Castaway Resolution

by Eric Flint

  The slender person—who preferred to be neither called he nor she—started. “Sorry, Captain,” Tip said, and brushed their slightly-nonregulation red hair out of their eyes. “It’s quite a system we’ve got here. The quick survey from Orado pinpointed the main planets, but for whatever reason there’s a lot of junk in this system. Several big comets and a bunch of smaller ones, two asteroid belts of note, and I’d assume a lot more little things we haven’t pinpointed yet. So…no immediate navigation hazards, but I’d keep a really close eye on things. Trip a radar alarm for anything larger than a few centimeters in range, maybe.”

  Sue frowned. “That bad?”

  “Hard to say,” Tip said, gray-green eyes serious. “It’s a lot of junk, but without a survey of cratering on the major bodies I won’t be able to say how much worse it is than Earth-standard.” They nodded to the captain. “If you’d like, sir, I can start a survey right away.”

  “Can’t hurt. Go to it,” Ayrton said. “But nothing keeping us from jumping in closer, right?”

  “Not that I can see, sir,” Tip said.

  “Right, then. Lieutenant Amberdon, take us in.”

  “Aye, sir.” Pavla glanced up. “Sir?”

  “What is it, Lieutenant?”

  “I haven’t done many short-jump Trapdoor transitions. Maybe our advisor would like to take the board and I could watch?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Sue protested.

  “I’m sure Pavla would, but we’ve both seen your record. If you’d like, you’re welcome to take the board; both of us would love to watch.”

  “So would I,” Tip put in.

  “Well…all right, I’d like to be the one to bring us in close, I admit it.”

  Sue sat down in the seat vacated by Pavla and checked the board. She already knew the parameters for Sherlock—she never boarded a ship without finding out what its performance was like and what it would be like to fly—but that was different from actually being the pilot. “I assume we want orbital insertion if we come out close enough to target?”

  “Yes. That seems unlikely, though.”

  “I’d have to get lucky, yes, but it’s happened before.”

  Check coil performance profiles. Just because the specs said, for instance, that maximum jump error was one million kilometers was no reason to believe the specs. Coil imbalance, detuning, stress on the hull causing slight variations in the geometry, electromagnetic signals from internal systems, there were at least a dozen specific variables that could affect the performance.

  The profiles looked mostly good, though there was sign that there had been some minor detuning, centered on one of the hab-ring coils. That might mean that it wasn’t fastened down quite as tightly as it should have been. Still, it remained within spec for now, and she could adjust the output geometry to compensate. “Once we get to target, someone should go out and adjust coil fourteen. It’s a little out of alignment, I think.”

  “Noted,” the captain said. “You don’t need that done now?”

  “No, I think it’s compensable.” The distance was not quite one billion kilometers. That was less than one-minute jump, around forty-seven seconds or maybe forty-eight seconds. Center jump on planetary core. The nice thing about the Trapdoor Drive was that it wouldn’t let you jump into a gravity well stronger than a certain amount, and if you attempted to do so, you’d emerge just outside said gravity well. There was no risk in targeting a planet dead-on.

  No more than there was for any Trapdoor emergence, at least. If you were unfortunate enough to emerge back into real-space in front of an oncoming meteor, well, that would be pretty much it. Happily, those odds were low enough that, thus far, she hadn’t heard of any ship actually having that happen to them.

  “Trapdoor jump in ten seconds,” she said. Sue could feel the ship—nothing as responsive as Raijin, but still a fine vessel—and as usual, her gut told her to nudge the timing, just the slightest amount. “Jump in three, two, one…”

  Perfect darkness recaptured the screen, along with the indescribable sensation of dropping away or jumping up over an unseen wall.

  “You changed jump duration at the last moment,” Tip observed. “Why?”

  “Wish I could tell you. There’s all sorts of variables changing as you set it—relative angle, current electromagnetic field, coil resonance…they call it instinct, but it’s probably just a subconscious calculation based on all these things I’m seeing.”

  “How many jumps have you done?” Pavla asked.

