by Ginger Booth
Abel elected to loop out over the forest for one last look. So vibrant when they arrived, lush green with startling pops of purples, reds, and whites, now the forest gleamed dusty tan. To protect themselves in summer, plants cocooned their leaves against the sun’s onslaught. Daily rains, in the form of torrential thunderstorms and cyclones, weren’t enough to keep trees hydrated at these temperatures.
On Earth, predators would lie low while the plants slept. But Denali wildlife never seemed to choose passive over aggressive. Anything with claws and fangs could cut open the plant husks to feed. The monsters adored the polar summer. Ben shot down three even on this short flight.
“Land or hover?” Abel asked, as he banked toward their destination.
The volcanoes that spewed the ash to bury Denali Prime had a far side, never used by humanity and far from Hermitage. Thrive’s engines could inflict no more damage on the lower slopes.
“Land,” Sass replied.
She regretted that choice slightly as her ship sank a quarter meter into dust. But any ground would aid their thrust better than launching from mid-air.
The guys raised hands from their consoles in surrender.
“Bedtime, boys,” Sass teased. They hated this. But she insisted the Mahina settlers take the launch lying down. Copeland, whose bones were friable, yet whose expertise was essential during this harrowing sequence, had to monitor from inside the auto-doc. Dr. Yang monitored him from a padded chair.
Sass took attendance over the ship’s PA system, confirming every pressure door was sealed, every crew member in their assigned seat or bedding. Clay slipped in to take the second seat beside her. He’d completed visual confirmation of every sealed door on the catwalk level. Reza executed those rounds below.
They were as ready as they were going to get. “Reminder to all hands,” Sass reviewed. “We will reach a maximum of 5 g’s within the first two minutes of this launch. After that, acceleration will ease. With luck it will all be over in ten minutes. That acceleration is harsh, but you can take it for a couple minutes. Countdown begins, takeoff in 60 seconds from – now.”
Clay started the timer for her. “Do I need to worry about shooting pterries?”
“No.” None showed on the radar, but it didn’t matter anyway. If anything attacked, the creature would die and fall off soon enough. “At your station, about all you can do is offer moral support. Or take over if I black out.”
“Cheery thought.”
“I thought you’d enjoy that.” And Sass began to spin up the engines.
Kassidy blew out slowly through pursed lips in the engine room, steeling her resolve. She and Wilder had refueled during landing at Denali. But this was a whole new system. They’d done all they could. But their fuel tanks simply couldn’t hold enough for this demand. No one could refuel during maximum acceleration, only endure.
It remained to be seen whether Sass could reach the maximum acceleration she needed without refueling. There was a strong possibility they’d need an emergency top-up during the launch.
And that could be hell.
Wilder and Reza shot her thumbs up from the couch seats to either side, all of their necks carefully propped on the seat backs.
“Remember, Copeland, you must not twist under g forces.” Dr. Yang muttered nervously in the med bay.
“Doctor, this is an action station,” the engineer murmured. “Do not babble.” As though Cope could forget about his fragile bones with his neck immobilized by pillows, and his tiny screen braced against an arch of the auto-doc. This was a far cry from his engineering console. He could only watch the engine burn profiles and the fuel levels at the same time, instead of his usual array of 6 tell-tales and a view outside.
He wasn’t paying any attention to his body. He didn’t like that flutter in the new 3rd gen engine. He raised his hand to switch his comm to the bridge.
“You must keep your hands flat!” the nag attempted.
Cope ignored him. “Cap, advise max power 8 on the 3rd gen.”
“Cope, repeat,” Sass demanded.
“You heard me,” he said grimly. “Max 8 on the primary. Sorry, cap.” The engineer watched as she backed off the primary and brought the backup 2nd gen engine up to level 10, the maximum. As he hoped, the flutter in the main power signature damped out, but not until about 8.3. No, he didn’t trust that engine above 8.
Damn. But none of this could be tested ahead of time.
“What does that mean?” Dr. Yang begged plaintively.
