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(Referee only) |
They've detected no signs at all of inhabitants.
There are no radio signals, no sign of artificial light, no concentrated
heat sources, no signs of settlements or agriculture.
Under the circumstances Helia decides to do a fast
drop. It's a flawless power landing in the ocean.
The location she has selected is out in the middle
of the ocean, as far away as possible from what little land there is.
As they hurtle down, they notice a couple of large floating vegetation
patches. Helia avoids them.
Mich Saginaw starts refueling immediately.
Helia tells everyone that if they want to do any readings, they'd better
get started because she's going to take off as soon as Mich says he's clear.
Of course they are running the sensors -- not necessarily
to collect data, but to make sure they know if anything approaches the
ship. Helia seems to have most of the crew a little worried about
staying here.
The dense atmosphere makes it easy to purge the
systems and freshen up their air storage. The ship will leave here
with life support fully replenished.
The planet is perhaps the closest to standard they've
been on for a while. Gravity is 0.84, temperature moderate, and if
it weren't for the dense air and the fact that the world is almost all
ocean, they could be on Earth.
It takes only six hours to fill the tanks, but it'll be a further nine hours before refining is complete. As soon as Mich gives the signal, Helia takes the Third Eye up to orbit as fast as she can.
Up in orbit, the ship is ready to head for a jump point. The question is, where to go now? Helia and Sagan confer on the rudimentary starmap they've compiled. The galactic core is located, so it's quite clear which direction they need to head. They decide that with unknown systems in all directions, they'll stick to jump-1. That way, if the system they arrive in has no fuel available, they can jump right back here and start again.
The Third Eye continues to orbit Jackpot, waiting for the explorer and astrogator to figure out the local neighborhood of systems.
Robert has been upgraded to sick, and resumes his duties. He checks the sensors for any kind of communications, but finds the system empty.
The decision is made to jump to the system that they now call Hope.
Helia assesses the situation. She finds they have just barely enough fuel to make it to the planet -- not enough for a gas giant refueling, and only enough for one shot at the landing. She recommends to the captain that they land on the planet, and tells him they need to shut down as much of the ship systems as possible. They'll be eating cold food for a few days. Mich shuts the grav plates down, maintaining 0.1g in essential areas -- enough to reduce the risk of crew accidents. The module is shut down completely.
Helia plots a course, eases the ship around, and pulses the thruster plates. It's a perfect course. The Third Eye starts coasting towards Jackpot.
Grand Admiral Baron Bridgehead tells them about the flight of the Anastasia after their misjump disaster, how they piloted the ship just by eye, and how Linda landed them on Pimane.
Helia says to the Marquis, "Sir, can we get a new ship?" She's perfectly serious. Marquis Marc is sure Mich can fix it (he says dubiously) and Helia points out that Mich is the reason they're in this mess.
Mich finds that engineering is a mess. A lot of circuits have been burnt out from his power shunt, but that's repairable easily enough. Unfortunately four zuchai crystals have shattered -- and they only have two spare. That means he'll have to rig up something with the matter phase inverters to get them home.
It's a perfect landing. Helia glides the ship down, slipping into ground effect over the ocean, and and settles the ship into the water on the contragrav.
Mich immediately starts refueling operations.
Helia, with assistance from Robert, runs diagnostics
with the computer to see why they disagreed on the jump coordinates.
Everything seems to be working just fine.