Somewhere in the distance, there was a strange hum, she heard it as if she were far away, but at the same time, she felt that it was right next to her head. When she woke up a little more, she found that along with the hum came pain. The pain came from the center of her head as if she had a shard in it that someone had left there. She probably grunted and made some kind of sound, but it was somehow muffled. After less than half a minute, she realized that the strange hum was cleaner and more clear. And along with that, her sight returned. Blurry at first and as if her eyelids were closed, but after a while, she could see better and better. And before her sight fully returned, she recognized that the strange hum was her sister calling her name. Although, her voice sounded strange as if it was veiled.
"Penny?" she asked still a little confused, looking at her sister, who was smiling at her with her helmet pressed on Judy's.
"Yes, you recognized me, the brain was not damaged. I was already afraid I'd lose my title," the red-haired girl replied, then Penny straightened up and looked at someone behind Judy. When she spoke, Judy immediately realized that she could only hear her voice through the helmet radio.
"What the hell?" She tried to get up, but someone's hand put her back in the chair.
"Judy sit still." Then her mother's face in the space suit appeared before her. Her forehead was bleeding, and she was tired, but she was visibly relieved when Judy woke up. She began to check something on Judy's hand before there was a low hissing sound that quickly disappeared in a second.
"I have increased the percentage of oxygen in your suit, it should help you wake up."
And truly, Judy immediately felt her body regain consciousness after a few breaths. The pain subsided fairly quickly, and her recognition skills were back as well.
"Yeah, that's better thanks. Last time I remember it was I who was the medic in our group. I mean, at least—" she didn't finish the sentence as she realized that her mother wasn't standing next to her. She, therefore, looked at Penny and frowned when she saw that even her body was also a few inches above the floor. Both of them floated next to her, their feet touching the floor here and there, but they both held on to the chair or table next to her.
"Are you floating? What did you eat?" Judy asked, poking Penny. She flew a few inches away from her before returning to her with a firm grip on the table and nudging her as well.
"Hey, someone's in a good mood here huh?"
"You better be careful Judy, we don't have an atmosphere so remember your weightlessness training," Maureen said patting her helmet. Then she moved into the corridor behind her. Judy watched as her body floated away around the corner and suddenly, she began to remember what had happened. Jupiter, sparks, smoke, fear, she remembered her father yelling at the console, she remembered something blown up down the hall and she remembered Don going...
"Oh my God, Don! He was there," Judy pointed down the hall and tried to get up, but Penny pinned her back to the chair as her sister repeated, He, he, he over and over, waving her hand towards the door where she'd last seen Don's face.
"Please calm down, okay? He is fine."
"But he, he flew away, I saw him—"
"Hey," Penny stopped her sister with a firm voice echoing through her helmet and when she saw that Judy was paying attention she continued, "as I said he is fine. Dad is with him, don't worry now, you most of all pull yourself together, it really shook with us when we jumped, I'm not surprised that you passed out. I woke up barely ten minutes ago."
"Jumped? So, it worked?"
Penny frowned wondering if her sister was joking or not. Fortunately, her sarcastic self was always better to use than to offend someone. And it didn't disappoint this time either.
"Half of the things don't work here, mom almost collapsed, Don has a concussion and a dislocated shoulder, you just woke up from unconsciousness, but it "worked"? Well, you're right, who cares about problems, who cares about us, the crew is not needed, the main thing is that the ship is fine. Oh, wait, no it is not, we have multiple cracks in the hull, no air, half the systems gone crazy and if my parents can't fix the maneuvering jets I'm probably going to look like a hamster on a merry-go-round for the rest of my life," she said, gesturing somewhere right, then she knocked at Judy's helmet before she floated off somewhere into the corridor. Her sister's fear for her health had clearly gotten away when she exchanged it so quickly for sarcasm. Well, that's totally Penny. Judy then looked in the direction her sister pointed at, through the cockpit and its front windows. The stars in the distance were still moving, which meant that the ship was not stationary but still spinning. She slowly got up and when her body wasn't sending her any confusing signals and her head didn't have any symptoms of sudden high g either, she set out to put her hand to work as well. And as she walked through Jupiter, it became clear to her that a lot of hands would be needed.
*********************
Don was sitting on a bed in the infirmary, breathing rapidly and looking up at the ceiling. Then he closed his eyes and grinned.
"Don't count, just do it." A few seconds later, his short "Ouch!" echoed through the room as Judy fixed his dislocated shoulder. He rubbed it and circled it a few times. It still hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain of a dislocated limb. He nodded at Judy, who smiled at him and then began to shine a small flashlight into his eyes and inspect them.
"Mm calm down, I really don't have anything in my eyes," he fidgeted and dodged the light.
