The Silent War

CRASH LANDING

Ground’s coming up awful fast, Pancho said to herself. She had allowed the little hopper to follow its ballistic trajectory, knowing it was going to come down way short of the Astro base in the Malapert Mountains. How short she didn’t really care anymore. Her main concern—her only concern now—was to get this bird down without killing herself.

Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, she told herself as the bare, rock-strewn ground rushed up at her. Find a flat, open spot. Just like Armstrong in the old Apollo 11 Eagle. Find a flat, open spot.

Easier said than done. The rolling, hilly ground sliding past her was pitted with craters of all sizes and covered so thickly with rocks and boulders that Pancho thought of a teenaged boy she had dated whose face was covered with acne.

Funny what the mind dredges up, she thought.

“Pay attention to the real world,” she muttered.

She fought down a wave of nausea as the ground rushed up at her. It would be sooo good to just lay down and go to sleep. Her legs felt like rubber, her whole body ached. Without thinking of it consciously she ran her tongue across her teeth, testing for a taste of blood. Bad sign if your gums start bleeding, she knew. Symptom of radiation sickness, big time.

“Pay attention!” she screamed at herself.

“Say again?” came the voice of the flight controller at Malapert.

“Nothin’,” Pancho replied, apologetically. They’ve still got me on their radar, she thought. Good. They’ll know where the body’s buried.

There! Coming up on the right. A fairly flat area with only a few dinky little rocks. It’s sloping, though. On a hillside. Not so bad. If I can reach it.

Pancho nudged the tee-shaped control yoke and the hopper’s maneuvering thrusters squirted out a few puffs of cold gas, enough to jink the ungainly little craft toward the open area she had spotted.

Shit! More rocks than I thought. Well, beggars can’t be choosers. Only enough juice for one landing.

She tapped the keyboard for the automatic landing sequence, not trusting herself to do the job manually. The hopper shuddered as its main engine fired, killed its velocity, and the little craft dropped like a child’s toy onto the stony, sloping ground. All in total silence.

Pancho remembered enough from her old astronaut training to flex her knees and brace her arms against the control podium. The hopper thumped into the ground, one flat landing foot banging into a rock big enough to tip the whole craft dangerously. For a wild moment Pancho thought the hopper was going to tumble over onto its side. It didn’t, but the crash landing was violent enough to tear away the loop that held her right foot to the platform grillwork. Her leg flew up, knocking her so badly off balance that her left leg, still firmly anchored in its foot loop, snapped at the ankle.

Pancho gritted her teeth in the sudden pain of the broken bone as she thudded in lunar slow motion to the grillwork platform.

Feeling cold sweat breaking out of every pore of her body, she thought, Well, I ain’t dead yet.

Then she added, Won’t be long before I am, though.