Rene paused, the brusque response jolting him out of the mood of wonder and euphoria of moments before. What was eating the woman? She ought to be euphoric at the success of the landing, not concerned about what amounted to very minor damage considering the source. They were on the surface and the hull was degaussing, not bad going for two nobles whos only experience with ship handling had been theoretical overviews and a little coaching from an AI not suited to the purpose. Instinctively Rene came to parade rest, even though Solae couldn’t see him from this angle.

“Looks like the damage is fairly minor, some hull torque and a bent landing strut,” he reported as though delivering the information to an officer. Water dripped from his soaked clothing to the deck in a steady flow. The slight cant of the hull, drew the fluid in a stream towards the hold and the grating which had once been used to remove the waste products of comatose Syshin.

“We will have to wait till the floor of the Caldera drains and drys so we can lift,” he went on, turning access  one of the data terminals built into the wall. The holographic unit hummed to life but the display flickered erratically, another casualty of long disuse and indifferent maintenance. He keyed in a sequence of quick diagnostics and fuel consumption figures. On current reserves they could probably lift out of the atmosphere but only just, and landing again at the next destination would be all but impossible. The Bonaventure had obviously expected to resupply on New Concordia when it picked up its cargo of slaves, an activity forestalled by the violent events of its capture. Fuel and intelligence were the top priorities now. They badly needed to know where a functional PEA might be found and how widespread the rebellion might be. 

The nearest settlement, according to the information the Bonaventure’s sensors had gleaned in orbit, was Porto San Roayo. Panopontus was not densely settled by Imperial standards. The relatively small islands didn’t have space or industry to support huge cities. The majority of Panopontians were engaged in the gathering of various species of coral that occurs naturally in the worlds shallow seas. The coral was an essential ingredient in a number of medications and recreational hallucinogens, though the processing of the drugs required tolerances to precise to be achieved on Panopontus itself. The raw coral was transhiped to larger more industrial worlds, processed into its final world and then sold forward to the more populous and prosperous worlds of the Eastern Cross and the greater Empire beyond.  The coral divers lived in small communities of several hundred at most, usually on small islands and atolls that clustered around a larger hub like San Roaya, where the limestone plates were sufficiently thick to permit the landing of starships. The hub cities provided light industry, administration and landing facilities for the offworld traders who bought the harvest to market. Even so the star ports were small affairs, suitable for tramps like the Bonaventure but far too small to accept bulk freighters or warships like the central starport at New Concordia did. 

The only place on Panopontus that could accept heavy ships was the planetary capital at Areydiz on planets only major continent on the southern pole. Rene had deliberately avoided Areydiz on the theory that if there were rebellious elements on the world, they would most likely be located there. San Roayo with its population of thirty to fifty thousand was one of two or three dozen similarly sized secondary cities, big enough for what they needed, but small enough to avoid too much official attention, or so Rene reasoned. Of course they place might be half destroyed or evacuated due to the storm, but so much the better, the more confused the situation, the easier it would be to get in, get what they needed and get out.

A narrow straight, nameless as far as Rene knew, separated the Bonaventure's current landing site from San Roayo, it was only about 20 kilometers wide. Minutes by jumper or fast boat, but Rene didn’t have access to either of those. He presumed the Bonaventure had sort of inflatable for emergency landings, but if it didn’t he was confident that he could improvise something out of what was to hand.

“Mia do you have an estimate for out state stabilization?” he asked, unable to think of how to call up the information on the flickering holographic display.

“Unknown,” the computer purred seductively. Rene resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Based on previous data how long should it take?” he replied, rephrasing the question. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that even fairly basic sensor equipment wasn’t in working order.

“Previous atmospheric stopovers have been between twelve and sixteen hours,” Mia supplied. It wasn’t simply a matter of shedding waste heat. Travel through jumpspace caused a certain amount of quantum distortion, if you pushed it long enough a vessel could find new and unsurvivable configurations. The exact mechanism was unknown, due to the fact that vessels that suffered such a fate were never recovered, but it was theoretically possible for sections of a ship to boil away or suddenly be rendered  The only way to restore the equilibrium was to spend time in the sidereal universe, preferably in an atmosphere where contact with normal state molecules was order of magnitudes higher than in vacuum. Sixteen hours ought to be plenty long enough for them to do what they needed but the sooner they got started the better. He had no way know how much long it would take to dry the base of the caldera to the point they could lift, but he wanted it to be as soon as possible.

Forcing himself to move he headed back into the cabin after Solae. It was clear to him she was upset though he didn’t understand why. The brief freefall had scattered item all over the floor, though it was still infinitely better than it had been when they first found it. Something of a metaphor for their situation in general he supposed. Rene carefully stepped around the detritus. By now the glowing motes on his clothing had all but faded, the photonic reaction evidently short lived. Only a few bright spots still remained.

“Are you alright?” he asked as he stooped to pick up a sanitation pack and replace it on the shelf. The part of him which was used to the subtlety of court squirmed at the bluntness of the question, but if she was hurt, or shaken he needed to know immediately.