Dusters FOUR

They settled on Deogh to pilot Welhaven One. They also interviewed Engineers, Navigators, mechanics and assistants to each. Many systems on the ship are automated, so the human elements mainly serve to monitor the situation and jump in as needed.

The crew of Welhaven One was as follows;

Deogh; Pilot.
Moonshot; Copilot (he made the cut for this)
Bethany J; Navigator (extensive cargo transport background).
Huyen T; Quartermaster (she had worked with Bethany before)
Angel; Engineer (he was highly recommended by the company)
Allen J: Mechanic (long haul experience and had a reference from Moonshot)

The crew, Aidyn and Dinah began the long “classroom” evolution getting everyone up to speed on the theory and operation of the ship. They did a few quick flights just outside Chaffee, but couldn’t activate the sweeping systems that close. They were just getting a feel for the ship and practiced the docking and undocking procedures. These were the most dangerous parts of any flight anyway.

Work on Welhaven Two had stalled during all of this and Geoff paid them a visit, returning from the company’s mining operation on Io. He was excited about the progress on One, but angry about Two. “I will get some more assemblers and the construction assistants you should have asked for three months ago Aidyn. Don’t fuck up like this again son.” And he turned and left them, speaking into his COM. He was heading back to Earth now.

Two days later the extra assemblers arrived and Dinah had Dave and Angel divert their attention to get them installed and tested. The existing assemblers did most of the work.

The day after that, Gildo and Taquir arrived to assist with construction. Dina sent them to their quarters to finish their review of the designs for a few days and Aidyn told them he expected them to make sure the other was actually working. No hand holding on this one. They were both established Welhaven engineers, so this was probably not something he needed to worry about.

Dinah and Aidyn turned their attention back to One quickly. The crew was up to speed and they were ready for a real trial run. They had permits for a high orbit test around Mars and it was now finally ready, so Dinah requested the go ahead from corporate and got it.

Two days later One left Chaffee and headed towards orbit around Mars. Aidyn and Dinah were not on board, but were monitoring the mission with a few ‘suits” that showed up at the last minute. Dinah was happy to have the “assistants” take care of the amenities for the dignitaries, so she could monitor One.

All traffic around the planet had to be halted and the run had to be timed to not interfere with any satellites. This alone took a lot of time to calculate.

The propulsion and navigation systems were working flawlessly and One arrived at Mars orbit on target and on time. This was the moment everyone knew was the key to everything, they had to switch on the sweeper system.

As One settled into the orbit, Aidyn gave them the go to engage the system. Dinah was glued to the ship’s logs, which were repeated back to her console in nearly real time. The sweeper system came online and up to half power fine, they were collecting debris and dust from Mars orbit at the rate Dinah had calculated, and the company engineers had confirmed.

The suits were impressed when Dinah shouted “YES!” clenching her fist in the air. They pulled out their COM units and sent reports back to Earth. The ship came around the far side of the planet after 30 minutes and Deogh increased the sweeper’s power to two thirds, and again everything went as expected.

The sweepers were cut off as One headed back to Chaffee and as the ship approached Phobos, they ejected the starboard trash so it would land there, then did a 180 degree turn and dumped the port side. One then did another 180 turn to face Chaffee and dock along side. It was not in the hangar anymore, so the external inspections had to be done in environment suits (ES) and some by the small mobile assemblers.

Besides some clotting of debris, everything seemed to have worked well. Several collectors had not completely ejected their load, which allowed Dinah to get some samples so she could measure the density and composition of them, which had her very excited.

The suits left and everyone got back to work. Dinah was calculating why all of the trash had not been ejected. Things should have been clean, or cleaner.

The next test was to be at full power.