Astronomicon 1: Inception Point (Finished)

30 - Fuel Module 3

They could see Fuel Module 3 long before they arrived at it. The stainless-steel cylinder was perched perfectly upright on its four huge landing feet. It was only as they got much nearer that the extensive scorching became apparent up the right side of the module. Charcoal streaks reached from the shoulder of a landing leg, almost two-thirds of the way up the twenty-four-metre cylinder.

As soon as his buggy stopped moving, Chris slid down onto the gravel and jogged closer to get a clearer look for damage. The other buggy pulled up in a row beside his and the other crew members set about climbing down and stretching their legs.

Fletcher joined him and, together, they surveyed the damage. The affected leg, although still intact and doing its job, was clearly heat-damaged. It was hard to tell if the large shock-absorbers were still functional, but they would never see service again anyway. He was more concerned with the state of the module's outer skin. The bare steel had warped and rippled in the descent heat and, in places, the blisters in the metal may have perforated the outer skin.

"Has the heat got inside?" he asked Fletcher.

"That's safe to say, Commander," Fletcher laughed, before coughing heavily.

"How much damage would that cause?"

"I'd be guessing, sir. The alloy honeycomb inside can take a fair bit of heat and the passive cooling system will have done its best. She'll still be weathertight if the inner skin is intact."

"Good, we'll need as many of these as we can get to use as accommodation."

"The outer skin will have to be patched anyway, or she'll bleed heat at night."

"That's a job for the future. My primary concern is the buggies in the nosecone," said Chris.

"The bottom of it's seen some heat on this side, but the charring is minor," Fletcher reported as he walked further around the module. "The ladder looks intact too, Commander."

"Let's try it out."

Chris picked his way up the landing leg that doubled as the base of the ladder. Luckily, it had much less scorching damage. Heaving himself up the long, thin ladder left his arms aching, but he made good time to the top. After removing the securing bolts, he threw open the first panel of the nosecone, pleased to find that it still worked as designed.

After climbing up and opening the rest of the panels on that side, he released the clamps that fixed the folded buggy in place. This side was a crane buggy, like the two-seater design but with a folding aluminium gantry, boom and powerful winch instead of the cargo tray. It also featured two hydraulic feet which could be deployed from the back corners to give extra stability.

It was not long before he was winching the folded crane carefully down the side of the fuel module. Fletcher guided it for the last couple of metres and then unhooked it. The team, under Fletcher's supervision, unfolded it while Chris opened up the rest of the nosecone to expose the second buggy.

The flatbed buggy was even more like a two-seater. The front half was identical, but the rear featured a telescoping chassis which would give it an extra two-metre wheelbase and a similarly longer cargo area. Uprated motors provided forty percent more pulling power to give it greater load-carrying capacity.

With three buggies behind them, the team were getting noticeably more efficient at deploying the next. Within half-an-hour of arriving at the module, they had two more buggies ready to go and one was already charged from the module's batteries.

Chris decided to divide the group between the buggies and set off as soon as they could.

"Okay, Lucy and Amanda, you keep the two-seater. Anil and Diego, you take the new flatbed. I'll let you decide who drives. Fletcher and Kate, you take the crane and..."