Metal Boxes (17 page)

“Yes, Commander.”

Stone climbed down into the engine compartment below the bridge. There was very little room but he managed to squeeze in. He pulled out his knife and worked at the intake pipe joint until the pipe slid clear.

He crawled
to the back until he was just about under the bathroom and wedged himself near the re-breather exhaust ports. Of the four ports, one was clear. He saw the plug lying in a corner behind a conduit. It had blown out with such force it dented the bulkhead.

The three other ports were still blocked.
He tapped his fingers against a port expecting it to be too hot to touch. It was cold. He knew he should not have been able to touch any part of the engine for a full day if he had been running the sub-light engine. But the jury-rigged jump had not heated the engine at all. It was as if it had not even been running.

He
worked his knife point around each exhaust port blockage until each was free. He scraped the ports trying to clean the exhaust tube walls, but they were irreparably fouled. Grandpa would have skinned him alive if he had ever thought of starting an engine with ports this badly fouled.

Stone chuckled to himself.
He was saved from a skinning since Grandpa was not around. The engine was going to run very rough even if he could get it started. Running the engine this way would permanently ruin every seal, valve and port in the pod, if they were not already ruined. Not only that but all four of the re-breather tubes had flared out at the ends and he was unable to reseal them into the exhaust pipes. It would leak engine exhaust into the escape pod faster than the recycler could clear the air. Sub-light engine exhaust was simple carbon dioxide and was not immediately toxic. The inability of the scrubbers to work fast enough would not matter if the pod only had a short distance to travel, but if they were in for a long trip they would suffocate before they could reach their destination.

He
manually inspected the fuel reservoir. It had a small trickle of matter in the bottom that he might be able to use as a catalyst to jump start the engine. He shrugged to himself and tossed in the matter he had cleared from the exhaust ports. The engine should heat up enough to convert the semi-hard matter into a liquid or gaseous state for consumption.

He smiled
, “That is if it can still heat the engine that high without blowing a gasket.” He knew he needed more fluid and more heavy matter. Any fluid would work. Fluid should be fairly easy to get. He scooted forward and opened the fly on his utility pants. He urinated into the reservoir with a sigh of relief.

He did
not know how much water was in their drinking water systems. The pod was designed to recycle endlessly to make use of all available water. He used the knife to disconnect the plumbing systems and drained the entire toilet holding tank into the fuel reservoir and all but five or six gallons of the refreshed, potable water.

He still needed more hard matter.
He thought about cutting up the pipe that had come from the oven to the engine, but he was loath to do away with it. He might need the oven and the feeder pipe if he could find more hard matter to melt for fuel slurry. He also rejected the idea of tossing in his blanked personal assistant. It was too small to make much difference and it might have other uses in the future, especially if they got back to a station and could get an operating system reloaded.

Stone thought about the escape pod from bow to stern. The toilet and the sink were still available, but the
ir light composite material would not be worth the effort to tear them out for fuel. He though about what they could do without on the bridge. He ruled out the chairs. The command functions built into the chairs were too necessary. It was the same with the bridge consoles. He knew there was a lot of heavy material in the consoles. Much of it was not required for the every day function of the pod, but he was not enough of a technician to even begin know what he could tear out and what he had to leave in place.

He slammed the lid
closed on the reservoir. They might have to tear into the chairs and the console if there was not enough fuel. Maybe with the help of the pod’s manual they would not make any serious mistakes. He decided to delay making a decision until the pod’s computer could tell them how much fuel they would need to get to the planet.

He took a look at other systems in the cramped engine compartment. The artificial gravity discs were still spinning even without power. Life support was continuing to drain power from the batteries, but if he could get the engine running he would be
able to recharge the batteries. He re-connected the regulators and disconnected his jump port.

Stone wriggled his way backwards to
wards the bridge. Commander Wright was crouched down over the hatchway and offered him a hand up.

“Well, what is the verdict, Mister Stone?”
Wright asked.

“I think she will start, but I won’t know for sure until we hit the button. And I don’t know whether we have enough fuel. I am going to let the computer figure that out. I don’t have near the math skills to calculate that even if I could figure out all of the variables.”

“Well, you know me, Mister Stone. I am not much of a ship jockey. How long will the pod take to calculate if we are going to make planet-fall or if we are going to turn to cannibalism?”

Stone pointed at the readouts on the console.
“The third one from the top is the fuel levels. We can assume the pod has laid in a course to the planet it chose. The readout below the fuel level should tell us if we can make it. And if not-”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, shall we? Read me the result, Mister Stone.”

