Hohenheim stared in frustrated chagrin at the locked door. He'd been outwitted on his own ship. But it should not be a surprise, really. This sort of operation was Fitzgerald's specialty. Perhaps Hohenheim should not have delayed, but simply gone on ahead. Yes, Fitzgerald would have been in pursuit, but perhaps it would have worked out better. Enough recriminations. He would have to try to work his way around and intercept Fitzgerald, though it seemed unlikely he could catch up unless something slowed his former security chief down.
Still, there were many things that might happen. And his presence here did give him one advantage. That advantage, was that Hohenheim knew that the way in the other direction-which led toward Engineering-was passable. Or had just recently been, at least. If he could make it there, he could take the central corridor straight to the radials.
"Passable" was, of course, a relative term. It turned out that Fitzgerald and his party must have had to squirm past a number of obstacles, which now slowed Hohenheim's progress considerably. With every passing moment, he grew less optimistic about catching up with either Horst or Fitzgerald. Abruptly he emerged into the main engine room. Despite the damage done to the rest of the ship, this area looked deceptively intact. The armor, water, and other bunkerage around the reactors, as well as the angle from the explosion, had combined to protect it. Only the huge number of red telltales and alerts gave away how very little ofOdin was still functional. However, all the general cared about at this moment was the central corridor.
Engineering, of course, had a direct passageway straight to the central corridor, which he followed. But just as he opened the door, new alarms screamed through his mortally wounded ship, and the door resealed itself against a sudden decompression. Something had blown out the side of the main hull somewhere. He would have sat down heavily, had there been gravity, for he knew now it was hopeless. If Fitzgerald had followed the right path, and nothing had changed along the way, he would already be where the final survivors were. Perhaps Horst would have picked them up by then, or perhaps not; but whatever was passing there was now beyond the general's ability to influence.
Communications were essentially out on the ship. Given some time, especially here, Hohenheim might be able to cobble together a transceiver that worked, even in this part of Jupiter system. But for what purpose? "At least I will be comfortable," he said to himself.
Main engineering retained power from the main reactor. Storerooms nearby were still pressurized. Despite the damage, there were supplies here that could keep him alive for a long time-weeks, certainly; perhaps even months. That was another ironic taunt of the universe, given that he had only the relatively few hours remaining before… How had Mr. Buckley put it once, in a conversation at dinner on Ceres? Ah, yes: deceleration through lithobraking. That would be happening to him on Io very soon. It was hardly a terrible way to end things, though. There would be none of the lingering horror of radiation sickness, and he had done what he could to restore some of his own honor. A quick flash of light and no pain; there were many worse ways to die. Except… That didn't sit well with the general. He drifted over and looked at the consoles. Damage to the main thrust nozzle and its cooling systems. Self-sealing tanks prevented us from losing all the remaining reaction mass. There was minimal connectivity left even in the most basic health-maintenance systems, but the main engineering computers were able to produce a good estimate of conditions throughoutOdin. He shook his head dolefully. The situation was worsening by the minute. The spin, the imbalance-each time something broke, it weakened something else. It was quite possible the whole ship might come apart before they reached Io. Come apart… He suddenly had a dim memory of a long-ago conversation with Dr. Castillo, the chief engineer onOdin. It had been after he had first boarded the great vessel and Castillo had been giving him a final internal guided tour. What was it? "Severable sections," he said to himself slowly. TheOdin was made such that in emergencies some components could be separated from the others. The major concept had included being able to remove symmetrical sections of the hab ring in case one of them was damaged, causing imbalance. At the time, he had wondered what the point was, given that the probability of actual collision with a meteor was so low as to be not really worth considering. Now, of course, he understood that the designers had been thinking of… far more directed disasters. The ship's main contractor had been the European Space Development Company. From the very beginning, undoubtedly operating under the directions of the chief operations officer, Osterhoudt, the company's top engineers had seen to it that theOdin was far more of a warship than she appeared to be. And then, adding insult to injury, had hidden the fact from theOdin 's captain but given it to their hand-picked chief security officer. The most extreme variant of "severable" would remove the engineering and mass-beam drive-essentially the entire rear of the ship-from the rest, leaving the forward section of the main body and the hab ring drifting. That made perfect sense for a military vessel. Such a separation would concentrate power, leaving the concealed weaponry and drives operable and getting rid of any excess weight. True, maneuverability would be terrible, given the geometry.
But the ESDC's engineers hadn't really had any choice, if they were to keep the hidden design a secret. But inthis case, the problem of poor maneuverability was irrelevant, since Hohenheim couldn't possibly keep the ship intact anyway. The general initiated a search for the triggering systems. With his command overrides, it wasn't hard to find. He couldn't reach many of the hab-section controls, but for his purposes it didn't matter. He was going to use the extreme variant.
