Rocket Girls: The Last Planet

by Housuke Nojiri

  Once again, the simulated spaceship began to heat up. A separate window on the monitor showed a graph of peak temperatures.

  “One thousand three hundred seventy…one thousand four hundred sixty…one thousand four hundred fifty… There’s the peak.”

  “Huh? That low? That won’t be a problem at all.”

  “Not in the model, at least,” Mukai said.

  Reentering the atmosphere from a height of three thousand kilometers was a first for an SSA orbiter. Falling from a greater height meant faster speeds. Greater speed meant more friction when the orbiter hit the atmosphere. Mukai had concerns that the orbiter wouldn’t be able to take the heat.

  Rough calculations had already shown it could, but as long as there was time left, it was his duty to keep running the numbers.

  A maximum temperature of 1460° was lower than he had expected. Reentry speed had increased by a whole 10 percent, but their temperature hadn’t climbed nearly as much.

  It made him feel uneasy. “Try again with different parameters. Once they start on the rendezvous, we won’t be able to stop them.”

  “Right.”

  Just then, the phone rang. Another technician answered. “Chief, it’s the control center.”

  Mukai picked up the phone. “Right,” he said then hung up. “Everyone, listen up. We just received word back from Atlantis. Operation: Rescue Orpheus is a go. We’ll be here for another six hours, so everybody give it all you’ve got!”

  A cheer rose up in the room. At the same time, things were stirring at Johnson Space Center. George lit a cigar he kept for special occasions, stood up, and said, “All right, everybody! We’re sending those girls up to meet Orpheus! Stay sharp and let’s do this!”

  [ACT 12]

  “JUST GO TO sleep. Solomon will tell us everything we need to know.”

  “I just don’t think you’ll be able to do all the tying and the untying in those bulky suits…”

  “We can do rope work when we need to.”

  The captain sent Yukari to her berth and closed the shade. “Sleep tight. I’ll wake you up an hour before we start,” he said from the other side.

  Akane was nestled inside the berth below her. Though both of them resisted it at first, sleep came quickly.

  In the payload bay, Norman and Gordon worked on securing Mangosteen. They had lowered the orbiter down to the floor of the bay, where they could use Kevlar fiber rope to attach it to the staging platform that had been installed to hold Orpheus.

  Once the shuttle finished accelerating, they would have to release Mangosteen immediately. If they were late in cutting her loose, they would lose that much energy. Solomon had given them twenty seconds to pull the whole thing off.

  In order to keep it tightly in place yet easily detachable, the brains at Johnson Space Center had settled on bow ties attached to three points. Instead of trying to make the ropes hold the orbiter in place during acceleration, they inserted a cushion between the orbiter and the platform beneath it to absorb the thrust. For the cushion they used an old Personal Rescue Enclosure—a large ball capable of holding a single astronaut in a fetal position for transport to a rescue shuttle—that was kept on the shuttle for unforeseen emergencies.

  When they wanted to release Mangosteen, either Yukari or Akane would pull on those three ropes. Once they had undone the ties, they would jump in the orbiter and leave the shuttle behind.

  “No, that’s not how you do it,” Norman said to Gordon. “Pass it through the loop from the bottom.”

  “Right, right. It’s been a long time since Boy Scouts.”

  “You should go yachting. You learn this stuff whether you want to or not.”

  For maximum speed, they worked together, four hands helping to tie each knot.

  “By the way,” Gordon said, “I think Yukari wanted to tell you something.”

  “Probably remembered something else she wanted to say about how crappy I look in my space suit.”

  “That wasn’t the impression I got.”

  “So what?” Norman snorted. “Let’s get this thing tighter,” he said, looking at the knot they were working on. “Don’t want it coming undone during acceleration.”

  [ACT 13]

  IT WAS AN hour before they began the rendezvous. The captain woke up Yukari and Akane. The girls used the vacuum toilet on the deck and wiped their faces and hands with a sponge. Then they put on their helmets and backpacks.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Couldn’t be better.”

