131: BOARD

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It’s been a long time since I’ve worn a space suit, and nothing good ever happens when I put one on. So it’s with some trepidation that I fire up the electronics and start the suit systems check.

Around me, the rest of the suited but not yet helmeted ground team are running their own checks, while Denish and Asteria run yet another version of final checks on our descent pod. All cargo is rechecked and the clamps and ties holding it secure is double-checked by both of them. Fuel reserves are checked, emergency impulse engines tested, parachute system checked and rechecked, as is the secondary emergency parachute system. Everyone is tired of losing crewmates and nobody is taking any unnecessary chances with our lives whatsoever.

“You have twenty four hours of emergency air without the recycler, plus the emergency tent and recycler,” Denish assures us, “so do not panic if you land off-target. We are adding extra suit and canvas repair kits as well as the kit already in the shuttle. You all know how to run the emergency air and water recyclers?”

We confirm that, yes, we all remember our many-times-repeated drills on setting up the emergency air and water recyclers.

“We will have radio contact with you and with the Hylaran base. You have an emergency portable radio system also, in case the one on the pod breaks in the descent. Set it up if you need it because your suits do not have good radio range without it.” Denish taps one side of the drop pod with his knuckles. “Your lives will depend on heat shielding made by Delphin Synthetics! I hope that they are as good as their advertising.”

“I’d love to say they wouldn’t have been allowed to build the pods if they weren’t,” Captain Klees says, “but given everything else on the spaceship, we can only hope.”

“It’s fine,” Tal says. “When I tried to rob them, their heat shielding business was so big it needed its own separate tax haven. If anything of theirs fails, it’ll be the parach – ”

“YES IT IS GOOD THAT THE HEAT SHIELDING IS GOOD,” Denish says loudly. “Everything will go fine! I am going to check the parachutes again.”

I glance over at Tinera and the Friend, who have gone back to their systems checks, and at Captain Klees, his lips bloodless and his eyes nervous and darting.

“Are you up for this?” I ask.

He laughs. “We’ve all got to fall down to the planet eventually, don’t we? Might as well get it over with. And hey, there’s no way back up, so after this there’ll be no chance of falling off into space ever again! Besides.” He grins with sudden, genuine joy. “I’m so curious to meet the colony! Aren’t you?”

“Taproot and stars, yes! I’ve been itching to have a proper conversation with them since we learned that everyone still alive down there was born on Hylara! None of them have any memories of the world we left behind – what are they like down there? What world have they built for themselves? I can’t wait to see it!”

“I know, right? For the first time ever, I’m starting to think the recruiters were right when they told us we were lucky to be a part of this.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “Lucky? To get forced onto this spaceship?”

“I know, I know; a lot of it’s been awful and stressful and dangerous. But now we’re here, Aspen! We’re actually here! And provided we survive this one last drop, we’ll be on Hylara! We’ve done it, and we can see what the colony is like and build it bigger and stronger and safer for everyone, and see how that develops, see what our children do with an entire new planet!”

“Worth the drop?”

“Definitely. You know the tattoo on my leg?”

“I know it, but I can’t read it.”

“Me neither, but it’s a line from a pre-Neocambrian poem. It reads, ‘We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.’” He squeezes my arm, but I can’t feel it through the space suit. “Just one final drop, Aspen, and we’ll have a whole planet to explore.” He trots off to confer with Captain Kae Jin about something.

“That’s not what his tattoo says,” Tal tells me quietly.

“Oh? What does it say?”

“It says ‘This product was manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts.’”

I do my best to smother my giggles. “Don’t ever tell him that.”

“I won’t. You ready for the drop?”

“No. But I’m not going to get more ready.”

Captain Kae Jin rolls forward to address the crew, and everyone immediately goes quiet. Her oxygen mask can’t hide her delighted grin; it’s the most excited I’ve ever seen her.

“Crew,” she says. “We did it. Despite everything this journey threw at us, somehow we survived. Diminished, but here, ready for the last phase of our mission. And finally, we can start unloading this doubling ship.”

The curse is in Lunari, and I don’t think the rest of the crew know the implications of it, because only Tinera looks as shocked as I feel. Even Tinera, who swears like the convict miner she is, doesn’t use language like that.

“Today, almost half of our crew will stand on Hylara for the first time. There is no room for failure here. We have done everything possible to ensure that this pod will land safely, and we’ll coordinate with the Hylaran colony during the drop to ensure a perfect descent. We might not see each other again for a very long time, but we’ll still be working together, for a future that our descendants can be proud of. Good luck down there.”

