"We found all sorts of discrepancies. Full maintenance checks always do," the engineer declared. "We switched out the blaster control. All systems look good."
"All systems look good," Quinn cajoled, his tone revealing his impatience. "Enough discussion. Two more flights, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir," Buccari said, struggling to sound supportive. "The sooner we try it out, the sooner we'll know what we're up against." She noticed Quinn's fatigue. His eyes had dark circles. His features were haggard, his head and face stubble grizzled and scruffy.
"Two more flights," Quinn repeated with less of an edge. "Virgil and I will keep this hulk alive for a few more orbits. You and Jones take Chief Wilson and Mr. Hudson down with the generator. I have a feeling we will be in for a long, cold winter."
MacArthur and Chastain broke through the last line of brambles. Their burgeoning little watercourse spilled out of its defile and was soon lost in a wide, shallow, gravel-rattling flow. Large bars and shoals built up by previous floods were strung at irregular intervals across the valley bottom. Many of the buildups had reverted to solid land, overgrown with trees and underbrush. Smooth stones squeaked beneath their boots.
"Don't you want to make camp?" Chastain asked.
MacArthur checked the skies, his shoulder pain dulled by the long day's efforts. The overcast was darker. Winds had shifted from the south. The weather had changed.
"Let's keep moving," MacArthur said. "Looks like rain, and I don't want this river rising any higher. I figure no more than four or five kilometers to high ground." He crunched across gravel. The first finger of the river was wide but barely ankle deep.
"This won't be hard to cross," Chastain said. "It's a bunch of shallow rivers."
"Yeah," MacArthur grunted, looking into the distance. A fine mist hung in the air. A low rumbling intruded into his awareness. The next channel was deeper and more powerful but only paces across. They lifted their packs overhead and forded the opaque green-gray torrent. Chilled by the icy waters, the Marines trudged onward, crossing more and more fingers of river. In midvalley they heard a double sonic boom.
"They're still there," Chastain said, looking upwards. MacArthur said nothing, staring futilely into the clouds. The noise signified the presence of other humans and paradoxically made the Marine feel even lonelier. MacArthur moved out with renewed vigor.
Shannon stood on the high plateau and stared into the overcast. Lee, with her medical equipment, stood at his side. The double sonic boom had echoed overhead ten minutes earlier—the lander should be on final. There it was—a black pinpoint against gray clouds, growing larger. He passed the alert over helmet radio. He had to get the cargo off fast; the weather was deteriorating.
The lander had definition; he made out the cruciform shape of wings and tail hanging in the air, rock-steady on glide slope; magically it grew larger. Closer, it appeared to settle and drift to the right, his offset from the landing point generating enough parallax to provide perspective. The EPL commenced landing transition, slowly raising nose attitude and bleeding off airspeed. Huge flaps deployed. The craft approached in a silent, graceful swoop. But then the nose of the craft jerked sideways. The lander oscillated back and forth, a cobra with its hood fully deployed. Something was wrong!
Buccari was ready. She felt the renegade inputs. They had come earlier this time, before main engine firing. She had two options: abort the landing—hit full igniters and blast back into orbit—or ride it in, hoping the retro programs would work correctly while she overrode the controls. Training and logic said to wave off and return to the corvette. Intuition told her the lander was only going to behave worse the next time. In a fraction of a second she chose to fly the landing and get those on board safely down.
The controls kicked in her hands; the autopilot had not disengaged. She fought for control, using both hands on the stick.
"Boats!" she roared. "Kill the control master! Disengage now!"
Overcoming ingrained conditioning, Jones moved in blur, hitting the control master. The retros would have to be manually fired! Buccari felt the flight controls relax. She moved her left hand to the power quadrant and engaged retro-igniters. Monitoring the main fuel feeds, she hit the ignition with quick pulses. The main engines rumbled. She checked the engine gimbal angle indicator; it had set correctly during transition. Buccari fired hard on the hover blaster and felt the nose surge backward. She eased up on the blasters and applied more power to the mains. The craft oscillated into landing attitude, but it was burning fuel at a horrendous rate! She moved to deploy the landing skids and noticed that Jones had already done so. With nothing left to do but pray, she tweaked power down. The lander settled with an ugly, scraping bounce. She urgently secured the fuel flow to mains and blasters, afraid to see how much fuel was left. Forcing herself, she stared at the gauges.
Tears welled in her eyes. The fuel levels were so low! But she knew what she had to do. The decision was easy.
"Boats, get this thing unloaded and made ready," she shouted. "But Lieutenant—" Jones started to speak.
"Get moving, Boats!"
"But Lieutenant, no way this bucket's going to make orb—" "Jones," she hissed. "That's an order."
"Aye.. aye, Lieutenant," Jones replied softly.
"Lieutenant, Shannon here," Shannon's voice came up on radio. Buccari looked outside and saw the sergeant. Lee and another helmet-masked Marine stood nearby. Tatum, judging from his height.
"Yes, Sergeant, and don't say anything about the landing," she replied, trying to calm her rampaging emotions.
"Aye, sir. It looks like you still have a problem."
"A big one, Sergeant." Buccari leaned back, sensing the nagging pressure of gravity against her back. "I've got to rendezvous with the 'vette as soon as possible. I can't shut down, and I'm below critical fuel." It was a confession.
"I'm no pilot, Lieutenant," Shannon transmitted, "but I know when things are out of control. Are you sure you—"
"You're right, Sergeant," Buccari cut in. "I'm the pilot. Listen up. Notify Commander Quinn as soon as the 'vette comes over the hill. Tell him to start looking for me on acquisition radar. I'll be needing help. I'll make contact as soon as I clear the atmosphere, but he may have to start maneuvering before I can talk to him."
"Aye, aye, Lieutenant," Shannon said. "Understand. He gets you on radar and meets you halfway. He can boost to orbit after he gets you."
"Yessir, Superwom—I mean Lieutenant!" Jones shouted. "We can—"
"Not we, Boats," Buccari replied. "You're grounded. I'm going solo. Leaving your big body behind will help the fuel curve." "No, Lieutenant! I—" Jones wailed.
"Stow it, Boats!" Buccari cut him off. "Watch the skin temps. Offload that generator and get this piece of junk ready to go!"
"Aye, aye, Lieutenant," Jones mumbled, continuing to curse softly as he released his mike switch.
Takeoff was easy. The lightly loaded lander punched through the lowering overcast and reached escape velocity with minimum acceleration. Bursting through the thick cloud deck, Buccari confronted the glaring explosion of a setting sun. Ignoring the Olympian scenery, Buccari set the fuel consumption parameters to bare minimums and accelerated out of the atmosphere. The rendezvous coordinates, given available fuel, indicated a critically narrow flight profile, but it was still theoretically possible to coast up to the corvette's orbit—with absolutely no fuel remaining. The crew of the corvette would have some work to do to bring her aboard.