by Bonnie Doran
Think? Hildi gulped.
Jasper spoke to the crew. “They’re not telling us everything.”
“Great. Just great.” Frank echoed Hildi’s frustration and fear. Astronauts were supposed to be fearless. If the public only knew…
CAPCOM continued. “Flight says you have two options. You can return to ISS, or you can start reentry procedure and hope we’re right about the parachute light.”
“Hope? Is that the best you can do?” Frank strangled the joystick.
“Valiant, we believe the drogue will open. Splashdown site remains at the new coordinates.”
Jasper took a vote. “How many want to reenter the atmosphere and possibly become a five-inch pancake? I vote GO.”
Frank paused then raised his hand, thumb up. “GO.”
Dan mimicked the gesture. “GO.”
“Hildi?”
She hesitated. Returning to the station held some appeal. But one glance at Dan stiffened her resolve. “Dan needs hospitalization, and I need to get my findings to the CDC. I say GO.”
“Houston, this is Valiant. Request permission to begin landing procedure.”
“Roger, Valiant. You are GO for landing. Godspeed.”
Speed wouldn’t be the problem.
****
Dan watched the gauges through bleary eyes. He was too sick to care about hiding his symptoms. Couldn’t fool Hildi, anyway. His protests that he felt fine bounced off a woman with a selective hearing problem. She held a stethoscope to his chest and slapped his hand when he tried to remove it. “Your pneumonia’s worsening. I’m ordering immediate admittance to ICU once we splash down. The aircraft carrier has a well-equipped hospital on board.”
He stuck out his tongue at her. She pointed at it. “Yes, and I should make a note that you have a case of chronic tongue spasms. Looks serious.”
Dan grimaced. He tried strapping down but couldn’t cinch the straps tight. He had no strength left, and that was before reentry. Then he felt a strong tug.
“Don’t want you to fall out.” Frank gripped his shoulder before floating back to his seat and pulling his own harness taut.
“Thanks.” Dan smiled at his renewed friendship with Frank.
He still needed to fix things with Hildi. This time he’d do it right. Assuming they survived. If they didn’t, they’d still be together, although he’d rather confess his true feelings before then. Like now. He squeezed Hildi’s hand. She squeezed back.
“I love you.” Finally, he’d said it. Long overdue.
“I want that in writing.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I love you, too.”
I’ve been a fool to wait so long. Her smile warmed him. So did the worsening fever.
Jasper craned his neck and grinned. “I hate to interrupt such a tender moment, but we have a spacecraft to land.” He turned to Frank. “Fire engines on my mark.”
Reentry procedure whipped all musings from Dan’s mind. Frank fired the retro rockets. The capsule slowed then tipped into an end-first position, the view of Earth shifting to the black of space. Gravity gripped them as they flew backward toward Earth. Jasper grasped his own throttle, ready to help Frank fight the bucking from the thickening atmosphere.
“Houston, this is Valiant. Entering ionization blackout.”
CAPCOM’s voice crackled. “Roger, Jasper. Will pick up your signal in two minutes.”
“Elevator to Earth, going down.”
Dan rolled his eyes at Jasper’s jaunty tone. Same old Jasper.
Gravity sat on Dan’s constricted lungs. The spacecraft pitched, rolled, yawed, and seemed determined to do everything but line up its rear end to the required orientation. Once they emerged from blackout, they’d try to deploy the drogue. If it worked as designed, they’d splash down safely. If it failed, the spacecraft would hurtle toward death.
In two minutes, they’d know.
****
Frank’s muscles hardened in concentration as he fought to control Valiant’s descent. Superheated gases glowed red through the window, thrust away by the capsule’s blunt end. He called out speed and altitude, but it seemed unnecessary. They were plunging toward Earth for splashdown or destruction. They’d return as heroes, dead or alive. Frank shook his head. At least three of them would be heroes. The jury was still out on his own status. He clung to the hope that God would intervene.
Jasper glanced his way. “Hold her steady.”
Two minutes passed. The red glow dimmed. Still no radio contact. Frank tensed as Jasper keyed his mic. “Houston, this is Valiant, do you read? Houston, this is Valiant, do you read?”
