“Roger that.” Tony slipped the seal ring on his right glove and twisted it. It took him a few seconds, but it came off fairly easily. Getting it back on took him almost a minute and a half. It almost startled him when mission control chimed in.
“Mercy I, mission control.”
“Go ahead, Houston.”
“We’ve done a quick analysis and believe that this is a workable plan. The best location to create a leak will be as far into the nose as possible, just to the right of the docking-ring hatch. It is likely that the boundary-layer plasma will not damage the ship critically if there is a structural-integrity breach there. The plasma should flow past any damage up there.”
“Alright, then—let’s do it.” Tony slipped his glove off again and handed it to Hui. “Hang on to this for me, please.”
“I’ve got it.” Hui nodded to him.
“Bill, are you clear of the nose out there?”
“Roger that, Tony. I’m still hanging out with my old pal the solar panel.” Bill paused, slightly wondering if his need to use levity in the current situation was his subconscious helping him deal with the fact that he was teetering on the edge of dying. He shook that nonsense from his mind. “Good luck.”
“Right.” Tony glanced at the countdown clock on the screen, noting that they had less than fifteen minutes until it would start getting bumpy. “Houston, let’s get on with this. Give me the breaker sequence now.”
Tony had both gloves off and started flipping icon toggles on the computer touch screen. He had to have all the right breakers thrown so that the pressurization system wouldn’t just increase the oxygen flow into the cabin to make up for a leak. That took a couple of minutes. Then he was ready.
“Alright, everybody clear!” He scanned the cabin for an all clear from Xu, and then Hui. “Bill, here goes.”
Tony gripped the pistol in his hands. He raised his arms as best he could in his suit and took aim just to the right of the apex of the cone where the docking hatch was located.
“Firing in three, two, one, no shot.” Tony instinctively pulled at the trigger again. “What the…?”
“You didn’t disengage the safety,” Hui pointed out.
“Oh. I see.” Tony used his thumb to push the safety off and then raised the weapon again. “Once more. Firing in three, two, one!”
The pistol fired and tossed an empty casing across the cabin. The casing ricocheted off a couple of panels, making a clinking noise as it did so, and then began a slow-drifting trajectory about the cabin. The bullet, on the other hand, slammed against the interior wall panel a good half meter from where Tony thought he had been aiming. But it didn’t really matter as long as it worked.
“Mercy I, mission control.”
“Go ahead, Houston,” Tony answered.
“We show you’ve sprung a leak and are losing cabin pressure.”
“Hold on, Houston. I’ll check it out.”
“Before you do, put these on.” Hui handed Tony his suit gloves. Tony waved them off, handed her the pistol, and tapped at the control screen. He could have sworn he was hearing a faint hissing sound, but his ears were ringing from the pistol report, so he wasn’t certain.
“We’ve got a red light on the pressure panel. The question is, are we leaking fast enough, Houston?” Tony held his breath while he waited on mission control’s response. It seemed like forever before he got it.
“Hold on, Mercy I. We’re running the numbers now.”
“It’s gonna work,” Tony said to nobody in particular, but everybody heard it.
“Negative, Mercy I. Looks like at your current leakage rate, it will take about twenty minutes before the cabin is empty.” Tony felt his heart sink again.
“What!?”
“It was a good try, Tony. I knew it was risky.”
“Bill, are you still clear?”
“Yes, but why do—?”
Tony grabbed the pistol from Hui unexpectedly, took aim, and fired two quick rounds just to the top and right of the docking-hatch door. The sound of the reports rang like a bell inside the cabin, hurting his ears. He hadn’t balanced himself as well this time, and the pistol firing pushed him hard enough to make him tumble over. Newton’s law of reciprocal force, action and reaction, got him. He quickly grabbed on to a handhold and righted himself. He held the pistol up once more, considering firing it again.
“Tony! Stop it before you endanger the entire mission!” Bill shouted back at him.
“That ought to do it.” Tony thumbed the safety on the pistol and handed it to Hui. “Put that thing away for me, will ya?”
