Mission One

by Samuel Best

  “Copy that, Explorer,” Kate said quickly. “Stand by.”

  “It’s supposed to be a microburn!” Frank roared from the viewing platform. “What the hell is going on?!”

  “Juan, can we shut it down remotely?” Kate asked.

  “We can try.”

  “Do it!” said Frank. “And figure out what went wrong.”

  Kate brushed off his last comment with an aggravated shake of her head. Of course we’re going to figure it out, she thought.

  She adjusted her headset microphone. “Lieutenant?”

  A gruff, tired voice came over the line. “Canaveral, this is Riley. Lieutenant Ming and I are at our stations.”

  “That’s good to hear, Commander,” said Kate. “We’re sending an engine kill command remotely.”

  “Copy that,” said Riley. “We’ll keep the ship together until it comes through.”

  “They’re going too far off-course,” Frank said woefully. He stood behind his desk, shaking his head.

  “Lieutenant,” said Kate. “Don’t skimp on those retrorockets. Do everything you can to stay on course.”

  “Copy that, Canaveral,” Ming replied. “We’re already deviating. Firing retrorockets now.”

  “Juan,” Kate said, “what happens if we do the full burn now, instead of later when it was scheduled?”

  He wiped sweat from his brow. “We, uh, we’d have to run the calcs, but I would guess they’d arrive at least a month early.”

  “That’s not so bad,” said Walt.

  “Titan won’t be there when they show up,” said Juan. “But that’s not even the biggest issue,” said Juan. “We do the big burn at the end because it’s easier to maintain course when the ship is that much closer to its destination. The deviations closer to Titan don’t make as much of an impact on the ship’s trajectory. At this distance, every micrometer of deviation is amplified exponentially if it isn’t corrected immediately. They’ll burn more fuel staying on a new course, and they run the risk of overshooting Titan by millions of kilometers if we screw up the calculations.”

  “We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Kate said sternly. “Understood?”

  Juan nodded shakily. Then he squinted at his monitor. “Kill signal to Explorer engine should have arrived by now.”

  “Uh, Canaveral,” Riley said over the line. “We are still burning hot. Repeat, the engine is still hot.”

  “They’ll eat up their reserves,” Frank said solemnly.

  Kate looked up at the display wall. In the fuel monitoring section, the gauge visibly dropped as the TAP System continued its burn.

  “The walls are shaking!” said Jeff. He looked up. The central pillar of the centrifuge vibrated like a struck tuning fork. The floor under his feet rattled loudly. “Kate, it’s not a microburn!” he shouted over the noise.

  He looked back down at the monitor. It was blank. Jeff mashed the feed button, cycling through the channels. All of them were out.

  “Major burn!” Gabriel shouted from above. He pulled himself along the ladder attached to the pillar, heading for the command module.

  “It’s too early!” said Jeff.

  Riley’s voice came over the intercom system, calm but urgent. “Get up here, you two. We have a situation.”

  That’s putting it mildly, Jeff thought.

  He went to the low dividing wall that separated the vehicle monitoring stations from the kitchen. All of the dividing walls in the centrifuge had several footholds cut into the molding. Jeff used them to climb up and stand atop the vibrating wall. His vision rattled, but at reduced gravity, he managed not to fall off.

  He was still a good meter from the ladder on the pillar above his head, even when he stretched to reach for it. He had never been able to jump very high, and was almost always picked last whenever he played basketball. Yet the closer he got to the microgravity core in the middle of the centrifuge, the more adept he became.

  One strong leap from a crouched position was enough to pass from reduced gravity into zero-g. Jeff caught hold of the ladder and swung his legs up behind him until he was facing the front of the ship. Then he pushed forward and glided quickly toward the command module, only tapping the ladder rungs to correct his course and keep himself aligned with the approaching hatch.

  The other three crew members were already in their seats when Jeff popped up between them. Gabriel looked at him uncertainly, then closed his eyes as his seat rattled. Jeff maneuvered into his own chair and strapped in.