  Sue laughed. “Honestly, I have no idea. I did my first one when I was five—my dad was a pilot, taught me from the time I was tiny.”

  “Five?”

  “Well, I didn’t do the calculations, but he let me lay them in and set her going. Which was enough to hook me for life.” The countdown was almost done. “Emergence in four, three, two, one—”

  A blaze of white and green and blue and brown filled almost half the screen, a perfect globe spanning over sixteen degrees, more than thirty-two times the size of the Moon in Earth’s sky.

  “…wow,” Pavla said in a hushed voice after a long moment of dead silence.

  Sue was too busy to bask in the appreciation of her skill—and ridiculous luck, being honest about it. The accuracy of the ship was measured around nine hundred thousand kilometers and here she’d arrived only forty thousand or so off. At this range it was easy to get a relative speed and that told her they needed a strong burn to make this an orbit and not a quick zoom past. “Everyone strap in now, we have an orbital insertion to make and it will be a heavy shot.”

  She touched the intercom. “All personnel, this is a five-minute acceleration warning, repeat, five minutes to acceleration. Strap in or get in your bunks in secure mode. Five minutes begins now.”

  “How heavy a burn are we looking at?” the Captain asked.

  “Looks like about five and a half minutes at three G’s,” she answered.

  Ayrton winced. “That’s heavy, all right. Ten kps difference?”

  “Ten point one. And we’re lucky, at that; differential in a lot of systems is enough to require months with the Nebula Drive to match up.”

  She gave a one-minute warning, then a thirty second one. Then the drive cut in.

  Abruptly it was as though she was lying down and there were two more Sues lying on top of her, perfectly aligned with every single part of her, adding pressure to everything from her gut to her eyeballs. Her vision blurred slightly before her eyes compensated for the pressure deformation, and she kept her attention on the running status data for Sherlock. Automatics would handle most things, but there was still no substitute for human ability to notice oddities in a gestalt of events.

  But Sherlock was a good ship, and the flight out to the mysterious system had given them plenty of time to shake down any problems. After five minutes and thirty-three and one-half seconds had elapsed, the drive cut off, and the world was suddenly light as a feather—lighter, really, because the bridge was at the center axis of Sherlock and therefore in microgravity.

  “Burn successful,” Sue said with a grin. “We are now in orbit around our life-bearing mystery world.”

  “Excellent work, Lieutenant Fisher,” the Captain said, with a matching smile. “It really was a pleasure to—”

  “Captain!”

  All heads snapped around to stare at Commander Gariba, whose eyes were wide and glinting with disbelief.

  “What is it, Commander?”

  “I’ve got it. I have a signal!”

  Sue was frozen for an instant, unable to grasp it. She’d thought of the possibility, but she’d never allowed herself to really believe there could have been survivors. “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent sure, Ma’am, Captain! It’s a GPS signal from an SC-178, just like you said the LS-88 was carrying on board!”

  “I will be damned,” Ayrton said in a hushed voice. “They made it here. And put up a satellite? Mr. Gariba, is that the only satellite?”
>
  “Can’t be, sir…no, definitely not. I’m getting multiple signals now. Can’t see the other side of the planet, sir, but all indications are that they’ve got a thin but functional network up and running!”

  “If they have that…can we transmit to the network? They must be using them as comm satellites, yes?”

  “Must be, sir. I’ll get on—”

  “Ohhh, that’s not good,” came Tip’s voice, tense with worry.

  “What is it, Tip?”

  “Radar picked up incoming, confirmed with telescope—massive incoming, kilometers across, and—”

  “Kilometers?”

  “Yes, can’t get an exact read yet, something funny with the geometry—”

  Sue snapped her head back around to Gariba. “Call! Call now!”

  I refuse to be one day too late!

  Chapter 46

  “Time’s getting short,” Campbell murmured to himself, looking out the window at the overcast sky. “We have updates on impact?”

  “Trying to get new images,” Melody said absently. “By now it’s dropped down below the GPS constellation, so we’ve had to rotate back to the ground-facing position, and that took time.”