“Aye, aye, Commander Wright.” He leaned over the readout. “It says that if we let the engine give us a nudge in the right direction and use only minimal thrust on the way we should be able to set down. But, we will have to get to the ground on the first pass. We don’t have enough fuel for a second time around. We don’t even have fuel to get into orbit to look for a good landing spot. We will need to go in comet-like.”

“That sounds uncomfortable.”

Stone shook his head. “It should not be bad. The inertial dampeners and the shields will keep our ride smooth as Oskan silk, but it might mean we won’t land exactly where we want to land. Our only other option would be to try and dismantle one of the chairs and feed it to the engine as fuel. Even if we need the fuel I don’t think we should tear up both chairs, because one of us has to be at the console for reentry. It is your call, but I think we should try it as is.”

“
Okay. We could get by on one chair if we took turns using it to sleep or sit down. But, the deck is really cold. So, we will just have to try to spot a good landing zone before we hit planetary atmosphere, right?

“Sure
,” Stone replied. “We won’t get a good look until we get too close to make any major course corrections, but we should be able to narrow it down so we hit land instead of ocean. That is assuming-”

“I know, I know
,” Wright interrupted. “Assuming that the engine starts, or the engine doesn’t blow up, or we aren’t overrun by space zombies at the last minute. You can be a downer sometimes, you know?”

“Hey! I didn’t mention space zombies, you did. I was going to say an attack by pirates or space vampires.”

“When are we ready to go? Now or do you want to split a piece of nutrition bar, first.”

Stone smiled
. “I know I am going to be hungry later, but right now if I have any more of those bars I will be hoping that the engine does blow up.”

“So we go now?”

Stone nodded. “Now is good, boss. Push the button by your left hand. No! No! Not that one, that’s the self destruct.”

Wright backed up
as if bitten and stared at the console. “Oh, I pushed it…”

Stone started laughing. “You should see your face.” He wiped his eyes
. “Remember teasing me about having my socks on the wrong feet? Well, paybacks do happen, Commander.”

Wright closed her eyes and started to laugh with relief. “I don’t know which makes me happ
ier, that I didn’t blow up the ship or that the engine didn’t blow me up. When will we know whether it is going to work or not?”

“Look at the stars, Commander. We are
already turning onto the heading for planet-fall. The engine is working. Now, all we have to worry about is if the engine doesn’t foul or blow a gasket before we get there, if we can find a place to land quickly enough, or if this pod uses the same definition of habitable we do. And…did I mention we are about to run out of air?”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Stone squinted against the bright light from the flames glaring through the view shield of the escape pod. He controlled a very human urge to lean back away from the heat, but there was no heat. The flames did not touch the pod. They raged against the shields generated by the spinning artificial gravity discs.

“Shields holding, Commander
,” he said through gritted teeth. It was more of a challenge to hold the pod on course through the upper atmosphere than he thought it would be. It was certainly more of a challenge than guiding it through empty space. They were not coming in as fast as the computer had suggested due to the dwindling fuel supply, but it was still fast enough to scare Stone spitless.

The artificial gravity and the inertial dampeners were running full out.
The pod was being buffeted wildly, still its occupants did not feel the slightest jink. The ride felt smoother than sitting in a kitchen chair in Grandma’s galley. Stone dared a glance through the flames to the planet below as it rushed up at them. It looked as if the planet below was jittering about.

Stone was sure the pod would have been able to guide itself to a landing with a lot less j
erking about, however it had calculated the descent to use all of the fuel supply to achieve a smoother landing. He was more uncomfortable running the sub-light engine completely empty than he was trying his first planetary landing in any kind of craft.

The planet they were racing toward was, according to the pod’s computer, habitable. That meant they
should be able to survive. Having a pod with a working engine to manage gravity, air and water recycling might make the difference between habitable for a few days, habitable for as long as it took for someone to find them, or habitable for life.

The pod’s air recycling systems were not working as well as they had hoped. The sub-light engine w
as pouring carbon dioxide into the air. Life support was designed to recycle air for twenty-four people, but the designers had not counted on the engine feeding the exhaust directly into the recyclers through the re-breathers. The air exchange system was not able to draw the CO
2
from the cabin fast enough to keep up with the engine output.

