SFFSat 10/5/2014 - Black Ice part 4

This is my snippet this week for SFFSat. SFFSat is a place where a number of authors post snippets from their written works, and give the opportunity for comments, support and encouragement. Please also explore the other blogs that are part of this set - you can find the information here. 


This is part four of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan. Anton, in the crawler's turret, is trying to work out how to get out of this predicament...

Anton looked at the slide, trying to see any way to slow it. There was a lot of ice on the move, including a number of huge ammonia chunks the size of ring fragments.

Ring fragments.

Anton had spent a lot of time in the rings, jockeying chunks of ice just as large as that. Such boulders, even moving fast, did not scare him. He stared at the fragment tumbling only a few feet from the sliding crawler, wishing he could call on Emerald's computational powers. He didn't have time to run the numbers through the crawler's mindless computer – he would have to rely on instinct, judgment and perhaps just a miniscule fragment of luck. 

He jumped down into the body of the crawler, and donned the thermal excursion suit in a few moments. A standard exercise for ringpeople was getting into a suit in the shortest possible time; Anton suspected he had clipped the record. He punched the hatch open, and grabbed an oxygen cylinder and a welding laser.

 As always, comments welcomed!