Chapter Seven
After the foam had finished billowing out to fill the almost invisible filaments of each aerobrake’s shaping mesh, Caine started a timer: one minute until it hardened. “Eku, are our descent packages synced?”
“Just now, Commodore. And biomonitors are functioning.”
Riordan toggled for the open channel. “Systems check. Sound off.”
By the numbers, each of the other dozen jumpers confirmed that their frames, and they, were ready.
Riordan looked down the length of the mooring tether: the teardrop bulges of the frames’ hardened aerobrakes were lined up like misshapen white birds perched on a power line. He eye-toggled his private channel to Bannor. “I’ve got to say it one last time: it is insane that I’m in charge of this when you’ve actually managed LOHO drops.”
His friend’s answer began with a chuckle. “No, I commanded them. The person who actually managed them was the senior NCO. This time, that’s my job: down in the weeds, dogging the details. Even more than usual, we need our CO to be watching, and adapting to, the big picture.”
Riordan found he was smiling. “How’s it feel to be a sergeant again . . . Colonel?”
Bannor’s reply was genuinely bright. “Feels great. Liked my life better before I went green to gold.”
“Before you what?”
“I’ll explain when we’re on the ground.”
“Speaking of which”—Riordan looked at the world looming beneath and beyond his toes—“time to head downstairs.”
“Yep,” Bannor agreed. “But watch the first step; it’s a doozy.”
Caine stared at the archaic Lost Soldier colloquialism. “Bannor, what is a ‘doozy’?”
“Damned if I know, Commodore. Ready to count us down?”
Hell, no. But Riordan said, “Yes,” and switched back to the open channel. “All hands, prepare for automated insertion. Eku, you will commence release sequence on my mark. Three, two, one . . . mark.”
The descent frames did not detach all at once, but in three staggered groups, the result being that both of the first two tiers were separated from the one immediately behind it by a kilometer. Their movement would have been imperceptible had it not been for the one reference object that was already moving well ahead of them: the ship, sunlight picking out the edges of its lifting surfaces.
“The automated descent package will fire briefly,” Eku warned them, “to widen our lateral intervals.”
“Yeah, tight traffic conditions up here,” quipped Duncan. Riordan hoped his jocular tone kept Girten and Liebman from realizing the actual reason for the maneuver; in the event a descent frame experienced a catastrophic failure, it minimized the chance that the resulting debris would crash into any others.
Slight puffs from Riordan’s thruster—perched just within arm’s reach atop a low tripod—imparted a brief sensation of side-slipping to the right and slightly downward. Shortly after, an equivalent puff pushed to the left, canceling the lateral drift. Riordan waited a moment before asking, “Eku, confirm successful evolution.”
“Confirmed, sir: optimal formation achieved. Descent velocity is nominal. Sending a visual.”
From Eku’s position at the center of the first wave, his helmet camera showed two slow, stately lines of inverted white teardrops: the reentry side of the frames’ aerobrakes. Four in each rank, their matched vectors would have made them appear motionless but for the rising rim of the world.
The view moved to the right and then the left as Eku turned his head from side to side. Two more frames, seen in profile, flanked him. Sharing the images wasn’t operationally necessary but, at the outset, it helped orient those who had been unable to adequately visualize the process.
As the image disappeared, Bannor asked the group to sound off and report their status: more a means of diminishing the sense of isolation typical of EVA operations than a strict necessity. As Rulaine ran slowly down the roster, Riordan had enough time to bring up the dynamic mission profile on his HUD.
The diagram showed the curve of the world on the bottom, with the arc of their deorbit track descending toward it from left to right. It crossed through three faintly colored layers before reaching the planet: the mesosphere, the stratosphere, and finally, a narrow band just above the surface: the troposphere. The blinking dot indicating Riordan’s frame had sunk a third of the way from the top of the mesosphere to the beginning of the stratosphere.
He checked his slowly increasing rate of descent, compared it to the ideal mission time hack: they’d be halfway through the mesosphere in about four minutes. Right on schedule. That would also be when the reentry heat began building in earnest: a unique situation, in Riordan’s limited experience.