  “I can’t believe I actually slept.”

  “That’s good to hear.” The captain passed a sheaf of fax papers bound with a ring to Yukari. “This is the latest procedural manual. Put it in this bag and keep it with you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Luis came down from the upper deck to see them off. “You two are the best,” he said. “I hope we’ll get to meet someday when we’re back on the ground.”

  “I guess it depends on how this goes.”

  “It’ll go fine,” he said.

  They shook hands, and Yukari and Akane went into the air lock. Outside, they found Norman and Gordon standing in front of Mangosteen, bathed in the glow from the giant blue arc of Earth toward the bow of the ship.

  “Hi, Norman, Gordon,” Yukari called to them on their intercoms, and the two men raised their arms to signal everything was ready. Together, both of them circled Mangosteen, checking the fastenings.

  “This is tied down pretty well,” Yukari said.

  “All in a day’s work,” Norman replied.

  “Okay, hand me the end of the rope.”

  “You won’t be needing it.”

  “What?”

  “You won’t have time to pull the ropes, make sure the knots are undone, then get inside and close the hatch. Gordon and I will use knives to cut the lines instead.”

  “But Houston said they’d only give the okay on the condition that we handled the separation!”

  “Houston doesn’t need to know.”

  “That means we’ll be accelerating the shuttle with both of you outside!”

  “No worse than riding in a convertible. We’ll be fine.”

  Yukari stared at the man’s face behind his visor. She might as well have been looking at a mask.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” Yukari said, a smile playing on her lips. “I never knew NASA had such reckless pilots.”

  “Yukari!” Akane scolded.

  “If you do something it’s brave, but if we do the same thing, it’s reckless. Is that it?”

  “Norman, I should tell you,” Akane said, “Yukari is completely incapable of directly expressing gratitude. Right, Yukari?”

  “Right.”

  “See?”

  Someone—maybe Gordon—blew a kind of bemused snort into his mic.

  “Well, I’d certainly like to hear a word of gratitude now and then,” Norman said. “The English word you’re looking for begins with a T.”

  “Sorry, drawing a blank,” Yukari said. “I’ll be sure to let you know if I remember it. Let’s go, Akane.” Yukari moved to get into Mangosteen.

  “I’m sorry. She’s got this attitude—but she’s really a good person inside,” Akane said before turning to leave. Somehow, despite being entirely weightless, she managed to bow to the two NASA astronauts.

  “Since when did you become my wife?” Yukari asked as soon as the cockpit pressurized.

  “You haven’t even apologized to him yet, Yukari! If you just thanked him, it would make that a lot easier, you know.”

  “It wasn’t that I couldn’t say it. I just want to say it without everyone listening in on the conversation.”

  “That just means you can’t say it.”

  “What’s the big deal, anyway?”

  “I just think that with such an important task ahead of us, it’s better to have none of these personal differences getting in the way.”

  “Really? I focus much better when I’ve got a little fight in me.”
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  “Whatever works,” Akane said. Now was no time for an argument.

  Yukari fixed the procedural manual on top of the instrument panel and flipped on the communication switch. “Atlantis, this is Mangosteen. We’re aboard. All systems are operational.”

  “Roger that, Mangosteen.”

  “Solomon, this is Mangosteen. Do you copy?”

  “Hoi, Mangosteen. Loud and clear.”

  Together, the two girls read through their manual.

  The rendezvous procedure would begin as they were flying over Midway Island, with Orpheus trailing two hundred kilometers behind them. They would slow down and let Orpheus catch up. Then, like the next runner in a relay race, they would accelerate to the same speed to match Orpheus as it approached.

  First, Atlantis would fire its orbital maneuvering system engine for six minutes on full thrust.

  As soon as the burn finished, they would detach Mangosteen within twenty seconds and say farewell.

  Then Mangosteen would fire its OMS engine for five minutes on full thrust.

  This burn had to wait until they were clear of Atlantis, so Yukari would start the sequence by hand. The computer would take over after that.

