The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [46]
La Forge had fallen another twenty kilometers, plunging into the next layer of Askarian clouds, bluish with water ice. His HUD showed three Earth atmospheres pressure, as if he were twenty meters underwater. It took over six minutes to fall just that much farther, he thought. Since I’m falling at “only” 185 kilometers per hour now. The attempted joke didn’t bring a smile to his face.
His EV suit was still compensating for the increased pressure, but it was at the edge of its capabilities. After all, it’s a soft suit, designed for low-pressure conditions. On the other hand, the temperature’s up to freezing, so I’m saving heating power. But extra power or not, it was time to admit he was going to be crushed in the deep atmosphere. Like a submarine sinking under the ocean.
Five minutes passed. He felt mentally and physically numb. And then—
A submarine. Like I’m sinking underwater. He shook his head, at least as much as he could inside his helmet. Why didn’t I think of this before? This is a simple buoyancy problem.
La Forge reached down to an emergency supply pouch strapped to his left leg. Leaving the skydiving position, his descent increased. He rolled over, back down, which made it a bit easier. He glanced at the HUD—four Earth atmospheres and increasing. He was now 60 kilometers below the altitude he’d fallen from, traveling at 113 kilometers an hour. Carefully opening the pouch so everything wouldn’t fly out, he withdrew a one-person survival shelter. It was compact, about the size of a tricorder. He played out his safety line again, looped it through a carry strap on the shelter, and attached the adhesion plate to one of the straps of its harness. Then he slipped his left hand through the strap and pulled the shelter’s activation tab with his right. A chemical reaction caused support ribs to stiffen, forcing the shelter to unfold. He reached behind his back, fumbled around, and found the auxiliary oxygen line. Pulling it out as far as he could, he inserted it into a valve on the side of the unfolding shelter and flicked the release on the end of the line.
As the compressed oxygen in the tank on his back expanded into the shelter, his rate of descent decreased. Soon he was dangling from the swollen hemispherical shelter, a bubble of oxygen inflated to about a meter and a half across. He detached the oxygen line and stowed it as he checked the HUD. Three and a half Earth atmospheres…and decreasing. I’m actually rising. Grunting with the pain of being battered by the wind during his fifteen-minute plunge, he tightened up the safety line to get some support from that and reached up to grab the carry strap with his right hand as well.
Then a red light came on, warning that his oxygen tank was low.
It was like arriving late at a play, the room dark, the show sold out. La Forge, Riker, Data, and Worf stood at the back of a large passenger compartment in the scramjet, playing their palm beacons across the rows and rows of seats, each one occupied. It was as if the Narsosians were waiting for the curtain to rise—but they were all dead. The away team moved up a center aisle for a closer look.
The Narsosians were, on average, tall by human standards. Nearly without exception both males and females were more than two meters tall. They wore undecorated jumpsuits and boots in a variety of colors. Most looked quite peaceful; many held hands. The Narsosians had dull red downy hair that appeared to cover most of their skin, head, hands, and faces alike. Their noses were very small, their ears almost nonexistent. Their teeth were large, the males’ noticeably broader.
Data lowered his tricorder. “There are five hundred and three Narsosian corpses aboard this ship.” Data also wore an EV suit; although the environment was not a problem for the android, anti-contamination regulations required he suit up too.
La Forge frowned. “How did they all die so…neatly?”
Riker looked back and forth at the partially mummified bodies by twisting at the waist in his EV suit.