"Come on Don, I need to make sure you don't have any permanent damage, you took it harder than I did," she admonished him and when he finally sat still she shone the light into his pupils again, "Hmm the head seems fine, well within limits," she joked and he frowned, "alright, show me your back now."
"Hey, it's nothing, I just hit myself hard while flying down the hall, that's all," he tried to shoo her away, but she was persistent, so he unbuttoned his mechanic suit and took off his t-shirt. He laid down on his stomach and let Judy check first the bump on his head and then the nasty-colored bruise under his right shoulder blade. He hissed several times when she touched him.
"I thought it was nothing?" she joked at his expense and began searching the drawers for some pain reliever. It was a good thing Jupiter had all the compartments, cabinets, and drawers magnetically closed, otherwise, she would have gone straight to looking for her equipment in the rest of the ship.
"Well, apparently, when an invisible force throws you across the hall, the suit's linings won't protect you much, ouch."
Judy didn't answer and smeared pain relief gel all over his affected area. She could still see his terrified face before he disappeared in a sudden hull breach. She really thought at that moment that they had lost him.
"Well, it's good that it was just your arm and some bumps Don."
"What else could it be? I'm Don West baby, after all, I already have a name like some kind of space cowboy from the TV series and —"
"I saw you, Don," Judy cut him off, looking into his eyes, "I saw you when it pulled you in and you disappeared somewhere in the darkness. I was worried." When she finished, she looked down at the ground and had to gather her thoughts. It was hard to imagine what would happen if the worst came to pass. Don jumped off the bed, put on his t-shirt, and hugged her.
"Hey, everything is fine now. Thank you for your interest, Judy." He booped her on the nose and she was glad that this bigger half-brother of hers was here, safe, and alive.
Then they heard footsteps and when Don looked through the open door, he saw John limping down the hall while looking at his tablet. "Hey! John!" he exclaimed and ran to him, "So how did it go?" John was still wearing his space suit, just holding his helmet under his arm. He turned to Don and after making sure his friend looked okay, he answered him on his way to the cockpit.
"The last room is pressurized, and the artificial gravity works at one hundred percent. I went to double check that joint Maureen welded and apparently, it's working, maybe she could replace you," John joked, handing Don a tablet. Don then played a short recording from John's helmet while he was inspecting the welded plates on the ship's outer hull. Each Jupiter had around five square feet of spare plates in case they needed to be replaced. Or as in this situation, if you needed to weld them onto the old ones. He saw on the record that five smaller patches about the size of a man's palm were needed, and then two slabs, for holes large enough for a small child to pass through. He froze when he realized that it could easily be him who had nearly flown through that hole too. He still couldn't believe that the explosion of that jump drive hadn't torn Jupiter apart. When he finished watching the video, he nodded his head appreciatively. "Hmm, she would make a great mechanic." John just shrugged as if it was a matter of course and Don couldn't really argue with that. Maureen has more than once proven herself to be not only a brilliant scientist, but also a very manually skilled person, and today's event was just proof of that. After the ship jumped and somehow the system managed to react to breaches in the hull and immediately closed all the bulkheads, they said they found Don wedged in the ladder, just below the closed bulkhead leading to the garage. Even now he froze as he remembered that if he'd been stuck just a meter higher, the emergency closure would likely have split him in half. And while John was trying to free his friend, Maureen knew immediately that the breached hull needed to be repaired as soon as possible. It was hard to guess, as he was unconscious until he woke up with John's head in front of his eyes, but he guessed he couldn't have been out for more than an hour. By then, however, Maureen had managed to patch most of the holes. And there were a lot of them.
"What about the drive?"
John bent down and picked up one of the control boards that had flown from the ceiling off the ground. The number of wires and all sorts of electrical gadgets left him a little bit unconcerned when he realized that most of the buttons were used to control the fuel. He looked at Don and nodded at the board.
"See that damage?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, not that I didn't expect it after that loud bang, but this control board looks a hundred times better than Maureen's drive. I mean, what's left of him." John said, setting the control board aside. The engine room was the last room to pressurize as it looked more like an observation deck with a few new windows after the engine exploded. Even so, aside from some very brief information from John, Don had no idea what it was like down there.
"Sounds like we're pretty screwed."
John checked another board on the ceiling, pulled something out, and showed it to Don. His friend just shake his head, and thus John placed this on the imaginary pile of corpses.
"Well, according to Maureen, part of the engine got vaporized in the explosion and another part is missing, it probably flew out through the holes, so unless you want to go on the space version of mushroom picking, yeah I'd say we're not just screwed, we're fucked up Don." He just couldn't forgive such an expression, and even Don murmured a few very sharp expressions. Don looked out the window and wondered again at the Robinsons' bad luck. Jupiter's rotation might not be a problem now, but it certainly wasn't something they could wave their hands over. They needed maneuvering jets. John noticed his look and immediately reacted.