Commander Wright had looked up carbon dioxide poisoning on her personal assistant.
Earth standard CO
2
levels were 0.04%. There was a centuries old ongoing argument in the medical community about whether people died from the rise in carbon dioxide in the air or whether the carbon dioxide simply diminished the oxygen levels to below survivable levels. Stone had cranked up the oxygen output none-the-less.

The
pod’s internal instruments indicated the air had just passed a two percent CO
2
level. Commander Wright’s p.a. said two percent was survivable for a short time. Sustained exposure to two percent CO
2
levels would be dangerous. The percentage was still creeping up and rising faster by the moment. Five percent would be directly toxic.

Both he and Commander Wright had been fighting feelings of drowsiness, headaches, racing heartbeats, dizziness, fatigue, rapid breathing, and
even visual dysfunctions. Wright explained their condition in less than scientific terms. She simply said they were feeling ‘icky’.

Stone wanted to get onto the ground as quickly as he could. No matter what the planet
ary atmosphere, once they were down he would be able to shut down the engine and let life support catch up to normal levels. He might be able to vent and recycle the cabin air with planetary resources if the air on the planet was sufficiently close to earth normal.

The pod’s external instrumentation was unable to read the
planetary atmosphere yet. The heat of their entry into the atmosphere was boiling away any air samples the pod might have been able to collect. The pod declared the planet habitable. It was unable to provide more than a guess based on long range visual sensors. The planet was close enough to the sun to have liquid water. It appeared to have dry land. It was of an approximate size for its gravity to be plus or minus a few percentage points of earth normal. It had an acceptable axial tilt and spin with three standard size moons.

He steered the pod toward the largest land mass on this side of the planet. He
had watched the planet spin for the last four days, and he knew by their trajectory this was the side they would reach. However, until they got close; really, really close, he would not be able to pick out details.

He spun the dial on the look-down scan console searching for a place to land.
He was trying to find a spot that was relatively flat; but not in the middle of some huge grassy plains. He also wanted to get close to water, but not so close they would land in it. Deep forests did not seem like a good idea either, since the pod was unable to give them any indication of the local flora or fauna. The pod had snapped a visual just prior to atmosphere insertion showing the terrain below was covered in vegetation. Unless the video pickups were malfunctioning, the picture showed a blanket of rusty-green color plants.

The
computer was very clear there were no signs of intelligent life on the planet below. There had not been any activity on any of the radio frequencies or microwave bands. There were no visual clues of civilization like roads, towns or even cultivated fields.

Suddenly
, the flames licking at the shields quit, as if a giant breath had blown them out. Stone breathed a shallow sigh. He wanted to breathe deeper, but the air was beginning to stink like Uncle Jim’s fermented yeast in a beer vat aboard the Ruby Rock. He glanced at Commander Wright. Her eyes were clamped closed and her face had a greenish tint.

“Commander
, atmosphere insertion complete. Are you okay?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just nause
ated from watching the planet through the view screen.”

“Hey! We need to name ou
r pod,” Stone said. “It is bad luck to land a craft with just a number. What do you think? Got any ideas?”

Wright looked at him through slitted eyes. “You
’re just trying to distract me, Mister Stone?”

“Um…maybe. But a name wouldn’t hurt, right?”

“Doesn’t your family always name your ships after rocks and costly metals?”

Stone was about to answer when he spotted a semi-attractive landing spot on the look-down scan. It was coming up quick
, but it was close enough he could land with only a few minor course corrections. It was a small clearing in the forest below equidistant between a river and a small series of hills.

“Yes, Commander.
I was born on the Platinum Pebble and grew up on the Golden Boulder. But this is not really a family ship. It is as much yours as mine at this point. We better hurry. We are going to land quicker than I planned.”

“
Actually, I believe this pod belongs to the Emperor no matter where it is in the universe. However, for the sake of your argument, since we are in possession now let’s give it a name from both of us. How about the Angora Rock?”

“Done
,” Stone said. “Considering the way she flies, ‘rock’ is a pretty appropriate name. You are going to have to explain to me what an angora is…crap. Brace yourself.”

The bottom of the pod slammed into a tree-like plant, snapping it off cleanly. Stone pushed the throttle to the max, flaring the engine
and giving the pod a lift just a few meters above the ground. Without much of a glide path the pod shuttered and the engine stalled, unable to climb back into the air. It dropped six meters, slamming into the ground.

The combination of the inertial
dampeners, artificial gravity and the well designed command chairs meant Stone had to do a visual check through the view shield to see if they were down or still moving. The shields had suppressed any noise.

