First Flight

by Claremont, Chris

  Nothing happened.

  "Terrific," she said softly.

  Then, the lights went out.

  It was an eerie feeling, to be plunged so completely into darkness and silence. The only illumination was sunlight spraying briefly through the cabin to mark the passage of another spin. There was no background susurrus through her com headset, either, no equipment noise. No sound at all save the hiss of her own breath and the thundering beat of her heart.

  Nicole spoke, and jumped in surprise. She thought she'd whispered, but her mind registered it as a shout. Remembering her training, she fumbled at the umbilicals and snapped them free. If the systems failure was as total as she feared, the only air she had left was that inside her suit; disconnecting the lines prevented any of it from leaking away, as well as protecting her from any unhealthy gasses. For the moment, she was all right. Without power, she had no heaters, but the suit was well insulated. With a grim chuckle, she realized she'd suffocate long before she froze. And crash into Hightower long before that.

  Something jarred her. It was Paul, canted across the center console, touching his helmet to hers.

  "Everything's out," he reported, his voice echoing hollowly.

  "No foolin'."

  "Want to see a helluva sight?"

  "Sure, why not."

  He pointed through the canopy and she caught her breath in a gasp of astonishment and awe. Ahead of them, looming seemingly out of nowhere, Hightower filled the sky, a monstrous wheel five kilometers across, as wide as Manhattan Island, with a skeletal framework already extending from the central spoke to form a companion ring beside it. Nicole had seen pictures and holos of the great L-5 colony, but not even her wildest imaginings were the equal of this reality. It seemed impossible that their shuttle—the size of a domestic airliner—could do it any real damage; she knew different. For all its size, there was little extraneous space. The station as a whole would survive the impact, but the local consequences, whether to agriculture, industry or, worst of all, the habitats, would be catastrophic.

  "We're not done yet, hotshot," she said, mind racing furiously, searching for the means to save them. "The OMS fuel supply is a hypergolic mixture. When I give the word, open the manual release valves."

  He nodded, "It could work. The separate elements will ignite the moment they come into contact. But without throttles, we've no way of controlling the burn."

  "At this stage, anything less than full power won't do us any good."

  "How're you going to time the ignition?"

  "Have to eyeball it."

  "That's crazy, it can't be done!"

  "You got a better idea?" When Paul said nothing, Nicole continued, "Watch for my signal, I mean to cut loose on the next spin."

  She was staring so intently out the canopy, attempting to gauge the precise moment to cue Paul, that she didn't realize he was set until his PortaComp bumped her helmet. She tucked it into a thigh pocket of her suit and, when a crease of light appeared below the shuttle's bulbous nose, waved her lantern frantically.

  To Nicole, time seemed to be both standing still and moving faster than ever. She knew Paul was opening the fuel flow valves, that centrifugal force was pushing reactants into the firing chamber, that any split second the whole mixture would ignite—why then was it taking so long? Without pumps to regulate the flow, she knew, the mix would be uneven, generating a rough start and a rougher ride. The blast might even backfire into the tanks themselves, causing an explosion that would destroy the shuttle. Who knows, she thought morbidly, maybe that would be best—for the station, at any rate. Once they got a fair burn, however, inertia from their forward motion would continue forcing fuel into the engine until the tanks ran dry.

  "Hold on," she called to Paul, forgetting that their suit radios had failed with the rest of the on-board systems, "it's starting!"

  She could feel a faint vibration beneath her gloved fingers. As the tremors increased, a gentle pressure began forcing her into her seat. An arm brushed hers—Paul climbing into his own chair, strain evident on his face. His exertion had cost him a lot of irreplaceable oxygen.

  Was it her imagination, Nicole wondered, or was their spin slowing? The shuttle was visibly shaking, and she thought she could hear the basso rumble of the engine vibrating up through her suit from the deck. There was another sound, something that made no sense—until she realized it was herself, humming, half singing, half chanting Starbourne, a classic by her favorite rockstar, England's Lila Cheney. She shook her head in bemusement, but didn't stop. They were so close to Hightower that she could no longer see the stars, and yet their trajectory was still taking them straight for the ring.

