Mission One Read online

  “It’s an unnecessary risk. Not to mention insane.”

  Noah looked at Frank.

  “The only other option I see is to abort,” Frank said. “Pull them back now and try again next year.”

  Kate wanted to slap him. She knew what he was doing. If Noah waited a year, his main competitor, MarsCorp, would likely patch up their problems by landing a deal with NASA and get to Titan first.

  Rick paused while reading from his binder and looked up. “We can wait until they get to Titan.”

  “Explain,” Frank said.

  “There are four fuel pumps shared between the primary and secondary lines.” Rick typed rapidly at his keyboard and pulled up a schematic of Explorer I on his screen. With a few keystrokes, he zoomed in to a cross-section of the fuel lines running side-by-side through a wall-mounted fuel pump. “Each of those pumps has a flow-rate sensor so we know fuel is physically passing through the pumps.”

  “But the pump sensors don’t differentiate between what’s coming in from the primary or secondary lines,” said Frank. “It reads the aggregate.”

  “So we keep an eye on the last pump sensor before the lines hit the engine,” Rick said, tapping the small wireframe box on his screen. “If the flow-rate sensor registers the same amount of fuel that’s leaving the tank farther upstream, then the secondary fuel line is perfect. If we get a faulty reading during the journey, then they can go outside. At least this way, they have a choice.”

  Kate crossed her arms nervously. “How long would it take for us to know if there was a leak?”

  “During a big burn, fuel passes through those lines in less than a tenth of a second,” said Frank. “We’d know almost instantly, and we could shut the engine down so they could go extravehicular.”

  Noah cleared his throat and turned on the microphone built into the workstation.

  “Commander, this is Noah Bell.”

  “Good morning, sir,” said Riley.

  “We have a way to proceed with the mission, but I want to run it by you first. If you don’t approve of the plan, then it will not be executed. We’ll have you come home so we can get the mess sorted out. Understood?”

  There was a pause.

  “Understood.”

  Noah laid it out for him, describing the details of the problem and the potential EVA that would be required to fix the sensor if another red flag popped up along the way.

  “So that’s it,” said Noah. “What do you think?”

  Another pause.

  “Give us a minute,” said Riley, and the line went dead.

  Riley turned to face the others. He reached up to scratch his face and bumped against the clear faceplate of his helmet, then shook his head in frustration.

  “As you heard, those planet-huggers below have managed to screw something up,” he said. “I want to hear your thoughts.”

  “The secondary fuel line is used during the two major burns on the way there,” Jeff said. “The microburns use only the main line.”

  “So four chances for something to go wrong,” Gabriel said.

  “We can’t dock with the space station to fix the problem,” Ming said. “That would take too long.” She thought for a moment. “Is it legal to continue the mission when something like this happens?”

  “This isn’t NASA,” said Riley. “There is no regulatory agency breathing down Bell’s neck to make sure he’s following every safety protocol. We’re in uncharted territory.”

  “When’s the next departure window?” Gabriel asked.

  “Thirty-six days,” Riley said. “But we wouldn’t hit that one either. Prep work on the ground for another launch would take longer.”

  “I say we go,” Ming said, “and fix the sensor when we get to Titan.”

  “Hmm,” said Gabriel. “Are the guys who built the fuel line the same guys who built the sensor?”

  Jeff smiled. “No. Different companies.”

  Gabriel thought about it a moment, then nodded inside his helmet. “Okay. Then I say we go.”

  “It’s really Dolan’s decision in the end,” said Riley.

  “Why me?” Jeff asked.

  “Because you know the guts of this ship better than the rest of us. You’re the one who would have to go outside.”

  Jeff sat back in his seat. He hadn’t been thinking about who would draw the short straw to go extravehicular en route to Titan.

  “If Mission Control gives us the green light,” he said, “then let’s go. If I had to go outside before we got to Titan, the chances of being hit by a piece of space debris are astronomically small, if you’ll excuse the pun.”

  Riley turned back around to face the front of the ship and reactivated his microphone.

  “Canaveral, we are badass adventurers, and we’re going to get this show on the road.”

  “Copy that, Explorer,” Kate said, her smile evident in her voice. “You have the go-ahead. Bypassing secondary fuel line sensor now.”

  “They can do that from down there?” asked Gabriel.

  “Some of the ship’s functions are mirrored in Mission Control,” Jeff said, “in case all of us are incapacitated and somebody needs to flip a switch. They would have to deal with the same delay as our uplink the farther we get from Earth, but it should work all the way to Titan and back.”

  “Eighty-three minutes is a long time to wait for help when you really need it,” said Gabriel.

  “Better than nothing,” Ming added.

  “Sensor bypassed,” Kate said. “You should be all set.”

  “Copy that,” said Riley. “Lieutenant, let’s try this again.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ming said.

  They rested their hands on their controls while Riley counted down the steps to ignition.

  “Now.”

  Riley and Ming pressed their ignition buttons and nothing happened.

  “Oh, come on!” Riley shouted.

  “No wait!” Jeff said. “It worked. The engine is on. Can you hear it?”