  “Are we going to blow up?” he asked.

  “You tell me,” Riley said, gritting his teeth. The monitor on his console showed the bright blue engine wash trailing behind Explorer I. “Seal the hatch, Lieutenant.”

  “Copy, sir,” said Ming. Her teeth rattled. She tapped several keys on her command console and the hatch between the modules sealed pneumatically, cutting out much of the noise from the shaking ship. “Hatch sealed.”

  Jeff studied his own console, hunting for an explanation. “All systems in the green!” he said. “You can’t shut it down?”

  “We tried,” said Ming. “The controls are unresponsive. The microburn should have ended two minutes ago.”

  “But even the major burns aren’t supposed to last that long.” Jeff’s stomach dropped when he realized the implications of a longer burn: less fuel for the return trip.

  “We just passed the cutoff barrier for the laser-capable arrays on Earth,” Ming reported. “All comms are no longer instant.”

  “Dolan,” said Riley, “can we cut off the fuel supply to the engine?”

  “Not if the pumps are still running” Jeff answered. “The fuel would back up and eventually burst the lines.”

  “So what happens if you shut off the pumps?”

  Jeff stared blankly out the window as his mind raced to wrap itself around the problem.

  “Dolan!” Riley prompted.

  “I would…well I would have to work my way from the front of the ship to the back, stopping the pumps one at a time,” he said, speaking quickly. “It would be like squeezing the last bit of toothpaste out of a tube, but it wouldn’t be instantaneous.”

  “Do it,” Riley said. “Take Silva with you.”

  Jeff unbuckled his harness and floated up. “Guess you’re with me,” he said as he waited next to Gabriel’s chair.

  “Better than just sitting here.”

  “Hatch opening,” Ming said.

  A moment later, the hatch hissed open. Jeff lowered himself through, and soon he was back in the centrifuge, holding on to the ladder while he searched the curved floor on all sides of the module for the correct access panel.

  Gabriel appeared at his side and the hatch closed, sealing both of them into the crew module.

  “You think this will work?” asked Gabe.

  “It’s our only option short of damaging the engine to turn it off. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get home eventually.”

  “Right now sounds good to me.”

  “Yeah,” said Jeff. “Me, too.” He backtracked to the forward wall of the centrifuge and climbed down to the floor. “Come on, let’s get started.”

  Four one-meter-wide square panels were in the floor of each ring section of the centrifuge except the crew quarters. While the fuel lines themselves were inaccessible from inside the vessel, the pumps had been built “maintenance-friendly” – which was a nice way of saying an astronaut didn’t have to spend two hours getting into a spacesuit to go EVA just to flip a switch.

  Jeff grabbed a small electric drill from a tool box stuck to the dividing wall next to the kitchen and knelt near one of the floor panels. He unscrewed four large fasteners and handed them to Gabriel, who crouched next to him, eager to help.

  “Thanks,” said Jeff. “Help me lift this.”

  Gabriel dropped the fasteners into the pocket of his black exercise pants and grabbed the left side of the floor panel. With a grunt, the two men lifted the heavy piece of paneling and set it asid
e. The compartment beneath the floor was packed with insulated cable, electrical meters, and a piece of machinery in the center that looked like a flattened, oversized, four-stroke scooter engine.

  “This is the control valve,” Jeff said, pointing to a small red toggle on the side of the pump. “Right now it’s open. If I do this, and then this,” he added, mimicking a clockwise turn and pretending to push the toggle into the pump until it was flush with the side, “the pump will force whatever fuel is inside farther down the line but won’t draw any more from the tank.”

  “Won’t that cause a pressure backup?”

  “Temporarily. But the sensor in the tank will register the build-up and stop the outbound flow to the first pump. Once we start the process, we have to move quickly, because the next three pumps will still be trying to draw from the ones we shut down. Bad things happen when they run dry for too long. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “There’s another drill at the next panel. You get started on that while I shut this down. We can replace the panels after we’re finished with all of them.”

