Back to the Moon (50 page)

Penny's mouth dropped open. “You told me you were a pilot and could land a shuttle.”

“When did I say that?”

“I don't know. The first day, the second—you know, right after you kidnapped me, Medaris!”

Jack smiled sheepishly. “I guess I wanted your cooperation, High Eagle.”

“I can't believe this....”

“What about the wreckage hanging off our tail?” Virgil worried.

“We'll hope it burns off when we come in.”

Jack called Tate, explained his plan. “Virgil and Penny will bail out as soon as we get low enough,” he concluded after outlining what he proposed.

Penny grabbed him by his collar. “Forget it, Jack. Where you go, we all go.”

Jack knew better than to argue with her. “Go check the RMS base,” he said. “Make sure nothing is left that'll interfere with the bay doors closing. Quickly, now.”

Penny saluted sardonically.
“Yes, sir!”
She pulled herself out of her seat, went hand over hand along the flight deck floor, and then up to the bank of consoles and switches. She looked out the view ports to inspect the shuttle arm base left after the explosive bolts had blown the arm away. She screamed when she saw the face at the window.

REENTRY

Columbia

Jack pulled on his suit and headed outside, ignoring the requirement to prebreathe. There was no air in the main supply of his suit, and there wasn't much in the emergency supply, and the scrubber was all but dead. If he prebreathed, there wouldn't be anything left to use to go outside. What he had to do out there, he'd just have to do quickly.

Jack pushed open the hatch and climbed out of the airlock into the cargo bay. He looked up and saw what he assumed to be the Russian pilot of the
Soyuz-Y
still at the view port, carrying Grant with him. He grabbed him by a boot, drew him and Grant into the airlock, slammed the hatch shut, and hit the pressure lever. After ambient was reached, Virgil opened the inner hatch and the cosmonaut came out, turning to pull Grant out with him. She was unconscious. Jack followed after doffing his suit.

Penny settled in beside the Russian. “What were you doing with Ollie Grant?” she demanded.

“A rescue mission,” Dubrinski said after introducing himself. He had taken off his scorched helmet. “But then your Colonel Grant saw fit to drug me. There is a needle wound on my thigh if you do not believe me.”

“We believe you, Colonel,” Jack said grimly. “How did you get out of the
Soyuz
?”

Dubrinski shook his head, as if amazed at what he'd done. “I awoke in twisted wreckage, half hanging out of the spacecraft. Colonel Grant, as you can see, was knocked out. She is a great pilot but apparently has gone quite insane. I had no choice but to disconnect the air umbilical from the
Soyuz
and try to attract your attention. I was very pleased to find the wire running along the side of your spacecraft. I used it to come forward after I got over the shuttle's tail. Then I saw Dr. High Eagle and used the handrails on the bulkhead to come up so she could see me. I apologize for frightening her.”

“I'm afraid you've gotten out of the frying pan into the fire,” Jack said. “We'll be hitting the atmosphere in one hour and it's going to be a close thing.”

“You are the pilot?”

“I'm going to give it my best shot.”

“I was trained for many years on simulators to be a
Buran
pilot,” Dubrinski said eagerly. “Perhaps I can help.”

Jack didn't hesitate. “I think maybe you can.” He led Dubrinski to the cockpit.

The Russian settled into the pilot's seat, scanned the bank of switches and instruments, and pushed the rudder peddles. “Are your hydraulics activated?”

“The APUs are up,” Jack confirmed. “We have full aerodynamic control.”

“Show me everything,” Dubrinski said, clearly overjoyed at the prospect of flying
Columbia.
“Now I will have the chance to fly a shuttle to the earth from space after all!” He stopped, looked sorrowfully at Grant. “Will she be all right, do you think?”

Penny was beside her, the medical kit in his hand. “We'll do what we can for her,” she said.

