by Lisa Medley
His hands ached already from subconsciously gripping the armrests. Eventually, he eased his clenched hands and tried to let himself relax into the experience. These were going to be three days of firsts.
The SpaceXport engineers had tested the mining equipment in the New Mexico desert for months. All he really had to do was test the remote control landing and retrieval for this mission. They’d all had complete astronaut training in the Program; now was the time to push that training to the next level. He acknowledged, if only to himself, that Noah and Tessa were way ahead of him in that respect. But he’d never let long odds deter him before. This would be no different.
Mere minutes later, they passed the gaseous blue halo that demarked the Karman line and began to pass into black space. Adrenalin shot through Cole as he made the connection.
“Congratulations, Mr. Hudson. You are officially an astronaut,” Noah said. “Base, we are out of Earth’s atmosphere and set on course for Amun. ETA, fifteen hours.”
“Copy that, Spaceship X, we’ll monitor from here. You’re now free to move about the cabin,” Base replied.
Cole didn’t need to be told twice. He unclasped his buckles and immediately began to float above his seat in the zero gravity of the cabin. He tucked his knees in and used the armrest to spin himself in a tight circle.
Tessa shot him a backward glance and laughed, surprising him. “Rookies.”
“I seem to remember some gymnastics on your part as well,” Noah offered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tessa said. Stray hairs floated out from her tight bun, making her look a bit like a porcupine.
Cole made his way around the cabin, utilizing the generous handrails and checking the view from each window. The Earth behind them shone in breathtaking glory, nearly more than his own eyes could process. Of course he’d seen countless photos, videos, satellite images, but to see it from his own perspective proved so spectacular, he felt his eyes grow misty. He was glad Noah and Tessa were both still firmly strapped in the cockpit, eyes forward.
The windowless cargo hold was the only section of the ship with gravity. A gravity cuff spun around the outside layer of the hold. The forward acceleration of the ship turned the cuff creating the effect. Janson hadn’t wanted the ship’s passenger area windows to be blocked, wanting his customers to experience the full measure of weightlessness.
Of course, there were still practical mechanical matters to attend to in the hold, which were made easier by gravity. It was also where all aboard took their meals.
Eventually, Cole made his way up to the helm and held himself in place by the backs of their headrests as they monitored the path ahead. The sheer vastness of the view overwhelmed him, making him feel insignificant and diminished but somehow powerful at the same time. There was no way they were alone in the universe that stretched out before them. Impossible.
“To boldly go—” Cole began, only to be cut off by Tessa.
“Stop right there. Twenty dollars in the kitty for any Star Trek reference.”
“That’s not shiny—” Cole retorted.
“One hundred dollars for Firefly,” Tessa replied.
“She sucks the fun out of everything,” Cole said to Noah.
“She has her moments.” Noah smiled.
“Why don’t you make it back to the cargo bay and get your toys lined up. You can practice with the remotes while we travel. It’s going to be a while,” Tessa said, staring straight ahead.
“Is she trying to get rid of me already?” Cole asked.
“Looks that way,” Noah said. “You got this for a while, Tess? I’ll go help him.”
“I’ve got this all day,” Tessa said.
“Then it’s off to the bat cave,” Noah said, unlatching his own buckles.
“No penalty for Batman references?” Cole teased.
“Don’t tempt her,” Noah said.
***
Tessa relished the quiet. Being at the helm of the spaceship while the men were in the bay was a gift she’d never imagined she’d be given. She had already traveled farther into space than anyone she knew in real life. The men had spent hours in the cargo hold with the mining bot like rabid gamers. Cole had claimed to have mastered it in ten minutes as promised. She didn’t know about that, but they’d already perfected some moves that might come in handy as well as troubleshot some potential hang ups. The New Mexico desert was one thing, the asteroid another. No one really knew what to expect once they arrived.
The plan was to shoot the harpoon and tether to Amun, lower the mining bot down the tether, and Cole would guide it remotely, collecting surface samples. If everything checked out, they’d retrieve the rover, return, rest a week while the base crew stocked and packed their shuttle, then come back for an extended stay.
She couldn’t even think about all of that without being in awe of the opportunity before her. While she tried to live in the moment, looking out the window before her was so surreal. Living in the moment was much easier said than done.
A hand brushed her shoulder, then gripped the back of her chair, startling her out of her contemplation. “Shit.”
“Sorry. I should have said something,” Cole said, pulling himself around to Noah’s seat.
“Don’t kick anything over there,” Tessa said. “Where’s Noah?”
“He’s down below still. Checking the fuel mixture. How much farther?”
“About eight hours. This would be a good time for you to sleep.”
“So now you want me to sleep? I’m starting to take this attitude toward me as personal. What gives?” Cole buckled himself into the seat and turned to look at her.
Tessa avoided his gaze and busied herself with dials and navigation panels. “Nothing. We need to rest when we have a chance.”
“Including you, right? You’re not invincible. You need to sleep, too.”
“Noah and I will take turns.”
“You know, I admired you…back in the Program.”
“I seem to remember you admiring quite a few of the trainees,” Tessa muttered.