First things first. He checked his chronometer. Munin must long since have left for its rendezvous with destiny, and hopefully survival. It was possible that there were one or two other survivors on boardOdin, but Hohenheim had managed no contact. At this point, he had to assume that only the dead remained with him. And he had to hurry. Every passing hour brought him closer to Io and made any desperate attempt to evade that hellish globe that much less likely to succeed. The lateral thrusters… Some still operative. Enough, he hoped. He modeled the current movement of the ship on the main console, thanking whatever gods there were that modern interfaces did not require him to do the calculations. Then he ordered a precisely timed sequence of thrusts. Slowly, slowly, he began to feel a sense of turning that was separate from the ship's earlier axial spin. Odin was now spinning, more and more quickly, about her lengthwise center of mass as well as the axial. He could feel a faint pressure toward the wall in that direction, as theOdin now tumbled like a thrown bolo instead of a rifled bullet. It was an end-over-end spin that would normally signify disaster. But theOdin was doomed anyway, and there was a purpose for this tumbling. The tumbling sent Io spinning smoothly around the cameras' field of view. Once more he input the model, then incorporated the vectors of their approach to the moon. Taking a deep breath, waiting for the designated conditions… Hohenheim ordered,
"Separate." The concussion of separation would have knocked Hohenheim off his feet if he had not strapped in; as it was, his head slammed painfully into the back of his helmet. There were other distant sounds and vibrations that did not bode well for even the section ofOdin he had kept with him. But he did not care about that; what was important was whether his desperate maneuver had worked. Spinning on approach, when the two pieces separated they retained the same total momentum.
Their center of mass would remain in the same place, barring some form of acceleration placed on one component separate from the other. But the center of mass was merely a geometrical and physical construct, one that now occupied empty space. The shattered hab ring and most of the main body hurtled off in one direction, while the engine and drive section spun off in the opposite direction-away from the meeting with Io. By itself, that would not be enough; Hohenheim had known that before he started. But he needed all the help he could get; at least it started him edging away from direct central impact with the deadly moon, and drastically reduced the mass ofhis part of the ship.
Now… First the spin had to be brought back under control. The laterals left on this section would be driven past normal design limits, but-again-he didn't need to worry about long-term endurance.
No, his main worry was something else entirely, the major remaining question mark in this enterprise, one that might render everything he was doing futile. But it was better to die trying than not to try at all. Finally, Odin -what remained of her, rather-was no longer tumbling or spinning. She sat with her mass-drives pointed almost directly away from Io, the blunt-nosed engineering section almost facing toward the pockmarked moon. Almost, but not quite. And now, the moment of truth. For there really was no other choice. Mangled though the nozzle was, the NERVA-based drive was still operative. It might work for a second, or ten seconds, or longer. It might, possibly, have some failure mode that would blow the control room into shrapnel. But if it worked-even for just a few moments-it just might give him enough thrust to send them plunging around Io instead of into it, hurtling out into the Jupiter system, probably to never encounter another solid object again for years or even centuries. He would not get home. But the maneuver might give him the time he needed to report home, and to make his peace with family and friends left behind, before he died. He would die onhis terms. He checked the vectors one last time. The nozzle control systems were… shot. He would have to hope that the imbalance from the missing section of number four driver rib would not be too significant for the time the main drive fired. He offered a silent prayer. Let me not have entirely wasted my last few hours in this world. Then he activated the drive. For its last time, Odin came fully alive, the thunder of the NERVA rocket delivering a million pounds of thrust, shoving the now greatly lightened vessel forward.
Amber telltales lit, then shifted to red, and he could see the drive nozzle starting to come apart. He overrode automated shutdowns. Run until you can run no more, or until you reach the limit of reaction mass I have allotted. The power of the rocket vibrated through Hohenheim's bones, a defiant cry of the wounded ship against the approaching destroyer, and he brought his head up proudly. The great ship, the largest ever built by the human race, had done well. One last effort, one final task, andOdin could rest. The ship had been done a great disservice, but it would still give its best to save the last living human being aboard. And then, with a doomsday roar that echoed throughout the wrecked vessel, the main engine's nozzle blew entirely off.
Chapter 43 "The best hope we have is that someone figures out a way to come get us. And is willing to spend the hundreds of millions to do it," Joe said gloomily. "That bad?" Helen asked. "It's not good, that's for sure. We were cramped for equipment space, you know that.
Our lander has a little reactor on it, but nothing like what we'd need to run the drive. Jackie and I think we can rig it to provide us with power to live on, but that's about it. I can do some slow maneuvering if we have to with the few ion jets we've got, but those do use reaction mass and power, so we sure ain't going home on them. We can't deploy the sail, and we can't refuel the engine, and even if we could refill the reaction mass tanks, without the reactor we couldn'tuse it." "It's ironic," Helen said after a few silent moments on the bridge ofNebula Storm. "How so?" asked A.J. "Well, usually in the lost-in-space kind of stories, the real problem is either not knowing where you are, or running out of air or food or water. But we've got close to two years of all of that, if we manage to keep power going at all. And we know exactly where we are and where we want to go."
Jackie, Helen noticed, was still silent. She'd been waiting quietly at the console ever since Horst had been cut off by a burst of static that A.J. had localized to somewhere onboardOdin -a deliberate jamming transmission. That implied that Fitzgerald had caught up with them. No one knew what to say to Jackie. Knowing that Madeline Fathom saw Fitzgerald as someone dangerous, and knowing what Maddie was capable of, no one wanted to raise false hopes. The screen suddenly lit up with a transmission. "Nebula Storm, Nebula Storm, this isMunin.
Please answer." Jackie, of course, answered first. "Horst!
Is… are you all right?" The German's voice was solemn. "I am all right, and so is Anthony. We have six other members ofOdin 's crew on board. The general asked me to pass on his apologies to you all."
"General Hohenheim is alive?" "He was when we left. At his orders."
