Defying Mars (The Saving Mars Series) - By Cidney Swanson Page 0,82
responses, panic hovering just behind. “Phobos and Deimos,” she said—the moons named for Mars’s companions, Fear and Panic. But if she was going down, then by Hades she would go down like Ares—like the warrior-god for whom her world had been named.
“You have to eject,” she whispered.
The Galleon’s landing would not be something she could survive, and that crystallized her only course of action. In a pod, she might stand a chance. The escape pods had parachutes to slow them.
She had only minutes before impact. And now she wished she’d left fuel in one of the pods. Without the fuel, the Galleon, falling at the same rate as a pod, would be in the way of parachute deployment. She didn’t have time to refuel the pod in order to steer it away.
Before her mind even had a chance to catch up, she’d given navigation two final commands. The ship accepted them. Then she ran, careening to the rations room, barely cognizant of the moment’s pause to snatch her sling-pack. Into the airlock—agonizingly slow—down the first set of stairs, then the second, and finally she could see the row of escape pods.
She threw herself at the first in the row, pounding upon its hatch, hurling herself inside, one hand attaching the harnessing restraint over her shoulders while the other pre-authorized launch. She paused, waiting for the slight change in angle that would tell her the Galleon had obeyed her first order. There it was—she launched the pod.
“Launch” was a deceptive term. The pod was given only a slight assist to place it outside the Galleon. Jessamyn was supposed to burn fuel to get farther away. She hovered just beside the great ship, much too close for comfort. And then Mars’s last great raiding ship followed Jessamyn’s second order, pulling off to the side, giving Jess a better chance for her parachute to deploy without smashing, useless, against the ship’s underbelly. A small window allowed Jessamyn to watch the Galleon as it drifted inexorably away from her.
Pressing one hand to the porthole, she uttered her farewell: “Godspeed.”
~ ~ ~
“She’s coming in too fast,” Pavel said, slamming a fist on his navigation panel. Shizer! Why couldn’t it be him at the helm of the Galleon, Jess aboard this craft? He turned his eyes over to Ethan. “Eth? What d’you got?”
“I concur with your assessment,” replied Jessamyn’s brother. “Her speed is not consistent with a safe landing.”
“Bloody hell,” muttered Brian Wallace. “Why does it have to be the lass?”
“I have obtained a visual from a satellite relay,” said Ethan. “I do not know how long I can maintain visualization, however.”
Pavel and Wallace leaned over to gaze at the picture upon Ethan’s screen. Clouds and blue sky and more clouds, and then, there it was: the Red Galleon.
“It looks so small on that wee screen,” said Wallace.
“The Galleon is an M-class vessel,” said Ethan. “The last Mars-class ship upon our planet. It is not small.”
“Aye, lad, aye. I know it’s a grand ship,” replied Wallace.
Pavel squinted to see the ship better. It did look tiny upon the screen. Miniature and vulnerable.
When it burst into flame seconds later, Pavel couldn’t stop his heart pounding. He’d known it was coming. The ship was heat-shielded. The flames weren’t dangerous. At least not yet. But knowing these things it didn’t help his visceral response.
“She is attempting a water-landing,” said Ethan.
Pavel nodded. That would take care of any residual heat, wouldn’t it? He’d flown an M-class, but not at this speed. He loved Jess at that moment more than he’d ever loved anyone.
And then the screen went dark.
“No!” Pavel cried.
“I am attempting to construct a visual animation via instrumentation,” said Ethan. “There. The moving object represents the Galleon.”
She was coming in at over one hundred fifty kilometers per hour.
No, no, no, said Pavel’s mind.
Time seemed to slow to an agonizing crawl as the Galleon continued its descent. To Pavel’s thinking, the animation lent an unreal quality to the event. When finally the ship collided with the ocean, the impact shown upon the screen revealed nothing. Was Jessamyn okay? Pavel checked his heading against the numbers on Ethan’s screen. They would arrive in less than five minutes.
Another speck moved onto the screen at Ethan’s station.
“Is that us?” asked Wallace, tapping the new craft.
“No,” replied Pavel, his voice flat. “That’s one of my aunt’s ships. They got there first.”
~ ~ ~
Lucca replayed the vid she’d just received. Watched as the enemy ship—first flame-engulfed, then cooling—crashed into the Pacific.