Cope ignored his nanny and reached to switch to another screen. Yang batted his hand back flat on the mattress.
And the rumble of thrumming power grew, vibrating the whole ship in its eagerness to leap into the sky. The cabinets rattled. One popped open. Some gizmo with black hoses slipped out to bounce and dangle. A sharp shake lurched Cope sideways a half centimeter.
But the engine signatures remained steady. “Engines good to go, cap,” Cope reported, and swallowed.
The countdown hit zero, and the g-forces slammed into him. He allowed himself only a moment to glance at the doctor’s display instead of his own. One of the cameras on a stubby wing showed the ash-blanketed volcano falling away below, the yellow-brown forests growing lighter with haze. The g’s pressing on his chest made it hard to breathe.
His eyes flicked back to his own inadequate display just as another lurch dropped it to the bedding beside him. He twisted to retrieve it on automatic.
Suddenly unbearable agony shot like burning spikes into his spine. One of his vertebra cracked. Copeland screamed.
“Cope, are you watching the grav plates?” Sass asked urgently, as her chair shuddered like a wild thing.
They’d assumed the inside of the ship would keep subjective gravity pointing floor-ward where it belonged through this launch. No such luck. Sitting in her chair, she was lying down on her back. She tried but couldn’t reach up to switch her display.
No response. Sass switched channels. “Doctor, Chief Copeland is not responding.”
“He’s in agony, captain. When I –”
Sass cut his channel off in mid-word. “Ben, can you check the grav plating?”
He needed a couple precious seconds, but Ben replied, “Grav online, vectors consistent with current g forces.”
In other words, if the floor was for 1-g sideways, and she was building two engines to their max – almost max – for 5-g up, yeah, she’d feel like she was lying on her chair back.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “Ben, watch engine power and fuel for me.”
“Aye, captain. Cope has bigger problems?”
“Captain out,” Sass replied. She wasn’t at leisure to open that can of worms.
The engines strained and the g-forces mounted. Her chair shook and jerked. Before her in the view screen the sky gradually turned from palest hazy blue-white to a deep clear cobalt blue, and kept deepening. “Come on,” she urged.
“Fuel at one third,” Ben reported. “Engines nominal at level 8 and 10. Cap, why is the primary at 8?”
“Thank you, Ben,” Sass responded repressively, and switched speaking channel. “Engine crew, we require refueling. Refuel ASAP.”
“That’s not possible now,” Reza returned.
“Understood, Mr. Reza,” Sass acknowledged. “Computer, calculate trade-off, can we reduce thrust or is it better to run out of fuel?” She’d pre-programmed this delicate decision point, knowing she wouldn’t have the use of her arms at this critical juncture.
“Twelve more seconds of burn, captain,” the computer replied politely.
Sass easily noted that ran them straight out of fuel. “Reza, the engines will die. Immediately refuel – NOW!” She spoke the last word as suddenly she was seated upright again. Hands free to move, she slammed the engine power levers down to zero. Then she checked every telltale she couldn’t reach a moment ago.
They’d gained hundreds of miles in altitude, and thousands of kph in speed. But restarting the engines from dry took pre
cious time. And already they were beginning to fall. “Come on, fuel team,” she breathed.
She had a few seconds to spare. “Cope, Dr. Yang. Report.”
40
The second the g-forces died, the three on the couch took deep breaths of relief. Wilder’s lungs could open fully again.
Then they exploded from the couch. This sudden move after the gravity changes made Wilder woozy enough to stumble into Kassidy, and knock her into Reza. The older Denali shoved her back into Wilder, and shot ahead to the first fuel pod.
Unlike the dump-a-barrel system they’d used to reach Denali, their new fuel was bundled into a waterproof but combustible jacket. The whole bale was shoved into automated loading arms which took care of pulling it into the hopper, slicing it open, and dumping it into the next chamber. No empties needed removal.
