Tonight's Livewriting: Ice Skating on Minmus (Patreon)

Yes, more CSP.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Skxg6E0Y7XkDiHs3rdAzQeXlJHVmyExGLnSLcZmLWi4/edit

Here's the last bundle of writing on that, by the way.

“Okay,” Cherry said, strapping herself into the flight couch as the cabin repressurized, “I’m back in the capsule and strapping in. What’s the plan?”

After a moment of dead air, Chrysalis’s voice echoed in her headset. “You remember how R4 was able to stay upright despite never having all its feet on the ground?”

“Yeah,” Cherry said. “The reaction wheels. It would’ve fallen over if Dragonfly had turned off the stability assist.”

“Precisely. We want you to activate SAS and pull back on the stick. We think the reaction wheels on full spin will put enough torque on the ship to lift it upright in Minmus’s low gravity. If that doesn’t work, we want you to start the engines on lowest power and try to get the nose up on engine gimbal. If you get the ship up even a little bit, blast for space as soon as you think you can clear the ground. Copy that, Twenty-two?”

Cherry considered this for a moment. “Horseton, did the scientists suggest this plan?”

Chrysalis’s voice lost a good bit of its professional poise. “As a matter of fact, yes, they did, Twenty-two. What makes you think otherwise?”

“Because this sounds like a plan right up there with the lawn chair on the trash can full of fireworks,” Cherry replied without hesitation. “I mean, how happy would you be if you were sitting where I am now?”(413)

“Twenty-two, your options are this procedure or sitting tight where you are for twelve days while we throw together a rescue mission to come get you,” Chrysalis growled. “Which do you prefer? Over!”

Cherry Berry considered the options. Well... the ship barely bounced when it flopped over... and I didn’t see any damage when I was outside... but would that remain the case if I try to launch with the ship’s nose pointing downslope?

But... no, no buts. I still have a fully functional ship under me. If I didn’t at least try to get home under my own power, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

“Okay, let’s do this, then,” she finally said. “I’d have to unsuit to use a pencil, so let’s just use your checklist there, okay?”

“That’s better,” Chrysalis said, and then her voice was all calm, professional astromare again. “First, consumables status.”

“Descent stage tanks show eighteen percent full,” Cherry reported. “Return stage full and untouched. Batteries read two-twenty-four and falling at zero point zero two per second. Negligible flow from solar panels. Do you want a count of my food packs?”

“Negative. Next, order all landing gear to retract to stowed position, over.”

“Retract landing gear, roger.” Cherry reached up and flipped a switch. A soft clanking echoed through the capsule, and the ship shifted slightly as its center of balance altered. “Gear retracted.”

“Confirm gear retracted,” Chrysalis said. “Activate SAS and reaction wheels.”

Cherry flipped a couple more switches. Behind her the soft sound of the reaction wheels rose to life. “SAS engaged.”

“Confirm SAS setting to maintain attitude.”

“SAS to maintain attitude, confirm.”

“Do NOT, repeat, do NOT activate engines,” Chrysalis said, “but set throttle to three percent.”

“Throttle to three percent, roger.” Cherry adjusted the throttle carefully. 

“All right,” Chrysalis said. “In your own time, you are to attempt to right the ship on reaction wheel power, or failing that on main engine power. If you get the ship upright, you are to throttle up and attempt liftoff. If you can’t get nose up with ten percent thrust, or if the ship slide on the ground faster than eight meters per second, you are to shutdown and await rescue. Copy?”

“Twenty-two copies attempt righting ship on reaction wheels, then on main engines. Shut down if no result at ten percent thrust or if ship slides on the ground at eight meters per second. Over.”

“Okay, Twenty-two, you are go for attempted liftoff.”

“Right,” Cherry muttered. She took a deep breath, then grit her teeth and pulled the control stick towards herself with both forehooves. Behind her the reaction wheels whined to life, the high-pitched down echoing through her suit helmet. 

And, after the briefest hesitation, the light and shadow from the overhead sun began to shift. Through the tiny forward porthole she saw the surface of Minmus fall out of view. Slowly- with the kind of slowness Cherry associated with ponies trying to pick out produce in Ponyville’s farmer’s market(414), the ship was indeed righting itself. 