SMC

Sam reacted to Jack's announcement by raising his palms toward the ceiling.
What else could possibly happen on this mission?
America Control had fed all the information it had to
Columbia.
All that could be done had been done. Jack's idea of using the tether as an aerodynamic brake was a roll of the dice. Not much was known about how it might work except for a theory relayed down by the Italians in Huntsville as to the satellite's drag coefficient in the upper atmosphere. The computers had subsequently calculated that it might just be enough to slow
Columbia
to a velocity that was sur vivable. The likely effect of having a burned
Soyuz-Y
and a flapping RMS arm hanging off her tail was a complete unknown. If it burned off quickly enough, Tate's people told him, then perhaps there would be little effect. If it stayed attached, then
Columbia
would probably be out of control even if she managed to survive to the lower atmosphere. At least, the port OMS rockets were still functional. If they had been damaged, it would have been all over.

“Okay, people, heads up,” Sam announced as the moment of reentry approached. “This is the hairy part.”

He heard a low burble of laughter emanating from the consoles beneath him. When he looked sharply at them, Mary Cantrell, the GUIDO, let him know why they were all laughing. “Sam, how can you say
this
is the hairy part? This ol' thing's been like one of Dolly Parton's wigs from the get-go.”

Despite his belief in the need for decorum during desperate moments, Sam had to laugh with them.

Columbia

Jack and Dubrinski sat at the cockpit controls, having worked out what each would do in the various stages of reentry, from the first moments when
Columbia
hit the atmosphere, until she got low enough to operate as a glider. They went through it again and then started their first checklist. They quickly lapsed into their own lingo.

“OMS TVC gimbal check,” Jack called.

“Port only, yes,” Dubrinski replied, his head swiveling between the checklist and the oddly familiar panels. “The
Buran
's console looked very similar to
Columbia
's, Jack,” he added.

“A coincidence?” Jack smiled.

Dubrinski shook his head, embarrassed. “I do not think so.”

“APU restart?” Jack called out from the checklist.

“Restart on-line.”

Jack took a breath. “Check CRT two GNC fifty Horizon SIT and CRT three BFS, GNC five zero Horizon SIT, then return CRT two to GNC SYS SUMM one and CRT three to BFS....”

Dubrinski scanned the monitor to his left. “Yes, I have it. RCS dump?”

“Roger but only fifty percent. We may need control in the nose. Exercise brake pedals.”

“Yes. Nominal APU performance.”

“Roger.”

Jack turned to look over his shoulder. Virgil was in the footloops in front of the aft flight deck view ports. He was to control the tether at the critical moment. Penny sat in one of the two seats bolted to the flight deck behind the cockpit. She had Paco in his transit box bungeed between her feet, prepared to take him with her in case of a fast evacuation. She also had the kit that contained all her cell culture samples and film cans. “Ready, Penny?” he asked her.

“I was born ready.” she replied, although her voice betrayed her nerves.

He gave her a thumbs-up. “Attagirl. We're gonna be fine.”

Jack took another moment to consider their situation. One problem with using the tethered satellite for an aerobrake after the final OMS burn was that the cargo bay doors had to stay open to keep the tether out, but had to be closed for
Columbia
to enter the atmosphere. He thought he had resolved that problem by having Dubrinski fire the OMS, then rotate
Columbia
so that the tether, twenty miles long, was pointing toward earth. When it hit the atmosphere ahead of them, it would troll through the air and slow them down. Then when
Columbia
hit the first stray molecules of nitrogen and oxygen and ozone in the upper atmosphere, they would let it continue to drag through the denser layer twenty miles below. Then Virgil would cut the tether, Jack would close the doors, and Dubrinski would use the dwindling RCS jets to rotate
Columbia
again, put her tiles down toward earth. The Cray in Houston thought that might be enough for the shuttle to survive reentry.

After the OMS burn Jack called, “Go for it, Virg.”

“Roger that, Jack.”

Jack knew Virgil would let out just enough on the reel to keep the cable from breaking. He waited calmly for Virgil's report.

“ATESS is hitting the atmosphere,” Virgil called. “She's dragging big time, Jack!”

Jack kept his eye on the accelerometers. “It's working,” he breathed. He looked over his shoulder again. “Penny, it's working.”

“That's my man.”

Jack knew what was happening far below. The tethered satellite was heating up, its aluminum shell glowing and then sloughing away. When it finally burned up, if he'd done his calculations correctly, it would have slowed
Columbia
to a velocity of fifteen thousand miles per hour, just below orbital speed.

