by Alan Black
Stone frowned. “I haven’t programmed it to look for a habitable planet yet. But, it is saying it found one.”
“This is an escape pod, Mister Stone. It is probably designed to automatically look for a place to put down. Look, it just started sending out a distress message.”
Stone pointed at a display. “It is telling us there aren’t any friendly rescue ships in the area and is asking if we want to head for the planet it found.”
Wright reached forward to press the button to head to the planet.
Stone shouted, “No! Stop! Sorry, Commander, but I need to clear the engine ports before we turn the engine back on. It would also be best if we clear the slurry pipe between the engine and the oven. We don’t want to cause another back up.”
Wright threw her hands in the air. “I surrender. You are in command from now on.”
“Thank you, but you are still the boss; just remember to ask me before you order me to do something. Okay?” Stone replied with a smile.
“Aye, aye, Mister Stone. Roger wilco. Yes, sir. Now, if you will excuse me, but our last little hyperspace jump has helped to work some of that nutrition bar through my system. I’ll be in the back. Since you took the door of the toilet, you will, I repeat, will remain upfront or down in the engine room until I say different.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Stone climbed down into the engine compartment below the bridge. There was very little room but he managed to squeeze in. He pulled out his knife and worked at the intake pipe joint until the pipe slid clear.
He crawled to the back until he was just about under the bathroom and wedged himself near the re-breather exhaust ports. Of the four ports, one was clear. He saw the plug lying in a corner behind a conduit. It had blown out with such force it dented the bulkhead.
The three other ports were still blocked. He tapped his fingers against a port expecting it to be too hot to touch. It was cold. He knew he should not have been able to touch any part of the engine for a full day if he had been running the sub-light engine. But the jury-rigged jump had not heated the engine at all. It was as if it had not even been running.
He worked his knife point around each exhaust port blockage until each was free. He scraped the ports trying to clean the exhaust tube walls, but they were irreparably fouled. Grandpa would have skinned him alive if he had ever thought of starting an engine with ports this badly fouled.
Stone chuckled to himself. He was saved from a skinning since Grandpa was not around. The engine was going to run very rough even if he could get it started. Running the engine this way would permanently ruin every seal, valve and port in the pod, if they were not already ruined. Not only that but all four of the re-breather tubes had flared out at the ends and he was unable to reseal them into the exhaust pipes. It would leak engine exhaust into the escape pod faster than the recycler could clear the air. Sub-light engine exhaust was simple carbon dioxide and was not immediately toxic. The inability of the scrubbers to work fast enough would not matter if the pod only had a short distance to travel, but if they were in for a long trip they would suffocate before they could reach their destination.
He manually inspected the fuel reservoir. It had a small trickle of matter in the bottom that he might be able to use as a catalyst to jump start the engine. He shrugged to himself and tossed in the matter he had cleared from the exhaust ports. The engine should heat up enough to convert the semi-hard matter into a liquid or gaseous state for consumption.
He smiled, “That is if it can still heat the engine that high without blowing a gasket.” He knew he needed more fluid and more heavy matter. Any fluid would work. Fluid should be fairly easy to get. He scooted forward and opened the fly on his utility pants. He urinated into the reservoir with a sigh of relief.
He did not know how much water was in their drinking water systems. The pod was designed to recycle endlessly to make use of all available water. He used the knife to disconnect the plumbing systems and drained the entire toilet holding tank into the fuel reservoir and all but five or six gallons of the refreshed, potable water.
He still needed more hard matter. He thought about cutting up the pipe that had come from the oven to the engine, but he was loath to do away with it. He might need the oven and the feeder pipe if he could find more hard matter to melt for fuel slurry. He also rejected the idea of tossing in his blanked personal assistant. It was too small to make much difference and it might have other uses in the future, especially if they got back to a station and could get an operating system reloaded.
Stone thought about the escape pod from bow to stern. The toilet and the sink were still available, but their light composite material would not be worth the effort to tear them out for fuel. He though about what they could do without on the bridge. He ruled out the chairs. The command functions built into the chairs were too necessary. It was the same with the bridge consoles. He knew there was a lot of heavy material in the consoles. Much of it was not required for the every day function of the pod, but he was not enough of a technician to even begin know what he could tear out and what he had to leave in place.
He slammed the lid closed on the reservoir. They might have to tear into the chairs and the console if there was not enough fuel. Maybe with the help of the pod’s manual they would not make any serious mistakes. He decided to delay making a decision until the pod’s computer could tell them how much fuel they would need to get to the planet.
He took a look at other systems in the cramped engine compartment. The artificial gravity discs were still spinning even without power. Life support was continuing to drain power from the batteries, but if he could get the engine running he would be able to recharge the batteries. He re-connected the regulators and disconnected his jump port.
Stone wriggled his way backwards towards the bridge. Commander Wright was crouched down over the hatchway and offered him a hand up.
“Well, what is the verdict, Mister Stone?” Wright asked.
