Abort Mission!
Feb 12, 2023 16:54:59 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Feb 12, 2023 16:54:59 GMT -5
Abort Mission!
Joe Stanton, a highly respected astronomer who bore a strong resemblance to former world champ Sonny Liston, had always wanted to go to Mars ever since childhood. Yet now, after two Earth-months into the journey, he wanted the mission aborted. The reason? A certain disturbing dream that he claimed to have dreamed and which he said he considered prophetic. Of course no one listened.
You see, the other crewmembers found it strange that Stanton, despite his extensive scientific background, remained a staunch believer in the potential prophetic nature of dreams. Yet, he insisted, that their ship would be devoured by an enormous Martian underground slug-like creature if they attempted to land.
So when his warning, involving impending death went unheeded, and he was actually ridiculed, despite his pleading to be taken seriously, a heated argument had ensued, leading to his restriction to his quarters for the remainder of the voyage.
Yet, although sedated and restricted to his room, his warnings of unavoidable impending doom if they attempted to land on Mars, could still be heard by all other crewmembers.
"Turn the damned ship around. Turn it around, or we're all dead! You hear me? Dead!" he could be heard saying.
Finally, captain Mark Rubinstein, a short, high-strung, freckled-faced, red haired Anglo American who had a background in psychology, attempted to bring Stanton back to his proper senses.
"Now Joe, you are a highly-educated man." he began in a nervous voice, after having taken a seat by Stanton's cot where Stanton lay on his unusually broad back with a worried look on his face.
"As a scientist you know very well that there has never been any life confirmed on Mars! Also, this creature that you describe as being able to devour an entire spaceship must be really huge. The movements of life of the size underground would have been detected by our rover seismographers by now. Don't you find it rather strange that they haven't"
"Not if it, or maybe they, had been lying dormant! sir." Stanton immediately shot back.
Although the captain considered the response absurd, he viewed Stanton's calmness in responding as progress. At least he wasn't shouting as he had been before. Now all he needed to do to restore him to his proper senses, was to make him use logic.
"Dormant for how long Joe?" the captain continued in a quavering voice, revealing how much stress the entire episode was placing on his already frazzled nerves.
"How am I supposed to know that sir?"
"Well, from your dream-of course."
"My dreams only reveal the essentials, not the minute details, sir."
"So what was it exactly that your dream revealed Stanton?"
"Is it really necessary for me to repeat what I already said over and over?"
"Yes I would like to hear it again! You know, to make absolutely sure that what I heard the first time was right."
"As I said, before captain, in my dream, we are descending toward the Martian surface, and at approx. at 500 feet from touchdown, this creature that resembles a giant gray slug, lunges from an underground cavern with gaping jaws and swallows the ship whole!"
"Well, that is definitely a terrifying thing to dream, Joe," the captain responded in quavering voice.
"But since when are dreams supposed to be guiding in our decisions?"
He responded while effusively wiping away the perspiration from his ruddy countenance with some paper towels.
"Since they keep coming true. That's since when, captain," Stanton almost barked back. He was nervous as it was and really didn't appreciate being approached by someone who seemed even more than he.
"But couldn't those times be mere coincidences?"
"Statistically speaking sir? No. Not a chance. Too many things would need to go precisely just right at the exact time needed for them to be just coincidences."
The captain was not about to debate Stanton on the nature of probabilities since he knew that Stanton already was aware of their fine nuances. Neither were his nerves up to it. So he tried another approach. A compromise of sorts.
"Ok Joe, here is what I will do," the captain said while vigorously rubbing the palms of his clammy hands together. " We'll use an alternate landing location. You know, the one that NASA has approved of in case of an emergency. The landing sites of Arcadia Planitia and Erebus Montes and Phlegra Montes are suitable. They all provide lower elevations, with thicker atmosphere to slow our descent. They also have lots of nearby water ice which is a big plus. How is that for a solution?" the captain said nervously smiling broadly, and with pleading green eyes, and hoping that Stanton would reciprocate. After all, it was a concession that gave Stanton's dream a certain amount of credit, and conserved his personal sense of dignity as well.
"No sir!" Stanton uttered in an emotionally-choked voice. "No matter what location you choose, a slug [the captain flinched when Stanton said that word] will rise up from the Martian surface and swallow this ship! You must abort this mission, or we will all die."
The captain heaved a deep sigh of extreme tiredness. He hadn't slept well since assigned to the mission, and Stanton's antics were adding to his stress.
"Well, Joe," the captain continued, "I can't very well simply abort this mission and turn the ship around. I don't have the authority to do that. You know that!"
"Then we'll all go to our deaths captain!"
"Then l, guess I'll just have take my chances."
"There are no chances sir. We are dead-period" Stanton said gravely as the captain began to leave.
"He might be highly educated, but he's now officially a loon." the captain told the others who had been anxiously waiting for the results of the captain's efforts in the ship's cockpit.
"Keep him confined to his quarters. Release him only after we land the ship. The sobering reality that nothing that he dreamed actually happened should bring him back to his senses."
