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McMillan’s face tightened. “I take affront at your allegation that I’d—”
“I can’t believe you two,” Lisa finally interrupted. “The entire Pacific Rim is trying to recover from a day of horrible disasters, and you two are arguing over pe
Both men hung their heads. McMillan pointed toward Charlie. “He started it. I just gave him my numbers.”
“If he hadn’t—”
“Enough! Both of you get out of here! And if I hear that you dump any of this on Jack, you’ll be sorry you ever stepped on board the Fathom.”
“I’m already sorry,” McMillan grumbled under his breath.
“What was that?” Lisa asked fiercely.
The accountant backed up a step. “Nothing.”
“Get off my bridge,” she demanded, pointing toward the door.
Both men retreated quickly.
Quiet returned to the pilothouse. The German shepherd settled back to his bed, eyes closing. Soft classical music returned to fill the space. Lisa combed her hair back with her fingers. Men! She had enough of all of them.
Swiveling in her seat, she popped out the classical music CD. Why does Jack like this stuff? She shuffled through the stack and found one of her own. After inserting the disk, she hit the Play button, and the all-girl band, Hole, blared from the speakers. Backed by a strident guitar and a mean drum riff, the lead singer’s harsh voice echoed through the cabin, singing of men’s inadequacies and faults.
Lisa sank back into her seat. “That’s more like it.”
In his cabin, Jack lay sprawled atop his bed on his back, still in his robe. He snored softly, mouth hanging open. He sank deeply into a Halcyon-colored nightmare.
Floating in his EVA suit, tethered to the shuttle Atlantis, he was surrounded by the unrelenting darkness of space. Below him, the payload bay doors were open. In the orbiter’s workspace, he saw other crew members manhandling the large satellite into position using the shuttle’s manipulator arms.
The stenciled logo of the Navy’s seal gleamed u
It was a wondrous sight as sunlight reflected off its solar cells. A butterfly climbing from a cocoon.
Beyond the shuttle, the blue globe of Earth loomed bright.
He thanked the stars around him for this opportunity. He had never imagined anything so beautiful — especially knowing he was sharing it with the one woman whose eyes out-shone even these stars.
Je
Still, when he had corralled her alone aboard the flight deck last night and held out a small gold band between them, he was as nervous as a schoolboy. He did not know what her answer would be. Was he moving too fast? Did she share the depth of his feelings? For an eternal moment the gold ring had hung between them, weightless, shining in the moonlight — then she reached out and accepted his offer, her smile and tears answer enough.
Gri
He answered. “Visual check confirmed.”
Colonel Durham, commander of this flight, chimed in from the flight deck. “All clear here. Green lights all around. Releasing payload in ten seconds…nine…eight…seven…”
Time slowed as the work crew retreated from under the satellite. Wrench in hand, he maneuvered along his tether to the port side, out of the way. They had practiced the release a hundred times.
As he drifted, he pictured Je
“…six…five…four…”
As he daydreamed he was slow to see the mistake. One of the three locking boom arms, built by General Dynamics, had failed to release completely. From his position, he saw the satellite drift a few degrees to the starboard side. Oh, God! He took one second to confirm the error. It was one second too many.
“…three…two…”
“Stop the launch!” Jack screamed into his com.
“…one…”
He saw the springs release, catapulting the satellite out of the bay. The springs had been engineered to thrust the satellite gently into proper orbital insertion, but instead the releasing mechanism snagged.
In dream-time slow motion, he watched in horror.
The five-ton satellite slammed against the starboard bay doors. One of the satellite’s solar wings smashed into the shuttle’s side. Soundlessly, the bay door bent. Hundreds of ceramic tiles cracked from the shuttle’s surface and spun away, like playing cards cast into the wind.
Spartacus spun out into space, its broken wing flailing. It tumbled toward a higher orbit.
He witnessed a brief explosion on the underside of the satellite as it passed overhead. A small panel blew out as its axial guidance system was overloaded.
Spartacus floated away, dead in space.
Hours later he found himself strapped to a seat in the mid deck, wearing his Advanced Crew Escape Suit. Overhead, in the flight deck, he heard the pilot and shuttle commander conferring with NASA. The bay door had been repaired, but the loss of protective heating tiles made reentry risky.
The plan: get as far through the upper atmosphere as possible — then eject if there was any mishap. But the new emergency evacuation system, installed after the Challenger tragedy, had yet to be tested.
Whispers of prayers echoed over the open comlink.
Je
She nodded, offering a weak smile, but she couldn’t speak. This was her first shuttle mission, too. Her face remained pale behind her faceplate.
He glanced to either side. Two other astronauts shared the mid-deck seats, backs tense, fingers clutching the seat arms. Only the commander and pilot were on the flight deck above. The commander insisted all the crew be as near the mid-deck emergency hatch as possible.
At the controls, Colonel Jeff Durham checked one last time with Houston as he began their descent. “Here we go. Pray for us.”
A static-filled reply from Shuttle Mission Control. “God-speed, Atlantis.”
Then they hit the atmosphere hard. Flames chased them. Their ship rocked and bucked. No one spoke, breaths were held.
Sweat pebbled his forehead. The heat grew too rapidly for his suit’s air-conditioning unit to compensate. He checked the cooling bib co
Then he heard the best words of his life from the pilot. “Approaching sixty thousand feet! Almost home, folks!”