Chapter 14

“Helm. Ahead, one-third impulse. Take us to the gas giant for fuel before we Warp to Pollux.” JD commanded.

Hearing that JD intended a long Warp jump for his next exploration, two Edra boarded TL before it left Thor Base for Exodus. Discovering the same information, Sean and Tina asked to come along for the voyage. Others within the Alterran university staff community on Exodus could document their study there, and Sean wanted to explore distant star systems.

He was young and felt his life slipping away in the study of Exodus, after he had just about written the book on the early colonization of the planetoid Thor Base. JD was glad to have the Alterra and Edra people aboard. With both attack shuttles, two android piloted fuel tankers, and four android piloted tugs; TL was fully equipped for its voyage.

Now all he had to do was keep his crew and the Marines focused and productive. Planning ahead he’d asked Louis to contact Chuck on Home World to concentrate on recruiting female soldiers or former Home World Marines, if any were being auctioned for debt slavery. He could advertise for hiring them from the work force and offer a bonus of up to one year’s pay for a six-year enlistment.

Privately JD told Louis that he planned to crew one of the attack shuttles with an all-female crew and gender integrate both platoons and the security detachment aboard TL. He’d leave at least one platoon of male Marines at Thor Base for him to assign as the needs of the planetoid dictated. He also planned to leave a platoon with Exodus along with the attack shuttle he had left at Fresno, after his first colonization trip. He’d let nature and cupid have their way as long as relationships developed outside the platoon chain of command.

He’d planned on telling the Marine chain of command about it before they left Thor Base on their last trip to Exodus. As he knew, any plan only lasts until first contact with the enemy. Only this plan didn’t even last until the females got hired on Home World. Word was circulating all over the planet that male and female Marines would have equal status and promotion opportunity on Thor Base.

Any male malcontents had been left on Exodus and TL now had a female platoon leader and platoon sergeant, a female physical security detachment leader, and three female security watch NCO’s. Chuck had even located and hired eight female pilots despite never having been asked to do that.

Even before Alex Boudreaux walked back aboard from his last shuttle landing on Thor Base, he had rounded up all the female pilots that had emigrated to the planetoid. Without asking my permission, he sent eight of his male pilots back on the shuttle returning to Thor Base. Then he knocked on JD’s cabin door and told his skipper what he had done. End of story. Not really!

TL’s Air Wing Commander had also talked to Tony Zinc asking if he could help recruit any Alterran females so he could train them as fighter pilots on TL. “Would you take my daughter?” Tony Zinc had asked.

Alex thought quickly, one female trainee would hardly satisfy his efforts; but maybe it would leverage a larger commitment by the Ambassador. “If you can round up five more willing female flight candidates, it’s a done deal, Ambassador.” Then Alex stuck out his hand to offer a handshake to seal the deal, not realizing that shaking hands was not the customary way to seal an agreement on Alterra. Tony chose to ignore the faux pas and shake Alex’s hand anyway.

Tony didn’t get five women, but returned with nine, including his second son, Dean; and daughter, Julie. Four of those were older ladies with doctorates in astrophysics, astronomy, and computer engineering. The rest were graduate students who chose to emigrate to Thor Base years ago. “Dean had no desire to pursue any advanced degrees, Alex.” When Alex nodded, he continued. “Dean is twenty of your Earth years old and his older sister, Julie; is two years his senior. The other women are twenty-six to thirty years old and want to try something different with their lives. I’d warn you make your other pilots aware of their advances, but that is probably why you intended to take so many single women on you next voyage.”

Alex nodded. “They’ll all do just fine, Tony.”

“Good, because I have already taken the liberty of addressing the matter with your commander. JD has agreed to raise your assigned pilot manning level by ten ‘pilots-in-training’.”

“Wow, I hadn’t even approached his with my proposal yet.” Alex stated.

“Yes. He said as much, but he considered it was your prerogative as Wing Commander to choose who would fly for TL, and how they needed to be trained.” Tony added.

When Alex did approach JD and relate what he intended to do, JD took the proposal in stride. “You’re adding Alterran females to pilot training was my goal since they arrived in significant numbers on Thor Base. We need to integrate other species onto TL. I realize that humans will seek to socialize with their own species first, but had hoped Thor’s Law would be a more of a melting pot, to advance the melding of our cultures.”