  Then, as she watched, the station began moving aside. With agonizing slowness, it slid off to the right; already, she could see a line of darkness below the shuttle's nose. It would be a terrifyingly close call but Nicole didn't care; she'd be satisfied if they missed by a millimeter.

  "We're gonna make it," she breathed, "sonofabitch, we're gonna make it!"

  There was a small click-sound as Paul's helmet touched hers. He'd unfastened his harness and was leaning across the console. Nicole guessed they were pulling over three Gs; Paul was using his remaining strength, and air, to hold himself in that awkward position.

  "It's no good," he said quietly.

  "What?" Nicole protested.

  "I guesstimated our trajectory. We were too close when we fired. We're not going to clear."

  Nicole tried to compute the angles in her head, but she couldn't keep the three-dimensional mathematical model straight. That was Paul's special gift.

  She grabbed once more for the JETTISON switches—they had their own independent power source, batteries designed to keep them functioning even when all else failed—and pressed three of them in sequence. There was a faint shudder from off to the right and the deck tilted beneath her.

  "What'd you do?" Paul asked.

  "Starboard verniers. I blew their tanks! We're yawing belly up to the station hull. If we're lucky, this way, it won't be as sharp an impact. We'll probably total the shuttle, no matter what, but we won't do anywhere near as much damage to Hightower."

  Nicole looked at the station, at the steadily growing strip of ebony below them—she could even see a few stars, despite the glare—and finally at her co-pilot's face. This section was new construction; she could see workers scrambling frantically to get out of the way, those inside the pressurized skin running like ants for the safety of airlocks they'd never live to reach. The shuttle was so close, she could make out the individual beams that formed the lattice-work support of the giant torus. They were only seconds from impact. She racked her brain, searching for something—anything—she might have missed, one last procedure to try, barely aware of Paul as he reached out for her hand.

  An instant before they struck, a massive bar of steel swinging straight for the canopy, the L-5 station vanished, to be replaced by the soft glow of a hologram field, in the center of which floated the legend:

  CONGRATULATIONS, ASTRONAUTS, YOU HAVE JUST CRASHED.

  Chapter Two

  Her head still ached around her eye—after two days, the bruise was a wonder to behold—as she sank down into a chair across the desk from NASA's Chief Astronaut, Dr. David Elias. Paul chose the couch behind her; she hadn't, out of fear that she'd simply collapse full-length onto it and fall asleep. She couldn't remember feeling so exhausted, not even that first miserable summer at the Academy. She hadn't done more than catnap since they'd crawled out of the simulator, to face medical exams, a murderously thorough debriefing and a final session in front of the Evaluation Board, before they'd been put on a flight from Hightower to the Moon. The hearing had been the worst of it; the longer it went, the more convinced Nicole became that she'd failed, that her nascent career was ruined. In full view before her now was a thick pile of computer print-outs. The hardcopy critique, she assumed, of their performance, together with the Board's recommendations. She didn't know what it said, but
she could guess. And that didn't make her feel any better.

  Elias—her height but broader in the body, with balding, sandy-red hair and a deceptively open face; Nicole had heard he was a deadly poker player, unmatched at running a bluff and utterly ruthless in exploiting an opponent's weakness—stepped away from a sideboard and handed Nicole a glass of amber liquid. "Hail the conquering heroes," he announced with a slight smile and more than a touch of irony, emphasizing his native Georgia drawl as he held a similar glass out to Paul before pouring a final one for himself. "You look like you could use this."

  She took a cautious sip; it was pure malt whiskey that went down her throat like fire. Imported, too. She recognized the taste. It must have been brought up on the supply shuttle from Florida. This was a rare, singular treat, but at the moment it was far more than she could handle, and so, she set the glass aside.

  "How's your nose?" Elias asked her.

  "Better, I'm told. Those docs should try things from my end, they wouldn't sound so damn cheery. I'm supposed to be grateful it isn't broken."

