approached but with the enlargement, I was able to bring the Earth into focus and that’s when I saw it.

 

The Earth now had what looked like two moons, the old moon was still there it seemed but the new moon was smaller and smooth on the side facing earth but jagged on it’s dark side.  I focused in as tight as I could on the Earth and saw that it was still a beautiful blue planet….but no continents?!  I had to look more closely and saw that the polar ice caps seemed intact but not only that, there appeared to be a light source on each of the caps.  At first I thought it might be the aurora…but it was not, it was a whitish blue light.  Oh man I thought…I must let everyone know!

 

I immediately brought Justin up on the communication net and he brought everyone up on the net to see the data stream of this visual of Earth.  Justin asked everyone to study this for the next day or two and try to figure out what this means to us and whether the Earth was habitable.

 

For the moment, I went back to working on Mira but not only that, we had a problem with the humans in incubation.  One of the warrior clones was not able to upload the education data that Kate had for him.  He seemed to be developing normally but we were able to slow down his cell division in order to possibly extend his overall life time.  A life span of less than 10 years could be okay for a clone built to fight in a war and be generally disposable, but that was not our intention for him. 

 

The younger clones were all on track to be born, or hatched, for lack of a better term, on schedule.  I thought they would be the most interesting because they would have complete educations and know a lot of facts but at the same time, have no life experience or an idea about right and wrong or how to relate to each other.  I thought Mira had her work cut out for her.  They would know how to do calculus but at the same time, be socially inept.  This was all speculation on my part but I would talk about the possibilities of what we were looking at with both Kate and Mira.  Kate appreciated talking about contingency planning no matter what the issue.  Mira didn’t seem too worried…”I’ll take care of those younguns,” she would say.  As a group, that’s how we started referring to them....younguns."  I think that may be a Florida or Southern United States slang term but not sure...

 

After two days, Justin called us all together for a meeting during the time Mira was conscious.  Octo had immediately focused on Earth itself and had uploaded every piece of geological data Kate could provide but none of it seemed to explain what he saw.  Justin asked Octo to brief us on what he found. “Bottom line first Octo, is this still a class ‘M’ planet?”

 

“Yes, I believe it is but there are some grave concerns we all need to think about.  It appears that the big asteroid that hit the earth has become another moon in an orbit that is lower, than the first moon but about the same period of orbit.  The mass of the "blue moon" was significantly less than the original moon and also, it appeared to have a ring around it of debris from the collision with Earth.  I think it will make for a spectacular night sky for us to enjoy.  I have not had enough time to do the calculations but roughly, it is also about a month.”

 

“So, that makes for a different night sky but how does that affect us?” Justin was focused.

 

“Well, for starters, it looks like there are very few satellites left in a geosynchronous orbit so we should not expect much help from the GPS constellation so that's an impact that will cause us to have to deploy ground based navigational aides.  There are a few things still in low Earth orbit but from here, no way of telling what they are. One thing we must do is try to document as many of these satellites as possible because if they have a surveillance aspect to them, it could effect how we operate if we want to remain undetected.  Also, that more polar orbit of the blue moon will greatly affect the tides, perhaps in a big way creating a beat of sorts as the waves either add or cancel from each other.  We want to be careful about where we put the colony…but that leads me to the next few issues.  It appears the Earth is no longer tilted at 17 degrees but now the axis of rotation is perpendicular to the Earth’s orbit around the sun,”

 

“Now that's climate change!  OK…you’ve got our interest.”  Everyone was just kind of frozen thinking about it and Octo continued.

 

“With that change in spin, the Earth will no longer experience seasons. Instead, it is what it is where you are.  We will have a lot more to look at as we get closer, I have noticed that there does not appear to be the same cloud formations, actually a general lack of clouds and I’m not sure what that means for us.”

