Free Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars by Mackey Chandler

of pixels too, so they understand that concept for sure. But this is much better. Thank you," Jon said.
    Lee almost said it was obvious, but then she remembered Ernie and Jon. She just nodded.
     
    * * *
     
    "Gordon, I'd like permission to make a few shuttle landings on the moons that display the higher density and have interesting surface features," Captain Fenton of The Champion William requested. He was some light hours out already, but word would still catch up to him before he was at the far gas giant.
    "As long as they're airless," Gordon granted. "If any of us want to land on one with an atmosphere I want us all to talk about it. Us and engineering. These shuttles aren't rated for exotic atmospheres." He sent the message off after him.
    "When the preliminary work is done surveying these gas giant groups everybody should take the opportunity to fuel up," Gordon ordered. "Issue a memo on that, Brownie."
    "Aye sir. A thought," Brownie volunteered. "Could a fuel scooping drone be used to sample one of these shallower atmospheres such as these moons hold?"
    "Ask the fellows who service them," Gordon told him.
    "You know, we have some small short range electric drones aboard. I'd have to check inventory to see where they are stashed, but I saw my dad use one when we discovered Providence," Lee told them. "But next time we go exploring I want some drones that will land on a surface where we don't want to risk crew, and something we can drop in the oceans, like we needed at the last world. Even on the water worlds with some land, like we expect, we could use those. When we turned in our claim on Providence we had almost no data on the oceans. Something like a miniature submarine."
    "If you check when we get back I bet they make them commercially for oceanographers and people like fish farmers. It always costs more to reinvent the wheel," Ames from engineering told her. "Maybe a floater like we tried and a submersible to release. The float could have an antennae to relay the data the submersible gathers."
    "How would it get from the mobile unit to the floating one?" Lee wondered.
    "I think the ones they use for inspection and such use an optic fiber trailing along behind," Ames said. "I know for a fact that torpedoes used to be wire controlled."
    "OK, thanks. One more thing to do when we get back," Lee said.
     
    * * *
     
    "The survey on all three gas giants is similar. I guess I should say the survey on their satellites," Brownie corrected himself. "We do see a little difference between these gas giants and the usual sort we find. They definitely tend to more elements of medium atomic number. The composition of the satellites is also skewed toward certain elements. They aren't lacking in metals, although not as rich as the brown dwarf systems we found. Ernie says they approximate the ratios you'd expect by boiling point more than atomic number. He's trying to compose an explanation of how they could have formed based on the idea Jon had of condensation from the wave front of a nova."
    "What does it mean in practical terms?" Thor asked.
    "There's a lot more rare earths than radioactives like we found around the brown dwarfs. A lot more aluminum. You'd think less indium and gallium, but apparently alloying with the aluminum keeps them high. So it's just a general rule with exceptions like that. Ernie says it's because the whole system started with different ratios of elements, but then the process of the system forming changed the mix in ways differently than how far it was from the Nova. Which would be true here or around the brown dwarfs we saw. That process could be pretty complex and we need to figure it out too.
    "There's noticeably more krypton than argon, way more xenon. More iodine but about the same bromine. Less silver but still quite a bit of other metals. Not near as much silicon as Earth, oddly. Lots of carbon, lots of oxygen. It will mean there'll be more things like sulfur and phosphorus, that are key to