"My pleasure, Sergeant-Major," she said, turning to meet the newcomer. "I've seen you around the mothership. Sorry we didn't get introduced earlier, but we've been busy." Buccari put out her hand. Shannon enveloped it.
"I would agree, sir," Shannon said. "Very busy."
"You were evidently caught on board by accident?" she asked. "Yes, sir," the sergeant said. "I was inspecting MacArthur' s squad when GQ sounded. Just my luck."
"I hope your luck gets better, Sergeant-Major."
Chapter 5. On the Ground
Buccari moved into the lander bay and found Boatswain Jones, slickly burly in his silver pressure suit, floating at the EPL hatch. "All strapped in. All injection units checking good," he told her.
"Let's hustle," Buccari said, "before they get claustrophobic." She made final adjustments to her pressure suit and then dove into the open lander hatch. With practiced agility, she moved forward in the craft, pulling herself into the single pilot station. Positioned in the acceleration seat, she donned her helmet, connected harness and comm fittings, and commenced pre-flight checkout of the Endoatmospheric Planetary Lander—the apple.
"Compute! Systems status—initiate," she barked. "Pilot Buccari."
Ladder lights on the power console sequenced and the EPL's control computer replied with a machine-generated voice: "Pilot Buccari. Control authorizations check. Pilot has command."
"Launch sequence," she ordered, adjusting to the snug cockpit.
"All systems checking good, sir," Jones reported from his station.
"Boats, I'd be surprised if they didn't," Buccari acknowledged. They ran through prestart and start checklists. The lander was in good order; the injection systems displayed green lights. Buccari felt anxious for the Marines stuffed into their penetrator casings—human artillery shells.
"Stand by to jettison EPL!" Buccari announced.
"Apple cleared to launch," Hudson responded. "Report clear. Rendezvous will be launch plus ninety-three. One orbit. Control set to button four. You copy?"
"Roger, launch plus ninety-three; button four. EPL retros in two minutes. Counting down." Buccari settled into the pilot's seat, anticipating the launch of the lander, to separating from the larger corvette, which was itself launched from a mothership—a spawn from a spawn, each with diminishing purposes, powers, and ranges. But this was her ship. She was pilot.
To starboard the bay doors yawned smoothly open; an overwhelming blackness crept through the widening aperture. Buccari cut the lights in the cockpit, cursing herself for waiting to start night vision adaptation. Red light bathed the cockpit, and a constellation of reflections fell back at her from the umbrella of the canopy. She palmed down the intensity. The white brilliance of genuine stars blossomed.
Vibration hummed through metal; the lander moved outboard, pushed by a spidery gantry crane, until it was clear of the confined bay. Ahead were the first signs of sunrise, a perfect red-gold arc starkly defining the limb of the ebony planet, silhouetting it against the utter blackness of space. Buccari released the attachment fitting, fired a micro-pulse on the port maneuvering rockets to initiate a separation rate, and reported "Clear." At the correct moment she rolled the lander on its back and commenced retrofire, falling toward the dark pre-dawn. The corvette, glinting in the rising sun, retreated on its orbital trajectory and disappeared into black infinity. The flowering sun-star, Rex-Kaliph, climbed rapidly over the planet's limb—a harsh, glaring blossom of light.
During the helpless waiting and hard chopping turbulence of reentry Buccari considered her drop target. The granite-topped plateau chosen for the landing site was located in the interior of the largest of the planet's four continents. Curving around the plateau was a major river, providing excellent navigational references. A spectacular chain of mountains to the west was a concern; radar returns indicated peaks in excess of eight thousand meters— geological giants. The mountains were ominous, but radar returns also showed the expansive plateau to be hard and flat—an ideal landing site. Hudson had discovered the plateau and unromantically christened it "Landing Site Alpha." Everyone else called it Hudson's Plateau.
Turbulence dampened sharply, and Buccari noticed the EPL's external skin temperatures stabilizing. Reentry was almost complete.
"Flight profile," she demanded. The computer echoed her words, and a digital flight envelope, complete with altitude, heading, and attitude read-outs, unfolded on the navigation display. The computer began aurally reporting the amount of air density build-up as a function of temperature and pressure altitude.
"Suspend," she ordered. Audio cues abruptly halted. Within minutes the aerodynamic flight symbol fluttered on and held steady, the atmosphere finally biting hard enough to make the lander an airplane.
"Reentry complete, Boats," she said. "Apple's flying." She disabled the auto-pilot.
"Checking good," the boatswain replied. "Everyone's breathing."
After a wide turn to lose altitude, Buccari initiated a course correction lining the EPL up with the run-in trajectory, moving the sun dead astern. Inverted, she looked through the top of the canopy and made out physical features of the planet. Hudson's Plateau was somewhere dead ahead, invisible, still shrouded in sun-shattered haze. Satisfied with course and position, she rolled upright. The planet moved beneath her, the cloud deck thinning.
"All right, Marines!" she broadcast, her audience six human projectiles, bound tightly into torpedolike shrouds. "Approaching zone. Ejection as briefed. Green light. Counting down…four…three…two…one. Bingo!"
The EPL shuddered. In less than a second, six penetrators ripple-fired from the tail. Jones came up on the intercom: "Penetrators cleared. Ejection port fairing closed. Nav track good. Fuel pressures in the green. Gun barrels hot. Checking good, sir."
Buccari returned the lander to computer control. "OK, Boats. Ignition in five. Checking good, checking good." Buccari flattened against her seat and awaited the massive kick of the EPL's engines.
The penetrators streaked into the atmosphere, glowing brighter and whiter, spreading linearly, each canister containing a living soul with little to do but impotently count the eternal seconds. Below, unseen, the dawn's slanted light revealed a wide expanse of verdant prairie, softly mottled. The river, jade-colored in the morning sun and steeped in wispy fog, meandered with little purpose but with certain power. To the west, snow-blanketed mountains, radiantly pink, reflected the morning sun; but the sensesof the men in the streaking cones were aware of only their own mortal being—of pulse and respiration and sweat.
Shannon sometimes considered the lateral acceleration to be the worst part of the trip—like he was going to lose his lunch. It lasted fifteen seconds—a lifetime—the penetrators accelerating in the opposite trajectory of the hypermach lander, decelerating relative to the ground. He smelled the bitter residue of rocket fuel left behind after the spent motor separated from the canister.
He was free-falling feet first in a pressurized titanium, ablative coffin. Waiting. Waiting in endless anticipation for separation retrofire, which was truly the worst part of the trip. Shannon checked disconnects for the third time, adjusted his helmet yet again, and listened to the rasp of his breathing through the forced-flow oxygen mask. Temperature increased rapidly. After another eternity he looked at his altimeter, still off the thirty kilometer scale. He went through the checks again.
The altimeter finally registered. Shannon waited, ear canals working to keep up with the compression schedule. He yawned and moved his jaw, ears and sinuses popping again and again. Long minutes rattled by. The altimeter unwound with increasing speed; the retros would be firing soon. He straightened his spine and positioned his head squarely over his neck, shoulders rolled back. One last look at the altimeter. He closed his eyes, tightly!