The long flight was finally coming to an end. People had started packing their belongings up while the pilots were plotting the ship's planned landing trajectory into the nav computer. As I was notified, we were going to start with an aerocapture manuever to get into low Earth orbit, followed by a course correction and de-orbiting manuever. Entering the atmosphere over northernmost part of India, we were going to decelerate slowly until we were close to Beijing; followed by a vertical landing on the spaceport. During our flight in Earth's orbit, we were going to be escorted by a couple of Alliance ships.
The Federation was informed of our arrival beforehand, so they could not possibly mistake us for an enemy vessel.
Having learned all the details, I went back to the cabin to check on Nuan. She had worn her cultural Chinese clothes, and was making her hair. She took her eyes off the mirror when she noticed me.
"Good morning, Com!"
"Com?"
"'Commander' is a bit too long, don't you think? Or should I call you by your name?"
"Eh!?"
"Anyway, do I look good?"
"You-you..."
Where had she found all that liveliness?
"You look great." I said.
"Really?"
"What happened to you?" I asked her.
"What do you mean?" she asked me.
"You weren't like that before."
"Like you really knew me before..." she said. "But I got what you mean. I'm just trying to look good to our asian friends down there, that's all."
"Huh." I said.
"I look good, right?" she asked again. "Don't lie."
"You look good, yeah." I said.
"Ha! Of course I do!" she laughed a bit, and continued messing with her hair. Not knowing what I have gotten myself into, I decided to step out of the cabin until I was required.
"Hey, where are you going?" she asked me.
"I-I-I'm... uhhh... just-" I couldn't answer. But, the intercom came to my rescue.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to start our aerocapture manuever in about 15 minutes. Please finish your work, secure the objects in your cabins and get to your manuseats. Thank you."
"Well, now you are obliged to come inside." Nuan said. I went inside, locked the cabin's door, sat on the manuseat and fastened my seatbelts. She finished making her hair and hastily started putting her stuff into her bags.
"Ladies and gentlemen, to our starboard side is the Alliance warship Yangtze. She is standing at a distance of roughly 5 kilometers."
Even though I was prepared for the aerocapture, I couldn't miss the chance to see the Alliance warship. I unfastened my belt and ran to the tiny window to look out. Nuan looked at me curiosuly.
I saw the large ship, and from the looks of it, it was a carrier with some cannons strapped on. A far more common sight compared to my old ship Lodos, which was one of the two ships of it's kind.
"They like showing off, don't they?" I said loudly.
"The Alliance? Sure they do. That's a reason why we are trying to be the same way. If we are not confident in ourselves, we are not going to get any good deals." Nuan explained.
"I wish we could bring our own warships." I said.
"You could, if we were superior to the Federation..." Nuan said. "But the moment they come close to Earth, they will just blow us up in the blink of an eye. And besides, they are busy fighting for Ceres right now."
"Fighting for... what?"
"Didn't you hear? The Feds launched a pretty large attack on Ceres. The Navy moved a big portion of their assets to protect the mining bases and keep the planet in Republic hands."
"I wasn't informed about that." I said. "No one told me."
"Well, I guess I told you now." Nuan said. "Now sit down so you don't get smashed into the walls while we decelerate."
Nuan and I both sit on our manuseats and fastened our belts.
The pilots made a few more announcements before we hit Earth's atmosphere. When we eventually did, some thrusters activated to keep the ship stable and decelerate faster. Inside the cabins, we were feeling an acceleration of about 2G. If we had started slowing down earlier, it could be as low as a pleasant 0.4G, but we had already spent a lot of time cruising in space anyway and we didn't want to be late.
Finishing our aerocapture above Pacific Ocean west of South America, we skipped the denser parts of the atmosphere. After the correction manuever, we were going to make our second and final atmospheric entry over somewhere around Pakistan-India border.
While this was happening, a few Alliance ships were standing by our sides, even when we were flying above Federation countries. A few Federation fighters launched from the surface wanted to harass us, but couldn't match our speed in time.
Even though we were already mostly aware of Alliance's military and political power, this was a good show nonetheless.
We entered the atmosphere above India, and started decelerating as we flew over China. We arrived at Beijing, and the pilots carefully stopped to ship to hover over the spaceport of Beijing. One of the landing pads were already allocated and cleaned of ordinary civilians for our arrival. The landing gear was extended, and the ship came to stop on the landing pad.
"Dear passengers, it is now safe to leave your seats."
I unfastened my belt and got outside before Nuan and the other embassy staff did. I got out of the vessel and had a good look around. There were some Alliance officials from various Alliance countries waiting outside, and lots of police officers.
One of them approached me.
"Don't worry, Commander, we have everything under control here." he was smiling warmly.
"I'm sure you do." I said. "Just procedures, you know..."
He laughed a bit.
"Yeah, yeah, I see. Oh, by the way, I am Ling Mu; I was in charge of the security of the embassy until you arrived. We will work closely to ensure nothing unpleasant ever happens during your stay." he said.
"I'm glad to hear. And, I am Commander Kagan of the Martian Navy." I introduced myself.
"We already know about you Commander." Ling said. "We had quite an introduction to our mission here."
At that time, I saw Nuan exiting the ship. To watch the formal greetings, Ling and I walked to get closer.