The Centaur Project Pt. 4: Pelion (707 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: centaur_series scifi
Rating: 1.97 on 26 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Coyote (View user info) at 2006-03-05 14:30:52 EST
Obligatory linkwhores to the previous installments:
Part 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/83617
Part 2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/84066
Part 3: http://www.ubersite.com/m/84442
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Day 34—God damn I love this job. In-system maneuvering rocks my fucking face off. We hit the parking orbit around moon-3 right on schedule, with just exactly enough vapor left in the tanks for one shot at the landing. That whole night on the transfer, with the moon looming up in front of us all orange and full like a werewolf's wet dream and this amazing fucking planet sliding away on our portside, no one slept. Heh. Every single time I call it "Saturnzilla" or "Ring Kong", Sara and McSwain roll their eyes at each other, and I bet if I bothered to go back and look at the video stream I'd be able to actually hear them grinding their teeth. As long as they think I'm endangering the crew, the mission, and the entire human race through a gross abuse of power, I might as well spoil the quiet tranquility of what they're certain is their last hours alive, right?
Fact is, I don't have any more idea than anyone else if we're gonna get out on the surface and start synthesizing all the fuel we could ever want, if we'll get slaughtered with phaser pickaxes by a horde of grizzled old alien prospectors for jumping their claim, or if the whole reactor is going to go bang when we fire it up, flash-vaporize the surface, and get us sucked under like a saber-toothed tiger in a tar pit. Fuck it, I got us this far didn't I? But only Thorne has any real idea about the reactor...
Heh. Crazy fuckin geek had the thing all set up and ready to go before we even landed. I think he spent his entire life up to this point getting ready for this. Says the biggest challenge was improvising the dust filter that's going to keep us from blowing sky fucking high when we crank up the engines again. He worked about fifteen hours straight through after he took his R&R with McSwain, and he fuckin went at it with her like he'd never seen pussy before. I always had her pegged at about the "seven beers and a paper bag" level, but it takes all kinds I guess. Afterwards, truly sick fuck that he is, he requisitioned a pair of her panties to use in the methane condenser.
Only problem with the reactor is, I got a good look at it when Thorne and Mendel were prepping it and shifting it over to the airlock, and it's fucking tiny. Tiny. We figure it's gonna take at least a week to get all the propellant we need synthesized, and that's without any snags in the process.
From everything Ito says, there's no fuckin way we have anything like that amount of time. Whatever she wanted to keep to herself at first to help establish her claim that she discovered it first, she got over it pretty damn pronto when she realized the situation we're in here. Anyway, I think the shine started to come off the translation game when the aliens warned us off and stopped transmitting.
Good news is, there's only signs of alien activity at two spots on the moon, both of them right in the foothills of some huge mothering mountains where they've got some mining operations set up. We could see their dust plumes trailing off downwind from 150,000 km out. This fuckin hellhole is nearly the size of Mars, so we've got real estate to burn out here, we can take what we need and get the hell out without ever seeing an alien. But unless you count the fact that I got the stream of me bending Ito over her console and fucking her silly downloaded to my home directory, then the only other remotely good news is that these fuckers don't have a battleship waiting out of sight just behind Ring Kong... at least, that they mentioned.
I'm gonna put "adverse conditions and potentially hostile forces" in the COR, but just in case we survive this thing and I need to remember what's true and what's embellishment: we got bad news the way Sub-Saharan Africa has intestinal parasites... the shit just keeps flowing. Okay, one: the aliens are paranoid as fuck. First contact they seemed happy to chitchat, but they really wanted us to stay the fuck away from their moon here. Two: those mining bases are fucking huge, like they could process Mt. Everest and shit out the tailings in about 72 hours, and they obviously have the personnel to run 'em. So if they wanna pick a fight, we're pretty much hosed even if their idea of weaponry is slings and arrows. Three: that useless redneck cunt McSwain never got any of the high-gain antennae fixed, so even though Ito thinks she understands that we're being told to kindly fuck off, we can't do anything more elaborate in response but the most basic fucking pathetic distress call. Which they obviously either don't understand or don't believe. Let's not forget the fun part: they already think we're either hostile or insane because of the way we came screaming down off the Hotpoint at point-four lights and punched a nice ionization hole through Ring Kong's best ring. Far as Ito can tell, they didn't even know that loop was there, and they're fucking spooked by their new back door.
So it's pretty safe to say that if a few of them stop by to check us out, they're not going to be looking to sit down for tea and fucking crumpets and a game of canasta. Not with us camped out on their back porch, demonstrating erratic behavior and having answered all their friendly hails with a tiny trickle of semi-coherent bullshit.
The centaur thing is basically fucking meaningless for all I care, except for the fact they've got the advantage in strength and size as well as numbers. Everyone else seems to think it's amazing and wonderful etc. Whatever. What are we going to do, crash their little mining colony party and offer them a lump of sugar in exchange for a horsey-ride? One of the weird little bits of information Ito managed to dredge out of their first unguarded transmissions was that their herds are segregated by sex, and the stallions spend most of their time roving around like nature's biker gangs. The mares are the sane ones, the leaders... yeah, that sounds likely.
