“Yeah? Then spit it out,” Andy said. He also seemed to have a suspicion about this.
“We all squeeze into the functioning module and jettison the rest of the ship.”
“You’re crazy,” Andy said.
“There aren’t any other alternatives,” Theo countered. “Besides, this is a very reasonable option. You’re crazy if you flat out reject this.”
“Just a minute, boys,” Ellen cut in. “Theo’s basically right, isn’t he? We’ll definitely have enough fuel if we only have to slow down the one module. But will we all fit inside?”
“It wouldn’t be comfortable. The Dragon is only approved for eight passengers. However, I think the volume would suffice. Once we’re in orbit, half of us can transfer to the Endeavour. That way we won’t have to share the landing loungers as couples.”
“You’re forgetting something critical,” Andy said, his voice sounding threatening. “The middle part of this space ship is our mission. That’s where the machines and provisions are that we’ll need for our settlement. We can kiss our mission goodbye if we lose all that. Why have we gone through all this hardship if we’re going to do that? We wanted to build something better than what the other humans have achieved down there. We can’t give up so easily on that.”
Ewa had never liked what seemed to her to be the proselytizing branch of MfE. And that was putting it mildly. Was Andy really part of that ideology?
Theo was watching Andy with a furrowed brow. He seemed to be trying to come up with a suitable response. “If we can’t reach orbit, our mission is dead either way,” he said. “Is that really so hard to understand?”
“I understand quite clearly what you want, Theo,” Andy declared. “You’ve never been committed to this goal. There’s only one thing you care about, and that’s yourself.”
Ewa was amazed that the German could remain calm. Either Andy was right, but it didn’t matter to Theo, or the accusations were baseless and, thus, bounced right off him. She didn’t know which was the case.
Theo didn’t respond right away. He scratched his forehead and folded his arms. To Ewa, this looked like theatrical performance meant to symbolize composure.
“True, I want to survive,” Theo finally said. “I have no interest in floating through space for eternity like the five good people we sent off today. But at least their deaths weren’t pointless. Their deaths were regrettable, but it was something that happened to them, something they couldn’t change. If someone had given them the option to either postpone or avoid death, they would’ve taken it. But nobody came and warned them. However, we have a choice. We owe it to Chuck, Henrik, Piotr, Shankar, and Asha to use this opportunity.”
One-zero, Theo. And just like that, he got the others behind him. Who else might belong to the ideological contingent? That would become clear, sooner or later. At this point, Theo the pragmatist was in the lead. That was obvious from the others’ faces.
“I suggest that we draft a list of all the things that we absolutely must bring into the module,” Ewa said. “Ellen will collect your suggestions. You all have one hour to do this, and then we’ll talk about it. Each of you must keep in mind that we will be leaving behind many valuable items.”
“May I say one thing?” Ellen added. “The items won’t be lost forever. In the belly of the Santa Maria, they will orbit the sun, and will occasionally come close to Mars. We can fetch them then, if we still need them.”
“As long as we’re still alive,” Andy said darkly.
“That is very reasonable,” said the man from the Endeavour. Ewa had both him and his colleague on the screen. They looked relieved.
“Before our landing, we will need to transfer a few passengers over to you,” Ewa said.
“No problem. We’ll reach you in two hours.”
The image vanished, but then reappeared. The Endeavour had already slipped behind the face of the planet, so another orbiter had to be transmitting the signal.
“Thank you so very much, both of you. We will try to consume as few of your resources as possible. MfE is still planning to establish an independent colony.”
“We can talk about that later.”
The man—wasn’t his name Lance?—smiled rigidly. He was probably worried that the NASA base would have to provide for fifteen additional people indefinitely. Ewa wanted to do everything she could to keep this time as brief as possible. Despite their willingness to help, the NASA people made her uncomfortable.
Ellen handed her the list of the few items they could rescue. She seemed quite disheartened.
“Don’t worry,” Ewa said. “What the ship has loaded in its belly won’t be lost. We’ll just be delayed by a year or so.”
“That’s a long time,” Ellen replied. “We have to offer the crew an alternative.”
“And what would that be?”
“Maybe... the initiative could send the next load of supplies from Earth a little early,” Ellen suggested.
“That’s not realistic,” Ewa said. “They didn’t have enough money to rent an Earth-based station to stay in contact with us, or even to procure a slot in NASA’s Deep Space Network, at the very least. Or did you believe the official excuse they gave, that no one could respond in a timely fashion due to the transit time of the messages? That’s why we were forced to break off all contact with Earth.”
Ellen sighed. “Then I guess we’re ready,” she said. “Anything else?”
“Just a minute.” Ewa skimmed the list. Her animals were on it, as well as the seeds. Those were the main things. All of the machines would have to remain in orbit, as well as a large portion of the supplies. They would bring along enough to feed the fifteen of them for a maximum of five days. So that the spacesuits didn’t have to take up unnecessary space, each person would wear their own. The landing would be torturous, since the suits weren’t made for this kind of strain. Nonetheless, they would reach their goal.
“What about the computer replacement parts?” Ewa asked.
