"All systems green. Initiating lander separation from mother ship. Separation in two minutes."

The female voice was calm and impersonal while counting down their fate. Well, the AI was only doing its job.

Floyd was a pro. He wasn't nervous. Nervous astronauts soon turned into dead astronauts, and dead astronauts made bad colonists.

The droids had done the groundwork. Alpha station was ready, awaiting their arrival. Their equipment had landed safely; the provisions, the building material, the computers—even PEMAR, the Personnel Mars Rover, was sending signals it had arrived safely and enjoyed robust health.

Goosebumps broke out on his arms and spine. No, he wasn't nervous.

Equipment was one thing, human lives were something entirely different.

"Separation in one minute."

Floyd scanned the control panel one last time. All systems were still green, ready to go.

Ready to eject the landing pod with him, Leelawati, and Bones and send them hurtling toward the red planet, where they would crash-land on its dusty surface.

Crash landings were the safest way to get equipment to the surface. He knew that. Recent missions had confirmed that SHIELD really worked. Its accordion-like, collapsible base acted like the crumple zone of a car and absorbed the energy of a hard impact. Much better than using only parachutes in Mars's thin atmosphere. That was really dangerous, and that's how the first teams of pre-colonists were lost.

Rest in pieces.

SHIELD worked, period. And they would be the first humans to write home about it.

Mars, the final frontier.

"Ten seconds to separation."

Leelawati turned in her seat, her golden visor facing his. Floyd gave the mission's biophysicist a thumbs-up.

Somewhere behind the visor would be her trademark derisory smile, but there was no point in thinking about that now. He had a mission to complete.

"Five."

Bones, the missions engineer and medical expert, checked his safety harness again.

No harness would save them if SHIELD failed.

"Three. Two. One. Separation."

At first, nothing happened, but that was normal. There was always a delay until the impulse reached its destination and did what it was supposed to do.

Like it did now.

The pod shuddered, jerked, and suddenly the figures on the control panel changed. They were moving, accelerating away from the mother ship. It would remain in orbit, recording their descent and possibly the pod's disintegration...

Cut it out, dammit.

"Separation successful."

The theme from Alien burst from the speakers.

"Bones!" Leelawati's voice, transmitted directly into Floyd's right ear, reminded him of the crack of a whip. "Turn that off."

"No sense of humor," grumbled a gravelly bass in his left ear. "We're in space. We shouldn't even hear you scream."

"We're in Mars orbit, not in space," Leelawati said.

Floyd suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Cut it out. Both of you. I've got a ship to monitor."

"Yeah, bouncing Mathilda," Bones said. "Oh well, if you insist, man." The eerie music stopped, but its echo seemed caught in Floyd's helmet, ricocheting around and around.

Numbers crawled over the screen. Descent had started.

The inflatable heat shield and decelerator sitting at the front of the pod was another innovation, but that one bothered him less. It had been tried and tested throughout many missions with landers, droids, and the heavens knew what stuff the science team had hurled at the unsuspecting planet's surface. The thing was cool. No bigger than an airline carry-on it expanded to 20 feet and would withstand temperatures of 30.000 Fahrenheit.

The numbers on his screen scrolled faster.

"Going down," Bones said. "First floor, ladies' underwear."

"You're a dinosaur, that's what you are," Leelawati snapped. "Just because you're an Aborigine doesn't mean you can take liberties as you please."

"Yep, fossil and proud of it."

Floyd turned down the transmission to a whisper. If anyone wanted something from him, they could use the override button.

Something rumpled.

"Heat shield deployed," the AI announced in the same flat tone that would have hailed the making of pancakes.

Why was he thinking of pancakes? Was it burning he smelled?

Floyd sniffed.

He did not.

Perhaps he was getting too old for this shit. He never had shown nerves before. But then, he never had landed on Mars.

He itched to grab the controls, but there was nothing he could do. The pod was in autopilot mode. He could only monitor their progress. Intervention and mission override was only for dire emergencies. Which this wasn't, thankfully not. The numbers slowed. The heat shield was indeed up and slowing their descent.

Well, what else did he expect?

This was the Atlantic Alliance's hi-tech, after all. Not only were they pretty good at that sort of stuff, they also went to some bother to ensure their space teams stood a chance of survival. That wasn't always a given with the Pacific Alliance. There, human life came cheap.

And investing into the crews paid off. Mars Mission 1 would be up and running while the PA kept creating more craters with their landing pods.

They too would see the light, but it might take a while.

Hopefully forever.

Someone tugged at this spacesuit and Floyd bit down on a scream. He cranked up the transmission.

"Yeah?"

Bones' golden visor was facing him, and Floyd could swear the whiteness of the man's toothy grin was visible even through the plating.

"I asked how long we have before the fun starts."

Floyd checked. "Any second now."

"Ah." Bones fidgeted with his harness.

The cabin was getting warmer. That too was normal, nothing to worry about. As long as the shield held, they'd be fine. But he'd hated the simulated landings at Red Base. A bit like a teeth-shattering magic mountain fun ride, only without the fun. Bruising was standard, even broken ribs not completely out of the picture.

The AA wasn't all that caring about their crews. As long as they got down without smearing gore all over Mars's frosty surface, all was well.

Any second now.

The numbers rattled over the screen. Final approach.

One hundred meters.

Fifty.

"Brace for impact," the AI announced in the same flat tone.

Floyd braced.

With a rumble that drilled into his teeth, the pod slammed down, only to spring up again, like an oversized jack-in-the-box.

Down, up. Down, up. Rinse and repeat.

Despite the harness, despite the hug-all airbag in the seat, every bone in his body was squeezed by a giant fist that pressed the air from his lungs. His teeth hurt, his brain was pounded into a mash, and a freight train was rumbling through the tiny cabin.

Triple screaming blended into the din, but it was swallowed away.

Then the banging and rocking eased.

The pod shuddered one final time and lay still.

A metallic taste filled Floyd's mouth. He must have bitten his tongue. 

"Ow," he said.

"Shit," Leelawaati said.

They had arrived.

https://youtu.be/txdLAILJz6g

(1098) words This chapter is dedicated to fellow ONC writer @cocosghost who is writing a novel about - Ghosts. And Pirates. 

Okay, this might all sound a bit crazy, and it is, but it's fiction based on real science. SHIELD is a viable plan to get equipment safe to the Mars surface without losing too much stuff. I'm not sure this is planned for humans, though. The inflatable heatshield, however, is. It's actually necessary since the static heatshields are too heavy. If you want to read more, try this

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/why-nasa-is-trying-to-crash-land-on-mars#carousel-ee94f4df-0c33-49b7-9bbb-7138e734b16f-1