Free Battle Station by B. V. Larson

we’d filled oblong structures that looked rather like freight train cars with about a hundred marines each and carried them on long arms dangling from the bottom of our Nano ships. Now, the systems were slightly different. I’d shaped them like teardrops for improved aerodynamics, and hopefully a faster drop-time from space.
    Our ships were able to get into and out of orbit much faster than traditional spaceships. This was essentially because our engines had a lot more powered lift than rocket-propelled systems. A ship like the old NASA shuttlecrafts had to come down in a slow, gentle glide. They had to slow down the entire time, starting the drop at a very high velocity. They largely used friction to provide this braking action, rather than engine power. The shuttle engine burn that started this process only lasted three or four minutes. After that, it was a long gliding process that took about an hour to get the ship all the way down to a dead stop, sitting on a long runway.
    Our engines weren’t limited to short duration burns, and therefore we didn’t have to rely on friction to slow ourselves down. We were able to come down out of orbit much faster by utilizing a much shorter path—essentially straight down. The main limit on our approach speed was atmospheric friction. It was all a matter of how fast we were moving versus how close we were to the planet’s surface, and thus how thick the atmosphere was. The closer we got to the surface at high speed, the hotter things would become inside the landing vessel.
    That was what I originally wanted to test. Going down at about five thousand miles per hour to an altitude of about twenty miles from the surface, then throttling back hard to prevent vaporizing the vessel—that was the problem I intended to solve.
    So, I loaded about twenty Centaurs into an egg-shaped landing pod and attached it to a destroyer. I’d ordered them to calmly stand in the module, and think happy thoughts of open skies, rivers, wind and honorable matings. They were to turn their goggles to full black and wait a few minutes—the supposed duration of the drop.
    We decided to come down in a remote part of the planet about a thousand miles from the southern pole, far from any of the enemy domes or any other Macro units. We’d long ago knocked out all enemy satellites and other remote observation equipment, so I was pretty sure they wouldn’t detect the landing at all. Even so, I was tense in the command chair next to Captain Miklos. We had Kwon there, and Marvin. We watched the screens intently as we dropped straight down like a rock toward the ice-capped polar region.
    Things were going well, until we hit the friction layer, about two miles from the surface. The ride got bumpy at that point, and I worried about the Centaur troops we were carrying down.
    “Ease off on the throttle, Miklos,” I ordered.
    “Yes sir, but I must point out, we need to do the drop as quickly as possible. Enemy anti-air can’t be allowed a long period to lock onto us and bring us down. We don’t have enough ships to take losses—”
    “I’m well aware of all that, but this is a test, not a combat drop. Slow down.”
    We decelerated harder, and the lurching of the ship continued. We bounced and almost flipped over as a high altitude wind shear struck us.
    “Dammit,” I muttered. “Kwon, how are the Centaurs doing? Ask their Captain.”
    Kwon spoke into the com-box. “No answer, sir.”
    “What do you mean, no answer?”
    Kwon shrugged in his suit. “The Centaur Captain isn’t responding.”
    I gritted my teeth and turned to Miklos. “Can we abort this thing now?”
    “Not really, sir,” Miklos said. “We’re almost down. But I’ll slow down to a crawl and crank up the stabilizers so we don’t hit anymore spots like the last one.”
    When we finally reached the ground we set the egg-shaped landing module on the ice and the big arm slid away from it. I ordered the ship to dissolve a circular section