The crew demanded another day at fragment five-three-three once stories were told of deeper caves and a metallic spike gentle enough for Mati to ascend. Both Kibi and Boro, at first unnerved by the constantly moving sky, spent extra time looking up, determined to conquer more personal demons.
Mati and Rini looked up and shrugged.
On the third day, Kibi took command as they reversed the landing process, first floating up to a safe distance while watching the stationary asteroid below, then turning to see the inside of the solid sphere Sata created on their displays. Mati cancelled the pitch, then the yaw, and once again they beheld the stars, now behaving themselves.
Another quarter hour of bumping and nudging brought them to clear space. Sata plotted an elliptical flight plan with a course change at Sonmatia Six, Mati requested engines, and the Manessa Kwi streaked deeper into space at one-eighth the speed of light.
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None of the five new crew members could keep their mouths closed as the huge gas giant filled their displays with mysterious bands of color — oranges, yellows, violets, even brilliant white with tinges of blue and green.
Rini tried to swallow. “We’re not even very close yet . . .”
Suddenly a thin, straight band of rocks flashed across their view screens.
Boro nearly jumped out of his skin. “What was that?”
“Sata?” Ilika prompted.
She studied her chart for a moment. “Sonmatia Six has a little asteroid belt around it. We’re still several light-seconds out, crossing into the northern hemisphere.”
While monitoring their progress along the flight plan, Mati looked deep into wells and canyons among the multi-colored clouds, swirling so slowly the movement was difficult to see.
“Hard to believe we’re still at ion seven,” Boro commented, “but my board says we are.”
“Mine too,” Sata confirmed.
Kibi glanced at the empty passenger area behind her. “My passengers are on the edge of their seats!”
Ilika turned and grinned at her.
The bridge fell silent as the giant planet loomed larger and larger, slowly moving into the lower-left corner of their displays.
“The gravity is enormous,” Rini reported. “Almost five hundred times our little world.”
Boro looked worried, then relaxed. “I’m glad we’re using anti-mass and ion drive!”
Silence lingered again as the gas giant grew slowly larger and lower on their screens.
“Nav point in twenty seconds,” Sata announced.
Mati looked at the flight plan again, glanced at Ilika, and he nodded.
“Course change approved,” she said.
A few seconds later, the gigantic sixth planet moved quickly out of their forward view and the Manessa Kwi streaked into the darkness of space toward Sonmatia Seven.
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“Rini and Boro are right,” Ilika began from the steward’s station as a bowl of snacks worked its way around the table. “Without the anti-mass drive, we couldn’t go anywhere near a gas giant, unless freeloading. The gravity is just too great. We might be able to achieve escape velocity using every bit of our remaining fuel . . . once.”
“Is the seventh planet just as beautiful?” Kibi asked.
Rini nodded vigorously as Ilika tapped at the console, and the image of another ringed, multi-colored gas giant appeared on the big screen.
Mati beamed with excitement. “We get to land on that one?”
Ilika squinted for a moment. “Sort of. First we’ll descend through thousands of kilometers of turbulent, poisonous atmosphere. Eventually it changes to a liquid at extremely low temperatures. Finally, it solidifies, but the solid surface is very unstable, constantly melting and refreezing. We can take a peek at it, but not really land. Far, far down, below an immense depth of ice, is a small rocky core, about the size of your planet.”
Sata’s eyes grew large. “Sounds dark . . . and spooky.”
During the eight hour transit from Sonmatia Six to Seven, Ilika gave only one command. “Get some sleep, tomorrow’s a big day. Sata has first watch.”
After everyone else filtered away, Boro took a few steps toward the lift, then stopped himself and looked back at Sata. She seemed nervous as she selected pictures and videos to arrange on her display, alongside the star-studded blackness of space on her forward view. He smiled to himself, then went down to the bridge and started massaging her shoulders. “Want some company?”
