Elizabeth looked surprised. “Does she mean us?”
John smiled. “I’d almost forgotten the shuttle had a name. It used to be painted on the side, I guess it wore off.”
“Confirm go for launch,” David sent.
“Go for launch, confirmed,” Heidi replied.
David looked at John, then Elizabeth. “Ready?”
John nodded, looking at his daughter. She was pale, but nodded in return. “I’m ready.”
“Control, departing this time,” David sent, his voice flat and professional.
“Roger, Discoverer, understand departing,” Heidi replied. “Good hunting, Commander.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Good hunting? Commander? What does she mean?”
David grinned. His life had been nothing but pain lately, but Heidi’s words had thrown him back through time to another place, another mission. He let himself slip into his old persona with the ease of welcoming an old friend.
“She means to put me in the right frame of mind,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it when we get back.”
And with that, David Miller, navy pilot once more, lined the shuttle up with the end of the deck and thrust the throttles forward to the stops.
They were on their way.
David frowned. The shuttle didn’t seem interested in accelerating, despite the screaming of the turbines. He’d always known the weight of the fuel would impact the shuttle’s performance, but not by this much. By the time they were halfway down the runway they had piled on some speed, but the vibration of the wheels differed from during their training flights. The shuttle felt heavy. Despite having picked up a respectable head of steam, it showed no sign of wanting to lift off.
They had no autopilot to help them this time. David flew by the seat of his pants and despite the risks, or perhaps because of them, felt more alive than he had for longer than he cared to remember.
They reached the end of the runway.
The shuttle fell off.
Elizabeth screamed as her stomach tried to climb through her throat. John didn’t so much as squeak, but his knuckles whitened as he gripped the sides of his seat as if his life depended on it.
Even David raised an eyebrow at just how far and how fast they fell. The two-hundred-meter drop to the ocean didn’t seem far at all. He changed the pitch of the jets to fifty degrees as planned, to direct thrust downwards, willing the shuttle to maintain altitude.
Not much seemed to change for a heartbeat, then the engines arrested the shuttle’s plummet. It wallowed, though, like it might stall at any moment.
If David felt at all concerned, his voice didn’t show it. “Stand by for initial burn.”
“Standing by,” John replied. His hand already hovered over the control panel.
David tilted the nose of the shuttle up.
“Initiate.”
John pushed the ignition button and the main engines kicked in. They felt a reassuring nudge at their backs as the shuttle responded.
They had survived their first big challenge.
David trimmed their attitude and cut the jets, keeping their nose pointing up at the optimum angle. John watched the clock like a hawk and cut off the engines at the thirty-second mark. “Right on the money,” he said, breathing with relief.
Elizabeth showed that once she focused on the task at hand, she could be every bit as calm as David. Just as David flew by the seat of his pants, she navigated by hers. She had her navigation console, plus an array of data pads she’d had Heidi fix to the walls and ceiling around her. She had to track the Inspiration in real time and guide David to meet with it just as its orbit took it to where the shuttle aimed to be. They had a tight window of opportunity; if they missed, there wouldn’t be time or fuel for another attempt.
“Trajectory is nominal,” she said.
David pushed the throttles to the stops once more, pushing all of their thrust behind them just as the shuttle crested the curve of their trajectory from the main engine burn.
“That’s more like it,” he said with satisfaction. “Now we’re flying.”
With the loss of one sixth of their propellant weight, the shuttle now not only flew, but also clawed its way upward.
“Now we wait,” John said.
“Now you wait,” Elizabeth said. “We have work to do!”
They continued to climb on the electric fanjets, making use of their batteries while they still had atmosphere to work with. They had time in this slow phase of their flight to make final adjustments to their speed, fine-tuning their approach so their main burn happened in just the right place to rendezvous with the Inspiration.
“Right,” said John. “So you do.”
The next half hour crawled by after the drama of their launch. Elizabeth stayed glued to her screens, now and then calling for David to make one adjustment or another to their flight path. John watched his daughter with interest, and more than a little parental pride as she worked under pressure for the first time. He couldn’t help noticing just how well David and Elizabeth worked together.
Finally, the time came for their SRB burn – they had almost exhausted their batteries and the air outside had become very thin.
“Ready, John?” David asked.
“Ready. Just be careful, it’ll be hard to control with so much thrust. You must use the reaction thrusters straight away, the flight control surfaces won’t do much for more than a few seconds at the rate we’ll be going up.”
“Understood. Arm SRBs.”
John reached forward and flicked the ARM button, which glowed red.
“SRBs armed.”
“Flight controls locked. Switching to reaction thrusters.”
The shuttle controls switched to space flight configuration, using chemical reaction thrusters to steer rather than the control surfaces on the wings and tail.
“It’s been sixteen years,” David said, testing the thrusters and trimming their flight. “I wasn’t sure the old girl would ever see space again.”
John flipped up the ignition switch safety cover. “Ready to take her there, mate.”
