Tevun-Krus #25 - Romantic SF

The Rust, by @MoonLoop

1

The sun's starting to set. It tints the sky blue. Mig scans the horizon, but nothing moves. The readout on his visor shows he's nearing his daily rem limit. He starts tapping his finger against the trigger guard of his M189.

"You seem antsy." Olivia's voice buzzes in his ear. She gets a live feed from his IHD. The Integrated Helmet Display is one of the few vanity items he kept from the old days. Not a lot of people have one out here. It's an advantage and he'll take as many of those as he can get.

"If they're dead before they hit atmosphere, I get nothing." He does a full turn, but nothing is around him except sterile regolith. "You didn't send me out here for nothing, did you?"

"Of course not. Honest Olive. All you need is in the name."

He wipes dust off his rifle's hand guard and says nothing.

The first stars begin to peek out. It looks like another no show. It's possible that the ship bit into the atmosphere at a bad angle. Mars is infamous for a difficult descent and kills its fair share of pilots each year. The air's too thin for chutes, too thick to ignore. But the last few months have been lean. Skimmers prey on incoming ships when they're most vulnerable: during deceleration and orbit insertion. If the ship's taken before it hits air, no one will touch it. Space is neutral. Nobody wants to own a mess in interplanetary territory.

It starts as a low rumble. He looks up to see a bright streak in the sky. The craft scrapes through the atmosphere inside an envelope of hot ionized gas. No communications can punch through. No skimmers can, either. He squints as the left portion of his vision seamlessly zooms in.

As the intense light falls away, he can make out the violet flames of liquid propellant. A small black and white Vesta orbiter gleams between two large retrorockets that slow its descent. It looks like a NASA shuttle. No wonder the skimmers didn't bite. They'd have a hell of a time docking with a museum piece like that. Clever, but risky. Those old heat shields were never meant to withstand such a long burn through the atmosphere.

"Is that it?" Olivia's voice cracks. "That piece of crap?"

It's in Martian air now. If it blows, he'll be compensated. Although he'd like to see who has the nerves to try Mars in an old orbiter.

By the time it closes in on the runway, the Vesta glides toward the ground. Its landing gear unfolds as it nears the regolith. He can feel the impact from where he stands. The wheels squeal and a huge cloud of red dust streams behind it. Three large parachutes unfurl and do what little they can to slow the orbiter down. It still gobbles up most of the runway.

Olivia whistles. "They'll need a tow to get off-world."

He walks out onto the runway. It's cracked from the cold and shows faint flecks of paint. The Vesta's chutes wilt on the ground like dead mushrooms. He checks the left side of the orbiter before swinging around to the right. The door shifts and a small hiss of air is audible. He pauses underneath the Vesta's scorched black wing and waits.

Two figures emerge in bulky white spacesuits. It's the sort of equipment workers would bring into orbit. His IHD automatically scans their gear. No additional kevlar, no tactical interface, not even a dust shield. They might as well be sitting inside marshmallows. The first person wobbles at the door. Looks like they expected a ladder. After a moment's indecision, the idiot drops down into a thick slope of regolith. Mars has under 40% of Earth's gravity. The fall's not fatal. The second person throws two bags and follows with no hesitation.

"It's not right," Olivia says sharply. "Blue caps wouldn't send them in like this."

The two newcomers stand up and brush themselves off. Martian regolith doesn't have the static cling of lunar regolith, but it's full of perchlorates. Heat from the orbiter's landing releases it as chlorine gas. The dirt smears red across their white spacesuits. They each pick up a bag, which are opaque to his IHD. It's only then that they spot him. One actually waves.