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She turned her head and grinned. “Yeah. I guess . . . I’ve got knots in my stomach. I’m not sure I’m gonna like gas giants.”
Boro took the pilot’s chair. “Because they’re so big, or because they’re way out here where it’s almost dark?”
Sata twisted her face. “Not sure. Maybe I’ll understand it better after we visit one.”
Boro nodded. “Want to show me how to find charts?”
“Sure!”
Hours later, at the end of Kibi’s watch, Ilika awoke in a passenger seat when others started coming up the lift and talking about breakfast.
Kibi looked over her console one more time before giving him a kiss on the cheek. “You’re in command,” she whispered, then stepped into the galley.
He stood up and stretched. “Manessa, flight plan status?”
“On flight plan, seven light-minutes to destination.”
Most of the crew had already glanced at the little screens in their cabins, but seeing the ringed gas giant on the big screen was much more exciting.
Soon everyone was sipping tea and staring with wide eyes.
“This one’s more special,” Rini suggested. “We get to touch it!”
“Have you checked the planet’s temperature?” Boro asked, squinting.
Rini smiled. “I know. Only Manessa can touch something that cold.”
Everyone quickly ate as the enormous planet, even more colorful than Sonmatia Six, grew larger and larger on their displays.
“We’re out of flight plan,” Mati reported from her station as soon as everyone gathered on the bridge.
“Bring us to a relative stop at the outer edge of the rings,” the captain said.
“I have to give you a few warnings before we go down.”
Sata provided a chart and Mati kept an eye on the visual display. With the ship still weightless, she brought it to an instant stop within sight of the first rocks.
“We’ll start with a fly-over of the planet’s ring system,” Ilika began. “You’ll see gaps with almost no rocks because of the interaction of the planet’s gravity and the sun’s. Any rocks still in those gaps tend to be unstable and move in unpredictable ways without warning.”
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Mati blinked a few times, then nodded.
“The atmosphere is mostly hydrogen, so space thrusters might act strangely. There have been cases where a gas giant was large enough that a passing ship, using thrusters, ignited a chain reaction and the planet became a small sun.”
Boro swallowed and looked a bit pale.
“This planet isn’t big enough for that.”
The engineer breathed again.
“The turbulence down there is worse than anything on your planet, but there’s nothing to hit but the liquid surface, so we just cancel all inertia and enjoy the ride.”
The little ship glided over the rings, just far enough for safety, near enough for excitement. No flight plan was used — Mati kept her hand on the flight control and her eyes moving from chart to visual to console.
Even without mass, the descent from the innermost ring felt like falling, as the intricate swirling surface of the planet’s atmosphere grew closer every second. Kibi had to close her eyes part of the time.
“Mati, start slowing our descent,” Ilika instructed.
She spoke without turning. “Um . . . ion two, Boro.”
Boro confirmed the power reduction, and the visible surface of the planet ceased barreling toward them.
No one could feel a thing as the ship punched a small hole in a huge purple cloud. Their displays gradually became foggy, then slowly dimmed as they pierced deeper into the atmosphere.
“Ion one,” the pilot requested.
Occasional shafts of brilliant sunlight penetrated deeply into the clouds, but soon the ship was once again surrounded by colorful mists growing darker and darker.
“This is creepy,” Kibi muttered with a tinge of fear in her voice, “not knowing what’s coming.”
Mati smiled without letting Kibi see. “The chart on channel five shows our position and the liquid surface. It’s no worse than flying in a thick fog back on our planet.”
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Kibi swallowed as she looked at the chart. “I’m glad you’re the pilot!”
Mati smiled again and activated the ship’s lights. “Ilika, I think we should float down from here.”
“Good call, pilot.”
“Finished with ion drive.”