 

“How about the landmass?  We were looking at a water world before.”  Justin was wondering if we would have to build that acrylic dome under water.  I heard him talking with Kate and Mira about a possible ‘New Atlantis,’ which Kate had found in her database.  Not that it could not have been done, but it would have been a big job.  Perhaps we will still build that underwater city somewhere just because we can but we came to the conclusion that it would be easier if in a deep lake than an ocean bottom, under a mile or two of water.  Just another project to keep us busy I suppose but that acrylic dome should be used somehow we thought...it was designed for Mars and kind of worked like a giant pop up tent.

 

“It isn’t a water world after all,”  Octo continued, “but with the way the crust was impacted and sent into convulsions, it appears that all the continents have continued moving so that there is no longer a Pacific Ocean.  It would take a lot more study, but to me is looks like the whole one side of the planet that we first saw which was ocean is actually now the Atlantic and pretty much, minus the polar caps, all the continents have slammed back together creating a single land mass.  Of course, we will have to study it more and after 10,000 years of Earth time, it all looks stable…but underneath we figured there must be lots of seismic activity.” Octo paused and while everyone was just kind of quiet, he spoke up, “…but that’s not what concerns me."

 

Kate broke in, “Pangea…I will bring up that data.  Our knowledge is somewhat limited but there are a few things we can expect.  What we don’t know is what life forms have survived and if so, what and where are they.  We must take this into account before picking an initial location for our colony.”

 

Justin then spoke up, “yes Kate, it’s a concern that we will have to study as we get closer.”

 

Octo cut Justin off, “That’s a concern of course but the real problem I see is the light on the polar caps.  I think we have to assume those lights are not naturally there but evidence of intelligent life.  I don’t see anything on the land mass but over the next few days and after getting closer we will know more but I think we have to assume that the nanobot hive or collective have survived and I think it makes sense that they would have taken up position at the polar caps because they function well in low temperatures plus the polar caps didn’t seem to go through what the lower latitudes did after the asteroid hit.  They were more stable.”

 

Justin spoke up, “Well, we knew the hive was headed towards Christchurch, New Zealand last time we saw them so, lets say they are at the South pole.”  Justin turned towards Kate, “You are the closest thing to the collective that we know, do you think they are the ones in the North?”

 

“Yes, it’s probable,” Kate said, “but if it is them, I know the collective and the hive mentality.  If they know of each other’s location, they will not allow the other to exist since each is a threat to the other’s existence.  Another very critical thing is that if they are aware of us, it is likely the collective will assimilate us or the hive will destroy us.  I don’t like the choice, death or slavery…”

 

“No,” now Mira spoke up, “it’s not a good choice but people from our country say things like ‘give me liberty or give me death’”

Justin spoke up, “We no longer have a country but, we don’t want either if given the choice.  We must include in our plan the ability to hide at least while we are getting established and be able to defend ourselves as we expand.  I’m not sure what the hive or collective would do with our humans or if any humans still exist so we must think of the continuation of their species too.”

 

Octo seemed to have some ideas, ”well, we need to be careful on our approach to Earth so I suggest a course correction to allow us to sneak up behind the moon without being seen.  Our final burn will be visible on Earth if anyone is watching and we have to assume they are.  Then, from behind the moon, we can use the new blue moon to shield us as we make our final approach to somewhere in the center of the land mass.  We can adjust the final location once we get more data, but we don’t want to be at too high of an altitude and we do want to be near a water supply.  Since the fetch of the ocean can almost be considered infinite and the tidal range is affected by two moons now, I don’t think we want to start off anywhere near the ocean.  The size of the waves on the ocean could be 100's of feet if I am calculating right.”

 

Justin was looking at the flight computer and already recalculating main engine burn, “looks like this is a viable plan, and looking at the moon orbits, we could shoot for a landing location around 20 degrees North and 40 degrees East.  What do you think about that location?”

 

“I don’t know,” Octo said, “That would get us into the landmass and it appears that would keep us away from what looks like a mountain range but I just don’t have enough fidelity at this point.  We need water too but, I’m sure that location would get us close enough that we could make course corrections prior to landing.”

“OK, that’s the plan then and….”

