Inadvertent Adventures (20 page)

"Olaf, we have a G-7 primary just," Denise paused as she checked the readouts, "seventeen hours away. We need the thrusters
now!"

"Understood," was the only answer they received for twenty minutes, until the intercom came to life again. "Control, Engineering. All thrusters should be online now."

Ann had surrendered the navigation station to Denise and was at the helm herself when the announcement was made. She triggered the acceleration warning and waited until her crew was ready, then stabilized the ship, countering the tumble that their precipitous emergence from hyperspace had imparted on them. She then pointed their main engines at the star. She wanted to be ready when Olaf gave her full control of the ship. Once that was done, she fired all of her thrusters to alter their course away from the star, even if it didn't stop them.

Even with all of the thrusters firing, the ship's apparent internal gravity only came up to point three-six G. They were enough to push them away from the star, however, and in just six hours they were out of immediate danger.

Ann relaxed as Denise announced their change of status. "We're going to miss the star by a comfortable margin now, Ma'am."

"Good. Take over here, Denise. I have to go check Katrina." Ann stopped and closed her eyes for a moment. "Lords of Space, I hope she didn't get it in her eyes."

In the dispensary, Ann found both Mandy and CM hovering over Katrina. "I told her to leave it, Ma'am," Carrie-Marie whispered, "but she wanted to cover it. She wanted to put lids on her pots before she left to put her suit on."

"Not your fault," Katrina whispered without opening her eyes. Her face was puffy, and there were several blisters on her cheeks and hands. She'd apparently managed to shield her face from the worst of it.

"No, the fault is mine," Ann said as she looked down into Katrina's face. "I should have made sure you understood what was more important from the start. Katrina, nothing is more important than your life. When the order goes out to don suits, you drop what you're doing and get your suit on. Everything else is secondary."

"No, Ma'am. I knew, but I didn't want to clean it up. I didn't want breakfast to spill." Katrina opened one eye a little. "I knew better," she whined, then started crying again.

"Don't worry, Katrina. You'll be fine. You'll be sore, but you'll be fine," Ann assured her, then left the room to go aft. She paused in the passageway and propped her back against the bulkhead. She whispered, “Thank the Lords of Space that her eyes are all right.” In the engine room, Olaf and Sterling were less reassuring.

"We can get the main drive back on line, Ann, but the hyper drive may be beyond repair. We may be in for a long stay here," Sterling said as Olaf nodded.

"Then get the main drive on line so we can slow down. Denise has identified six planets in this system, even though she can't identify the star. We may get lucky and find a mining colony on one of them."

"We'll have the main engines ready in an hour and a half, Ma'am," Olaf said, and Ann turned to leave.

"I'll be in Control. Inform me as soon as you're ready. In the meantime we'll be checking the closer planets," Ann said as she walked out of the engine room.

* * *

After several hours of continuous effort, Ann called off the search for a human presence in the system. The
Admiral Ann's Revenge
slowed down and approached the system's fourth planet. Its spectra showed a nitrogen-oxygen-carbon dioxide atmosphere and liquid water oceans. The planetary temperature was a chilly twenty-seven degrees Celsius at the equator, and enormous icecaps covered both poles for more than thirty degrees.

Sterling had joined Ann in Control and surveyed the planet as well as he could. "These sensors were never meant to survey a planet, Ann, but I do have some good news. The planet is apparently stable, and the oxygen content of the atmosphere is almost twenty-five percent. It looks like atmospheric pressure is only twelve point six pounds per square inch at sea level, so the high oxygen content shouldn't bother us."

"If we land. There are so many things that could go wrong on an unexplored planet, and we still haven't been able to find our location. We've only located one known pulsar, and it's way off from what our position should have been."

Sterling nodded and stroked his panel. "I'd like to take the shuttle down and sample the air. We may not have a choice about staying."

"I'd like to argue with you about that, but I'm afraid you're right. Very well, take Kat--no, you can't." Ann put her face in her hands and shook her head. "Oh, Lords of Space, just for second I let myself forget--take Mandy as a backup pilot and science officer. Remain closed up in your suits at all times and expose the interior of the shuttle to vacuum for an hour before you come back aboard."