  They all stopped breathing while they listened.

  “I hear a hum,” Ming said.

  “That’s it,” said Jeff. “It’s burning propellant in the fluid chamber. It happens a lot faster on Earth, but up here–”

  The back-end of the ship ignited in a giant blue ball of fire and the crew slammed back into their seats as Explorer I shot forward.

  “Woooohooooo!” shouted Gabriel.

  Jeff glanced over at him. His outline was blurred by the rapid shaking that gripped the entire ship. Jeff clenched his teeth to stop them from rattling.

  “Passing first marker!” Ming said with a tremor.

  “Throttling back!” shouted Riley.

  He twisted two dials counter-clockwise simultaneously, and the shaking ceased.

  “Burn scheduled for another twenty seconds,” Ming said, breathing hard.

  “Copy that,” said Riley. Then he whistled. “Sweet Mary, would you look at that?”

  He pointed at the small monitor on his control panel. It showed a brilliant blue trail of light flowing behind Explorer I. The light narrowed to a sharp point at the very end. It was so bright that its radiance blacked out all the stars, and Earth itself. It looked as if the ship was flying away from a pitch-black void.

  Ming adjusted a dial. “Terminating burn in three…two…one.”

  With the push of a button, the thermal antimatter drive cut out, and Explorer I soared through the vastness of space, toward Titan, without even a whisper.

  Kate leaned back in her chair, exhausted. She slowly pulled off her headset and tossed it onto her desk. The large red numbers of the clock above the display wall told her it was just after midnight.

  “I guess that’s it, then,” Rick said. He pulled his glasses down the bridge of his nose and rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

  “Hardly,” said Kate.

  “Well, for this portion of the mission. Next it’s five months of boredom followed by two months of high stress, then another five months of boredom as they
head back.” He reseated his glasses and sniffed. “I think you did a great job.”

  She looked down and smiled.

  “You never could take a compliment,” Rick added.

  “I’m just exhausted.”

  “Let me ask you something,” he said. He turned in his chair to survey the room before continuing. Kate followed his gaze. Frank and Noah were nowhere to be seen. Rick rolled his chair a little closer and spoke quietly. “Does it seem odd to you that the guy who put this whole project together and the other guy who’s responsible for overseeing that same project aren’t spending a whole lot of time on the operations floor?”

  “I don’t think Noah Bell has a lot of free time,” Kate said. “And he was just sitting right here, Rick, in my seat.”

  “I mean besides that,” Rick said. “Don’t you would think he’d want to be here for more of it? Isn’t that weird? Listen.” He wheeled a little closer and his voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “Someone came to visit me last night.”

  “Rick,” she said coyly, “did you finally get a girlfriend?”

  “No, nothing like that,” he said hastily, waving the topic away with agitation. He bristled quickly whenever she didn’t take him seriously. “It was a guy claiming to have worked for Diamond Aerospace in the past. He told me that the company had a facility near Russia. He used to work there before they shut it down.”

  “Michael Cochran,” said Kate.

  Rick leaned back suddenly, looking at her in surprise.

  “How in the hell did you know that?”

  “He was on my doorstep when I got home the other night.”

  “And did you talk to him?”

  “Of course not! I chased him off with a baseball bat.”

  Rick threw his hands up in frustration and hissed, “Someone comes to you with the mother of all bombshells, and you pick up a blunt object?!”

  “Something wasn’t right about him, Rick.”

  “He was running for his life!”

  “Wait a second,” said Kate, eyeing him suspiciously. “Did you talk to him?”

  “You’re damned right I did! Something’s going on around here, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

  “Oh, please. Like what?”

  “Well, that’s what I have to find out, isn’t it? Shh shh shh! Here he comes here he comes!”

  Rick quickly turned around in his chair and wheeled back to his desk. Frank walked over, beaming.

  “Other than that initial hiccup,” he said proudly, “I’d call that a resounding success, wouldn’t you, Ms. Bishop?”

  She smiled, hoping it would make her look less weary. “Absolutely.”

  “A proud day for all of us,” Frank continued. He slapped Rick’s back, nearly knocking his glasses from his face. “Good job, everyone!”

  Kate suppressed an internal groan. It seemed as if he had chosen to use that moment to give one of his ineffective motivational speeches.

  “But there’s still a long road ahead of us,” Frank said loudly, addressing the room. Employees with heavy eyelids looked up at him slowly. “We are on the first leg of a historic mission. In a year’s time, what you all did here today will go down in history. It will take hard work and perseverance to get there. I promise you, though, we will get there together.”

  He waited a moment for a clap or a cheer. There was none. He lowered his voice and said to Kate, “Can we talk for a minute?”

  “Of course,” she said. Then, to Rick, “Buzz me if anything comes up.”

  “You got it.”

  She followed Frank away from the display wall, past the rows of workstations. He led her up the stairs and across the viewing platform, toward the conference room. He held the door open for her as she walked in and waited until it was completely closed behind her before he started talking.

  “I know about your relationship with Jeff Dolan,” he said.

  She looked at him sharply, trying to figure out what he wanted.

