Post by Charlotte on Mar 29, 2019 14:27:34 GMT -5
(Treating the Um-Shara Event as the result of an unknown weapon, the Hapans use the information gathered by the teams at PinkHue to put together a mission: drop down near Ground Zero and scrape together real data if they can. What could possibly go wrong?)
It took much trial and error to get right. The harpoon needed to have enough tension when it embedded into the surface of the planet that it could reliably be used as a guide for the dropship down to the ground and back up to the Golan defense platform, yet not not so much tension as to pull against the station and risk ripping free from either it or Mandalore itself. Testing took place outside of Keldabe at first(Cloak side), so that the accuracy of the harpoon strike could be tested, and so that it would hit an area scoped out previously in order to avoid any potential persons still remaining onworld (however unlikely that would be).
With so many experts on site by that time, one would think it would be smooth sailing fixing all the tiny little problems that might crop up. And, true, the tiny little problems were fine. It was the having so many experts on site that started to become a problem, as they started to jockey for influence and to puff out their chests at each other and generally cause their own headaches.
They and the headaches they caused among themselves stopped mattering when the harpoon system worked with reliable accuracy in three pre-scoped test launches, and two blind shots aimed at the far side of the city, where they could be inspected by the land vehicle. Success; success; success; success; success.
Egos were always a concern in projects such as this, but luckily Nikolaus had the largest ego of them all, and his rank demanded they bowed down to his when they collided. That helped keep teams on course and was validated by the successes earned in the tests. One specific component of those tests was the dropship itself, which was painstakingly calibrated for power consumption and retention, with specific flight windows plotted out to ensure enough power was retained within the craft for a successful liftoff. An idea was toyed with for the harpoon to be able to send along a certain power current to help offset the drain and ensure whatever team would be utilizing it would have enough time on the ground to attain their objectives without having to have the ship leave for risk of losing too much power.
Test shot 1....
"I think... that's it," someone said, after waiting for the slack to be taken up high above Mandalore. It had taken three hours, which was lightning-quick given the length of the special cable, and the results were...
"Six miles?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And you're sure it hit something?"
"Yes, ma'am; but it's moving."
"So that's what... That's what they meant by this not being those ring-mountains they think are there."
"That's correct, ma'am."
Test shot 2:
"Cut it! Cut the fucking cable now!"
The emergency release snapped the Golan platform's connection to the cable, and the huge weight of it spiraled down like a god's whip into the Red.
"What the fuck happened?"
"It had a drift--whatever it struck was drifting again. We think it started spinning, ma'am; it was winding in the cable; it was going to drag us down or break the arm."
Test shot 3:
"..."
"..."
"..."
"... Well?"
"We, uh... We think it worked, ma'am. No drift. But it nearly took out all the slack. It went... by our calculations... five miles further than where Mandalore's surface should have been. It must have embedded in part of the crater."
"Inside the crater? That's either really good for us, or really bad," Niko murmured out loud, listening in to the deployment from PinkHue. He of course had wanted to be part of the first test flight, and once again Queen Max had had to step in and deny it. The Prince of Hapes was not going to be the first person dropping down a potential death trap. So instead, a former Jedi would of course volunteer. Olivia Black was back on the scene and ready for the next suicidal mission. Her argument was difficult to refute: the Force could give her an edge and insight into whatever had happened. Niko's best would be with her, ready for the unknown.
One of the land vehicles was mounted to the dropship, ready to travel if the terrain was forgiving. A physical cabled comm device was built into the dropship, wired through the harpoon itself, just to offer one last lifeline before the team aboard departed for their exploration.
There were many who thought this a bad idea.
If a single probe had reported back so much as a blip, the dropship idea might not ever have been given the go.
The pressure came from the notion that the darkening of Mandalore was the effect of a new kind of weapon, and the sense of wasted effort eased by the idea that they should be able to retrieve the dropship and her team. We're moving too fast was a common complaint; if it's a weapon, we may not be moving fast enough was a common counter. Let's get eyes down there and see for ourselves.
The platform idea had, in fact, spurred a number of other schemes--all waiting to hear back from the dropship to determine their feasibility and worth, including the idea of using lesser harpoon-and-cable setups to measure the unseen landforms down around ground zero (an idea generally shrugged off as not worth the time). Because that drift begged the question: was there land down there? What the hell caused that wandering? If they had only had Test One from which to work, they might have dismissed it as unstable, shocked rock formations shattering and sliding apart, unable to hold the harpoon itself. But Test Two had challenged that possibility: the cable slack had been taken up at a quick but steady rate that had brought to mind the idea that it was being wound up. If the harpoon had simply broken loose, or cracked into a hollow, it would have jerked loose suddenly--or so the argument went.