A.J. closed his eyes. "Oh, Jesus." "What about Fitzgerald?" Madeline asked. "The general stayed to deal with him, Madeline. There is no other way off the ship." Maddie nodded slowly. "I see. I hope… that you have considerable supplies on board?" "We have better than that." Anthony LaPointe's face was actually smiling, a startling contrast from the last few conversations. "I think that I have a way for us to all go home." "What?" Everyone, even Horst, seemed surprised. "Why did you not tell me, if that is true?" he asked. "Because until we were able to see whether our friends were still alive, there would have been no point. We will need both of our ships and talents." "All right," Larry said. "What's your idea?" "Our orbits, they are not terribly different. We can match with you, I think you will agree, by doing an Oberth around Io at the right time."
"If you put yourselves on the right non-collision course first… sure." "Do you still have any reaction mass on board?"
"Yes," Jackie answered. "In a pinch we've got actually quite a few tons of water to spare, too. So, what do we do?" "It will be risky."
Helen laughed. "Right now we're all marooned and likely to die really slowly in the end. Screw the risk. What are we going to do?" Anthony grinned. "We are all going to land on Europa, my friends." "Wait a minute," Jackie said. "Nebula Stormisn't equipped to land anywhere, and even if we were, we haven't got an engine to do the landing with."
"That is why you need us. We have the engine. Munin was designed to be a SSTO capable of reaching low Earth orbit. We will need to use about two kilometers per second total in shifting our orbit to match up with yours en route to Europa. If we refuel fromNebula Storm -'top off the tanks,' as they say-we will have more than enough to counter the remaining one or two KPS differential with respect to Europa and land.
Remember, Munin is more than half as big asNebula Storm." Jackie and Joe looked at each other. "That's going to take some tricky flying,"
Joe said finally. "And we'll have to make connections that'll take the strain. And… Jesus, I dunno. We sure can't do VTOL in this, and we haven't got landing gear. And keeping it balanced…" Maddie nodded. "It's going to be hellish. But it probably is our only chance.
Europa isn't like Io. It's frozen, but a lot of water ice-which we can use for fuel-relatively smooth, and no volcanoes or other immediate threats. If wecan set down and live through it, we can fixNebula Storm , right?" Jackie frowned. "Probably. And we'll have theMunin for a reactor, too, if it turns out that we can't get ours running again-which we may not." "And once you are running again," Horst said,
"your Nebula Drive can be used-with the right kind of sailing-to get us heading home, yes?" "Yes, indeed," said A.J., sliding an arm around Helen's waist and hugging her in relief. "Yes, we can." "Then let's start designing," Jackie said. "Is Mia there?" "Yes, she is one of the survivors." "Good. Because we're all going to have to work on this, and when we finally match up, we'll only have a few hours to figure out how to lock our ships together well enough to take the stress of landing. At least it's not in an Earth gravity well, but it's still going to be a hell of a ride… and a lot of stress on any link we make." She started bringing up the plans of theNebula Storm and prepping them to send toMunin. Helen took A.J.'s hand and pulled him up. He looked startled. "What? I have to-" "Get some rest, that's what you need to do. They won't need your super-sensor skills for the planning. They'll need them when we get to the installation and when we do the landing. So we're going to go get food for everyone, have a dinner, try to relax, and then get some sleep." "An excellent idea,"
Madeline confirmed. "I will be doing the same thing in a little while.
Because I think I'm going to end up the pilot on our side." "And aside from a few calculations, we won't be needed until docking, either, Tony," Larry pointed out. "Sorry, guys, but you engineers work out the details. We'll be getting up in time to do the work." "And try,"
Madeline confirmed, "to get some rest yourselves, if you can. We will probablyall want to be wide awake when we get to the landing." "Yes," agreed Horst. "We will be busier than you, though. First we have to make burn to pass Io-which will be in a few minutes-and then Oberth as we reach it." "Good luck on that, then." Helen waved at the screen.
Then the two of them made their way to the galley. "You don't even sound scared," A.J. said. She turned and pressed into him. "I'm terrified, A.J. But there's nothing a xenopaleobiologist-whatever I am-can do. If anyone can get us out of this, it's the people on this ship. And then I just have to not make you, or anyone else, worry.
It's bad enough-I don't need to make it worse." His hands held her tightly. One moved up and stroked her hair. "I won't let you die." "I hope not. I married you for the miracles." He laughed softly and hugged her even tighter. Finally she let go and turned. "Now, let's get out the Joe Dinners. If thisdoes have a chance to be my last meal, it'll damn well be a good one."
Chapter 44 Eventually, Fitzgerald thought to check the time. Then he checked his radiation meter. He'd died fifteen or twenty minutes earlier. Perhaps half a hour, depending on his body's resistance to radiation. But whatever the specific moment it had happened, his life had ended. Even if, by some miracle, a spacecraft arrived to rescue him now-it would have to be theMunin, perhaps because Eberhart had been overcome by unlikely mercy-it wouldn't matter in the least. No doctor, no hospital, not even on Earth, could have saved him after this much radiation poisoning. But dignity mattered. It always mattered. Richard Fitzgerald had been slain by Jupiter himself, had he not? No one since the time of Homer could make that claim. He stopped gazing upon his murderer and looked ahead, toward Io. The huge moon was clearly visible now, clothed in its bright and fatal colors. So, as it turned out, there was still one last hope left. Perhaps Richard could last long enough to die on one of the solar system's true hell planets, after being struck down by the lord of the gods. Wouldn't that be something to boast about, if there turned out to be an afterlife? Richard didn't think there was, but… you never knew.
