He reached for the stick and pulled back and suddenly his body was pressed to one side, his face flat against the porthole. The G-forces of the turn nearly blacked him out but he held on to the stick, fighting to level out the pod. He stayed pinned to the side, his whole body pressed into the padding. He felt the ship flatten out so he eased back on the stick and the G-forces gluing him to the pads lessened so that he could move his body, turn his head. He could see orange earth below him. The tiny ship was in a slow spin so soon he saw blue sky again, then orange earth, then blue sky. With each turn the tiny details of earth grew more defined, suddenly he could make out rivers: organic lines reaching out, curving gracefully then fading. Off to his right, high, ragged hills leading into a chain of mountains.
The ground beneath the ship is flat, but the sink rate is going to kill me, the man thought. The ship is dropping too fast, even though it’s level.
Computer, he thought, how can I engage the inertial dampeners on the Mark 7 without a coupler?
There are no overrides in the Mark 7 to engage the inertial dampeners, came the reply.
The man used the stick to stop the spin and position the porthole down so he could take a guess at altitude loss.
How can I engage the forward thrusters? he asked the computer.
Manual control of forward thrusters on the Mark 7 in port nav screen, bottom right.
The man touched the bottom right of the screen, the rivers now wide and blue, the small hills now large, jagged mountains. The thruster array popped up on screen and he aimed the forward jets down at a 45 degree angle and tapped the the red button that he guessed meant engage.
A split second passed as he stared down to the earth below him, not orange anymore, but brown sand racing past. One large mountain moved slowly out of view, while the ground rushed up to break his little ship into a million tiny pieces.
And then he heard the forward thrusters, mounted on gimbles, realigning. He braced for impact, thought he saw some kind of large animal slowly making its way across the sand. He closed his eyes and prepared for the worst.
His head slammed into the padding and he thought is was over but it was just the engines firing. He was pressed into the ships inner padding again, wondering if he was going to be crushed by the force. All he could see was earth racing past, but the thrusters had done their job and the little ship had leveled out and was moving roughly parallel ten meters from the surface.
For a moment he saw nothing but darkness underneath him as the ship crossed over a ravine, but then orange again. Soon after that the nose of the pod touched the earth and the man could hear nothing but a horrible grinding noise, with the occasional BANG as each of the three stabilizers sheared off. The little tube went into a slow spin and for awhile he realized he was moving feet first across the ground and wondered if the fuel cell was going to heat up and blow.
He could feel the speed slowing considerably and thought he just might make it but then the tube started rolling, which was worse than any amount of bumping he’d endured. “I’m too close to die,” he thought, and then blacked out.
Duval
The planet Duval, eastern edge of the Soldown Flats.
He awoke to silence. He opened his eyes and was blinded by an orange light. He reached up, and for the first time in his 44 days in the pod, he could fully extend his arms in front of him. The hatch was open and he crawled out, pulled the catheter tube out of the life support system, and stood on the sandy earth, blinking in the sun, breathing the fresh air. He swayed as if he was in a strong wind, but the air was calm, and soon his legs failed him and he went to his knees, felt the hot sand through his fingers. The pod had sheared in half, one large rear fin thirty meters behind sticking up out of the ground, the other two God knows where. The pod was a large, white tube, black burn marks on the cone.
He yelled out, held his hands up in the air. He made it. Then he fell again, and just lay there.
……
The Federation recon ship Valhalla II was recently assigned to the outer rim areas to monitor pirate activity. Captain Barthelme, who’d opposed unification, and lost, ended up out in the deep edge of space, far enough away so that he couldn’t do any damage in the core worlds, and close enough to the outer edge that any unfortunate pirate encounters would be considered acceptable loss by the new powers.
“Captain Barthelme, we’ve got a bogey heading straight for Duval. They don’t respond to my hail.”
“What is it?”
“Well, sir, that’s the thing. There were no matches.”
“Tie in the old databases, pre-BG war.”
“Sir, the new database goes back 100 years.”
Barthelme just stared at the fresh-faced boy named Cooper. They’ve sent me to the edge with a band of morons, he thought. He was about to yell, but the ensign realized he was in trouble and jumped up. “I’ll have to run down to the archive and fish it out.” The captain nodded okay and he headed down to the library. Meanwhile the captain eyed the tiny dot onscreen. It hadn’t made a course correction and it hadn’t slowed.
