Fable Hill

by Christopher Uremovich

  Frank laid out a thick, flat piece of steel with four symmetrical holes. Using the electric rivet gun, he made quick work of the repair. He thought it bizarre, watching his handiwork without sound. Like a silent film scene, it left a lasting impression.

  Roland buzzed their comms for a status update. Keiko relayed that the work had been completed and they were returning to the airlock. With a firm jolt, the steel cables tugged rather violently, pulling them away from the module with speed. Taken by surprise, Frank rushed to close the tool bag but the rivet gun was lost to space in an instant.

  Forgetting to unlatch the carabiner in time, the cable squeezed his body in a painful tug of war. Keiko quickly disappeared towards the airlock as Frank yelped in pain. “Stop the cable, you’re killing Frank!” Keiko finally realized.

  Thinking quick, Frank grabbed his military-issued knife attached to the suit and cut at the braided rope, releasing himself from the death grip. He clutched his abdomen in pain, returning to the airlock in the fetal position.

  Pressure returned to the airlock, with vents blowing oxygen like cold air on a humid day. A single buzzer signaled the all-clear and Renee rushed inside to tend to the distressed pilot.

  “Who ran the return mechanism?” Keiko accused.

  Alexei stumbled in last as the rest of the crew members looked at him in reserved judgment. Keiko wound up a seething slap to the face, but Alexei was quick, avoiding it entirely. Roland and Mia stepped between the two, ending the scuffle before it escalated.

  “It isn’t anyone’s fault. It was an accident,” Roland defended. “I made the call to reel you two in.”

  Frank recoiled in pain as he was carried off to medical in a stretcher.

  •••

  “Ladies and gentleman, we are officially on Martian time!” Roland exclaimed to the crew. Enthusiasm ran high on the bridge as Frank repositioned himself in his seat, scratching at his belly wrap, which was now over three days old and began to stink from lack of bathing.

  Blueish-green bruising creeped below the bandage, which put Frank in an especially poor state of mind. He popped a few pain killers, given to him by Renee for his abdominal pain. Roland sensed Frank’s vulnerability and had been taking it easy on him lately.

  He knew eventually he would have to remedy Frank’s relationship with Alexei. That can wait until down on Mars. Until then we must focus on the mission, he mused.

  “Captain, permission to take manual control of Yamada?” Frank asked.

  “Permission granted,” Roland said, entering a four-digit code into his chair’s control pad.

  For the first time since leaving Earth, Frank grabbed onto the flight control yoke. He was used to using the F-35’s stick controls. However, the Yamada’s yoke was highly ergonomic.

  Frank felt a sense of pride again. He was badly bruised and scarred from years of hard work. Neither stress, anxiety, divorce, nor explosions had killed him yet and that thought put him in control of his environment once again.

  “Sarai, disengage forward heat shield, bridge,” Frank said.

  “Um . . .” Mia could be heard in the background,

  “Affirmative,” Roland replied, trusting in his pilot.

  “Sarai, open external radiation shield,” Frank said.

  Two feet of thick titanium alloy and lead came apart from locks and hinges. Painfully slow, it opened at an acute angle, slightly obscuring yet revealing Mars to the naked eye. All that stood between them and the harsh environment of space was an additional foot of ballistic glass.

  Wispy cloud formations covered the northern hemisphere like early morning fog. The solar terminator of Mars revealed a thin, dusty atmosphere on the horizon. Frank pulled back on the yoke, slowly pitching and rolling the ship parallel to the planet. Vernier thrusters adjusted attitude, affirming the ship’s final position.

  “Areosynchronous threshold achieved,” Sarai confirmed.

  Main engines sputtered briefly before power left them dark again. The ship was finally in stable orbit around Mars. Frank initiated the next mission maneuver, awaiting Roland’s approval. Bay doors opened to swelling depressurization. The coil gun deployed itself again, firing a salvo of telecommunication satellites into orbit. The crew saw that it was good and Roland gave Mia the thumbs up to proceed.

  “You’re up, Mia,” he said.

