Free The Veil by William Bowden

promised Chief Justice Garr that I would do my level best to bring you here safe and sound. Have I…done a good job?”
    “Yes, you have, Lucy.”
    “Then I am happy and shall not be sad. But I will miss you.”
    “Luce—”
    “Are you afraid?” Lucy asks.
    “Yes, Lucy. I am afraid.”
    “Then you must be brave, Robert. Three, two, one—release.”
    An almost inaudible click as the Mombasa detaches, its main engine lighting immediately.
    “Retro one.”
    The burn quickly slows the Mombasa, the Afrika now seeming to pull ahead, with the lander dropping below it, beginning its long-arc descent in reverse. A minute later and the main engine cuts out, a controlled kick from its parking thrusters gently flipping the Mombasa head over heels to the forward re-entry inclination.
    The following period of calm doesn’t last long.
    “Entering upper atmosphere,” Lucy says over the comlink.
    All too soon the lander is engulfed in a turbulent ball of plasma, so beginning the roughest part of the journey, which for Robert seems to last an eternity.
    Fifteen minutes or so of a violent re-entry gets the Mombasa down to a manageable hypersonic speed, allowing the vertical thrusters to set it on a final approach, reducing the forward velocity to a sedate nine hundred kilometers per hour, the nose dropping to reveal the Olympus Mons caldera.
    But not as it should be.
    Filling it like some vast luminescent sea is the multifaceted curvilinear surface of God knows what . Robert is reminded of soap bubbles. Giant green soap bubbles.
    The volcano is so vast that at this range its full extent cannot be discerned, for all the world appearing to be the surface of Mars itself. But the Mombasa is still at an altitude of thirty-five kilometers, and forty kilometers out, the roar of the Merlin aero rocket engines now a constant—maybe ten minutes of descent fuel remaining.
    “You are now on an approach vector over the northwest ridge,” Lucy says. “Two minutes to final approach.”
    Robert can make out the landing platform, emerging from behind the caldera ridge. The Mombasa is at its closest point to the dome, with the ridge mountains—over two kilometers high—almost directly underneath. The rocket engines increase their roar as the autopilot makes its final approach, reducing their speed to three hundred kilometers per hour.
    A brief, but violent shake from the Mombasa. Turbulence? No chance—
    The lander lurches to port then back.
    “Lucy, are you reading this? Got some—”
    “One moment. One moment.”
    Robert feels his weight drop. Just like an air pocket—
    “ Lucy —”
    “Attention!” It’s the autopilot. Another violent lurch heralds a flight systems alarm.
    “Attention! Autopilot disengaging—”
    “I have control,” announces Lucy, having silenced the autopilot and its noisy alarms.
    “Lucy, what’s happening? Why has the autopilot disengaged?”
    The Mombasa bounces around some more.
    “The flight conditions are outside of its operational parameters— Robert! Take the controls!! ”
    Robert grabs the flight stick and thrusters, immediately sensing the control systems feedback. The Mombasa is fighting against something.
    Another alarm—rate of descent. Christ, we’re dropping like a stone.
    Alarm silenced, thrusters up by fifty percent. Robert feels the gees pushing him into his seat. It’s not enough—
    “ Lucy! I’m losing vertical thrust!”
    Nothing. He checks the comlink— gone!
    He’s below the caldera ridge, now a mountain to starboard, a blur just a few hundred meters away.
    More thrust —everything the Merlins have, the Mombasa shuddering under the strain.
    “Come on! Come on, damn you !”
    The landing platform. Two hundred and fifty thousand square meters of perfect flatness straight ahead.
    Landing gear down…Shit! No! We’re coming in too fast—
    The Mombasa hits it hard, some two hundred meters in, nose slightly up, the landing gear bursting into a myriad of fragments, the uneven