Mission One Read online

  Alexei held a bottle of liquor and studied it with sleep-deprived eyes while he floated in front of Riley. The commander seemed wide awake, despite the puffy bags under his bloodshot eyes. The two of them noticed Jeff coming their way. Alexei greeted him with a grunt, and Riley nodded.

  “Morning, fellas,” Jeff said. He grabbed a handhold on the wall and floated next to the other two.

  “Frank Johnson wanted me to bring that to you,” Riley said to Alexei, gesturing toward the bottle. “He wants you to know he appreciates all of your help with the Explorer project.”

  Alexei frowned at the squarish bottle of dark brown liquid. “I thought Americans could not drink in space.”

  Riley smiled. “This is international territory,” he said vaguely. “And besides, it’s for you. My crew is bone-dry.”

  “Usually we only drink after surviving emergency, like a fire,” said Alexei. “For celebration. Would take big fire to drink all this. Is not vodka, but should work okay.”

  Riley reached for the bottle. “Should I send it back?”

  Alexei pulled the whiskey to his chest. “Don’t be rude. I will redefine the word ‘emergency’. Maybe later I lose my towel. That could be dangerous. Would definitely need to reward my bravery if I survive.”

  Alexei released the bottle and let it float beside him, spinning slowly. He turned to Jeff. “How do you like it so far?” he asked. “Sleep well in tin can?”

  “Like a rock,” Jeff said.

  “A rock that could have slept for another twelve hours,” Riley added.

  “Sometimes first night is hard,” said Alexei. “But maybe now I can’t sleep on Earth because too much gravity. Now is natural for me.”

  “You’re not going stir crazy?” Jeff asked.

  Alexei tapped the bottle of whiskey, changing the direction of its slow spin. “Not for long,” he said.

  “How are the others?” Riley asked Jeff.

  “Gabriel is flirting and Ming is taking pictures.”

  Riley nodded. “Well, as much as it pains me to tear them away, we need to start getting ready.” He shook hands with Alexei. “I hate to sleep and run, Alex, but it’s time. Guess we’ll catch you on the way back. Thanks again for your help.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Jeff followed Riley as he drifted toward the hatch.

  “Commander,” Alexei said. Riley paused and looked back. “That is nice new engine on Explorer. Don’t burn hole in space station when you leave.”

  Riley grinned. “You got it.”

  Kate nervously tapped her pen against her workstation as she studied the display wall in Mission Control. The rectangular section that displayed the crew members’ vital signs showed that everything was normal. Heart rates steady, breathing steady. None of them gave the slightest biological indication of fear at being strapped to what was essentially an untested, theoretical energy cannon.

  Rick slurped coffee at the workstation next to hers, and she cringed. Noises seemed louder to her, more invasive and distracting, ever since she arrived at work that morning.

  “Get any sleep?” he asked.

  “Some.”

  Kate remembered the strange visitor who had shown up on her porch when she got home the night before. Later that evening – or earlier that morning – the police assured her they canvased the area and didn’t find anything. They didn’t seem too concerned, but a squad car had remained parked on the street in front of her apartment until she pulled out of the driveway in the morning just the same.

  She considered telling Rick about the visitor, but she didn’t want to get his conspiracy gears turning so early in the day.

  “I crashed in the equipment room,” Rick said. “Just brought a duffel with my clothes.”

  “And deodorant?” Kate asked.

  Rick sniffed his armpit. “Why?”

  She smiled. “No reason.”

  Kate had skipped a shower that morning. Her hair remained in the same tight bun she had put it in yesterday. She assured herself she would get better sleep and a proper bath after Explorer was safely on its way to Titan.

  As if on cue, the gruff voice of Commander Riley came in over her headset.

  “Anybody awake down there?”

  Kate pushed the VOX switch on her console and said, “Barely.”

  “Well, you might want to put on some coffee, because we’re thinking about lighting this candle.”

  “Copy that. How’s the rest of the crew?”

