ABKoS Chapter 20

==Chapter 20The Adventures of the Beer Keg of Science!==
Expected Site of Stettin’s Primary Spaceport
Stettin System, Free Worlds League, 27 August, 3158
Lieutenant Senior Grade Bernie “Deadstick” Fallon carefully walked his Hornet Land-Air-‘Mech around the perimeter of the expedition’s landing zone, recon camera active, recording everything his LAM could see.  A kilometer behind him, the Ares landing craft had settled down, landing in the closest thing the area had to a nice, flat stretch that could be used for rough field aerodyne landings.
“Deadstick to Buzzard Squadron.  We continue as planned.  Bishop, Tex, you’ll both head southeast towards that forest analogue.  Hanson, Raven, head northeast. That’s where the primary city on Stettin should be.  Stick together, and stay in either ‘Mech or AirMech mode.  Remember, we don’t have the fuel reserves to fart around in Fighter mode and still make orbit again, and I’d rather not steal fuel from the shuttle or electrolyze local water sources for more reaction mass if we can help it.”
When deploying the Hornet LAM, Brigadier Kindarps had chosen to assign them in six-LAM squadrons like aerospace, rather than four-LAM lances like BattleMechs.  Some discussion amongst his advisors had recommending assigning two LAMs to a standard ‘Mech lance in the old “air lance” formation common to the Inner Sphere during the Succession Wars, but the unique operational requirements of Land-Air-‘Mechs made homogenous units more practical.  For this deployment, the Keg carried only a single operational squadron of Hornet LAMs.
“Deadstick, is there anything specific we should be looking for?” asked Lt. JG. Maris "Bishop" Castile over the team’s shared comm channel.
Like most of the ground forces attached to the Keg, the five other mechwarriors under Bernie’s command generally had a variety of specialties.  LAM training itself was highly demanding, and Hornet LAM pilots received basic training in the Blizzard Exoskeleton besides, but all of his MechWarriors had additional training beyond that.  Bishop had chosen to focus her efforts on xenozoology, and with what appeared to be an analogue to a forest to the southwest, Bernie had chosen to send her in that direction.
Keying his mike, Bernie replied, “Any sign this planet was ever inhabited by humans, or Terran life at all.  We’re not going to be as thorough as the ground-pounders, but we can get a closer look at things than the Keg could from orbit, and we’re a lot faster and can cover more ground in an initial survey faster than the rest of the science team can.”
Lt. JG Hubert "Tex" Farthingayle III, the squadron's xenobotany expert, was next to key up his radio. “So, ignore the native life, look for anything Terran?”
“Exactly.  It’s entirely possible that some Terran-native life has found a foothold in that forest analogue and may still be around after a couple centuries.  Raven, in the event they find humans living there, be prepared to fall back and rendezvous with Tex and Bishop.”
“Roger, Deadstick.”  Parker “Raven” Basse radioed in reply.  A former Niops University student, Raven had majored in anthropology, before they enlisted in the Militia.  Testing highly in their placement exams, Raven had been a perfect fit for the Niops Expeditionary Force’s LAM program, and had turned out to be a gifted LAM pilot.
Suddenly, Bernie’s radio buzzed again.  “Hey, Boss, if we find any underground settlements, should we try to smoke them out?  Might be a bit difficult, since they won’t swap my Pravda’s machine gun pod for a flamer like I keep asking them to…”
Viktor “Hanson” Zubok, meanwhile, was a member of the Zubok family, thorn in the side and pain in the ass of Fallons on Niops for time immemorial, but, in Viktor’s case, the squadron’s archaeologist.
Bernie groaned.  “No, dammit.  Don’t try to smoke them out.  Mark the location, get it on camera, and don’t try to make contact if they don’t want to.  We’re here to find out what happened to the people of Stettin, not scare any of their descendants to death.”
“Sir?” the last, and most junior, member of his squadron, Lieutenant JG Tasha “Spider” Tommersom asked, “What exactly will we be doing?  There doesn’t seem to be much for us to secure here.”
“We back up the eggheads, move anything heavy if they need it, and stay prepared to back up the rest of the squadron if they find anything.”