“Yes.” Hui looked nervously at Tony. “I think I should.”
Tony went to check the status panel. He looked at the reentry countdown to see where they stood. There were about nine minutes remaining before things started getting too close for comfort.
“Mercy I, we show an increase in the depressurization. What’s going on?”
“I made two more leaks,” Tony said nonchalantly and half expecting Houston to respond with a “You did what?”—but they didn’t.
“Understood, Mercy I. Be advised that the engineers don’t recommend adding any more.”
“Uh-huh.” Tony sat down and began working his gloves. He watched the countdown clock continue getting closer to the aerocapture. “Bill, I suggest you get to the main hatch and stand by.”
“Well, I’m ahead of you, Tony. I’m already on my way,” Bill said.
“Should we start trying to cycle the hatch?” Hui asked. Tony hadn’t bothered to ask where she had put the pistol. He didn’t care. He didn’t need the thing any longer.
“Good idea. Let me finish with this glove. You got the patch kit ready?”
“Here.” Hui held up the kit.
“Great.” Tony put the hatch on cycle, but the icon went red and didn’t open.
The ship was beginning to have a noticeable vibration. Tony gripped the console to shore himself up.
“Hey, do you guys feel that?”
“What?” Hui gripped the console’s edge with her glove. From the look in her eyes, Tony knew the answer before she said it. “Yes. What is that?”
“I can feel it out here, Tony,” Bill answered. “Ignore it and keep focusing on the job at hand.”
“Roger that, Bill,” Tony replied. Bill was right. They had to focus and get Bill inside the cabin before it was too late.
The ship had penetrated far enough into the exosphere to begin experiencing turbulence. The exosphere of Earth extended out as far as ten thousand kilometers. The Orion was traveling over fifteen kilometers per second. It would take the ship less than ten minutes to travel into the denser portions of the thermosphere, where the real turbulence would start. They had less than five to seven minutes, depending on the computer model used, to get Stetson inside.
Chapter 30
“Come on, dammit!” Tony watched the hatch icon still showing red. The countdown clock gave them three minutes left. The NASA engineers at mission control didn’t like cutting it so close. Tony liked it even less. He could just imagine how much Stetson liked it. “Bill, hang on out there.”
The vibration of the ship had continued to grow to the point where it was no longer a subtle thing that could barely be felt with a tight grip. Tony was pretty sure he could see things starting to vibrate.
“What’s taking us so long in there, Tony? Not to be antsy or anything, but Earth is looking really big!”
“Just be ready!”
“Roger that!”
“Hui, be ready with that patch kit. As soon as the hatch icon goes green, you start patching the holes!” Tony hit the hatch-cycle routine again. It went red. “Come on!”
“Yes, Tony. I will.” Hui held the kit at the ready, looking like a lioness ready to pounce on a gazelle. Tony thought that the Chinese had made a good decision in picking her as their first Moon mission commander.
“God, if you can hear me, now would be a good time to help us out!” Tony hit the ha
tch icon again. For the millisecond it took for the electrons to travel from the screen to the central processor of the computer, the processor to understand and process the signal, and send a response, Tony held his breath for what seemed like an eternity.
“Green light! Go, Hui! Go!” Tony shouted, not quite gleefully but close enough, as Orion’s main hatch started to cycle open. Tony yanked on the handle and pulled the latch until he could see space outside. Hui pushed herself up to the apex of the cabin, and Tony turned to help his captain. “Bill, get your butt in here!” He held a handhold as close to the hatch door as he could manage. The door slid open, and as soon as it did, Bill’s hand poked through.
“Grab my hand, Tony!”
“Got it! Come on, Bill!” Tony grabbed at Bill’s arm and pulled as best he could. The ship lurched very gently, but just enough to give them concern. “We’re getting close!”
“Hui, how’s it look?” Bill asked as he crawled his way through the hatch. He reached back, disconnected the tether, and pulled the rope inside.
“I’ve got one hole patched.”
“I’m in, Tony. You can let go now. And cycle the hatch!” It was clear that the Orion had gotten its captain back.