They simply did not know.
It had escaped few onlookers' notice that the erstwhile Mand'alor was The Mechanic, who had been connected to not a few large-scale oddities. Likewise, with the hiveminds and the workings of Celestia Vikas not distant in the collective memory, there were pressures from all directions. Watch and wait, cautioned some as they warily peered down at the bloody planet. Seek and find, cautioned others, doing exactly the same.
Catia wondered how the hell she'd gotten volunteered for this, because she certainly had not volunteered herself. The mess with Tavah--which had led to an entirely new dimension of confusion near PinkHue--might have meant that the Admiral had put her name forward out of spite, or the mess with Tavah might have meant that Nikolaus had put her name forward out of gratitude.
Didn't matter. Armed with her supply of monogrammed barf bags, she reported to the Golan defense platform via a skiff from the Yelora Dowen.
Liv Black was the only member of Alpha team to have actually volunteered.. just as she had volunteered to go without life support within the Red as a test to its effects; a fact everyone else involved in the Cloak project knew and many assumed her to be suicidal. Officially, Olivia Black was a Captain within a NavSec SpecOps branch commonly referred to as the 'Pirate Hunters', whose mission it was to track down pirates and slavers associated with Jackel or his cohorts(or not at all by this point) with the intent of recovering any Hapan slave (or any slave by this point) still missing.
Her armor told that story well; colors, design, and badges showing the branch and rank, blast marks and patches showing her affinity for battle. A lightsaber hilt always swung from her right hip, while the left kept a blaster snug against her form. Nothing special was brought otherwise; Niko's team took care of stocking the dropship up with necessities. The 'Black Diamond II' docked with the Golan defense platform, allowing its captain to step aboard and leave her crew behind. None of them were surprised by her choice, though many had voiced concerns about the sanity behind it (or lack there of).
Catia wore the helmet decorated in yellow by Niko's guard contingent, and with her best efforts the yellow was slightly paler than when it had been fresh, but the guards apparently knew their business. Bastards. Truthfully, though, she didn't even think about it anymore. Not even when total strangers referred to her as 'Crasshat,' which they all seemed to think very clever.
She hauled her own gear over to where she saw a pair of loiterers she guessed to be the brains of the mission. Their computational oomph appeared to take the form of a pair of heavy slugthrower rifles. Catia had learned to always make friends with the ladies carrying the big guns. She greeted them with, "If we take this place over, we can rent it out for the view."
The guns were silent in response, both merely giving her a glance before shifting attention away. Liv had started stepping into the prep room moments into the greeting, eyeing the exchange and speaking up herself in the wake of the silence that followed. "That's an optimism I can appreciate," she quipped simply before moving further in observe the crew still running their final tests on the dropship prior to sign off for boarding.
Catia frowned and turned away, the words, "So it's going to be that kind of trip," already coming out in a disappointed mutter.
Then: Liv.
Catia glanced her away, and then snorted. "You sure these guys aren't droids? Or clones?"
"Grunts would be my guess," Liv replied casually, glancing towards the pair out of her peripheral vision. One of them rolled her eyes, prompting the Captain to continue, "feel free to speak up and defend yourself." Eye roller gave a grunt. "We're simply not as eager as you to die down on that godsforsaken planet."
Catia's hand shot up. "I, too, am not eager to die." She lowered her arm. "Just for the record. I was told I'm supposed to be looking for signs of weapon detonation or--with luck--signs of a weapon itself."
She said this to Liv, looking for confirmation that they weren't just glorified escorts delivering Liv Black to her next attempt at suicide.
"Likewise," Liv agreed with Catia, along with a nod in her direction, "our overarching goal is on determining the source and proof of an attack--if that proof exists. Before we can do that however, we must secure a perimeter around the landing zone and prep a forward base: DeepRed."
"What makes you think there will be a landing zone fit to even have a perimeter to secure?" Catia felt they were getting ahead of themselves.
"That is of course the best case scenario assumption. Proven wrong, we'll work with what we have."
Who gave up my name?
Of course Catia didn't ask that. She was here, wasn't she? Not a deserter, no. Honestly pretty intrigued by the chance to get to see what was down there, even if it was a shipload of angry mutant Chiss waiting to cannibalize them all.
She'd seen worse in the last war. Ha!