"Every precaution, Ann. I know." Sterling hugged Ann tightly and spoke softly in her ear. “If I have to be marooned in the back of nowhere, I’m glad it’s with you.” Then, before she could answer, he headed down to the shuttle bay to begin his preflight checks.

A
MANDA ARRIVED JUST MOMENTS AFTER STERLING
had unsealed the shuttle and joined him in completing the preflight checklist. "Have you ever flown this model of shuttle before, Sterling?" she asked as she ran through the list.

"Yes, that's one reason we picked it. This was the same model shuttle we used when I was in the Academy on New Kashmir. We had to do everything for them, so I'm familiar with all of its systems. It's twice as old as I am and just as cranky, but it's reliable and easy to maintain." There was the sound a snigger from her side of the cockpit, and Sterling smiled as well. "It's also one of only four models that will mate with the
Revenge's
shuttle bay docking clamps and umbilicals without modification."

"That's good to know." Amanda turned and looked him in the eye. "Do you think Olaf and the chiefs can pull off a miracle and fix the hyper drive?"

"I certainly hope so, but we have to be realistic about it." He put down his clipboard and shook his head. "We don't have a spare for every part. If there is something we don't have and can't make, we're screwed. If this planet isn't as friendly as it appears, we're screwed. About the only thing in our favor right now is the cargo. At least it's edible."

"Then let’s hope we can survive on the planet," Amanda said as she resumed her checks. "I'm not very excited about the prospect of staying in orbit, eating boiled wheat for the rest of my life."

The shuttle launched without any trouble and Sterling set course for the west coast of the largest continent, near the equator. The terminator had just passed that point on the surface, so they would have plenty of light for their survey. Reentry went smoothly, and soon Sterling engaged the air-breathing jets as their altitude decreased.

Amanda was busy with the bio-scan equipment, sampling the air as they passed and feeding it into the enclosed survey meters. Small samples of a culture medium were exposed, and continuously examined for signs of foreign biological growth.

The survey was still going on when Sterling picked out a large clearing that was covered in dark-green flora that resembled ice-plant, and landed. He kept the vertical takeoff jets at hot standby and his hands on the controls as Amanda continued sampling their environment.

After two hours Sterling finally shut down the ship completely and joined in the survey. He used the shuttle's cargo loading arm to grab a sample of the groundcover and brought it aboard in a sealed container. So far, none of Amanda's tests had shown any biological reaction to the air or anything in it.

The ice-plant-like ground cover was much darker than it had at first appeared. Whatever it used in place of chlorophyll was a deep forest green. A quick scan proved that this plant, at least, was edible. In addition to a reasonably straightforward version of chlorophyll for photosynthesis, it had something that closely resembled ethyl alcohol in its system.

"That's weird," Amanda commented as she continued her tests. "I guess if you evolve in a frozen environment, you need some sort of antifreeze in your system."

"Just don't tell Balder about it, or he'll be grazing all the time." Sterling laughed at his own joke while Mandy just grinned.

The science experiments took most of the day, and then Sterling radioed Ann. "The air is breathable, the water is drinkable, and the plants are only marginally poisonous. No animal life so far, but I don't suppose that's necessarily a bad thing. We're still working on the microorganism tests, but so far nothing has shown up in any of the cultures. I've used an ROV to check the water in the local ocean. It is mildly salty, but with a predominance of potassium chloride rather than sodium chloride. Other trace minerals include zinc, chromium, and copper, as well as just about everything else in barely detectable amounts."

"Understood, Sterling," Ann answered. "Get some rest, but keep sealed until we get a definitive answer on the microorganism checks.
Revenge
out."

It was dark outside when Sterling awoke six hours later, and he checked their experiments. There was still nothing growing in the culture mediums, but one of the live cultures showed signs of dying off. Sterling put it under the microscope and started checking it out. The answer was soon evident: The bacteria in the culture were being wiped out by trace amounts of alcohol in the atmosphere.