“She's gone, Jack,” Virgil called, meaning the satellite had burned up. With it gone the tether would recoil back at them, perhaps to wrap around the shuttle. “I'm cutting the tether,” Virgil continued, indicating that he'd eliminated that dangerous possibility. Jack heard him climb into the seat beside Penny. “You can close the doors, Jack,” he said.

Jack gave the command. The great doors slowly rotated about their pivots, closing tightly.
Columbia
was ready to reenter.

Jack and Dubrinski had decided to reenter at a steep angle and then pull up when
Columbia
's wings began to develop lift. This would give the shuttle time to cool, since her tiles weren't built for the temperatures likely at such a high velocity. It was a risky technique but Jack thought that
Columbia,
out of all the shuttles, could handle the stress of repeated reentries. Because she was the first shuttle, she had been built with thicker beams and heavier attach points than her successors.

Columbia
made her first dip into the atmosphere, indicated by a blue haze coming off her nose. Jack could see they were over the mid-Pacific. Then the haze caused by the air friction turned into a fireball. A shudder and rattle aft indicated that the impact of hitting the atmosphere had torn off the
Soyuz-Y
and the RMS. Jack could feel
Columbia
's tail started to yaw.

“Compensating with the RCS,” Dubrinski said, working the controls. “No response. I will go with the OMS to flatten us out.”

Jack felt the g's build, then they were staring at cool, dark space again. He ran his fingers across the keyboard, watched the numbers march. “We bounced back up twenty miles.” He whistled.

Dubrinski guided the shuttle into a flat trajectory. The blue haze formed again and then turned into a white-hot fireball. “Give it more OMS,” Jack commanded.

Dubrinski complied, using the last of the OMS propellants.
Columbia
flattened out and then bounced twelve miles high. She was now eighty miles mean altitude and neither Dubrinski nor Jack could pinpoint where they were.

Jack watched approvingly as Dubrinski keyed in the digital autopilot. Then the Russian dived
Columbia
again. She began a flat skid just as she caught denser air. A klaxon alerted Jack that the DAP was losing aerodynamic control. “Full RCS, Yuri,” Jack ordered.

Dubrinski made the manual firing. “I'm doing this by the seat of my pants!” he confessed.

Jack said nothing, let his pilot do his work.
Columbia
skipped, this time five miles high. But she was out of her skid. “The seat of your pants is better than any computer, Yuri,” Jack said.

Sweat poured off the Russian. He mopped his face with his sleeve. “Thanks, comrade,” he said.

“All right, Colonel,” Jack said calmly. “Let's try it again.”

Dubrinski took a deep breath and keyed in the DAP. He kept his hand on
Columbia
's controller, ready to take over as soon as she gave him aerodynamic control. A calm settled over him. The man who sat to his right had given him complete trust, a man as calm and collected in a crisis as any he had ever seen. It was not simply a matter of his own survival. Dubrinski burned to perform at maximum efficiency for this man.

Columbia
hit the atmosphere with a flash and an audible thump. But this time the fireball was more of a glow and the DAP held
Columbia
steady. Automatic elevon trim began and then Jack called out what Dubrinski longed to hear. “Aerosurface control, q-bar at two dot zero.”

Columbia
was dropping like a brick with wings. Jack looked down and saw clouds. “We're in!” he exulted. “We're in!”

Dubrinski marveled at
Columbia
's feel as her wings began to develop lift and she began to glide. He eased forward the rotational hand controller and felt the shuttle's wings bite into the air. When he eased back, she seemed to sigh under his touch, skimming frictionlessly over an invisible high lake of clear air.
Columbia
was magnificent, he thought. The love of an aircraft and her pilot seemed to flow between Dubrinski and the shuttle, her great heart and his mixing into one energy, one mind.

Jack called up a descent profile, snapping Dubrinski out of his metaphysical musing. “Energy management looking good, Yuri.”

Dubrinski fixed his eyes on the eight-ball indicator. The wings were exactly level. He swiveled his gaze to the horizontal situation indicator. It was giving a readout, but any navigational information it was picking up was probably bogus.