She relaxed her grip on the stick to reach one hoof over to the throttle. That proved a minor mistake, as the nose, now well off the surface, stopped rising and began dropping again. She pulled back hard again, held her breath until the ship stopped falling and began rising again, and waited until it was about twenty degrees off the vertical. Then, as quickly as she could, she reset the throttle to fifteen percent and ignited the engines. 

She felt the rumble of the engines through the ship, felt their force gently caress her back through the flight couch and spacesuit backpack. She watched the altimeter counting up, noticed the prograde marker appearing on the navball, let out her held breath as the airspeed indicator ratcheted up. 

And then, after only a few seconds of thrust, she cut the engines and let the ship coast upward on a ballistic trajectory. “Twenty-two is flying,” she said. “Requesting orders. Where do I go next, over?”

“That depends, Twenty-two,” Chrysalis replied immediately. “We want you to redeploy the landing gear.”

“Okay.” So, she thought, the second landing isn’t off yet. Just as well I didn’t throttle up and head for home right off. She reached up, flipped the switch, and listened as the landing gear clanked open and then locked back into place. “Landing gear deployed, confirm.”

“Please confirm six green lights on landing gear.”

Cherry checked the indicators, then the flight computer. “Six green lights, no damage error messages, over,” she reported. 

“We confirm, Twenty-two. Stand by.” 

There followed a long pause, during which Cherry watched the airspeed drop and the altimeter’s rise slow. Minmus’s feeble gravity was catching up with her, and before long she’d have to fire the engines again. After what she thought was enough time(415) she said, “Horseton, Twenty-two, requesting trajectory guidance, over.”

“Stand by, Twenty-two,” Chrysalis said shortly, and another few seconds passed. Then, finally, she said, “Twenty-two, come around to due north and fly overland to a frozen lake bed some two hundred kilometers away. You are go, repeat go, for second landing. We want you to land as close to the shoreline as you feel is safe, over.”

“Twenty-two copies, Horseton.” Cherry brought the ship’s nose around and down and then, careful to keep a bit of vertical angle in her trajectory, opened the throttle. 

We got away with it.

If they ever make a statue of me once I get home, I want that carved in the pedestal.

Footnotes:

(413) This argument won no sympathy from Chrysalis, who believed (a) she never would have got herself in that predicament in the first place, (b) the question was irrelevant because she wasn’t there, and (c) if Cherry Berry wanted down from Minmus this was the only plan that might do it short of a rescue mission. The fact that (d) the very notion of doing herself what she’d just ordered Cherry to do sent a momentary shudder of raw terror down her spine meant absolutely nothing, really.

(414) Another pony might have mentioned glaciers, especially considering the location. But Cherry Berry had a peeve about picky ponies who wanted to select a single perfectly fresh cherry (or other, less worthy, fruit) and buy only that. Cherry herself loved almost all cherries equally, wasn’t all that picky, and had had to bite her lip many times to avoid hissing, “Grab and move,” or, “Get outta the line,” at the ponies in front of her. 

(415) Only about sixteen actual seconds, according to the flight log, but the passage of time to a pony suspended in the nonexistent air over a desolate snowball a million kilometers from home, kept in that position only by momentum and happy thoughts, bears no resemblance to the passage of time recorded on a piece of paper.

“Descent stage at five percent,” Cherry Berry’s voice echoed through Mission Control. “Lateral speed at sixty meters per second and falling.”

“Twenty-two, remember,” Chrysalis said at a frantic wave from Goddard’s talon, “we want this landing to touch down at below three meters per second. Below three meters, do you copy?”

“Twenty-two copies. Landing stage burnout.” Short pause, and then Cherry continued, “Return engine activated. And shutdown. Lateral speed at five meters per second. Altitude fourteen hundred meters and fall... and descending.”

“A reminder, Twenty-two. You are to abort landing and enter orbit if fuel hits fifty percent in the return stage.” That took care of another frantic wave, this one from Marked Knee in the bullpen.