David nodded. “Stand by to initiate SRB burn.”
“Standing by.”
He flashed a reassuring smile to Elizabeth and settled back in his seat, readying himself for the acceleration. “Pitching up.”
He fired the control thrusters and the nose of the shuttle pitched up at an acute angle.
“Initiate!”
John stabbed his finger down on the big red button.
A mighty roar echoed through the hull as the SRBs ignited. The shuttle rocketed upward, trailing gray smoke from the two solid rocket boosters strapped to its sides. David fought to keep concentration against the intense g-forces pinning him back into his seat as he made adjustments to their trajectory. For the first time he wished for an autopilot – the SRBs were rough and the shuttle wandered off course if he let the controls alone for even a second.
Elizabeth was fighting for breath. The acceleration felt strong to David, a native of Earth – it would feel even stronger for her, having never experienced anything more than the gentler four-fifths pull of Serendipity’s gravity.
“Pitch up three degrees!” Elizabeth shouted, the words ripped from her mouth as the force of the acceleration pushed her breath out.
Her main navigation screen showed two tracing lines. One was fast and flat – the Inspiration in orbit. The other rose sharply and accelerated, their shuttle converging on its target.
“Pitching up three,” David said, his voice calm and even.
The intense noise and vibration thrummed deep in their bones. Two-and-a-half minutes dragged by like two-and-a-half hours. Just when it seemed the shaking would never stop, they heard a hiss as one SRB cut out, and another a moment later as the second used the last of its fuel. David’s hands darted over the controls to compensate for this last unexpected event – he’d anticipated both would stop firing at the same time.
They drifted, weightless.
David looked back at John. “Well done.”
“Well done, all of us,” he replied. “How are we looking, Lizzie?”
She didn’t reply for a moment, working at her calculations. “Very well.” She sounded a little surprised. “We’re ahead of schedule. We need to initiate the second main engine burn in thirty-five seconds from my mark … mark.”
John entered this in the countdown clock. “Confirmed.”
They had a few seconds to relax. “Everyone OK?” David asked.
Elizabeth gave a sickly smile. “Sure.”
“We’re almost there,” David said.
“Fifteen seconds,” John said.
“Stand by for main engine burn,” David said. “Initiate on the clock.”
“Roger,” John replied, then counted down. “Five, four, three, two, one … burn!”
Once more, they felt pressure at their backs as the main engines kicked in. Gentler this time, not even one gravity.
“Control, Discoverer,” David sent.
After a brief delay, a reply from Heidi: “Copy Discoverer, what is your situation, over?”
“SRB burn is complete, main engine burn in progress. We’re in good shape, over.”
They heard cheers in the background as Heidi replied, “Roger, Discoverer. Well done.”
David settled back to enjoy the ride.
“I’ve got the Inspiration on radar,” Elizabeth announced, eyes glued to her tracking display. “Pitch down two, throttle to eighty-five percent.”
“Pitching down two, throttle to eighty-five percent,” David said, as he made to action her instructions.
“She’s passing overhead, range two-one-six kilometers. ETA three minutes.”
“There she is!” John said, craning his neck to look up through the cockpit window. “I can see her!”
David looked as well. Elizabeth kept her eyes focused on her work.
“There she is,” he agreed.
They gained steadily on the Inspiration now, approaching from below and behind. David couldn’t help but remember his own final approach to the Hope, all those years ago. As they drew closer, the bright star they chased resolved into a starship; a ship that looked so much like the Hope he couldn’t tell the difference.
“Coming up to main engine cutoff,” John said.
“Roger,” David replied. “Elizabeth?”
“Our trajectory is nominal,” she replied. “Closing speed is sixty-two meters per second, we’ll make closure in three minutes twenty-nine seconds.”
“Just as well, because we’re out of fuel,” John said, as quiet fell, gravity fading with the noise of the engine.
“All of it?” David asked, unconcerned at his sudden loss of weight.
“Maybe enough for a few more seconds if you’re lucky.”
“That will make re-entry interesting.”
John chuckled. “Nothing about this mission is easy.”
David looked at Elizabeth. She sat back in her seat, a dazed expression on her face.
“Hey,” he said. She looked up. “Outstanding work, madam navigator.”
John gripped her shoulder. “Nice work, sweetie. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
The smile of relief on her face said it all. “Thanks. I’m glad we made it.” Her eyes widened as the stylus she’d been using for her data pads floated in front of her. “Oh!” she raised an arm and stared, fascinated, as it stayed where she left it.
David and John grinned.
“I forgot about that. Your first time!” John said.
Elizabeth nodded, but stopped, looking a little green. David reached under his seat and retrieved a sick bag, opening it and passing it across.
“Here,” he said, sympathetic eyes meeting hers.
Elizabeth made frantic gulping sounds and snatched the bag to empty her breakfast into it. David exchanged a glance with John. Later he’d tell her most people did that at least once. Right now, they had business to take care of.