  As navigation officer on the Yamada, Mia had the responsibility of inputting all landing grid coordinates. She used an advanced system of laser guidance and altimetry to guide re-entry vehicles to their targets on Mars. “Zeroing in on Lyot Crater,” she said as she controlled the laser scanner. “Getting azimuth and elevation.”

  Three-dimensional models of the surface were displayed in real time on a digital micro-mirror device, the only one of its kind on the Yamada. Mia continued to type away at her keyboard, pausing only to control the joystick for her scanner.

  “There’s our landing site,” Mia declared as a crisp-looking reference map revealed detailed elevation. Ōme Station was not visible, but marked by a small white cross marker. “I’ve got a few grid coordinates, sir,” she stated. “Latitude is 50°36'2.67"N.” She paused briefly as more information loaded. “Longitude 29°30'33.49"E.”

  “Still within the margin of error, good,” Roland replied.

  Frank intently studied the screens. He squinted his eyes to try and memorize as much data as possible. He knew knowledge would be his ally, not luck; he had run out of that while on Earth.

  “What is that mountain to the west of Ōme?” Frank asked.

  “This one right here?” Mia pointed at two elevated mounds close by.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I am not entirely sure. I think . . .”

  “Ōme Hill?” Roland interrupted.

  “Looks like a mountain to me,” Frank said.

  “Technically it is, its elevation is over six hundred meters,” Mia interjected.

  “Elbrus in Russia is a mountain. That is a hill,” Alexei said.

  The entire crew broke out into argument about the apparent hill being a mountain, causing the bridge to burst into chorus. Roland put his face into his hand. He was too tired and stressed out for this.

  “Enough! It’s a frickin’ hill, alright?” Roland exclaimed. “We’re acting like children.” Roland motioned to Mia who uploaded coordinates to Frank’s flight computer.

  Outside the ship, three modules that were connected to the Yamada detached from the hull. They tarried a bit while repositioning and then gradually entered the atmosphere using ion propulsion. The crew monitored all payload deliveries from the bridge, receiving video feed from mounted cameras.

  Re-entry was tedious. Thin heat shields protected the unmanned shuttles from friction-induced heat. “Parachutes deployed, all support modules are on target,” Frank said. He watched intently at the swarm of data still being received.

  “Sir, all payloads have landed safely on Anatoli Planum,” Mia added triumphantly.

  “Good, how far away from the settlement location?” Roland wondered.

  “I don’t have an exact figure, but rough estimate’s about two kilometers away,” she said. “Give or take.”

  Alexei groaned at the news in loathsome anticipation. “It’s going to be a chore ferrying that shit back and forth, you know,” he sighed.

  “Then why did you come here? Big baby,” Mia shot back.

  “Ok, now for the big boy. Release the science lab,” Roland ordered. The science lab, which had been derelict for the duration of the journey, detached from its housing and burned a fiery trail through the thin atmosphere. It landed safely only a few meters from Ōme Station. The crew was thrilled with the accuracy of the landing, and not having to tow the largest of the payloads.

  •••

  The day of reckoning had finally arrived. Final preparations were made as the astronauts readied for a dawn insertion on the red planet. On Earth, the date was May 5th, 2045. On Mars, it was the second month of the northern hemisphere’s summer sea
son. Yamada had spent the entirety of sol 1 in areosynchronous orbit, launching satellites and supplies down to the surface.

  It was now barely sol 2. Lyot Crater lay darkened as the planet’s terminator line approached the crater from east to west. The summer was an ideal time for landing on Mars, on account of fair weather. A few high altitude, transparent ice clouds lay scattered in the northern sky, not a kernel of dust hanging in the atmosphere, making for clear conditions. The perfect time to attempt a landing was now.

  Roland handed Alexei and Frank a motherboard encased in glass fiber. It was their smart AI that would control every aspect of life at Ōme Station, by far the most important piece of equipment.

  At 0435 hours, the call was given to suit up. Sarai made final preparations to hibernate the ship while the astronauts were away. Mia and Keiko helped Frank load the Sakura capsule Delta-3 with supplies, mainly personal luggage of the crew.