  “It’s also harder to acquire; shift in perspective and all. But knowing the track helps,” Whips said. “We should be getting good data shortly.”

  Campbell nodded. “Well, we’re all ears.”

  Their run for the horizon had gone well, all things considered. With their ninety hours just about run out, they’d averaged almost thirty kilometers per hour, so they were well out of the target zone, about twenty-eight hundred kilometers from their prior home. Having that kind of cushion made him feel better about the situation. Lord knows we don’t want to cut it close when we’re facing a disaster like this.

  Not that it would completely shield them even if they were on the other side of the planet. Impact and flash wouldn’t be a problem, but the weather over the whole planet would go insane, with “insane” including hurricanes that broke the normal measuring scales. Not to mention the small but definitely real chance of being hit by secondary impacts—debris thrown by the impact so hard, so high, that it basically came down as smaller meteors.

  They’d tested Emerald Maui’s diving ability, just in case, and it seemed that despite everything the shuttle had gone through, the seals were still absolutely solid, so that was one good thing. Diving under trouble was a good option to have, as they’d found out when they ended up in a hurricane on their way to meet up with the Kimeis.

  “There’s a small floating continent—maybe four hundred kilometers long—about a hundred kilometers in front of us,” Tavana said. “Should we think about landing, or stay out to sea?”

  “Avoid for now,” Xander said, after a quick glance at both Campbell and Laura. “Let’s see what happens after Lincoln takes the hit before we decide what to do. Emerald Maui works best in the open.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Tavana said, and adjusted their course. “We’ll skirt by it to the south, it’s open ocean past that for—”

  “Pictures and tracking coming in now,” Melody interrupted. “Processing as fast as we can.”

  Whips rippled colors and patterns of assent. “Almost there. I…” He paused. “Well, that’s interesting.”

  “Something bad?”

  “…probably not. But I guess what we were seeing was a fragment of a comet, and in its final approach—you know the term ‘Roche limit,’ right?”

  “Point at which a natural body over some size will come apart around another object, yeah.” Campbell felt himself do a double-take. “Wait, are you saying our impactor came apart?”

  “Broke into three pieces, somewhere between our losing it and reacquiring it below the GPS constellation.”

  “None of them are coming near us, are they?” Sakura asked nervously.

  “No, no—natural spread isn’t nearly that fast. They’re going to shotgun our old continent, though.” Whips’ patterns showed uncertainty. “Might mean more ejecta, I guess. Not much we can do about it.”

  Campbell thought about that. “Might be we’d like to dive before any of that mess can hit us. What do you think, Captain, Laura, Pearce?”

  Xander frowned. “We can go down, what, thirty meters safely?”

  “Based on our experience, that would be reasonable,” Pearce said. “Research showed almost ninety was actually done.”

  Laura nodded. “So the question is whether thirty meters down is going to protect us from anything.”

  “Oh, it will protect us from many things,” Tavana said emphatically, echoed by Caroline, who took up the conversation.

  “Xander’s group already showed that they can escape the effects of storms very well diving to twenty or thirty meters,” she said. “And smaller impact debris will be stopped by a relatively few meters of water. Larger, well, obviously if it’s large enough that won’t matter, but it’s sure far better than nothing.”

  Xander surveyed the others, glanced back at the sergeant. “Any other points I’m missing?”

  Francisco put up his hand. “It may be silly, but breathing? There are two times as many of us now as there were last time, will the air be okay?”

  “Not a silly question at all, Francisco,” Xander said. “Anyone have an answer?”

  “Environmental systems are working just fine,” Maddox said emphatically. “There’s no more people here than Emerald Maui was designed for, and we swapped out filters just before we left. We could stay down weeks without worrying about air. Probably months, since she’s been recharging her oxygen storage all along.”

  “All right,” Xander said after a moment. “We’ll dive shortly after impact—which isn’t far away now. Stay down until we’re sure any debris will have fallen back down. Right?”