  Ming and Gabriel chimed in and said their good mornings.

  “You don’t sound tired to me, Ms. Bishop,” Jeff said.

  “Why, thank you, Jeff.”

  “Any time.”

  Kate turned and looked back at Frank, who stood up on the viewing platform with his arms crossed, chewing on a toothpick while he listened to the conversation through his own slim headset. He caught her gaze and nodded.

  “What’s the plan, Commander?” she asked, turning back to face her desk.

  “Figured we’d fire it up at oh-nine-thirty. It’s not the last minute of our departure window, but why wait? We’re all strapped in up here. Dolan is running the last round of tests on the TAPS and Lieutenant Ming is quadruple-checking our heading.”

  “Don’t want to miss Titan,” Ming said.

  “You certainly don’t,” Kate agreed. “Everything looks good on our end. I’m not getting any red flags from the department heads.” She paused for a moment to allow anyone that was listening time to interject. “Okay, Explorer,” she said finally, “you are go for launch at oh-nine-thirty.”

  “Copy that,” Riley said. “Ten minutes to launch.”

  Kate leaned back in her chair, tapping her pen faster against her desk.

  “Oh, hey,” Rick said, wheeling his chair over. “What do you think about my new t-shirt? Had it printed up yesterday.”

  He stuck out his chest to show her the crude lettering which read, “It Don’t Matter Unless It’s Antimatter”. Below the words was a picture of a cartoon rocket bearing the Diamond Aerospace logo blasting off from Earth. A cartoon cowboy with a big grin and missing teeth rode astride the rocket, waving his ten-gallon hat over his head.

  “I hope you didn’t pay too much for that,” said Kate.

  “Oh, come on! It’s my good luck shirt for this mission. I designed it myself.”

  “I would never have guessed.”

  She winked to let him know she was just giving him a hard time.

  “It’s gonna be a classic someday,” he mumbled.

  Jeff typed at the small keyboard built into the control panel in the wall next to his seat. The process of simply tapping out a few words was frustratingly slow due to the added bulk of the Constellation Suit gloves. Even though the design team had trimmed the fabric where they could, his gloved fingers invariably hit more than one key with each attempt. Luckily, some genius had thought to make the backspace key larger than the rest. Jeff used it liberally as he called up every sensor that monitored the Thermal Antimatter Propulsion System. He was relieved to see the tidy line of green lights which meant that the ship probably wouldn’t blow up during ignition.

  “TAPS integrity confirmed, Commander,” he said. “All sensor readings normal. We’re looking good.”

  “Copy that,” Riley said. “Keep a close eye on it when we push off. Silva, report.”

  “Atmosphere is stable,” said Gabriel, tapping a screen in his control panel. “No change in oxygen levels since we started warming up the engine. There is no draw from the TAP System.”

  During early tests with the antimatter engine, when the engineers at Diamond Aerospace were still struggling to fit a round peg into a square hole, there had been several instances where oxygen levels inside a closed system near the fuel lines dropped inexplicably. It appeared as if the TAP System sucked the oxygen from neighboring spaces, and either burned it up or converted it into fuel. Heavier shielding around the fuel lines seemed to have solved the problem.

  “Lieutenant, what�
��s our status?” Riley asked.

  “Systems up and humming, Commander,” she replied. “We’re ready for departure.”

  “Excellent.” He toggled a switch on his console. “This is Explorer One calling International Space Station. Alexei, are you sober?”

  “Of course! I am professional.”

  “Copy that. We’re shipping out.”

  “Good luck, Commander.”

  “Lieutenant, if you wouldn’t mind?” said Riley.

  Ming tapped a sequence of commands on her control panel monitor, then turned a key switch. A hollow clonk echoed inside the command module as Explorer I separated from the hatch of the space station, drifting slowly away.

  “Docking clamps open,” she said. “Retracting.”

  Another turn of the key switch and there was a high-pitched, mechanical whine as the docking clamps retracted into the hull.