“Roger that!” Tony pushed to the console and tapped the hatch icon until it cycled shut. Bill tugged the handle just to help it along. The icon went from red to orange to green, and then Bill tugged at it again. It was closed and sealed. He was inside. And, by God, it was good!
“Hot damn,” Bill shouted. “Houston, this is Stetson. All members of the Mercy I crew are inside, present, and accounted for.”
“Great news, Mercy I. We recommend you cycle the repressurization as soon as possible so the patch sealant will cure quicker. And y’all need to buckle up.”
“Understood, mission control.”
“You heard the man, Tony. Get us some air in here.” Bill looked up at Hui. “You need any help?”
“Done!”
“Awesome. Now get down and get buckled in.”
“Mercy I, mission control.”
“Go, Houston.”
“Looks like the skin temperature is starting to build up. You came in just in time, Bill.”
“I like to make an entrance,” Bill said. “Somebody tell my family I’m coming home!”
“Roger that, Mercy I. Bill, your family heard the whole thing.” There was a brief pause and some static. “Be advised that you are about to go through an ionization radio blackout.”
“We understand, Houston. We’ll talk to you after aerocapture.” With that Bill pushed himself into the captain’s seat and started buckling in. He glanced over at Tony, who was also buckling in. “Thanks, buddy.” He gave Tony a smile and elbowed him slightly.
“Couldn’t have seen going home without you, Bill.”
“Well, let’s hope my patch job on the bottom of the ship holds and your target practice on top of the ship isn’t a problem.”
“We’re gonna make it.”
“Damn right we are.”
The vibration within the ship ratcheted up to the point that the computer panels in front of them became nearly unreadable. Bill held on to his armrests and tried to relax. He was mostly blissfully happy as just a few minutes ago he was pretty sure he was going to die. But now it seemed that if he were to die, it would be because the heat shield failed, not because he was trapped outside. The Orion was a good ship. He was confident that it would get them home.
The Orion capsule jerked forward and lurched backward in a way that seemed like it happened at the same time. The side-to-side vibrations grew in amplitude. Bill looked up at the top of the ship, where Tony had shot it three times with the pistol. He hoped the damage was far enough forward that the hot atmospheric plasma wouldn’t vent into the cabin and cook them. He also hoped that hot plasma didn’t vent through the bullet holes of the outer hull and weaken some beam or strut that would compromise the structural integrity of the ship, the end result being the ship flying apart and killing them all.
“Seven gees!” Tony shouted.
“Hang in there!” Bill gripped at his seat harder and flexed every muscle in his body to prevent passing out.
“Ten gees!” Tony said, more gutturally this time.
“We should top out in a minute or so. Just hang in!” Bill grunted and flexed and breathed and grunted and flexed. He sounded a lot like a woman in labor. “Aaahhh wooo wooo!”
The vibration grew louder, harder, and faster—shaking all the astronauts to the point that their teeth rattled. No amount of training in a centrifuge or even launches on the really shaky Ares I rocket could prepare a person for that type of skeleton-jarring ride.
BANG! SCREEEEEEECH! BANG!
An even more extreme noise resounded throughout the ship, their suits, and their bones. It startled Bill, but there was nothing he could do. He would have sworn it came from the top of the Orion near where Tony had shot it up. He wasn’t certain, but he was also pretty sure he could hear a much louder roaring sound than he had before.
SCREEEEEEEEEECH! ROAR!
“What the hell is that?” Tony shouted.
“I don’t know, but there’s nothing we can do about it! Just hang in and pray!” Bill shouted.
“Fifteen gees!” Tony shouted over the jarring, rattling, screeching, and roaring.
The ship rocked back and forth so hard that Bill was worried the injured and otherwise incapacitated crew members might not be faring so well. The air inside the cabin had reached one atmosphere, so the sound of the ship being buffeted was getting extremely loud. It sounded like he had stuck his head inside a jet engine while it was at full throttle. Bill managed to glance at Tony and could see that his body had gone limp.
