Flight of Fancy

(by by Brazos) We are approaching the Earth now, on the last leg of the 4th manned expeditionary to Venus. Venus had been pure hell, to say the least; we'd had to do our explorations in robot-ground crawlers, no human could withstand the heat and the hot, blasting rains that swarmed the surface, no matter what kind of enviro-suit they were wearing. The trip to Mars had been much easier; it had been hotter, but much drier. So dry, in fact, that we had to blow the dust off our suits before we re-entered the landing craft...

But, now we were on Venus, so hot and humid that it was extremely difficult to see anything through the vapors on the ground-crawlers. At least, on Mars we had found a few things that could be of interest, you know, something that looked like a fossil here and there, and some ravines that gave the appearance that water ran through them, and maybe even the suggestion of a couple of footprints in the dirt...but, you know, your imagination can run off with you when you're off in space...but, on Venus, all we saw was vegetation, and torrid winds and rain.

Eventually, we headed back to the landing craft, with nothing to show for our efforts...except...a couple of the guys said they thought they had seen some shadowy figures outside their land-crawlers. I dismissed it immediately, of course, how could anyone see anything through that intense humidity and rain, with the windshields covered with vapor?

So, we entered the landing craft, and took off immediately to rejoin with the Mother Craft, out ticket home. Soon, we were safely on board, and I and my chief engineer were setting coordinates for the return to Earth.

"I", by the way, am Captain Nancy la Komodo, a person of mixed heretige who fought her way up from humble beginnings to become one of NASA's best. But sometimes I still hear some of the ground controllers in Houston snicker behind my back, and call me "Nancy the Dragon"! But, I don't care, I have a job to do, and I do it...

We safely leave the tumultuous atmosphere of Venus, and plummet into deep space once more, seeking our home, our Earth, which we haven't seen in quite some time now.

Then...the problems begin. At first we have contact with Ground Central, and then we don't, and then we do, and then we don't again, and contact continous to be intermittent in our flight toward our home. Finally, someone comes on from Houston, and says, "Nancy, we are in war down here, terroists are striking everywhere, you may have to fly this one in by the seat of your pants"! And then, communications are lost...well, at least he didn't call me a "Dragon"!

At least, now, I can see my home, my Earth...

I switch the controls over to "Manual Override", for there are no more sattelite communications to guide us. Everyone on the craft is stiff with fear, except my engineer, God Bless Him. He says to me,

"Captain, I see too much activity on the ground, I think you're going to have to try an ocean landing"! I look at my monitor and agree, for I see little orange blossoms poking their heads up all over the Earth, little blossoms that would indicate bomb activity....

The only problem is we're coming in too hot, too fast. The nearest I can make landfall would be in the Himalayan Mountains in Tibet...not a pretty sight!

"Frank", I scream, "we're going to have to eject"!

"When?", says Frank [my engineer].

"Now!", I yell, and push the button...

Now we are floating along on our 'chutes, at roughly 10,000 feet. My head is cut, probably from debris off the craft, and I am bleeding a little, but I am okay. And we are heading down, straight into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

And while falling, I thought of a little poem:

"From the seas of the Earth, where you gave birth,
and to those seas must you return!
Travel to Mars, and even to the stars,
But to home seas...must you return!"

I am getting closer to the water now....