Silence followed. The station crew finished their work on the dropship, giving the team the all clear to load in. Once they were inside the cramped cockpit, the comm would open with Nikolaus' voice coming through. "We'll attempt to maintain contact during the descent. Once you land, assess the area and make your decision to pursue or return. If comms are down, that's on Captain Black to decide. Otherwise, relay the information to us and we'll go from there. Any last questions?"
Catia oversaw the stowing of her personal equipment and then grabbed her chair and strapped in. In her left hand, crumpled in a death grip, were her barf bags. Famously a terrible flier, Catia was known for quite a few incidents aboard quite a few ships. A legend existed that she was personally responsible for the decommissioning of the Battle Dragon Perelandra. Here she sat fully helmeted and contained in her lightly armored suit, yet clutching those bags like a talisman.
Any last questions?
She did not ask what the plan was should the cockpit flood but clamped her hands down on the arms of her chair, bags and all, and appeared thereafter to be attempting to either wrench them physically from their anchors or to fuse herself with her chair on a molecular level through sheer force.
Her "No, sir," joined the rest. She managed no thumbs up.
The others gave their 'No, sir's in turn and that was the end of the call, aside from one last 'gods be with you' comment. The countdown begun and ended, and the magsafes released the dropship from the station, launching it downwards to the planet with the harpoon cable as it's guides. Very little power would be used aside from that initial push.. all that would be needed afterwards would be the reverse thrusters to slow down the landing.
Out of necessity, the Golan platform was in position as low over the Cloak's uppermost layers as possible, plus some breathing room for safety.
Released, the dropship had only eight seconds of clear air and starfield/red planet views before it would submerge into the unknown.
The hull thundered dully with the magsafes letting go, and Catia squeezed her eyes shut as the view out the front shook and then began a slow shift of angle. Eight. Her brain knew what a lie that slow shift actually was, how fast the descent would be. Seven. Basically freefall, once they were down there. Down there.
Six.
Five. At one point, Catia shouted out loud: "Shouldn't the Jedi or something be doing this instead?" Four.
Three.
She didn't really realize it had come out of her mouth, even when she bit her tongue by accident at the end. Two.
One.
The dropship fell into the Cloak, and red took over the interior.
Not just red light from the viewers. It was instantly in there with them, drifting around, swirling here and there, inside the cockpit and inside the helmets in gentle, ghostly forms.
The ship fell further.
The light grew dimmer. Interior lights snapped on, but weren't able to fight the dimming atmosphere back. They were more like frilly decorations: there, but just for show. Grainy splotches of less-red with blue-white, unconvincing hearts.
"Fresh out of those," came Liv's crass reply at Catia's shout, hands gripping the armrests of her chair tightly. They weren't prepared for this; how could anyone be? Though Niko quietly planned on turning this into an expensive amusement park ride once the situation had passed, it was harrowing to experience, and certain death felt near the entire way. The Red was back, bringing memories back to the Captain of her own previous jaunt into it.. and a silent prayer to the Force was made that she never experience it to that depth again.
It folds upon itself.
The dark won.
Even against the few indicator lights in front of the pilot. They flickered, withered, died.
Darkness now, and even that tinted in Red. There was nothing they could do now but wait and hopefully not die.
Catia read the backs of her own eyelids. Scrawled somewhere in there were the words You're the mission tech.
You're the mission tech.
If her stomach had a similar message, it was probably something more like You just had to eat breakfast.
You just had to eat breakfast.
She opened her eyes. And, really, there wasn't much change.
You're the mission tech.
She had expected to see the back of Captain Black's chair, with maybe a hint of the top of the woman's helmet. The same view she'd had when she'd strapped in. She expected to see the control panel past her, with its happy little lights that said Sure, we've got some fuel here and Sure, we know where you are and Sure, we can all land safely.
Instead, the control panel seemed--unlike her eyelids, and maybe her stomach--to have nothing to say to her.
You're the mission tech.
The dropship rattled as it plummeted.
In the dark, Catia's eyes flared.
What about the reverse thrusters?!
Why are you asking me, nitwit, it's your job!
Catia knew the setup. The thrusters should be fine. Some of her own work from PinkHue had gone into making sure they could even fire on their own past a certain point in the descent.
Her stomach tried to get a word in edgewise, but she sat there, feeling ill, ready to unstrap if she had to, the second Captain Black called for her, or the second something seemed so out of whack that not jumping up to get to work in the minutes they had became more ludicrous than trying to do so.