“Andy wrote up his own list for this. He said it would take him too much time to jot down every chip and module, so I assigned him a general spatial volume,” Ellen said.
Ewa didn’t respond. She would have to speak with Andy later, once they were down on the surface. These kinds of exceptions shouldn’t be allowed. However, if she protested now, Ellen would feel unjustly criticized.
“Thanks,” Ewa finally said. “If everyone is content, I can live with that.”
“Everyone content?” Ellen laughed cynically. “Nobody is content, and they all blame me personally.”
“That’s normal,” Ewa said. “But you’ve simply done your job, and I’m grateful for that.”
“If we wait any longer, we’ll miss our window of opportunity to jump into orbit,” Andy declared.
Ewa first had to search for him, because a large, free-floating crate blocked her line of vision. Ewa caught the shoulder of a spacesuit hurrying past her. The occupant turned around. All she could tell through the view hole was that it was a woman. Ewa read her name. It had to be the astronaut from the Philippines.
“Marilou, could you please take care of securing this box? On Mars, it will weigh at least a hundred kilograms, and it shouldn’t fall on top of anyone’s head or toe.”
“Of course,” Marilou answered.
“Andy, how much time do we have?” she asked.
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Then we’ll start the orbit countdown in ten. There’s too much stuff flying around here, and we need to strap it down.”
Most of the others had put on their helmets, so she switched over to the general channel.
“The deceleration procedure will start in ten minutes. Our highest priority is to secure every single free-floating object in the module. Then go ahead and strap yourselves down. There are enough harnesses.”
This set the crew in motion. Besides herself, there were fourteen men and women in the module. The walls had almost completely vanished behind all the objects t
hat had been fastened to them. Only the area around the airlock was still open because once they reached orbit, this was the access point for the eight astronauts who would be transferring over to the Endeavour.
“Andy, it’s time to release the module from the ship.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Ewa thought she heard a metallic click, but that must have been her imagination. It was too noisy in the module for her to hear something like that.
“Shit,” Andy said. “The adaptor is sticking.”
“On my way,” Theo shot back.
The German must have suspected something like this might happen because he already had a crowbar in his hand. It was a good thing the entrance to the airlock hadn’t been blocked. Theo exited the module in record time. Ewa pulled up the live stream from his helmet onto her screen.
“Theo, even though we’re out of time, please be very careful,” she said over her private channel.
“I’ll see what I can do for all of you as well as myself.”
That wasn’t exactly what she needed to hear right then. Ewa didn’t want there to be any more victims. The image from the camera wobbled severely. Theo seemed to be striding quickly across the module’s outer hull. It was only about three more meters to the coupling mechanism. The picture stopped moving. Ewa watched as Theo examined the mechanism with his flashlight. At first, the nature of the problem wasn’t apparent. The metal glittered in the flashlight’s beam as if it were brand new. Due to the lack of oxygen, nothing in space rusted.
The camera abruptly zoomed in on the mechanism. Theo must have brought the camera very close to the material. “Do you see anything?” he asked.
Ewa wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be seeing. There was a nut in the center of the ship’s coupling ring through which an arm-thick metal rod, which was attached to the module, was inserted. The image seemed strangely familiar to her...
“These are the security catches. There are three of them distributed around the coupling connector. They keep the module strongly attached to this location. A barbed hook is attached to the end of the bolt,” Theo explained. “It functions like a lock. When Andy tried to uncouple us, he simply turned the hook on the end of the bolt ninety degrees. The rods should’ve been released from the connectors, but one of them is sticking. This one.”
The camera zoomed in a little more. Now Ewa realized what Theo wanted to show them. The slit between the bolt and the connector was a little narrower on the one side than on the other.
“It’s jamming,” Ewa said. Theo has found the problem! What was the likelihood of that problem occurring? she wondered.
“Exactly. That must’ve happened in Earth orbit when they put the ship together. Somebody was sloppy.”
Or, it was sabotage, Ewa thought. The word echoed through her head, SA-BO-TAGE, as if each syllable were striking loudly against a church bell. She didn’t say anything.
“Can’t you just saw off the coupling rod?” Andy asked.
“That would take too long. But why do you think I brought this thing along?” The crowbar was held into view. Then Theo pointed the camera right at the spot beside the security catch.
“I’ll brace myself against the module and use the ship for counterweight. My hope is that the lever principle will help me push all of you a few micrometers to the side so you can free up the bolt, Andy.”
Once again, ancient physics trumped modern technology. Ewa suspected that this would increasingly be the case in their future. No, it wasn’t just a suspicion. She was positive, without knowing where that certainty was coming from.
“Okay,” Andy replied. “Don’t be startled when I have to fire the directional thrusters briefly. The module is going to separate a little from the rest of the ship.”
“I hope you’re hooked onto the safety line,” Ewa said.
Theo didn’t answer.
“On your signal, Theo,” Andy said.
“Okay,” Theo replied. “Three—two—one—push!”
Ewa glanced up. When Andy fired the directional thruster, anything that wasn’t strapped down would shift a little. But nothing happened.
