Eric Flint: Threshold

Something moved slightly, and the entire mass of strung-together high technology seemed to wobble in the sky before a combination of programmed adjustments and Maddie's gut-level instinct managed to damp it down. Three hundred meters per second, and they were below five thousand meters altitude. Ridges and many-meter-high scarps loomed below them, ice frozen metal-hard in vacuum at a temperature of one hundred sixty degrees below zero-more than two hundred and fifty below, in Fahrenheit. Two hundred meters per second and they were lower than she liked, but she had to take her time; A.J. and Horst both indicated silently, in messages on her VRD, that the cable links would shift if she went to full power again-shift and perhaps let go.

One hundred fifty. Forty… thirty… twenty… One hundred ten… "One hundred meters per second relative. Munin, we are detaching from you. Horst, are you ready?" "Ready to take controls.

Good luck." "Separation in five, four, three…" Multiple demolition charges-specifically designed for vacuum use here in the outer system-detonated on cue, severing the cables at precisely selected locations. Munin peeled away fromNebula Storm with a very small burn from its lateral thrusters. "Muninaway. Retracting hab sections." The overloaded sections would slightly unbalanceNebula Storm, but she could use that to keep them oriented in what amounted to a "right side up" attitude when she did the braking burn. The automated balance application was adjusted to deal with the current situation; she could see A.J. watching it like a hawk. "Altitude is about a thousand meters. Hold on, everyone. One way or another, we're almost done." She cut off outside imagery for everyone but herself. No one else needed to see this, and right now it was not even vaguely comforting. A shattered chaos of icebergs hundreds of meters high, small but sharp-edged ridges running for kilometers, not a single smooth area larger than a football field in… Wait. What was that? She concentrated the imaging systems in that direction.

Alongside that long, wider ridged valley… parallel to it, a wide, smooth area. And it might… barely… be in range. She let a lateral jet bias them in that direction, saving the main engine's accumulators for the very end. The ground rose up… closer… closer… She couldn't restrain an intake of breath as the peak of a great block of ice passedabove her. Above her and to the side, no more than sixty meters away. The terrain below her now was jagged, fangs of ice reaching for the ship. She had to clear them, but they were coming up to meetNebula Storm. The vague dark patch of smoothness was barely visible at this angle, but approaching.

But she wouldn't make it. Unless… Another lateral burst, tilting them up. She fired a short, sharp pulse from the main engines, then fired the laterals to bring them back into the proper alignment. There was a faint jolt, but she maintained control, seeing that the very tail ofNebula Storm had clipped the top off one of the blocks of ice.

But the ice was still rough below them, still clawing up-and then suddenly she saw darker ice, still no skating rink but not a mass of frozen teeth. She cut in the main engines. The accumulators dumped their hoarded power into the reaction mass, sent it roaring out the NERVA nozzle at many, many kilometers per second, making every gram of mass work to slowNebula Storm. Fifty… forty meters per second… Altitude eighteen meters… The rocket died off, power exhausted, with speed at five meters per second, altitude seven meters. A second or so later, Nebula Storm landed on Europa.

Muninwas trailingNebula Storm, a considered choice based on wanting both vessels close together on Europa and knowing thatNebula Storm had neither the maneuverability nor design to control its landing. Horst and the others watched, almost holding their breaths.

"Almost down…" Horst breathed. Only a tiny bit more, and the ship would be down and still, as perfect a landing as could be imagined with such a vessel. And then theNebula Storm 's rocket died. Five meters per second sounded so slow-barely a brisk jog, nothing compared to the meteoric speeds the ship had possessed but a few days before. A man on Earth could easily have outrun it now. But theNebula Storm massed nearly a thousand tons. This was no aircraft, but a solid mass the size of a patrol ship, a small runaway train. A plume of white dust and tumbling shards blasted from beneath the careening spaceship as theBemmius -made hull carved a remorseless path through the ice of Europa. Ponderously, majestically, the great ship bounced, rear end coming up, front down to score another massive dashed line in the face of the Jovian moon, then rear end down again, both down, sliding, ripping through ice like the blade of a titanic ice-skate. TheNebula Storm skidded, turning slowly from end-on to broadside. One of the habitat extensions caught suddenly on a projecting ridge, crumpled, and tore free. The ship rolled slightly, trapping the connecting tube underneath its mass, shredding the composite and steel, steam erupting as the water inside boiled outward in vacuum, shrouding the careening vessel in white fog. To his horror, Horst saw, casting knife-edged shadows across the ice, a forty-meter ridge cutting across the relatively smooth ice like a wall, dead ahead of the out-of-control Ares-IRI vessel. He pointed, wordlessly. "I see it. But theNebula Storm, she is slowing…" It takes immense force to stop a thousand mobile tons, and with only Europa's feeble gravity to provide the pressure, theNebula Storm would not stop quickly. But stop it would, in the end, and already the five meters per second had become three and a half, three, cutting an interrupted gouge nearly a hundred meters wide across Europa in a stupendous fountain of crystalline white. Even as Horst began bringingMunin in for a landing, he could barely tear his eyes from the ponderous, deceptive grace of theNebula Storm 's slow-motion crash. He could hear someone praying in the background. "Stop, stop, God, please stop…" Two and a half meters per second now, dropping, just a brisk walk-but there was no more room. Broadside on, theNebula Storm smashed irresistibly into the immovable bulwark of steel-hard ice, sending a blast of steam, ice dust, and boulders of crystalline water spurting into the black sky of Europa. The cloud settled, unnaturally fast with no atmosphere to keep the dust suspended, and all was still. For a few seconds, no one said anything as Horst gave his full attention to bringingMunin to ground as close as possible to the crashedNebula Storm. Only when he felt the huge lander settle with crushing solidity onto the ice did he speak. "Nebula Storm! Jackie, Helen, A.J.-are you all right?" For a moment there was no answer, and he thought his heart might just stop.

But then the voice of Madeline Fathom answered, as calm and collected as though she were sitting back on Earth." Munin, this isNebula Storm.

That probably looked worse than it was. We got a bit shaken up, but we are all fine. Joe's got a slight bruise on his forehead and Jackie got whacked across the shin by something that got loose in that last jolt, but her suit kept that from being anything serious. No leaks, all major systems still operating, and the hab unit we lost had the stuff in it we could most afford to lose. You can see that one of the others extended a little on impact, just over the top of this ridge, and it's twisted some, but Jackie doesn't think it's beyond repair."Her image appeared on the screen, and they could all see the entire crew ofNebula Storm behind her."It's a good landing, because we're all going to walk away from it. And one day, we'll all be walking back into this ship and going home." "Speaking of walking away…,"A.J. said. "Yes. No better time, I think; we'll all have plenty of work to do, and until we get this over with, we can't really get to it.