"This is not. like. the sim.. ulation," Liv muttered out through gritted teeth. It was dark. Dark. Far darker than it should have been. Far darker than anticipated. She wouldn't see her hand before her face, if she had been capable of lifting her hand up to try. The controls were a mystery at this point, but it wasn't utterly hopeless.. failsafes were built in, automated controls would kick in at certain depths.. or they should, rather. There was no AI to read off reports. No screens for readouts. It was as low tech as they could afford. Levers, switches, and dials instead of touch panels and digital readings. If those reverse thrusters failed to thrust.. they were in for a smashing good time.
Alarms screamed through the cabin--if this had been a different ship.
The dropship instead plummeted in the black, stirring unseen currents, shivering when buffeted by invisible winds and sometimes jerking when at odds with the cable. Even with eyes open, pupils wide and straining to catch any hint of light, there was nothing to see other than infrequent electrical discharge off the cable that caused the forward view to flash white instead of black and leave eyes twice as shocked. Catia couldn't even think right then about that electrical activity, about what that might mean given what the cable was made of how it had been constructed; she'd closed her eyes again, and tried to not let the randomness of the ship's jerking drive her crazy.
The dropship and cable system were an exercise in using known elements to reach into the unknown. When the third harpoon struck and locked to stable ground, by the length of the cable alone guesses could be made about where it might be in any of the projected crater-shapes that were possible. There were no extensive surveys of the geology of the region at all to draw on, but further guesses could be made about breathability of air (aside from the unknown variables of the Cloak) and what kinds of materials the team might encounter on the ground, and what state they'd be in. That the first two harpoons had struck something with drift pointed to models wherein the impact (or weapon discharge) had resulted in such heat that there were either molten areas or mud pits from a titanic backslide of materials.
From there, guesses could be built outward, confirming the zero survival chance of life for dozens of miles in every direction. Plants, animals, people--no chance. And if this proved indeed to be a random impact, missed as it had been in the minutes, hours, and days leading up to it, then the team had little to do on that front, and needed instead to focus on collecting samples and as much data as possible about the Cloak phenomenon, which at that point almost certainly had to have its source in the object that had blasted into Mandalore, which given the size of the event had just as 'almost certainly' been obliterated.
But IF--IF this was a weapon--a test deployment, or the announcement of a new enemy, or revenge by a not-so-annihilated hivemind--then the team needed to get as much data as they possibly could, with their golden aim being any recovery of physical elements from the weapon used, if there were any physical elements to be found.
So many ifs.
At least the "drop" part for the dropship was solid. From the platform, Captain Black's ship would drop for six minutes and five seconds before the thrusters needed to fire, give or take a millisecond to account for winds and the swaying of the meter-thick cable. Six minutes and five seconds was good enough.
At six minutes and five seconds, plus two milliseconds, the cockpit slammed and jerked. Thrusters firing as they should! The seats, the suits, the anti-shock design of the cockpit all did their jobs, cradling the fragile waterbag bodies of the four within.
Vibration coursed through every substance, from hull to hand, from headshield to heart.
Pressure had changed, and Catia could tell they were slowing. Still dropping fast by the standards of, say, someone jumping off a building, but slowing, thank the goddesses.
At six minutes and eleven seconds, the tail of the dropship hit something and the shock jolted forward through the vessel as it rocked forward, nose-down, rattling and screeching against torqued cable. Still falling. Even slower now.
Shock smashed into the ship--from the left this time, a wing--and the dropship scraped down something with an ear-splitting scream of metal on... something.
Freefall again for half a second, and then it was as if the dropship were under fire from medieval catapults, but... rapidfire ones, as the booms and thuds came faster, came constantly, the ship dropping through a field of--
Light out front--dim, but light! Sickly orange, or yellow, where stirring and more familiar red dust didn't blot it out! It displayed a scattering mass of free-floating... rocks?
The dropship's belly smashed into something big. Felt through the floor. Up through the feet. Out the front viewer, something coiled briefly into view, twanging and twirling down away from them, and Catia realized she was seeing the edge of the cable--which shouldn't quite be possible--
--slowly the dropship pitched forward, inverting, nose-down, and the swaying cable blurred out in the foggy dust below where it speared through a field of those rocks that looked like frozen droplets--
The dropship slid again. The squeal of the hull was enough to make Catia want to pull all her teeth out.
You just haaaaaad to eat breakfast.
Then the dropship fell again, drumdrumthrumpscritchscreeeeeeeeeekdrumdrumdrumbang--
Its belly caught air, flattening the ship better, and goddess only knew what the thrusters were doing now, but the last smack was the biggest, up through the floor again, the thunderous boom of the ship hitting something nearly as flat as it was and throwing up so much dust that it was black as night once more inside.