  Two capsules would be taken to the surface, one loaded with supplies and the other with personnel. Roland ran numbers and figures in his head while perusing his room one last time. He grabbed a few pictures of his family and rummaged through some plastic containers. The duffel bag he brought with was packed to capacity, barely able to be zippered shut.

  At 0700 hours on sol 2, the sun rose at Lyot Crater, revealing a complex geography. Keiko and Frank took turns gazing out the side hatch window as the rest of the crew took their seats, strapping into harnesses and applying helmets.

  Sarai disengaged the hangar bay door locks, depressurizing the interior. Cables and chains pulled the two capsules on an extended roller and rail mechanism into space. They teetered on the edge until induction motors decoupled them one at a time in the direction of Mars.

  With no other thrust but electromagnetic induction decoupling the spacecrafts, Sakura capsules Delta-1 and Delta-3 took some time descending. Safety, not speed, was of the utmost importance to Nagoya.

  Frank watched the digital speedometer level off at a comfortable 367 meters per second. We’re breaking no speed records, he thought to himself over bored crew chatter inside the cabin.

  Keiko and Alexei took turns with mounted body cameras, each giving their own versions of what to expect on Mars to the world. Alexei spoke in Russian for the first time in front of the others. Frank figured it was for his countrymen back home, or the mystery woman he had seen on Alexei’s personal computer.

  •••

  One hour into their atmospheric entry and most of the cabin chatter had died down significantly. Frank gave a long, drawn out yawn, while struggling to stay awake at the controls.

  “How long until we reach the exosphere?” Mia berated impatiently.

  “Two minutes,” Frank droned.

  As if on cue, Roland received an encrypted text message from the Yamada. He read it to himself a few times in silence before revealing its contents to the crew.

  “I received a message from Sarai,” he said solemnly.

  Intently, the others repositioned themselves and sat upright in their seats. “Well?” they asked together.

  Roland paused for a moment, rereading the message as if the words could change.

  “The Chen Xi has been spotted by the Yamada, holding position over Hellas Planitia.”

  “Shit,” Alexei said.

  “What does that mean, we aren’t the first ones to land on Mars?” Renee asked.

  “Precisely what it means, Renee,” Frank said.

  Roland put his helmet back on and attempted to link with mission control through Yamada’s fancy new satellite relay. The Sakura capsule shook a bit and rattled, a yellow indicator light blinking inside the cab.

  “We’re entering the exosphere. Initiating attitude controls,” Frank said. The Sakura capsule’s single main engine vectored in a wide angle, rotating the craft 180 degrees so the frontal heat shield faced the planet. “Deploying aerobrakes.” Three large fins protruded outward, increasing atmospheric drag. “Twenty seconds until peak deceleration, entering thermosphere.”

  Friction tested the integrity of Sakura’s heat shield, shaking the craft and those inside. Peak heating caused paneling to glow a bright yellow sporadically, a testament to the sometimes inconsistent layers of the Martian atmosphere.

  “Entering jet stream in three . . . two . . . one . . . deploy chutes!” Frank shouted above the cabin noise. Like a bullet fired from a rifle, the capsules drogue parachutes shot out the front nose cone, discharging bits of packaging material and fabric. Vigorously the parachutes filled with gases and achieved a rigid mushroom shape. With a violent jolt, the capsule righted itself and shed speed, going from transonic to subsonic in seconds. Outside the small circular viewports, dark exosphere turned to dreary butterscotch. Occasional ice clouds brushed past each window.

  Frank, who had let the computers do most of the work, disabled the autopilot and grabbed onto the stick. “I'm going to take her in manually,” he said to the dismay of the others. Roland's tinted face shield was motionless as he continued to talk with mission control.

  “Frank, please don't,” said a concerned Keiko. Renee looked on in horror, clutching onto her stomach with much anxiety.

  The air resistance was surprisingly strong as Frank wrested with his aerobrakes. A small screen gave him a view of the terrain below, a vast, featureless expanse of rock and sand. In the distance, the foreboding, multi-ringed Lyot Crater came into view. The Sakura capsule made quick work, zooming past the outer rim, barreling towards a second, spiraling, interior rim.

