chapter 33
CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH
Just minutes after she’d sunk into low-oxygen-induced sleep, a loud noise blared from the ship’s system.
Not the Cratercoustics, Jessamyn decided as she sat up.
But it was a noise she recognized. Something she’d been trained to respond to since her earliest school years. Without thinking,
she smashed the share mask over her nose and mouth and pulled the suit’s cylinder pin. Oxygen began flowing and Jess realized
she had a massive headache.
Which the siren wasn’t helping. The warning from the Red Galleon that oxygen levels had tapered below human tolerances was
designed to be attention-grabbing as well as (apparently) loud enough to wake the dead.
“I get it, I get it!” she moaned.
Jess struggled into Cavanaugh’s suit, challenging because her limbs felt uncooperative. She sat, simply breathing, for a full minute
before she stood to address the irritating noise.
As Jess shuffled to the bridge, ship’s wafers upon multiple surfaces flashed the deadly warning, instructing her to seek emergency
oxygen immediately.
It took her several agonizing minutes to pass herself off as the ship’s commanding officer and first officer in order to turn the alarm
off.
Only now, as she turned into the rations room, did she realize she’d missed the opportunity to dine one last time upon regular ration
bars prior to suiting up. Sighing, she reached into a cupboard from which she collected one of the squashy packets that combined
wet and dry ration into a single … slimy concoction.
When she’d been younger she’d begged her granddad for one of the special interplanetary pilot’s emergency rations. He’d mussed
her hair and muttered, “Be careful what you wish for, Jessie.” He’d also refused her request. As she slurped the concoction down,
Jess realized he’d done her a favor.
“Vile,” she mumbled to the empty ship.
Her vile morning rations consumed, Jessamyn made her way down to the ship’s belly, eager to investigate the escape pods in
search of fuel. The pods rested upon their emergency hatch exits. She tapped the wafer embedded on the outer wall of one small
craft. It informed her that the pod was functioning nominally and held a full reserve of rocket fuel.
She smiled. “Brilliant, Pilot Jaarda,” she said aloud. “Brilliant!”
Brilliance aside, she wasn’t sure how to pull fuel from the pods. She spent a frustrating two hours skimming wafer manuals. The
portion of the guide devoted to fueling the pods from the ship was painstakingly detailed. It called to mind the launch and landing
checklists compiled for her by MCC, which in turn reminded her that creating her own entry, descent, and landing checklist would be
wise. At last, she landed upon a discussion of the procedure in question and began to move fuel into the Galleon’s tanks.
After the first transfer, she journeyed up to the bridge, hopeful that the fuel transfer had rid her of the “insufficient fuel” warning.
It hadn’t.
And the activity of stairs made oxygen rush to her helmet. “Just great,” she said, closing her eyes tight and slowing her breathing. “It’
s not like I really need the suit to last a full day or anything.” She left the bridge vowing to move at a more sedate pace and to stay
below-decks until all the transfers were complete.
When she came to empty the fifth pod, she paused. If she had to actually use the pod in an emergency, it would be easier to
maneuver with working thrust rockets. Cursing Cavanaugh and his fuel-wasting tellurium, she scowled at the final pod, hands on her
hips.
And then she shook her head and addressed the Red Galleon. “If I can’t land you safely, my beauty, what’s the point?” She gave the
orders to evacuate fuel from the final pod.
Making her way back to the bridge, Jess was frustrated to see no change to the “insufficient fuel” message. A chill ran along her
spine. Perhaps she shouldn’t have pulled fuel from the final pod. She thought about it for a long hard minute but decided in the end
that she’d made a choice she could live with. Not giving the Galleon every possible chance? That was something she couldn’t live
with.
She searched the ship’s database for the entry, descent, and landing plan she’d used on her first trip to Earth. She had nowhere
near enough fuel to follow those protocols, but she planned out a few variations to a conventional landing that might just get her and
her ship down safely.
She’d just completed her EDL list when the Galleon’s “low oxygen” warnings began to blare once more. This time hacking in as the
ship’s commander didn’t seem to help. Frustrated and tired, Jessamyn tried the dubious course of reasoning aloud with her ship.
“Yes, my beauty, I understand that you are worried about the air quality right now,” she said. “But see? I’m wearing a suit. I’m good.
Really.”
In what struck Jessamyn as either remarkably friendly on the Galleon’s part or else very eerie indeed, the alarm abruptly ceased.
She waited for several minutes to see if it was really done, and decided, eyes drooping, that she could risk going to bed.
The next morning, Jessamyn woke early and simply lay curled in her sleep nest in Ethan’s room. Breathing in the oxygen-rich air of
the suit, she realized she ought to make provision for making certain she would always awaken before and not after each suit’s
oxygen supply ran out. A few scheduled alarms later, she made her first transfer suit-to-suit. She could use her old suit’s emergency
share-mask to maintain a steady flow of clean oxygen. However, the procedure seemed clumsy and she decided to simply take off
her helmet and suit, risking a minute without oxygen.
The stench of putrefying organisms was overpowering.
Next time she’d use the share mask.
Three more days passed with three more suit transfers. Smith turned out to have narrower shoulders than Jessamyn and wearing
her suit made Jess feel as if someone were squeezing her shoulders all day.
Another day and another suit and at last it was day sixty-five—her touchdown day. Her EDL was ready. The blue planet hurtled
toward her at a terrifying speed. Would the Galleon deliver her safely or become her coffin? A shiver ran through her. Then she threw
her shoulders back and made her way to the ship’s helm.
Somewhere upon that planet traced with green and gold, blue and white, her brother sheltered with Pavel.
“Come on, then,” she shouted. “I’m here and I’m coming in fast!”