“It didn’t work,” Theo said.
“We’ll try again,” Ewa ordered.
“I’m ready,” Andy said.
“Three—two—one—push!” The muffled sound of exertion could be heard over the earphones.
“Shit,” Theo gasped. “I’m not strong enough.”
“I have an idea,” Ellen cut in. She must have been following their efforts. “We could use the ship’s inertia to break off the module.”
“You will have to be more specific.”
“We have to decelerate in just a minute anyway. That means that the engine is going to slow down the module. The fat belly of the ship won’t be affected by this and will press closer to us. The fastening bolts will be pushed deeper into the lock. If the crowbar is placed at the right point, the ship’s inertia will disengage the hooked end of the latching mechanism. The ship will exert many tons of weight against the bar, more than Theo could ever apply to it.”
“But if we decelerate while we’re still attached to the ship, then the ship’s inertia will just keep pushing us through space,” Andy interjected. “We’ll need much more fuel because we’ll effectively have to slow the entire ship, not just the module. And we’ll end up missing the orbit window.”
“That will only be true until the ship has broken the coupling mechanism. After that, we can fire the module’s and the ship’s directional thrusters and veer away from each other. That way we’ll only need to slow the module down.”
“Whew, Ellen! That’s a completely unpredictable maneuver,” Andy said. “We can’t know when we’ll be free and clear of the ship. I hate things like this.”
“It seems to be our only choice,” Ewa said. “Or does someone have another idea?”
“There is one other problem,” Theo said. “But don’t worry about it. I know how to solve it.”
“You should at least tell us what it is,” Ewa said.
“Just let me take care of it,” he said confidently.
“No way,” Ewa said in the tone of a direct order.
Theo sighed. “Someone will have to hold the crowbar in place until everything’s over. Otherwise, the slightest vibration could make it fly off, and we’d be back to square one. I’ll take care of it.”
“What exactly do you mean?” Ewa asked.
Theo didn’t respond.
“He will stay out there until I hit the brakes,” Andy stepped in. “It’ll be like he’s dangling his legs off the back of a moving car while a semi races toward him at extreme speed. If we don’t get out of the truck’s path fast enough, Theo will be crushed. And even if we do manage to make a sharp turn, he’ll run the risk of being thrown off and landing in the street when we drop our speed.”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite that concretely,” Theo said, “but that’s it in a nutshell. I would prefer to join the rest of you inside, but Ellen’s idea really is our last, best chance.”
“Theo, wedge the crowbar in as best you can, and come right down to the airlock,” Ewa said.
“I’m sorry, Ewa, but I can’t do that. It would jeopardize our mission.”
“The mission isn’t more important than your life. Do you really intend to disobey my orders?”
“It is one life against fourteen. A pretty good deal. We won’t get a better offer. I accept the consequences for my insubordination and expect to be punished as soon as I return to the module.”
“Deal, Theo. I’ll get my whip ready, and you’ll pay for this,” Ewa said.
She pretended to accept the situation with humor, but she really didn’t feel up for snappy comebacks.
“T minus sixty.”
Andy had taken over the navigation. He could calculate the adjustments faster than anyone else, if that proved necessary. The seconds were counting down digitally on Ewa’s helmet screen. She wished she could scratch a spot that itched, bu
t the spacesuit made that impossible. On other launches, a feeling of anxiety had spread from one person to the next. Ewa had literally felt how the trembling of the person next to her had leaped across the space to her. However, this time everyone was stuck inside their own cocoons. The fears that were clogging her throat were her own. She couldn’t even imagine herself catching these from the other crew members. This was mortal fear. Nobody enjoyed the thought of dying, and neither did she.
“T minus thirty.”
Half a minute to go. Ewa switched over to the signal from Theo’s camera. The view was very calm. Theo must have leaned his head against something, or he was holding it with both hands. No, that wasn’t the case. Otherwise he couldn’t keep the crowbar in the correct position. How did he manage to stay so calm? How did he blow off steam? She wished she could hear him whistling or singing, but he remained quiet.
“Three two one ignition,” Andy said.
With a jolt, Ewa’s back was pressed against the hard floor. Two seconds and it was all over. At the same moment, Andy had also fired the lateral directional thrusters at the midsection of the ship. They didn’t have much force, and inside the module they hardly felt anything from them. If the plan had worked, the ship was now pressing on the crowbar and leaning slightly to the side.
“Now,” Andy said. That had to be the moment. Either they would be free any moment, or... Ewa refused to think those thoughts through to their end. What did the instruments say? Why wasn’t Andy saying anything?
“It looks like we’re... People, we’re free!” he cried.
Ewa couldn’t celebrate yet. What had happened to Theo? Had the massive ship flattened him against the hull of the module like a mosquito?
“Theo?” she asked. “Theo, please report in.”
All she could hear over the earphones was heavy breathing. The picture from Theo’s camera was utterly black. That had to be the blackness of space. If the camera had been destroyed, she would have received an error message.
“Attention! I’m taking us out of the path of the ship and beginning the deceleration process,” Andy announced.
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