“Right. Actually, it wasn’t quite all that. Drinking buddies mostly. I meant, I admired your tenacity. Your skills. Your—”
“Thanks.” She cut him off and felt her face warm and likely color with the compliment. The less conversation with him, the better. “You really should get some rest.”
Tessa heard Noah making his way noisily to the front. Where Cole was stealthy while moving about the ship, Noah was a bull in a China closet.
“You ready to swap for a while, Tess?” Noah asked, breaking the tension between her and Cole.
She eyed Cole. She’d just told him to rest, which meant if she was going to do the same, she’d have to do it beside him in one of the lounge chairs. The odds of falling asleep next to him were slim. The man had an aura about him that was nearly visible. Still, six hours was too long at the helm. A few hours of shut-eye could refresh her, and she’d be ready for whatever Amun had to offer.
“Wake me in four hours, so you can do the same, Noah,” she said, snapping her belt loose for the first time on the trip.
“You’ve got it,” Noah said as they changed positions at the helm.
Cole unbuckled, too, and followed her back, heading to the same lounge chair he’d ridden on the way up. He pulled himself into the chair, using the buckles to hold himself in place, then stretched his long, sturdy frame out across the chair. His feet dangled over the end and he hooked them under the bars that would hold him in place. He reached down to untie his boots. Toeing them off, one by one, the boots floating in the air until he caught them and tied them to his chair like circus balloons.
Tessa shook her head and attempted to roll over onto her side, away from him. She pulled a blanket from the drawer under her chair and tucked it around and under her straps to keep it from floating away like his shoes. She fastened the leather strap across her head to help hold her in place.
“It was inevitable we’d be sleepin
g together sooner or later,” Cole said.
“And it’s everything I expected from you,” Tessa replied. “Chilly and lonely.”
Chapter Five
“Amun, ho,” Noah said, pointing to a giant space rock in front of them.
Tessa studied the asteroid ahead. The rock was shaped something like a large gray tooth, rounded over with time as it tumbled through space like a pebble in a stream. At a bit more than a mile wide, landing on it wasn’t an option for their large ship, which would likely carom off before it could moor. The harpoon would pierce the surface and then a self-tapping wedge would drive in like a jacked up version of a wall anchor, tethering the ship to follow the asteroid’s trajectory until they were ready to disengage. It was crucial they approach from the rear of the asteroid, which was exactly where they were headed.
“Ease her right up close there, Tessa. We don’t want to tag it, but we need to be within a hundred feet,” Noah said.
Easier said than done. Finessing their behemoth of a ship that close to the rock without touching it was the most dangerous part of the mission other than takeoff and landing. The harpoon would embark out the front of the craft, so they could disengage and veer off before turning for home when they were finished. They needed to aim for the upper part of the asteroid so the mining bot could crawl across the top, a few feet at first, to get its space legs so to speak.
At this point, it was all uncharted territory. Thrilling. Terrifying. Lonely.
They’d lost communication with Base as soon as they’d passed through the first small asteroid belt, the high metal content of the asteroids likely interfering and jamming their signals. Thank God their ship navigation and systems were so far unaffected.
“That’s getting pretty damn close. Better reverse your thrust,” Cole warned.
“No backseat flying,” Tessa snapped.
“A few more feet, Tessa. Nice and easy,” Noah said. “Releasing harpoon in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Firing harpoon!” The ship shimmied as the harpoon released.
Tessa held her breath as they watched it streak away from them, the long cable stretching out behind it like a comet tail. The hook struck the surface of Amun, and silence filled the cabin as they waited to see if the pin would engage. The cable grew taut, and the ship shuddered as it adjusted to the resistance. A palpable tension filled the crew and ship. Would it hold or snap? The ship sighed as Tessa turned off the thrusters and allowed the vessel to lose propulsion and coast behind the asteroid as it continued its journey, unaffected by its new parasitic travelers.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Cole said.
“Me either,” Noah replied. “I could use that drink now.”
Tessa fingered her cross and kissed it. “You’re on, Cole.”
“Always.” Cole smiled.
***
Cole checked and double checked the rigging that would lower the mining bot to the surface. He would use the anchor loop, now securely fastened into the asteroid, like a pulley and ease the bot across the expanse. Setting the bot onto the surface upright was the trickiest and most crucial part. The bot could right itself under most conditions, but if it turtled onto its back, bouncing it over was sketchy. It needed to grip the surface to hold on, and it would be fine. Probably.
Already the rises and grooves on the surface were more extreme than he’d expected from the images the inspection telescopes had sent back. The bot was weighted, of course. But if it fell into one of the visible ravines? Game over.
He was about to play the first round of a six million dollar video game.
“All in,” Cole said to himself, closing the hatch door so the outside pod door could open and release the bot.
He watched the bot ease its way slowly along the tether just long enough to make sure it cleared the ship and then made his way up to the helm to maneuver it on the large monitor above the cockpit.
“Everything cool?” Noah asked.
Cole eased onto the end of the lounge chair, locking his feet under the floor loops to hold him in place, with his eyes glued to the monitor. He concentrated on the bot, remote in hand and ready to go. “So far so good.”
“He’s got to land the thing first,” Tessa said.
