The craft oriented itself so that the heat shield faced forward. The retro pack fired and applied negative delta V. Pressed back into the conforming couch, he waited. Seventy seconds later they shut down and he felt the return to zero gee. The sequencers ticked down and the retro pack was jettisoned with a “ka-thunk” that was more felt than heard. Committed now, in 40 minutes he would be on the planet surface or … at least it would be over quickly.

The fire in his space craft had spread with an unusual swiftness. In zero gee there isn’t any up to carry the products of combustion away from the flame and bring in more O2. Normally a flame would extinguish itself. Somehow that didn’t happen this time.

The hull had failed catastrophically as he entered the escape pod. He didn’t realize debris from the explosion had damaged his heat shield.

He thought of how much he loved his wife. He felt the rise of gees as the pod entered the atmosphere. He felt the heat spread across his back, and knew he was a dead man.