The landing on Mars was not as smooth as the Moon. The atmosphere on Mars was considerably thicker than the Moon, causing additional heat and friction on entry. The B-537 landing craft took all of this in stride, the aerogel shell that surrounded the craft effectively deflected the heat from the thin metal hull holding the crew and equipment. This craft was significantly smaller than the A-537, designed to be able to easily land on a planet, and leave the planet’s atmosphere easily without the aid of rail launchers. It was more difficult to control during turbulence than the larger craft, but more maneuverable. Garst set the craft down on the dusty clay landing strip that was remarkably clear of debris. The landing was bumpy, but safe.
The crew put on their space suits for their first steps on a foreign planet. The excitement of the moment was electric. They had all trained months for this, and it was finally happening. They would be the first people to set foot on Mars post-travesty. Garst silenced the airlock alarm warning of the lack of suitable air outside the craft, and pushed the outer door open. Because he had done all the hard work so far, they had decided that he would be the first out of the craft. He descended the ladder to the ground and bounded around in a circle while the others watched from the windows of the lander.
The gravity was stronger than the moon, but not as strong as Earth, providing a good balance that made him feel like he could move effortlessly, but without that feeling that he could jump off the planet if he tried. He smiled and touched the communicator switch, “You guys really oughta get down here, or I’m going to have all the fun.”
The rest of the team took their turns exiting through the airlock and down onto the planet. They spent a few minutes chasing each other around, bounding, and just enjoying the planet that they were all visiting for the first time. The strangeness of their situation took a while to sink in.
After a few minutes, Priscilla said, “Hey guys, I just realized, we’re standing on Mars. I have no idea what I did right in my life to arrive here, but I’m glad I did it.”
Elliot Laughed, it was the first honest laugh he’d had for days. He looked towards the horizon where he saw the sun rising above the thin red line that marked the curve of the planet. It illuminated the dusty amber color of the sky, which was the most striking feature of a planet that otherwise looked similar to the surface of his home planet. He was somewhat disappointed in the sunrise, or was it sunset? No, sunrise, definitely. The sun was small, distant, and no noticeable warmth came with the light. By far the most noticeable difference was the size of the sun in comparison to what he was used to seeing on the days he spent at the surface research station. It was a tiny spot in the sky. It still illuminated the landscape brightly, but did not dominate the sky the way it did on Earth. The pale sky, small sun, and barren landscape gave him a cold feeling. The suit he wore kept his body warm, but he felt chilled to his soul by the view in front of him. This was truly a strange place.
Priscilla led the way from the tarmac to the research station, while Garst ran back to the craft to grab a toolbox. The team found the main entrance, and Garst began to examine the door. It looked to be in decent condition, but he was sure that the hundreds of years would have taken a toll on the mechanics of the door, and definitely would have ruined the motors that control it. Besides all of that, the world that designed this base was a warlike world, and even Mars wasn’t far enough away for security. Thus, the door was built with a keypad entry system, and a 32 digit code, which, of course, was only ever communicated verbally, and never recorded on the schematics unearthed recently. Needless to say, they had anticipated a bit of a struggle to access the inside of the base.
Garst began to eye up the door. It was a beautifully constructed device. The schematics had shown that the door was actually a rotating chamber that served as an airlock as well. It was designed to rotate and stop at three points, spaced evenly around the chamber. The first was the exterior opening where they currently stood. The door would allow up to 10 people to enter the chamber, then rotated to the second point. The second point was a completely sealed position, where the chamber would be brought to equal pressure with the inside or outside, depending on the direction being travelled. The final stop was the opening to the inside of the base.
A solid sheet of metal curved slightly across the opening of the door frame before fitting snugly back behind the other side of the frame. The fit of the door in the frame meant that there was only a few molecules width separating the door from the frame, so no amount of prying would do any good. There was a mechanical override for the door, but that was located inside the base, not on the outside. The team decided that the only way in was to cut the metal. It would be a tedious process, and would require repair later if the base was going to become airtight again, but they didn’t come all the way to Mars to look at the exterior of a Base, maybe peek in the windows and head home.
Garst removed the protective cap off the laser cutting device. He flipped on the safety catch, and started the cutter through its warm-up cycle. The cutter gave off a low tone, which grew higher and higher in pitch as the device warmed up. When the green light came on, he began to test the cutter on a large square of metal sunk into the ground next to the door. The beam flared up where it contacted the metal, and the material could be seen melting away at the sides of the laser. The beam reached the edge of the metal, and Garst flipped the safety back on. “Seems to work well. Kinda fun actually.”
He walked over to the door, and drew a square on the door with chalk, about a meter on each side. He pointed the cutter at the corner of the square, and released the catch when a speaker overhead crackled, causing them all to look up, expecting to see something move. Nothing moved, but a few seconds later, the speaker came to life again.
“If you’re planning to treat the door like that poor bench, we’d really prefer if you’d just knock. It would save both of us an awful lot of time and effort.”
1 comment:
ohhhhh boy! things are heating up
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