As a passenger—and twice, the second seat—on deorbiting craft, Caine had grown accustomed to the first part of a typical deorbit profile: shedding a lot of velocity early in the descent. But here, a lot of the normal physics were reversed. Their ship had re-expressed from shift in a comparatively static relationship to the planet, meaning a minimal difference in momentum. So, since they were not entering the upper mesosphere with a lot of excess energy, shedding excess velocity would not become necessary until the planet’s own gravity had dramatically accelerated their rate of descent.
As if underscoring the difference, the frame jostled him slightly from below.
Craig Girten was on the open channel instantly. “Is that . . . is that us skipping off the surface of the pond?”
“Correct, Sergeant Girten.” Eku’s voice was almost too calm. “The atmosphere is now thick enough to offer noticeable resistance. The automated descent package will soon make small changes to the attitude of your individual frames in order to keep them within the reentry corridor.”
Sure enough, the thruster just a meter away from Riordan’s face angled, puffed, reangled slightly, puffed again, then recentered. A moment later, the irregular jolts subsided . . . but now a faint vibration was persistently drumming against his back, as if he were lying upon a giant tuning fork.
Eku reported that change with a hint of panic in his voice. “My frame is . . . it may be coming apart—!”
“Stay calm, all of you.” Rulaine’s voice mixed firmness with boredom: a surprisingly reassuring blend. “Constant vibration is normal, even at this altitude. Any object digging down through an atmosphere generates friction. That’s all you’re feeling, and it’s going to increase as we drop further. As long as the vibration is smooth and steady, there’s no reason to be concerned. Same if the thruster fires a burst or two; it’s just keeping you five-by-five in the reentry corridor.”
“Five-by—?” began Girten and Eku simultaneously.
“Centered,” Bannor interrupted, then paused. “Any problems? Any questions?”
After a few faint demurrals, the line was silent.
The icon for a page on the command channel illuminated. Shit: a problem already? Riordan muted the main channel, opened the other. “Riordan. Go.”
“Damn, Commodore!” Miles exclaimed at his hard tone. “We’re not calling with bad news, promise!”
Bannor sounded bemused. “Just touching base, CO. Enjoying the ride?”
Riordan snorted. “It’s overrated.”
“Well, enjoy the boring part while it lasts.”
Caine glanced at the descent tracker. “Yeah, looks like there’s still three minutes before things get ‘interesting.’”
O’Garran sounded philosophical. “So, any plans for all that downtime, sir? Mixing some cocktails? Napping?”
“Worrying. I’ll be monitoring the open channel. Anything else to report?”
“No, sir,” they chorused.
“Well, no news is good news. Riordan out.”
***
After two quiet minutes, Duncan Solsohn confirmed Caine’s implicit assertion that most news was a harbinger of woe. The IRIS operative’s soft mutter shattered the silence of the open channel like a hammer going through glass: “Got a little problem, here, Mission Control.”
By the time Caine had placed the reference, he was responding on the main channel while opening the command line as well. “What’s your problem, Duncan?”
“Well . . . my automated descent package is glitching.”
Riordan kept his voice calm, wished he could boost the temperature in his suit to drive off the sudden chill running down his limbs. “Eku, can you diagnose from your suit?”
“I cannot, Commodore. Also, I am noting increased interference on all channels and data links.” A pause. “I believe the solar weather event is beginning. Duncan, describe what is happening.”
“The interfaces for the different programs on my HUD are, well, mashed together. They either overlap or are superimposed on each other. None are responding to commands.”
Eku’s response was confident. “The problem is not in your HUD. It is in the feed from your automated descent package. You must reinitialize it. Immediately.”
“What?”
Riordan muted the open channel, muttered to Miles and Bannor, “Do you agree?”
Miles’ response was immediate. “I’m out of my depth, sir.”
“Bannor?”
“Sorry, CO, I’m not much better off than Miles. We’re not familiar with the system and we can’t even read Dornaani. My guess? After traveling in the Collective for months, you’re the only one who might be able to help.”
Well, then heaven help us all. Riordan unmuted the open channel. “Eku, what happens if the reboot doesn’t work?”
“Then Major Solsohn will have to finish his descent using the manual assist software, which runs as a separate system.”
Riordan pondered, asked, “What is the probability that only the interface is corrupted and that the descent controller itself is still functioning?”
Eku sighed. “No way to know, sir.”
Riordan suppressed a sigh of his own. “Major Solsohn, prepare to reboot.” He muted the channel. “You two heard?”
