Castaway Planet by Eric Flint, Ryk E Spoor Page B

hundred meters or so. We’ve got good candidates for landing locations. We know that the atmosphere’s close to Earth’s ratios of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, which means we all should be able to breathe there just fine.”
    “Right,” Caroline agreed. “We also know that there’s the type of salts we expect in the ocean and my guess at the concentration puts it at an acceptable level. With our limited sensors, Mom, we can’t expect to get much more.” She said the last uncomfortably, her preference being for complete and detailed answers.
    “All right,” Laura said. “Then I’ll shut up and let the pilot . . . pilot.” She smiled at Sakura, and Sakura felt a warm glow and a boost of confidence.
    Lincoln’s white-and-green filled the viewport. Close enough . She looked at the projections on the screen. We’re in orbit . . . if we get ready to deorbit, another orbit and a half . . . that brings us here . She studied the general area they would have to land in and saw one of the sites they’d already discussed, one of her favorites. There, the end of that small continent. I can use the very tip of that, and these points on the nearby islands. The tip of the small continent ended with an almost circular lagoon, with long, gently inclined slopes preceding the lagoon; sheltered access to the sea, easy terrain for exploration, and part of a nice large landmass—fit all the criteria they were looking for. She designated the guidance points to her display app as they swept over the target area. I’ll refine it with radar scans just before we do the deorbit .
    “We’ve got almost two hours before reentry,” she said, trying to sound calm. “Everyone use the bathroom or whatever before then.”
    Nervous as she was, she used the bathroom three times. How could time seem to be dragging by, yet going so fast?
    As she sat down for the third time, she saw her timer alert go to yellow. Sakura took a deep breath and raised her voice. “Everyone please make sure you’re strapped down right, it’s going to be a rough ride even if there’s no trouble. Mom—I mean, Captain, can you check for me?”
    “Hitomi is secured. Melody, tighten your straps just a bit, honey.”
    Melody’s muttered, “What a pain . . .” brought a quick smile to Sakura’s lips.
    “Caroline?” asked her mother.
    “Secured, Mom.”
    “Harratrer?”
    Whips’ voice was very matter-of-fact, showing how tense he really was. “All hold-downs fastened, all secure.”
    “And I’ve already made sure I’m locked down,” said her father.
    “All secure, Sakura. Don’t worry about us now.”
    “Yes . . . Captain.”
    Focus. Eyes on the instruments and controls. Find those points!
    The target location came into view again, the last time before—hopefully—they landed. Get the angle . . . clouds starting to cover the one, but no problem, I can see through the clouds with radar anyway . . . radar painting them . . . designation . . .
    The guide app considered, blinked green. It now understood the geometry. “Caroline? I’ve got the estimates. Can you make sure everything’s right?”
    “Of course.” A pause. “I make our first deorbit burn as being in eight minutes, fifty-two seconds from . . . mark .”
    “Checked,” Melody said.
    This is it . Sakura knew that reentry and landings were the hardest part of spaceflight. “Eight minutes, twenty seconds to burn on my mark . . . mark ,” she said. “It’ll be about one g for eighteen seconds. We’ll have lowered our orbit and me, Caroline, Whips, and Melody’s apps will track our reactions to the first fringes of atmosphere, verifying their models of the planet’s atmosphere and the performance of LS-5 , before we do the final deorbit burn, which will last for a few more seconds and drop us low enough, to about eighty to ninety kilometers altitude, for the atmosphere to do the rest of the work. That’s when it’s going to really get rough, but we might feel a little