"Do you think you could take care of it?"
"I will try," Don turned and walked away. After a few steps in the corridor, a helmet and then a whole body appeared on the ladder opposite of him.
"Ah, I see you're all right now," Maureen hugged Don without thinking, then stopped. "Where's your suit?"
"Still at the infirmary, I'm actually going to pick it up right now."
"I hope so, the patches may hold, but we're still in space Don. I don't want to see anyone walking around the ship without a suit, is that clear?" Don saluted her before going to get his suit. Judy peeked out from the infirmary and looked at the approaching Don with a questioning look. But Maureen was faster. "Have you all forgotten about training? Into suit Judy, now!" Maureen raised her voice and headed for the cockpit. Luckily, she didn't notice as Penny quickly crawled into her room to put her suit back on.
*********************
Another half hour later they were all back at the HUB and this time for Maureen's needs and of course for safety they were all wearing suits and helmets.
Following discussion about what happened, what is broken, or what has been fixed took barely fifteen minutes. And the list of repaired items was really small compared to those that were damaged or irretrievably destroyed. Don managed to bypass the system that controls jet controls and rewire the steering directly to the bridge. Thanks to this, they can control the maneuvering jets directly from the pilot's seat, without the need for a system, but they could forget about any precise, computer-controlled corrections and adjustments during the flight. He also patched and replaced a few circuits he was able to get to and confirmed that the main generator was surprisingly undamaged. Maureen's patches were still holding as well as the ship didn't seem to lose an ounce of air after being repressurized.
And Penny and Judy confirmed that, fortunately, the vacuum did not manage to throw out, scatter, break, hide or otherwise move any important things, because at the moment of the explosion, fortunately, all the cabins except the infirmary were closed, so except for a few useless and expendable things, nothing has been lost. Unfortunately, Maureen then came with the bad news that whatever had caused the jump drive to explode, it certainly wasn't just a short circuit or a faulty motherboard, and it would probably have happened sooner or later anyway. This made John freeze as he realized how many times, they had jumped this Jupiter during testing.
But she didn't have time for further investigation, because, in addition to the jump drive itself, there was also extensive damage to the pipes leading to the main engines. The coolant pipe leading to engine two was literally obliterated by the explosion, and the fuel line leading to that engine also had several holes in it. They were lucky that the fuel line was empty at that moment, otherwise, it would ignite and that would be the end of the road. Don added another negative news to the pile and announced that the wiring throughout the ship had literally gone through hell, and despite his efforts and the use of literally all the spare wiring, he couldn't fix the transformer that exploded in the corridor so they can say goodbye to any kind of active tracking sensors, including radar, lidar and so on.
Also, the wiring responsible for carrying information from the pilot's console to the engines had some problems as well, and it is, therefore, possible that some engines will have a response of up to a second if the information reaches them at all. To make matters worse, the generator controlling the ventilation system has a fried control board, and so the air in Jupiter is currently recycled only by a backup system, which, however, fails and cannot be relied upon. Which only highlighted Maureen's request to wear suits all the time. All in all thought John, they're screwed, totally.
"I think our priority right now is to get the ship into a stable position and look around."
"You mean like climbing out and seeing where things fly?" Don didn't forgive the remark. Maureen gave him a look that settled Don again before she continued. "If we skip all the horrors we somehow survived, the jump itself was successful, and last time I looked at the jump coordinates, we're more or less in the right place." The last sentence sounded a bit odd, so John asked what she meant. "Well, whatever point the coordinates were pointing to in space, it seems that during the short circuit, the rift took us a little further. The deviation was minimal, but I have no idea if that means we've moved a hundred or ten million miles, we'll see when we stabilize the ship and look around."
"Doesn't Jupiter have some sensors that should tell you right away? Not to mention we wouldn't have missed the planet, would we?" John looked at Penny and realized again how she didn't like basic astronomy training and how she only got through the tests so-so.
"Penny, as Don mentioned, the active sensors are broken, so we don't know what's around us or how far it is, at least not precisely. We must rely on passive systems, which are not very reliable for spaceflight, I wouldn't be surprised if we lose them too," her father explained, taking a drink of water. It tasted somehow strange, it seemed that the drinking water haven't been changed for at least a month. Penny nodded her head in understanding but still told herself that she should read the manual and go over some technical terms again during her free time. Judy, unlike her, understood everything, at least as far as the explanation was concerned, but she wondered what the next steps are.
"So, if everything works out and we find ourselves near where Will crashed, what are the next steps?"
Maureen looked at John who gave her a silent reply, "saving Will at all costs".
"If all goes well Judy and we find out where we are, we can direct the ship to the planet and try to land."