“Tony!” Bill had the notion that he would tap at the console in front of him and check Tony’s vital signs, but that would require him to raise his arm—and he couldn’t. It weighed more than two hundred pounds at the moment. “Everybody hang on back there! Come on, baby! Hold together! We’re gonna make it!”
Bill’s vision started to tunnel in, and he grunted and fought against blacking out. He fought like a world-champion boxer tied up in the twelfth round. In the end he went down swinging, but he lost the fight.
Chapter 31
“Go, baby, go!” was once again all that Paul Gesling could utter as he alternated looking out the window at the landscape of Earth receding below him and the LCD display that showed the status of Dreamscape’s onboard systems. All the systems were reading in the green, and the ship was cruising past Mach 2—twice the speed of sound—at the moment. He held the flight-control stick gently with his left hand and went through a continuous ballet of tapping the control screen with his right.
It had only been a little more than a week since the Dreamscape was rushed through refurbishment, refueled, and rolled out on the runway in Nevada before they had restarted the countdown for the launch. It all seemed rather quick to Paul, but Gary Childers had given him the last say. Had Paul said “no-go,” then Gary would have abided by that decision. At least that is what Paul liked to believe.
Just less than two weeks ago, the little ship had flown a crew of space tourists around the Moon and done so flawlessly. In fact, they had done more than just fly around the Moon on the most expensive and dangerous vacation ever. They had also acted as a search-and-rescue mission. They had detected Chinese taikonauts stranded on the Moon and had been instrumental in saving their lives. It was clear that the Chinese government had had no intention of telling the public of the stranded taikonauts and had Dreamscape’s crew not found them, the world might have never known they were ever there. But they did find them, and that was the first step. NASA did the hardest part of going to the Moon and getting them. But Paul was in the process of flying the Dreamscape back into space to help bring them home. The final part. It was fitting in Paul’s mind that the rescue started with the Dreamscape and would likely end with it. Of course, they had yet to run any of this by NASA or the Chinese, but dro
wning sailors will swim to the nearest lifeboat. Besides, once the Dreamscape made it to the right orbital altitude, it would take a day or more to crank the inclination to the same angle as the space station. After you added another a day or so to chase it down, it just made sense to get into space as soon as possible.
“Control, we’re go for scramjet separation.” Paul could talk through the procedures in his sleep by this point, but he wasn’t about to give it a try. He kept his focus on the job at hand.
“Roger that, Paul. Go for first-stage sep.” Then the stage-separation icon flashed and the Bitchin’ Betty chimed at him.
“Prepare for stage separation in five, four, three, two, one.”
Paul felt his pulse quicken in anticipation of the stage separation as he waited for the five explosions that would soon sever the bolts holding the two parts of Dreamscape together. This portion of the flight always scared the living daylights out of him. But he also knew that the technology for such accurate pyrotechnic timing was well understood. It always amazed him how it never sounded like five explosions at all. It simply went bang, and that was that.
Bang!
“We’ve got good separation,” he radioed to control.
“Copy that, Dreamscape. Scramjet separation is complete.”
“Now preparing for main-engine ignition in twenty seconds.” Gesling was nearing the point at which the powerful main rocket engines would fire, giving him the final acceleration needed to attain the seventeen thousand miles per hour required for orbit. Escape velocity was just that one stage away. Orbital altitude and velocity were one main rocket burn away.
“Roger that, Paul. Main burn in fifteen…ten…five, four, three, two, one.”
“We’ve got good burn on the main engine, and all systems are go.”
Never in the history of aerospace, or humanity for that matter, had a single spaceship flown an orbital mission, a month or so later flown around the Moon, and then just a few short days later flown back to orbit. The Dreamscape was truly being pushed to the limits of space-technology capabilities and reliabilities. Paul tried not to think about quality control, workmanship, parts and materials fatigue. After all, Dreamscape had been designed to fly with a rapid turnaround. Paul wasn’t quite sure if this was the type of rapid turnaround planned, especially while the rocket was fresh off its first mission and practically just out of the test-flight phase.
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