And so it was. Stanton had been restricted to his quarters, and the mission had proceeded as scheduled. Soon, after what seemed to the crew as forever, they were finally in Martian orbit and ready to attempt the landing. But before the attempt could be made, Stanton had somehow managed to escape from confinement, and unbeknown to them, had accessed a space-pod and was plunging to the surface.
"Stanton is missing from his quarters sir!" a crewmember frantically announced. Rushing to the ship's cockpit intercom, the captain tried to bring Stanton back to his senses.
"Don't be a fool Stanton! That pod isn't designed to attempt a landing on the surface from orbit. It's designed as sturdy resupply cargo. The impact will kill you. Abort! Damn you! Abort while there is still time," the captain yelled into the intercom.
"No sir captain," Stanton responded. "I'm taking this baybay down to the landing altitude that the dream indicated. I have nothing more to say. Tell my wife Sapphire, my daughter Gertrude and my son Bosephus that I love them dearly! Goodbye!"
"He's still descending sir!" the ship navigator, Carlos Mendoza de la Vega, shouted as he intently observed the blip on his radar screen rapidly eating up the distance.
"Put the cargo-pod on visual!" the captain shouted.
On the cockpit's large, rectangular, elevated screen, they could all see the silver-colored oval pod gradually approaching the Martian landing-site at a deadly impact-velocity.
"Attitude 1000, 800, 705 feet," the computer emotionlessly intoned. Then, at exactly the altitude Stanton had predicted based on his dream, a gigantic, gray, tubular form with gaping jaws began emerging from the Martian surface and undulating towards the descending pod. The crew watched horrified as it slowly enveloped the supply pod within its gargantuan maw, and then began lugubriously retracting itself back into its underground burrow after having emitted a mountain-shuddering, thunderous roar.
"You see! You see! I told you! I told you!" they heard Stanton yell, and then there was total silence, both from the intercom, and among the crewmembers.
"Mission aborted. Make ready for a return to Earth," the captain uttered somberly, while feeling a deep regret for not having listened.
But unbeknown to the captain a the crew, at that moment Stanton was alive and well back on Mars and was congratulating his alien collaborators for a job well done via their convincing holographic projections. He had been secretly shuttled down to the surface and had been watching the entire show from there.
"Now we can mine Mars for all she's got for years without any NASA or European Space Agency, or any other space agency's interference. By the time they finally catch on, we will be rich back at Alpha Centauri B!" he announced with a broad smile on his face as he gazed at the list of resources to be exploited:
Metals: Nickel, copper, titanium, iron, platinum, palladium, and chromium.
Minerals: chromite, magnetite, and ilmenite
Nickel-iron meteorites.
"What a bonanza!" he added with a broad grin smile on his mischievous face.
You see, the other crewmembers found it strange that Stanton, despite his extensive scientific background, remained a staunch believer in the potential prophetic nature of dreams. Yet, he insisted, that their ship would be devoured by an enormous Martian underground slug-like creature if they attempted to land.
So when his warning, involving impending death went unheeded, and he was actually ridiculed, despite his pleading to be taken seriously, a heated argument had ensued, leading to his restriction to his quarters for the remainder of the voyage.
Yet, although sedated and restricted to his room, his warnings of unavoidable impending doom if they attempted to land on Mars, could still be heard by all other crewmembers.
"Turn the damned ship around. Turn it around, or we're all dead! You hear me? Dead!" he could be heard saying.
Finally, captain Mark Rubinstein, a short, high-strung, freckled-faced, red haired Anglo American who had a background in psychology, attempted to bring Stanton back to his proper senses.
"Now Joe, you are a highly-educated man." he began in a nervous voice, after having taken a seat by Stanton's cot where Stanton lay on his unusually broad back with a worried look on his face.
"As a scientist you know very well that there has never been any life confirmed on Mars! Also, this creature that you describe as being able to devour an entire spaceship must be really huge. The movements of life of the size underground would have been detected by our rover seismographers by now. Don't you find it rather strange that they haven't"
"Not if it, or maybe they, had been lying dormant! sir." Stanton immediately shot back.
Although the captain considered the response absurd, he viewed Stanton's calmness in responding as progress. At least he wasn't shouting as he had been before. Now all he needed to do to restore him to his proper senses, was to make him use logic.
"Dormant for how long Joe?" the captain continued in a quavering voice, revealing how much stress the entire episode was placing on his already frazzled nerves.
"How am I supposed to know that sir?"
"Well, from your dream-of course."
"My dreams only reveal the essentials, not the minute details, sir."
"So what was it exactly that your dream revealed Stanton?"
"Is it really necessary for me to repeat what I already said over and over?"
"Yes I would like to hear it again! You know, to make absolutely sure that what I heard the first time was right."
"As I said, before captain, in my dream, we are descending toward the Martian surface, and at approx. at 500 feet from touchdown, this creature that resembles a giant gray slug, lunges from an underground cavern with gaping jaws and swallows the ship whole!"