It was not to be. When he felt the first twinges of nausea, some time later, he reached to his belt and took out a gun. It looked like one of Vanna's, so he made sure it unlocked to his key code. Dignity mattered. It always mattered. Richard Fitzgerald was not going to go out suffocating on his own vomit in a spacesuit. He took one last look at Jupiter and fixed his eyes on Io. The moon was close enough now to see the details of its surface-which consisted mostly of volcanoes, it seemed. He pressed the gun to his faceplate, centering the barrel between his eyes as best he could. Then, looking straight onto the face of hell, pulled the trigger.
Chapter 45 Blotched, pockmarked, scarred with orange-yellow blotches, Io's hostile surface streamed byMunin a scant hundred kilometers below. Bombarded by radiation so intense that it would be almost instantly lethal without shielding, shrouded in a sulfurous atmosphere just barely thicker than vacuum, with a surface constantly reshaped by stupendous eruptions of molten rock, the tortured moon's leprous face wrung an involuntary shudder from Horst. In a short time, Odin would meet its end-out of sight ofMunin, as the lander would at that time be making its own Oberth Maneuver near the other side of Io.
The orbital adjustmentMunin had made to avoid hitting Io had sent her ahead of the doomed E.U. ship, passing some other debris along the way. "We are on course, Andy?" "All is ready. You just keep on with your design work." Horst studied the designs that he, Jackie, Mia, and Joe were working on. The fundamental challenges were really twofold.
First, fastening the two vessels together so that the power of theMunin 's rockets could be applied to both vessels. Second, determining where theMunin andNebula Storm could be fastened together that wouldn't cause the thrust from the rockets to be applied off-center, thus turning what should be straight thrust into a spin.
"The positive side is that we don't have to do most of it fast," Joe had pointed out. "We don't have to build these links to hold under ten Gs or anything." Mia shook her head. "There will be maneuvers that may well have significant peaks. Not ten gravities, but more than one."
There were some points suitable for anchoring at least part ofMunin onNebula Storm. The most obvious were the attachment points that were originally used to suspendNebula Storm in Ceres' gravity. Those had been heavily overengineered, and Joe was confident that they could take just about any strain that was likely to be encountered. Horst thought Joe was probably right. The obvious orientation to anchor the two vessels was one that placed their airlocks in as close proximity as possible. A couple of the tiedown locations were close, and if they could put a connecting tube between the vessels, they could use the internal supports ofNebula Storm as an anchor to the front landing gear ofMunin. Jackie had come up with the best way to adjust the center of mass: extending two of the four habitat sections onNebula Storm, the two which would be on either side ofMunin when locked down, and putting as much heavy stuff-including water-in them as necessary to mostly balance the center of mass. The main rockets ofMunin had some slight ability to deflect and adjust their angle of thrust, which would-they hoped-make up for minor deficiencies. To minimize vibration and movement during thrust, Mia wanted to use several tons of water. Freezing in place at the interface betweenMunin andNebula Storm, the ice would probably help. How long it would last no one could tell, but they didn't have many alternatives. The real sticky point was exactly how to manage the connections and the landing itself. "I do not see how we can pull off this landing," Horst said finally. "Muninis designed to land. Nebula Storm is not, and together-especially in the configuration we will need to maneuver in-I cannot imagine even Miss Fathom bringing us down uninjured." Static crackled in his ear before Jackie answered. Even with the best selection of frequencies and top-notch signal enhancement, the storm of electromagnetic noise around Io made conversation difficult."Yeah.
I've got a possible fix for that, but then we can't do the welding we were talking about. We need to separate the ships just a few minutes before we come down." "Jackie, if we are separated, you are falling.
We can land, yes, but what about you?" "Look, what we do is run a cable from your reactor to our engines. I get the accumulators partly charged, we'll have enough power to do another burn or two. Not big ones, but if we're slow enough-down at the hundred-meter-per-second range or so-thenNebula Stormwill be able to land itself, if I retract the hab sections. It won't be pretty, and we'll probably get bumped around, but it's livable." "Yeah, that'd work!" Joe said. His enthusiasm dropped. "But thatreally throws a wrench in the works.
First, we can't tie ourselves together through the airlock link-we don't want the airlock open. And… If we don't weld everything together…" "Cables," Horst said suddenly as he finally found what he'd been looking for in theMunin 's extensive onboard manifest. "For exploring parts of Enceladus, or wherever we ended up going, as you had to on Mars. We had exploration vehicles with very strong cable to hold and lower large loads very long distances. These are combined metal-composite-carbonan cables, Jackie. If we use several of them at each connection point…?" "Give me the specs." There was silence as she ran her models. "That… should work. How do we detach, though?" "Blow the cables," Joe answered promptly. "Have Maddie make appropriate demo charges. It's one of her specialties, remember. And we could rig something-a big cable, a rocket, whatever-to heat the connecting area where the ice is, weaken it so we can break free."
Horst chuckled briefly. "This is going to be the most… what is that name-Goldberg? Yes, Rube Goldberg-inspired operation I have ever imagined. Are you sure that we do not need to trigger it all with a hamster on a wheel?" "I dunno,"Jackie said."Do you have a hamster on board?" "Let me check the medical supplies…" She laughed."Oh, I needed that. Actually, the cables are a better idea if you guys can prepare most of that ahead of time. Welding in vacuum is a pain, and we will only have a few hours to get all this done." A roar of power thundered throughMunin and shoved Horst down in his seat. "We are doing our Oberth now." A few moments later the rocket went silent.
