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Part Three: On the Surface

Day 27

The pod is ready. In fact, I'm in here right now. I'll be narrating through the whole landing procedure.

The cargo holds weren't big enough to fit all the extra food I needed, so that led to long, fun night of finding spare space in the pod to stuff more freeze-dried sachets. I had to take up a lot of the space that is supposed to be used for soil samples. I'm bringing the inflatable habitation module with me though, so there should be space when I land. But it's a bit cramped up here right now.

There's a-- wait, hold up. The computer is yelling at me to start the landing procedure. Standby...

Decoupling from mother craft in three... two... one.

Well, that was quite a jolt. I guess I should have tightened these straps down a bit more... there. Alright. Igniting retro-boosters... now.

Guidance looks good. Trajectory is still within range. Landing projected in... ten point two minutes.

I'm at 60 thousand feet. Just hitting the upper atmosphere now... pod is starting to shake pretty bad. Maybe I can adjust my angle of attack...

Forty thousand. Acceleration is already at... ugh... four point five g's. I can't change my trajectory or I'll overshoot the landing site. I can't stop the shaking. It's getting worse. The whole thing feels like it's going to shake apart.

The air is on fire outside. The thermal shields seem to be holding up alright for now. Wait... I just got an alarm. Temperature's getting high. It's still within safe parameters.

I'm just dropping below twenty thousand feet. Starting to cool off. Back down to two point five g's. Okay... it's smoothing out now. Much smoother now. Thank heavens... I can breathe again now.

Heh... the computer is telling me my pulse is too high. Let me... introduce more oxygen into my suit. That's better. It's not beeping at me anymore.

Five thousand feet. Getting close. I'm hitting the parachute deploy button now...

Ughhh that was rough. That really slowed us down didn't it? Quite the kick in the pants. Oh, getting a bit seasick now. These winds are throwing the pod around like crazy now that it's just dangling from the end of a string.

Bit more stable now... five hundred feet... four hundred... three hundred... two... one... descent engines fire! I've got a contact light. I'm... I'm on the surface. That's it. I'm here.

Day 28

Well, that was a long day. No, I haven't gone outside yet. But I set up the inflatable hab, so that gives me some room to stretch my legs, if only a little bit.

This gravity is... taxing, to say the least. You would think it wouldn't be too bad, but it really is. Even climbing up the ladder back into the pod is like scaling a mountain. I'm always out of breath now. And I'm pretty sure my legs have never been so sore. I'm beginning to regret skipping a couple days on the exercise equipment.

I finally managed to get the hab filled up with food and supplies. I can't seem to find where the cot got packed away, so it looks like I'll be sleeping in the pilot's chair tonight. I'm too tired to move anyway. Goodnight.

Day 29

I have this theory that no one actually tested this hardware before they sent us up with it. It was like wrestling a bear trying to get this spacesuit on. I think they forgot that I won't have anyone else here to help me out. Thankfully they thought it through enough to make it light enough to carry.