The first bale was already in position. Reza punched the button, then scurried for the load after Kassidy’s in the waiting ranks. Wilder quickly replaced the vanishing bale with his first offering, muttering, “Come on…” His hand hovered over the button, waiting for the light to change from red to green. At its first flicker, he punched it to load the next, then hopped out of Kassidy’s way.
Two down, eight to go, Wilder thought, scrambling for his next bale. They needed 10 in the hopper before Reza would advance the pellets to the next chamber to add water and turn them into fuel. Then Sass could restart the engines and this bucket brigade would get interesting indeed.
“Three!” Kassidy sang out, and leapt to grab her next bale. They’d practiced this, filling the hopper as fast as humanly possible yesterday with the initial fuel. Of course, there was no practicing what it would be like to continue under acceleration.
But after Reza hit the button the first time, there was no downtime on the hopper. Its arms loaded bales as fast as its mechanism would allow, a painful 3.6 seconds apiece. Copeland timed them yesterday, his face growing grimmer by the second.
“Ten!” Reza cried. Wilder, waiting in position, hit the side button to initiate burn. He ran for another bale. Reza took his place to observe that the internal explosion was proceeding smoothly.
“Captain, you have fuel,” Reza reported. “Refueling continues.” He ran to reinsert himself into the sequence. Already Kassidy had taken his next turn.
And the ship began to throb and vibrate again as the engines restarted. Wilder, not a technical man, figured the two monstrous engine columns had already burned through two bales just turning on again, and they’d consume the rest in nothing flat.
Slap down the bale, wait for the light, punch the button, and move! The moving grew a lot harder now, though, with the floor shaking and prone to erratic sideways lurches.
And suddenly another person was in his way, Teke! “Couch! Now!” Wilder bellowed at him.
“But –!”
Wilder grabbed the youth by the shoulders and manhandled him out of the fueling path. He ended with a hard shove toward the couch. “Captain, Wilder. We have a stowaway.” He grabbed another bale and scurried to catch up.
A lurch set his lifted right foot down on the left side of his left foot, and he spun. Teke was there to catch him before he lost hold of his fuel, a disaster in the making under these conditions. Teke turned him back on course and thrust him forward.
“Secure that kid!” the captain demanded over the comm.
Wilder’s wait light was already green before he got his bale in place and punched the button. A second lost. Damn! He scooted sideways out of Reza’s way.
“Out of sequence!” Wilder called out. That meant Reza and Kassidy had to run faster while the floor lurched.
Wilder stood out of their way and paused to look at Teke, standing ready to catch the next person who stumbled. Not a bad idea, he realized, as Kassidy took a long lunge sideways and knocked into him. Wrong size, though.
“You understand the system, Teke?”
The kid nodded sharply, meeting his eye with determination. “I can help. That’s why I came out.”
Wilder nodded back. He grabbed Teke’s arm and pushed him toward the array of bales. “You’re after Kassidy.” He braced himself and took pretty much the same position where Teke chose to stand, to keep everyone steady. The toughest stretch was carrying the bales to the hopper, too unbalanced to catch oneself properly as the ship writhed.
“Engine room,” Sass called over the address system, “resuming acceleration in 10 seconds. Continue fueling.”
Doggedly, the tag team on the bales kept going. They’d hoped to be farther along before this needed to happen, not subject to multiple g’s. But every bale in this engine room had to feed into the hopper before Denali’s gravity field would let go its clutches. An easy count of ranks of 10 told Wilder they had 46 to go.
“Brace!” Sass sang out.
Wilder caught Teke and held him as the gravities kicked in. Reza stumbled forward, so he held out an arm to him as well. Kassidy was safe at the hopper arms, her knees flexed. She didn’t miss her window, hitting the button instantly, then pulling herself arm over arm out of the way. They had a railing for her return slog.
“Slide with me,” Wilder told Teke, who bore the next bale. The hopper was now down a seeming 45-degree slope from the waiting fuel. Bending one leg short and the forward leg long, the pair scuttled down to the hopper. Teke immediately hit the waiting green-lit button with his elbow, and barely managed to get his limbs out of the way as the hopper arms took over his bale.
