"SSTO John Carter ready for launch to Mars surface landing."
"All clear, John Carter. You may launch when ready, Bruce."
"Acknowledged. Stand by." Bruce Irwin looked into the screen showing his passengers. "Everyone ready? All strapped in? It'll be a couple of hours before we land, so get comfy."
"We're all ready, Bruce. Let's get this show on the road!"
"I didn't ask just you, A.J., now shut up. Everyone strapped in and ready?"
The others replied with various affirmatives.
"Right. I'll do my best, but it's a fair dinkum ride and no one's ever done this before. So it's probably going to get a mite bumpy, especially the last few minutes."
He switched back to the transmitter. "This is John Carter, launching in thirty seconds. Locks disengaged. Bay doors open."
Bay doors on the side of Nike's ring allowed John Carter to be launched by the simple expedient of using the ship's own rotation. The SSTO shuttle would slide along tracks until it reached the exit and then fly free. Once clear of Nike, Bruce would initiate a burn to set them in an orbital course for eventual deorbit and landing.
"Wheee!" A.J.'s voice came over the systems as he felt the slow, speeding, curved vibration of the shuttle's track-based launch. "Here we go, guys!"
He knew that Joe shared his excitement. It wasn't that there hadn't already been about a thousand wonders to appreciate, a million things to learn. But this was the real dream-the dream the accident had stolen from him, and that he'd been haunted with ever since they arrived: to set foot on the Red Planet itself.
"John Carter is now clear of Nike," Bruce stated. "Beginning orbital insertion for Melas Chasma landing site."
The orbital shift for this purpose wasn't huge, but had this been Earth they would have had to take considerably more time for the purpose-and probably used ion engines. However, John Carter could-barely-achieve single stage to orbit on Earth. Here, dealing with a gravity well only thirty-eight percent as powerful, it had deltavee to spare.
The rockets roared for a few seconds, pushing everyone into their seats with a force that felt immense. Glancing with concern at the telltales, A.J. saw to his surprise that it was only about two gravities.
"Damn, I'm out of shape," he heard himself say, his voice slightly strained. "I thought we were doing four or five g's there."
"It does feel out of whack, doesn't it?" Bruce commented. "That's what months of soft living in a third gravity do to you. Don't worry, though. I'm not planning on anything more than three all the way down."
"I practice in the high-g rotor every week." Madeline's voice was serene. "It feels just fine to me."
"Thank you, Ms. Jane Bond. The rest of us have things to do rather than working on our mah-velous looks."
"Her looks don't need any work. And she puts as much time in the med department as anyone else does on their job."
"You, my friend, are prejudiced."
"You really should exercise in the high-g area more, though," Helen said. "You've been slacking off lately, A.J."
He took a deep breath and prevented himself from an instinctively defensive retort by biting his lip. "Yeah, I know. But you guys have been keeping me awful busy, you know."
Conversations drifted rather like John Carter for a while, as the shuttle headed for a particular point in time and space. "Okay, mates, can the chatter," Bruce finally said, as the time approached. "I'm about to take us down, and I don't need any distractions."
A.J. clamped his mouth shut.
"Nike, this is John Carter, we are about to begin deorbit burn."
"This is Nike, John Carter. You are about to begin deorbit burn, we copy."
"Burn starting in five, four, three, two, one-"
Once more the rockets roared, vibrating the shuttle with the power of contained explosions. The great red planet began to swell.
"Return all your trays to the upright position, please. We're about to experience a spot of turbulence."
"Breathe, A.J.," Helen said quietly.
He suddenly realized that he actually had not been breathing, as though he'd hold his breath the entire way down. "Jesus. But, well, Helen, this…"
"I know."
A faint vibration tickled at the edges of the senses, then grew. A keening whine began. Suddenly, for the first time since they'd arrived in orbit, Mars seemed to be down instead of up or over there. The pink-red-orange-brown surface was starting to look like a landscape instead of a globe.
John Carter was in the atmosphere now, its meteoric speed being slowed by friction that heated its outer shell, turning it to a glow which those on Nike could easily detect. Ionization cut out all exterior communications as the ship was briefly enveloped in a sheath of blazing fire. John Carter shuddered, Bruce preparing to take full control of the shuttle as they dropped to atmospheric speed.