Incarna

89 - Aero Braking

Day 13: Early morning, over Western Atlantic.

"Separation complete," came Ian's voice, "Neck and Legs Harry!" "Danke Herr Kommandeur," Harold replied in his best Hamburg accent. It was where they had met. Ian had been doing a presentation on Track and Harass as the best protocol for isolating and neutralising insurgent groups and Harold had been hiring ex military specialists for two new security offices. Ian had been interested but couldn't go past the offer from SOS.

"First aero braking manouevre in 10 minutes." Harold listened carefully to AIME's voice. He heard the words and took them in but it was the inflexions and tonality of the mechanical voice he was transfixed by. He could recognise his ex wife's voice but Max had altered the timber of it somehow. It was quite different, or had he just been so caught up in whatever it was each time he'd heard the voice that he hadn't noticed any changes in quality. Harold smiled, of course with his awareness enhanced so much by the peak experience chemistry perhaps his perception was just that much clearer.

Harold chuckled out loud, "here, I'm, sitting in my tin can, far above the world ..." he sang softly to himself as the view of the western Atlantic became clearer and he realised where he was. AIME began playing the music of Space Oddity in the background as it was programmed to do as part of matching Harold's activities and he immersed himself in the moment for the few minutes he knew he had left.

"Incoming Call, Max Parrish ..." "Thank you AIME." Harold blew a kiss to the view of the Earth through his viewport, then switched on his Commset. "Max, hows it look Earthside?" "Dad, you might just wanna stay in orbit, things are just shit everywhere down here!" Harold grimaced, Max didn't call him Dad except when he was very stressed. "Righto, background ..." They had their protocols and methods and knew each other so well that their communications were usually very brief.

"EMF signature dust storms have as of today occurring globally. Reports everywhere, worldwide. The web is saturated. People deserting villages, slums, shanties, everywhere hyper-population centre is tearing itself apart. We're compiling the reports and it's as if every mythical creature and supernatural being that has ever existed has appeared in some form or other and is bent on destroying the human race!"

"Except Jerusalem?" "Yes, how ... Oh shit really? How the fuck did I miss that ..." "That's why ..." "Yeah yeah I see it Dad." Harold imagined Max typing out directives to the various security headquarters and research stations with updates and concepts for local deployment procedures.

"We're losing ground in Africa and SE Asia with all this. The Track and Harass protocols for our teams is being disrupted by the breakdown of the hyper-population centres. Various Insurgent groups have attempted to consolidate but our teams have come across any number of Insurgent units that have been literally torn apart by locals all off their faces with fear of some creature or other. It's Ukraine and Korea but worse!"

"End of Days, ..." "They can't be that stupid surely Dad?" "They've fucked up big time Son, and I'd reckon that by now they realise just how much of what they've started has got out of control ..." "But they don't care do they?" "Doesn't appear that way Max! So how am I looking?"

"Hah, where do I start. First of all, you're girl friend is really pissed that she can't document you're descent from onsite ..." "Alli Solaris is not my ..." "Well if you could see past her breasts and she could stop batting her eyelids at your millions ..." "Max!"

"Yeah righto! There's a job application from Ngaire Teahuahu and she says she's completely resigned form all her existing contracts. Jeese you must've made an impression to finally convince her to leave Skylon." "I just said the right thing at the right time!" "Hah, yeah, righto Harry!"

"Right well you'll lose me during aero braking soon so how's CJ and Zac?" "Very excited though you wouldn't believe it! Your ol' mate Ramakrishna just bought Orbital Services. He topped our bid and they took it!" "Contract still being honoured?"

"Aero breaking, in 3, 2, 1 initiate." AIME's instruction broke their conversation so the first flare of re-entry ionisation of the aero would disrupt the signal reception very soon. "No probs from Ramakrishna so far but who knows now there's extra competition ..." and the connection began to fade and crackle. AIME was going to skip the AINGEL into the atmosphere twice to reduce their speed without using fuel and they could then match the velocity of CJ and Zac's tug.

Harold watched the plasma flaring passed his viewport. It was hot out there but this was only a brief incursion into the top of the atmosphere so some brief fireworks and then back up again till the next aero braking after the descent recalculations had been done. This was the most difficult time for any re-entry vehicle.

All communications went down because of the ionisation and the craft was at it's most vulnerable, as had been seen in the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

... and then there are all those stupid scifi dropships, Harold mused, all of which could be popped off by anything during re-entry when none of their sensors would be working. Which was why they would be using an orbital tug and slow descent. Well slow for a few tonnes of space craft that was!

The ionisation faded, "Aero braking complete all systems normal." came AIME's declaration. Right then where were we?

"Back again Harry. AIME is sending through the new course calculations and, oh she's good!" Harold chuckled out loud, "Max my boy, if we ever get sentient AI off and running, you'll have to come up with another term, you cant keep calling AIME she you know!"

"Yeah dream on Dad. Now you're pretty spot on for another short aero brake over Europe then pick up the Tug and a slow controlled re-entry should drop you exactly where you want to be!"

Harold looked at the track on his screen with the Tug rendezvous and re-entry marked. This would be their first manned attempt at this. All the robotic test had gone off well but they would try a few extra flight features this time. "Okay, now take me through this list you've sent me. I see Massimo has trashed the IS web sites, and they haven't come back up?"

"Yep we canned em full time. We borrowed some of that Fractal Carrier Wave protocol and the system went down without a fart out of them. Their systems are wiped clean, not a skerric to rebuild from. And we've planted Prions in every bit of hardware that was related to their web sites, so they are kaput!" "How'd Florian take the news?" "Pretty pissed off Massi beat him to it, but hey all's fair!"

Harold smirked then frowned, "Now about Jerusalem!"