“Valiant, this is Houston.” Pete’s whoop shattered Frank’s eardrums. The clapping in Mission Control drowned out the crew’s cheers.
The mood shifted as tension crowded the capsule. The astronauts held their collective breath.
Jasper’s confident-commander voice slipped a little. “Deploy drogue on my mark.” The change from his usual tone jolted Frank’s insides as much as the pull of the parachutes would. Or should. Frank lifted the cover for the parachute toggle and poised one finger over it.
“Three…two…one…mark.”
Frank flipped the toggle. “Drogue deployed.” This is it. He whispered a prayer. “Please let the parachutes open.” Amens echoed from the astronauts and Houston.
Frank’s muscles clamped his bones. Now they’d find out if those parachutes were worth the millions NASA spent on them. Then he chuckled. Mission Control couldn’t do anything and neither could they. Their survival depended on a billow of cloth and the breath of God.
A tug pushed Frank deeper into his seat as the drogue caught the air, followed by a violent jerk as the main parachutes opened. A porch-swing sway welcomed Valiant back to Earth. Relief flooded him.
Jasper merely shrugged. “Hardly even exciting.” He cued the mic. “Houston, this is Valiant. Drogue and main parachutes open. Coming down on a wing and a prayer.” He sang a few bars of a song Frank didn’t recognize but he hummed anyway.
“Copy that, Valiant. You’re headed for a perfect splashdown, so just sit back and enjoy the ride. We’ll take it from here.”
The capsule splashed into the Pacific and bobbed to the surface.
Valiant was home.
****
Hildi unbuckled her harness before Valiant’s second bob in the water. Dan had turned gray. As grins split the astronauts’ faces, she felt his forehead and checked his breathing, now labored. The pressure of normal gravity made every movement an effort for her, but Dan’s struggle wrenched her gut into Gordian knots.
Jasper keyed the mic. “Valiant, this is Houston. When can we expect those choppers? We have a sick man here.” Jasper caught Hildi’s eye and quirked a question.
“He needs ICU stat.” She adjusted the oxygen mask over Dan’s face mask and unstrapped his restraints. His body sagged.
“Valiant, this is Chopper One from George W. Bush.” A female voice wavered with vibration. “ETA five minutes. Welcome home.”
“Acknowledged, Chopper One. Glad to be home and in one piece.” Jasper turned to his crewmates. “We’ll take Dan off first. Help him.” His eyes reflected his compassionate soul before he turned back to the instruments and initiated shutdown procedure.
Frank and Hildi moved in slow motion, grunting as they fought to maintain their balance in the pitching capsule. Each of them donned orange life vests retrieved from a compartment. Hildi wrestled Dan into a vest and cinched it tight.
Jasper turned off the ventilation system. “Somebody want to roll down a window?”
“Valiant, this is Chopper One. Divers are in the water. Stand by.”
“Acknowledged.”
Hildi and Frank lifted Dan out of his chair then maneuvered him toward the hatch. His legs didn’t support him. Jasper keyed the mic. “Request Colonel Stockton be airlifted to carrier, emergency priority.”
“Acknowledged.”
The spacecraft rocked as divers secured buoyancy devices around the spacecraf
t. Valiant seemed to sit higher in the water, rocking in the slight Pacific swells.
Someone banged on the capsule.
“Come in,” Jasper quipped.
Divers removed the hatch. Hildi squinted at the bright sun.
Frank shifted so he supported Dan around the waist, with Dan’s arm around his shoulder. Frank grunted. “You’ve put on some weight, haven’t you?”
“The borscht.” Dan’s humor tha-thumped Hildi’s heart, but his hoarse whisper made her want to breathe for him. He’ll make it. He has to. I love him.
A diver peered into the capsule, pulled the scuba regulator out of his mouth, and grinned. “Ready?”
Frank nodded. “We were born ready.”
“This is Valiant, signing off.” Jasper’s last words for the mission weighed on Hildi’s heart more than the gravity. She’d never see this little spacecraft again. She turned her back on the instrument panel as she helped Frank push Dan out, her legs shaking from muscle atrophy. Strong divers in neoprene wetsuits lifted him out.
