Episode 1: Unwarranted Surveillance
A Short Story by W. Steve Wilson
Shimmery5’s efforts to combat the invaders continue as the combine executes a direct assault on the flittery flyer.
After an arduous trip back from the Conclave at the north polar region, Shimmery5 arrived at their life zone. The combine members were exhausted and sore from the last leg of the journey. The season had continued later into spring as the planet moved away from its star, making travel difficult and painful as the winter warmth waned.
“We’ll need to rest, heal and recharge before we attack the invasion beast,” said Shimmery First.
“Can’t we wait until summer?” asked Shimmery Fourth, the second to the youngest of the five members of the combine. “We can recharge, and gain added strength when the light periods are longer.”
“We can’t wait,” said Shimmery Third. “The large crawler and the flittery flyer have both moved since we went north. If we wait until summer, they may leave our life zone, and we may not be able to catch them.”
First caught a spark of excitement from Fifth. “We need to do this now. We must show the Collective that action is possible, even if not sanctioned.”
Second, as usual, remained silent—hedging their bets, thought First.
In the end, the combine settled on recharging through two light and dark cycles, two rotations, then they’d begin their assault. The members spread out, disentangled, and found briny patches close to the surface for energy and rest.
As their star rose above the horizon on the third rotation, Shimmery5 re-combined and moved southwest to locate the invaders. To their disappointment, the large crawler had moved into a rocky area, lacking any substrate they could travel through. The flittery flyer had moved as well. It was right over a narrow but deep travel channel that would accommodate the entire combine.
“We’ll need to change our plans,” said First. “We’ll start with the flyer and go after the crawler when it moves.” General assent flickered through the combine. Rested and recharged, even Second and Fourth had combined willingly for the attack. First sent a ripple of gratitude.
Shimmery5 moved to a position close to the flittery flyer, coalesced tightly around a spot just southwest of the beastlet—and waited.
“When the flyer takes off, Fifth will send a tendril above the surface and send a strong wind to disrupt its flight,” said First. Fifth’s agreement flashed through the combine.
The combine waited, trusting they’d guessed the right direction the flyer would take.
Without warning, the flyer launched itself off the surface and headed southwest, its thin, spindly tendrils hanging down and its whirring parts a blur above. It crossed right above Shimmery5. Fifth gathered their energy, sent a tendril into the atmosphere, and agitated the thin gas. A slight breeze moved westward. The flyer made a barely detectable compensation and continued on its route to the southwest.
Failure rippled through the combine.
Shimmery5 would not be deterred. Collecting their energies, they dashed southwest faster than the flittery thing could travel. They coalesced again and waited.
“Fifth, stretch higher, use all the energy you have, and touch the thing. We’ll support you.” First sent a charge of encouragement and extra energy to Fifth and Fifth’s thanks flowed back.
The small invasion beastlet was heading to their position.
It crossed overhead.
Fifth summoned their strength, felt energy flowing from the combine, reached up with a thin tendril, and flicked the flyer. The thin tendril passed right through the thick of the flyer’s body. A small charge of feedback raced through the combine.
The flyer wobbled—tilting back and forth. Its speed started changing, and the tilting oscillations grew worse. The flyer turned, reversed its path, and headed northeast.
Suddenly, it stopped and landed, propped up by its four spindly tendrils. The whirring parts slowed.
Success streamed through the combine. They’d done it. They’d attacked the invasion beastlet, and it had stopped flying. Maybe now the Collective and the Council would see that they could stop the invasion. The Collective could destroy the beasts. They could continue as they were—safe.
But they would wait to reconnect to the Collective. The Collective would criticize Shimmery5’s unsanctioned actions, even with their early success. First determined they would rejoin when they had stopped the invasion.
The flittery flyer would not move or try to fly again. Counting their efforts, a success, they would move northeast and begin planning to take on the monstrous crawler.
So Shimmery5 rested and recharged for thirty rotations after the ordeal of their assault.
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Pasadena, May 27, 2021: On the 91st Martian day, or sol, of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter performed its sixth flight. The flight was designed to expand the flight envelope and demonstrate aerial-imaging capabilities by taking stereo images of a region of interest to the west. Ingenuity was commanded to climb to an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters) before translating 492 feet (150 meters) to the southwest at a ground speed of 9 mph (4 meters per second). At that point, it was to translate 49 feet (15 meters) to the south while taking images toward the west, then fly another 164 feet (50 meters) northeast and land.
Telemetry from Flight Six shows that the first 150-meter leg of the flight went off without a hitch. But toward the end of that leg, something happened: Ingenuity began adjusting its velocity and tilting back and forth in an oscillating pattern. This behavior persisted throughout the rest of the flight. Prior to landing safely, onboard sensors indicated the rotorcraft encountered roll and pitch excursions of more than 20 degrees, large control inputs, and spikes in power consumption.
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Approximately 54 seconds into the flight, a glitch occurred in the pipeline of images being delivered by the navigation camera. This glitch caused a single image to be lost, but more importantly, it resulted in all later navigation images being delivered with inaccurate timestamps. From this point on, each time the navigation algorithm performed a correction based on a navigation image, it was operating on the basis of incorrect information about when the image was taken. The resulting inconsistencies significantly degraded the information used to fly the helicopter, leading to estimates being constantly “corrected” to account for phantom errors. Large oscillations ensued.