Now six months into the voyage to Pollux, there was a strain beginning to be felt within the crew of TL. JD was not immune to the growing realization that such a distant star seemed a bit too far for exploration, especially considering that there were so many closer stars to Alpha Centauri that had yet to be fully explored. This realization was only confirmed when TL actually arrived at Pollux, only to discover the orange giant star and a much more massive (than Jupiter) gas giant orbiting it. Yes, the moons of that planetary gas giant could support human life, just as Thor Base had accomplished already; but why go this far, just to do that again.

It was hardly any news when JD gathered the ship’s leaders in his conference room and discussed his intent to explore closer to home in the future. There were smiles all around when he asked for a vote to confirm his intentions.

The trip back was only a month or so shorter, as the destination was the star Altair.

The blue-white star was much more luminous than either the Sun or Alpha Centauri. The crew of TL discovered a very young planet with water oceans orbiting Altair. There was no life evident on its surface which was either bare rock or ocean. A slim band of a temperate zone stretched around the high latitudes of this planet that JD named Terra Nova. Like Pangea on Earth, all the land belonged to one massive continent that stretched from one pole to the high latitudes near the other pole. Taking the attack shuttle to the surface, he landed on the northern, or upper end of this land mass in the temperate zone. JD’s crew discovered it a contrast of extremes. Hot during cloudless calm days, sub-freezing overnight. But when the wind blew, the temperatures moderated somewhat due to the effect of the adjacent oceans. Gusty and turbulent best described the windy days. This would be an ideal setting for wind farms, at least for those windy days.

The crew collected geological samples of the chiefly igneous rock from the surface, a coarse-grained diorite. Longer distant exploration showed eroded beaches of a granite pegmatite rock. The lack of soils was universal, seeming to indicate that erosive forces dominated over depositional ones, and no sedimentary rocks were evident. There were no sea shells lying on any beaches, which suggested an absence of life in the oceans.

The atmosphere was significantly higher in carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide and actually had a metallic ‘taste’ that took some getting used to for breathing. The replicator aboard the attack shuttle could replicate palatable food from ocean water and atmospheric gasses alone, but its taste resembled a rather tart, tofu curd, but not as appetizing. Seasoning it to suit one’s tastes was the only way to comfortably eat it.

The air within the shuttle was processed to remove ozone, sulfur dioxide, and most of the carbon dioxide; making it preferable for overnight sleeping. The rainfall collected was poorly buffered as one might expect. It had a low pH with a slightly acidic taste, sort of like a strong tea. Exposed iron quickly oxidized. But alloys with nickel and chromium maintained their stainless character well. Lime was available from the replicator. It was broken down from anorthite feldspar minerals within some of the diorite. The lime buffered the rain water well and produced a much more palatable liquid. Thus, with a modicum of replicator templating, the crew could get along just fine, if they lived within this temperate zone. Living on the surface of Terra Nova would be a bit of a challenge, but nothing that a competent explorer couldn’t overcome.

Leaving several monitoring instruments on the surface and a geosynchronous orbiting platform in space above the equator, TL departed Terra Nova and the Altair system. With more than a dozen message torpedoes available, scientists back on Thor Base would receive periodic downloads from Terra Nova for the next several years.

They were finally homeward bound after an absence of over two years.

The Thor Base they arrived at was hardly recognizable. The entire planetoid was covered in transparent canopied buildings that were mostly buried in the solidified magmatic rock of the planetoid. Several shipyards appeared on orbital platforms surrounding other nearby much smaller asteroids. There seemed to be a plethora of expanding settlements containing human outposts.

But the most significant change JD discovered, was life on Home World. Charles had declared Thor Colony on Home World to be an independent country. He had adopted the Thor Constitution and laws to govern this new nation. Louis had backed his political move by deploying Thor and Ajax, a new type of orbital platform containing hundreds of fighter spacecraft. Chuck’s move had precipitated armed conflict by competing warlords within the remaining Home World ruled lands. Debt slavery continued to be practiced there, but it was outlawed in Thor Colony.