Frank exited. Hildi grabbed the case containing the vaccine and followed after one last gaze around. She emerged from the hatch, blinked in the sun, and patted Valiant’s metal skin. “Thank you.”
The fresh tang of the sea replaced the stale odor that whooshed from the spacecraft’s interior, something she hadn’t noticed until now. If she looked as bad as it smelled…
Divers dragged Frank over the lip of the waiting orange lifeboat. Dan lay at the bow, additional divers bending over him. Hildi allowed the Navy men to grab her under her armpits and lift her into the boat. Jasper emerged last.
She stared at the capsule, remembering the last heroic act of Commander Larry.
Frank read her thoughts and whispered, “Larry should have been here.”
Her eyes misted.
The nuclear super aircraft carrier was a blur on the horizon. One gray helicopter circled them at a respectful distance as another thumped overhead.
“Get that litter down here stat,” Hildi bellowed.
Orange-suited men leaned over the chopper’s side and pushed out a Stokes litter. The two rescuers in the lifeboat signaled them to lower the wire stretcher, but it took forever before they could grab and guide it. The men strapped Dan into the litter. Hildi shivered as she saw the man in her life lying inert, wrapped like a mummy. She kissed his forehead. He smiled but didn’t open his eyes.
One of the divers turned to Hildi. “Give me the vaccine.”
She hugged the case to her heart then realized how ridiculous her response was. She handed it over. He secured the case to the litter then gave a thumbs-up signal. “Take him up.”
The winch drew the cable taut and lifted its burden into Chopper One. Hildi recognized IV bags and other equipment in the helicopter’s dark interior before Dan disappeared into its gaping maw.
“I’m going with him,” Hildi shouted in her Level 4 voice above the chopper’s roar.
The nearest diver winced and held his ear. He grasped her shoulder. “They’ll take him immediately to the carrier’s ICU unit. Military jets will deliver the vaccine to the CDC.”
Hildi fumed. Dan would receive great care on the carrier. But now that he’d confessed his love, she didn’t want him out of her sight.
The first helicopter closed its door and hovered for a moment. The pilot saluted then turned the craft toward the approaching carrier and thumped away. Her prayers for Dan followed on swift wings.
The remaining copter moved into position and lowered an orange collar. Gray, orange, gray, orange—Hildi shook her head. Francine would itch to change the Navy’s color scheme.
The divers hooked her into the collar that fit under her armpits then signaled. She lifted from the raft. The sensation of swinging on the line reminded her of the gentle floating on the capsule’s parachutes. God had rescued them, and Dan couldn’t be in better hands. Her tension drained.
****
Frank shielded his eyes as a chopper lifted from the aircraft carrier, carrying Dan to a waiting hospital on Oahu.
The doctors had pumped Dan full of antibiotics and put him on monitors the moment they had their hands on him. ICU at the top naval hospital in Hawaii would take over now.
Frank’s ears pounded. The copter’s thumping faded as he lost sight of it. He squeezed Hildi’s shoulder before he turned to the crew crowding around them. After the usual greeting by the ship’s captain as he welcomed them aboard, Frank collapsed into a wheelchair. Exhaustion from unrelenting stress overpowered him. Dan’s flu-weakened body would struggle for every breath, hospital or no hospital. Gravity must be sitting on his lungs like a heavyweight wrestler.
The ship’s medical staff checked their vital signs before assigning Frank, Jasper, and Hildi to bunks for a few hours of shuteye. He exchanged handclasps with the doctors before he fell into bed.
51
“I” Plus Thirty-six Days
Frank skidded to a halt inside the entrance to the Houston hospital. Reporters jammed the waiting area. Fortunately, he knew another way to Dan’s room, and no one saw him. At Dan’s open door, a military policeman nodded permission for Frank to enter. Unless Frank missed his guess, his friends were having one of those mushy conversations. Hildi leaned over Dan with her lips puckered.
“Ahem.”
The lovebirds startled, blushing. Frank gave Hildi a friendly hug and grasped Dan’s shoulder then plopped into a nearby chair.