 

CC spoke up, “We have another problem, all the pods are on schedule except one of the warrior clones is not responding to stimulation and his autonomic nervous system is not properly coming on line.  If we allow his pod to go through the hatching process, he will die.”

 

Tata talked to Octo, “It looks like his systems must be run manually and he needs a controller installed…do you think we could use Taran’s system for that?”

 

“Well,” Octo said, “We do have a little experience with controlling human machines but nothing like this.  This would take a lot of time to get it right and even if we did, we do not know what would happen with the man/machine interface.  Who would this person end up being and would we kill Taran’s essence in the process?  I would like to work on him and consider options.  We can put his pod on hold and keep him in a coma but alive until we get situated on the surface.  I really don’t want to add this to our re-entry process.”

 

“We can wait,” Justin said, “but it is important that we don’t lose any of the humans, we need them all.  So, let’s make his well being a top priority once we get settled into our colony.  As for the younguns, let’s keep them on schedule and once we get on the surface, we will start to bring more of the humans online.  How many, how fast, I think we need to take it slow at first until we understand what or who we are dealing with.  Organization of the humans will be a big concern for survival so we need ideas for that.”

Kate had a strong opinion on this and said, “I think we need to set up a commune, or something like a Kibbutz where everyone has to work and everyone gets what they need.”

 

“The structure of the collective?” Justin was annoyed with his shadowy friend, “really?”

 

Mira defended Kate which surprised me, “It’s ok, at first I think that will be good for us to raise these younguns.  We don’t know what real value they will be and I’m sure I can be the queen bee for them at first.  Perhaps later we will have to revisit this issue to keep things from turning into a forced slave colony but we will have a few years before we have enough to worry about.  For now, to start with, it will be more like a high tech camping trip.  Do we have a way to defend ourselves initially?”

 

Justin spoke, “yes, before Taran went under, he gave us some designs.  We all will be outfitted with the pulse weapon that the hivebots were using on Kate that day.  Plus, we have a way to immediately take the effects of it away and also, a termination setting to finish a bot off without setting off the power supply in an explosive way.  For the humans, we made a variety of weapons for long range hunting, close in defense and basic tools for skinning animals or fashioning shelter when needed.  No one except Mira has the knowledge or experience with weapons so only she will have those available once we get there.  As soon as possible, we want everyone to be armed until we have a better idea of what the threats are so that will be the first goal of youngun training, self defense."  

Justin continued, "As we make our final approach, we must keep all the cameras deployed and running to not only start to build maps to use, but also scan for immediate threats.  Our ship was not designed to enter Earth’s atmosphere as we think the main engine burn along with thrusters will take a lot of energy but basically control our crash.  It will be a hard landing so no second tries, our engines can gimble around to keep us flying semi level but at slower speeds, we will stall since we wont be able to hover.  We have installed gun turrets to deploy and run via remote control for initial defense.  Any one of us can run those systems through our communication network and access the video feed as well so we should be able to initially form a protective defensive bubble around the ship for Mira.”

 

“Wow, you guys have put a lot of thought into this….” Mira nodded.

 

“Taran foresaw what we would need before we put him down, all this planning came from him.  He did a lot of work that we will benefit from which will last long into the future.  I especially like his helicopters, those will be fun as well as useful I think.”

 

Planning went on, and as scheduled, Mira was first to exit her pod.  In a spectacular display, Mira used the emergency escape to shatter the clear resin shell she was in.  Now, with the thrusters burning to simulate Earth’s gravity and continue the deceleration as we slid in behind the moon for our final approach preparation.

 

The younuns emerged from their pods, a total of 8 humans who were the size of 6 year olds.  The warrior clone remained in his pod in a controlled coma awaiting future work.  The other warrior clone also was unable to function and we put him also into a controlled coma.  His pod remained intact and he was alive.  Hopefully, we will figure out what is happening with these guys before we start hatching the rest.  The younguns were very inquisitive and looked good in Tata’s little flight suits.  They all gravitated towards Mira and were very inquisitive.  Mira’s life was now changed and she realized even more, her responsibility. Mira really took on a motherly role but at the same time, rejected being called anything motherly...but for all intents and purposes, that's who she was and how she was treated. The younguns all had great respect for her, almost worshipful.  One of the younguns really latched onto her and followed her wherever she would go as if he was her son.  It was interesting watching their interaction with each other as they started to turn their data into useful knowledge.