"Well, that is definitely a terrifying thing to dream, Joe," the captain responded in quavering voice.
"But since when are dreams supposed to be guiding in our decisions?"
He responded while effusively wiping away the perspiration from his ruddy countenance with some paper towels.
"Since they keep coming true. That's since when, captain," Stanton almost barked back. He was nervous as it was and really didn't appreciate being approached by someone who seemed even more than he.
"But couldn't those times be mere coincidences?"
"Statistically speaking sir? No. Not a chance. Too many things would need to go precisely just right at the exact time needed for them to be just coincidences."
The captain was not about to debate Stanton on the nature of probabilities since he knew that Stanton already was aware of their fine nuances. Neither were his nerves up to it. So he tried another approach. A compromise of sorts.
"Ok Joe, here is what I will do," the captain said while vigorously rubbing the palms of his clammy hands together. " We'll use an alternate landing location. You know, the one that NASA has approved of in case of an emergency. The landing sites of Arcadia Planitia and Erebus Montes and Phlegra Montes are suitable. They all provide lower elevations, with thicker atmosphere to slow our descent. They also have lots of nearby water ice which is a big plus. How is that for a solution?" the captain said nervously smiling broadly, and with pleading green eyes, and hoping that Stanton would reciprocate. After all, it was a concession that gave Stanton's dream a certain amount of credit, and conserved his personal sense of dignity as well.
"No sir!" Stanton uttered in an emotionally-choked voice. "No matter what location you choose, a slug [the captain flinched when Stanton said that word] will rise up from the Martian surface and swallow this ship! You must abort this mission, or we will all die."
The captain heaved a deep sigh of extreme tiredness. He hadn't slept well since assigned to the mission, and Stanton's antics were adding to his stress.
"Well, Joe," the captain continued, "I can't very well simply abort this mission and turn the ship around. I don't have the authority to do that. You know that!"
"Then we'll all go to our deaths captain!"
"Then l, guess I'll just have take my chances."
"There are no chances sir. We are dead-period" Stanton said gravely as the captain began to leave.
"He might be highly educated, but he's now officially a loon." the captain told the others who had been anxiously waiting for the results of the captain's efforts in the ship's cockpit.
"Keep him confined to his quarters. Release him only after we land the ship. The sobering reality that nothing that he dreamed actually happened should bring him back to his senses."
And so it was. Stanton had been restricted to his quarters, and the mission had proceeded as scheduled. Soon, after what seemed to the crew as forever, they were finally in Martian orbit and ready to attempt the landing. But before the attempt could be made, Stanton had somehow managed to escape from confinement, and unbeknown to them, had accessed a space-pod and was plunging to the surface.
"Stanton is missing from his quarters sir!" a crewmember frantically announced. Rushing to the ship's cockpit intercom, the captain tried to bring Stanton back to his senses.
"Don't be a fool Stanton! That pod isn't designed to attempt a landing on the surface from orbit. It's designed as sturdy resupply cargo. The impact will kill you. Abort! Damn you! Abort while there is still time," the captain yelled into the intercom.
"No sir captain," Stanton responded. "I'm taking this baybay down to the landing altitude that the dream indicated. I have nothing more to say. Tell my wife Sapphire, my daughter Gertrude and my son Bosephus that I love them dearly! Goodbye!"
"He's still descending sir!" the ship navigator, Carlos Mendoza de la Vega, shouted as he intently observed the blip on his radar screen rapidly eating up the distance.
"Put the cargo-pod on visual!" the captain shouted.
On the cockpit's large, rectangular, elevated screen, they could all see the silver-colored oval pod gradually approaching the Martian landing-site at a deadly impact-velocity.
"Attitude 1000, 800, 705 feet," the computer emotionlessly intoned. Then, at exactly the altitude Stanton had predicted based on his dream, a gigantic, gray, tubular form with gaping jaws began emerging from the Martian surface and undulating towards the descending pod. The crew watched horrified as it slowly enveloped the supply pod within its gargantuan maw, and then began lugubriously retracting itself back into its underground burrow after having emitted a mountain-shuddering, thunderous roar.
"You see! You see! I told you! I told you!" they heard Stanton yell, and then there was total silence, both from the intercom, and among the crewmembers.
"Mission aborted. Make ready for a return to Earth," the captain uttered somberly, while feeling a deep regret for not having listened.
But unbeknown to the captain a the crew, at that moment Stanton was alive and well back on Mars and was congratulating his alien collaborators for a job well done via their convincing holographic projections. He had been secretly shuttled down to the surface and had been watching the entire show from there.
"Now we can mine Mars for all she's got for years without any NASA or European Space Agency, or any other space agency's interference. By the time they finally catch on, we will be rich back at Alpha Centauri B!" he announced with a broad smile on his face as he gazed at the list of resources to be exploited:
Metals: Nickel, copper, titanium, iron, platinum, palladium, and chromium.
Minerals: chromite, magnetite, and ilmenite
Nickel-iron meteorites.
"What a bonanza!" he added with a broad grin smile on his mischievous face.
.