THE ODYSSEY OF THE AESTER RESCUE AND RECOVERY VESSEL TOMAHAWK AND HER STRANGE DISCOVERIES DEEP IN THE AESTER
From the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
Aester: Aester is a corrosive gas, lighter than air, brown in colour, having an extremely corrosive effect on non-living material of any kind. This is most noticed on metals of any variety. Its effect on organic materials, such as wood, while less violent, is sufficient to make use of them in any Aester environment inadvisable.
The origin of Aester is uncertain, but its rise and growth are clearly tied to the industrialisation of the last two centuries. Once the clouds of Aester concentrating over the poles began to expand, this expansion was rapid and unstoppable. Chemically, Aester is a contrary and volatile mixture, refractory to analysis. Although it most closely resembles caustic soda in character, and has a clear predecessor in the effect known as ‘acid rain’, its reaction to other materials and chemicals is unpredictable: on some occasions it behaves as a catalyst, on others an acid. What can be said about Aester with certainty is that when it comes in contact with any substance it will seek to change that substance in some way.
Metal materials are much more suited to the Aester environment due to their conductive nature, which allows the use of electrical impulse static generation (a technique commonly referred to as “sheathing”), giving them complete protection from corrosive effects while in operation.
Of Aester’s more unusual characteristics, the highlight is the strange attractive power known as the “Draw.” This is so named because a cloud of Aester will draw objects upward into it. The buoyancy of these objects increases geometrically the higher (or “deeper” as it is referred to in navigation) they rise. Aester too rises, since it is lighter than air, but as it rises, it reaches a terminal altitude at which point it stops ascending. This “Aester Ceiling” is the subject of a detailed hypothesis presently generally agreed upon, but as yet unproven. The Aester continues to rise until it reaches this “Ceiling” and then begins to condense. It is believed that the Aester reaches a density only just short of liquid at the Aester Ceiling. Uncontrolled ascents into Aester have results that are scientifically predictable though as yet unobserved: simply put, things drawn uncontrolled up into the Aester Ceiling are destroyed. The nature of the Ceiling environment can only be speculated, but there has never been a single example of anything falling back down from it. It is assumed that things drawn into the Ceiling are simply reduced to a gaseous form because of the increasing corrosion accompanying the Aester’s increased density. The Draw acts most strongly upon metal and minerals; however, at a certain point, all material will be drawn inexorably into the Aester’s grasp. Aester ships, being by necessity of metal construction, are the most common victims of this effect.
Tests have been conducted to explore the possibility of allowing passengers and crew members of Aester ships to escape a vessel’s demise through the use of a survival suit or lifeboat. Up to now, these tests have proven fruitless. In order for a crew member or passenger to escape a doomed vessel, they must be able to avoid the Draw of the Aester; and because of metal’s susceptibility to the Draw, a metal survival suit or lifeboat would be nothing more than a runaway vehicle hurtling into the Aester Ceiling. A non-metal material, however, would be more susceptible to the corrosive effects of the Aester because it cannot use sheathing. To this day, no suitable material for an extended stranding in the Aester has been found.
There is also the more fundamental problem of distance and time. By the time a vessel is identified as being in distress, it is almost certainly ascending out of control and has usually reached a deadly altitude. No material tested allowed survivors to descend past the “high Aester concentration” (Tier 1) layer before its protection failed. This has given an overall 95% failure rate to all materials and techniques tested. The exception to this was an experiment which tied the survival suit or lifeboat to a stationary beacon, allowing escapees to abandon the degrading escape vehicle for the emergency bunker within the beacon – a solution which is in many cases impracticable. The tests continue in hopes of finding a more reliable method, but to this date the only viable option for the survival of stranded passengers and crew on a vessel in peril is the direct intervention of vessels designed for this purpose.
Thus, the Aester Rescue and Recovery Vessel is the only method presently recommended by the Royal Society and the Council on Aester Transportation Safety for the rescue of endangered persons within all Aester environments.
Chapter 1
The bridge of the Tomahawk vibrated and hummed as the vessel rose into the corrosive Aester clouds with a swift grace that belied her looks. All sharp chopped lines and brutal angles, her hull dented and scarred, she and her sister Aester Rescue and Recovery Vessels seemed every bit as hard-nosed and uncompromising as the stubborn men and women who crewed them. Though the Admiralty always insisted on the official designation of ÆRRV, the recovery ships were colloquially named “Hatchets” due not only to their look, but to the fearsome reputation they had gained on their first day of their deployment to the Aester.
Captain John Fitzroy (“Fitz” to his friends) had been in command of the Tomahawk for just over a year now. In fact, he had celebrated not only his anniversary as captain but also his 10th wedding anniversary on this patrol. They were 23 days out of Aeroport North 14 as of 25 minutes ago, when the shift changed to the midwatch. Aboard another vessel, a sleek Admiralty cruiser or tidy merchantman, or some magnate’s yacht with not a pockmark on her pretty face, no captain would be up at this ungentlemanly hour. But ship’s officers were a different breed in the Aester Rescue Service, and Captain Fitzroy was no exception. He could often be found up to his elbows in insulating grease working on degaussing arrays, or, like now, lending his quiet support to the crew through another long, dull night of navigation. He sat back in the captain’s chair drinking his coffee as the Quartermaster intoned coordinates to the pilot.
