Thursday morning comes around quickly. I’ve been kept busy with final planning and the preparation of initial work schedules for my crew. Apart from staff meetings, I’ve not seen much of anything or anyone.

To add to it all, I’m now running late to get into the ship in time for the de-orbital burn. Jack has just spent far too long trying to convince me to just let Argus take the ship down empty. I came very close to shouting at my boss, something that I never thought I would ever even dream of doing. Eventually, he relented, but only when Argus was called to confirm that he would make every effort to keep the gateway open if he thought the landing was going to go wrong.

So, finally making it to the gateway, I find Mary and Andy are both waiting for me and looking a little apprehensive. There also appear to be a couple of junior team members who are going to take the opportunity of sharing this unique experience with us.

“So, Steve let you come along then?” I ask Mary as we walk to the gateway, Andy just behind the two of us. “I thought you said that he would be against the idea?”

“Erm…”

“Shit. You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“Not exactly?”

“Bugger. I hope you’re not going to try and blame this on orders from me? I’m not taking the blame for this!”

“No, Peter, I’d never do that,” Mary seems pretty calm about the whole thing though. “I will tell him tonight. I just didn’t want to make a big thing out of it. He’s just being a bit over-protective about the whole thing. It’s no big deal.”

“Okay, but I want all of you to remember,” I turn so that the others behind us can hear as well. “There is no obligation to come along for this. We’re not needed and only actually make Argus’ job even harder. Honestly, I’m late because I’ve been fighting to be allowed to do this at all.”

There are one or two mutters of complaint that we would be stopped, but I’m keen to squash this sort of thinking before it can take hold in any way. “No, don’t think of this as a right. This landing is the most dangerous part of the whole trip and the ship could genuinely be lost. Obviously, I don’t expect this to happen – I’m not suicidal – but we need to be aware that the dangers are very real.”

“If Argus tells us to get out, I want us all to move as quickly as possible. Just hurl yourself through the gateway and don’t worry about the landing on Earthside. I’d rather deal with a broken limb or a mild concussion than not get back in one piece.”

Everybody nods or mutters an affirmative and I step through the gateway and onto the bridge of the ship. Mary lets Andy through next, possibly to make sure he is managing the transition to freefall without issue. He actually seems to be doing pretty well and I motion for him to take Toby’s seat on the front row.

“Andy, if we do have to evacuate, don’t be alarmed if I grab you and hurl you at the gateway, okay?”

“Sure, boss. I understand I might be a liability, but I wouldn’t miss this for anything.” He settles into the seat and fastens his belts like a pro.

Argus has the main view of the surface up on the screen and has marked his planned trajectory and landing zone clearly for us to see. <About five minutes until the de-orbital burn commences. Everything is in the green.>

“Argus, have you deployed the satellites as planned?”

<Of course. All three are moving towards geostationary orbit as we speak. It will take about three days, though. We will have to rely on close-range Mesh communications until they are working. Even then, we’ll need mesh units on the ground for it to link to an implant. Bigger communication units will work planet-wide, however.>

I’m a little frustrated that the ship only carries three communication and observation satellites, but there’s little that we can do about it fifty years after launch. We will barely get planet-wide coverage, but it will serve until we can do better.

“I don’t think we will be going very far for the first few days anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, Andy is now an expert in deploying Mesh nodes.”

“I’m not sure I’m an expert, but I can put one in place the right way up,” Andy laughs.

“That’s better than a couple of members of staff can,” Mary mutters pointedly.. “They even have ‘UP’ embossed on the casing and I’ve seen people get it wrong.”

<Two minutes.>

“Argus, what can we expect from the burn and the approach?” Andy asks as we wait.

<Well, I can’t promise much of a view. The plasma generated by the heat of entry into the atmosphere will make most of the sensors, particularly the front-facing ones, ineffective until we get down to a reasonable speed and altitude.>

“And before we get that slow?”

<I’m going to be running the thrusters at about 3.2g for several minutes to slow us down and drop into the atmosphere. Then it will get pretty bumpy for about twenty minutes. There’ll only be reaction thrusters correcting our trajectory during this phase and then we will transition to a flight mode with thrusters compensating for gravity until I find a good flat spot to put us down.>

“Sounds like quite a ride,” Andy mutters to himself as he swallows a couple of times.