“Hi. So, how was your week?” Dan’s steady voice contrasted with his raspy one after splashdown. The doctors in Oahu had held him for five long days in ICU before they deemed him recovered enough to earn a regular room and be transferred here.
Frank grimaced. “Paperwork. And more paperwork. NASA must have deforested a mountain.”
Dan pointed to the IV stretched between his hand and a monitor. “At least you’re not chained to a bed.” A healthy tone had replaced the grayness on his face, though some of that could be due to his lingering blush.
Hildi squeezed Dan’s hand. “The doctors weaned him off oxygen this morning, and his white-cell count is returning to normal, but he’ll still have to stay a couple more days.”
“Two more days?” Frank whistled. “I’d prefer the paperwork.”
“Yeah. I’m about to go stir-crazy.”
Frank’s eyebrows quirked. “Packed into a spacecraft the size of a washing machine, and you’re complaining about a spacious—pardon the pun—and beautifully appointed room?” He swept out his arms to take in the white walls, plastered with get-well cards from across the nation.
Jasper barged in, wearing his NASA togs and badge. The MP closed the door, a look of amusement on his face. Jasper gave hugs to all then jerked his thumb at the door. “Hey, what’s with the media in the lobby?”
“The usual. Waiting for the next big story while driving us all nuts.” Hildi shrugged.
The telephone rang. Dan rolled his eyes. “Probably my grandmother again. She checks on me every hour, on the hour.” He picked up the handset. “Hi, Grandma.”
Dan stiffened. He stage-whispered, “I’m holding for the President.” He pressed the speaker button.
“This is Reginald Benchley.” The President’s tenor voice held a smile.
“Mr. President, sir. This is Colonel Dan Stockton.” If Dan made his greeting any more formal, he would have bowed. Frank barely kept himself from standing at attention.
“At ease, Colonel.”
“Hildi, Frank, and Jasper are here. I’ve put the phone on speaker.”
“Excellent. I’m glad you’re all there. Just wanted to call and convey the hope of the nation for your speedy recovery. You’ve been in the country’s thoughts and prayers, and we’re all glad you landed safely.” He lowered his voice. “You had me worried.”
“You weren’t the only one,” Jasper quipped. He ducked his head. “Mr. President.”
Their commander-in-chief chuckled. “I’m planning a little presentation on the White House lawn on the sevent
eenth. Think you can make it?”
“Yes, sir.” Four voices spoke in unison.
“Good. My chief of staff will be in touch. Thanks again.”
Dan hung up, daze clouding his eyes.
Barry Stokes, NASA’s public affairs officer, walked in. He nodded at the astronauts. Then he started moving chairs against a far wall and reached for Jasper’s.
“Hey. I was using that.” Jasper surrendered his chair after a brief tug of war.
“Sorry. We need the extra space.” Barry continued to rearrange the furniture. Frank had a bad feeling about this.
A few moments later, men and women crowded the room, brandishing video cameras and microphones. American and NASA flags magically appeared as a patriotic backdrop. Barry fussed the astronauts into position like mannequins in a department-store window. Plastering on an engaging smile, standard attire for photo ops, Frank fought to keep his eyes open with every camera flash. The reporters grinned through every moment of the clamor, but Dan tucked himself further into the sheets until Barry scowled. Here we go again. As Frank expected, the media aimed their volleys at him first.
“Frank, what really happened up there?”
“Colonel Schotenheimer, do you think NASA will clear you?”
Frank stuck to protocol. “I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to say. No comment.”
“Hey, hotshot, getting the moon shot?” The silky voice cut through the chatter. His brain hiccupped. Nancy. He stared past the first ring of journalists to an attractive brunette with diamond stud earrings. His last would-be affair. The star reporter of the Houston Herald had shown too much class to succumb to his charms. Surprise widened his smile.
“Well, Nancy, I’d sure like to. Got a lot of competition, though.” He gestured at Jasper and Dan. “But they’ll have to catch me first.”
The members of the press laughed. Nancy gave him a Girl Scout’s salute and a warm smile. The media trained their rifles on other prey.
“Dan, will the doctors release you soon?”