  “Okay.”

  Gabriel stood and jogged to the next section, moving more slowly than usual because of the reduced gravity. The centrifuge was still spinning, which it wasn’t supposed to do during a full burn. Jeff was somewhat grateful as the extra gravity allowed him to work more quickly, yet the fact that the centrifuge still spun was symptomatic of a much larger problem: the ship’s systems weren’t talking to each other.

  He reached into the floor compartment, then turned the toggle on the fuel pump and pushed it in flush. The pump groaned in protest and seized up violently.

  “Um…” said Jeff.

  “Everything okay?” asked Gabriel from the panel in the vehicle monitoring section of the crew module.

  The fuel pump wheezed, then sputtered and fell silent again. Jeff held his hand close to the seals but couldn’t detect any leaks.

  “Yeah!” he said loudly. “I think we’re good.”

  He hurried to the next section as Gabriel pocketed another set of fasteners. They lifted the floor panel and set it aside, revealing an identical compartment to the one in the kitchen section.

  “I’ll go to the next one,” said Jeff. “You know what to do?”

  Gabriel was already reaching into the compartment for the toggle.

  “It might buck a little,” Jeff added as he hurried toward the science lab.

  He knelt beside the next panel and worked quickly, his confidence growing with each passing second.

  It’s going to work, he thought. We’re going to be fine.

  There was a loud clank from behind him. The second fuel pump was off. Jeff dropped the four fasteners into his pocket and lifted one side of the floor panel on his own without waiting for Gabriel.

  He reached into the compartment and felt cold air rushing past his hand. The fuel pump whistled like a boiling teakettle.

  “Hey,” said Gabriel, “you didn’t wait for–”

  “Get back!” Jeff screamed.

  Metal groaned and the fuel pump shook in place. Jeff grabbed and twisted the toggle, then pushed it in. As soon as it clicked into place, the pump exploded. Shrapnel burst upward, piercing his face and chest. The force blew him backward into an anchored table. His head cracked against a sharp corner and he slammed down to the floor, unconscious.

  A terrible silence hung in the air of Mission Control. Kate stared up at the display wall, urging something positive to happen. She hated not having instant communication with the ship. She hated guesswork. For all she knew, Explorer I could have blown into a billion pieces, and she wouldn’t find out about it for another ten minutes.

  Frank breathed out heavily as he walked over to her workstation.

  “We’ve done all we can for now,” he said. “We just have to wait.” He turned to address the room. “Someone want to tell me why the hell our automated shutoff system didn’t work?”

  “It did,” Juan said from his desk. “Well, the signal worked. I’m not reading any errors in communication between the ship and our relay on the ground.”

  “You’re saying Explorer’s computer received the kill command?”

  “Yes, sir. It looks that way.”

  “So why wasn’t the damn thing activated?” Frank demanded. “Kate, any thoughts?”

  She took a deep breath, attempting to regain some semblance of composure.

  “If Jeff and Gabriel manage to shut off the fuel pumps soon,” she said, “they’ll barely have enough juice to get home. It will take longer than we planned because they wouldn’t be able to squeeze out as many burns.”

  “Would they have enough food supplies?”

  “We’d have to ration their meals.”

  Walt cleared his throat. “They’re getting the minimum amount of protein as it is, like I mentioned earlier.”

  “They’ll have to get by with even less if they want to make it back home,” said Frank.

  Kate anxiously rapped her knuckles on her desk. She felt helpless. I can’t do anything from down here, she thought.

  “Can I talk to you for a moment?” Frank asked.

  She looked at him, confused. “What, you mean now?”

  “Yes, now,” he said gently. He gestured to one side of the room, out of earshot of the other employees.

  Kate went reluctantly, not keen on leaving the monitor readouts at her workstation. Frank followed close behind.