But
at least
they seemed
to have stopped
falling.
It took much trial and error to get right. The harpoon needed to have enough tension when it embedded into the surface of the planet that it could reliably be used as a guide for the dropship down to the ground and back up to the Golan defense platform, yet not not so much tension as to pull against the station and risk ripping free from either it or Mandalore itself. Testing took place outside of Keldabe at first(Cloak side), so that the accuracy of the harpoon strike could be tested, and so that it would hit an area scoped out previously in order to avoid any potential persons still remaining onworld (however unlikely that would be).
With so many experts on site by that time, one would think it would be smooth sailing fixing all the tiny little problems that might crop up. And, true, the tiny little problems were fine. It was the having so many experts on site that started to become a problem, as they started to jockey for influence and to puff out their chests at each other and generally cause their own headaches.
They and the headaches they caused among themselves stopped mattering when the harpoon system worked with reliable accuracy in three pre-scoped test launches, and two blind shots aimed at the far side of the city, where they could be inspected by the land vehicle. Success; success; success; success; success.
Egos were always a concern in projects such as this, but luckily Nikolaus had the largest ego of them all, and his rank demanded they bowed down to his when they collided. That helped keep teams on course and was validated by the successes earned in the tests. One specific component of those tests was the dropship itself, which was painstakingly calibrated for power consumption and retention, with specific flight windows plotted out to ensure enough power was retained within the craft for a successful liftoff. An idea was toyed with for the harpoon to be able to send along a certain power current to help offset the drain and ensure whatever team would be utilizing it would have enough time on the ground to attain their objectives without having to have the ship leave for risk of losing too much power.
Test shot 1....
"I think... that's it," someone said, after waiting for the slack to be taken up high above Mandalore. It had taken three hours, which was lightning-quick given the length of the special cable, and the results were...
"Six miles?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And you're sure it hit something?"
"Yes, ma'am; but it's moving."
"So that's what... That's what they meant by this not being those ring-mountains they think are there."
"That's correct, ma'am."
Test shot 2:
"Cut it! Cut the fucking cable now!"
The emergency release snapped the Golan platform's connection to the cable, and the huge weight of it spiraled down like a god's whip into the Red.
"What the fuck happened?"
"It had a drift--whatever it struck was drifting again. We think it started spinning, ma'am; it was winding in the cable; it was going to drag us down or break the arm."
Test shot 3:
"..."
"..."
"..."
"... Well?"
"We, uh... We think it worked, ma'am. No drift. But it nearly took out all the slack. It went... by our calculations... five miles further than where Mandalore's surface should have been. It must have embedded in part of the crater."
"Inside the crater? That's either really good for us, or really bad," Niko murmured out loud, listening in to the deployment from PinkHue. He of course had wanted to be part of the first test flight, and once again Queen Max had had to step in and deny it. The Prince of Hapes was not going to be the first person dropping down a potential death trap. So instead, a former Jedi would of course volunteer. Olivia Black was back on the scene and ready for the next suicidal mission. Her argument was difficult to refute: the Force could give her an edge and insight into whatever had happened. Niko's best would be with her, ready for the unknown.
One of the land vehicles was mounted to the dropship, ready to travel if the terrain was forgiving. A physical cabled comm device was built into the dropship, wired through the harpoon itself, just to offer one last lifeline before the team aboard departed for their exploration.
There were many who thought this a bad idea.
If a single probe had reported back so much as a blip, the dropship idea might not ever have been given the go.
The pressure came from the notion that the darkening of Mandalore was the effect of a new kind of weapon, and the sense of wasted effort eased by the idea that they should be able to retrieve the dropship and her team. We're moving too fast was a common complaint; if it's a weapon, we may not be moving fast enough was a common counter. Let's get eyes down there and see for ourselves.
The platform idea had, in fact, spurred a number of other schemes--all waiting to hear back from the dropship to determine their feasibility and worth, including the idea of using lesser harpoon-and-cable setups to measure the unseen landforms down around ground zero (an idea generally shrugged off as not worth the time). Because that drift begged the question: was there land down there? What the hell caused that wandering? If they had only had Test One from which to work, they might have dismissed it as unstable, shocked rock formations shattering and sliding apart, unable to hold the harpoon itself. But Test Two had challenged that possibility: the cable slack had been taken up at a quick but steady rate that had brought to mind the idea that it was being wound up. If the harpoon had simply broken loose, or cracked into a hollow, it would have jerked loose suddenly--or so the argument went.