Sterling checked his chrono, but it was just four thirty in the morning, ship's time. He decided not to report until he was sure Ann was up and had killed her first cup of coffee. Turning back to the instruments, he found the outside temperature to be only thirteen degrees Celsius.

"Did I miss something?" Amanda asked as she rolled out of her bunk.

"No, I just woke myself up and decided to do some checks. We seem to be in good shape as far as biohazards go. Nothing new is growing and the alcohol in the air is killing the bacteria we brought."

Amanda came over to his side and looked over his shoulder. "That looks like a good sign to me. Any chance of leaving the shuttle and taking a look at the larger vegetation off to the north?"

"When the sun comes up," Sterling answered, "which should be in about seven hours. This planet has a thirty-one point six hour rotation."

"Then I'm having breakfast. Let's see, I think I'll have a protein bar, with a carb bar on the side, and a fruit bar. And to drink I'll have orange-flavored--or at least orange-
colored-
-vitamin drink."

Sterling laughed as she spoke. The choices of food products in their suits was limited, and the only thing she could have had different was coffee rather than vitamin drink. "I'll have the same," he managed to say between chortles.

They both keyed the sequence into their suit controls, and sat back to enjoy a leisurely breakfast as the requested items were extruded close to their mouths. "You know, we may have gotten lucky with that malfunction," Amanda said around a mouthful of fruit bar. "If this planet is habitable, we have a claim on it."

"We have claim on it even if it isn't habitable--but we have to get home to tell anyone about it. Otherwise, we're the only people who have any idea that we're here. Some explorer may one day discover the hulk of the
Revenge
floating in orbit and the remains of our attempt at settling this planet down here, but that's hardly a realistic hope. Ann and Denise can't find any navigation points, so even if Olaf and the engineers fix the ship, we don't know where we are or where the Confederacy is."

Amanda just looked at him in silence for a moment, then said, "A girl's gotta have a dream, Mister Buzz-Kill."

Sunrise arrived without any further revelations concerning the planet's biology. Once the area was well lit, Sterling allowed Amanda to leave the ship via the personnel hatch in the cargo area.

"I'm leaving the ship now," she reported, then she walked down the ramp to step onto the soil. "The surface is firm. It looks like the landing struts sank about five centimeters into the ground." She walked to where Sterling could see her and waved. "I'm going to the bushes. I'll try to remain in sight at all times."

"Very well," Sterling said as he watched her. "I'll follow you with the ROV. Do
not
disappear on me, Mandy. I don't want to have to come looking for you."

"Understood," Amanda said as she walked away. "First report: there is life here. I can see several insect analogs, both grounded and airborne. The airborne creatures are very small, about the size of a gnat." She stopped speaking as she reached the bushes. "The insects don't seem to be reacting to me. They are feeding on the plants. It looks like they are making incisions and sucking up the fluid." She paused and stepped back to take some pictures. "If all of these plants have the same alcohol-base for their circulatory systems, we may be on a planet full of drunks."

Sterling laughed. "Just our luck. Okay, collect your samples and return to the ship. I'm satisfied with what we've done. The equipment on the
Revenge
can make a more detailed analysis, but so far--
Mandy, run!"
Sterling shouted as something came out of the bushes right behind Amanda. Like all former military personnel, Amanda reacted to the shouted command instinctively and sprinted toward the ship without looking to see what the danger was.

The creature was the size of a ten-man tent, and ambled along on several dozen stubby legs. It changed direction to follow Amanda, so Sterling swerved the ROV into its path. Whatever else could be said about the creature, it wasn't agile. It hit the ROV and both of them tumbled, kicking up a cloud of dust and flying creatures. The creature just laid there for a few moments after the collision, then it struggled to its feet and let loose a long, low bellow and shook its head.

Amanda was in the shuttle personnel hatch with the door closed behind her before she turned to look at what she had been running from. "What the hell is that?" she asked as she caught her breath.

"I don't know," Sterling said as he swung the shuttle's observation camera toward it. "It looks herbivorous. The lips are prehensile, and it's built like an extra-large bovine wooly caterpillar."