chapter 31
SEAT OF YOUR PANTS
Insufficient oxygen was different, according to the ship, from insufficient oxygen for human life. The Galleon was notifying her that the
ratio of oxygen to nitrogen and other gasses was no longer optimal. But it wasn’t bad enough to kill her. Not yet. And putting on a
suit now would mean she would run out of suit air at a time when the ship had no oxygen left. She shook her head. If she made it at
all, it would be by the seat of her pants.
“Well there’s something you’re good at, Jaarda,” she said. “Flying by the seat of your pants.”
She turned from the ops panel to the navigation panel, scowling at the ship’s low fuel warning. It had been glowing steadily since her
last course adjustment seven days ago. She needed fuel and she had no way to get it. It was the same as her oxygen problem.
Except that with the oxygen problem, she’d found an answer. She hoped.
Was there some “elsewhere” on the ship she could find fuel?
“Come on, Jaarda,” she growled. “This is the kind of thing you’re good at.”
Jessamyn knew the location of the fuel containers upon her ship, understood how the cylinders delivered requested fuel to her aft or
forward thrusters, to port or starboard rockets. Ethan had even shown her a non-standard procedure for delivering extra fuel to the
ship’s escape pods.
The escape pods!
“Well, I’ll be,” she whispered. “There it is.”
Jess stood with excitement. The person-sized pods each came filled with a small quantity of fuel. In the event of an emergency
evacuation, you didn’t want to be stuck taking the time to divert fuel to your escape vehicle. And if she could transfer fuel from the
Galleon to those other vehicles, could she not reverse the process? Transfer the fuel from the extraneous vehicles into the Galleon’s
tanks?
Jessamyn had five fueled escape pods on board. At least she hoped they were fueled. Would they have been fueled? She wasn’t
sure. Maybe the crew of Ungrateful Wretches wouldn’t have thought of fueling them. But Crusty would have ordered it. Without fuel,
the pods’ only other method of speed reduction was old-fashioned whiplash-inducing parachutes.
She needed to go below-decks to check the pods. Marching back to the aft quarters, Jess reached out to grab a pressurized suit to
descend into the lower levels. She had already shoved one leg through before realizing what she was about to do.
“Use the suit now and that’s one less suit you can use come landing day,” she murmured.
Frustrated, she sank upon the bunk, the suit in her lap now, her fingers pinching at the cool fabric. A faint reflection of her face—fish
-eyed by the curvature of the helmet—caught her attention.
“Seven hours until you can suit up,” she murmured to herself. “Okay, get back to your list.”
She frowned at the next task on her list: determine how to safely land the Galleon with limited fuel. Of course, even if she could
siphon off a few kilos of fuel, the landing was going to be anything but safe.
Jessamyn soon lost herself checking Academy texts which explained how to calculate the optimal angle at which to enter Earth’s
kilometers-thick atmosphere. Enter at too shallow of an angle and you risked simply “bouncing” back out. Enter straight “down” and
your craft would come in so hot that no amount of forward thrust could slow you in time to land. Jessamyn preferred landings which
didn’t end in a flaming ball of fire.
Having determined her optimal angle of entry, she then examined Earth’s tilt and spin to see which continents would be closest as
she approached. She had several possible landing points—all in unpopulated wastelands—but decided upon a deserted position
in North America close to where it met the Pacific. This would get her planet-side more quickly than the other locations: she had the
limited oxygen to factor into her decision. Best to get off the ship as swiftly as possible. North America it would be, then.
Her destination chosen, Jessamyn then set out to determine how much fuel she would need for braking. While entry through Earth’s
dense atmosphere would provide much of the reduction in speed she required, it wouldn’t reduce her speed enough. She would still
come down too hot and too fast.
Early Terrans had solved the speed reduction problem with the use of parachutes. In fact, early Mars landings had also used the
parachute as the most efficient way to apply the brakes, since Mars, unlike Earth, didn’t have several kilometers of atmosphere to
create drag.
Well, the Galleon didn’t come equipped with parachutes, so that option wouldn’t work. Her head ached and her stomach growled.
Jessamyn couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.
A ration bar and a drink of water later, she felt better—physically anyway—and set herself back to calculating how much of her
braking would be done by Earth’s atmosphere and how much of it had to be accomplished using her forward thrusters.
Coming up with a number she didn’t like, she repeated her calculations. And repeated them again. And again.
Things did not look good. She knew how many kilos of fuel remained, but precise conditions on Earth would mean she might be off
by a bit in her estimation of fuel consumption. Not to mention a degree or two difference between the angle she planned to enter the
atmo and the angle she actually achieved meant there would always be a margin of error.
“Anyone want to place bets?” she demanded aloud. “Anyone?”
Shaking her head, she rose and crossed to the clean-stall. Her hair, kept from the influence of sunlight and Marsian peroxides, had
darkened slightly. It was still red, but a deeper shade than she remembered. The skin below her eyes was tinted with purple.
Jess startled. If she squinted just right, she could see where her First Wrinkle had arrived sometime in the past weeks aboard the
Galleon. She was an adult now. “Well,” she said to her reflection, “You’re probably going to asphyxiate or crash into a million pieces
very soon, but at least you look amazing.”
With two hours to go before she could suit up, Jessamyn began to worry that her ability to concentrate was fading. She checked the
ship’s oxygen levels—dangerously low—and grabbed one of the suits off the bunk. Sinking down where the suit had rested, she
looked into the share-mask. She found her new tiny wrinkle reflected upon the share-mask. She wondered if she should get up and
do something to stay awake.
And then she drifted to sleep.