As the deep-space response ship, with its crew-in-training from a medieval world, approached the gaseous-liquid boundary of Sonmatia Seven, the pilot slowed their descent by requesting higher and higher power levels for the anti-mass drive. The navigator, with little to do, arranged pictures of butterflies and flowers on her display. The watch monitored his sensors and squirmed with excitement. The steward looked around at the walls and ceiling, took some deep breaths, and checked her internal views for anything loose. The engineer frowned when the pilot requested his highest anti-mass power level, and prepared an alternate fuel, just in case. The captain smiled.
As Mati watched the ship’s position indicator approach the boundary, she brought in more and more of the power at her fingertips. Half-way through level seven, the ship’s lights finally revealed the eerie churning surface of liquid hydrogen, with plenty of other elements adding color.
“I don’t suppose the fishing’s any good,” Boro said with a smirk.
Ilika burst out laughing. “There are creatures in there, but you couldn’t eat them, nor could they eat you, although they might try. Take us in, pilot. As with water, it’s calmer below.”
Mati lowered the ship into the strange, cold liquid. The ship’s inertia canceling kept them from feeling the surface roughness, but the swaying motion on their view screens brought moans, and several fingers quickly poked at channel selectors to study the chart. Kibi now knew what clothes felt like in her laundry machine.
The turbulence soon faded as the gravity of the planet pulled them downward. The ship’s lights became useless as the liquid hydrogen reflected most, and distorted the rest.
“All stations, report,” Ilika requested.
“Pilot is good, though I don’t have anything to steer by. And I don’t want hydrogen-fish for dinner.”
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Boro
chuckled.
“Up and down is all that matters,” the captain assured. “Sata?”
“Um . . . I guess I’ll never love dark places, will I?”
“Maybe
not.”
“Well . . . um . . . I’m okay, and the only useful chart is on channel five.
The transponder is active, although the Tirilana Kril should be gone by now, so we might be alone in the solar system.”
Ilika nodded. “Rini?”
“I’m . . . a little nervous. Visual is useless. Sonar shows chunks of ice that are getting larger as we go down. Channel four.”
“Boro?”
“Engines are happy, but . . . I’m worried because we have to use so much anti-mass.”
“Atmospheric thrusters will work here,” the captain pointed out.
Boro scrunched his face in a moment of anger at himself, then laughed.
“Kibi?” the captain continued.
“Ship’s getting smaller again, but as long as there’s room to dance to a little music, I’ll survive. Everything’s secure.”
Ilika turned and smiled at her.
“Bottom’s coming up,” Sata announced.
“Ice chunks are becoming ice boulders,” Rini added.
“Slow our descent, Mati,” Ilika commanded.
“Eight meters per second,” she reported.
Ilika touched the selector on the arm of his chair. “Everyone switch to channel four.”
Boro switched to Rini’s sonar image of orange ice and clear yellow liquid.
“Much better!”
“Four meters per second.”
Suddenly a huge bubble appeared beneath the ship, white on the sonar image. The Manessa Kwi dropped like a rock into the gas pocket before anyone could respond. Hundreds of ice boulders began to plunge downward into the same void, pounding the top of the little ship and forcing it into a deep, dark crack in the planetary ice.
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Deep Learning Notes
Gas giants seem to be about the same as the inner planets, with a small rocky core, but are cold enough to capture the vast amounts of hydrogen that are present during solar system formation. This bring up the question: why isn’t Pluto a gas giant? It’s irregular orbit may mean it has a very different, and much more recent, origin.
In our solar system, only Saturn was known to have rings until very recently.
Now, with better telescopes and unmanned probes, it appears that all four of our gas giants have rings.
Mati’s habit of keeping her eyes moving “from chart to visual to console” is an essential piloting skill. If you look at any one of those for too long, things might change in one of the others (but hopefully the chart stays the same).
This is actually more critical when driving a car, as obstacles and other vehicles are much closer than when flying.
Sonar maps the external environment by using sound waves. It is used by submarines on Earth because light does not travel very far underwater.
Radar, which maps using radio waves, also does not work underwater.