Two messages flashing in the inbox now—McSwain picked up an incoming craft from the direction of one of the centaurs' mining outfits, ETA three hours—Dougie, Yuri, and Sara got the propellant synthesis reactor set up on the regolith and they're running a couple of powerlines out there. That's my cue to take stock of our defenses and babysit the powerup checklist.
It boils down to two questions: what kind of 900 pound shithammer is going to lift up over the horizon and come slamming down on us like Hells' Angels with hooves for wheels? And do we have enough power capacity to run the synthesis reactor and the weapons system at the same time?
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DSE-13 COR
MET 34:10:15, 14:30 ST
Range 86.39 ly Terr. Alt. N/A
Orbiting Elysium B in transfer to moon-3 parking orbit
Initial subsidence beneath landing site has terminated, craft is now at Stable-1 with siderostats tracking. Sublimation off surface is negligible, sunlit/shadowed temperature split 105/95 K. Battery perfomance nominal, resting ship drawing 12 amps.
Preliminary tests of bi-propellant synthesis reactor suggest 92% efficiency in line with Engineer's predictions. I am pleased to commend Douglas Thorne for his dedication and sustained excellence in the fulfullment of his duties. Adverse conditions and potentially hostile alien forces may prevent or delay full-scale operation of his reactor contingent upon numbers, materiel and intentions of alien forces. Three craft detected closing on our position. Full intell. regarding alien language, operations and possible intentions available from dossiers filed by Science Officer and Psych Officer. Best course of action to continue repairs on communication systems and attempt to establish peaceful radio contact with centaurs. Continuing to broadcast distress signal, without acknowledgment. Powering down non-essential systems to prepare for commencement of fuel synthesis. Lt. Mendel and myself to conduct full review of defensive and offensive battle system readiness. Logged Cmdr. R.M.A. FitzWilliam.
User Reviews
Submitted by Alter (user info) at 2007-09-26 20:31:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No, Comment.
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2006-03-13 22:03:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool post. Sorry I missed this when it was posted
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-03-13 14:18:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
dude, don't post this on a Sunday
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2006-03-10 00:56:53 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Fuck me for the inconsistency/shit editing.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-03-08 09:21:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-06 23:09:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Just dropping by to re-read, bump this back to MRR, and to inform you that if you sneak part 5 under my radar like you did with 1, 2 and 3, I'll be cranky.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2006-03-06 14:02:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:04:42 (#)
Ranking: 2
Ahhh Fuck
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Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:03:46 (#)
Ranking: 0
Fucking Sensational. What an awesome way to start a monday morning.
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Heh heh... see what happens when you use "Monday" and "awesome"
in the same sentence? Unless of course the sentence is "My dark
god Nin-Monday is a capricious and vengeful one, given to mysterious
acts of awesome cruelty."
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:10:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"John was a little crippled midget lesbian boy
but stood ten foot tall with a knife"
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:06:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Dradle
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:06:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm whipping my bare back with a licorice whip as I type this.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:05:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I suck
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:05:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Sorry Bro
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:04:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ahhh Fuck
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-03-06 12:03:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Fucking Sensational. What an awesome way to start a monday morning.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2006-03-06 08:53:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Keep it coming.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-03-06 07:59:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-03-06 02:58:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
When I grow up I'm going to be a ballerina and marry FitzWilliams.
Just so you know.
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2006-03-05 23:52:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I love this badass pilot.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-03-05 23:03:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Now this is a post. Well-written, well-thought. Shamefully read and rated. This deserves more and better!
The main character is done very well, and even though I haven't read any previous, I feel like I have a good sense of the conflicts and history of the series.
Keep it up.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 22:20:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Note to self....make sense...
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 22:16:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
So many more people than I thought would got the reference in my username. Brings a tear to my eye....
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2006-03-05 22:14:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-03-05 21:52:20 (#)
Once again, reading this at night when I am sleepy and retarded is a Bad Idea. This is emphasized by the fact that I now must ask, at what point did we learn that they were centuar-like? I don't remember it, and... I are confuzzled.
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We learned it right now! Your humble narrator introduces it with all the fanfare he thinks it's due (recall this is his private journal, so he's writing it for himself).
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Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 21:08:32 (#)
Lots of people on this site are constantly bitching about the lack of content, then content comes and slaps them in the face and they just ignore it.
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Thanks for your support! And, damn, now I have to walk through the rain and walk through the mud til I get to a place called the Bucket of Blood... good user name.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-03-05 21:52:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Once again, reading this at night when I am sleepy and retarded is a Bad Idea. This is emphasized by the fact that I now must ask, at what point did we learn that they were centuar-like? I don't remember it, and... I are confuzzled.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 21:08:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Lots of people on this site are constantly bitching about the lack of content, then content comes and slaps them in the face and they just ignore it.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-05 20:09:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Reminds me of the Forever War, and that is extremely good.
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2006-03-05 19:02:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I read part of this, but am too drunk to truly enjoy it.
I'm just aghast that this post has no reviews. READ THIS, BITCHES!
I reserve the right to revise this rating but I've bookmarked this and will read the whole series when sober.