<Piece of cake!> Argus tells us with a laugh. <Ten Seconds.>

I nod to my colleagues on both sides and take a quick, reassuring glance over my shoulder at the others.

<Five… Four… Three… Two… One… De-orbit burn starts.>

The pressure of the engines starting is slow and deliberate. Once more, Argus has no need to slam us straight into full power and the pressure on my chest builds slowly as the engines ramp up. Argus switches to a forward view that we can enjoy until we start to enter the atmosphere. It looks like a beautiful morning on Verus as we streak out of the dawn terminator and head towards the now close eastern horizon and the rising sun.

“This isn’t too bad,” Andy suggests at the power levels steady and the pressure of our additional weight presses us back into our seats.

The pressure holds steady for a few minutes and then I start to both feel and hear the first hints of atmospheric friction. Within a few seconds, the front view has been replaced by the glow of plasma. Argus switches to a view from the rear of the ship, where we can at least see the streamers of white-hot plasma and the continued presence of the surface below us.

Each correcting thrust is like a kick in the ribs, thudding us left and right in a choreographed attempt to keep us on our descent trajectory. At first, it seems like it will never end, but eventually, the sounds change and the force of the corrections become lighter and less frequent. I can tell that I’m holding onto the arms of my chair with white knuckles and force myself to relax.

<We’re on slope and on target. I’ll be transitioning to powered descent in a few seconds. Standby for gravitational manoeuvres.> Even as Argus informs us of our progress, he switches the front view back to the main screen and we get our first close-up view of Verus.

We’re at about 5,000 metres in a sky filled with broken white clouds and otherwise bright sunlight. Far in the distance, off to the right, I can see the snow-capped peaks of mountains that appear to tower above us. Their green lower slopes are just visible through the broken clouds. Far below and to the left, I can see the coastline and directly below us the broad plain between the mountains and the ocean. The course of a great river crosses the plain some distance ahead and opens out into the sea in a wide estuary. It’s beautiful.

<Northern or southern bank, Peter?> Argus asks as we continue to descend and approach the river.

“Northern. There’s more land to explore on that side without having to go around or build a bridge.”

<Agreed. I’ll just find a suitable clear space for us.>

At this point, as it approaches the sea, the great river is probably about a half-kilometre wide. Argus pilots us upstream for about a minute, keeping more than 500m above the water until he spots a suitable location on the northern bank to our left.

A measurement grid appears overlayed on the potential site and Argus guides us down and towards the bank. At the last moment he hovers and rotates the ship until we are facing the water, perhaps 1500m back from the bank. There is a loud rumble as the landing gear is deployed and we settle slowly down onto the surface. The sound of the engines dies and we sit in silence.

<Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Verus.>

 

I’m happy to sit in my seat for a moment and catch my breath. We’ve done it. We are on the surface of a new world and now the real work can begin in earnest. “Mary, get some people over here and let’s get started.”

“Yes, boss,” she replies with a grin. Despite the levity, she is businesslike and purposeful as she starts to check her panel and hand out orders through her implant.

“Andy, I’ll need you to give us some space for a couple of hours. Toby will need his seat to co-ordinate things and there’s not much for you to do until we get at least one buggy unloaded.”

“No problem, boss. I don’t want to get in the way. Thank you for letting me be a part of that.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll check in with you later, Andy.”

Within moments, Toby is slipping into his seat in Andy’s stead. “What do you want us to do first? Get the buggies unloaded or double-check the atmospherics?”

“Have Argus power-check the buggies and get them ready to drop, but the atmospheric confirmation tests are a priority. There’s no point going any further if we can’t open the doors.”

<I have the first samples in their bottles already,> Argus interrupts. <If someone can take them back through the gateway, we can expedite.>

Mary calls to her assistant, Laura, nominally our resident atmospheric gasses expert and she grabs the sealed flask from the small airlock hatch that has been opened by Argus. While the landers have reasonable sensors and mass spectrometers and Argus has slightly better, there’s never been enough space to bring a full lab along with us and no perceived need to do so. It’s far more efficient to just take the sample back to the fully-equipped laboratory on Earth and test it there.

