500. Music of Earth, 9

(Myls)

The oceanic spaceport island, the closer we get to it, the more ominous it appears.

There is lush jungle on it. But the human structures have bleached or darkened with time, while corrosion turned all the outdoor architectures into jagged teeth.

It looks more like an evil lair than a cutting edge technological city.

Without maintenance in this environment, it went really bad.

Sanïssia swims all around it, to let us reach land from the side with buildings reaching the shore.

Docks cranes have fallen into the sand and sea. Some ships hulls also appear to be swallowed slowly.

Straight west of the island lie large buildings and docks, made of concrete that withstood a little better the test of time alone.

Sanïssia was about to head in into one of the docks channels, but then realised it would be hard for her to swim outside backward. She lifted her head with the three of us on top. I kept holding Calamity’s side as she held her skinny arm across my shoulders to stand.

Sanïssia raised us like an open lift above the sturdy docks, toward a wide and open balcony of a building that gave a feeling of being a command centre.

~

The jungle already taken over everything. The ocean too.

We sat the quiet Calamity and looked around.

Offices in poor conditions. Well, in lush conditions I should say.

Blume climbed the building, looking for the launch pads of the rockets we couldn’t see from the ocean. Blume had drawn me a picture of a spaceship she saw once. It looked more like a plane rather than a rocket.

I went downward, toward the warehouses at sea level.

Some of the hangars are simply flooded. All I can see inside are fishes and crabs being happy.

I end up finding access to the nuclear power plant however. It’s underground, underwater even. But the sturdy shelter doors are shut and rusted.

I do hear a loud hum behind. As if there was a deep crevice behind, here too.

At the end of the day, we regroup, with Sanïssia’s head protruding from the open balcony and into the wrecked building. Calamity has walked around the room we’ve left her in, but nothing else.

We’ve seen the whole accessible facility with the four of us. Time to share.

M - Most warehouses and storages are gone. If a flying spacecraft remains, it’s underwater.

B - I haven’t seen any launch pad to fly off... There’s only the docks heading west, oddly high and deep. I guess some missing structure made them rise above water and the docks.

C - ...

S - Myuu!

Blume and I begin to get an idea of what she said. There’s more to this island below water.

I share about the blast doors to the underground shelter and power plant I’ve found. It puzzles Blume.

B - No fuel tanks around, no launch pad, and far more energy in the form of electricity than would be required... A deck heading west into the sea...

Blume is the most knowledgeable about the world’s history and technologies... Oddly. She’s figuring out something I never could.

B - It’s a different technology. It’s not a chemically propelled ship we’re after.

Blume draws something in the mud.

Sanïssia heads west into the ocean to check it out.

~

The next morning, Blume and I are going to inspect the lower levels again.
We even dive to reach other areas that are flooded.

In one of them, I find the kind of ship we were looking for now. It’s smaller, and completely covered with algae.

Blume works on railing systems above to move it. I try to operate doors that refuse to open.

In the end, I leave the brute force to her, and return to the shelter doors on her advice.

She gave me something I didn’t expect though. A crystalline shard, like a needle of hazy glass.

~

I let Calamity sit in front of the door. I try to open it, vainly.

Calamity watches me struggling, still unwilling to react to anything.

M - ... I know you’re aware of what we’re trying to achieve.

C - ...

M - Well, it seems today is your time to make the difference, should you choose to do so. All you have to do is to open this door for me, and restart the reactor behind if that’s possible.

It’s probably just not as easy as a light switch but we have to open this door first.

I show her the needle. What’s left of her powers that Blume had removed from her.

Still no reaction though.

M - Do you want it back? That would help you heal as well if you use it right.

She shrugs me. She’s pissing me off.

I want to crush that crystal and abandon her on that island.

I leave her there and return to the others for now.

~

M - It didn’t work.

B - Too bad. So she still isn’t ripe.

Blume is cleaning the ship that is now in another basin, closer to the docks. It looks like a fighter jet, rounder and with shorter wingspan.

Between a missile and a big jet. It’s nothing big like old rockets to space.

Sanïssia already confirmed that Blume’s hypothesis outside was correct.

It’s a magnetic rail gun technology.

The giant wires acting as rails to produce the magnetic field are buried underwater, over more than ten kilometres in distance. This plane with low edges acts as a bullet, propelled by insane magnetic fields over a great distance.

It speeds up on the surface of the ocean and then shots itself into space, using the planet’s rotation as a sling as well.

B - The part I don’t understand is friction.

M - Friction?

B - If you reach a speed beyond the speed of sound at such low altitude, it will heat a lot, to keep it simple. To start reaching the sky, a plane would be easier than this...

If I understand, for this spaceship to reach space with such a method, it has to reach tremendous speed on start, meaning facing ridiculous heat and vibrations before even reaching the clouds.

Looking closer at the so-called spaceship anyway, I can’t see any deck of cockpit. There’s only a hold.

It was probably never designed to be piloted by hands or to carry anything alive.

It’s a supply cannon.

B - This won’t be as easy as finding the nuclear devices in the end...

M - So... This means I won, right?

~