  Gabriel sighed. “And what a bittersweet goodbye it is.”

  “I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing about Gabe’s undying love for those two women for the rest of the trip,” Jeff said.

  “Open your heart, my friend,” said Gabriel. “You will find plenty of room for love.”

  Jeff laughed. “Did you steal that from a poem?”

  “I plucked it from the very soul of the universe, as if pulling down a star from–”

  “Okay, okay,” Riley said, holding up a gloved hand. “Just go write a sonnet or something, Shakespeare. Lieutenant, please get us into position.”

  “Firing atmospheric jets now.”

  Ming deftly manipulated the controls in front of her. A series of quick hisses from small jets embedded in the hull pushed the Explorer farther away from the space station. She angled the nose of the craft away from Earth.

  Jeff watched a small screen on his control panel, which showed the ISS drifting farther into the background until it was the size of a jellybean.

  “We’re at minimum safe distance for engine ignition,” Ming said.

  “Copy that,” Riley said. “On my mark, Lieutenant.”

  They both reached for their controls and settled deeper into their seats. Gabriel checked to make sure his harness straps were as tight as he could make them.

  Jeff thought about Kate. If he blew up when the engine ignited, he wanted her face to be the last thing he pictured. He admitted to himself that it was a grim way to think about things, but the cold hard reality was that every breath he drew inside Explorer I could be his last.

  “Initialize antimatter system,” Riley said.

  Ming pushed a button. “Initialized.”

  “Activate fuel pump.”

  Another button. A mechanical hum grew louder from the back of the ship.

  “Activated.”

  “Here we go,” Riley said. “Engine ignition in three…two…one. Ignition.”

  He and Ming pressed buttons on their respective consoles at the same time.

  Nothing happened.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “I don’t know what happened, sir.”

  “Nothing happened,” said Riley. “That’s the problem.”

  “Everything okay up there?” Kate asked over their headsets.

  “You sold us a lemon,” Gabriel said.

  “Hold the chatter,” said Riley. “Lieutenant, I’ve reset the ignition sequence. Let’s try it again.”

  “Copy, sir.”

  They went through the process again. Riley counted down, and they both triggered ignition.

  Silence.

  “Uh, Canaveral?” Riley said. “There might be a slight issue with the TAP System. We have ignition failure on the main engine. Lieutenant Ming and I have tried resetting the sequence and going again from scratch, but that was unsuccessful. Please advise.”

  “Copy, Explorer,” Kate said. “We can verify ignition failure. Sit tight up there and we’ll get back to you.”

  Kate peeled off her headset and threw it onto her desk.

  “Someone please tell me what the hell is going on!” she shouted to the room.

  Next to her, Rick mumbled to himself as he tapped and swiped furiously on his screen, paging through the ship’s monitoring systems, looking for the problem. Every head in Mission Control was lowered as the technicians worked frantically.

  Kate turned to find Frank, but he was gone.

  Noah Bell stood a few feet behind her desk with his arms crossed, chewing his bottom lip as he stared up at the display wall.

  “Are the astronauts okay?” he asked.

  “They seem to be fine,” Kate said. “For now. Can you think of anything that might have happened?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I need a workstation.”

  “Take mine,” Kate said, stepping aside.

  Noah sat down quickly and began typing. He accessed the real-time monitoring schematic for the thermal antimatter drive on the workstation screen and zoomed in on the ignition chamber. There were no alerts on any of the equipment.

  “Looks good here,” he muttered.

  Someone from across the room shouted, “Kate, could be a leak in the secondary fuel line! Confirming now.”

  “Then why don’t I hear a warning alarm?” she shouted back. Then, quietly, she added, “It would be a damn short trip if that was the case.”

  Noah swiped the workstation screen, panning over to the longest run of fuel lines at the bottom half of the craft.

  The secondary fuel line pulsed with a red glow.

  Kate’s mouth went dry. She picked up her headset with shaking hands and slipped it on.

