The Man in the Coat came to the front edge of Washington's hair once more, looked again at Sunny and then rapidly retreated from the edge. Sunny was relieved that the man had not fallen over the edge but, of course, was deeply troubled at the nature of what was occurring.
The light was fading fast and Sunny had been straining to see the goings-on up on top. Sunny heard another pistol shot and then, seemingly out of nowhere, Sunny saw The Man in the Coat running as fast as possible directly toward the front of Washington's head.
It was suicide. There was no way this could end well. The Man in the Coat was running for all he was worth, leaning in and pumping his arms, Sunny thought. It looked like 'wind sprints' in football practice.
Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion and there was absolutely nothing Sunny could do to prevent it. The man and woman to Sunny's right both screamed as The Man in the Coat reached the edge of Washington's head and kept going.
Then, right there in the Black Hills of South Dakota on a cold, clear Christmas Day in the extinguishing light of the weak, winter sun at Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, The Man in the Coat dove off the head of George Washington, sailed out into the air, down past Washington's forehead and past his eleven-foot-wide left eye and past his twenty-one-foot-long nose, out into the dark abyss with nothing but 100 feet of air below him and a bed of hard rocks awaiting his return to earth.
In half an hour Bailey and Dimitri sat in the Lander. For the next half-hour, they went through their check-lists.
Just like the last time they landed on Europa, they had to wait for the moon to be in the tail of Jupiter’s magnetotail. Although this meant it was night on Europa, it offered the most protection against radiation while on the surface. This, in combination with their POWER modifications, allowed them to do a surface walk from the Lander to the Habitat safely. It had been standard procedure since getting to Europa the first time.
The first part of the launch was done automatically. The computer handled all propulsions perfectly and pushed the Lander away from the Seeker. After getting a bit of distance from the Seeker, it was time to fire the rockets and put themselves on a general path to the coordinates that Dimitri had plugged in. Once it was time to make the final descent, Dimitri began to read off the last checklist as Bailey responded.
“Go/No Go for landing,” Dimitri said. “Retro?”
“Go.”
“Landing?”
“Go.”
“Guidance?”
“Go.”
“Control?”
“Go.”
“Telcom?”
“Go.”
“Computer shows all green. We’re go for landing,” Dimitri finally said and pushed a button.
The rockets fired and the computers controlled the burn. The burn wasn’t very long and put them on a slow descent. Over the next hour, they floated toward the icy surface.
Bailey was watching the video feed. Even with the night-vision mode, it was difficult to make out exact details on the ground. Suddenly she saw something on her screen and compared it to their predicted course.
“Dimitri,” Bailey said, “I have a visual on the landing pad. I think we’re going to overshoot the landing pad and end up in a pile of large ice-rocks.”
“How sure?” Dimitri asked.
“Positive,” Bailey responded.
“Roger, take semi-automatic control,” Dimitri replied.
Bailey placed her feet on the support pads and wrapped her gloved hands around the joysticks. She had control of the Lander and used the propellant to slow their landing more than the computer had been doing.
“4000 feet,” Dimitri said. “3000 feet.”
Bailey slowed their descent even more.
Li was monitoring the approach from the Seeker. “Careful, you’ll have to abort if you use too much propellant,” Li said.
Bailey had heard what Li said, but didn’t respond as she was focused entirely on the screens showing their descent.
“1500 feet,” Dimitri said. “500 feet. Coming down at twenty-five, thirty-three degrees.”
“Ninety seconds of propellant left,” Li said.
Bailey took in all the information. She was coming down at twenty-five feet per second and was at an angle of thirty-three degrees to the horizon. She had used more propellant to slow their descent faster. She was trying to not overshoot the landing pad.
“300 feet. 200 feet. 150 feet. 100 feet. Four down. Ten forward. Thirteen degrees.”
“Thirty seconds of propellant.”
Bailey leveled the Lander out so the landing pads would be perfectly horizontal to the surface.
“Fifty feet. You’ve got the horizontal line pegged, looking good,” Dimitri said. “Contact light.”
Finally, small icy particles began to appear on the monitor and the Lander touched down gently.
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