There’s a smattering of cheers and applause, before everyone turns to Captain Klees. He clears his throat and shuffles on his feet a bit. “I don’t have much to say that Captain Kae Jin hasn’t already said, except… thanks, to everyone. Everyone here has given their lives to this project; everyone here has been endangered by it and lost loved ones to it and been asked over and over to keep giving to it. As Captain Kae Jin said, this is the final stage of the journey, but that doesn’t mean that the mission’s nearly over. The supply drops could take several years, depending on how rapidly the colony can accommodate the chronostatic colonists. And even when everyone and everything is safely down, we have the rest of our lives to live. We don’t know when we’ll see each other again, but I know that we can trust you staying up here to do what you’ve successfully done so far, and keep this ship together. And you can trust us to make a home for you down there. Thanks for what you’ve done so far, and for what you’re all going to do in the future. We will complete this mission, for the colonists still in chronostasis, for the colony on the ground, and for each other.”

Another smattering of applause. Captain Klees gives a command; we ground team put our helmets on and climb into the drop pod.

The pods are not spacious. They’re single-use vehicles, meaning that the entire contents of the ship have to be able to be dropped in just the pods on the ship. Clever packaging and modern synthetics mean that a lot of the bulk goods in storage can be packaged up and dropped without too much difficulty, but humans require gentle handling, and these pods were initially planned to drop five thousand of us. The pod we’re climbing into is designed to pack twenty five people into an uncomfortable small space cleverly protected by a layer of insulating cargo between the hull and the human area; in theory, it’s plenty of space for our group of five.

In theory.

In practice, the drop requires being so securely belted down into a very cramped chair that any extra space caused by other chairs being empty is irrelevant, and said chairs are instead filled with more supplies. Having little idea of what the colony needs or whether they have adequate freezing facilities, we’re leaving all the embryos and soforth in storage and taking down food, tools and medicines, as well as the default padding of canvas and other materials already stored in the pod. The only refrigerated item we’re carrying is one carefully packed human eyeball, awaiting transplant if the colony has the facilities to do it. Once we’ve assessed the colony, we can better prioritise what to send down.

The seats are organised so that we end up in two rows facing each other. We strap ourselves in, double-check our straps, then double-check the straps of the people opposite us. Captain Klees’ radio crackles to life.

“Pod 1 to Courageous, all passengers secured, no problems. Over.”

“Courageous to Pod 1,” Sam responds, “acknowledged, we’re receiving you loud and clear. Come in, Hylara.”

“Hylara here,” responds a voice that sounds suspiciously like Hive Cattail. (They’re doing this, too? Does Hylara not have a – no, of course they don’t have an expert for this. They don’t have a space program. Stupid question.) “We’re receiving you loud and clear. Over.”

“Roger that. Assuming all goes well, drop in t minus thirty minutes on my mark… mark.”

I use the controls on my wrist to set a countdown on Sam’s mark, and notice my podmates doing the same. We’re so close to the planet now, with a fraction of a light second between us and the base below, so there’s no practical need for the base to account for lightspeed.

“Courageous to Pod 1, we’ve evacuated Pod Launch Ring 1. Decompression in progress.”

The javelins are designed to make dropping the pods as simple as possible without external work. Most cargo ships would simply bolt such vessels to the outside of the ship with a short umbilical to allow people in, and launch them from there. But the javelins move close enough to the speed of light that a smooth, streamlined shape is critical. Thus, the drop pods inside the pod launch rings.

The procedure is simple. The entire ring will be decompressed to vacuum, allowing the launch doors to open to space without difficulties. Our drop pod will be lowered through said doors with robot arms. Then, at just the right moment in the ship’s rotation, the arms will release us, flinging us toward the planet like a stone from a sling. That’s the point of no return; after that point, our lives are at the mercy of our heat shielding as we force our way into the atmosphere, then the parachute system and impulse engines. The timing of the parachute release and engine use will depend on the specific angle of entry, and what weather fronts we encounter upon entering the atmosphere. It’ll be up to the Hylaran base to keep everyone up to date on that, as the Courageous can’t see much through the cloud cover. We’ll have to descend slower than an Earth drop, since we lack an ocean to drop into, and that means a lot of drag on the parachutes that puts us at the mercy of unpredictable changes in the wind.

Unfortunately, Hylara’s lack of natural satellites to protect it means that the ground below us is a crater-pocked nightmare of hills and water-filled pits, and the Hylarans describe the ground as mostly hard rock with the occasional pit of deceptively soft sand that seems to exist solely for the purpose of fucking people over. The colony itself is built on an uncharacteristically flat stretch of terrain, but should we land too far off-course, everything from the impact itself to retrieving us becomes completely unpredictable.

So, y’know. Hopefully we don’t get too much in the way of strong, unforeseen wind changes.

The ring decompression is the fastest half hour of my life, and soon enough our ship rotation and release moment is being confirmed, the doors are opening, and we’re being lowered into space by the big robot arms. There are no windows on the pod, and as amazing as I’m sure the view would be, I’m sort of grateful. I feel like my heart will explode at any minute in the anxiety of waiting for our pod to explode at any minute. I can’t imagine how Captain Klees must be feeling.

Sam’s voice comes through the radio. “Pod 1 drop in ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

“Drop.”

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