Defying Mars (The Saving Mars Series) - By Cidney Swanson Page 0,74

the ship’s escape pods.

The escape pods!

“Well, I’ll be,” she whispered. “There it is.”

Jess stood with excitement. The person-sized pods each came filled with a small quantity of fuel. In the event of an emergency evacuation, you didn’t want to be stuck taking the time to divert fuel to your escape vehicle. And if she could transfer fuel from the Galleon to those other vehicles, could she not reverse the process? Transfer the fuel from the extraneous vehicles into the Galleon’s tanks?

Jessamyn had five fueled escape pods on board. At least she hoped they were fueled. Would they have been fueled? She wasn’t sure. Maybe the crew of Ungrateful Wretches wouldn’t have thought of fueling them. But Crusty would have ordered it. Without fuel, the pods’ only other method of speed reduction was old-fashioned whiplash-inducing parachutes.

She needed to go below-decks to check the pods. Marching back to the aft quarters, Jess reached out to grab a pressurized suit to descend into the lower levels. She had already shoved one leg through before realizing what she was about to do.

“Use the suit now and that’s one less suit you can use come landing day,” she murmured.

Frustrated, she sank upon the bunk, the suit in her lap now, her fingers pinching at the cool fabric. A faint reflection of her face—fish-eyed by the curvature of the helmet—caught her attention.

“Seven hours until you can suit up,” she murmured to herself. “Okay, get back to your list.”

She frowned at the next task on her list: determine how to safely land the Galleon with limited fuel. Of course, even if she could siphon off a few kilos of fuel, the landing was going to be anything but safe.

Jessamyn soon lost herself checking Academy texts which explained how to calculate the optimal angle at which to enter Earth’s kilometers-thick atmosphere. Enter at too shallow of an angle and you risked simply “bouncing” back out. Enter straight “down” and your craft would come in so hot that no amount of forward thrust could slow you in time to land. Jessamyn preferred landings which didn’t end in a flaming ball of fire.

Having determined her optimal angle of entry, she then examined Earth’s tilt and spin to see which continents would be closest as she approached. She had several possible landing points—all in unpopulated wastelands—but decided upon a deserted position in North America close to where it met the Pacific. This would get her planet-side more quickly than the other locations: she had the limited oxygen to factor into her decision. Best to get off the ship as swiftly as possible. North America it would be, then.

Her destination chosen, Jessamyn then set out to determine how much fuel she would need for braking. While entry through Earth’s dense atmosphere would provide much of the reduction in speed she required, it wouldn’t reduce her speed enough. She would still come down too hot and too fast.

Early Terrans had solved the speed reduction problem with the use of parachutes. In fact, early Mars landings had also used the parachute as the most efficient way to apply the brakes, since Mars, unlike Earth, didn’t have several kilometers of atmosphere to create drag.

Well, the Galleon didn’t come equipped with parachutes, so that option wouldn’t work. Her head ached and her stomach growled. Jessamyn couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.

A ration bar and a drink of water later, she felt better—physically anyway—and set herself back to calculating how much of her braking would be done by Earth’s atmosphere and how much of it had to be accomplished using her forward thrusters.

Coming up with a number she didn’t like, she repeated her calculations. And repeated them again. And again.

Things did not look good. She knew how many kilos of fuel remained, but precise conditions on Earth would mean she might be off by a bit in her estimation of fuel consumption. Not to mention a degree or two difference between the angle she planned to enter the atmo and the angle she actually achieved meant there would always be a margin of error.

“Anyone want to place bets?” she demanded aloud. “Anyone?”

Shaking her head, she rose and crossed to the clean-stall. Her hair, kept from the influence of sunlight and Marsian peroxides, had darkened slightly. It was still red, but a deeper shade than she remembered. The skin below her eyes was tinted with purple.

Jess startled. If she squinted just right, she could see where her First Wrinkle had arrived sometime in the past weeks aboard the