Commander Wright had her eyes closed again. She said, “An angora is a kind of a goat. People make clothes out of their hair; like goat
-fur sweaters.”

“Um…Commander, it is as good a name as any. It brought us enough luck to get us down.
Checking atmosphere now.” Stone dropped the shields and shut off the engine. The pod gave a slight shudder as it settled onto the planet surface.

“We’re down?” She peaked with one eye out through the view
screen. “Can you exhaust this stale air, at least start venting the extra CO
2
out of the cabin?”

“I don’t think we have to start blowing out air.
The engine is off line so the CO
2
levels aren’t going any higher. We just have to give life support a little extra time and it will have us back to earth normal soon even if the planet’s air isn’t good.” A light flashed on the console. “There it is now, Commander. The planetary atmosphere is within acceptable standards.”

“Acceptable as in breathable?”
She asked with a frown.

Stone nodded
and he pushed a few other buttons. “Yes, sir. It is almost earth normal with some minor variants in inert gasses. I am having the pod collect additional samples to check for other contaminants, like microbes or viruses or-“

“Quit stalling,
mister,” Wright interrupted. “I am about to vomit in this stench we have been breathing for the last few days. I would have if there was anything on my stomach. Open the door.”

“Really, Commander, I think we should hold off for a bit to see-”

“Treat this as an order, Stone. I have been in this freakin’ metal box smelling my own farts for so long that if I don’t get out now, I am going to have to hurt someone. Got me?” Wright unstrapped herself from her chair, fumbling with the latches. She bolted off the bridge, crossed the cabin and began pounding on the back bulkhead.

Stone unstrapped himself and followed Wright into the cabin. He wanted to restrain her, but he was
not sure what to do. She seemed so calm and rational just seconds before, but she was on the verge of all out panic. He did not have any way to restrain her. He was sure it would be best to wait for the pod’s sensors to give a complete report. They did not know what was out there. Even though the air in the pod was stale and out of balance, at least they knew what was in it.

The external hatch to the pod was the entire rear bulkhead. It was designed to hinge open along the
deck. The bulkhead dropped to form a ramp down to the deck or to the ground in this case. There was not an airlock or even a small hatch that could be slammed shut. The pod’s manual had been very specific that there was not anyway to crack open the hatch just a little bit. It was all or nothing, dropping the whole bulkhead exposed the entire pod to planetary atmosphere.

“Open the door, dammit
,” Wright continued to pound on the hatch with her bare fists.

“
Aye, aye, sir,” Stone replied. He started to turn, but stopped. There was an emergency release in the center of the hatch. It had begun to flash green. Before he could stop her, Wright slammed her fist into the release mechanism. A series of explosive bolts detonated along the junction where the hatch met the side bulkheads and ceiling. The back blast beat around Wright in a tornado of smoke and debris. Her hair whipped about and loose parts of her uniform flapped in the wind.

Stone
shielded his face as he tried to see Wright through the thickening air. She was still slamming her fists against the emergency hatch release. He rushed forward, but just as he reached her the hatch gave way. Without a sound it separated along the top and the sides, dropping to the ground with a slam.

Wright rushed down the ramp onto the grassy area of
a small meadow. She halted a few meters away from the end of the ramp and took a deep breath. She was overcome by a sudden gut wrenching spasm. She propped her hands on her knees and dry heaved over the rust colored grass. She took a second deep breath that ended with a wet, lung-twisting cough.

Stone stood helpless at the top of the ramp. He wanted to rush to help her, but he did
not know what to do. It was too late to seal the bridge. Not that it mattered. He had destroyed any bridge compartment air containment integrity when he converted the engine to jump capable and then switched it back to sub-light. Whatever was in the air was already filling the cabin of the pod.

Wright turned her head, breathed deep, made a guttural noise and spit into the grass.

“Damn. I just hocked up a lung,” she said. She looked up at Stone standing in the cabin. “Air smells good out here, Stone. Sorry about rushing our exodus, but in truth I don’t like confined spaces anymore than you like open spaces. Knowing we had all this open air was just more than I could take. Normally, I deal with my claustrophobia pretty well, just like you need to learn to deal with open spaces.”

“Yeah. Sure. Thanks. Good advice
,” Stone replied with a nod.

“Smells like home after a spring rain
,” Wright took another deep breath. “Come on down and try this air. I am sure it still smells like week old cabbage stew and unwashed sweat socks in there.”

Stone shook his head. “It is clearing some. Honest. I think my headache is starting to go away.”