“I remember, Horseton,” Cherry’s voice replied. “That’s why I shut down the engine. The closer I am to hover thrust, the more I’m wasting fuel, right? If I wait until the last moment and then brake all at once, I use the least fuel possible. Isn’t that right?”

Chrysalis looked down in the bullpen and saw four minotaurs and a griffon each make a different gesture of helplessness. Yes, that’s true, but...! “The thing is...” Chrysalis stopped and made herself do it properly. “Twenty-two, please be advised that if you get it wrong, you’re committing suicide.” 

Gasps erupted from the observation gallery. Drat. Shouldn’t have gone there, not in public. Some newspaper pony or, worse yet, television talking head just got a quote to use to attack CSP as too risky, too eager to risk a pony life for changeling glory. But... nothing to be done about that now.

“Then I better not get it wrong, huh? One thousand meters and descending.”

Chrysalis looked at the estimated air velocity. Weak though Minmus’s gravity was, any rate of acceleration, left unchecked, just kept on building up more and more speed. Mission Twenty-two wasn’t dropping like a brick, exactly, but it certainly wasn’t a feather either. “You’re really picking up speed there, Twenty-two,” she said.

“I’m watching it,” Cherry replied. “Looks like five hundred meters is the sweet spot.”

Chrysalis looked at the bulls, who had gathered around their blinky-light calculating machine. None of them was looking at her now. None of them had a signal for her, not the slightest bit of guidance. Even Goddard had his beak in, rather than looking at her or Occupant.

And time for countervailing advice ran out, much quicker than Chrysalis liked. 

“Throttle to full... ignition!” 

Chrysalis watched the telepresence projection, holding her breath as the single remaining functional engine did its feeble best to bring the falling ship to a stop before the ice did. The airspeed indicator fell, numbers ticking down not remotely fast enough for the changeling queen’s liking. Despite her strongest silent orders for them to slow down faster, they ignored her supreme authority and ticked down on their own timetable. 

And the altimeter ticked down... four hundred... three hundred... two hundred fifty... two hundred... one hundred seventy.. 

“Throttling back.”

At ninety meters the descent speed indicator hit three meters per second. Gingerly, cautiously, it drifted down to two point five, then ticked back up to three, then down to two point seven. 

“Fifty meters.”

Chrysalis knew she should be talking, should be saying something, ought at least to be calling back information to the pony. But words wouldn’t come. After the first botched landing, after that ridiculous suicide burn, the power of speech had stepped out for coffee and cupcakes(416). 

“Twenty meters.”

The airspeed indicator trickled down a little more, wavering between one point five and two meters per second. Then it dripped again as Cherry let it dip to one point two meters per second. The retrograde marker, dead on top of the navball on the telepresence projection, flickered in and out.

“Contact! Shutdown!”

On the projection screen the lander stood on a perfectly level plain of crystalline ice. All six feet stood firmly on the surface, with no sign of a wobble or collapse.

“SAS off. Backup systems off. Cockpit secure.”

Chrysalis slowly, carefully released her lungful of air, careful not to breathe into the headset microphone. “Twenty-two,” she said, cautiously testing her vocal cords, “we copy you down.”

“Affirmative, Horseton,” the pony’s voice squeaked back at her. “How about we go down that stay / no stay checklist this time?”

Chrysalis considered this a moment. “Well,” she finally said, “just because you asked.”

Footnote:

(416) Cupcakes were on the very, very short list of foods that Chrysalis ate willingly. One cupcake almost perfectly equalled the actual capacity of her stomach. Most cupcakes were baked with love and lusted after by ponies, especially juvenile ponies with their intense emotions, and thus provided nourishment on more than one level. And even if Chrysalis hadn’t liked them, she’d have learned to like them anyway, because ponies got intensely suspicious of any pony who, for any reason whatever, didn’t like cupcakes. Ponies would forgive kicking a dog(417) before they’d forgive snubbing a cupcake.

(417) Which Chrysalis had done, in various disguises, on multiple occasions. It just felt so satisfying to see the innocent betrayal on those canine faces...