"Anthony?" "One moment… Yes, everything is good. We are catching up withNebula Storm. In a few hours we will have to match up. Then we will have to work like demons." Horst signaled Jackie to shift frequencies. "Jackie… at least I will see you before-" "-before we might end up killing ourselves in this crazy stunt. Yeah. I'm glad."Her static-fuzzed image still was clear enough for him to see a hint of tears in her eyes."But let's live through this, okay?" "I would much prefer that." He unstrapped and stood. "Now, I am sorry, but we all have to go and get the materials ready." "Yeah, I'm going to have to get everyone up soon to start prepping on our end.
Especially A.J., since he's going to have to run our Locusts. They'll be invaluable for doing the outside work, even if the rest of us all do have suits." "Then I say good-bye for now." "See you soon!"She gave him a gleaming smile, and then disappeared. Horst turned to Anthony, Mia, and the others. "Okay, you can stop grinning at me. We have work to do." Anthony shook his head. "The things a man will do to get a date." "They're both engineers," said Mia. "What do you expect?"
Io loomed before Hohenheim, now. It was no longer a disc but a monstrous wall, a wall of pustulant yellow touched with oranges and greens and whites, toward whichOdin hurtled unstoppably. The general recalled that some had compared the surface of the Jovian moon-often imaged with a brighter orange shade-to that of a pizza. But the hideous surface before and belowOdin looked more like decaying flesh, the peeling face of a horror-show zombie with a death-rictus grin and the stench of the grave. Uncertainty precludes answer. The simple phrase on the screen showed why he was staring as though enraptured.
The combination of the damage done to the ship-the change in mass, in geometry, the failure of the nozzle which had not been performing per normal specifications, all of that and more-meant that there was still some element of uncertainty in the precise path ofOdin around Io.
Around Io-or into it. This was of course made worse byOdin 's need for radiation shielding. Hohenheim had not dared tamper with those settings, and so wherever the system could maintain a shield, there one remained. But as Castillo had told him long ago, that meant there would be some small, and in this case unpredictable, forces exerted by the mighty magnetic and radiation fields of Jupiter on his smaller but concentrated shielding. And so Io grew, and grew, and was not even a planet with a curve easy to identify. He could see individual mountains now, one belching a cloud of yellow-black that, it seemed, would nearly reachOdin 's current altitude. I should turn away. There is no need to see. But instead he stood. The surface of the moon was approaching rapidly. Coagulated sulfur and craggy, savage mountains seemed to cover everything. What would happen, would happen soon, and he would face it head-on. Odinscreamed silently out of the black sky of the Jovian system, as though riding eight-legged Sleipnir down upon some inconceivably monstrous Jotun-or, no, a fire giant, great Surt himself. The drive-spines, three remaining, traveled beforeOdin like a three-pointed spear: Gugnir as a pitchfork. Ahead, Hohenheim saw a great ridge of mountains, higher than Everest, looming before his ship. He braced himself. There, in all likelihood, was his tombstone.
One mountain in particular, a vapor-belching cone, lay directly inOdin 's path. Hohenheim could not keep from sucking in his breath asOdin bore down on it at literally meteoric speeds. There was a sharp, shudderingsnap that echoed high and low. Hohenheim was swept off the floor even with his boots and the grip he had had on his chair. He smashed into the ceiling, around and around, tumbling… Tumbling?
He should have vaporized on impact! Even as that thought came to him, the spin began to reduce, the remaining laterals fighting the tumble.
He glimpsed, weaving drunkenly by in the screen, the great ridge of mountains, receding now, the surface dropping away below him.
Projected path clearblinked on the screen in front of the main engineering console. Hohenheim felt a great burst of relief, and wonder, and, yes, triumph. Whatever else, he would die on his own terms. And he would now have plenty of time to prepare those terms.
Chapter 46 Madeline strapped herself into the control seat. "Are all connections secure?" "As secure as we can make 'em,"A.J. answered her."Got Faerie Dust all over them to give me warnings if anything happens." Not that this would do me much good, Maddie thought but did not say. After all, once they committed to the landing, there would be really no chance to change their minds. If things started to come apart, they'd just have to do the best they could… which would probably be not enough, and they'd all die. But trying was a lot better than just waiting until something ran out. "Jackie, are the accumulators charged?" "Off the topic, do you realize how old-fashioned that name sounds? Accumulators, that is? Used to read it in like 1940s SF,"A.J. said. "Shut up, A.J. Yes, Maddie, they're charged. Not nearly fully, but with our limited reaction mass, more than enough." "Disconnect power-cable connection, then, and seal the airlocks. A.J., all disconnect charges placed?" "Placed. They're under your control and codes. No one else can trigger them." "Good.
Network?" Horst answered."You have control of our rocket until disconnect, Madeline. The telemetry is triple-redundant to make sure we don't glitch during landing." "Balance?" "Got tons and tons of mass stuffed into the extended hab areas. We've modeled both ships, and the center of mass for acceleration is now pretty close. We can use the automated system onNebula Stormto do some minor adjustments, and the main rockets onMuninhave enough thrust-deflection capability." "What about our hull?" A.J. shook his head."Don't worry about it. The part of our hull that might get hit by the rocket wash is all Vault alloy.