"And is it safe to land this wreck?" Penny looked at the walls of Jupiter as if they were about to crumble at any moment.
"Hey hey hey! Come on, don't insult the ship, or it might get angry and tear us all apart," Don reminded her, accustomed and taught to cosmic superstitions and stories for mechanics with a purpose to scare and to work flawlessly. Maureen smiled at that, she had heard a few such superstitions before.
"Honestly, the landing shouldn't be such a problem. If the patches will hold, and I hope they will, then the reentry through the atmosphere and the subsequent flight should be no more difficult than usual. We will be able to navigate the ship not only with passive sensors but mainly by sight, which is certainly much easier on the planet than in space. I'm a bit worried about the engines, I'm not sure if one broken engine is the final number or if something else will go wrong during the flight."
John just snorted and got a nudge from Don.
"Oh sorry, I'm sure everything will work out!"
Don shook his head, stretched his shoulder, and stood up.
"I don't know about you, but I think I know enough. Stabilize the ship, look around to find and fly to the planet, and then land. That sounds clear and concise enough to me, or do you want to separate each part into individual episodes and make it a discussion circle?" Maureen couldn't hide her confused expression, but she could tell that it amused both girls. And obviously John too.
"Dude, a concussion can't stop you, can it?"
Don puffed out his chest and didn't forgive another joke with his acting. "Concussion? Hmm, the concussion is somewhere in the far east, I'm West, Don West, capeesh?"
Judy just rolled her eyes, and everyone laughed. It was a surprisingly welcome reaction after what had happened to them all today.
*********************
"I hope it works Don," Maureen stated before putting her hand on a side stick and with two buttons she switched to the manual control of the reaction control system that Don had quickly put together. Of course, John expected something to go wrong, everything had been going wrong for the past two days, but he was even more surprised when he heard a short and muffled hiss of compressed air several times. Maureen used the jets under the cockpit to slow and then completely stop Jupiter's rotation, which suddenly turned out to be an incredibly pleasant feeling when your world stopped spinning. After that, she canceled the inertia with the front thrusters and thus brought the ship to rest.
"Good job Don," John complimented the mechanic sitting behind Maureen, giving him a thumbs up. Don already took a breath for another one of his snap jokes, but in the end, he just swallowed the words and nodded his head. Maneuvering thrusters work, but he didn't want to anger the universe or the ship itself by bragging. Instead, he gently stroked the console in front of him and whispered something to it. Then he bent down and pressed a switch with the label "PSS", a passive sensor system, which was turned off during repairs. Don was sitting right behind Maureen and if she wanted to turn around and see the screens, she would have to unfasten her seatbelts, which was out of the question now as she preferred to monitor the status of the propulsion system rather constantly.
Relying solely on a computer system would be too dangerous now. John also wondered if Don could see anything, but like his wife, he kept his sight on the information his cracked screen console was showing him. He didn't care about anything other than the data on the levels of used energy, which, given the various flashing errors and messages, was already quite difficult to monitor. Don watched the system startup. At first, nothing was happening, and the screen just flashed several times, but then the data finally started to appear, and he started to dig through them.
"Yes!" he shouted, startling the chief pilot. "Oh, sorry Maureen. The passive systems are undamaged and fully functional."
"And? what do you see there?" Passive systems weren't the same as a working jump drive or active sensors, but it was better than nothing and she was happy. Sure, she could display the data at her place, but she didn't want to risk that, at the moment she would switch screens the universe would decide to screw something up and she wouldn't notice.
Don studied the screen for a moment as the system slowly processed all the data, it was evident that like the rest of the systems on the ship, PSS was overloaded as well so it took a while to provide the necessary data. When the system finally provided him with all data he needed, he raised his hand and scratched at his beard.
"Okay, so I see the results. And I have one good news and one bad news, what do you guys want to hear first?"
"The good one."
"Definitely the good one."
Maureen and John answered him in unison, while a loud "the bad one" rang out from the HUB. He frowned and looked at them to see if they were making fun of him.
"Look, I think we've heard enough bad news today, so I'd like your presentation about what you have found to end on a positive note." Judy and her sister explained, and as their parents looked at each other, they both finally agreed with that as well.
"Very well, so the bad news is that we've really jumped a little bit further."
"How much exactly is "a little bit" Don?" John asked, his head bent to the side but with eyes still staring at his console.
"Well, we're approximately a hundred and fifty thousand miles from the nearest planet, so... as I said, a little bit further. How bad is it for us Maureen?'
Maureen's brain immediately started to work. She allowed herself to look at the right console in front of her and switched it to the fuel data. She quickly calculated the amount of fuel and the distance to the destination, but finally, she gave a sigh of relief.
"We'll make it."
"Really?"