“How long, Mary?”

“No more than an hour. As soon as I hear, I’ll let you know.”

“Good. In the interim, we can rig the interior for planetary operations. Even if we have a problem, we’re still going to do some exploration in suits.”

“Yes, boss,” somebody calls from over my left shoulder. “We’re on it.” I can sense myself micro-managing and I know I don’t need to do that. Everybody knows their jobs and I should let them get on with it and get on with my own department.

“Anything on the external cameras, Nicki?”

“Nothing yet, Peter. The amount of noise you must have made on the way down will have terrified everything for tens of kilometres. Most of the herbivores in the area will still be running away!”

“I never thought of that. I would probably be the same if I’d been on the outside.”

<I’ve an audio from the lander as we went overhead, if you’d like to hear it?>

“Maybe later, Argus. It’ll make good publicity release material for the people back on Earth, though. Did the lander get any video?”

<Yes, but just a few moments as we went overhead and off to one side.>

I’m beginning to find the whole day a bit of an anti-climax. I guess it’s partly due to the fact that we’ve been training and practicing for this day for years. Now that we are on the ground, everybody is just getting on with their jobs and I’m almost being left out of the loop. There’s that small part of me that, for some as yet inexplicable reason just wants to head back to Earth and sit and chat with Andy.

He seemed to really enjoy the landing, as indeed did I. It was at least as interesting as I thought it might be, even though it all went without a hitch. Perhaps it needed a little more drama, but I’m actually glad everything went as smoothly as it did in the end.

“I’m going to take some soil samples back,” Toby tells me as he gets out of his seat. “Do you need me for anything for the next few minutes?”

“No, I don’t think anybody can do much until we are cleared to open the airlocks. Bring that little package we discussed through when you come back though.”

“Oh, yes, will do. I’ll be back within twenty minutes. I’ll take Nicki back with me, she’ll be interested in the soil sample results too.”

“Yeah, so will I. Get Axios to make sure that everybody knows to be this side of the gateway once we have the all clear to open the airlocks.”

I’ve almost disconnected myself mentally from the world around me, but I suddenly realize that I still have full communications with Earth and beyond. I’d had a plan in mind ever since I’d been on Sevrin last and now seemed like a good quiet moment to put it into action.

“Nexima, what time is it on Sevrin?”

<A little after seven in the evening, Peter.>

“Call Grandpa Aidan, please.”

“Ah, Peter, my boy. I was just thinking about you. How is the mission going?”

“Great, Grandpa. I’m calling from the bridge of the Mona’s Isle. We’re on the surface and waiting for the safety tests to be completed.”

“Did you manage to get on board for the descent?”

“I did, it was fun, but a bit of an anti-climax. It’s not surfing a big wave.”

“I did warn you. You’re a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I know it’s partly – mostly – my fault, but I have no regrets.”

“It’s okay, Grandpa. I’d never blame you for making me like a bit of an adventure. On that subject, what are you both doing tomorrow?”

“I don’t think we have anything planned. Why?”

“Well, I thought you and Granddad might like to visit another world.”

“I’d love to and I’m sure Jordan will come along. Will we be okay to be there though?”

“Well, I don’t see why not. I’ll clear it with Jack, but there’s no way he’s going to say no to you. Besides, it’ll be good for public relations. You launched the bloody ship, it’s only right that you should be there when it lands.”

“I suppose. As long as I don’t have to give another fucking speech!”

“No, this time, I think that is going to be up to me. Not that I am any keener on the idea than you ever were. It’s a shame I can’t do anything as dramatic as your gateway stunt!” Let’s face it, bringing Granddad through the first gateway and kissing him in front of billions of people was pretty hard to top. My dad always thought it had been ridiculous, maybe because he had to live with the teasing about it at school when he was young, but I loved the whole gesture. Whether Grandpa knew it or not, he had a great sense of the dramatic.

“Well, I’d better get back to work. We’ll be opening up any minute now. I’ll make sure there is a room for the two of you, so you don’t have to rush around.”

“Thank you for thinking of us, Peter. See you tomorrow. Love you.”

“Yeah, love you both. Bye.”