They simply did not know.
It had escaped few onlookers' notice that the erstwhile Mand'alor was The Mechanic, who had been connected to not a few large-scale oddities. Likewise, with the hiveminds and the workings of Celestia Vikas not distant in the collective memory, there were pressures from all directions. Watch and wait, cautioned some as they warily peered down at the bloody planet. Seek and find, cautioned others, doing exactly the same.
Catia wondered how the hell she'd gotten volunteered for this, because she certainly had not volunteered herself. The mess with Tavah--which had led to an entirely new dimension of confusion near PinkHue--might have meant that the Admiral had put her name forward out of spite, or the mess with Tavah might have meant that Nikolaus had put her name forward out of gratitude.
Didn't matter. Armed with her supply of monogrammed barf bags, she reported to the Golan defense platform via a skiff from the Yelora Dowen.
Liv Black was the only member of Alpha team to have actually volunteered.. just as she had volunteered to go without life support within the Red as a test to its effects; a fact everyone else involved in the Cloak project knew and many assumed her to be suicidal. Officially, Olivia Black was a Captain within a NavSec SpecOps branch commonly referred to as the 'Pirate Hunters', whose mission it was to track down pirates and slavers associated with Jackel or his cohorts(or not at all by this point) with the intent of recovering any Hapan slave (or any slave by this point) still missing.
Her armor told that story well; colors, design, and badges showing the branch and rank, blast marks and patches showing her affinity for battle. A lightsaber hilt always swung from her right hip, while the left kept a blaster snug against her form. Nothing special was brought otherwise; Niko's team took care of stocking the dropship up with necessities. The 'Black Diamond II' docked with the Golan defense platform, allowing its captain to step aboard and leave her crew behind. None of them were surprised by her choice, though many had voiced concerns about the sanity behind it (or lack there of).
Catia wore the helmet decorated in yellow by Niko's guard contingent, and with her best efforts the yellow was slightly paler than when it had been fresh, but the guards apparently knew their business. Bastards. Truthfully, though, she didn't even think about it anymore. Not even when total strangers referred to her as 'Crasshat,' which they all seemed to think very clever.
She hauled her own gear over to where she saw a pair of loiterers she guessed to be the brains of the mission. Their computational oomph appeared to take the form of a pair of heavy slugthrower rifles. Catia had learned to always make friends with the ladies carrying the big guns. She greeted them with, "If we take this place over, we can rent it out for the view."
The guns were silent in response, both merely giving her a glance before shifting attention away. Liv had started stepping into the prep room moments into the greeting, eyeing the exchange and speaking up herself in the wake of the silence that followed. "That's an optimism I can appreciate," she quipped simply before moving further in observe the crew still running their final tests on the dropship prior to sign off for boarding.
Catia frowned and turned away, the words, "So it's going to be that kind of trip," already coming out in a disappointed mutter.
Then: Liv.
Catia glanced her away, and then snorted. "You sure these guys aren't droids? Or clones?"
"Grunts would be my guess," Liv replied casually, glancing towards the pair out of her peripheral vision. One of them rolled her eyes, prompting the Captain to continue, "feel free to speak up and defend yourself." Eye roller gave a grunt. "We're simply not as eager as you to die down on that godsforsaken planet."
Catia's hand shot up. "I, too, am not eager to die." She lowered her arm. "Just for the record. I was told I'm supposed to be looking for signs of weapon detonation or--with luck--signs of a weapon itself."
She said this to Liv, looking for confirmation that they weren't just glorified escorts delivering Liv Black to her next attempt at suicide.
"Likewise," Liv agreed with Catia, along with a nod in her direction, "our overarching goal is on determining the source and proof of an attack--if that proof exists. Before we can do that however, we must secure a perimeter around the landing zone and prep a forward base: DeepRed."
"What makes you think there will be a landing zone fit to even have a perimeter to secure?" Catia felt they were getting ahead of themselves.
"That is of course the best case scenario assumption. Proven wrong, we'll work with what we have."
Who gave up my name?
Of course Catia didn't ask that. She was here, wasn't she? Not a deserter, no. Honestly pretty intrigued by the chance to get to see what was down there, even if it was a shipload of angry mutant Chiss waiting to cannibalize them all.
She'd seen worse in the last war. Ha!
Silence followed. The station crew finished their work on the dropship, giving the team the all clear to load in. Once they were inside the cramped cockpit, the comm would open with Nikolaus' voice coming through. "We'll attempt to maintain contact during the descent. Once you land, assess the area and make your decision to pursue or return. If comms are down, that's on Captain Black to decide. Otherwise, relay the information to us and we'll go from there. Any last questions?"