  Once both craft had finished their burns, eleven minutes would pass until Mangosteen and Orpheus were flying side-by-side far above the Hawaiian Islands.

  Four minutes later, Solomon would remotely adjust Mangosteen’s orbit after pinpointing the locations one final time. If a fuel check at that point showed insufficient reserves, the mission would be scrubbed. Nineteen minutes total would have passed by the time the orbit adjustment was complete. Then Yukari would nudge the orbiter as close as possible to Orpheus while Akane went outside to remove the wire shorting out Orpheus’s engine control and pull the safety tag.

  Ideally, all of this had to happen in the space of twenty minutes. At that point they would be over two thousand kilometers up, and the radiation would only get worse.

  Forty minutes after the rendezvous procedure had begun, they would get back inside the orbiter in the sky over Brazil. Twenty minutes later, they would reach their apogee at an altitude of three thousand kilometers while passing over southern Africa.

  Here, they would fire a short retrograde burn and leave orbit. Orpheus would remain above them, ready to fire its upper-stage engine as it passed over Indonesia and leave Earth’s gravitational pull altogether.

  Around the same time, Mangosteen would reenter the atmosphere just east of Japan, doing a half orbit of the earth to splashdown off the coast of Chile. U.S. Navy helicopters would be waiting near the splashdown zone to shuttle the two of them back to a carrier.

  “Wait a second—what’s this all about?” Yukari read out one of the warnings written in her manual. “‘While Akane is outside the craft, take Mangosteen to a safe distance.’”

  “A precaution in case the engines fire. I guess they’d rather save one of us than none of us.”

  “That is so not cool.”

  “No, it’s okay. If it did fire, you wouldn’t have any fuel to chase after me anyway.” Akane giggled nervously. “Believe me—I’d be happy to go to Pluto.”

  “Great. My copilot is a space kamikaze.”

  “I think we all have to be, at least a little bit. I knew that when I applied for the job.”

  She’s tougher than she seems, Yukari thought. Time to pull it together.

  “Well, I’m not retreating to a safe distance, and that’s that,” Yukari said. “Keep your lifeline tied on. The second you think something might be going wrong, push away from Orpheus. Don’t let that propulsion exhaust get you.”

  “But, Yukari—”

  “That’s an order from your captain!”

  Time marched relentlessly on. Houston was in charge of watching the clock and counting off the seconds.

  “Orpheus is approaching two hundred thirty climbers behind you. Atlantis, you have fifty seconds until OMS burn.”

  “All systems are ready,” Berkheimer confirmed from the shuttle.

  “Atlantis, thirty seconds until OMS burn.”

  “We’re ready to fire. Norman, Gordon, you two sitting down out there?”

  “You bet we’re sitting.”

  “Atlantis, start your sequence. Ignition in ten seconds…four…three…two…ignition.”

  A jolt passed through the shuttle, and they felt a gentle weight pressing on their backs.

  “Houston, this is Atlantis. We have a confirmed OMS burn.”

  “This is Mangosteen. No unusual vibration in here.”

  “Roger that. Orpheus is approaching the hundred-seventy-kilometer mark. Three minutes forty-five seconds until separation.”

  The sound of the engines firing was barely audible through the ship vibrations, despite the fact that seven tons of force were being generated just a few meters away.

  “Norman, Gordon, you still sitting down?”

  “We’re both doing great.”

  “Atlantis, Mangosteen. One minute until burn completion.”

  I wonder what they’re up to?

  Yukari took a look through the periscope, but something was in the way, and she couldn’t see the two NASA astronauts outside. If she said anything to them now, Atlantis and the entire space communications network would hear. But there was no guarantee that they would be able to communicate at all after separation.

  Yukari bit her lip.

  I waited too long, and now I missed my moment.

  “Atlantis and Mangosteen. Twenty seconds until burn completion.”

  “Houston, this is Mangosteen. We are ready to fire engines. All systems are go.” Yukari lifted the cover on the sequencer activation switch and held her finger over it.