Sure, keep the rocket on it long enough and we'd probably damage something, but we're not firing it that long." Maddie nodded. "Munin, are your reaction mass tanks fully loaded?" "Yes. Glad that where we are going there is a lot of ice, because otherwise we would all be very short of water when this is done." "Good. Everyone strapped in?"
The others reported in. "Mia, I want you and Jackie to keep a really close eye on everything. We can't afford glitches." "Understood. We are watching." Madeline rubbed her eyes and took several deep breaths before putting her helmet on. This being a critical maneuver, she'd also taken a stimulant. She simply hadn't had enough sleep, and this was not the time to have slowed reflexes. There were only two good aspects to the situation. One, obviously, was the low gravity of Europa, less than one seventh of Earth's, which meant a gravity well of just slightly over two kilometers per second-withinMunin 's capacity to handle even with the added mass ofNebula Storm. That was critical, because not only did they need to land, they neededMunin to be able to lift them off of Europa eventually, because the nebula drive wasn't capable of lifting off from anything larger than a smallish asteroid. The second good thing was that Europa had no atmosphere to speak of. This jury-rigged double ship had the aerodynamics of a falling bridge, and were there any atmosphere-even one as thin as Mars'-the pressure variations during reentry would probably rip them apart. Aside from the gravity well itself, she'd be able to treat the maneuvers as being the same as in deep space. That gave them a chance. Not a great one… but I'd better make it good enough, she thought. "All right, everyone. We are almost there."
Europa now loomed before them, eclipsing even Jupiter in size as the combinedMunin/Nebula Storm overtook it in its orbit at a differential of less than a kilometer per second. Smallest of the Galilean moons, it was still immense, half again as wide as Luna, far more massive, far more complex. From their current altitude, it looked as smooth and polished as a billiard ball, an ivory cueball with multiple browned lines like cracks from age covering its surface. Somewhere below that surface, Maddie knew-depending on the scientist you asked, anywhere between two and fifty kilometers below-there was a dark ocean that covered the entire moon to a depth ten times greater than the deepest parts of Earth's ocean. The smoothness was deceptive. Europa might be the smoothest object in the solar system, but there were still plenty of ridges, blocks, edges, hills, and chasms, and they had only minimal control over their landing site. In the few hours they had, A.J. and Larry had gone over the available imagery and what they could make out with the onboard instruments and picked their best guess as to a landing trajectory that might offer decent landing topography… but it was still a crapshoot. "About to begin maneuvers. I'm going to ask everyone to either cut out radios or stay quiet unless they have something I need to hear. This is going to take all my concentration, and I don't need even a gasp, a curse, or a prayer distracting me." "Understood,"A.J. acknowledged. She saw some people drop out of the network-mostly the formerOdin crewmembers that she hadn't had time to get to know yet, and who weren't engineers involved in this maneuver. Helen and Larry also dropped out. Larry had done all he could, and Helen was not going to be able to do anything more, either, now that the gruntwork of putting the whole contraption together was over. "Here goes…" Munin's rockets coughed and then began a low, rumbling roar at minimal power. She wanted-needed-to get a feel for the clumsy dual ship before she kicked in full power. It was sluggish… wobbly… still some imbalance… but there, A.J. and Horst's programming was kicking in, automatic compensation based on the accelerometers all over the ships. The departure from projected optimal course was minimal. "Working so far. Full de-orbit burn coming up in three, two, one…" Now the rockets gave vent to full-bore thunder, sending a shudder of vibrations throughoutNebula Storm."Ice seal under stress… holding, but I'm seeing cracks starting to build. Think it will hold, but be ready," A.J. said quietly. "Cables?" "All well within limits. No shifting yet. The torque on the hab section connecting tubes and supports is getting awfully near their design limits, but doesn't seem to be increasing any more." "Burn almost done… in five, four, three…" Just as theMunin ceased its rumbling, there was a reverberatingcrunch. "What was that?" "Ice seal shifted and broke. We're only held together with the string and duct tape now. On the positive side, we don't need to worry about making sure that part breaks when it comes to the time to separate." "Any advice?" Horst answered."When we do the other burn for landing preparation, begin very slowly, as before, then taper slowly.
This will let any slack be taken up and stress the cables least.
Backing down slowly will let the strain off the cables evenly-I hope-so there will be no great shifts." "I understand." She leaned back. "It will be a while before we come to the landing decision.
Larry, A.J., I want you to keep watch ahead of us and refine our landing site as much as possible. As we know from our little landing inJohn Carter, you don't have to hit at kilometers per second to ruin your day." "We're on it. Take it easy for now." She reached out and took Joe's hand. Even though the contact was just glove-to-glove, it felt good. "You okay?" he asked privately. "Scared to death. I practiced alot after that crash, and Bruce said I was getting pretty good, but I'm not half as good as he is, and I think he'd find this a hell of a challenge." "You're my Supergirl. You'll do it." She giggled. "Yeah, I'll just fly out and catch us if something goes wrong." "I almost believe you could." He smiled at her fondly. "I'd try, anyway." "Maddie, all that matters is we're doing our best. And if anyone can get us down safe and sound, it's going to be you." Once more his words made all the difference. She stopped worrying. If the worst happened, it happened.
