The wail of a klaxon exploded into the cavern and bounced off the rocky walls. From nowhere, an acrid, eye-stinging mist drifted in, and the ground under Floyd's feet vibrated so hard, he stumbled toward the fire.

Only the fire wasn't there anymore.

In its stead an instrument panel rattled and shook into view, the source of the acrid fumes. Awash with a sea of blazing red lights, all of them flickering and flashing like lightning gone berserker, the panel took on substance until it completely blocked out the golden city.

Constant popping in Floyd's ears didn't quite muffle the shrill clamor of the klaxon. His body, encased in something a lot heavier and stiffer than furs, was being squashed into something soft, and there was a weight on his chest as if a mammoth was sitting on it.

"Floyd?" Someone screamed, sounding very much like Leela. But her voice was distorted and distant.

For a second, she sprung up in his peripheral vision, still clad in her furs, coughing and sputtering. Like a double image creeping in, a white garment materialized over her body, covering her legs, rump, and finally her arms. Where her head had been just a second ago, now sat a white, shiny bubble with a golden front.

His beleaguered brain, slow to throw out answers, seemed to believe she was wearing a spacesuit and a helmet.

The next instant, she was melting into some weird contraption his mind insisted on calling an APS, an Astronaut Protection Seat, the same thing he seemed to sit in.

"Leela," he screamed back.

The sound elongated into a screech, the shriek of tortured metal.

The cave, gone translucent like so much mist, lurched, sank, and bounced back up. Its walls disintegrated into something white, where cables swung as if shaken by a giant's fist.

"Now is a good time to make your choice." El's voice reflected the frozen nothingness between the stars.

Mul's response got swallowed into the din. His rugged features emerged from the chaos raging in the cave, concerned eyes staring from under the prominent brows. His lips were moving, but no sound came out. Or if it did, Floyd couldn't hear it. Then Mul became part of the haze that filled the cave, Floyd's mind, the solar system.

"Navigator DeNeville," Dr. Kalal yelled. "Manual override. Now."

Leela. She's called Leela.

"The parachutes!" Bones, seated on Floyd's other side, screamed.

There was no cave left.

Only a landing pod in serious trouble.

"Code Red. Hull breach. Code Red. Initialize emergency procedure. Code Red." That was the AI, steady, robotic, and supremely unconcerned about the mission's fate.

The mission. He was an astronaut, his job to prepare the colonization of Mars.

This meant...

Floyd opened his mouth, but no words came out. The weight on his chest was squeezing his ribs, clawing at his lungs.

It was hard, so hard, to turn his head toward the instrument panel. Red, red, wherever he looked. His gloved hands pawed at the controls. Altitude. It was all about altitude. Once he was in manual, there was no way back. If he engaged the parachutes too early, they would shred or burn. Or both. Whatever they did, the outcome would be the same.

The parachutes were vital.

As was SHIELD.

"Code Red. Hull breach." The damn AI warbling away in the background was as useful as heels on Mars.

The haze drifted, and for a heartbeat, the altimeter became visible. Too high. They were too bloody high.

"Can't... engage yet. A few kilometers We need...a few more kilometers."

The words were lost among the ringing in his ears, but he could swear the "shit" he might have heard had come from Bones.

Two minutes, El had said. This felt like a lifetime, but perhaps time itself had warped into eternity.

There is no El. There's only you.

He raised his gloved hand to wipe away the sweat on his forehead, but his visor was in the way.

Get a grip on yourself.

Floyd was a pro. He wasn't stressed. He mustn't be. Stressed astronauts soon turned into dead astronauts.

Something warm and wet trickled down his cheek. Astronauts didn't cry either. For no apparent reason, he thought of his mother.

Then he thought of Leela—Dr. Kalal.

Had he been dreaming while on duty and endangering the mission?

The haze in the cabin thinned.

That was bad news. It meant the smoke was getting sucked out through the hull breach. The rip or hole or whatever it was would be tiny, otherwise the damn...the blessed lander would have disintegrated into metal confetti a long time ago.

The turbulence eased off a bit.

Now, that was good news, which a quick scan of the altimeter confirmed. Close, they were getting so close. And wasn't that a green flare among all that red?

Fire-engine red. High-heel and handbag red.

Cut it out.

He squinted.

Yass!

The parachutes were still operational. As was the heat shield, another green glow right at the edge of the panel.

If they failed, they wouldn't be watching the show for very much longer.

Somewhere, there had to be two more green lights. Floyd's gaze jumped from one frantically blinking red light to the next—ah, there.

Double Yass!

SHIELD too was operational. They still stood a chance. No point in overriding anything for the moment. Let the auto-lander do the job.

But Floyd kept his finger hovering over the switch that would give him control.

One never knew.

El had fallen silent, but that didn't come as a big surprise. She'd never existed outside his mind. The whole crazy adventure had been a construct of his feverish brain.

Fever. Heat.

Rivulets of sweat ran down Floyd's back. The temperature in the lander reached toasty levels. Perhaps the heat shield was compromised, and that caused the hull breach?

Who cared? The fucking thing was doing enough to let them survive the atmospheric entry and deceleration phase.

Now they were trundling toward the surface.