  “All crew prepare for weightlessness. I’ll count it down. Weightlessness in five…four…three…one…complete burn now, begin separation!”

  “The lines are free,” Norman said almost immediately. “Atlantis, begin evasive maneuvers.”

  In the periscope protruding from the bottom of the orbiter, Yukari saw the payload bay drop away into the distance. Then she saw the two wings, the engine housing, the nose—the entire shuttle—drifting away, becoming lost in the giant blue sphere of the earth.

  “Separation complete. Mangosteen, begin!”

  Yukari pressed the activation switch.

  This time, the sound of the engine was a roar, the vibrations more intense.

  That’s more like it.

  “This is Mangosteen. Sequence started. OMS firing. Everything’s looking good.” Yukari kept her finger on the talk button. “Norman, Gordon, Luis, Captain Berkheimer, thank you all. And I’m sorry about earlier. You’re the bravest, coolest people I know. We’ll try not to let you down.”

  Akane’s eyes opened wide.

  Yukari stared at the instrument panel, muttering to herself. “I can’t believe I said it. Must be the adrenaline.”

  [ACT 14]

  A PHONE CALL came into the control center for Mukai.

  “What? What? Just calm down. Tell me everything in order.”

  Whoever was on the other end, they were panicking.

  “What? The Cdb settings…three whole steps! What about max temperature? Sixteen hundred seventy degrees? Are you kidding me?” The color drained from Mukai’s face.

  “What is it?” Kinoshita asked.

  “Our atmospheric resistance coefficients were off—er, that is—”

  “Bottom line, please.”

  “If Mangosteen reenters the atmosphere at its currently predicted speed, it’s going to disintegrate.”

  “For real?”

  Every controller within earshot turned around.

  “They ran it through simulations on three models—apparently the bad numbers in the constant database came from a copy/paste error. I’m sorry, this is my fault!”

  “Hoi? Did someone say disintegration?” Matsuri asked.

  “Say nothing to those two up there,” Kinoshita told her quickly.

  “Hoi…”

/>   “What do we do?” Mukai wailed, his mouth twisting. “They’re nearly entirely out of fuel—”

  “The first thing we do,” Kinoshita said, “is calm down. They’re already in their orbit. We can’t change that now. We have to proceed with the mission as planned and use what time remains to figure out a way to get them back through the atmosphere safely. This is on us now.”

  “We’ve already determined optimal reentry path, and it’s disastrous.”

  “What’s going on? Something wrong?” Nasuda had noticed the commotion on the floor and come out of the observation room.

  Kinoshita explained the situation, but Nasuda did not appear particularly moved. “I see,” was all he said. While outspoken when it was time to celebrate, Nasuda kept all other emotions in check. “What if we pulled them up a little, had them come in shallower.”

  “That won’t work. They’d just bounce off the atmosphere and come back at an even steeper angle.”

  “Any chance of stealing fuel from Orpheus? It’s using hydrazine too, isn’t it?”

  “Well—”

  “Impossible,” Kinoshita said. “The tank on Orpheus is semipermanently sealed due to the long distance it has to travel.”

  Nasuda grunted and thought for a while before saying, “I don’t want them to know about this yet. Tell Houston everything. They’re going to have to beef up the recovery team.”

  [ACT 15]

  THE ORBITAL CORRECTION went perfectly. Orpheus was only fifteen meters ahead of them now. The cylindrical shape of its upper-stage engine glittered against a backdrop of inky darkness.

  They had already evacuated the air from the orbiter in preparation for Akane’s spacewalk. Akane strapped on a waist pouch to carry the tools she would need. This time, there would be no need to strip off her backpack and crawl inside anything. Both the safety tag and jumper wire were easily accessible by hand from the outside.

  Yukari gave the engine a few more bursts, trying to close the distance as quickly as possible without wasting any fuel.

  “Ten meters to Orpheus. Akane’s just opened the hatch.”