"Once more Peter Pan saves the day," Madeline said.
"I'd object," A.J. said, "but the alternative is to be called Tinkerbell, I suppose. Why do you think I wanted my Fairy Dust with me? Even without a crash we would've had a hell of a lot of poking around to do. Sensor and comm nets are hard to come by out here, unless you can make them—which the Dust can."
"She was only kidding," Helen chided him. "Stop being defensive. I'd tell you to start acting your age, except I'm deathly afraid of the results. Now let's get to work, shall we?"
She and Madeline exchanged a quick grin. A.J. scowled a bit, but went to help Rich and Bruce without saying anything further.
The three men fitted the prybars Madeline had improvised from other parts of the wreck into the indicated locations and pulled. For a moment nothing happened, the weaker gravity of Mars making their pulls less effective than they would have been on Earth. But then a popping jolt told them the twisted lockpin had come loose, and with some more sustained effort the door slid open.
"Please be intact, please be intact, please be intact," A.J. muttered like a mantra as he dropped into the dark cargo bay. His helmet light activated and showed him the tilted bulk of the pressurized rover, still sitting in the middle of the bay.
"Well, first piece of good news. It seems to have stayed locked down. That gives us fair odds on it being intact."
"Take a look and check out the systems."
"I'm getting a response . . . Yeah, the processors are all running. Doing a diagnostic on Thoat now."
"Thoat?"
"What else would you call a steed we have to unload from a ship named the John Carter?"
"Well," Joe interjected, "Personally I'd rather ride Dejah Thoris."
A.J. choked. "Joe, I can't believe you said that."
"I'm trying to pretend he didn't," muttered Madeline. "Come on, Helen, let's get down there. Maybe in the rover we'll be out of junior-high-school-boy joke range."
She and Helen lowered themselves into the bay, with Bruce following. A.J. already had lights starting to glow from the newly-named Thoat.
"And since everyone's having to go down to get to it," Joe continued cheerily, "I think you meant Deep Thoat."
Rich gave a startled snort. "I think that's quite enough out of you, Joe. Being charitable, I'll ascribe it to the painkillers you took."
"You mean Joe thinks he's funnier when he's on drugs? That makes sense," A.J. said. The telltales came up. "All green! Well, except for fuel, as we weren't shipping her fueled up."
"Better check the fuelling hookups, then."
"Should be at the rear of the cargo bay."
"On my way." Madeline moved off in that direction, along with Helen and Bruce, as A.J. went up into the rover's cabin to see if anything inside had been shaken loose.
After a few moments clearing debris from the rear of the bay, A.J. heard a satisfied little sound from Madeline. "Got it! Scratches on the nozzle hookups, but they don't look to be badly damaged or out of shape."
"Then I'm opening up the fuel ports on the sides. Take the starboard one first."
"Understood. Helen, you and Bruce bring up the oxygen line. I have the methane."
The separate hoses were locked into place. "We are hooked up. Go, A.J."
"Starting . . . We have fuel flow! Ladies and gentlemen, we are in business!"
"Good. You finish prepping Thoat and the rest of us will figure out the best way to get it out of the bay. Joe? Can you tear yourself away from junior high locker room long enough to play engineer?"
"Sure, Madeline. I think you'll need to use Thoat's winch. That's after we blow the side of the bay out."
"How will we do that?"
"Are you asking me about demolitions, Ms. Superspy?"
A.J. heard a chuckle from Madeline. "Yes, all right, I know something about it. Martian demolitions may require additional thought, however. The last thing I want to do is blow the entire lander up, with Thoat in it."
"Let me strongly approve of additional thought," A.J. interjected, "as I happen to be inside Thoat right now."
A light flickered. "Uh-oh."
"Mr. Baker, I do not like the sound of 'uh-oh.'"
"You shouldn't. Fuel flow decreasing . . . and . . . gone. We can't see underneath well enough, but I'd have to guess that when we crashed, the tanks got mostly shredded. Fortunately, we didn't end up with an earth-shattering kaboom. Mars-shattering kaboom, I should say. But only some of the gas in the last couple of cells stuck around."