Chapter 47 It was no longer a moon. Europa wasdown, now; a planet of ice, of jumbled ridges, occasional craters, scattered blocks the size ofOdin stuck in the center of smooth, featureless frozen white, all rolling by underneath them at a tremendous speed. "Without atmosphere, we're having to kill our speed directly. According to Larry and A.J., we will be landing near the area called the Conamara Chaos. There's no good way to predict smooth landing spots, if any, so we just have to wing it. Everyone make sure they are securely strapped in." She did not allow her voice to betray any uncertainty. Her review of the Conamara region didn't encourage her; "chaos" was a good description of the area, but outside of it wasn't much better. On a planetary scale, Europa was smooth; on a human scale, it was some of the most rugged-looking terrain she'd ever had to look at. Plenty of areas of Mars were smoother to land on. But… there were a few possibilities. If she could just get lined up right. "Combined landing burn coming up." The rocket came on again at minimal power, slowly building to maximum. Scraping noises and vibrations echoed through both ships as, despite the cables, the two shifted slightly with respect to each other. Horst and A.J.'s balancing application was strained to its limit, and Maddie could feel the combined ship moving toward some catastrophic adjustment that would send them spinning out of control. Instinctively she eased off on the thrust, watching the projections of time and velocity. She had to get their relative velocity with respect to Europa's surface down to less than a hundred meters per second. Five hundred meters per second, and descending.
Altitude ten thousand meters. Four hundred meters per second.
Something moved slightly, and the entire mass of strung-together high technology seemed to wobble in the sky before a combination of programmed adjustments and Maddie's gut-level instinct managed to damp it down. Three hundred meters per second, and they were below five thousand meters altitude. Ridges and many-meter-high scarps loomed below them, ice frozen metal-hard in vacuum at a temperature of one hundred sixty degrees below zero-more than two hundred and fifty below, in Fahrenheit. Two hundred meters per second and they were lower than she liked, but she had to take her time; A.J. and Horst both indicated silently, in messages on her VRD, that the cable links would shift if she went to full power again-shift and perhaps let go.
One hundred fifty. Forty… thirty… twenty… One hundred ten… "One hundred meters per second relative. Munin, we are detaching from you. Horst, are you ready?" "Ready to take controls.
Good luck." "Separation in five, four, three…" Multiple demolition charges-specifically designed for vacuum use here in the outer system-detonated on cue, severing the cables at precisely selected locations. Munin peeled away fromNebula Storm with a very small burn from its lateral thrusters. "Muninaway. Retracting hab sections." The overloaded sections would slightly unbalanceNebula Storm, but she could use that to keep them oriented in what amounted to a "right side up" attitude when she did the braking burn. The automated balance application was adjusted to deal with the current situation; she could see A.J. watching it like a hawk. "Altitude is about a thousand meters. Hold on, everyone. One way or another, we're almost done." She cut off outside imagery for everyone but herself. No one else needed to see this, and right now it was not even vaguely comforting. A shattered chaos of icebergs hundreds of meters high, small but sharp-edged ridges running for kilometers, not a single smooth area larger than a football field in… Wait. What was that? She concentrated the imaging systems in that direction.
Alongside that long, wider ridged valley… parallel to it, a wide, smooth area. And it might… barely… be in range. She let a lateral jet bias them in that direction, saving the main engine's accumulators for the very end. The ground rose up… closer… closer… She couldn't restrain an intake of breath as the peak of a great block of ice passedabove her. Above her and to the side, no more than sixty meters away. The terrain below her now was jagged, fangs of ice reaching for the ship. She had to clear them, but they were coming up to meetNebula Storm. The vague dark patch of smoothness was barely visible at this angle, but approaching.
But she wouldn't make it. Unless… Another lateral burst, tilting them up. She fired a short, sharp pulse from the main engines, then fired the laterals to bring them back into the proper alignment. There was a faint jolt, but she maintained control, seeing that the very tail ofNebula Storm had clipped the top off one of the blocks of ice.
But the ice was still rough below them, still clawing up-and then suddenly she saw darker ice, still no skating rink but not a mass of frozen teeth. She cut in the main engines. The accumulators dumped their hoarded power into the reaction mass, sent it roaring out the NERVA nozzle at many, many kilometers per second, making every gram of mass work to slowNebula Storm. Fifty… forty meters per second… Altitude eighteen meters… The rocket died off, power exhausted, with speed at five meters per second, altitude seven meters. A second or so later, Nebula Storm landed on Europa.
Muninwas trailingNebula Storm, a considered choice based on wanting both vessels close together on Europa and knowing thatNebula Storm had neither the maneuverability nor design to control its landing. Horst and the others watched, almost holding their breaths.