"Yes, I think so. We have enough fuel to get the ship moving, get some decent inertia, and then slow down the ship again."
John was relieved that at least this time he didn't have to worry about any alien eels eating their fuel.
"And now the good news Don!" said Judy.
"Now the good one? Well, according to what the sensors show, there are only two gravity fields in this system. One belongs to a minor B-class star, and the other, ladies and gentlemen, belongs to the only planet in this system."
Penny grimaced at this information. "What's good about this news?"
Fortunately, Maureen knew this and was not reluctant to share this knowledge. "It is good news because now we know exactly that this is the planet where Will and Robot ended up. We wouldn't have enough fuel to search for them in case there would be more planets."
"Oh, well...that makes sense."
"If you turn us seventy-eight degrees to the left Maureen, we should be able to see our target." Maureen first checked the status of the side thrusters but then as she moved the stick slightly to the left, the sound of the maneuvering thrusters echoed softly through the hull again. After a while, they got a view of a small cyan planet with several smaller dark green and brown spots. Maureen adjusted the angle of the ship and watched the colored ball with a worried look. She clenched her jaw and took a deep breath. Somewhere on that little rocky ball is her son. Will and the Robot, she reminded herself. She almost forgot how quickly she get used to the blue metal giant stalking around the house. Whatever happened, that green round monster had borrowed her son. She looked at John and saw that he was probably thinking the same thing. Even with a hundred and fifty thousand miles ahead of them, they were one step closer to saving them. Penny and Judy joined them a moment later and they all just stared at the oddly colored orb. After another ten minutes of final checks, everyone was back in their seats and ready to go.
"I'm deactivating engines two and three," she announced as she pressed several buttons on her console. Engine two was damaged and not functional and she didn't want to overload the leveling and maneuvering thrusters by having the right side running on two engines while the left side only had one. She then re-checked the fuel level, cabin pressure, navigation, and RCS again. Then she looked at John, who was just checking results from the power lines diagnostic. A quick nod was followed by the soft click of five helmets. She reached to the main engine stick and gave it a gentle push. The ignition took place without any problems, which was confirmed not only by the instruments but also by the absence of screams and horror sounds coming from inside the ship. The journey to the planet also went without problems, which they managed in less than twelve hours. After all, flying towards something that pulls you was easier than flying away from the gravitational field. The whole way, the family talked about all kinds of stuff, from new colleagues, and friends to what color Chariot should have to fit in better back on the Earth. And during the last ten thousand miles they had all been exchanging ideas about what might be living down on the planet, how tall the trees would be, what strange animals might be there, or in Don's case, different ways of how to cook an eight-legged amphibious ape. They all knew how silly this conversation must have sounded, but at the same time they needed to distract themselves from the thought that this wasn't a trip, this was a rescue mission.
"You really think something like that lives in there Don?" Maureen asked, once again activating the front deceleration thrusters like she had done every last five minutes. After three seconds she turned them off again and tilted her head to the mechanic behind her.
Don waited until the muffled sound of the jets died down before he answered.
"A few years ago, I wouldn't have believed I'd ever see flying jellyfish or a metal-eating virus."
"Or an alien robot," Judy added.
"Or an alien rift," Penny added.
"Or an alien trench," John thought immediately as he remembered the memory of the storm and the lightning coming at the girls in the Chariot below.
Don had probably the same memory as he frowned a little and shook a little. Maureen tried to not think about the day she and Penny nearly died, instead, she smiled and spoke up, "Or a dragon?"
"Yeah, or a dragon! Those... are really great examples guys, thank you. So, seeing where I'm going, you really think that meeting an eight-legged monkey with gills is so impossible?"
"I'd like to see that underwater banana tree," came from the HUB and everyone laughed at Penny's remark.
"Speaking of the dragon, Starpelt probably doesn't know we're here, does she?"
Don wouldn't be really surprised if, in addition to the Robinsons, he saw the strange purple dragon creature that was so fond of his Debbie on that landing pad. But Starpelt wasn't here, and it occurred to him that even if everyone were to crowd here, he'd prefer if she was with them now. Besides her quirky sense of humor, it would be nice to have a live flamethrower. Just in case.
Not to mention that after she learns that the Robinsons left her out on the rescue mission for those two, she will be furious. He had gotten used to Robot and Will's bond, but he knew that even Starpelt had a soft spot for Robot and Will.
"No, she doesn't know. Honestly, I didn't even think about that, you did?" Maureen replied and looked at John. He just shook his head and realized that maybe instead of bringing that secret content of his bag with him, he could have been thinking about getting the Starpelt aboard. Well, it's too late to think about something like that right now. The front thrusters started again, and Maureen nodded her head in satisfaction as the display showed her a speed of around eight hundred miles per hour. They should enter the planet's upper atmosphere within the next few minutes, and then it's just a matter of time before...
