After a few charts, Parkowski smiled. It was another fairly easy, more similar to her last one than to the first two. Her job was to use ACHILLES 2 to retrieve the ground-penetrating radar, the same one from her first time in the environment, from its current location. Parkowski would then move it to map a potential cavern system. An operator from a previous mission had stumbled upon it, exciting the geologists.
Once done she would switch to ACHILLES 1 and move that to a waypoint five kilometers away for the next operator to pick it up and continue with the scientific mission.
The two engineers closed the briefing and opened the slow, tedious mission planning software. There were no more changes to be made.
She was in a much better mood today; her eyes were wide and bright and her tone was upbeat. Pham’s visit hadn’t changed her mind, but it had given her an additional perspective on her situation. She’d have to deal with her DePresti situation at some point, but she used every ounce of her willpower to put that in the back of her head. She had a mission to accomplish.
Parkowski thought about grabbing a bite from the Rayleigh cafeteria but decided against it. Instead, she waited around until about five minutes before the mission started, and then climbed onto the raised platform in the center of the high bay.
A pair of technicians jumped up to plug her in, Pham watching from the floor below. “Good luck, Grace,” he said.
“Thanks!” Parkowski replied as she took the VR helmet from the technicians and held it in her hands. Unlike her previous missions, she wasn’t sweating from nervousness. This was going to be a breeze. Maybe afterwards, she could collect herself enough to call DePresti and try to smooth everything out in their relationship.
She placed the helmet on her head. The screen was black; Parkowski stared at a field of nothingness, the sensory deprivation overwhelming. “I don’t see anything,” she said over the radio.
“I know, standby,” a female technician said. “We are having an issue with the interface. Give us a minute or two.”
“Copy,” Parkowski replied.
The screen flickered for a second, momentarily blinding her, then turned off.
She wrinkled her nose in thought. The lag was supposed to be low, as low as her last mission, and there wasn’t much traffic planned to be on MICS today. What was going on?
Finally, the surface of Venus appeared on her headset. For a moment, the gray-green clouds and rocks seemed comforting. This was Parkowski’s only escape from her mess of a relationship and all-consuming search for the secret behind Bronze Knot. She was starting to feel at home on Earth’s smaller cousin.
The display was static; the entire communications pathway hadn’t been established. They were on receive-only until the narrowband command path was ready to send commands to the ACHILLES units.
Parkowski was ready, but it seemed like the rest of the operation was not.
She breathed in, then out, then in and out again; performing some mental calculations to keep her mind sharp. She was not particularly good at waiting.
Parkowski tapped her fingers within her glove and waited another five minutes before she said anything. “Hey Dr. Pham, what’s going on?” she asked on the net.
There was no response.
Parkowski heard a lot of movement and shuffling of feet outside of her VR setup. She heard muffled voices, but nobody spoke over the voice net.
“What’s going on?” she said again.
Without warning she got control of the ACHILLES robot; the sensors on her hands and feet controlling its movement.
She took a step forward and the screen froze. Parkowski saw the error message again: ERROR: SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM — BRONZE KNOT — SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED.
The error message disappeared, leaving the Venusian surface in front of her. She tried to move again but got the same message: ERROR: SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM — BRONZE KNOT — SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED.
Bronze Knot was messing with her mission.
Again.
Then the screen shut off. It was pitch black.
She lifted her headset to see what was going on outside of the VR environment in the high bay.
The entire team of technicians and engineers gathered around Dr. Rosen, who had made his way into the high bay. Pham was the only one not in the huddle — he stood off to the side with his arms crossed and his headset off and in his hand.
“Jake, what’s going on?” Parkowski asked him quietly.
He looked at her, startled, then crept over to the raised platform. “There’s some kind of technical issue,” Pham told her in a whisper. “Dr. Rosen is telling everyone that the mission is on hold until it gets resolved.”
Parkowski was shocked. “On hold?”
“Yes,” Pham confirmed. “It has to do with MICS. Apparently we are getting out-prioritized for a higher priority mission and there’s a risk to the ACHILLES units if we operate them knowing that there might be a communications issue.” He sounded annoyed.