 

We finally started our final approach and as planned, Mira took manual control of the ship and swung around behind the ‘blue moon’.  The side that faced the Earth was smooth and the other side was jagged.  It looked round from the Earth side but it was not.  It was beautiful to see as we flew by and Mira started our main engine burn for final approach.  We were already slow relative to the speeds we had been at but still felt the g-load with the engine burn.  We did not have the speed to sustain an orbit but that was on purpose.  Consistent with Taran's initial plan, we entered the atmosphere at a high angle and relative to the earth's surface, a slow velocity.  We hoped we were not noticed in the noon sky as we came in at full throttle.  Mira seemed a little cautious at first but quickly got the feel of the thrusters.  I  saw a little grin appear on her lips and a smile in her eyes as her confidence rose.  She is an excellent pilot.  Octo looked at our proposed landing area and chose a location in a valley just upstream on a river from a large lake which appeared to look a lot like Lake Superior.  Beyond the lake was an expansive desert but up the river, the forest appeared to be a rich green, perhaps a thick jungle.  Octo and Justin agreed on that for concealment, and the look of the climate for habitability, the jungle would be our final resting place.  Mira listened to Justin's guidance and swung the ship around on final approach.  Main engines still at maximum power, the sound was very loud.  

Mira had been practicing this approach in simulation along with starting to figure out her helicopter skills as well which included some maneuvers that helicopters do which normal fixed wing aircraft do not.  Helicopters do not maintain a constant airspeed on final approach and in the case of an un-powered forced landing, the helicopter would do something called an auto-rotation which is basically a maneuver which manages and distributes potential and kinetic energy by storing it and then using the energy at the bottom to arrest the final landing.  

Initially, Mira's simulated approaches attempted to do what she already knew and had experience with in the fixed wing aircraft but she always hit the ground too hard and too fast.  It would have been a failure.  

While playing around with helicopter simulations, she learned the auto-rotation profile of a very steep approach angle and then, maybe 100 feet up, rotated the ship to maximize what aerodynamic lift it could get while simultaneously shutting down the main engines and going to 100 percent with the thrusters which served to both level and cushion the landing.  The ship was no helicopter but that profile seemed to work much better.  She knew that the thrusters could not support the weight of the ship like the helicopter blades could as they lost their kinetic energy in order to cushion the landing but this would have to do.  

In simulation, she got the timing spot on and was able to get us to the point where we only had to sustain a free-fall from about 30 feet with a forward velocity of 5 meters per second.  This would probably leave the ship unusable but get us there in one piece.  I thought Mira's confidence was good for a pilot who knew they would be crashing no matter what they did.  I admired her courage and skill.  

 

Everyone was strapped in, and as expected we were a little less controlled than we would have liked but Mira flew the ship just like she had practiced.  We smashed through the jungle canopy and hit lots of trees as the ship came to a stop.  It felt like a lot of damage was done to the ship but overall, it remained in one piece.  I think the trees and foliage helped a lot to cushion our landing too.  

We all celebrated.  Brando looked at the visual feed around the ship, small fires were smoldering around us but quickly going out because everything was wet despite there being no clouds or signs of precipitation.  Behind the ship however, where the main engine exhaust had hit the ground, a nice strip of fire burned like a welcoming campfire.  Brando put the song up on the sound system, 'She lit a fire' by Lord Huron, and I saw Mira immediately break into a huge grin as she took her helmet and headset off and got out of her command pilot seat.  All the nanobots looked at each other in kind of a shocked surprise at first but then, also started to show signs of exuberance.  Of course, the only thing I knew to do was dance and I did but unusually, everyone joined in with me to some degree, even Mira, Kate and the younguns.  Actually, I don't know if what Kate did was actually dancing...but somehow, I could see the sound of joy resonating through her...the best way I can describe it was that she flowed with the music.  Kate was happy...but was also the first to check all the perimeter cameras and lock and load our defense systems.  All was quiet around the ship.