Boom, boom, boom!
The sound of three hollow crashes interrupted her train of thought.
"What the hell was that?" John wondered, looking around the cockpit without moving his head.
"Isn't that coming from the ship?"
"No, certainly not," replied Don to Penny while turning on the side cameras on the ship. At first, he didn't see anything, but the more the booming thuds echoed inside the ship, the more he felt like he was seeing something on the records.
"Couldn't it be some sort of asteroid field?"
"No, definitely not," Maureen told her husband as she noticed that Jupiter begins to turn slightly. After every impact ship turned a few degrees. She was about to take a breath to say that it's impossible for an asteroid field to be that close to a planet, but Don spoke faster.
"Guys, I don't think this is coming from a ship, and these are definitely not asteroids." The cameras on the starboard caught the objects barely seconds before they hit the ship and only because the objects were big enough to be seen. Which both surprised and scared Don.
"So what the hell—" John didn't finish his question because at that moment Don shouted as he noticed something big. Two seconds later, a huge object flew past the cockpit.
"Whoah, whoah! Damn it!"
"It's debris. John? It's debris!" John's wife looked at him in horror, and if it hadn't been for another giant piece flying past, he would probably have succumbed to the same panic attack he saw on her face. But this piece of debris calmed him down.
"I don't think that's Jupiter Maureen."
"What?"
"John is right Maureen, it's not from Jupiter," Don repeated, watching on the portside cameras as the giant hunk quickly moved away from them further down the orbit. It might have been ten feet tall and maybe five or six feet wide, but what decided this wasn't a piece of Will's Jupiter was the color.
"They're black."
"What?!" More objects slammed into the Jupiter and the girls in the HUB just watched idly through the glass window in the ceiling as a cluster of debris flew past their ship overhead. Boom, boom. More and more blows landed on Jupiter and Maureen started to have trouble keeping the ship level with the planet.
"That debris, God damned! It is big and black, so unless Will decided to go to a paint shop somewhere during the trip then—" Bam! The impact was so loud that Penny screamed and looked up just as the giant ricocheted piece flew overhead.
"We have to leave Maureen, Maureen?!"
Maureen quickly recovered as her mind came back into focus and started reentry procedures. But they had to go and fast. The Jupiter was built for heavy impacts, hard landings, and rough handling, but they only had passive sensors and no idea how much debris was flying around outside. All it took was one larger or heavier piece, and this glued-together ship would fall apart.
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit We have to leave, now!" Don yelled as he saw through the camera what was coming. Maureen reacted immediately and without thinking, she pushed the lever to full throttle. An invisible force pushed them all into their seats as two main engines ignited, but it was too late. First, there was a bang in the front part of the ship, and a piece the size of a truck flew past the cockpit. The Jupiter immediately turned to the left and as the impact yanked with the ship, Maureen pulled the control stick by mistake and spun the ship even more. All the lights on the panel next to John that had been green or yellow until now turned to red, and even though Maureen had turned it off before, somehow the woman's voice from the ship's computer spoke again.
"Warning, systems twenty-five to thirty-seven irretrievably destroyed."
Damn it, was Don's first thought when he heard those words. He knew only half of Jupiter's innards and systems as he spent most of his time repairing Resolute or Chariots, but he knew very well what these numbers meant. They just lost communication. Meanwhile, Maureen was trying her best to get the ship back on the right angle for the descent, as they were soon to begin entering the upper atmosphere, but just as she began to do well and the nose of the Jupiter was nearly pointed in the correct angle, a second bang came as another object hit the ship. But this time, at its most sensitive point.
There was an ominous sound of muffled bending of metal carried by the walls of Jupiter, and in that millisecond, John realized how terrifying it was to think that while they were being bombarded with merciless and terrible sounds in here, outside it was just a silent spectacle. Before the thought could fully process, Jupiter spun furiously again.
Maureen immediately noticed as the information console with the ship image in front of her changed the color of engine four from green to yellow a few times before quickly changing to red and then black. They lost another engine. They lost it the moment they neared the edge of the upper atmosphere, and despite her best efforts, it seemed too late to right the ship before reentry.