“I think she will start, but I won’t know for sure until we hit the button. And I don’t know whether we have enough fuel. I am going to let the computer figure that out. I don’t have near the math skills to calculate that even if I could figure out all of the variables.”
“Well, you know me, Mister Stone. I am not much of a ship jockey. How long will the pod take to calculate if we are going to make planet-fall or if we are going to turn to cannibalism?”
Stone pointed at the readouts on the console. “The third one from the top is the fuel levels. We can assume the pod has laid in a course to the planet it chose. The readout below the fuel level should tell us if we can make it. And if not-”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, shall we? Read me the result, Mister Stone.”
“Aye, aye, Commander Wright.” He leaned over the readout. “It says that if we let the engine give us a nudge in the right direction and use only minimal thrust on the way we should be able to set down. But, we will have to get to the ground on the first pass. We don’t have enough fuel for a second time around. We don’t even have fuel to get into orbit to look for a good landing spot. We will need to go in comet-like.”
“That sounds uncomfortable.”
Stone shook his head. “It should not be bad. The inertial dampeners and the shields will keep our ride smooth as Oskan silk, but it might mean we won’t land exactly where we want to land. Our only other option would be to try and dismantle one of the chairs and feed it to the engine as fuel. Even if we need the fuel I don’t think we should tear up both chairs, because one of us has to be at the console for reentry. It is your call, but I think we should try it as is.”
“Okay. We could get by on one chair if we took turns using it to sleep or sit down. But, the deck is really cold. So, we will just have to try to spot a good landing zone before we hit planetary atmosphere, right?
“Sure,” Stone replied. “We won’t get a good look until we get too close to make any major course corrections, but we should be a
ble to narrow it down so we hit land instead of ocean. That is assuming-”
“I know, I know,” Wright interrupted. “Assuming that the engine starts, or the engine doesn’t blow up, or we aren’t overrun by space zombies at the last minute. You can be a downer sometimes, you know?”
“Hey! I didn’t mention space zombies, you did. I was going to say an attack by pirates or space vampires.”
“When are we ready to go? Now or do you want to split a piece of nutrition bar, first.”
Stone smiled. “I know I am going to be hungry later, but right now if I have any more of those bars I will be hoping that the engine does blow up.”
“So we go now?”
Stone nodded. “Now is good, boss. Push the button by your left hand. No! No! Not that one, that’s the self destruct.”
Wright backed up as if bitten and stared at the console. “Oh, I pushed it…”
Stone started laughing. “You should see your face.” He wiped his eyes. “Remember teasing me about having my socks on the wrong feet? Well, paybacks do happen, Commander.”
Wright closed her eyes and started to laugh with relief. “I don’t know which makes me happier, that I didn’t blow up the ship or that the engine didn’t blow me up. When will we know whether it is going to work or not?”
“Look at the stars, Commander. We are already turning onto the heading for planet-fall. The engine is working. Now, all we have to worry about is if the engine doesn’t foul or blow a gasket before we get there, if we can find a place to land quickly enough, or if this pod uses the same definition of habitable we do. And…did I mention we are about to run out of air?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Stone squinted against the bright light from the flames glaring through the view shield of the escape pod. He controlled a very human urge to lean back away from the heat, but there was no heat. The flames did not touch the pod. They raged against the shields generated by the spinning artificial gravity discs.
“Shields holding, Commander,” he said through gritted teeth. It was more of a challenge to hold the pod on course through the upper atmosphere than he thought it would be. It was certainly more of a challenge than guiding it through empty space. They were not coming in as fast as the computer had suggested due to the dwindling fuel supply, but it was still fast enough to scare Stone spitless.
The artificial gravity and the inertial dampeners were running full out. The pod was being buffeted wildly, still its occupants did not feel the slightest jink. The ride felt smoother than sitting in a kitchen chair in Grandma’s galley. Stone dared a glance through the flames to the planet below as it rushed up at them. It looked as if the planet below was jittering about.
Stone was sure the pod would have been able to guide itself to a landing with a lot less jerking about, however it had calculated the descent to use all of the fuel supply to achieve a smoother landing. He was more uncomfortable running the sub-light engine completely empty than he was trying his first planetary landing in any kind of craft.
The planet they were racing toward was, according to the pod’s computer, habitable. That meant they should be able to survive. Having a pod with a working engine to manage gravity, air and water recycling might make the difference between habitable for a few days, habitable for as long as it took for someone to find them, or habitable for life.
The pod’s air recycling systems were not working as well as they had hoped. The sub-light engine was pouring carbon dioxide into the air. Life support was designed to recycle air for twenty-four people, but the designers had not counted on the engine feeding the exhaust directly into the recyclers through the re-breathers. The air exchange system was not able to draw the CO2 from the cabin fast enough to keep up with the engine output.
Commander Wright had looked up carbon dioxide poisoning on her personal assistant. Earth standard CO2 levels were 0.04%. There was a centuries old ongoing argument in the medical community about whether people died from the rise in carbon dioxide in the air or whether the carbon dioxide simply diminished the oxygen levels to below survivable levels. Stone had cranked up the oxygen output none-the-less.
