Mars Crossing

PROLOGUE Landing

Don Quijote approached Mars in perfect silence.

At one end of the spacecraft was the habitat, a squat, rounded cylinder sitting on a heat shield. It was separated from the main rocket engine and now-empty fuel tanks by two kilometers of tightly stretched rope, a super-fiber tether so thin as to be nearly invisible. The spacecraft and the fuel tanks slowly rotated around the center of the tether.

“Arm tether separation.”

“Tether separation armed.”

“Navigation?”

“Nav is go.”

“System status?”

“Systems are go.”

Mars loomed, crescent in the sky, a mottled brick of craters and wispy shreds of cloud.

“Check terminal descent engine preheat.”

“TDE preheat on.”

“Check parachute deploy preheaters.”

“PD preheat on.”

“Fire pyros for tether sep on my mark. Three, two, one, now.”

The spacecraft jerked, and the tether, suddenly cut free, recoiled away from the spacecraft, writhing and twisting like an angry snake. The engines, solar arrays, and fuel tanks sailed slowly off into the distance. They would miss Mars and sail outbound on an endless trajectory into interplanetary space.

“Tether separation confirmed. We’re committed.”

“How’s the trajectory?”

“We’re on the numbers. Looking good.”

“Instrument check.”

“Instruments green.”

“Everything green. We’re sliding right down the groove.”

“Then buckle up, everybody. We’re going in.”

The spacecraft burned through the Martian atmosphere, leaving a trail of fire across a pink sky.

A parachute bloomed, another, and a third; bright yellow flowers blossoming in a lifeless sky. A moment before it hit the ground, the heat shield fell away from the back of the vehicle, and a landing cushion mushroomed out of the bottom. At the instant of contact, a cloud of orange dust billowed up into the air, painting the bottom part of the spacecraft with yellow-brown dirt. The spacecraft tilted, swayed at the edge of falling over, and then rocked back toward vertical as the airbag deflated.

“Engines off, tank pressurization off, APU status green, all systems looking good. We’re down. Navigation, you got a position?”

“Working on it…Looks like we hit the kewpie. Should we say something for the history books?”

“Nah. I don’t think anybody is going to write down what gets said by the third expedition to Mars.”

“Tell me it ain’t so. You saying that we’re not going to get a parade when we get back?”

“You got it. Welcome to Mars.”