  “Listen,” he said. He leaned casually against the wall with his hands in his pockets. “It’s going to be harder than it has been from this point on.”

  “Stop,” she said, holding up a warning hand. “Stop right there. Just because Jeff and I are in a relationship, that doesn’t mean I’m going to have some kind of emotional breakdown if I can’t hear from him right away.”

  “It’s not a short delay,” he continued. “Any number of things could happen during the time it takes for a signal to travel between the ship and Earth.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel worse?”

  He shifted uncomfortably and looked around for help, but found none.

  “I’m just saying that it’s no use worrying until we’re sure. I saw you over there. You nearly chewed your bottom lip right through.”

  “I did not,” she protested. Kate tongued the inside of her bottom lip surreptitiously. It hurt, and she thought she tasted blood.

  “We trained our people well,” said Frank. “If anything happens up there, they can handle it. Okay?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

  “I got a red light on fuel pump number three!” Juan shouted from his workstation.

  Kate ran over to him, Frank right on her heels. Juan’s monitor screen showed a digital schematic of the crew module. He tapped the blinking red symbol of a fuel pump.

  “We’re not getting any readings,” he said. “It’s completely offline.”

  Static burst over the comm line. Kate pressed her headset harder against her ear and adjusted her microphone.

  “Explorer One, do you copy?” she said urgently, knowing her message would be delayed. “Commander Riley, are you there?”

  Another burst of static.

  “Canaveral, this is Explorer One,” said Riley, his voice exhausted. “Fuel pump three is gone. There was an explosion in the crew module. Dolan was…he was standing right on top of it. He’s been badly injured, over.”

  Laughter echoes under cotton sheets, limbs intertwined. Golden sunlight spills in from a dusty window, flowing over the two bodies like water.

  They slept in on a warm Saturday morning. Beach later, then a picnic at the park, then–

  Jeff’s eyes popped open and he gasped.

  He was lying in a small chamber, a plastic lung with light coming from beneath him and a cold robotic arm next to each of his. It took him a moment to realize he was inside the doctor pod. The air in the confined space was thick and humid. His lungs felt damp and heavy, as if he were breathing beneath a
thick blanket. Yet all he wore was a pair of bloodied blue workpants and a blood-streaked white t-shirt that had been precisely cut down the middle from neck to waist.

  He tried sitting up and an invisible knife stabbed his chest. Wincing, he pushed against the lid of the doctor pod.

  Locked.

  “Get me out of this thing!” he croaked. His throat felt as if it were lined with sandpaper.

  Ming appeared a moment later, leaning over the pod to look in at him as if he were an experiment.

  “Just a second,” she said, her voice muffled.

  She tapped a few buttons on the pod’s control panel and the lid hinged open automatically. Jeff sat up, ignoring the stabbing pains in his chest, and took a deep lungful of the ship’s cold, metallic air.

  He gingerly probed his chest through the cut shirt and felt a thick bandage over his sternum. It crinkled with dried blood.

  Ming tucked her short hair behind her ears and raised an eyebrow. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Like I just got out of a blender.”

  She nodded. “Sounds about right. You took most of the blast over your sternum and the right side of your ribcage. Those bits of shrapnel were easier to remove. Took the doctor pod half a day to pull the smaller pieces out of your neck and face. I’m sorry to say you will have massive scarring on your chest.”

  Jeff touched his burning cheek, and felt another bandage there.

  “But otherwise, you seem okay,” said Ming. “Unless you’re not.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I think.”

  He stood cautiously, testing his weight on one foot, then the other.

  “Floor’s cold.”

  “Your shoes are over there,” she said, pointing to a nearby table, “along with a fresh set of clothes.”

  Jeff walked slowly to the table, keeping one hand on the doctor pod for support until he was forced to let go and take the last few steps on his own. The reduced gravity made it easier.

  At least the centrifuge is still spinning, he thought.

  He sat in a bolted-down metal chair with a pained groan and began the laborious process of slipping on his shoes.