You all pile into docking bay and walk toward the shuttle. The shuttle is little more then metal skeleton dotted with rocket pods and rows of gravity fields. You each step into separate field and immediately drift weightlessly to the center. The radio in your helmet crackles.
>We're going to start accelerating now. You won't feel it in those fields but I suggest not getting out of them, 20 g's has a bad effect on organic life. After we get up to 20 g's we'll make the final jump into the planet's space and eject the shuttles. From that point on you'll be decelerating toward the surface. Try not to die, shuttle 3, your suits are expensive.
For a long time nothing seems to happen.
> Preparing for jump.
You brace for an impact that never comes. Then the interior of the ship is gone and all is dark. You look around in confusion and see the planet speeding toward you. The retrorockets on the front of the shuttle are burning white hot, not that it seems to have much of an effect. As you look around you see several other hot points of light descending toward the surface; the other shuttles. As you watch them descend one suddenly glows brighter and then fractures into a dozen points of light.
>Shuttle 5 lost. Oh dear, seems their anti-air is better then we predicted. Beginning evasive maneuvers.
The shuttle begins to jerk violently, the planet becoming nothing but a vague blur beneath you.
>Shuttle 1 lost. 30 seconds till drop.
The surface blooms up beneath you. In the unsteady haze of motion you can see something massive and silver glinting in the dull light.
>Shuttle 2 lost. 15 seconds till drop.
The retros burn brighter and the shuttle slows violently, the ground becoming a visible blur of stone rather then an incomprehensible blur of gray.
>Shuttle 6 lost. 5 seconds.
The rockets fire in bursts.
4
The underside rockets flare suddenly.
3
The ground looms up, no more then a half dozen meters.
2
The rockets cut out. Free fall.
1
The fields hum for a moment and then with a click they disappear. You fall gently to the ground from no more then a few inches as the shuttle suddenly becomes a burst of light and buzzes silently away toward the far horizon.
Drop complete.