<strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">APHRODITE BASE, 07/01/0001, 13:27</span></strong><br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/f/fa/Mars_test.jpg)</div><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Character name:</strong></td><td>Lt Colonel Louise Cotter</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Location:</strong> </td><td>The cockpit of the aircraft</td></tr><tr><td><strong>With:</strong> </td><td>A slightly naught co-poilot?</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Doing:</strong> </td><td>Landing with rather more of a bump than intended....</td></tr></tbody></table><br/><hr/><br/>Louise looked up at the company man as he made his rather unsubtle comment. She grinned. "Stephan, if we had enough time I'd suggest that you take our delightfully sexy shrink into one of the heads and join the Martian Mile High Club too, but as my copilot has pointed out, we are coming up on our final approach, and this is not going to be the easiest la..."<br/><br/>She was interrupted by a sudden buzzer and a red light on the board. Suddenly she was all business. "Back to your seat, Mister, and put your helmet and gloves on. NOW!"<br/><br/>Even as she did she was reaching for her own, flipping the switch that turned the passenger cabin lights red. "All passengers and crew to return to your seats NOW. Full EVA suits. Put those lids and gloves on, people. We're coming in hard!"<br/><br/>Of course this was hopefully an unnecessary precaution, but if the ship landed too hard it could pop a seal, and that would mean the air escaping. Anyone not fully suited would have seconds to get that way. "We are two klicks from the LZ. LZ is fucking freezing! Never thought I'd miss the damn jungle!"<br/><br/>The rotors tilted upwards, slowing them from their cruising speed. The ship lurched to one side. "Fuck... V, get ready to disengage number two, the ship can land with the one rotor, but if number two seizes up, we could loose both". The two rotors were so large, in order to generate sufficient lift in the thin atmosphere, that the centre of one was half way along the blades of the other. The blades were synced so that they interlocked without interfering with each other, and spun so fast that seeing through them out the front was no problem. But if one of them began turning slower that the other, the blades would clash and both rotors would be destroyed. The disengage sequence would cause the rotor blades to be fired away from the craft individually. It was risky, but less so than allowing the two rotors to clash.<br/><br/>The number two engine was on the point of stalling and Louise had no intention of letting the damn aircraft kill her, let alone anyone else. She fought the controls, flying the ship the old fashioned way, rather than using her implant, the direct feed to her brain did help though as she used it to give feedback from the plane's systems.<br/><br/>With a sickening crunch that indicated that she'd put a nasty crimp in the landing gear, the craft hit the ground, Mt Olympus rising like a monstrous cliff in front of them.<br/><br/>"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Camp Aphrodite. Please adjust your time signals. It is now Thirteen Twenty Seven on the seventh, Olympus Standard Time". On earth, the GPS function in the standard implant would automatically adjust the time depending on the time-zone, but here on Mars, there was no GPS yet. "Let's get out there and get the base set up." She killed the broadcast and switched to LoS only. "V, let's get that engine stripped down and fixed..."