Ivan strained his eyes to see. It was instinct; of course he could see nothing but clear sky from his distance. But only a few minutes in, a reticle popped up on his HUD, overlain on his visor. It was a tiny blue circle, but it was growing rapidly.

His eyes flitted rapidly between controls, which followed his gaze, pulling up pages of readouts. In moments he’d computed the trajectory, and noticed a few minor flaws.

“Roosevelt, ground crew,” he began, addressing the orbiting MPHeLV over comms. High above, a kilometers-long spacecraft circled the planet, ringed with atmospheric generators like the chambers of a revolver. “Your angle’s off. Adjust descent trajectory by point-two-seven by point-zero-zero-five.”

“Ground, Roosevelt, copy,” came the response. 

His reticle changed direction slightly, and was now perfectly on course. He smiled wide. “Looking good, Rosie!” he replied, appreciatively.

He turned to his left, and found his companion watching nervously. She turned to him abruptly, eyes wide behind her visor. “Are…are you sure we should be standing here?” she asked.

He chuckled softly. “Relax, Fati,” he replied, waving his hand. “We’re a good twenty km’s from the LZ.”

Fatemeh seemed unconvinced. “But-” she began to protest.

He smiled warmly, laying a gloved hand on her shoulder. “Relax,” he replied, calmly. “Rosie’s crew is the best in the business. We’re safe right where we are.”

She nodded slowly. She seemed satisfied, if not fully convinced.

Ivan sighed slowly, training his eyes upward again. She was new. She’d learn. And he wasn’t about to let her anxiety prevent her from witnessing an awesome sight. You never forgot your first time.

Now, he could see it. A faint blue glow pierced the sky as the lander’s retro-rockets fired. As it descended, the glow separated into eight distinct plumes of superheated gas. It was an awesome spectacle: the distant roar of massive thermal rockets, trailing an enormous monument to humanity’s conquest of the universe.

Soon, he could see the rest of it, appearing as though a tall, sharp spire pointing back into space. From high above, Roosevelt’s ops officer counted down to touchdown. But her words faded as he watched. This was the third planet he’d helped terraform. He never tired of it. He hoped he never would.

The massive device leveled off as it approached the landing zone, coming in perpendicular to the ground. Soon its plumes were hitting the surface, boring into the earth and kicking up a cloud of dust. Their vision was obscured, but it didn’t matter. This thing was too big to miss.

“T-minus ten seconds to impact,” the ops officer intoned. “Nine…eight…seven…”

Ivan watched, smiling wide as the awesome spectacle unfolded. One of the largest, most complex machines ever built by man was gracefully lowered on plumes of fire.

“Three…two…one…main engine cut-off,” the ops officer finished. After its slow descent, the rockets died, allowing the device to fall unceremoniously for the last ten meters. It landed with a loud boom, followed several seconds later by a minor tremor beneath his feet.

Beside him, Fatima stumbled, unprepared. She instinctively raised her arms to balance herself. Ivan grinned, stifling a laugh. With the tremor past, the roar of the engines gave way to incredible silence. And as the dust settled across the plain, Ivan looked up, and beheld the fruits of their labors.

On Earth, it would have been a relatively tall skyscraper. A two and a half kilometer tall spire, piercing the tenuous clouds. Yet in place of windows it was ringed with massive tanks of atmospheric gasses, separated by rings of diffusers. Within its mammoth frame, compressors the size of small buildings channeled the gas through vents fifty meters across. Oxygen, nitrogen, argon, water vapor: the fundamental elements of organic respiration.

On Earth, such a structure would have housed thousands of people. Here, it was a factory that produced habitation. It and nineteen others like it would dispense breathable gas, carried by the planet’s own air currents, as humans built an atmosphere from scratch.

“Whoa…” Fatima whispered beside him. 

He turned to her, smiling. “Something else, isn’t it?”

She nodded slowly, gaping at the towering machine. “I’ve never seen an atmo-generator on the surface before.”

He nodded, then turned back to gaze upon the structure. “It’s hard to really appreciate the scale of the things from space.”

“Ground crew, Roosevelt,” the ops officer called across his comms. “Did we get it right?”

Ivan smiled wide. “Five-by-five down here, Rosie,” he replied. “Looks like you stuck the landing.”

“Good to hear,” she replied. “But we’ve got a bunch more of these things sitting around up here. So if you’re done gawking, better head to site two. Fifteen minutes until we drop the next one.”

“Copy, Rosie,” he replied. He looked up again, stealing a final look at the atmospheric generator. After taking a moment, he turned to Fatima. She seemed to be having a hard time looking away, too. Eventually, she turned to look at him. He grinned. “One down,” he began, “nine to go.”

She smiled. “Guess we should get going,” she whispered.

He cocked his head. “Clock’s ticking.”

She stole one more glance at the generator. “I don’t think I could ever get tired of seeing that.”

He shook his head. “Me neither.”

END