Martian Valkyrie

Pierre Ramon and Mustaffa went out in vacuum suits, and managed to bring the six survivors over before their leaking hull finally gave way.

So the rescue was an epic of astronautics, but it left the Calypso ruined and the Zhang-Diaz in a too-large eccentric orbit with almost no chemical propellant left. Rendezvous with the supply depot was now impossible.

The Clarke’s maneuver had been stopped short of capture and they now had to take the emergency return trajectory back to Earth. The name of the ship’s commander was Roger Moses—another irony.

But the Leonov did manage its rendezvous with Deimos and the supply depot-one out of four. By the time Mission Control and my staff had straightened everything out, we had lost two days of schedule time, two spacecraft, and three landers, including both wheeled surface vehicles.

And where was Per Nordli? He was ten hours behind in the other Norwegian ship, the Fram. Halvorsen had told me they had their own redundancies and were not relying on us. I had not thought that through, but now it made sense that the better pilot come in second, in case a rescue was needed. He demonstrated his mastery by declining a one-shot landing; he skipped out into a long elliptical orbit that matched ours, and offered assistance. But Mission Control determined that there was nothing his little ship could do.

Meanwhile, some of the Leonov’s crew reported exceeding their radiation limits and the doctors recommended that they go to the surface or return now They voted to stay.

Perhaps we should have aborted the mission entirely, but I railed against this. To come so far…

No! I was a whirlwind of orders. We would fight back from disaster. We launched all our automated probes, balloons, and teleoperated rovers at once. They sped toward Mars well ahead of us, and data started streaming in as we passed the atmosphere-grazing periapsis of our orbit. Good news started to displace bad news.

Dr. Worthing sent out press releases that emphasized the redundancy built into the mission and the superior technical equipment in the United Nations landers versus those of the Norwegians. We expressed great sadness for our casualties, but dedicated the remaining mission to them.

I took risks. The Zhang-Diaz was trapped in an unusable orbit, but had a usable lander. My staff came up with a brilliant improvisation: The Zhang-Diaz lander could do an atmosphere-assisted orbit change to rendezvous with Deimos and the Leonov.

Once at Deimos, the lander could take on fuel and that would at least give us the option of a landing. Since there was no point any longer in pretending that such maneuvers were too uncertain for manned spacecraft, Mission Control quietly acceded—just in time for us to follow our fleet of drones into the atmosphere on that first periapsis.

Within twenty-four hours, we had a fueled lander ready to go. But Mission Control still objected to a one- lander surface mission in such circumstances.

So I went up to the political level to postpone a negative decision—no need to admit failure yet. A good face was put on everything as I worked furiously to get myself and some volunteers down to the planet. Of course, there were some minor drawbacks that never made the press releases. All that superior equipment was not on that one lander. The one that survived had an aircraft instead of a rover; so once we got there, we would have to walk where we couldn’t fly.

Thirty hours after her landing, we watched Dr. Karinsdatter step off an Amundsen landing pad to gather samples. This told us that the Norwegian expedition had succeeded to that point, and put the final nail in the coffin of any remaining hopes for us—no one from our expedition would be the first person to set foot on Mars. A woman, instead, would join Gagarin and Armstrong in the history of space. My country once had such a woman as its presidente. It was not a successful experiment.

Boris Yakov, the Leonov’s commander salvaged some glory for us. He went outside and left a footprint on Deimos.

Meanwhile, Dr. Karinsdatter roamed around her camp on the Martian surface in a pedal-powered, wirewheeled tricycle, collected multitudinous samples, released some mini-balloons and transmitted a fair amount of surface data to that radio telescope north of Oslo herself.

Never mind the dollars per bit; our army of robot floaters and crawlers got far more data in absolute terms, and that is still coming in. We won in what counted.

We learned that one of the Norwegian supply landers had fallen into a sinkhole, and we made much of this with offers of assistance to Halvorsen. The answer came back that he thought no assistance was needed, but that we should talk directly to the people on the scene.

Finally, two days after we braked into orbit I declared the remaining lander ready for the descent. We were determined to make one quick strike for the goal. The public, the politicians, and ourselves would feel like failures if we didn’t.

Five of us went down instead of the seven the mission plan called for. We said we had to do this to leave room for the Norwegians whom we might have to rescue—but in reality, four of the seven Leonov personnel with ground training asked to not be included in a one-lander mission. Despite their radiation exposure levels, they felt the protection of the Martian atmosphere was not worth the additional risk. Mission control did not dispute this.

At last I called Dr. Karinsdatter on the surface. Her base computer answered and the view from its comm camera filled my screen. It was a late Martian summer evening and I could see rolling hills and the dusty red horizon through their transparent inflated dome. For a moment, all the problems went away. This was why I had come.

“Commander Lopez?” Her voice came from off camera.

“Si. I was admiring the view. We are going to descend in six hours, at local dawn. Is there anything you need?”

She walked up to the comset with a Martian rock in her hands. She had apparently just come in from sample gathering. Her hair, matted and disheveled, was still tied behind her head in a pony tail that fell to her shoulder blades and she was wearing only the thin body stocking the Norwegians used under their tight vacuum suits. It both covered her completely and revealed everything—and she seemed utterly oblivious to what effect this might have on us.

Mixed feelings ran through me, and eventually resolved themselves into anger. I saw a brief frown of puzzlement go across her face as she reacted to my expression.

“Cover yourself,” I demanded. “This circuit is open to my crew, who have not seen a woman in over six months.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “That is not my fault.” There was little soundproofing in our ships and I heard the men’s reaction. “Perhaps they would enjoy seeing me then, Commander. But very well.” The picture disappeared and I lost both Venus and Mars in one instant of self-inflicted pain.

“At any rate, Commander,” she continued, voice only, “this is an independent and self-sufficient expedition and we will get along better if you do not try to give me orders.”

I ignored this challenge and went to business. “We will come in from the west, from over Kasei Vallis.”

“Ja,” she answered, seriously. “Beware—the ground here is crusty with cavities beneath. We had one supply lander tilt because of that. You may wish to land south of our position— we have traversed the area several times and the ground … it is mostly solid there.”

I was irritated and unthinking. “We will make our own evaluation. If you continue to insist that you are in no need of our assistance, then I see little point in continuing contacts which would only be uncomfortable for both of us, I assure you.”

She ignored the taunt. “Per and the Fram will be arriving in four hours— you have the vector?”

“Yes.” Halvorsen and Worthing had buried some hatchets, and information was flowing now. “Give Per Nordli my regards … and my sympathies.”

“Commander, I regret any affront I’ve given you. Please, when you land, we will welcome you. I take no offense. Is this understood?”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, warning bells began to ring. Best not burn bridges. Christ allowed such a