“Everything is okay,” he said. “Valkyrie only failed in two-thirds of the test cases.” Francesca stared at him with open mouth and large eyes.
“What I meant to say—it worked excellently, way beyond its defined operating range.”
“So everything is fine?” Francesca asked.
“Well, you could say it that way. As long as…” Martin did not finish his sentence.
“I understand. I am relying on you.” Francesca turned around and apparently wanted to leave.
“Is this your first mission in the ice?” He was surprised at himself for asking this question. The Italian woman looked at him.
“It is indeed. I am actually a fighter pilot.”
“So you have probably seen a lot.” I do not envy her. It’s enough to read about the horrors of the modern world while in my nice, warm office, he decided.
“My last combat mission was already three years ago, fortunately. Turkey.” Martin remembered the Islamist coup that had happened then. “It… felt strange to push the button—just like in a computer game. The AI is doing most of the work.”
“So why are you doing this?” After asking this question, he became self-conscious. Maybe I was too personal. I really don’t know this woman. Francesca looked at him, her eyelids trembling slightly.
“That feeling, when the plane starts up with you inside. Sure, there is the AI, but I can still press the big red button. Where else can we still reach our limits these days? You are protected by software everywhere…”
“That is your reason for Valkyrie?”
“I certainly agreed right away to do it.”
Martin turned away. He was feeling hot, and his face was probably red. A sense of unease drifted through his mind. What would happen if I made a mistake in my simulations? Can I really be sure? His work had never decided so directly whether a human being lived or died. He couldn’t sit still—he got up and wandered aimlessly through the room. He could feel Francesca’s gaze follow him.
“Don’t worry,” he finally said. “I am only a little bit confused. Normally, I just sit in a small office. There’s too much action here for my taste, but the Valkyrie device is safe.” He realized he was trying to reassure himself by doing this, but it worked. He finally managed to sit down and look at Francesca again.
“Well, that makes me feel better,” the pilot said with a grin, as if she had seen through him. “See you tomorrow.” She turned around and left the room.
June 29, 2045, Antarctica
Three hundred meters down, the ice was as dark as outer space without a sun. Martin looked at the monitor. It showed him several perspectives of a scene the crew of Valkyrie could also see on a similar display. Windows were useless in a drill vehicle, so Valkyrie did not have any, even though it would move like a submarine after getting through the ice layer. Its hull was made of special steel and had to withstand high pressure, heat, and cold. Therefore, any gap in the structure would present a safety risk.
The voices of the two people on board sounded calm and clear in Martin’s ears, like they were standing right next to him. Martin was not surprised by the sound quality. This was an advantage of the fiber-optic cable that not only provided Valkyrie with energy from the laser, but also allowed for excellent data transmission. I can’t imagine how Francesca and Devendra stay so calm, he thought. While Francesca was an experienced fighter pilot, Devendra, an Indian Sikh, seemed at peace with himself in a way Martin had never experienced with anybody. And yes, Valkyrie was not moving through deep ice for the first time, and after all, it had survived his own simulations.
This did not change the reality that the crew was inside a steel cylinder with the diameter of a small bathroom, without a direct view of the outside, or the chance to simply surface. Valkyrie wasn’t a submarine, but a unique vehicle stuck deep in the ice of Antarctica. The canal it had drilled had long ago frozen solid behind it. If for some reason the hot water drill failed, they could not simply pull on the cable to return the vehicle to the surface. Valkyrie would somehow have to free itself on its own. There was a safety measure in place where it should break through beneath the ice layer and then maneuver near the bottom of the ocean to reach open water. Here, this was a relatively easy exercise, and they would reach their goal after 600 meters. It was vastly different on Enceladus, because there they would have to get through five to eleven kilometers of ice. They would only know after their arrival exactly how many kilometers they would have to traverse.
The launch did not appear to be spectacular. Valkyrie simply lay flat on the ice, with its tip pointing toward the South Pole. The only sound came from the refrigerator-sized module housing the laser. The laser unit itself was silent, but its ventilation made a hissing noise. Martin also heard the dull droning of the diesel generators from within their containers—almost a small power plant in itself, since Valkyrie needed up to five megawatts of power. Thick cables transported the energy from the containers back to the laser. The shielding was meant to protect the cable from damage, since without electricity there would be no working laser, and without laser light, Valkyrie would be stranded in the ice. The diesel generators would not be part of the flight into space; a spacecraft could hardly carry that much fuel.
From a distance, the cable running from the laser unit to Valkyrie seemed alarmingly thin. It was nicknamed ‘the umbilical cord,’ and for good reason; through this bundle of optical fibers, with a diameter of less than a millimeter, the laser sent the energy that was supposed to clear a path for Valkyrie. At the stern of the vehicle was a drum that could unspool several kilometers of this cable. An electric cable of that length would have hardly fit into a drill vehicle of this size.
The two test pilots had waved goodbye to those present and then crawled into a hatch at the end of the steel cylinder. There really wasn’t enough space to enter it upright. Later Martin saw them on his monitor as they sat in their chairs, which could be rotated up to 90 degrees.
Valkyrie initiated the launch procedure with the push of a button. The automatic control had activated the laser. It shot its ray at light speed through the kilometers-long cable. At the end of the cable, in the bow of Valkyrie, it stimulated a heating element that began to melt ice and vaporize the water. Valkyrie utilized this hot steam in two ways; first, like a small power station, to generate electricity for the on-board instruments, and second, to flow through eight nozzles at the bow to create a path through the ice for the vehicle. Unlike a metal drill, this drill jet never wore out. So long as it was supplied with laser energy, the vehicle would continue on its way. Three further jet drives, moveable and located two meters behind the bow, allowed for selecting the direction of drilling. They pressed the prow of the vehicle, which always swam in a hot soup, in the desired direction. And, once Valkyrie had broken through the ice, they would be responsible for propulsion.
The launch commenced from a horizontal position, and while the bow got very hot, the vehicle gradually sank into the ice with its tip forward. The Stone engineers had come up with this simple technique soon after the failed test of year 2038. It was impressive that Valkyrie eventually reached the desired 90-degree position without any control input, simply because it followed the path of least resistance. Martin could get enthusiastic about such clever methods; he knew software written by humans was always error-prone.