Mission: Astro

by Robert Emerald Fountain

Ludus

It took a year and a half for the crew to reach Ludus. After they were woken up, they started gearing up to map out the planet. Ludus was a volcanic world, so Smolder volunteered to lead the mapping team. Once Gallus and Flurry had joined her on the excursion shuttle, they disembarked and made their way down to the planet’s surface. Even though there was a sun, the ash clouds blocked the light for most of the day and trapped the heat from the lava. From the view out the windows, they could tell that this part of their mapping mission would be treacherous. Luckily, they found a flat area where there was no lava nearby and touched down safely.

“Smolder, the atmospheric readings show that the outside temperature is over 300 degrees Fahrenheit. We will get fried to ashes if we don’t set our suits’ cooling systems to maximum.”, said Gallus as he scanned the outside conditions.

“Understood.”, said Smolder.

Flurry began exchanging the regular cooling fluid for liquid nitrogen so they would not overheat during the mapping process, and then the trio put on their space suits. No-one had to worry about the shuttle being destroyed during the mission, because the heat shield was engineered to withstand environments as cold as negative 400 degrees Fahrenheit to as hot as 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Once the trio had disembarked from the shuttle, they started searching all over the planet for any signs of life. Sadly, they found no living inhabitants, but they did find several different areas full of crystals that could be mined. So they placed markers at the sites where the mine shafts could be dug without causing an earthquake. During the entire excursion, they had to watch where they were stepping in order to make sure they didn’t fall in any lava flows.

The last place they explored during the three weeks they were mapping out Ludus was the largest volcano. This was the hottest part of the planet, and they were unable to get an accurate temperature with their equipment. The heat was so intense here that they were even sweating with their cooling systems maxed out. As they made their way back to their shuttle, Flurry noticed that the ground was starting to shake.

“WE’D BETTER HUSTLE! THE BIG VOLCANO IS GOING TO BLOW.”, she shouted.

“SMOLDER, SHE’S RIGHT!”, cried Gallus when he looked at the data himself.

In a flash, the trio started running like they were being chased, and didn’t stop until they reached their shuttle. Once they had taken off their helmets and fastened their seatbelts, Smolder began the launch sequence. Five seconds after the engines fired off, everyone heard a loud BANG. Gallus looked through the ship’s telescope and saw something scary. The volcano had erupted and was spewing lava high into the sky.

“SMOLDER, HIT IT!”, he shouted.

Without hesitation, Smolder took off and the shuttle began flying away. During the ascent, Flurry took a final measurement and discovered that the volcano could spew lava at least five miles into the air when it erupted. Thankfully, they were not hit by any of the lava as they flew out of the atmosphere.

After making the rendezvous with the Alicorn, they changed back into their crew uniforms, met back up with their crew members, and plugged the information they had collected into their computer logs before setting the coordinates for Merlin 5. Since Merlin 5 was fairly close, they did not need to go into stasis. So they made up for all of the exercise they had missed during their journey to Ludus.