Chapter 11

Alan and Pandora took out the fighter that was emblazoned with her name on the canopy sill. After reprogramming the laser, they made an orbit of the equator of Saturn CLXXII while Alan kept the nose of the F-733 pointed straight “down” at the equator. Pandora had the targeting system feeding information to her helmet visor, and she was drilling holes in the ice with the laser to mount the thirty reaction engines that were in the storage bay of SS Peake. Alan would get the nose pointed close to where Pandora needed it to be. Then she took over. To her, it looked like the fighter projected a dot on the ice that she had to line up with the targeting reticle. Her stick was set to ‘Fine’ so she could make slight movements, and when she was lined up, the laser was programmed to fire four shots into the ice needed for the four legs of the engine mounts. When they finished with the 30th and final set of holes, Alan glanced over his shoulder and gasped.

“What?” asked Pandora. “What did you see?”

“Look!” he rotated the fighter to point at Saturn. This was something they hadn’t had the chance to do. They were so busy drilling holes they didn’t look up.

“My god,” Pandora gasped. She’s been out this far, but she was on the other end of the solar system running laps around Neptune. She’s never seen Saturn.

The sight was incredible. They were far outside of the rings so they could see the rings in their entirety. Saturn was magnificent. Compared to the massive anger of Jupiter, Saturn was a gentle, benevolent giant. A perfect, peaceful sphere hanging gently in space, wearing a disc of rings as a crown. A giant ball with stripes of yellow, tan, sky blue, amber, and white. Around her circled the rings, which were not the silver that Pandora and Alan were brought up to believe, but a rich reddish brown, the color of Martian soil. Saturn and her rings were tilted at a rakish angle as if to shout “Look at me! I’m gorgeous.”

Alan and Pandora opened their canopies and floated out of their fighter and hung in space, staring at the beautiful planet that hung above them. Their hands unconsciously joined as they marveled at the sight.

“It’s beautiful!” gasped Pandora.

“No, it’s an incredible thing to see, but you are what is beautiful.”

“There’s the Alan Scarlett I’ve been missing,” she said as she squeezed his hand.

“I’m sorry, my head was so fucked up that I was angry with you, I’m still fucked up, big time, but you’re helping, and I love you so dearly.”

“Why were you angry with me?”

“It’s something those bastards drove into my head when they were torturing me. They tried to convince me that you abandoned me.”

“I guess I showed them!” she said proudly as their helmet visors touched gently. “I gave them 20 kilotons of my love.”

“I didn’t even know where I was most of the time, but somehow I expected you to find me.” The lovers looked at the most incredible planet in the known universe for a long time. “I truly love you so much,” he whispered.

“Thank you for finding me, I love you ... and I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t found me,” she said as they held hands.

“I knew your dad would find you for me.”

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SS Peake, March 24, 2157 High planetary orbit over Saturn

Captain Scarlett gave the new Strike Force Berserkers forty-five days to convert an enormous ball of ice into a spaceship, and they did it in thirty. On March 24th, the sanity tests on the engines and control systems were complete, and they declared Saturn CLXXII as fit to fly as any other homemade space craft made of ice. Upon completion of all tests, they christened their ship of ice ‘the Big Berserker.’ A case of champagne was iced down with ice from CLXXII, the corks to be popped upon successful launch.

The ice from Saturn CLXXII turned out to be surprisingly pure. There were no strange organic impurities, just dust, and when melted, what wasn’t water filtered out easily. Mars is going to be delighted with this gift. The Eastern Bloc won’t enjoy the gift near as much. The Berserkers congratulated each other for their hard work and made the crew of the SS Peake honorary berserkers.

For being a seat of the pants plan, it came together amazingly well. All static tests showed 100% reliability. The only thing that would hold them back is if three or more engines fail when the window to launch opens. The crew worked hard, and Pandora did an outstanding job drilling the pilot holes for the engine stands, which made mounting the stands incredibly easy. All the crew had to do after the engine stands were lowered into place was to ensure that the engine mounts were seated. Usually, a few loving taps from an electric recoilless hammer did that nicely. The main support struts were held in place with water. They injected liquid water into the holes and within seconds, the water was frozen as hard as the surrounding ice. At the temperature of outer space -270° C (-455° F) the ice was incredibly hard, and the engine mount struts were permanently locked into place.