David turned his attention once more to their approach, while John helped Elizabeth. He used radar and visuals as he nudged the shuttle toward the starboard docking port, doing his best to save every drop of thruster fuel, picking they’d need it later.
He lined the shuttle’s docking collar up with the port and brought them in for a manual dock and seal, not trusting the automatic systems. Who knew what Edward and Carla might have done, or what might be different about the Inspiration?
A loud clunk reverberated through the hull as they made hard dock.
“Well, here we are,” David said.
John grinned as he unbuckled and prepared to head aft. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Elizabeth just looked miserable.
After a quick conference with Veronika on the ground, David decided, with Elizabeth’s enthusiastic agreement, they would dose her with anti-nausea drugs. They didn’t have time to waste and they needed her help. A few minutes later, she felt well enough to move.
Before opening the hatch to the Inspiration’s airlock, David insisted they don pressure suits. “We don’t know what’s on the other side.”
David opened the hatch and floated up to the airlock outer door. “Now the moment of truth.” He produced the key that Carla had provided and inserted it into the socket next to the lock. Then he punched the access code into the digital keypad and waited.
After a moment’s delay, a ring of lights came on around the airlock hatch and it swung inwards.
“We’re in,” David said, and led the way. He heard a bump as a bundle of pressure suits bounced off the side of the hatch behind him, followed by John.
“Wow, this is different,” he said.
The Hope’s airlocks, like the rest of the ship, had a simple, industrial look to them. This one couldn’t be more different, crafted from a luminous white material sculpted in flowing curves.
“Progress,” David said, helping Elizabeth as she struggled in the zero gravity. She still looked a little pale, but no longer like she needed to throw up.
“Thanks.” She smiled at David, a further sign she had recovered.
David closed and sealed the outer airlock door. “Now let’s see if this works.” He anchored himself next to the inner airlock door and tapped in the first access code using the control panel there. His reward came in the form of a computer-generated voice: “Identify.”
David pulled his phone from a pocket on the chest of his pressure suit. He found the audio file Carla had recorded and played it back.
“Carla Lewis. Authorization code: foxtrot, lima, niner, alpha, alpha, one, zero.”
David counted two heartbeats before the response came.
“Identity confirmed. Welcome back Miss Lewis.”
He exhaled in relief, and pushed the button to open the inner airlock hatch. It swung out into the passageway beyond with the merest pop to equalize pressure, opening the ship to them. He looked back at John, who had braced himself, ready to push the pressure suits through. With a shove he sent them bouncing into the passageway, which seemed to be made of the same stuff as the airlock.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve got much time.”
The passageway’s smooth white walls somehow suffused the air with a pearly white light, just as the airlock had.
“Huh,” David said. “It’s pretty, but some handholds would be good.”
“Yeah,” John agreed, but his voice soon registered astonishment. “What the …!”
David watched in surprise as John pulled himself along the passageway with ease. “The walls are sticky!” he said. “But somehow not. They grip at you.”
David drifted over to touch a wall. It felt smooth enough.
“Try pulling yourself along,” John said.
David experimented with a gentle tug and found his hand somehow did somehow grip the wall. He soon discovered the harder he pulled, the stronger the grip. “Huh,” he said again. “Things have progressed.”
He pulled out the phon
e again as he drifted along, and played the next audio file. Carla’s voice said: “Directions to stasis.”
The walls changed again. A pastel green strip appeared, rippling toward the bulkhead to David’s right.
“I wish we had time to play with this more,” he said, his voice still revealing his surprise, “but we have to move.”
He gripped the wall again and pulled himself toward the guide stripe. Elizabeth followed, mastering the wall’s grip system with ease. John brought up the rear, batting the bundle of pressure suits ahead of him.
The soft lighting in the stasis suite conjured images of sleep. Six stasis chambers were lined up in a row across what would have been the floor, had there been gravity.
David pulled himself over to the control panel, and without ceremony entered the command to dissolve the stasis fields, together with the required security code.
To his relief, the code again proved correct.
“Cycle complete, stasis chambers three through six,” the computer announced.
A green square now glowed on the side of each chamber.
“That must be the cover release,” Elizabeth said.
They worked their way over to the first chamber and touched the green square. The lid slid aside, revealing Vasily floating within, as if asleep.
“Something’s wrong,” Elizabeth said. “He’s not awake.”
David touched Vasily’s neck. “I can feel a pulse,” he said. He lifted one eyelid. “Drugged.”
“Same here,” John said.
David’s breath caught as he looked over to where John was checking Joyce. She still looked beautiful. She’d aged more than him, though, he realized. Vasily had too, of course. He found it difficult to judge her subjective age with the use of life-extension drugs and stasis chambers, but she had to be over sixty.
“This one is too,” Elizabeth called. David looked across to see Viktor.
“That bitch could have told us,” John swore. “This will make everything harder.”
Their plan had been for John, Viktor, and Natalia to work together to remove the SRBs. Now there would be only John, unless the others woke soon.
The Seasoning Page 24
