[ Welcome to Impact ]
[ 01: Planetfall ]
[ 02: Washed Up ]
[ 03: The Beach ]
[ 04: An Un-natural Cave ]
[ 05: Conjunction ]
[ 06: Contemplating the Singularity ]
- More to come
[ Appendices: Random Stats and Stuff ]
[ Some public domain OpenSim textures ]
[ My VR WishList ]
Many hundreds of thousand years ago, humanity left the confines of their local cluster of stars in vast ships running on a drive system that increases range and speed with increased mass. A technique of 'ballasting' whereby a small neutron star was grav-locked to the ship increasing its mass and hence its range allowed intra-galactic travel at a speed acceptable to humanity and for a cost acceptable to large colonial conglomerates. One such ship, that of my forebares, collided with a small black hole, but instead of being annihilated, took the black hole on as ballast mass, flinging it out of the Milky Way and across empty intergalactic space to the Large Magellanic Cloud. The journey took almost 170,000 years Earth time as the black hole evaporated away, though to the survivors of the collision, time dilation ensured only 35 years apparent journey time. As the gravity-wrecked colonial ship sped through the LMC, it started to shed habitation modules. Survivors were strewn along a path through the LMC.
I am the sole survivor of my habitation unit to arrive at the planet I have designated 'Impact' due to its prominent impact crater making the only land mass.
The habitation ring had suffered major structural fracturing during the third and final inertia-dump orbit around the gas giant - after four such loops around the local star to bring us within starsystem navigation speeds. The loops around the local star had been spent in overheated discomfort of crash capsules - nearly ten thousand people sweating out the days of the tight end of the orbit. The weeks between times doing as much as resources allowed to repair heat and gravity damage to the ship. The structure of the habitation ring had been disintegrating even as we approached the system and despite the only suitably-sized green-belt world showing no land masses, there was too much risk in continuing on - this was the fifth system we had skimmed in the 6 years since breaking away from the mothership and the first with a world even remotely suitable. We were out of options and lucky to even have what we had found. On our second flyby of the planet in our inertia dump orbit of the gas giant, we detected what appeared to be a single tiny landmass and had adjusted velocity to splash down in that general region.
I was lucky... I guess. I was outside the ring by virtue of being in a service pod when the hull-split occurred. I was in the process of boring stress dispersal channels on my assigned hull section when the entire ring started to separate about 45 degrees spinwise of my location. The split ran fast, zig-zagging longitudinally around the hull as the ring began to buckle and spew atmosphere and debris. The sonic shock from the outgassing shook the hull and I lost coupling with my workplace the same time I lost consciousness for a number of seconds. By the time I had control back I was out of self-recovery range. I called for a cable to be shot out to me, but there was no response. I saw the habitation ring twist like a bagel over the next several minutes and realised there would be no help sent - they had their own problems. Fragmented radio chatter indicated several segments were void, but many more remained viable. Even in the void segments, most people would be in sealed crash cases. But the ring was no longer a ring - a shape essential for any hope of a survivable planetfall.
The twisted habitation ring was ahead of me as we approached the planet. The ring would not make splashdown in one piece - it was already in two pieces! The pieces were tumbling end-over-end instead of the even spin that would have kept an intact ring stable and heat-shielding-down through the descent. My service pod was not equipped for atmospheric entry at all and I was destined to either burn up in the atmosphere or skip off it and out into space. The inboard computer was able to advise that a planetfall trajectory was within my fuel capabilities. What to do without any sort of heat shield was not within its program to speculate on.
At the outer atmosphere I began to catch up on the detritus trail following in the wake of the ring-pieces. The relative velocities weren't different enough to pose a serious collision risk and by this time I was trying to decide if burning-up in the atmosphere or opening the pod to space would be a less painful way to die. A sheet of outer hull was drifting around in my vicinity - bottom-side from the pattern of heat-shield tiles. Not that it would do me any good - no way to get the tiles on to the bottom of the pod....
So I am now diving into the atmosphere, my pod clutching the hull-section to itself with its six manipulators. I am screaming in pain from the heat, but the ad-hok shield is holding on and protecting me from the worst of it. All I can see is fire. All around me, white hot flames. Occasional glimpses of the manipulator arms - almost molten themselves where they are holding the edges of the heat shield. Stabilisation is burning the last of my fuel. Not enough to stay upright all the way down - still going too fast to flip over without burning up... The tank just emptied. Once what is in the fuel lines is used it is over - nice try, but no win.
One last desperate clutch at life. Jam the welder arm in the left fuel vent and hold the safeties from cutting in. Push the last drops of fuel to the left engine. Keep my fingers jammed in the safety switch panel to stop them tripping. The last fuel doesn't make the combustion funnel, I fire off the welder and blow the mix-chamber out the side. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning down through the atmosphere. My vomit splatters the viewport over my head. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning. Spinning forever. The heat-shield blows away in the centripetal force. I start to bake alive.... Impact. Skip like a stone on a pool. Impact again. Skip. Impact. Slide... Slow... Stop. Breathe.
Water! Hot water, though not scalding hot. Cooling as it rises around me. Water in the pod. Against all probability I have splashed down. But I'm taking on water. Hull breach! Blow the bolts and get the door open -- it is an adequate shape for a raft. Light trails in the sky -- debris falling around me. Forget that -- it is spread out and too fast to dodge even if I saw it coming. Haul myself out of the sinking pod. My skin is red-raw and blistered with first-degree burns. Medikit! Okay -- it is built into the inside of the door I am trying to climb into as a boat. On the door now. Stable. In pain. I need a paddle of some kind. Some debris is floating on the surface - fibre reinforced plastic. Can I reach that piece without tipping out? Scream in pain. Got it. The pod is full of water and sinking. The sun is coming up - I can see the island towards the horizon - about 10000 units away. I need to get there. If anyone did make it through in a crash-case, that is where they will head too. It is the only land on this world - the only habitable world we could make it to... didn't quite make it to.
The sun is not coming up - it is going down. I can't paddle against this current to get to the island - I am being swept past.
[ Chapter 02: Washed Up ]>