Chapter 7. First Landing

The EPL rumbled and vibrated in the turmoil of atmospheric reentry. Plasma gases danced across the windscreen.

"How're the passengers, Boats?" Buccari shouted into her mask.

"Checking good, Lieutenant," Jones replied. "Fenstermacher and Dawson are keeping everyone real loose—real garbage mouths they are. Dawson' s just tearing Fenstermacher apart. And Leslie Lee can hold her own, too."

"Fenstermacher brings out the best in everyone," Buccari said, perspiring in the glowing reentry heat. The massive deceleration of the reentry over, Buccari felt changes in airspeed, as the thermal warping of the airframe steadily diminished. The gas pressures flowing through her suit umbilical eased; she worked her jaws and yawned.

"Reentry complete," she reported. "Compute… command: auto disconnect." The flight computer disengaged. Buccari gently pulled the lander through sweeping reversals. Her feather touch moved the nose of the lander to starboard, and the tracking bug on the course indicator drifted slowly back onto the programmed course. She approached the descent funnel, the signal from Shannon's ground navigation beacon strong and steady. Reluctantly, Buccari reactivated the autopilot. Decelerating against gathering pressure, unpowered, its engines held quiescent, the lander bucked in the hypermach turbulence. Thickly sleek and delta-winged, the silver EPL, a fuel-laden glider, screamed into a wide, slicing turn, dragging a double explosion across the new land.

"Mach two point five, altitude on schedule," Jones said. "In the groove. Engines hot and feathering, fuel pressure in the green. Checking good, Lieutenant, checking good."

Buccari double-clicked the intercom. She watched the landscape roll by, searching ahead for topographical cues. On the head-up display the «roadway» in the sky showed as two converging lines; they were on final. The autopilot held altitude while airspeed rapidly decayed. The EPL dropped transsonic as the glide slope indicator eased resolutely to center scale. Established on glide slope, the altitude readout resumed its steady decrease. Buccari peered ahead. In the distance the bend in the river marked Hudson's Plateau. Mountains loomed ominously beyond. She was heading straight into a range of vertical granite, but it mattered not; if she chose to abort, she could accelerate straight up—emergency procedure number one: return to orbit.

"Landing checks complete, Lieutenant," Jones reported.

"Checking good, Boats," Buccari acknowledged, flattening her seat and cinching her harness. The edge of the plateau passed beneath them; Buccari detected steam rising from the river, and the radar altimeter beeped at the sudden decrease in altitude. Airspeed decayed rapidly, but glide slope remained in the funnel. Terrain features sharpened; a lake passed down the left side. The landing configurator initiated; wing tip fences snapped erect; a growling vibrated through the craft signaling movement of the massive flaps as they crawled out and down from the trailing edges of the fat wings. The lander flared, its nose elevating, blocking her view of the mountainous horizon. She went to the gauges.

Touchdown was imminent. Airspeed fell away; the nose of the craft rotated smoothly toward the vertical—and past! Well past! With alarming intensity, the guttural bass of the main engines exploded into activity; Buccari was pressed into her acceleration chair. She felt more than heard the gimbal motors grinding through their pivots. Beneath her feet pulsing hover blaster joined the cacophony, and the nose of the ship slowly fell back toward the horizon. Huge snowy mountains loomed to each side, but suddenly all view was blocked by rising dust and debris. As abruptly as they had started, the main engines wound down with a plaintive whine. The hover blaster screamed for a second longer, and the lander shivered to a jolting halt. Her apple was on the ground.

Predawn revealed starlit skies. Peach-colored alpenglow illuminated the great peaks, giving hint of the sun's impending presence. Brappa came awake and uncoiled from Craag's warmth.

Craag stirred to activity. Brappa was stiff, but he felt excited, strong. He was also hungry, and the fragrance of burning wood stimulated his metabolism. Kibba had prepared a tiny smokeless fire with twigs kept dry from the night's rains, and Kiit was slicing fish filets into thin strips for cooking. The ravenous hunters queued up and, using sharpened sticks, held the fish in the flames long enough to be civilized—which was not very long.

Craag finished eating. Brappa spit out fish bones and stood to follow; it was time to relieve the watch. The clear morning air was shattered by massive, stuttering explosions! Brappa clasped hands over his ear openings, but too late; detonations swept their campsite. Dazed, ears aching, Brappa looked anxiously at the other hunters. Even Braan and Craag were wide-eyed and frozen. The two old warriors quickly shook off the effects of the horrible noises and became alert. Inspired, Brappa felt his own courage grow warm and strong within. He was the first to hear the passage of the alien ship. The strange object made an audible noise, hissing loudly through the air. Brappa whistled a sharp warning. It was immense, silver and cold looking; it caught the bright sun, reflecting its red rays painfully into the hunter's eyes. The sentry, mouth gaping, watched the awesome object as it flew from sight. Moments later the air shuddered with distant, rumbling vibrations.

Braan faced the hunters. "Our mission reaps fruit, but we have not yet learned of its taste. Expedite your preparations. The thermals come early today."

Shannon's Marines sprinted to the lander, assuming defensive positions. Shannon warily scanned the rim of the plateau, his senses heightened. The lander's arrival had announced their presence within a wide radius.

"Sergeant Shannon, Buccari here," Buccari' s voice came up on UHF.

"Yes, sir. Welcome to our new home, and a mighty pretty landing, I might add. Bit noisy, though," Shannon responded.

"I had nothing to do with it, Sergeant. Autopilot does all the work," Buccari said. "I have six new inhabitants and equipment to offload. I plan to rendezvous with the 'vette on the next orbit."

"Piece of cake, Lieutenant. As soon as we can touch you. You're pretty hot, er… the ship, I mean, is hot…er, as soon as we can touch you, uh… the ship. 'Sorry, sir. We'll get…" He stopped, bemused with the laughter coming over the radio.

"Relax, Sarge," the pilot finally replied. "I copy."

"You aren't powering down, Lieutenant?" Shannon asked after several minutes. The lander's skin temperature was stabilizing rapidly in the cool, breezy air.

"I'm running tertiaries at idle so I can keep a generator on line. I need to keep the fuel pressures up—takes too much fuel and time to re-ignite otherwise, and too many things can go wrong doing a cold start," she answered. "I'm pretty comfortable right here. This gravity isn't bad, if you can stay on your back. I might just take a snooze."

"You saw what?" MacArthur asked, dropping the dried branches.

"A bear!" the big man exclaimed. Purple stains colored his lips and tongue. Sonic booms echoed in the valley. Both men jerked to the noise and stared at the sky, searching for the lander. Only the twin plumes of thin smoke from the volcanoes on each side of the valley marred the deep blue heavens.

"What the hell you been eating?" MacArthur sighed, bringing his eyes back to the surface of the planet. "Geez, Jocko, it could be poisonous."

"Berries," Chastain replied, dropping his eyes and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "They're all over the place. I picked a bunch for you, too. They're real good."