"Passengers are down," a woman's voice interrupted from the alternate console—his main-cabin display had been out for the last month.
"Very well," Brim answered, conjuring her face in his mind's eye: Pamela Hale, the Chief Stewardess.
During the war years, she'd been executive officer of a battlecruiser. Pam was at least ten years older than himself and still stunningly beautiful. "Better get yourself down while you're at it," he added, "and strapped tight, somewhere against the aft side of a bulkhead. Local gravity won't hold long after we hit."
"I thought I heard the gravs go," she said from the intercom. "Can't Peretti get them going?"
"They're dead," Peretti interjected apathetically. "Like us, probably."
"No problem," she quipped easily. "A lot of people I run into these days died years ago."
Brim smiled. Hale was a brave one, all right. He guessed that she'd probably seen enough wartime action that nothing in the Universe could much faze her. "As long as those steering engines hold out," he said—hoping he sounded a lot more assured than he felt—"I'll bring us in." He glanced out the Hyperscreens again and shook his head. He couldn't even see where they were going to make landfall.
"Well, don't let me keep you, then," Hale said in the same bantering voice. "I wouldn't want anybody to think I was interfering with operations or anything."
"Go strap yourself down," Brim teased. People like that could calm a thraggling thunderstorm if they wanted to. He wondered how she'd ever wound up in an end-of-the-line outfit like StarFleet. He guessed it would be quite a story.
Outside, reentry flames were now flooding along the decks, and Jamestown's great, tapered radiators looked like dazzling sails spun of light itself. In the raging slipstream, their thunder raged through the old starship like a disruptor barrage.
"Going through about fifteen thousand irals," Hamlish reported, peering over Torgeson's still-inert form.
"Thanks, Sparks," Brim acknowledged. "I can use that kind of help a lot more than communications now."
"I'll switch consoles then," Hamlish grunted, and dragged Torgeson to a nearby jump seat. She wore a nondescript green jumpsuit and Brim noticed she had worn holes in both her boots. Afterward, the little COMM Operator slid behind the co-Helmsman's readouts and adjusted his glasses while he grinned awkwardly. "You'll have to tell me what you want to see."
"Start by calling out the altitude every couple thousand irals or so," Brim said grimly. "My altimeter conked out this morning."
"Twelve thousand irals," Hamlish announced presently. "I guess we've slowed some, haven't we?"
"Yeah," Brim agreed, "the rate indicator shows that." It was better, but still awfully fast. "Button up the cargo holds, Mr. Morris," he warned, speaking into the display.
"Cargo holds are secure, Mr. Brim," Morris replied calmly.
Brim envied him his space suit; it would be a big help in a crash landfall. Since passengers didn't wear them, however, bridge crews couldn't either.
"Ten thousand irals, and the checkout panel's lit, Mr. Brim," Hamlish reported.
"Got you—read the checklist to me as it displays."
"Aye, Mr. Brim. Shoulder harnesses?"
"Check," Brim answered, struggling into a network of faded webbing. He wondered how strong it actually was after all these years.
"Buoyancy chambers?"
Brim checked an emergency area beside the altimeter readout. Three green lights—the old rustbucket thought she could float, anyway. "Ready," he said hopefully.
"Eight thousand irals."
"Check." The undercast seemed to be coming up at them faster as the distance narrowed. He shuddered.
"Steering engine on continuous power?"
"Continuous power—check."
"Autoflight panels?"
"Off," Brim said emphatically. Under these circumstances, he wasn't about to trust anybody's hundred-year-old autohelm.
"Emergency beacon?"
"It'll be on soon as you hit the green panel under your forward Hyperscreen."
"It's on."
"Check."
"Six thousand irals. That's the last item from the panel checklist, Mr. Brim."
"Very well," Brim acknowledged. "Just stay where you are. I'll call out a few more items myself in a moment."
Suddenly, they plunged into the clouds. At once, torrents of rain began to thunder against the fiery Hyperscreens, transformed instantly to steam while the old starship bounced and groaned in the darkening gloom. They were soon in such dense vapor that their forward position light bathed the outside world in a ghostly white glow, while the rotating beacon blinked dazzling green across it like disrupter fire.
"Speed brakes?" Brim asked. "Five lights over there on panel two."
"Five lights... on."
"Good work, Hamlish," Brim said. Then, "Pam, are you strapped in down there?"
"With my back against a bulkhead, Wilf."
"What about the passengers?"
"Safe as I can make 'em."
"Wish me luck, then."
"You bet— real good luck, sweetie."
"Three thousand irals..."
A heartbeat later, they broke out into driving snow over a seascape of whitecapped swells. Brim glanced at the leaden gray combers below while ice suddenly frosted the fast-cooling Hyperscreens. He switched on the heat and melted it, but he didn't need ice to tell him that it was cold down there.
An altitude warning horn sounded. "One thousand irals," Hamlish reported.
"Thanks," Brim acknowledged, almost wholly consumed in setting up his landing. "What's our airspeed?"
Now, he was clumsily turning upwind across the troughs of the swells. They suddenly looked bigger than battleships.
"Airspeed one sixty-three." Hamlish's voice was getting tight and squeaky.
Brim chuckled to himself. He wasn't the only one terrified by the view through the forward Hyperscreens.
Only a few hundred irals separated them from the rolling violence of those swells. "Brace yourself," he warned. "Here we go."
"Pull up! Pull up! " cautioned the ship's altitude alert.
He punched the alarm into silence as he rolled the port radiator into a rogue gust, then dropped the nose slightly. Speed meant lift, and he'd soon need all of the latter he could get. Somehow, he had to set her down on the relative calm of an upward slope while traveling in the opposite direction. Long patterns of lacy spume marked the troughs parallel to his flight path. A sudden gust threw Jamestown's nose to starboard again; this time, she began to crab sideways. Grinding his teeth, Brim rolled the port radiator lower. After what seemed like an eon, she began to line up again—but now, no more than thirty irals separated her belly from the crest of an oncoming swell. Time to get her down. Brim carefully raised her nose till she slowed, barely maintaining lift. Timing was everything now; a false move and they were all dead. The old starship trembled violently as the radiators began to stall, but Brim deftly willed her airborne with the steering engine at full forward until—moments before the next crest passed beneath the hull—he brought the nose up sharply, then plunged behind the mountainous wavetop as it surged astern, dousing the Hyperscreens with foam and spume.
A split click later, old Jamestown smashed onto the back of the wave, launching two massive cascades of green water high overhead and shuddering back in the air while Brim struggled to raise her nose from the next impact. Suddenly he stiffened. In the corner of his eye he caught a large inspection hatch hanging from the leading edge of the port radiator. It had clearly torn open at the first violent impingement, and was now scuffing the surface in short bursts of mist. Before he could react, it caught the roiled surface, then separated in an explosive cloud of spray, dropping the wingtip precipitously. In desperation, he put the helm hard to starboard, but it was too late. The radiator's tip dug into the water and the starship cartwheeled. With the steering engine at full detent, he struggled to whipsaw back on course, and almost made it—but not quite. When the ship slammed into the next wave, her nose was still down. The concussion knocked out the local gravity and pushed the City of Jamestown violently back to starboard. Loose equipment cascaded wildly along the bridge floor while the air filled with screams from the lower decks and Brim's face smashed into the readout panel. The starboard Hyperscreens gave way to a tempest of dazzling high-voltage sparks. Before Brim could move, green water erupted onto the flight bridge like an explosion.