{"id":5446,"date":"2022-08-24T22:10:12","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T22:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5446"},"modified":"2022-08-24T22:10:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T22:10:12","slug":"sample-return-by-c-stuart-hardwick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5446","title":{"rendered":"Sample Return by C. Stuart Hardwick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sample Return<\/em><\/strong> by C. Stuart Hardwick (Analog<\/em>, July-August 2021)1<\/sup> opens with the protagonist Katy and her fellow crewmember, Xavier, in the process of launching an impactor probe towards Jupiter. Although this part of the operation is successful, the Proteus<\/em>, the craft designed to collect the samples the impactor probe will cause to be ejected from the Jovian atmosphere, has a launch malfunction. Katy (whose mother has just died) quickly suits up and goes EVA to free the craft, even though they are in a high radiation zone.
Initially Katy just tries to dislodge the explosive bolts holding the Proteus<\/em> to their ship, Jovian Queen<\/em>, but her actions soon become wilder:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She jerked her safety line, setting the brake on her take-up reel so her line went slack. He hauled on his tether to reel her in, but as she drifted within reach of the webbing, she swept the shears forward and cut it, then jiggled her line to reset the brake and feed her slack back down into the take-up reel still attached to Proteus.
\u201cKaty, no!\u201d
Xav grabbed for her, but the line popped taught, and she spun and sailed down toward the hub.
\u201cDammit, Katy! Get back up here before you get yourself killed!\u201d
He was probably right. She was probably committing suicide, but if she had to die to save the mission, then she had to. That was a calculation she\u2019d made long ago, before they\u2019d ever left Earth, long before that . . .
And goddammit anyway! If the mission failed now she\u2019d be written off as hysterical, but if Xavier were down here, they\u2019d already be writing his heroism up for the feeds back home. After all, they\u2019d say, what was one life\u2014any life\u2014compared to iron or steam or stone tools or fire? The world\u2019s monuments were filled with the names of men who\u2019d died for less. Who\u2019d left families and fortunes and nations behind. Who every one shared the same dying wish: that it all hadn\u2019t been in vain<\/em>.
But Katy wasn\u2019t dead just yet. It would be dicey now, but if she could free those pins quickly enough\u2014before the Queen<\/em> started her burn\u2014she might still be able to make it. Maybe.\u00a0 p. 130<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Katy doesn\u2019t make it back, of course, and departs with Proteus for a Jovian fly-by. The rest of the story (spoiler) sees her spend the next few days debugging faults on the probe while her suit AI fills her full of anti-radiation meds. Then the impactor probe hits and the capture pods start deploying from Proteus<\/em> to capture the samples. Katy manages to jump into one of pods, and hopes that she will survive until the Jovian Queen<\/em> returns to pick them up. However, Katy is ultimately rescued by a skiff the ship\u2019s crew have built to rescue her, and it turns out, although she is ill, that she has been sufficiently shielded from radiation by the chunk of the metallic hydrogen blown out of the Jovian atmosphere. Katy has a final sentimental vision of her mother.
This is a fast paced adventure with plenty of rivets, reckless action, and miracle escapes\u2014it may appeal to some, but I thought it rather far-fetched. I\u2019d also hate to be on a spaceship with someone like Katy, who would likely not only kill herself, but take others with her.
** (Average). 8,150 words. Story link<\/a>.

1. This was the runner up in the novelette section of the Analog<\/em> Readers\u2019 Poll for 2021 stories.

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Sample Return by C. Stuart Hardwick (Analog, July-August 2021)1 opens with the protagonist Katy and her fellow crewmember, Xavier, in the process of launching an impactor probe towards Jupiter. Although this part of the operation is successful, the Proteus, the craft designed to collect the samples the impactor probe will cause to be ejected from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1263],"tags":[17,50,33,1264,7,1265],"class_list":["post-5446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-stuart-hardwick","tag-17","tag-50","tag-analog","tag-c-stuart-hardwick","tag-novelette","tag-solar-system-prospecting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5446"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5451,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446\/revisions\/5451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}