The pod’s internal instruments indicated the air had just passed a two percent CO2 level. Commander Wright’s p.a. said two percent was survivable for a short time. Sustained exposure to two percent CO2 levels would be dangerous. The percentage was still creeping up and rising faster by the moment. Five percent would be directly toxic.
Both he and Commander Wright had been fighting feelings of drowsiness, headaches, racing heartbeats, dizziness, fatigue, rapid breathing, and even visual dysfunctions. Wright explained their condition in less than scientific terms. She simply said they were feeling ‘icky’.
Stone wanted to get onto the ground as quickly as he could. No matter what the planetary atmosphere, once they were down he would be able to shut down the engine and let life support catch up to normal levels. He might be able to vent and recycle the cabin air with planetary resources if the air on the planet was sufficiently close to earth normal.
The pod’s external instrumentation was unable to read the planetary atmosphere yet. The heat of their entry into the atmosphere was boiling away any air samples the pod might have been able to collect. The pod declared the planet habitable. It was unable to provide more than a guess based on long range visual sensors. The planet was close enough to the sun to have liquid water. It appeared to have dry land. It was of an approximate size for its gravity to be plus or minus a few percentage points of earth normal. It had an acceptable axial tilt and spin with three standard size moons.
He steered the pod toward the largest land mass on this side of the planet. He had watched the planet spin for the last four days, and he knew by their trajectory this was the side they would reach. However, until they got close; really, really close, he would not be able to pick out details.
He spun the dial on the look-down scan console searching for a place to land. He was trying to find a spot that was relatively flat; but not in the middle of some huge grassy plains. He also wanted to get close to water, but not so close they would land in it. Deep forests did not seem like a good idea either, since the pod was unable to give them any indication of the local flora or fauna. The pod had snapped a visual just prior to atmosphere insertion showing the terrain below was covered in vegetation. Unless the video pickups were malfunctioning, the picture showed a blanket of rusty-green color plants.
The computer was very clear there were no signs of intelligent life on the planet below. There had not been any activity on any of the radio frequencies or microwave bands. There were no visual clues of civilization like roads, towns or even cultivated fields.
Suddenly, the flames licking at the shields quit, as if a giant breath had blown them out. Stone breathed a shallow sigh. He wanted to breathe deeper, but the air was beginning to stink like Uncle Jim’s fermented yeast in a beer vat aboard the Ruby Rock. He glanced at Commander Wright. Her eyes were clamped closed and her face had a greenish tint.
“Commander, atmosphere insertion complete. Are you okay?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Just nauseated from watching the planet through the view screen.”
“Hey! We need to name our pod,” Stone said. “It is bad luck to land a craft with just a number. What do you think? Got any ideas?”
Wright looked at him through slitted eyes. “You’re just trying to distract me, Mister Stone?”
“Um…maybe. But a name wouldn’t hurt, right?”
“Doesn’t your family always name your ships after rocks and costly metals?”
Stone was about to answer when he spotted a semi-attractive landing spot on the look-down scan. It was coming up quick, but it was close enough he could land with only a few minor course corrections. It was a small clearing in the forest below equidistant between a river and a small series of hills.
“Yes, Commander. I was born on the Platinum Pebble and grew up on the Golden Boulder. But this is not really a family ship.
It is as much yours as mine at this point. We better hurry. We are going to land quicker than I planned.”
“Actually, I believe this pod belongs to the Emperor no matter where it is in the universe. However, for the sake of your argument, since we are in possession now let’s give it a name from both of us. How about the Angora Rock?”
“Done,” Stone said. “Considering the way she flies, ‘rock’ is a pretty appropriate name. You are going to have to explain to me what an angora is…crap. Brace yourself.”
The bottom of the pod slammed into a tree-like plant, snapping it off cleanly. Stone pushed the throttle to the max, flaring the engine and giving the pod a lift just a few meters above the ground. Without much of a glide path the pod shuttered and the engine stalled, unable to climb back into the air. It dropped six meters, slamming into the ground.
The combination of the inertial dampeners, artificial gravity and the well designed command chairs meant Stone had to do a visual check through the view shield to see if they were down or still moving. The shields had suppressed any noise.
Commander Wright had her eyes closed again. She said, “An angora is a kind of a goat. People make clothes out of their hair; like goat-fur sweaters.”
“Um…Commander, it is as good a name as any. It brought us enough luck to get us down. Checking atmosphere now.” Stone dropped the shields and shut off the engine. The pod gave a slight shudder as it settled onto the planet surface.
“We’re down?” She peaked with one eye out through the view screen. “Can you exhaust this stale air, at least start venting the extra CO2 out of the cabin?”
“I don’t think we have to start blowing out air. The engine is off line so the CO2 levels aren’t going any higher. We just have to give life support a little extra time and it will have us back to earth normal soon even if the planet’s air isn’t good.” A light flashed on the console. “There it is now, Commander. The planetary atmosphere is within acceptable standards.”
“Acceptable as in breathable?” She asked with a frown.