  "No, you're supposed to be grateful you didn't lose an eye," Elias countered calmly. "That was a pretty close call."

  "If she had been seriously hurt, sir," Paul challenged, "whose fault would it have been?" Nicole tried to signal him to shut up—she was perfectly prepared to fight her own battles, thank you—but he ignored her. "Everything that happened in that simulator was a contrived event. It was done deliberately."

  "True, mister, to a point. Circumstances were established to force one of you to violate suit integrity. Luck of the draw made it you, Shea; for what it's worth it could just have easily been DaCuhna. But she had plenty of time to put the helmet back on. As a matter of fact," Elias dropped his stout form into his chair and leaned way back, resting his drink on his chest, "the explosive decompression was an improvised addition to the test, as a direct response to Ms. Shea's predicament."

  "Suppose I'd been voided out of the bay?"

  "The test would have been over."

  "And I'd have flunked," she finished for him.

  "Who says you haven't?" Elias said, straightening up.

  "No one," she answered, looking away from him to the print-outs, painfully conscious of how small and quiet her voice sounded.

  "It wasn't a fair test," Paul protested.

  "It wasn't meant to be, Lieutenant."

  "In a real situation, things wouldn't happen like that!"

  "On the other hand, you're both still alive. We put pilots through simulator runs in the Hightower facility for precisely the same reason we do on Earth—to expose you to impossible situations, to teach you how to handle yourselves and your vehicles in life and death crises, without the death, and the mess. Of course you crashed, you were meant to Crash, nothing you did would have made the slightest bit of difference in the end. We wanted to see what you'd do and, more important, how you'd behave. What you endured was not primarily a test of skill—my God, d'you think, after six years at the Academy, after flight training, after astronaut training, we don't know how good you are?—it was to gauge your character."

  "My character," Nicole said, because Elias had been looking at her as he spoke and she sensed he meant her alone, not Paul.

  "That's right, Shea. You flew left seat, you were SPACOM—spacecraft commander—you had authority and responsibility. And," he finished, eyes flashing as he let his anger show, "you fuckin' blew it! You, darlin', screwed the pooch."

  "I made a mistake, is that a crime?"

  "You made a stupid mistake. You got careless. And that is a crime." Elias drained his glass and added a finger more whiskey before continuing. Nicole wanted to argue, to defend herself, to beg forgiveness and promise she'd never do it again—anything, so long as it would save her—but she sat silent and still. He was right. She could already see herself on the DownSide shuttle, the Moon getting smaller and smaller behind her, sentenced to a career and a life that would never again take her outside Earth's atmosphere except as a passenger. All her work, all her dreams, shattered in a moment. With a start, she realized Elias was talking.

  "You throttle-jock a high-performance aircraft, Lieutenant, you're talking absolute control over ten million dollars' worth of hardware; the bigger the plane, the more the bucks. Well, up here, the price tag starts at a billion—the pressure suits alone cost more than you'll earn in your entire military career—and we've discovered enough ways to wreck 'em without throwing in the human element. You took things for granted, Nicole, and we burned you. If the fuel cell program hadn't already been running, we'd have blown out your canopy."

  "Would it help to say I've learned my lesson?"

  "Would Tm sorry' make any difference if all that had been for real?"

  "No." Her voice was barely a whisper.

  "Take the elevator up to the surface, find an airlock, step outside—you're dead. It's that simple. Five meters, five million, five light-years, doesn't matter. All the excuses in the world won't help. This is an environment, we're building a way of life, where perfection is the rule and mistakes kill. Your ass, I could care less about. But others'll be depending on you, what about them?"

  "So I'm a washout?"

  "We bounce you, it'll go on your record. You're still on probation, you have the option of calling it quits—you'd be surprised how many hotshot pilots, even top astronaut trainees, can't hack life up here. Resign from the program, and you go home with no black marks."

  "Don't do it, Nicole."

  "I'd watch your mouth, mister, your ass isn't exactly safe and sound."