“He will,” Noah offered.
A cold sweat beaded across Cole’s lower back. Yeah, he was cool, all right. His jaw hurt as he realized he was clenching it as the bot made it the final few feet to the surface. Immediately before impact, Cole flipped the bot around, and it landed claws down, just as intended.
“Lucky,” Tessa said.
“Mad skills,” Cole replied.
Cole spent the next two hours navigating the bot across Amun. Using the powered gripper, he manipulated the bot to pick up several dozen orange-sized rocks. Despite the bot’s amazing video relay, there was no way to determine or analyze exactly what he was collecting. Most likely iron. Amun was thought to be a metallic asteroid, which meant it was likely as much as 91 percent iron. Of course, they expected iron, nickel, cobalt, and other metals. This one asteroid could contain approximately thirty times as much metal as humans had mined in all of history. Platinum was the prize. He probably wouldn’t get that lucky.
As the bot’s hopper neared capacity, one of the claws slipped into a trench. The bot’s cargo shifted as it tilted and, instead of righting itself, it rolled over onto its back, feet up like a dead cockroach. Cole sent out the bot’s extenders and attempted to roll it back to upright. With the added weight of the collected samples, flipping the bot was a no go. He used the extenders to probe nearby for a larger boulder to use as leverage, but there was nothing within reach.
“Problem?” Tessa asked. “Is it supposed to be belly up?”
“No,” Cole ground out. “It’s not.”
“Can you try pulling it back by the tether and tipping it over that way?” Noah asked.
“Sure. If it weren’t lying on the tether. If I rip off a leg, it will be a giant space paperweight.”
“What about expelling the samples? Lightening it up? Then trying to pull it back?” Noah asked.
“Can’t expel the cargo while it’s upside down. Clearly we’ve discovered the flaw.”
“One of many,” Tessa said.
“Listen, precious. I don’t know how I’ve chapped your ass, but I’m sorry. Okay? Can you maybe not enjoy my failure quite so much? That’s your check out there on its ass, too, you know. You think Janson is going to keep letting you joyride in his toys if we don’t bring home a payday? The answer is hell and no. So find your happy place and live there until we can both go our separate ways. Deal?”
“Perezoso, malcriada, arrogante, mujeriego hijo de puta,” Tessa said, her eyes fiery and her face turning red.
“I’m fairly sure you’ve never met my mother. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t disparage her.”
“Okay, you two. Enough, already. I’m insisting on a truce here. Seriously. Let’s figure this out,” Noah said, stepping between them. “What are our options for the bot, Cole? How can we reorient it?”
Cole gripped the remote like he wanted to break it in two and shook his head. “Spacewalk.”
***
They were not prepared for a spacewalk. Oh, they had all the gear, they’d just never actually done one before. Any of them. In actual space.
The chances of Base approving what Cole was preparing to do were slim and none. Tessa actually felt bad now for her outburst earlier. Honestly, she didn’t have any real reason to be so bitchy to Cole. But that man was salt in an open wound to her. Why? He was a Texan, just like her. An astronaut, just like her. Stubborn and arrogant, just like her. Perhaps therein lay the problem. They were more alike than she wanted to admit. They were also both failures who were getting a second chance. Neither of them could afford to fuck this up.
She had to stuff her animosity down and help him. They needed this. All of them did. As much as it pained her to admit, Cole was right about that.
“Lot o
f things that could go wrong here, Cole,” Noah said as he finished sealing Cole’s spacesuit.
“You have a better idea?” Cole asked.
“Leave it out there for another trip,” Noah said.
“I’m not going back without that bot,” Cole said, adjusting his gloves.
“Here.” Tessa grasped his left hand and snugged up the clasp Cole continued to struggle with. “Latch on here and here.” She showed him the suit’s tether points. “You’re going to ride the cable like a cosmic zip line, down and back. You can’t come loose until you reach the loop. Then you’ll uncable and use the bungee line. Never untethered. Never. Got it.”
The corner of Cole’s mouth turned up in a grin. “Got it.”
“Down and back. No exploring. No messing around. Flip the bot and get back up here.”
“Will do, ‘O Captain! my captain.’”
Tessa rolled her eyes.
“What? Is there a fine for Whitman, too?” Cole teased.
“No. I’m amazed you know who he was. Let alone a line from him.”
“Precious, I’m full of surprises.”
Chapter Six
Cole snapped the heavy-duty carbineers onto the cable. He checked the suit’s oxygen levels for the tenth or eleventh time. He could live without a lot of material objects and comforts. Oxygen wasn’t one of them. If everything went exactly right, he should be down and back in thirty minutes. He had an hour’s worth of oxygen. Plenty of cushion, he told himself as the cargo airlock sealed behind him with a whoosh. Stepping out onto the launch step, he tried not to think about how much it looked like a plank. And he was walking it into the great unknown.
“Cole, you hear me? Everything okay?” Noah asked through his built-in headset.
“Copy that. A-OK.”
Everything was not A-OK. His heart raced like a desert jackrabbit. At this rate, he’d suck up all of his oxygen before he made it to Amun’s surface. The first step was the worst, right?