“We heard,” Miles muttered. “It’s really the only choice he’s got.”
“What if he punches out now?”
Bannor exhaled sharply. “Even though the drogue ’chutes are made from smart fabric, Eku didn’t know if they’d work in the mesosphere, so opening them here could be useless. On the other hand, if they do work, then the main might also deploy in the upper stratosphere—and he’d land God knows where.”
“On a planet that is eighty percent ocean,” O’Garran muttered darkly.
“Right. Stand by.” Riordan unmuted the open channel. “Major Solsohn. Here are your instructions. You will reinitialize the automated descent package as per Mr. Eku’s recommendation. Mr. Eku: if the system fails to reinitialize, what are the consequences of Major Solsohn overriding the descent profile and jettisoning the frame?”
“Jettisoning the frame? Sir, that would—!”
“Mr. Eku. Just. Answer. The. Question.”
“He should be able to assume direct control, including jettisoning the frame, through the manual assist program. But he might not—”
Riordan didn’t wait for the factotum to finish. “Major Solsohn, if the system does not reinitialize, you will jettison the frame if it becomes dangerously unstable. Be warned: your drogues and main are not rated for the mesosphere, so the lower you punch out, the better.”
“I understand, sir. I’m ready to turn out the lights.”
Riordan couldn’t help smiling. “Godspeed, Major.”
“Reinitializing. Stand by.”
Riordan muted the line so he could take a deep breath and release it slowly as he waited. The vibration against his back was increasing but still regular. Mostly.
“And . . . ” Duncan murmured, drawing out the word before he announced: “Eureka! System is up again!” Relieved sighs and exhalations almost drowned out his question: “What do you think caused the glitch, Eku?”
“Possibly the interface between your Terran helmet and Dornaani software, but more likely it is due to the CME. The energy in the atmosphere has already pushed its resistance coefficients past projections, and comms may begin to lose clarity. Other failures are likely.”
Riordan frowned. “Eku, go back: how is the solar weather increasing atmospheric friction?”
It was Ayana who answered. “Energetic particles create various forms of resistance and disruption, Commodore. In this case, it requires more effort—and generates more heat—for the aerobrakes to push them out of the way.”
Riordan nodded to no one, cleared his mind, and carefully prioritized his orders: any second might be the last in which he could send them. “All hands: if your automated descent package fails, activate manual assist as per the protocols just given to Major Solsohn. For those of you in Terran pressure suits: your electronics are three times as susceptible to EMP and radiation damage as Dornaani gear. Yaargraukh, your risk is at least double that.
“Warning lights may also malfunction, so watch your altimeters closely. If you pass the altitude benchmark for an automated descent evolution, jettison your frame as soon as practicable. Or sooner. Acknowledge receipt of these orders by voice.”
After all twelve confirmations were received, Riordan breathed deeply. “Mr. Eku, we could lose comms at any time. So walk us through what will happen from here to the ground. Concisely and clearly.”
“Yes, sir. Each frame will start experiencing individual variations in friction, temperature, and wind. Continuing to synchronize them would be difficult and dangerous. Each is now being shifted to autonomous control. This optimizes safety, but the formation will degrade.”
The vibration had become similar to riding in a car without shock absorbers. The stars were becoming less visible, and in their place, faint vapor trails were now reaching back along each frame’s trajectory.
“Your HUDs should now be displaying a graphical representation of your aerobrake’s integrity and performance. Do not become alarmed if one of the edges glows red for a moment. That indicates the nanites detected uneven ablation there. When your automated descent package has adjusted your frame’s vector to correct it, the red disappears.”
Liebman’s voice was tight. “What if the red doesn’t go away?”
“You may need to wait a moment.”
“I did. The red is still there. And growing.”
Caine was about to break in, but Bannor beat him to it. “Liebman, use the Dornaani command override and blink at the red part! That will correct—”
“Correction isn’t working; it’s getting worse. Wait . . . shit! I did it backwards! How do I—?”
“Liebman: punch out!” Caine shouted.
Liebman’s connection flared into static, then died. At the far right edge of Riordan’s vision, a bright orange flame flickered against the blue black of the mesosphere, like a suddenly lit candle falling sideways. The incandescent tongue brightened, rolled, and with a final sharp flash, winked out—before reappearing as a shower of orange and red sparks, plummeting planetside.