"Damn, damn, damn, why is this always happening to us!?" Penny screamed, clinging to the table so tightly that her knuckles were turning white under her gloves. Once again, all things that weren't firmly attached were flying in all directions and whether she looked up or forward through the bridge, she could see that the way Jupiter was spinning before was literally nothing compared to its current state. The sight made her sick and she closed her eyes to calm herself. But the very idea struck her as completely absurd, and she had to focus on something else. So, she looked at Judy, expecting that her sister will give her one of her unwavering smiles and looks full of optimism. What she saw, however, was a person that was terrified as same as she was. The ship vibrated and she didn't need to have carefully read the manuals to know they were starting to enter the atmosphere. Somewhere in the distance, she seemed to hear voices over the radio. The voice of her mother, Don, and her father. They were yelling at each other, but she barely understood half of it. Words like thrusters, Don, quick, and I'm running, were melting into one big mess of words and she cursed herself for being born into this family. She tried to think of some good moment she'd had to take her mind off the horror, but the shaking ship, flashing lights, and frightened voices made it very difficult. Finally, her brain gave her the thought of Will, the memory of how they tried to teach the Robot some new words. And while she was trying hard to hold on to these memories with her eyes closed, she missed that one of the bridge crew just flew past her
*********************
"Ow! Damn it, my arm!" Don yelled as he flew past the two girls and ended up on the ground between the doors. Despite the sudden pain in his recently returned shoulder, he forced himself to stand up quickly, wave to the girls that he was okay, and then move down the hall. As Don took another step, the rotation of Jupiter caused him to jerk and stumble. Thank goodness for the handrails on the corridor walls. It was at the last moment because in the next second his body lifted up and he was weightless for a few seconds.
"Maureen! I need help or I won't get there! I need you to pump more energy into—" Bang! He fell to the ground, and he immediately felt how heavy his body suddenly was. He cursed because he hadn't expected the impact but thanked Maureen on the radio for her prompt response anyway. Pumping more juice into artificial gravity generators is not fun and could be dangerous to the human body. But uncontrolled descent and subsequent crash into the ground like a fly on a windshield is also dangerous. He didn't like entering the atmosphere even in a controlled descent, let alone this one. The ship was shaking, the gravity was unstable, not to mention that the Jupiter was spinning and spinning and changing angles so fast that Don had to literally walk on the ceiling or walls of the corridor several times before he even got where he needed to go.
"Don! How are you doing?!"
"I'm working on it John, hang on!" He fumbled for another handhold at the wall and swung himself up to the floor. Such an irony, he thought, but he was glad that thinking what was up and down now was only a small problem now, flying there and back in a ship would be much worse. He mentally prayed to the inventor of the gravity generator and reminded himself that he should learn more about this brilliant person. He pulled a wrench from his special belt and literally pried open one of the plates on the ground. Or on the ceiling?
When the plate flew away, he immediately noticed where the problem is.
"Maureen! What's the pressure in the jets?!"
No one answered him for a while, and Jupiter began to shake even more. Even through his spacesuit, he could tell that the temperature in the ship must have risen several degrees, and that was not good. Even if they survive uncontrolled atmospheric entry, the ship will lose all its external systems. If she hasn't already lost them. He got the answer from John, which surprised him because the data was displayed on the main pilot's screen, not the co-pilot's. When he dictated the numbers to him, Don immediately realized where the problem was. Although the Jupiter was equipped with several maneuvering jets throughout the ship's hull, the problem was that all these jets were using the same piping leading from the engine room to the individual jets. If the pressure was not high enough, the automatic system would deactivate the nozzles, then inform the crew and mark the location of the leak. But here apparently the pressure was correct, the piping was undamaged. For some reason, this automatic system shut off the supply because it thought there was a leak. Damn computers! He quickly jumped to the opposite wall, bounced off, and at the right moment jumped into the warehouse. As soon as he got inside, the door closed behind him.
"Hey, what happened?! John?!"
"Don...gene...rators...dont..." John said no more, and Don froze. He had no idea why John was speaking with such effort, or why only he was speaking. Only now did he realize he hadn't heard Maureen or the girls. But at the same moment he thought of it, the ship stopped shaking, which was a sign that they had the atmosphere behind them. He smiled that the ship had managed this descent, but his smile quickly faded when he realized what that meant. Now death is even closer to them than a moment ago.
There was no time for any considerations, he had to act and quickly. He turned and knelt on the ground to pull out one of the panels, but as soon as he did it, he noticed that there was something else below the loosened panel. Something that should definitely not be here. The green bag didn't belong here, but whatever was inside, the important thing was next to the bag and the time was running out. He quickly opened the box and switched the fuse for secondary systems control, which maneuvering thrusters were also part of, from automatic to manual.
"John! John?! Thrusters should be working!" he yelled into the radio, but no one answered. He walked over to the small electric box next to the door, picked up his wrench again, and shorted the door control in one of the many tricks only mechanics could do. The door opened and he immediately knew what John was talking about. The warehouse in which Don was, as well as the circular corridor around the HUB, had something that HUB and the cockpit were lacking. Artificial gravity. The limp bodies of all the Robinsons were just moving and Don was horrified. Whether the generators in these rooms went out a minute or two ago, he had to get them going immediately. If we ignore the fact that the human body is not built for such high levels of G acceleration, he needed someone to pilot the Jupiter.
