were silent for a moment, then Helen spoke. “Speaking of the hab modules,” she said, looking at Joe, “Can we fix the one we sort of landed on?”
“Yes,” Joe said with confidence. “It got bent and squashed, but all the pieces are still there and we’ve got everything needed to fix it. So we’ll be able to spin up once we’re back in space.”
“That’s good,” Helen said.
Another silence. “How are we doing with Munin and preparations to visit the General?” Maddie asked finally. Might as well touch on other subjects.
“Going good there,” Brett said. “We’ve got good models up on all the critical systems and we think we know how to fix them. It’s going to take quite a while—our good friend Fitzgerald sure knew how to screw things up. But between the resources on Odin and our know-how…well, Odin ’s never going to be pretty again, but she’ll be a functioning space station, anyway.”
The last line tugged at something. Space station instead of spaceship . But why? Odin couldn’t move anymore, not in any significant way. She retained enough functionality to orient herself in different ways, but neither of her drives were…
“Joe,” she said slowly. “And Jackie…When we threw Nebula Storm together, we used the reactor for the Ceres colony as our main power source, right?”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Plus a big bank of RTSC batteries to fake up the NERVA drive.”
“And bolted the spare nozzle from Nobel onto Nebula Storm ’s rear,” confirmed Jackie. “Why?”
“Oh, oh, oh, I think I see where you’re going, Maddie, and it might work, god- Damn it just might work!” A.J. said, a grin spreading across his face.
The others glanced at him in puzzlement; he looked to Maddie; she just smiled and nodded. He loves explanations, and I think he does get it. “Well,” A.J. said, giving her a quick smile of thanks, “ Odin ’s pretty much kaput, but her reactors —both of them—are still intact, and the one is just a tweaked drive unit from the original Nike , just like the one on Nobel—”
Joe and Jackie started grinning too, and the smiles started to spread. Horst cut in: “—and the reason Odin can’t use its NERVA isn’t because the drive’s completely shot, but because the drive nozzle was completely shredded! And—”
Suddenly it seemed as though everyone was talking at once:
“—well, that’s not completely true, some of the secondary support systems were damaged,” Mia Svensen said cautiously, but she, too, was smiling. “And we’ll have to do some careful design models, I think Nobel had modified the nozzle design for its own applications—”
“—need to figure out how much water we’ll need, might need several trips—”
“—and Larry, the orbital change needed, not much I think, yes?”
“—transfer valve to move the water from Munin to Odin , sort of a reverse, we never thought we’d have to do the opposite—”
“—cutting tools that might do the job—”
She raised her voice. “People. EVERYONE, please! ”
The room went suddenly quiet. She smiled at them. “From the general look and sound, can I assume that we think this is a good solution?”
“It’s a damn near perfect solution, Maddie,” Joe said fondly. “With Odin ’s orbit going in to Io and out about to Europa, it’s going to be tracing something like an old-fashioned Spirograph pattern around, which means over time it will get closer and then farther and farther around the circle, eventually catching up to us. But it does mean that it’s going to be a pain to transfer back and forth, especially at different points of the cycle.”
“And Odin has so many resources on board, even in its cut-down state, that we just don’t have,” Mia said. “If we can get it enough reaction mass and put on a nozzle that lets it shift orbit enough to turn to an orbit around Europa…! ”
“…it becomes a satellite filled with resources we can access a lot more easily and
“Yes,” Joe said with confidence. “It got bent and squashed, but all the pieces are still there and we’ve got everything needed to fix it. So we’ll be able to spin up once we’re back in space.”
“That’s good,” Helen said.
Another silence. “How are we doing with Munin and preparations to visit the General?” Maddie asked finally. Might as well touch on other subjects.
“Going good there,” Brett said. “We’ve got good models up on all the critical systems and we think we know how to fix them. It’s going to take quite a while—our good friend Fitzgerald sure knew how to screw things up. But between the resources on Odin and our know-how…well, Odin ’s never going to be pretty again, but she’ll be a functioning space station, anyway.”
The last line tugged at something. Space station instead of spaceship . But why? Odin couldn’t move anymore, not in any significant way. She retained enough functionality to orient herself in different ways, but neither of her drives were…
“Joe,” she said slowly. “And Jackie…When we threw Nebula Storm together, we used the reactor for the Ceres colony as our main power source, right?”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Plus a big bank of RTSC batteries to fake up the NERVA drive.”
“And bolted the spare nozzle from Nobel onto Nebula Storm ’s rear,” confirmed Jackie. “Why?”
“Oh, oh, oh, I think I see where you’re going, Maddie, and it might work, god- Damn it just might work!” A.J. said, a grin spreading across his face.
The others glanced at him in puzzlement; he looked to Maddie; she just smiled and nodded. He loves explanations, and I think he does get it. “Well,” A.J. said, giving her a quick smile of thanks, “ Odin ’s pretty much kaput, but her reactors —both of them—are still intact, and the one is just a tweaked drive unit from the original Nike , just like the one on Nobel—”
Joe and Jackie started grinning too, and the smiles started to spread. Horst cut in: “—and the reason Odin can’t use its NERVA isn’t because the drive’s completely shot, but because the drive nozzle was completely shredded! And—”
Suddenly it seemed as though everyone was talking at once:
“—well, that’s not completely true, some of the secondary support systems were damaged,” Mia Svensen said cautiously, but she, too, was smiling. “And we’ll have to do some careful design models, I think Nobel had modified the nozzle design for its own applications—”
“—need to figure out how much water we’ll need, might need several trips—”
“—and Larry, the orbital change needed, not much I think, yes?”
“—transfer valve to move the water from Munin to Odin , sort of a reverse, we never thought we’d have to do the opposite—”
“—cutting tools that might do the job—”
She raised her voice. “People. EVERYONE, please! ”
The room went suddenly quiet. She smiled at them. “From the general look and sound, can I assume that we think this is a good solution?”
“It’s a damn near perfect solution, Maddie,” Joe said fondly. “With Odin ’s orbit going in to Io and out about to Europa, it’s going to be tracing something like an old-fashioned Spirograph pattern around, which means over time it will get closer and then farther and farther around the circle, eventually catching up to us. But it does mean that it’s going to be a pain to transfer back and forth, especially at different points of the cycle.”
“And Odin has so many resources on board, even in its cut-down state, that we just don’t have,” Mia said. “If we can get it enough reaction mass and put on a nozzle that lets it shift orbit enough to turn to an orbit around Europa…! ”
“…it becomes a satellite filled with resources we can access a lot more easily and
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