  Nicole shook her head. "You can fire me, Dr. Elias—and maybe with good reason—"

  "No 'maybe' about it."

  "– but I'm sorry, I won't quit." She looked him in the eye and braced herself for the blow to fall.

  "You know you're the best fuckin' pilot to come off the ramp in twenty years."

  "No, sir, I didn't."

  "Don't bullshit me, Shea, anyone as good as you has to be aware of it. With a record like yours, the hearing board was ready to bounce you straight home from Hightower; they didn't see any point in letting you back to the Moon."

  "Why," Paul demanded, "I'd've thought they'd be desperate to keep someone like that?"

  "Arrogance?" Nicole wondered aloud. "Complacency? I was bored. I figured because nothing had happened, nothing was going to happen."

  "Precisely. And who's to say it won't happen again. You say you've learned your lesson. Perhaps you have. But should I risk Lord knows how many lives and how much money to prove it?"

  She fought to keep her face an expressionless mask and blinked back tears. It was over, she was beaten. "What happens next? Where do I go from here?"

  "Dinner."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Canfield, she wants to meet you."

  "The Commandant of DaVinci Base wants to see us ?!"

  "So I'm told, Mr. DaCuhna, and she doesn't like to be kept waiting."

  "Hold it," Nicole cried, "what about me, what did the Board decide? Am I in or out?!"

  "The boss overruled the Board," Elias said flatly. "You got a second chance."

  Judith Canfield stood to greet them as the maitre d' led them to her table beneath one of the young trees that gave the Oak Room its name. She was a tall woman, matching Nicole's meter-eighty, and lean as a dancer. Hers was a strong, handsome face, skin tanned almost as dark as Paul's, with lines formed as much by a generous sense of humor as her years spent working in pure, blinding sunlight. Her left eye was a rich jade green, her right covered by a black patch, and like most spacers she wore her ash-blond hair cut short. Although she preferred casual civilian dress, tonight she was in full uniform—short-sleeved royal blue tunic and slacks, with the four stars of a full General on her shoulder epaulets. Below the Command Astronaut wings on her left breast was a single ribbon, the white stars on blue field of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

  Everyone in the service knew her story. It was required reading at the Air For
ce Academy. She was a trail-blazing astronaut, a hero a dozen times over, before a midair collision during shuttle re-entry to Earth seemingly destroyed her career and, very nearly, her life.

  The medics wrote her off. The crash had smashed much of her body to a pulp. It was a miracle she hadn't been killed outright. But that was merely the beginning of her ordeal. She spent two full years in hospitals—first on Earth and then, as soon as she was fit to travel, in orbit—while teams of surgeons tried to salvage what they could and replaced the rest. When she was finally released, the Pentagon offered her a medical discharge; she was told, by both the Air Force and NASA, that, for all the doctors' work, she would never again be the person she was, never again be as good an officer or astronaut, or woman.

  She set out to prove them wrong.

  It was a long, grueling fight that culminated in a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court, but in the end Judith Canfield was reinstated.

  All that had happened before Nicole and Paul were even born. For the past eleven years, in the dual role as Commander of the largest American base on the Moon and NASA's Director of Manned Space flight, she'd become responsible for an ever-expanding sphere of operations that included the entire Solar System, as well as the stars in the immediate galactic neighborhood.

  "At ease," she told them, her voice low like Nicole's but not as husky, "have a seat. Our other guests will be joining us shortly but before they do, I wanted us to have a private chat." Nicole wondered if it was her imagination, but Canfield seemed to look a fraction longer and harder at her than Paul. She met the gaze without flinching and, after a second of eye contact, the General looked away, a hint of a smile on her lips.

  Canfield sat at the head of the table, Paul and Nicole on her left, David Elias on her right. Nicole counted settings for nine. While a waiter brought their drinks, the General told them: "There are really only two times we insist on ceremony up here—when someone gets a medal, or they get buried. Regrettably, those often go together." She raised her glass in a toast. "Let us hope, Ms. Shea, Mr. DaCuhna, that your careers turn out to be both uneventful and long.