Hatchet ship captains were what they were because they had to be. Flying long patrols in the Aester was not for the faint of heart. It was strange, fickle stuff, and superstitious people often talked of it having its own will, like a living thing, though such folk never lasted long in the Aester Services. A pinhole leak in the pressurized crew compartments could mean a slow death as the corrosive Aester permeated body tissues. All might seem fine for hours, sometimes days, before victims would suddenly succumb – either drowning in their own fluids as systemic hemorrhaging finally overcame the body’s ability to maintain integrity, or, the more common result, being taken by the “Vapors.” Admiralty handbooks described the Vapors as “a malady brought on by direct contact with Aester, even in very small exposures. Its symptoms can be very quick to onset or linger for years before becoming acute. The common symptoms of Vapors include psychosis, violent fits, convulsions, loss of any of the five senses, coma, skin irritation ranging from a rash to hemorrhagic pustules…” And on and on.
For ÆRRV crews, the first two symptoms in the list were the most crucial. By the time an ÆRRV reached a distressed vessel, her crew might already have suffered a very long Aester exposure with no protection whatsoever, and even trained rescuers could fall victim to their psychotic rage. Doctors theorized that this mania was aggravated by the terror the crew would feel upon realizing they had been exposed. That, coupled with the knowledge that their vessel was being drawn inexorably upward into the steadily more corrosive Aester, led to a pitiable mental state that the Aester seemed to prey upon. Worse, the Vapors suppressed the higher brain functions and dulled the senses, rendering victims immune to pain. Rescuers thus faced a twofold problem: conducting their operations on a vessel in the throes of an uncontrolled rise, and having to fight down the very people they had come to rescue. For this reason, the 80/20 Rule was handed down by the Admiralty as Standard Operating Procedure. That is, an ÆRRV mission was counted successful if 80 percent of those aboard the distressed vessel were rescued. According to the Offices of Accounting review, the other 20 percent were as a statistical generality too far lost to the Vapors, or would not have survived for other reasons.
This cold assessment was not well received by the recovery crews; their own unwritten review concluded that the Admiralty could take their 20 percent and find a place to winter it. Several ÆRRV captains had already been cashiered when their vessels were severely damaged or their crews sustained heavy casualties from flouting the 80/20 Rule, and the Admiralty continued to enforce the rule with a draconian finality quite at odds with their usual hand-in-glove attitude toward the Rescue Service. Indeed, Viceroy Charles “Dickie” Martin, Vice-Admiral of the Admiralty, had stated that he and the Admiral “shall not stand by while the heroes of the ÆRRV lose their lives due to their own convictions. The Admiralty shall do everything in their power to protect these brave men and women from themselves.” Political bravado, Captain Fitzroy often laughed – if that was what passed for respect from the brass hats, he could do without it.
The Captain was mentally tallying the fuel conversion to resistance variances of the electrostatic sheathing which kept the Aester off the Tomahawk’s hull when the wireless erupted to life in a burst of staccato. After 18 years in the Service, he did not need to know the words of the message. The wildfire way the transmission came across told him all he needed to know. Somewhere in the deep Aester a telegrapher was tapping as fast as his or her hand could work, keeping just off the edge of panic to get the message out clearly to anyone who could hear the cry for help.
He set his china cup and saucer down on the small shelf next to the arm of his chair, where the ship’s vibration set them jouncing – on opposite sides of the saucer, the arms of the Admiralty and the Tomahawk’s blazon chattered viciously at each other. Walking to the Quartermaster and looking over his shoulder at the charts, Captain Fitzroy called out to the Officer of the Deck.
“Mr. Kent, please bring impellers four and six on-line and prepare for rescue stations. Give my compliments to Major Kryzanowski and let her know that I may require the services of her marines.”
The Lieutenant came to attention – “Aye aye, Sir” – and turned to the Airman at the register.
The Captain scanned the charts, much smudged from constant penciling and erasing, that kept as current a picture of Aester’s ebb and flow as possible with data meticulously copied from the thousands of stationary beacons scattered throughout the Aester. These beacons served as navigation points, weather stations and emergency bunkers for distressed vessels all rolled together. They were expensive and lasted less than a year, but they were vital to traffic in the Aester.
He addressed the Quartermaster now. “Mr. Wickstrom, what is your assessment? Where are we going?”
Petty Officer Second Class Wickstrom checked over the navigation calculations he’d been running.
“My guess is here, Sir.” He pointed to a spot on the chart that Captain Fitzroy was displeased to note as especially muddy. “Very little up to date information, the beacon went down about 3 weeks ago and there’s been no update or Notice to Aero since then. If they were anywhere else, we’d have had more warning of trouble.”