Catia oversaw the stowing of her personal equipment and then grabbed her chair and strapped in. In her left hand, crumpled in a death grip, were her barf bags. Famously a terrible flier, Catia was known for quite a few incidents aboard quite a few ships. A legend existed that she was personally responsible for the decommissioning of the Battle Dragon Perelandra. Here she sat fully helmeted and contained in her lightly armored suit, yet clutching those bags like a talisman.
Any last questions?
She did not ask what the plan was should the cockpit flood but clamped her hands down on the arms of her chair, bags and all, and appeared thereafter to be attempting to either wrench them physically from their anchors or to fuse herself with her chair on a molecular level through sheer force.
Her "No, sir," joined the rest. She managed no thumbs up.
The others gave their 'No, sir's in turn and that was the end of the call, aside from one last 'gods be with you' comment. The countdown begun and ended, and the magsafes released the dropship from the station, launching it downwards to the planet with the harpoon cable as it's guides. Very little power would be used aside from that initial push.. all that would be needed afterwards would be the reverse thrusters to slow down the landing.
Out of necessity, the Golan platform was in position as low over the Cloak's uppermost layers as possible, plus some breathing room for safety.
Released, the dropship had only eight seconds of clear air and starfield/red planet views before it would submerge into the unknown.
The hull thundered dully with the magsafes letting go, and Catia squeezed her eyes shut as the view out the front shook and then began a slow shift of angle. Eight. Her brain knew what a lie that slow shift actually was, how fast the descent would be. Seven. Basically freefall, once they were down there. Down there.
Six.
Five. At one point, Catia shouted out loud: "Shouldn't the Jedi or something be doing this instead?" Four.
Three.
She didn't really realize it had come out of her mouth, even when she bit her tongue by accident at the end. Two.
One.
The dropship fell into the Cloak, and red took over the interior.
Not just red light from the viewers. It was instantly in there with them, drifting around, swirling here and there, inside the cockpit and inside the helmets in gentle, ghostly forms.
The ship fell further.
The light grew dimmer. Interior lights snapped on, but weren't able to fight the dimming atmosphere back. They were more like frilly decorations: there, but just for show. Grainy splotches of less-red with blue-white, unconvincing hearts.
"Fresh out of those," came Liv's crass reply at Catia's shout, hands gripping the armrests of her chair tightly. They weren't prepared for this; how could anyone be? Though Niko quietly planned on turning this into an expensive amusement park ride once the situation had passed, it was harrowing to experience, and certain death felt near the entire way. The Red was back, bringing memories back to the Captain of her own previous jaunt into it.. and a silent prayer to the Force was made that she never experience it to that depth again.
It folds upon itself.
The dark won.
Even against the few indicator lights in front of the pilot. They flickered, withered, died.
Darkness now, and even that tinted in Red. There was nothing they could do now but wait and hopefully not die.
Catia read the backs of her own eyelids. Scrawled somewhere in there were the words You're the mission tech.
You're the mission tech.
If her stomach had a similar message, it was probably something more like You just had to eat breakfast.
You just had to eat breakfast.
She opened her eyes. And, really, there wasn't much change.
You're the mission tech.
She had expected to see the back of Captain Black's chair, with maybe a hint of the top of the woman's helmet. The same view she'd had when she'd strapped in. She expected to see the control panel past her, with its happy little lights that said Sure, we've got some fuel here and Sure, we know where you are and Sure, we can all land safely.
Instead, the control panel seemed--unlike her eyelids, and maybe her stomach--to have nothing to say to her.
You're the mission tech.
The dropship rattled as it plummeted.
In the dark, Catia's eyes flared.
What about the reverse thrusters?!
Why are you asking me, nitwit, it's your job!
Catia knew the setup. The thrusters should be fine. Some of her own work from PinkHue had gone into making sure they could even fire on their own past a certain point in the descent.
Her stomach tried to get a word in edgewise, but she sat there, feeling ill, ready to unstrap if she had to, the second Captain Black called for her, or the second something seemed so out of whack that not jumping up to get to work in the minutes they had became more ludicrous than trying to do so.