  “Sounds like a—”

  An alert tone—the sound of someone transmitting on the emergency override frequencies—cut Campbell off; the tone was followed by a booming voice:

  “Calling anyone within range of this signal, this is the OSV Sherlock out of Orado. LS-5, LS-88, are you there? Calling anyone within range of this signal…”

  For a long, long moment nobody moved. Everyone stared at each other, eyes wide, all asking the same soundless question: Did you hear that? Is this real?

  Then Laura Kimei shook herself and answered, a fraction ahead of even Campbell. “This is Dr. Laura Kimei from LS-5, Sherlock. We read you. My God, we read you!”

  There was a sound—a gasp, Campbell thought—before the voice returned. “Lieutenant Susan Fisher speaking—the prior voice was Commander Gariba. How many of you are there, and are you all in good health?”

  Laura caught Campbell’s eye and nodded; he grinned and answered. “Chief Master Sergeant Samuel Morgan Campbell speaking, Lieutenant, and in answer there’s a lucky thirteen of us here—the entire complement of LS-5, LS-88, plus Lieutenant Pearce Greene Haley of Outward Initiative who happened to get stuck with us when everything went wrong. We’re all healthy at the moment, running southeast in Emerald Maui, which used to be LS-88. GPS constellation should have our coordinates.”

  “Thirteen. My god, all of you…even Lieutenant Haley? She was put down as killed in the accident.”

  “I’m right here, Lieutenant,” Pearce said.

  “And Harratrer—is he—”

  “Right here!” Whips answered.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said, her voice cracking.

  A deeper man’s voice said, “None of us can.” That voice, too, was somewhat unsteady with shock. “Captain Ayrton here. I must say, though, it’s incredibly good to have the chance to believe it. However, there’s a more pressing problem.”

  “The oncoming impacts? Yes, we know. Don’t suppose you’re in a position to stop them,” Campbell said.

  “We’re a survey vessel, not a Skywatch task force, unfortunately. Not that even a Skywatch could do much at this point.”

  “Can’t you pick us up?” asked Francisco.


  “We can, yes—that must be Francisco?” Lieutenant Fisher said. “But not in six minutes.”

  “How long until you can get down here?”

  There was a silence—very long indeed to Campbell, who could see Seconds to Impact ticking remorselessly down in his omni view.

  At last, Captain Ayrton spoke. “Probably at least two or three hours minimum. We didn’t expect to have to launch this fast and the prep for flight on our S&R shuttles will take time—can’t shortcut it in a situation like this. I’m afraid you’re going to have to ride out the impacts and whatever follows for at least a bit. Plus I don’t want any of my ships flying down there until whatever comes up finishes going down, if you get my meaning.”

  Campbell sure did. Piloting a shuttle through the rain of debris from a dinosaur-killer impact? No thanks, pass on that.

  “Understood,” Laura said. “We certainly don’t want you cutting corners on prep or safety. Lincoln will take any opening you give it.”

  “Lincoln?”

  “Planet’s name. This is the Emerald system, habitable planet Lincoln.”

  “I…” buzzed Whips, “am becoming more cynical about that ‘habitable’ business every day.”

  “Official names recorded,” Ayrton said. “We’ll get to work, people—just hold on down there!”

  “Lincoln hasn’t been able to kill us yet,” Campbell said. “I’m willing to bet we can hold it off for a few more hours. But don’t take too long, because it’s going to get a lot worse on this planet before it gets better.”

  “We’ll be diving on impact,” Xander added. “We don’t plan to surface until we’re sure it’s safe enough, so you won’t be able to contact us for a while afterward.”

  “Copy that. We’ll wait for your signal, then, because prep should be finished by that point. Sherlock signing off for now.”

  The interior of Emerald Maui exploded in shouts and cheers and even tears, all at the last-minute realization that rescue was here, was finally here…

  …maybe an hour or three too late. Red numerals began to flash in the corner of Campbell’s vision, and he saw the shutters sliding over the port, leaving only the projected view from the cameras.