Wilder yanked him out of Reza’s way, and shook him by the biceps. “Never again!” he cried sharply. “You put the bale down, you get out of the way, then you hit the button! No shortcuts! Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Teke agreed meekly.
Wilder could see in his eyes that he did understand. If he’d caught his arm in the robotic loading mechanism, all their lives would have been forfeit, starting with Teke’s.
Wilder gave him an assist back up the slope, and Reza after him. Yes, the catcher position would work better now. He lurched sideways to slow Kassidy’s slide toward the hopper. The g’s were increasing.
“Captain, Wilder. Please stop increasing accel. Getting damned hard to fuel down here.”
“Reza?” Sass inquired.
“Very hard, captain,” Reza concurred.
“No promises,” Sass hedged.
Wilder wryly took that to mean the g’s would increase further. “Two-step!” he called the play. “Reza, you need a break?”
“Yes!” Born to Denali 1.1 g and in average shape, the poor man was the eldest of them by a couple decades. And unlike the Mahina urbs Wilder and Kassidy, he didn’t have nanites maintaining him at the peak physical fitness of a 25-year-old. Teke, at least, had energy to burn. Wilder grabbed Reza the moment he next punched his button, then with one foot braced on the steel glass wall next to the hopper, pushed the technician up the side rail to give fuelers a hand on the up-slope. Then Wilder side-stepped in time to catch Teke on the slide down.
“That’s getting steeper,” Teke confided as he lay in his bale. Half a second, green light, punch button, and he scrambled up with an assist from Reza’s hand.
“Tired, monkey?” the sergeant asked Kassidy as he broke her slide.
“Hell, yeah –” Kassidy paused in concentration, blowing hard, then hit the button. “But I’d be useless where you are.” She elected to crawl up the slope this time.
“Can we throw –?” Teke began, starting his descent.
“NO!” three adults yelled in unison.
“Just asking,” Teke muttered after Wilder caught him.
“Ask less,” Wilder encouraged. “Think less. Do.”
And in another minute, the dire weight began to slack off, and the floor slope lessened to 50 degrees, 40, 30.
“Back in rotation,” Wilder announced. “All four! Let’s get this done, people!”
The brutal burn took more like 15 minutes, not 10. But they were over the hump and headed to Mahina!
“Betting
pool open,” Wilder declared, headed up the gentle slope for his next bale. “Which clown do I need to discipline first on this leg?” As security chief, it was Wilder’s great pleasure to inflict control when a crew member lost it. Copeland was the current record holder for requiring his services. The guy had a short fuse, and relished a good turn on the mats.
“I don’t understand,” Reza complained.
“Teke,” Kassidy voted. “That one was obvious, ya lunk.” She paused to wipe sweat off her brow.
With four in the rotation, the merry-go-round went slow enough for each to steal a breather once per cycle. And they were down to their last set of bales. Mountains more awaited in the containers below. But the next load was Abel’s problem, with Cortez. The emergency fueling crew retired forever after this stint. Or at least until the next time they tried to land on a full-sized planet. Which would not be this trip, thankfully.
“Don’t send me back!” Teke cried. “I would have stayed hidden. But you needed help.”
Wilder caught himself before he mentioned the kid’s family. Teke had none. All a Denali had was his ‘cohort,’ the final group he advanced with, out of the creche and into his place in the real world. Scholars were different. Most Denali were sorted by temperament into the castes – hunter, cosmopolitan, or farmer. But where they spotted true brilliance, personality be damned. Regardless of original community, the child was sent to the University for their genius to be nurtured. All Teke had left on his home world was the Advanced Materials Lab, an internship he’d been due to escape in two weeks when the volcano erupted and destroyed his personal world.
“No, there’s no going back,” Wilder assured him. “Do we even have enough fuel left to land?”
“We don’t,” Reza confirmed. “We’re your cohort now, Teke.” He paused to reach out a hand to touch the kid on the cheek.