“Begging your pardon, Sir,” Spider replied, “but aren’t we eggheads?”  With her history degree, Spider helped to round out the skill set in his squadron.
Bernie laughed. “We’re LAM pilot first and foremost, Spider.  We’re also eggheads, but that’s not our main job.  It is theirs.”
“Fair enough, sir.  What exactly are they planning to do, anyway?”
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Landing Site
“Bob.” Mo asked patiently, “What exactly is all this supposed to do, exactly?”
“Test the Casimir Effect.” he said absentmindedly, as he continued to stand up his bizarre rig.
“No, I got that, Bob.  I can even recognize some of the equipment you’re using as standard equipment.  That’s not all you’re doing, though, is it?”
Bob shook his head. “It’s not.”
It was moments like this that made Mo want to shake her husband until she got a straight answer from him.  “Is there a particular reason you don’t want to tell me what else you’re looking for?”
“Yes.” he answered
Mo sighed.  “And you can’t tell me what it is?” she asked.
“Not yet.” he replied.
“And you still can’t tell me why you can’t tell me?”  Mo asked, her patience beginning to wear thin.
“No.” Bob replied tersely.  “And, please, for now, stop asking.”
Bob snapped the last piece of his rig into place, and carefully traced all the connections again.  Everything checked out.  Then he checked it again.  “Well,” he muttered, “there’s nothing else for it, then.”  He carefully pressed a button on the control panel, one gloved hand hovering over the kill switch.
Electricity sped through the circuits of his rig, measuring the delicate balance of forces between the charged metal plates at different spots in his rig, as well as the measurement of the lasers looking for deviations in the small amounts of refined germanium in the rig.
Seconds later, and Bob had his results.  Frowning, he walked  a hundred meters to his second rig, identical-looking to the first, and ran the same test, and recorded the results.  He knew that other members of the ground team were taking air and soil samples, testing for pathogens, toxic chemicals, or just looking for signs of Terran microbes, but if he was right…
Just to make sure, Bob moved each of his rigs and retested two more times, then he looked at the results again.  There was absolutely no doubt: the quantum fluctuations in vacuum energy here were slightly different than they should be.  Different enough, in fact, to account for the variation in their own jump equations on their last jump.
Breaking down each of his rigs, Bob stowed them both in the landing craft, and then carried his noteputer to Mo, uncertain of how to report his results.  Bob never expected to be in her direct chain of command and, aboard ship, he never actually was.  Here, though, that wasn’t the case, so best be formal about it, especially given the gravity of his preliminary findings.
“Commander O’Brien?” he said quietly to her.  “I have my preliminary results ready for your review.”
Mo could see the ashen look on Bob’s face, and accepted the noteputer.  She reviewed them carefully for several minutes, rereading them multiple times.  Finally, she turned to Bob and asked, “Are you certain?”
“As certain as I can be, Commander.” he said quietly.  “Has the Keg reported receiving a reply back from Niops on the Fax system?  Or the HPG?”
She shook her head.  “Not yet, no.”
“K-0 Fax system signals propagates at 10 light-years a day.  We’re less than 50 light-years away from Niops, Mo.”
“And it’s been 14 days, Yes.” Mo agreed. “I don’t think anyone’s been listening for old RF backscatter, either.”
Bob sighed.  His suit’s helmet suddenly felt stifling as the full gravity of the issue began to sink in, but his mind continued to work through the problem.  “It’s possible we’re not the ones who are displaced, and if we get far enough away, we’ll be past any interference.  I didn’t test for quantum fluctuations when we first misjumped.  Even with everything we’d been through, the thought never occurred to me.”
Mo contemplated that for a moment.  “I’m not sure which is the more terrifying scenario: Us being thrown into another universe or this planet, or maybe even the entire star system presumably swapping places with the one from our universe.”
Bob watched her scan her eyes across the landing site, before she finally seemed to reach a decision. “We’ll wait for the other teams to finish. Since they’re nearly done, but in either scenario there doesn’t seem to be much point in continuing to search here for signs of human life.  We’re not going to find any signs of it, because we’re probably the first humans to land on this version of Stettin.”
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