  “I get it,” he continued. “You were worried we’d put you on different teams if we found out. We probably would have, for the exact reason I’m talking to you now.”

  There was no shred of the pride or satisfaction he had just been showing out on the operations floor. Now he was all business; stern and direct.

  “Okay…” she said.

  “I need to make sure your relationship with one of the crew isn’t going to affect any decisions you have to make in the future.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed and seemed to relax a little. “I’m only saying that sometimes accidents happen, and those of us here, on the ground, have to make difficult decisions regarding those up there.”

  “I have absolute confidence in the crew,” Kate said. “Should I be worried about something else, Frank?”

  She watched him closely, gauging his reactions. He wouldn’t make eye contact.

  “Of course not,” he said, as if it were the most ridiculous notion in the world. “Look, it isn’t the first time something like this has happened. A relationship of this nature, I mean.”

  “Would you have fired me if you found out before the launch?” asked Kate.

  “I knew two months ago,” he said simply. “I never had to bring it up because you’re a professional, and it wasn’t affecting your job.”

  “It isn’t affecting my job now, either.”

  “Look, I just had to put all the cards on the table. If something goes wrong up there, I need to know you’ll make the right decision, no matter the consequences.”

  “The mission comes first, sir,” Kate said stiffly, putting a little too much emphasis on the sir. “It always has and it always will.”

  He smiled, and the weariness showed in the lines of his face. “Glad to hear it.”

  “Frank, I’ve been thinking about that fact that no one covered the launch. Usually we have press inside the building, and I’m really struggling to find a reason they weren’t invited for this one.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.

  “Will it be the same for the rest of the mission?” she persisted.

  Frank looked at her, his irritation obvious. “Due to the safety concerns of launching a new rocket system, we decided it was a good idea to wait before publicizing the event.”

  “Well, that was a canned response if I ever heard one. You mean you wanted to make sure the rocket wouldn’t blow up in our faces while the whole world was watching.”

  He shrugged. “More or less.”

  “Will the world be watching after we get to Titan?”

  Frank crossed his arms and faced the glass wall of the conference room. He looked down at the employees on the operations floor of Mission Control.

  “They’d better be,” he said. “These days, space exploration is a hard sell to much of the public. They don’t care about the details of our mining operations. Their interest starts and stops right here, on the ground. As long as we keep sending back natural resources, people don’t give an iota of thought about where it came from. We need a solid victory right out the gate if there’s any hope to achieve our ultimate goal of colonizing the stars.”

  Kate’s eyebrows went up slowly. She had never heard such a direct mission statement from him before. “Colonizing the stars? Bit lofty, don’t you think?”

  “Well,” he said with a slight grin, “no one said it would be easy.”

  Later that day, Noah’s sixty-million-dollar Gulfstream G950 jet skimmed the top of a field of clouds over the Atlantic coastline. The pilot made a slight course adjustment to avoid some major upcoming turbulence, then ran her new trajectory through the piloting computer to make sure she was still on the fastest route possible to New York.

  Noah stood next to her in the cockpit, one arm resting casually on the headrest of her seat, watching the clouds slide underneath the plane.

  “Could be a little bumpy up ahead,” said the pilot.

  She was in her late-twenties and fresh out of flight
school. Noah had hand-picked her along with four others to be the pilots of his growing fleet of private jets. This was her first outing in the G950. So far, he was impressed.

  “Will it affect our arrival time?” he asked. He had a meeting in Manhattan with the visiting Emir of Dubai to discuss the building of a titanium processing plant on the outskirts of the Emir’s native soil. The dignitary was notorious for canceling meetings if the other party was even a few seconds late.

  “No, sir,” she replied. “But I would hold on to your martini with two hands, just in case.”

  Noah patted the top of her seat, and said, “Thank you, Carol.”

  “Anytime, sir.”

  He left the cockpit and returned to his seat – a plush leather recliner, one of only four in the forward section of the plane. The other three were blissfully unoccupied. A divider separated the forward section from the rear, where three of Noah’s aides were likely on their phones, deep in the cloud with their significant others and catching up on the latest pop media gossip. He also always flew with two business advisors, who he imagined were eyeing the younger aides with a mixture of contempt and jealousy.

  The thought made Noah smile as he settled into his recliner. He grimaced at a sharp pain in his back, then reached behind him and pulled out a hardcover edition of The Glories of Solitude by Arjay Gupta. Mr. Gupta was one of Noah’s personal heroes. The man had built himself a shack on the side of a mountain in Nepal and had lived there a full year without any human interaction whatsoever. He had grown his own food and fetched his own water from a stream a mile from his shack.

  He had done it all on his own, then he wrote a book about the soul-searching he accomplished during his sabbatical.

  For Noah, it was as close to fantasy as he could imagine. If he decided to take a year off, his companies would crumble in his absence. After the money dried up, the boards of investors would inevitably default to infighting, double-crossing, and hostile takeovers.

  Noah sighed as he opened the book to the page where he had left off.

  He read the words at the top of the page carefully, forcing his mind to slow down in preparation for new knowledge.