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spot grew brighter and brighter, guiding them to some unknown destination. Nathan disconnected himself to keep the interface from blinding him—and still it lingered in afterimage, playing across the back of his retinas.
    “Something powerful,” he whispered.

     

    The lander spiraled down toward the floor of the caldera, its control surfaces fully deployed to maximize drag and slow the ship to intercept speed. Pitch then retracted the wing sheaths, thin titanium panels folding into the fuselage, revealing a hyperjet rotor embedded in the body of each wing. Designed to operate at high altitudes, the rotors forced air through their blades at extreme speed, providing enough lift to keep the lander up even in the thin atmosphere of Mars.
    Pitch engaged the rotors, which fired off a scream that tore across the summit crater. Heat shimmers radiated from the wings of the lander, its control jets firing in computer-synchronized bursts to stabilize its flight path. Ghostrider then swung over toward the smooth face of the crater wall, coming to a hover next to a thin fissure that dropped into a rusty abyss. Like an arrow, it pointed directly toward the coordinates Nathan had provided. Pitch descended slowly, following the crack into the depths of the old volcano. It gradually widened, finally terminating at the base of a narrow ridge, about two hundred meters above the floor of the crater.
    As he pulled away from the wall, the pilot saw that the fissure opened into a series of caverns. The signal Nathan detected, whatever it was, had come from somewhere in there, though the ship’s sensors couldn’t even begin to gauge their depth.
    Pitch turned his attention to the ridge below. It was a narrow space—only twice as wide as the lander itself, but flat and level enough to work as a landing zone. He circled the outcropping for a few minutes, nudging the ship back and forth while he jockeyed for optimal position. When he was ready, he throttled back the rotors to keep the airflow from pulverizing the ridge, using thrusters to compensate for the decreased power.
    “Been nice knowing you,” Pitch told the others.
    With engines screaming and dust rising, he took the ship down—hand resting on the throttle, ready to punch out of there at the first sign of trouble. He maintained that defensive posture until they were within a few meters of touchdown—and only then, when he had to make the decision to commit or abort, did he extend the landing gear.
    Blue jets painted the base of a red cloud, as the lander vanished into an angry swirl of particles. Then the roar was gone, replaced by the fading whine of engine cutoff. The icy stillness of Olympus quickly rushed in to complete the silence, eager to swallow any traces of the lander’s presence.
    And for the first time in ten years, humans were back on Mars.

     

    Nathan rigged portable scanners and handed them off to his crewmates. Testing his own, he saw that it already jumped with intermittent readings—a confused ripple of conflicting signals, which bounced across the small viewing screen.
    “You make any sense out of that?” Kellean asked, her words filtered and hollow. She had put her helmet on and was trying to lock it on to the collar of her EVA suit. Labored breaths steamed her visor as she spoke. “Looks like electronic interference.”
    “It’s background traffic,” Nathan explained as he suited up. “Direct connections riding a neural interface—a lot like you see in the Axis.”
    “Is that even possible?”
    “Assuming there’s some functioning interface equipment nearby,” Nathan said, turning on his environmental controls. Cool, dry air filled his suit as he switched on his comm link. “If that’s the case, then this could get interesting. Everyone ready?”
    Kellean nodded.
    Pitch gave a thumbs-up.
    “Good,” Nathan said. “Let’s go take a walk.”
    Pitch vented the cabin to equalize pressure and flipped a switch to open the belly hatch. Nathan went