  Frank didn't have much time to admire the complexity of what he was seeing, the vast mountain ranges, swirling sand dunes, and deep gorges bathed in fog. “Prepare for landing, engaging single retro thruster.” The capsule slowed down a bit. Frank disabled the radar guidance which had gotten him this far. He opted instead to eye the landing site.

  Ōme Station was a tiny spec at the edge of Anatoli Planum, a twenty-five kilometer diameter, level plain near central Lyot Crater. Frank hurriedly identified suitable locations to land. His keen eye and quick reflexes were finally coming into play. “Engage second retro thruster,” he gasped. The capsule slowed even more.

  After weeks of analyzing the topography, Frank knew he couldn't land too close to the settlement because of the rocks. He had to drop her further out where the ground was clear of hazards. One wrong move and the craft’s landing gear would fail and tip the capsule on its side. “Engaging all retro thrusters!” Frank shouted.

  All four side-mounted, inverted retro thruster systems burned in unity, halting Delta-1 to a manageable 8.9 meters per second. For five additional seconds they burned, lowering the space capsule to the ground, kicking up large amounts of surface dust in the process. Three landing gears deployed from underneath, gently coming to rest on hard ground.

  Chapter 14

  The incessant ringing of notification alarms resonated Delta-1. It seemed as if every light, system, and screen screamed at the crew.

  “Get me the hell out of here!” Mia cried.

  Frank attempted to turn off some of the alarms but more seemed to spring right back up. He gave up and put on his helmet instead. Inside the comfort of their noise-canceling headsets, the crew could carry on with transmissions in peace.

  The crew unstrapped themselves from their harnesses and filed towards the main hatch. “Alright, we still have a job to do,” Roland ordered in his usual fatherly tone. “Make sure your body cameras are turned on. Everything must be captured.

  “Frank,” he motioned. With a firm grip, Frank pulled downward on the diagonal hatch-unlocking lever, only to recoil in pain from his abdominal injury.

  “Are you alright, Frank?” Renee comforted.

  “Move aside.” Alexei put his entire body weight into the hatch. Depressurization commenced. Alexei pulled down on the second handle, opening the hatch and revealing an alien world. Light filled the interior of the capsule, causing helmet visors to darken automatically.

  “Should we say any words?” Renee asked.


  Before anyone could respond, Alexei jumped down from the top step, impacting the ground below. The area around the capsule filled with dust from the landing, the particles seeming to suspend longer than on Earth.

  The rest of the crew walked carefully down each individual step, taking in the incredible views of Anatoli Planum. Across the open plain, nestled against a range of highlands, sat Ōme Station.

  “Listen up, everyone,” Roland said as Renee went among the group, exchanging hugs. “When we get the settlement up and running, I will brief everyone on what mission control said. Until then, we need to beat feet. Distance?” he asked.

  “Um, should be about five kilometers,” Mia answered.

  “You sure put us far enough away,” Alexei said to Frank.

  “Better safe than sorry, Frank,” said Renee.

  “I agree. You did good, old dog,” said Keiko, giving a playful swing at Frank’s arm.

  “Now, we are wasting O2 talking and not walking,” Renee spoke. Roland agreed and the group soldiered on towards Ōme, leaving behind their personal items and valuables.

  Roland scanned the area ahead. He counted five landed payloads in the distance including Delta-3, all within a kilometer of Ōme Station. Frank played with the controls on his wrist, changing the settings for his heads-up display. He noticed that the air temperature was a brisk -28°C.

  The sun made its way above the crater rim to the east, its rays reflecting off of Ōme Station’s unique composition. It reminded Frank of his time stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado. Driving into Denver, seeing the morning sun reflect off the homes tucked away deep in the Rocky Mountains.

  “Ok, we’re heading west. That’s Ōme Hill to the southwest,” said Mia.

  “It’s beautiful,” Renee commented.

  “It’s amazing how weightless I feel right now,” Keiko said, her steel-toed boots grazing the top sand with each successive stride.

  “Not long now, keep pushing,” Roland said.

  The massive domed atrium of Ōme loomed over everything else. Deactivated rovers from past decades lay covered in sand. A lone crane sat extended to its maximum, sticking out the very top of the atrium.