The numbers on the altimeter changed to green.

"Going down," a disembodied voice said in Floyd's ear. It took a moment to match it with Bones, seated on his left.

Let the parachutes function. Please let them function. And don't forget SHIELD.

Its accordion-like, collapsible base acted like the crumple zone of a car and absorbed the energy of a hard impact. Much better than using only parachutes in Mars's thin atmosphere. That was really dangerous, and that's how the first teams of pre-colonists were lost.

They mustn't be lost. They still had a chance to land and write history.

If he stopped talking to himself.

"Activating parachutes," the AI said in what sounded like an unnecessarily cheerful voice.

The landing pod jerked and swung aside like an over-sized gong. For a moment, it hung suspended in midair before it continued the descent, only much slower.

The parachutes were working. Floyd sent a silent prayer to some forever unknown technicians who bolted the blessed pod together—

From Floyd's left came an ominous crunching noise.

He held his breath.

Nothing happened.

"Yes! We're gonna make it." That had been Dr. Kalal. She really should know better than to say such things before they were down.

"Shut your gob," Bones said.

My sentiments entirely.

"Hull breach. Code Red," said the AI. It had probably been repeating the message on an auto-loop. Or perhaps not.

Did it matter? Hardly.

"Tell me something I don't know," Floyd said. Oddly enough, talking had become easier. While his chest still ached and burned, at least the pressure had eased.

Surely, the two minutes had been passed a while ago.

Forget about this countdown rubbish. Forget about El. She never existed. Do your job.

His job was to land the mission safely. His job was to get them down in one piece. With a pierced hull, and the heavens only knew how many systems damaged. But if the inflatable heat shield and the deflector had sort of worked, and if the parachutes continued to do their job, perhaps SHIELD, the most important system of them all would also function.

"Code Red," said the AI and died on a burp.

Well, that wasn't a big loss.

"Proximity alert," another recorded voice said, as calmly as if it was commenting on a town parade.

Bullshit. We're not at the surface yet. Bloody Yackety-yack all the time.

"Prepare yourselves," Floyd said. "Landing's gonna be rough."

"Yeah," said Bones.

"Stop talking and do your job," said Leela. "Uh, sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

He seriously had no time for this bullshit.

Floyd turned down the transmission to a whisper. If anyone wanted something from him, they could use the override button. Then he checked his harness. It seemed to sit where it was supposed to be sitting.

Something rumpled, and the pod wobbled. Floyd's stomach lurched, but settled again when the pod steadied.

He placed his hand on the vibrating instrument board, close to the controls. How he itched to grab them, but intervention and mission override were only for dire emergencies. Which this wasn't, not yet, no matter what the blasted AI thought. The hull might be breached, but it wasn't disintegrating; they were out of the thermal zone. The longer the pod continued in autopilot mode, the better. But he'd intervene if he had to—

Scrunch.

It was such a tiny noise, really.

One side of the lander peeled off. Just like that.

Where the wall on Floyd's left had been, there suddenly was a boiling, howling orange tempest.

The next instant, Bones was gone, sucked into the maw of the raging wind that yanked the pod around as if it were wadded tissue.

"Noooo."

The scream wasn't his.

And then it was gone.

Where there had been turbulence before, there now was madness. Up was down and down was up. Every bone in Floyd's body was squeezed by a giant fist that pressed the air from his lungs. His teeth hurt, his brain was pounded into a mash, and a hurricane was ripping at the wrecked lander. To his right, something white flailed about.

Leela was still there.

"Evac imminent!"

Floyd slammed his fist on the big orange switch, the only one that hadn't been flickering.

With a thunderous roar, a square part of the lander blew off and Floyd's APS launched from the doomed pod.

Leela shot past him, her seat framed in a halo of booster fire.

She stretched out her hands, as if reaching out, and he caught himself doing the same. Their gloved hands brushed past each other, accompanied by the fiendish roaring of the orange wind.

But he could swear he heard a whisper over the comms unit.

"I love you. Always did. That's why..."

She arched out of sight, yanked up by her parachutes.

She might yet make it. Might be safe.

But in his heart, he knew the truth.

The whisper was sucked into the scream of the tempest raging around Floyd.

A jerk shuddered through his body as his parachute engaged.

He still was way too fast. There was no need to check any measurements. He knew it in every doomed bone.

The seat had no SHIELD. The seat would crash and smear his body all over Mars's surface. His and Leela's.

Bones at least would have been dead immediately.

Small blessing.

Tears running down his cheeks, Floyd cavorted through the heavens until the heavens parted, and there was ground beneath him, rushing up fast as if eager to greet him.

If only there was magic.

If only the dream was real.

But all he had was science, broken like his bones would soon be.

"Save Leela. Do you hear?" he screamed at the void. "If you can't save me, save her."

The void took on a golden sheen, and he could swear he heard the shriek of a seagull.

Then the void reached up and sucked him in. 

(1920/20674) THIRD MILESTONE MET!!!!! WP wordcount (which means this is even longer...), only text counted, no intro or comments. 

I know, I know. I have another chapter called Landing. Believe it or not, this is actually deliberate...

https://youtu.be/w5fSuEdhU-0