"Son of...why me again? Why?! Damn! Damn, Damn!" he yelled, moving towards the engine room door on the starboard side. The ship jerked again, and he literally flew into the door frame in front of him. He cursed as he bumped into his injured arm again, but he told himself that pain was probably better than feeling nothing. Considering that he didn't know what their altitude currently is, it could happen at any moment. The system was obviously so confused that he could only be thankful that this door didn't close when it detected the error, and he was able to walk in. It was already a challenge to stay on your feet in the falling ship, but when he entered the engine room, he found that the gravity didn't seem to be working properly here either as he immediately felt a sudden rush of force that wanted to pull him in all directions. He wanted to vomit as the world began to spin around him, he fell to his knees, and fainting started to come over him. But before he passed out, the generator probably kicked in again and he could breathe in peace for a few seconds. Whether it was luck or just experience and memories stored in his hands, he blindly reached for the large red box on the right and in half-conscious, he pressed one of the buttons that he hoped had a "system restart" label written above it. At that moment, the generator went off again. But by the time Don flew away like a rag doll, he was already unconscious.
"John! John!" someone yelled at him, and while everything around him was shaking, he was slowly waking up from unconsciousness. All he knew was that he was sitting in the pilot's seat. Then someone's voice called his name a few more times before he regained his composure and looked ahead. Even as the ship spun, he saw something large gray and green was getting closer to them. Or it was they who were getting close to it?
"Wake the hell up! John! The belts are stuck, I can't get back into your chair!" came a voice from beside him. He looked to his right and saw his wife struggling with the straps. He suddenly remembered how he had managed to hastily put her in his chair in a limp state before the generators went out again and even he couldn't handle such a huge onslaught of overload. He shook his head and picked up the lever on the left. Then he realized that their jets weren't actually working, but before he could think about it, he heard Maureen again.
"Don fixed it, John, the jets are working, quick! You must correct the course!"
He didn't hesitate any longer and immediately began to manipulate the stick to adjust the angle of descent. Now when the thrusters were working again, it was only a matter of seconds to correct their angle. But as soon as he got Jupiter back under control and pulled another lever for the front braking thrusters, he was horrified. The forward jets did not fire.
"Damn it, no no no!" he roared, swinging the stick back and forth, but to no avail.
"Fifteen thousand feet, fourteen thousand! John!" Maureen informed him and he knew this was not good, this was definitely not good. Adding to his horror there was also a voice from the ship's computer that somehow turned on, again.
(Computer voice) Pull up! Pull up! ...
Its words resonated in his head, and he remembered the terrifying recording that started this whole rescue mission. He pulled the stick down as much as possible, trying to at least straighten the Jupiter, but it seemed that the thrusters under the cockpit were most likely damaged, or they simply didn't have enough power to slow their descent.
(Computer voice) Pull up! Pull up! ...
"I can't do it, Maureen we're too fast!" he yelled, feeling hopelessness grip his throat.
"John?" Maureen called out to him, and he gave her a helpless look. However, he did not see hopelessness in her gaze, instead, he saw trust and determination, and despite everything they were going through now, he realized again how much he loves her. She believed in him. The girls believed in him, and so did Don. With a last-ditch effort, he turned to face the closing ground, but at that moment, in that one second, something flashed in his peripheral vision, in that second, he saw something down among the rocks and trees.
Something metal. Will's Jupiter! he thought, and again he mustered the last strength, not to give up. At that moment, something occurred to him. A plan that was not only dangerous but almost suicidal. He pressed several buttons controlling the side thrusters. Then he checked the fuel levels in the main engines and tried to not focus on the scary numbers Maureen was telling him or the altitude alarm beeping due to rapidly decreasing altitude. Fuel below two percent. This must be enough.
PLAY MUSIC NOW: https://youtu.be/OPPNE1026_w
"Maureen, on my command activate emergency parachutes and landing gear!" She just nodded and watched the numbers in front of her. Three thousand, two thousand. She jerked violently as John turned the ship around the axis, and just as the nose of the ship was pointing at the sky, he pulled the throttle away from him all the way and ignited the main engines at max power.
"Now Maureen!" Maureen pressed buttons at once, there were four booming bangs as the safety fuses detonated Jupiter's top panels and the emergency parachutes opened. The last thing she remembered was a flashing word Warning on the screen and the voice repeating the same terrifying words her Will had to listen.
(Computer voice) Brace for impact!
...
(Computer voice) Brace for impact!
...
(Computer voice) Brace for impact!
...
(Computer voice) Brace for impact!
...
(Computer voice) Brace for impact!
...
(Computer voice) Brace for impact!
Then came the crash.