Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

But, without any gauges left—? “How do you know?”

“It’s starting to glow dull red.”

Oh. “All right. Then here’s what you and Phil are going to do with the severed coolant line. You’ve got to snug it into the engine trusses so that it’s aiming straight at the chamber, and it’s got to be secure enough to hold that position under pressure.”

Tina’s question arrived as a screech. “Under pressure from what?”

Phil Friel evidently saw where Karam was headed. “From coolant flow. Karam is going to open the registers again.”

Tina did not become less shrill. “And flood the whole chamber with the remaining coolant?”

Karam didn’t bother to keep his tone civil. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Seal your suits; it’s going to be pretty unpleasant”— well, lethal —“in there. Let me know when you’ve got it rigged.”

“Harebrained scheme if I ever heard one,” Tina grumbled as she worked.

“Might be,” Karam admitted. “But we’ve got to cool that chamber down for just another minute, enough so that we can maintain thrust and not explode. You done yet?”

“Working.”

“Damn, you two are slow.”

“Shut up. There: we’re finished.”

“Good. Get in the equipment locker.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you in the compartment when I uncork the remaining coolant on that line. The steam could melt straight through your gear.”

“Okay, we’re in the closet. Sort of.”

“Tight fit,” Phil agreed.

“Well, you two lovebirds make the most of it.” Karam was gratified by what he presumed was their embarrassed silence. “Releasing the coolant in three, two, one; now—”

There was a slight tremor on the bridge. Evidently, the effect was much more noticeable back in the drive room. “Holy shit!” screamed Tina. “Sounds like a tornado out there.”

“Banshees on steroids,” Phil agreed. “But it’s dying down already. Figure it will be safe to reenter in about four or five seconds?”

“Make it ten. But we’ll reach the coast, now. Just strap in and stay handy.”

“To do what?” Tina asked.

“Can’t say just yet,” Karam lied. Because hopefully I won’t have to ask one of you to take an even more insane risk before this is over.

Sleeman breathed a sigh of relief as Puller cleared the coast-hugging foliage at one hundred meters altitude — then gasped as she was thrown forward against her straps. “What the hell—?”

“Just shifted one third of our thrust to our VTOL fans,” Karam grunted. “They’re in forward attitude to brake us. With any luck—”

But the onrushing blue horizon revealed that their luck had run out. Undetectable from their prior angle, the initial drop-off of the tidal shallows reversed itself, climbed up again to give birth to spray-wreathed rocks and a few small islands. Dragons teeth waiting to tear Puller apart. “Shit,” announced Karam calmly.

Lymbery had seen it. “P-pivot on your fans,” he stammered.

Damn it, the guy has good ideas when he’s too busy to be scared. “Pivoting,” Karam confirmed, reaching down and cutting the starboard fans back to ten percent. Puller groaned, lost altitude crookedly, but heeled starboard as she continued forward at a widening angle, her nose swinging away from the rocks. “Great idea, Morgan. We just might—”

“Critical overheat,” Phil Friel’s voice shouted at him. First time the calm Irishman had ever shouted, so Karam accepted his report as gospel: he shut the engines down.

“We’re going in,” he announced in as calm a voice as he could manage. “Strap in. Stay calm.” The mandatory platitudes common to all imminent crashes.

Karam snapped on the bow’s emergency attitude control thrusters — compressed gas canisters usually used spaceside when the main engines were off-line — and blew what little was left in them in one long, concentrated burst. That brought Puller ’s nose up a bit, which gave her a little more glide, a little more time to dump airspeed.

The blue beneath them began lightening: shallows. That was good for getting out of Puller safely, but not good for putting her down in one piece: if they hit the bottom with any appreciable force—“Call out our final descent, Ms. Sleeman. Tongues away from your teeth, folks.”

“Four meters, three, two—”

Melissa never got to “one,” but Karam had expected that. With Puller ’s nose still slightly raised, her stern hit first, creating a momentary sense of drag, as if someone had half depressed the emergency brake. Then a stomach jarring slam as the tortured ship’s belly swung down flat against the water. Come on , thought Karam, rise up —

And for just a fraction of a second, they were seemingly weightless again. The view in the canopy showed the water drop away for a moment—

— and then they dug in hard, metal screeching and squealing and half of the secured objects coming loose and flying about the bridge. Karam heard the air come out of his lungs like a bellows as he slammed forward against the straps — but he was smiling, even as he felt his sternum wiggle uncomfortably: made it. Hit the right contact angle and skipped the hull like a stone on a lake. Only one hop, but that’s all we needed to surviv—

“Karam.” It was Phil Friel. Hushed but strident.

“Talk,” Karam answered; Puller was now drifting through the water, listing to starboard, with waves lapping up its long narrow nose toward the bridge windows.

Friel’s voice was low. “I’ve seen one wet ditch like this, with a hot power plant. I know what happens if this chamber floods all at once.”

Shit. Just what I was afraid of. “Tina?”

“I shifted to a private circuit. This is you and me.”

Jeez. Calm, unassuming Phil Friel can get all business when he has to. “I get it. But you can gradually flood the compartment if the inflow vents are still functioning—”

“They’re not. I checked them as soon as I got out of my couch. I’m guessing that during the fight, the hit on our fuel tankage warped the valve housing. So I don’t have any way to gradually cool the plant. Which will eventually blow on its own.”

“Or shred itself and us if it’s suddenly immersed in a rush of cold ocean water.” Damn it, I didn’t want to have to ask this. “Phil, I don’t know how to say—”

“You don’t have to say anything. Get Tina out of here. I can crank open the emergency depressurization vents. That will let the water in a bit at a time.”

“Yeah, but don’t stay a second longer than you have to.”

“I have no intention of being parboiled, Karam. Now, get Tina out of here so I can get to work.”

Karam watched the water edge up over the cockpit canopy, switched to the open circuit. “Tina?”

“Yeah?”

“We have to evacuate through the dorsal hatchway. You’re closest; check it, make sure it’s full-function, and pull the water-landing kits.”

“I’m on it.”

Lymbery and Sleeman were already at the bridge hatchway. Karam unstrapped, rose. His rueful and sardonic “Abandon ship” did not diminish the alacrity with which they entered the aft-leading corridor.

As they made their way back to the dorsal hatchway, Puller showed herself much worse for the wear. Lockers had sprung open, freshers were running and overflowing, access panels hung and swayed from both ceilings and bulkheads. But they reached the hatchway swiftly, helped Tina open it into a stiff breeze that mixed the smell of salt with that of musk.

“Where’s Phil?” Tina asked as she handed up one of the inflatable rafts.