***
The remote ships were designed primarily to
carry much larger payloads of cargo than the Albatross. They were flown via remote control from Earth and
therefore designed to be unmanned. Consequently, unlike the Albatross, the cargo bays filled a much
larger proportion of the remotes’ hulls. They were, however, also designed as
ERVs (Earth Return Vehicles) in case, for some reason, the Albatross was incapable to make the return journey to Earth. Thus,
they were fitted with flight decks and crew habitation quarters, albeit much
smaller than those on the Albatross.
However, with two pilots in our crew it meant that two ERVs could have been
piloted back to Earth with three crew members on board each if necessary,
making the return journey to Earth less cramped and uncomfortable for the crew.
All of this meant that I should have had no
trouble firing up the ERVs and piloting them to their new parking area. And yet
I did. When I got to the first ERV, the damn thing wouldn’t fire up. It would
burp, and it would fart, but it would not start. Eventually, I opened the hatch
and marched down to the tail of the ship and looked up the tailpipes of the thrusters;
wondering if perhaps they were blocked by Martian dust. There was some in
there, but not enough to make any difference. I looked up at the sky in the
direction of Earth and yelled,
“Drew, get your ass down here! I can’t start
this bastard!”
I angrily marched back into the ship and
punched the button to slam the hatch closed (which, of course, it didn’t—it
just slid slowly closed as it always did). This infuriated me even more, so I
threw myself into the launch chair and glared at the control panel for a long
time. That didn’t magically make the engines start either, so I reached forward
and hit the oxygen feeds to the engines to blow the dust out of them and shut
them down after a few seconds.
The ERVs had been parked on Mars for at
least eight months, which meant that the last time the engines had been fired
up was at least that long ago, and during that time they had been exposed to all
the sudden and erratic temperature changes and storms that Mars could throw at
them. I suddenly sat bolt upright in the launch chair as I suddenly remembered
a trick Drew had used a few times when he couldn’t get one of the thrusters to
fire up.
Now how did he do
it? Pushed the throttles to 25 percent and then hit the ignition buttons and
hold for a few seconds…then push the throttles to the gate, hit the ignition
buttons, and hold. With a burp and a fart, the engines finally did start. I did
not cut back on the thruster throttles fast enough and was hurled back into the
launch chair and pinned there as the ship scated and bounced while rapidly
accelerating across the ground. I tried pulling back on the joystick but got no
real joy from it; I got the nose off the ground but the ship was still being
bounced around by the rear landing skids as they skidded across the rough terrain of the plateau. I
increased the landing thrusters to maximum, but before they had time to make a
difference, the ship skidded off the end of the plateau and plummeted toward
the floor of the crater far below.
I noticed as I fell toward my death that the
thrusters were still at 100 percent power. I pushed forward on the stick,
thereby lowering the nose of the remote. The ship was carrying a total weight
of well over ninety tons including its own weight—a very heavy inertia to
overcome and control—but the thrusters were very powerful and were already
pushing the ship forward rapidly. She started to rise from the canyon when I
again pulled back on the stick and luckily I flew upward and away from my
death.
Once I reached the altitude I had planned
for in the first place, I leveled off and cut the throttles back to 5 percent
power while cutting the landing thrusters back to 50 percent. I then floated
across the Martian landscape toward the plain. When I reached it I set up for a
landing and dumped the ship heavily onto the ground. I didn’t care—I was still
angry and shaken and had had enough for one day. After shutting down all flight
systems, I went through to the cargo hold, unstrapped the buggy, disconnected
the cables and hoses, and drove toward the city. I stopped the buggy before I
entered the ramp leading to the city and
looked up at the sky toward where I knew the Earth would be.
“Thanks Drew,” I said, “I owe you a brew, or
at least a shot of rum or two.”
Of course, I knew there was no way Drew
could have possibly heard my offer, yet I was certain that, one way or another,
he would hold me to it when he got back.
The next day was quite a bit easier for me.
I was able to use what I had learned the day before to start up the second ERV
with relative ease and so, without any of the drama of the previous day, was
able to fly it to the plain and land it before midday. I decided that instead
of driving back and flying the last ERV over to the plain, I would spend the
rest of the day unloading some of the supplies from the two ERVs and stow them
in a corner in the city where they could be sorted later when the rest of the
crew returned.
For the next week, I unloaded supplies from
the two ERVs until I decided to go get the last ERV and bring it in to join the
rest on the plain. Once I completed that mission and the three ERVs were parked
on the plain I spent my days unloading ERVs and helping Sammy in the terrarium
and the labs.
Over the weeks that followed I often caught
myself looking up into the Martian skies toward the area I knew was where the
starship would be making its reentry into Mars Atmos(phere). I always found
myself disappointed when the skies remained empty.
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