 

Our plan had come together, we were now home.  

Author's Note

This is the final chapter of this book. It has a lot of smoothing to do and I'm sure grammar issues so any help is appreciated.
I wanted to finish up this part of the story with them back on Earth. I'm thinking start the next book after 5 years have gone by so I want to make sure I have put enough information in here to properly explain how they got where they were but at the same time, not get too into the weeds with details. My hope is that it ends smoothly, tying up the space travel portion of the series. Lots of ideas to move forward with from here. Please let me know if one particular character needs more depth.

Reviews

[Meeks]

Reentry is supposedly the hardest part of any space mission. I was kind of excited to see how you would formulate and describe it, but it wasn't there. Edit?

Also, you talk about a clone who wasn't accepting information properly? How does that enhance the story? Does it contribute?

Overall, it feels kind of slow. These final chapters where you describe the plan definately drag out for a while, I would try condensing them a bit.

Congrats for finishing your book! I'm trying to novella write, and I can't push it forward. Love the planning and the new world too.
Some scientific advice: ten thousand years isn't nearly enough for this process to happen, but astrobiologists have decided that life will eventually start to recede on our planet. Kind of like reversing time, after several ice ages the heat of the sun will scorch the equator and the more complex species will start to recede, eventually receeding to the water because of the heat and leaving plants on the land. As the sun grows the land plants will die out as well, and the water will start evaporating into space, killing off the larger and more complex species until it's just several microbes in small puddle of boiling water underground. Astrobiology for your next book.

Love the characters though. Great piece, finally complete. Don't stop writing though, it can only get better!

[Scriber]

So helpful, thanks Meeks! Funny, I had a discussion of the re-entry procedure in the early chapters initially but removed it because it seemed like too much information. I will look for a place to add that discussion back in.

Yeah, the clones will play a large role as the next book goes on but don't contribute much here but provide some background for their future adventure. They will eventually become main characters I hope.

Yeah, I agree with the slowness of it and will try to pair it down and make it more efficient. I do feel the information needs to be there in order to connect it all with the next book.

About the 10,000 years, yeah, personally, I'm tired of 'experts' who are wrong as often as most schmucks off the street but somehow, they are taken seriously. I actually did some of the calculations on the possible flight path and time dilation so it would kind of make sense and have enough truth to it to be plausible. The physics side of things is more of a measuring stick than the life sciences which seem to be open to more speculation. Hard to argue with equations, easy to argue with Darwin. As far as the eventual destruction of the Earth...yeah, and I suppose the sun will eventually go supernova too. I do have some fun ideas about possibilities in the mean time and yes, agree that it is a very short time geologically. I think it is fun to inject just enough truth and speculation in there to cause the very serious science guys to say, hmmm, I can't disprove that, even when the opposite of what they predict happens. Arguing against or for things that can't be proved is sometimes fun but mostly, just a waste of time. Perhaps I should remove a specific number...hmm...I will think more about it.

It's still a work in progress but thanks! I really enjoy coming up with the story and look forward to continuing on. Thanks for the encouraging words! Your input is of great value and appreciated!

[Scriber]

I put some of the reentry discussion back into chapter 12 and then gave a bit more description here in chapter 14. I also felt the book ended without enough excitement so hopefully with a bit more description of the action, things don't end in a lackluster sort of way. I will revisit the whole book a few more times, looking for things that just don't need to be there to keep it as succinct and easily read and understood as possible. Any help with that effort is, of course, appreciated!

[Scriber]

If you made it all the way through the book, please let me know what you think. Was the pace good, did the story make sense, do I need to add detail somewhere or remove something that is boring... I can't agree that I will take all advice but I will certainly listen to everything.