"Almost down…" Horst breathed. Only a tiny bit more, and the ship would be down and still, as perfect a landing as could be imagined with such a vessel. And then theNebula Storm 's rocket died. Five meters per second sounded so slow-barely a brisk jog, nothing compared to the meteoric speeds the ship had possessed but a few days before. A man on Earth could easily have outrun it now. But theNebula Storm massed nearly a thousand tons. This was no aircraft, but a solid mass the size of a patrol ship, a small runaway train. A plume of white dust and tumbling shards blasted from beneath the careening spaceship as theBemmius -made hull carved a remorseless path through the ice of Europa. Ponderously, majestically, the great ship bounced, rear end coming up, front down to score another massive dashed line in the face of the Jovian moon, then rear end down again, both down, sliding, ripping through ice like the blade of a titanic ice-skate. TheNebula Storm skidded, turning slowly from end-on to broadside. One of the habitat extensions caught suddenly on a projecting ridge, crumpled, and tore free. The ship rolled slightly, trapping the connecting tube underneath its mass, shredding the composite and steel, steam erupting as the water inside boiled outward in vacuum, shrouding the careening vessel in white fog. To his horror, Horst saw, casting knife-edged shadows across the ice, a forty-meter ridge cutting across the relatively smooth ice like a wall, dead ahead of the out-of-control Ares-IRI vessel. He pointed, wordlessly. "I see it. But theNebula Storm, she is slowing…" It takes immense force to stop a thousand mobile tons, and with only Europa's feeble gravity to provide the pressure, theNebula Storm would not stop quickly. But stop it would, in the end, and already the five meters per second had become three and a half, three, cutting an interrupted gouge nearly a hundred meters wide across Europa in a stupendous fountain of crystalline white. Even as Horst began bringingMunin in for a landing, he could barely tear his eyes from the ponderous, deceptive grace of theNebula Storm 's slow-motion crash. He could hear someone praying in the background. "Stop, stop, God, please stop…" Two and a half meters per second now, dropping, just a brisk walk-but there was no more room. Broadside on, theNebula Storm smashed irresistibly into the immovable bulwark of steel-hard ice, sending a blast of steam, ice dust, and boulders of crystalline water spurting into the black sky of Europa. The cloud settled, unnaturally fast with no atmosphere to keep the dust suspended, and all was still. For a few seconds, no one said anything as Horst gave his full attention to bringingMunin to ground as close as possible to the crashedNebula Storm. Only when he felt the huge lander settle with crushing solidity onto the ice did he speak. "Nebula Storm! Jackie, Helen, A.J.-are you all right?" For a moment there was no answer, and he thought his heart might just stop.
But then the voice of Madeline Fathom answered, as calm and collected as though she were sitting back on Earth." Munin, this isNebula Storm.
That probably looked worse than it was. We got a bit shaken up, but we are all fine. Joe's got a slight bruise on his forehead and Jackie got whacked across the shin by something that got loose in that last jolt, but her suit kept that from being anything serious. No leaks, all major systems still operating, and the hab unit we lost had the stuff in it we could most afford to lose. You can see that one of the others extended a little on impact, just over the top of this ridge, and it's twisted some, but Jackie doesn't think it's beyond repair."Her image appeared on the screen, and they could all see the entire crew ofNebula Storm behind her."It's a good landing, because we're all going to walk away from it. And one day, we'll all be walking back into this ship and going home." "Speaking of walking away…,"A.J. said. "Yes. No better time, I think; we'll all have plenty of work to do, and until we get this over with, we can't really get to it.
Horst?" He took a deep breath. "Give me a minute." "Hold on!"Maddie's voice cut across all frequencies."A.J., Horst, I appreciate the quick spirit of cooperation, and that you want to dosomething after all this tension. But is getting killed your main priority?" "Getting…?
Oops." "Oops, indeed." Horst almost smacked the side of his head.
"Sorry, sorry. Radiation again." "Radiation. Yes, we're at less than a thousand rem per day here at the surface of Europa, and so stepping out for a few minutes won't really hurt anyone. Except that we may be here a long time. We cannot affordanyavoidable exposure. Jackie?"
"Give me a minute… All systems show good. I think we can do it."
A faint shimmer appeared nearNebula Storm. Horst looked atMunin 's instruments and could detect the expansion of the magnetic field which guided gas and nanodust up and over them. Gravity and the immense magnetic pressure of Jupiter would keep the size of the dusty-plasma field severely constrained, but it would still spread kilometers across and protect both ships and the space around them from the invisible, deadly radiation. They'd have to run a cable fromMunin to keep it running, with theNebula Storm 's reactor down. But Jackie said that they should be able to keep it running for long enough. Whatever radiation still got through the field should be survivable. A few moments later, he stepped out onto the boarding ramp ofMunin, which rested on the white-dusted ice a short distance fromNebula Storm.
Across from him he could see two figures, side by side on the ladder extending fromNebula Storm 's airlock. His VRD showed Jackie's smiling face and Larry Conley's easy grin next to the appropriate suit.
"Ready?" "Ready!" Horst began, and the others joined in. "By the authority vested in us as representatives of the European Union-" "-of the Ares Project-" "-of the Interplanetary Research Institute-" Three boots extended and touched, as one, on the surface of Europa, twin dim shadows cast by mighty Jupiter and distant Sol coming together on the contact. "-as the first human beings to set foot upon Europa, we claim all rights, privileges, and responsibilities pertaining therunto for us, our heirs, and assigns, and for the human race as set forth in the laws to which all of us are bound."
For a few moments they stood quietly, gazing up at the brown-streaked immensity of Jupiter in the star-filled sky and the distant, blazing near-point of light that was the Sun. Horst felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the cryogenic temperatures around him. Only now did he truly grasp it: he was standing on the surface of a new world, the first (along with the two others) to ever do so. Then Madeline Fathom's voice broke into their reverie."Good work, and thank you, everyone. Whether anything worth discovering comes from Europa or not, this is the spirit of cooperation we want them to hear about back home." Her face appeared in everyone's view."And now, let's all get to work-because we're going home, every one of us!"