  “Do – do they need to separate from the antimatter drive?” she asked, unable to keep the image of an exploding Explorer I from her mind.

  “Mission Control, what’s the story down there?” Riley asked over the headset. “Are we about to be barbecued?”

  “S-stand by, Explorer,” Kate said.

  “Ah-ha!” Noah said, pounding the desk. “It’s not a leak.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “A simple sensor malfunction. You see here?” he jabbed a finger at a small string of yellow numbers tagged to the pulsing red fuel line on the screen. “That’s the identification code for the fuel line sensor. The last two numbers should always be zero-one, which means it’s communicating with the ship’s computer.”

  “Those numbers are zero-zero,” Kate said.

  “Exactly. The main fuel line is reading just fine, but the sensors monitoring the secondary line aren’t talking to the computer.”

  “So if it’s a sensor issue, why can’t they start the engine?”

  “It’s a failsafe protocol,” Rick interjected. “Computer won’t let them fire it up until the error is cleared.”

  “That’s right,” Noah said, nodding with satisfaction. “We built multiple fail safes into the ship. Engine lockouts for an unsealed airlock door, auto-closing hatches if we detect massive pressure differentials–”

  “Explorer,” Kate said into her microphone, cutting him off, “we’re looking at a sensor error in the secondary fuel line. Can you confirm?”

  “I’m pulling it up now,” said Jeff.

  Kate resisted the urge to ask him if he was doing alright.

  “Copy that, Canaveral,” he said a moment later. “We can confirm a bad sensor on secondary fuel line.”

  Kate turned as the doors from the hallway slid open and Frank came running into the room. He stopped next to Noah, breathing hard.

  “Is it the fluid chamber?” he asked urgently.

  “No, Frank,” said Noah, leaning back casually. “It’s not your darkest fear. It’s a faulty sensor on the secondary fuel line.”

  Kate didn’t know as many details about the TAP System as Noah or Frank, but she had picked up some of the broader strokes during meetings and while thumbing through the seemingly endless reams of mission-related technical documents. The fluid chamber was a conical compartment with a refractory metal core near the aft of the antimatter rocket that heated propellant to generate thrust. Judg
ing from the bits of information she gleaned from overheard conversations, it had been a constant thorn in Frank’s side since its installation.

  “They’re going to miss their departure window,” Kate said, glancing up at the clock above the display wall. If they didn’t launch soon, Titan wouldn’t be there when they arrived at their destination. Instead, it would be with Saturn on the other side of the gas giant’s orbit around the sun.

  “It’s not too late to abort,” Rick said quietly.

  “No offense, Canaveral,” Riley said, “but we’d rather not come home just yet.”

  Frank wiped his sweaty face. “We could, uh, reroute the sensor stream to bypass the secondary fuel line. Temporarily, of course, until we can figure out the root problem.”

  Noah rapped his knuckles on the counter while he rocked in Kate’s chair.

  “How many spare sensors did we give them?” he asked.

  “Two of each,” Rick said. “But one of the crew would have to go outside the ship to replace it.”

  “They don’t have time for that right now,” Frank said.

  “We never planned an EVA while the ship was en route to Titan,” Kate said. “They’re not supposed to be outside the ship until they start building the research station.”

  “It’s possible,” Noah said, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. “The TAPS burns in cycles. There’s a long stretch a little more than halfway when the engine is cold.” He turned in his chair to face Rick. “If I remember correctly.”

  “Checking on that now,” Rick said. He grabbed a thick binder of course printouts from beneath his desk and flipped through the pages.

  Kate turned off her microphone.

  “Just so we’re clear,” she said softly enough that the other mikes couldn’t pick up her voice, “you’re talking about sending them off without a functional sensor on the secondary fuel line. You want one of the crew to go extravehicular while the ship is at maximum speed to replace the sensor.”

  “They’ll be traveling the same rate as the ship, Kate,” Frank said. “There’s no reason it won’t work.”