Marko Kloos - Terms of Enlistment

He opens the portable data terminal he had been carrying in his hand, and sits down at one of the mess tables. The XO and the junior officers gather behind him to get a look at the screen.

“We have all the terraforming stations on this planet networked, so we can share data and keep things in sync. Not too long after we lost contact with Willoughby City, the stations have been dropping out of the network. We synchronize our data over the satellite every morning and evening, and right now we only have forty-nine live nodes left. Every day, another station or two drops off the network. But that’s not even the really bad news.”

He types away at the keypad briefly and points to the display.

“When they turned over the place to colonize, the atmosphere was pretty close to Earth’s own. We were at eighty point three percent nitrogen, eighteen percent oxygen, point eight percent argon, and one hundredth of a percent of carbon dioxide.”

He calls up another screen, and points at a data table.

“Ever since we’ve lost contact with Central, the oxygen content of the atmosphere has dropped, and the carbon dioxide level has increased. Right now, we’re at fifteen percent oxygen, seventy-three percent nitrogen, and three percent carbon dioxide. The oxygen level is dropping by a percent every week, and the carbon dioxide is increasing by a percent. At this rate, we’ll have a hard time breathing in a few weeks. With the temperature increase thrown in, you’re looking at reversal of ten years of terraforming in a month. Even with our terraformers turning off one by one, the atmosphere shouldn’t flip like that. All these stations are in maintenance mode now, and the terraforming is pretty much done. Was pretty much done,” he corrects himself.

“You think it’s something they did, sir?” one of the Versailles’ lieutenants asks the XO. He looks at his subordinate in disbelief for a moment, and then lets out a barking laugh that makes me flinch.

“No, Lieutenant Benning. I think someone accidentally nudged the thermostat on the main atmospheric exchanger.”

He looks around at the mixed group of civilians and Navy personnel watching him, and shrugs his shoulders.

“Well, folks, it looks like someone else grabbed the deed to this place, and we just got our eviction notice.”

The XO sends us out in teams to take stock of the station’s supplies. Even with the personnel we brought, there’s enough food and water to last for months. Between their stores and the small arms locker on the drop ship, we can arm everyone in our group to the teeth and keep them fed and sheltered until the relief ship gets to Willoughby. One thing we didn’t bring, however, is enough oxygen to keep everyone breathing once the air on this planet goes bad.

“What do we have for transportation?” the XO asks when we gather in the mess hall again to compile the inventory.

“There’s a half dozen cargo mules in the shed outside, and two ultralights,” Halley reports.

“How do you get to the main base and back?” Commander Campbell asks the administrator, a lanky, gray-haired man named Hayward who looks like he spends most of his time working outside with his hands.

“Puddle jumper,” he replies. “Atmospheric shuttle from Willoughby City. Comes out twice a month, or by request if there’s a medical issue our doc can’t fix.”

“That’s a long ride,” Halley says. “That place is, what, three thousand klicks south?”

“Twenty-eight hundred. Six hours each way, if the weather’s good.”

“Take us two weeks to drive with these mules, even if we could carry enough fuel to make the trip,” the XO says. Mister Hayward shakes his head.

“You’d never get there. There’s a mountain range and an ocean strait between here and there.”

“Well, shit,” the XO says. “Looks like we’re waiting out the cavalry right here, then.”

“You got any fuel stores at all?” Halley asks Mister Hayward. “I mean, other than the juice for the mules and those ultralights.”

“There’s a tank buried by the landing pad. That one’s full of JP-101AA. It’s for the puddle jumpers. They usually carry enough for a round trip, but we have some anyway, just in case. Five thousand gallons.”

“JP-101AA,” Halley repeats.

“Yeah. Atmospheric aviation. Can your ride use that stuff?”

“Those are multifuel engines,” she replies. “We’ll have less thrust, and we’ll need to stay in atmo, but yeah, they’ll burn one-oh-one.”

“We don’t have a refueller,” Mister Hayward says. “Just a portable manual pump. It’ll take forever to fill that monster.” He looks out of the window, where the drop ship is visible a few hundred feet away. “How much fuel does one of those hold, anyway?”

“Twenty-one thousand eight hundred and forty-four pounds,” Halley replies without missing a beat.

One of the techs lets out a low whistle.

“That’s damn near forty-five hundred gallons,” he says to Mister Hayward. “Looks like we’re getting cleaned out with one fill-up.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Mister Hayward replies, and turns off the portable terminal in front of him. “I have a feeling there’ll be little demand for that stuff around here by the end of the month.”

The refueling takes four hours, even with a dozen people working on the process. Trying to fuel a Wasp-class drop ship with a manual pump and fuel hoses with non-standard coupling is like trying to fill a bathtub by wringing out wet towels over it. We all take turns holding open the fuel ports on the upper hull of the Wasp by hand, and feeding the wrist-thin hoses of the little emergency hand pump system directly into the sealed tanks. By the time the tanks are full, we all smell like aviation fuel, even the XO.

“So, the bird is full,” Commander Campbell declares when we gather in the mess hall again. “We’ll be going down to see what’s going on at Willoughby City. I’d rather not take everyone along for this, just in case we run into trouble.”

“No argument,” Mister Hayward says. “We’re not military. We’d just be baggage to you guys.”

“I suggest we go light,” Halley says. “I’ve never flown this thing with atmo fuel in it, so I have no idea how much she’ll lift, anyway.”

“What if you run into trouble, sir?” Corporal Schaefer asks. “You may want some rifles on the ground when you get there.”

Commander Campbell shakes his head.

“Not likely, Corporal. Let’s be realistic—if that colony’s gone, the bad guys have more firepower than we can handle, and the four of you aren’t going to make any difference. I’d rather be able to make a quick exit without having to worry about getting your guys down safely, too.”

“Understood, sir,” the corporal says.

“Lieutenant Adams, you’re in charge while I’m gone. If we lose comms, and we’re not back in twelve hours at the most, you are to stay holed up and wait for the rescue ship to arrive, is that clear?”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the lieutenant replies. “Stay put and wait for the cavalry.”

“Corporal Schaefer, you and your men will unload the drop ship’s armory and supply lockers while Ensign Halley does her preflight. Just leave us three rifles and a launcher, in case we end up having to put down in the boonies. I don’t want all that hardware going to waste if they blot us out of the sky.”

“Copy that, sir. We’ll get right on it.”

“Very well.” The commander claps his hands again. “Let’s get this show on the road, people.”

“Here we go again,” Halley says as we strap into our seats in the cockpit once again. The engines are warming up, but their drone sounds different now, lower and rougher than before.