"This is not. like. the sim.. ulation," Liv muttered out through gritted teeth. It was dark. Dark. Far darker than it should have been. Far darker than anticipated. She wouldn't see her hand before her face, if she had been capable of lifting her hand up to try. The controls were a mystery at this point, but it wasn't utterly hopeless.. failsafes were built in, automated controls would kick in at certain depths.. or they should, rather. There was no AI to read off reports. No screens for readouts. It was as low tech as they could afford. Levers, switches, and dials instead of touch panels and digital readings. If those reverse thrusters failed to thrust.. they were in for a smashing good time.
Alarms screamed through the cabin--if this had been a different ship.
The dropship instead plummeted in the black, stirring unseen currents, shivering when buffeted by invisible winds and sometimes jerking when at odds with the cable. Even with eyes open, pupils wide and straining to catch any hint of light, there was nothing to see other than infrequent electrical discharge off the cable that caused the forward view to flash white instead of black and leave eyes twice as shocked. Catia couldn't even think right then about that electrical activity, about what that might mean given what the cable was made of how it had been constructed; she'd closed her eyes again, and tried to not let the randomness of the ship's jerking drive her crazy.
The dropship and cable system were an exercise in using known elements to reach into the unknown. When the third harpoon struck and locked to stable ground, by the length of the cable alone guesses could be made about where it might be in any of the projected crater-shapes that were possible. There were no extensive surveys of the geology of the region at all to draw on, but further guesses could be made about breathability of air (aside from the unknown variables of the Cloak) and what kinds of materials the team might encounter on the ground, and what state they'd be in. That the first two harpoons had struck something with drift pointed to models wherein the impact (or weapon discharge) had resulted in such heat that there were either molten areas or mud pits from a titanic backslide of materials.
From there, guesses could be built outward, confirming the zero survival chance of life for dozens of miles in every direction. Plants, animals, people--no chance. And if this proved indeed to be a random impact, missed as it had been in the minutes, hours, and days leading up to it, then the team had little to do on that front, and needed instead to focus on collecting samples and as much data as possible about the Cloak phenomenon, which at that point almost certainly had to have its source in the object that had blasted into Mandalore, which given the size of the event had just as 'almost certainly' been obliterated.
But IF--IF this was a weapon--a test deployment, or the announcement of a new enemy, or revenge by a not-so-annihilated hivemind--then the team needed to get as much data as they possibly could, with their golden aim being any recovery of physical elements from the weapon used, if there were any physical elements to be found.
So many ifs.
At least the "drop" part for the dropship was solid. From the platform, Captain Black's ship would drop for six minutes and five seconds before the thrusters needed to fire, give or take a millisecond to account for winds and the swaying of the meter-thick cable. Six minutes and five seconds was good enough.
At six minutes and five seconds, plus two milliseconds, the cockpit slammed and jerked. Thrusters firing as they should! The seats, the suits, the anti-shock design of the cockpit all did their jobs, cradling the fragile waterbag bodies of the four within.
Vibration coursed through every substance, from hull to hand, from headshield to heart.
Pressure had changed, and Catia could tell they were slowing. Still dropping fast by the standards of, say, someone jumping off a building, but slowing, thank the goddesses.
At six minutes and eleven seconds, the tail of the dropship hit something and the shock jolted forward through the vessel as it rocked forward, nose-down, rattling and screeching against torqued cable. Still falling. Even slower now.
Shock smashed into the ship--from the left this time, a wing--and the dropship scraped down something with an ear-splitting scream of metal on... something.
Freefall again for half a second, and then it was as if the dropship were under fire from medieval catapults, but... rapidfire ones, as the booms and thuds came faster, came constantly, the ship dropping through a field of--
Light out front--dim, but light! Sickly orange, or yellow, where stirring and more familiar red dust didn't blot it out! It displayed a scattering mass of free-floating... rocks?
The dropship's belly smashed into something big. Felt through the floor. Up through the feet. Out the front viewer, something coiled briefly into view, twanging and twirling down away from them, and Catia realized she was seeing the edge of the cable--which shouldn't quite be possible--
--slowly the dropship pitched forward, inverting, nose-down, and the swaying cable blurred out in the foggy dust below where it speared through a field of those rocks that looked like frozen droplets--
The dropship slid again. The squeal of the hull was enough to make Catia want to pull all her teeth out.
You just haaaaaad to eat breakfast.
Then the dropship fell again, drumdrumthrumpscritchscreeeeeeeeeekdrumdrumdrumbang--
Its belly caught air, flattening the ship better, and goddess only knew what the thrusters were doing now, but the last smack was the biggest, up through the floor again, the thunderous boom of the ship hitting something nearly as flat as it was and throwing up so much dust that it was black as night once more inside.
But
at least
they seemed
to have stopped
falling.