Mud.
Senior Lieutenant Zony Tixia knew if the story of how she got to the surface of Bayone Three ever got out, she would never live it down. After using practically every piece of equipment installed in her tac-suit to figure out where exactly she had landed, her best working theory was she was submerged and lodged in a wall of nearly frozen mud.
By performing a regressive element test on the deepest layer of sediment and comparing the results to the analysis of the surrounding water she had performed earlier, Zony had determined the changes to the chemical composition of the water were quite recent. In fact, it was likely her arrival had precipitated the sudden introduction of sulfur dioxide into the water. Not only was the deeply submerged pool turning into sulfuric acid, it was gradually getting hotter the longer she stayed there. Her working theory was that somewhere above her current position, an impact had caused some kind of landslide or break in a rock formation, and that whatever bubbled up from inside the rocks had drained into the fissure the Argent signals officer currently occupied.
In six hours, the frozen mud problem would be solved naturally, as the water temperature would be a relatively balmy 40 degrees and would simply melt whatever had frozen around her arms and leg. Unfortunately, her oxygen timer was down to 12 minutes, so although she would be free, she would have long since run out of air.
What Zony did have was a 79% power reserve, and that gave her numerous options. A quick mental calculation told her raising the temperature of the entire pool was physically impossible without several orders of magnitude more power. The good news was she didn’t need to raise the temperature of the entire body of water. All she needed to do was break free from the ice embedded in the mud.
Tixia thought back to her survival training and remembered the best way to break an ice buildup on any surface with gravity was by shearing forces rather than directing brute force at the thickest concentrations, which tended to accumulate in the direction opposite the most prevalent gravity field. Her suit didn’t have a complete flight pack, but it did have pressure jets, which had provided her a soft landing, such as it was. By configuring the exhaust from her jets to produce alternating lateral thrust, unless the ice was reinforced with tempered steel, she should be able to weaken the lattice enough to let increasing water temperature and gravity do the rest.
Eleven minutes of oxygen remained.
Zony laboriously entered the commands necessary to produce a series of millisecond-long blasts from her suit’s jets and alternate thrust and counter-thrust to produce movement first in one direction and then the other. She established a moderately powerful kinetic shield on the haptic surfaces of her suit in case something came loose and decided to rocket off in some inconvenient direction, like through her faceplate. She ran a quick simulation to monitor how the system would operate, using a local area thermal map to analyze the changes in pressure and temperature. It looked good on paper, but as an experienced Skywatch line officer, Zony was well aware of the limitations of perfect plans drawn up in meetings.
Practical considerations meant she really didn’t have time to submit her idea to a committee. Once she activated her jets, either she was going to become the first subterranean bridge officer, or she was going to be able to climb or swim back to the surface.
Zony took a deep breath and checked all systems again. She could feel the activation controls in her palms.