Peter Hamilton: Pandora's Star

“First de-orbit burn in three minutes,” the Eagle II’s autopilot said.

“Standing by,” Wilson told it. He automatically checked the fuel tank pressures, and followed that up with main engine ignition procedures.

Three hypergolic fuel rockets at the back of the little spaceplane fired for a hundred seconds, pushing their orbit into an atmosphere-intercept trajectory. The subsequent airbrake maneuver lasted for over ninety minutes, with the scant Martian atmosphere pushing against the craft’s swept delta wings, killing its velocity. For the final fifteen minutes, Wilson could see the faintest of pink glows coming from the Eagle II’s blunt nose. It was the only evidence of the violence being done to the fuselage by high-velocity gas molecule impacts. The ride was incredibly smooth, with gravity slowly building as they sank toward the crater-rumpled landscape of Arabia Terra.

At six kilometers altitude, Wilson activated their profile dynamic wings. They began to expand, spreading out wide to generate as much lift as possible from the thin, frigid air. At full stretch they measured a hundred meters from tip to tip, enough to allow Eagle II to glide if necessary. Then their turbine fired up, gently thrusting them forward, keeping speed constant at two hundred fifty kilometers an hour. The westernmost edge of the massive Schiaparelli Crater slid into sight away in the distance, rolling walls rising up out of the rumpled ground like a weather worn mountain range.

“Visual acquisition of landing site,” Wilson reported. His systems schematics were tracing green and blue sine waves across the view. Ground radar began to overlay a three-dimensional grid of spikes and gullies that almost matched what he could see.

“Eagle II, midpoint systems review confirms you are go for landing,” said Mission Control. “Good luck, guys. You’ve got quite an audience back here.”

“Thank you, Mission Control,” Commander Lewis said formally. “We are eager for the touchdown. Hoping Wilson can give us a smooth one.” It would be another four minutes before anyone back on Earth heard his words. By then they should be down.

“Contact with cargo landers beacon,” Wilson reported. “Range thirty-eight kilometers.” He squinted through the windshield as the autopilot printed up a red line-of-sight bracket within the glass. The crater rim grew steadily larger. “Ah, I’ve got them.” Two dusty gray specks sitting on a broad patch of flat landscape.

For the last stage, Eagle II flew a slow circle around the pair of robot cargo landers. They were simple squat cones that the Ulysses had sent down two days earlier, loaded with tons of equipment, including a small prefab ground base. Getting them unloaded and the projected exploration campus up and running was the principal task awaiting the crew of the Eagle II.

“Groundscan confirms area one viability,” Wilson said. He was almost disappointed at the radar picture. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were landing on the moon, they had to hurriedly take manual control of their Lunar Module and fly it to safety when the designated landing site turned out to be strewn with boulders. This time, eighty-one years later, satellite imagery and orbital radar mapping had eliminated such uncertainty from the flight profile.

He brought the Eagle II around on its preplotted approach path, engaging the autopilot. “Landing gear extended and locked. VM engines pressurized and ready. Profile dynamic wings in reshape mode. Ground speed approaching one hundred kilometers per hour. Descent rate nominal. We’re on the wire, people.”

“Good work, Wilson,” Commander Lewis said. “Let’s bump struts, here, huh?”

“You got it, sir.”

The landing rockets fired, and Eagle II began to sink smoothly out of the light pink sky. A hundred meters up, and Wilson couldn’t stand it. His fingers flicked four switches, taking the autopilot off-line. Red LEDs glared accusingly at him from the console. He ignored them, bringing the little spaceplane down manually. Easier than any simulation. Dust swirled outside the windshield, thick and cloying as the rocket jets scoured the surface of Mars. Radar gave him the final approach vectors, there was nothing to see visually. They settled without a wobble. The sound of the rockets died away. External light began to brighten as the agitated dust flurries dissipated.

“Houston, the Eagle II has landed,” Wilson said. The words had to be forced out, his throat was so tensed up with pride and exhilaration. He could hear that beautiful phrase echo along history, past and future. And I made it happen, not some goddamn machine.

A wave of jubilant shouts and cheering broke out in the cabin behind him. He wiped an errant drop of moisture from his eye with the back of one hand. Then he was suddenly involved with systems supervision, reengaging the autopilot. External instrumentation confirmed they were down and stable. The spaceplane had to be put into surface standby mode, supplying power and environmental services to the cabin, keeping the rocket engines warm so that takeoff wouldn’t be a problem, monitoring the fuel tank status. A long, boring list of procedures that he worked through with flawless diligence.

Only then did the six of them begin to suit up. Given the cabin’s chronic lack of space, it was a cramped, difficult process, with everyone jostling each other. When Wilson was almost ready, Dylan Lewis handed him his helmet.

“Thanks.”

The Commander didn’t say anything, just gave Wilson a look. As reprimands went, it didn’t get much worse than that.

To hell with you, Wilson retorted silently. We’re the important thing, people coming to Mars is what matters, not the machines we come in. I couldn’t allow a software program to land us.

Wilson stood in line as the Commander went into the small airlock at the back of the cabin. Third, I get to be third. Back on Earth they’d only ever remember that Dylan Lewis was first. Wilson didn’t care. Third.

The tiny display grid inside Wilson’s helmet relayed an image from the external camera set just above the airlock door. It showed a slim aluminum ladder stretching down to the Martian sand. Commander Lewis backed out of the open airlock, his foot moving slowly and carefully onto the top rung. Wilson wanted to shout: For God’s sake get a move on! The suit’s medical telemetry told him his skin was flushed and perspiring. He tried to do his deep feedback breathing exercise thing, but it didn’t seem to work.

Commander Lewis was taking the ladder rungs one at a time. Wilson and the others in the cabin held their breaths; he could feel a couple of billion people doing the same thing back on the old home planet.

“I take this step for all of humanity, so that we may walk together as one people along the road to the stars.”

Wilson winced at the words. Lewis sounded incredibly sincere. Then someone sniggered, actually sniggered out loud; he could hear it quite plainly over the general communications band. Mission Control would go ballistic over that.

Then he forgot it all as Lewis took his step onto the surface, his foot sinking slightly into the red sand of Mars to make a firm imprint.

“We did it,” Wilson whispered to himself. “We did it, we’re here.” Another outbreak of cheering went around the cabin. Congratulatory calls flooded down from Ulysses . Jane Orchiston was already clambering into the airlock. Wilson didn’t even begrudge her that; political correctness wouldn’t allow it any other way. And NASA was ever mindful of pleasing as many people as possible.

Commander Lewis was busy taking a high-resolution photo of his historic footprint. A requirement that had been in the NASA manual for the last eighty-one years, ever since Apollo 11 got back home to find that embarrassing omission.