Fitzroy considered this as he memorized the image of that section of the chart.
“Give us your best course there then, Mr. Wickstrom, and give me a plot of where the beacon should have been. They may have tried to run there and not made it”.
He could feel the additional impellers as they spooled up. The vibration through the deckplates was subtle, but he knew the Tomahawk as well as the freckles on his wife’s face at home – neither could hide anything from him, nor did he want them to.
Lt. Kent brought over the paper transcription of the wireless message with a grim set to his mouth. He handed it to the Captain, only saying:
“Pirates, Sir.”
Fitzroy’s expression quickly came to mirror the Lieutenant’s as he read the message.
Aeroprocessor SD234, Mayday. –stop
Impellers offline, damage to main crew compartment, sheathing failure, balloon profile. –stop
Pirate attack, failure to take control of ship, attackers still attempting to board and control. –stop
11 dead, 21 wounded, 16 exposed, 46 in emergency bunkers including wounded. –stop
Passing hard tier 3 and ascending, corrosion warnings on all surfaces, attitude failure 30 degrees starboard –stop
Location, 27 miles ESE beacon 2214 west, 48 miles S beacon 4415 west. –stop
Repeat: location, 27 miles ESE beacon 2214 west, 48 miles S beacon 4415 west. -stop
Aeroprocessor SD234, immediate assistance required, please respond. –stop
The Captain handed the paper back to the Lieutenant.
“Have Mr. Wickstrom plot that, Mr. Kent. Bring us to rescue stations, alert Major Kryzanowski to prepare her marines for action.”
The bridge became an intense hum of practiced activity. The klaxon sounded throughout the ship, echoing off the metal bulkheads as the Boatswain of the Watch gave the alarm and barked the familiar refrain into the microphone of the ship’s address system.
“Rescue stations! Rescue stations! All personnel to rescue stations. Secure all exterior activities, seal all breather ports, cycle gun ports and spool the Arclight. Marines, General Quarters! General Quarters! Hostile rescue protocols. Counter boarding teams draw weapons from lockers fore and aft, Master at Arms lay to the recovery decks with Security Alert Details”.
He paused for a moment and then began again.
“Rescue and General Quarters Stations! Hospital prepare for casualties and decontamination protocols.”
The ship rumbled like a creature shaking off slumber as hundreds of men and women rolled out of their racks and ran for their stations. Booted and bare feet drummed on the metal decks, setting up a vibration that could be felt in the air of the sealed crew areas, moving along well-drilled pathways through the interior of the ship. Forward traffic pressed through the port side main passage, while the aftward traffic took the starboard side. Shouts of “Downladder!” and “Make a hole!” rang along the corridors as those with priority made their way through the moving mass of crew to engineer spaces, gun emplacements, the bridge, or other vital posts. The clunk and thud of metal pressure doors and hatches being slammed against rubber seals took over as people arrived on station and compartments were sealed.
Two minutes almost to the second after it began, the only sound on the bridge other than the thrum of machinery was the soft click as the last ready light came on, indicating that the final crewmembers were at their rescue stations.
Lt. Kent scanned the board, then looked to the engineering and gunnery board readers, who nodded to him.
“The Tomahawk is prepared for action, Sir.”
Captain Fitzroy simply nodded as if this were no more than he expected (which indeed it wasn’t), stepped up into his chair again and picked up his cup of coffee.
“Let’s find them, Mr. Kent.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
Lt. Kent turned to the pilot. “Hard to starboard, steer 214 maximum rise, Mr. Turlock.”
With an old hand’s ease Turlock spun the heavy bronze wheel that controlled the Tomahawk’s bearing to the left, letting it fly with his right hand as his left hand threw the trim levers vertically to the stops. The Tomahawk wheeled hard right. Captain Fitzroy’s coffee rolled up the side of his cup and then back down as the pilot eased off the turn. Braking the wheel with his open palms, Turlock slowed it, returning it to neutral as the compass rose stopped precisely on the new bearing.
“Steering 214, planes, impellers and ballasts rigged for maximum rise, Aye!”
Lt. Kent then turned to the crewman on the engine register. “Make turns for flank speed, give us all she’s got.”
The crewman rang the register to “Park,” and then all the way forward past the stop marked “Flank” to “Maximum Turns”. He crisply repeated the orders to the Lieutenant, and as the engine room responded, the inner dial of the register rang to “Park” and then to “Maximum Turns” in echo of the register operator’s movements. A light adjacent to the “Maximum Turns” position illuminated, going from red to yellow, and then at last to green.
The operator reported back to Lieutenant Kent. “Officer of the Deck, engine room reports flank speed aye and confirms maximum turns in the green, Sir.”
What actually took hundreds of individual actions to enact appeared, from the outside, an absolute unity. The Tomahawk surged eagerly up into the acidic brown clouds, seeking with one mind the stricken vessel and her assailant.