Astronomicon 1: Inception Point (Finished)

5 - Descent

"We've got significant hull warming, Chris," Lucy reported. He could hear the stress hiding in her calm voice.

"It's well within safety limits," Bob replied for him. "I'm more worried about the propulsion section right now."

"We're too heavy with it still attached, I know," Chris said. "We can only hope it might help us stay upright during the descent."

"That would be nice," Bob snorted. "But sixty tons of extra weight hanging off her tail is stressing the descent fins and limiting their effect."

"The fins don't slow us down. The landing boosters deal with that."

"No, but they do ensure we land in the right place," said Bob. "We've got a lateral drift of three K.P.H. right now and it's increasing."

"That's enough to put us over a kilometre off-target," Lucy added.

"Not much we can do about that right now," Chris replied. "We can walk a kilometre."

"Won't sixty tons of extra weight overload the landing boosters?" she asked.

"That's a much better point," Chris replied. "I can't do the maths in my head, but the boosters are tuned to neatly land our expected mass on the surface. Sixty extra tons is going to bring us up from 180 tons to 240 tons."

"That's going to be a heavy landing!" growled Bob.

"Yeah, worse, the landing feet won't reach the ground. They won't cushion our landing at all."

"Do they make much difference?" Lucy asked.

"They're basically massive shock absorbers," he replied. "Without them, any landing is going to be heavy and a heavy landing is going to cause structural damage."

"And we'll probably fall over," said Bob.

Chris laughed nervously. "That might actually be an improvement. If we land straight, the link frame between the Propulsion Module and Command Module will probably collapse. We'll be trapped in here, with this module sitting on its own airlock."

"We won't be able to get out?" Lucy asked.

"There's always a way," he replied. "But it might take a while."

"And, as you said, we don't have time for that," she added. "We'll need to get to the cryonic pods as quickly as we can."

"Okay. I'll get down there, use an E.V.A. suit and trigger the manual separation system."

"Sorry, Commander," said Bob. "You know that's not your job."

"We haven't got time to debate this. And I'm not going to order someone else to do it, it's too dangerous."

"That's exactly why you can't do it, Commander. And you don't need to order me, I'm volunteering," announced Bob, releasing his harness.

"Fine," Chris sighed. "You'll need to use one of the E.V.A. suits in the auxiliary storage deck."

"I'm ahead of you, Commander," Bob smiled. His experience with micro-gravity showed in the ease with which he pulled himself across to the hatch in the centre of the floor and started to rapidly to wind the wheel to unseal it.

"Chuck, you go too and help him get suited up," Chris ordered.

"Will do, Commander." Chuck nodded and threw off his five-point harness.

Bob dropped headfirst through the open hatch with Chuck travelling through it soon after him. Moments later, one of them resealed the hatch.

"It's going to take them a while to get down to the hatch room and get suited up," Chris said. "How long until we reach the surface, Lucy?"