Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (121 page)

“Rog,” said Abby.

“Coming up on 15 seconds. Standby.”

“Rog.”

“Okay, here we go. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,
ignition.”

“Ignition. We’re burning.”

“Thank God,” said Jeff.

“Ah, gravity,” said Gabe. “Tank
pressures are good. Abby, how’s it look?”

“Gimbals are good, attitude is
good, rates are damped out. I think this ship handles much better than the
Apollo CSMs because it’s a lot heavier. Doesn’t whip around as much.”

“Rog.”

“Yeah, gravity,” said Jeff. “Except
it’s backwards. I hate flying eyes out.”

“Whiner.”

“You ever fly eyes out in an
F/A-18?”

“Not if I could help it.”

“10 seconds,” said Gabe. “And, 5,
4, 3, 2, 1, shutdown.”

“Shutdown,” said Abby.

“Okay, give me a second. Um, 6,994
meters per second. Bingo! Right on the money. We are on our way home. Next stop
– Earth.”

Jeff sighed. “I’ll tell you, after
sitting in space for a bit over two years, I was just praying that booster
would light. Nailing the mark is even better.”

“A lot better.”

“Newport,
Ares
, we have
shutdown and 6,994 meters per second. We’re on our way back,” said Jeff.

“Abby, ready for booster sep?”

“Any time.”

“Pyros, Arm.”

“Armed.”

“Sep.”

“Sep.”

They all watched an aft facing view
from one of the Sundancer’s rear cameras.

“There she goes,” said Abby.

“Opening at two feet per second,”
said Gabe. “Five minutes to 30-second SPS burn.”

“Rog.”

“Abby, give it two minutes than
turn us around plus Y and trim.”

“Rog.”

“Okay, that’s it,” said Gabe.
“7,094 meters per second. Abby, trim the residuals.”

“Not much to trim, but okay…
Alright, we’re plus or minus 0.1 on all axis.”

“Excellent. Nice driving. Okay,
let’s shut all this down, do a P52, and get out of here. Sue, how’s my baby?”

“Starting to come to.”

“Can you hold her until Abby and I
secure from this evolution?”

“Sure. But if she’s hungry, that’s
something you will have to deal with. Sucking on my boobs would just frustrate
her.”

Jeff chuckled. “Now there’s an
image I’m gonna have to think about for a while.”

Gabe punched him in the shoulder.

“Ouch.”

“Would you stick to the business at
hand, and put away your prurient instincts until later.”

“Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”

“Right answer.”

He grinned at her. “Yeah. Well,
what say we get this wrapped up, get something to eat, and get some rest?”

“An excellent idea.”

#

Jeff climbed through the hatch into
Gabe’s room and floated over to her bed. “You awake?”

“Uh huh.”

“How are you doing?”

“Still trying to get re-acclimated
to space, but otherwise okay.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. How’s
the little one doing?”

“She cries whenever I try to put
her down, so I’m going to keep her here with me until she falls asleep, then
try again.”

“Yeah, I suppose it’ll take her a
while to get used to zero-g. We can reason through it, but she’s probably
pretty mystified.”

“And afraid.”

“Yeah, that too. One more thing we’ll
have to explain when she gets a little older.”

“Too bad no one has come up with
suspended animation yet. This would be a lot easier if we could all just go to
sleep and wake up seven months from now.”

He chuckled. “That’s a fact. Well,
I’m gonna turn in too. If you need anything just pound on the wall.”

She took his hand. “Would you lie
here with us for a while.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” He
undressed and slid into the bed, cuddling with Gabe, and Ghita tucked between
them.”

Gabe kissed him. “That’s better.”

And 117 million miles from Earth,
traveling through the void of space at over 15,000 miles per hour, they slept.

Thursday, March 22,
2018

0815 UTC (T plus 730
days)

Jeff got up from the breakfast
table, drifted to the kitchen, and refilled his coffee cup. On the way back he
noticed a red flashing light on the communications console. “Anybody check the
mail this morning?”

He got a chorus of “No’s.”

He opened the message folder.
“Something here from Chrissie. Must have come in last night.”

“What is it?” said Abby.

“I dunno, but it’s entitled ‘Good
news. You’re gonna love this.’” He opened the message, and read it aloud.

032218 0447UTC

To: Ares

From: Chrissie

Subj: Good
news. You’re gonna love this.

Our old friend,
Senator Landers, convinced Congress that, given the success of the mission to
date and the enormous public interest in Ghita and what life is like on Mars,
it would be in the government’s best interests to do what it can to see to it
that you all return to Earth safely.

“Well that’s thoughtful of them,”
said Gabe.

Jeff chuckled. “Yeah.”

As a result, Congress
passed a bill amending the budgets for both the Defense Department and NASA to
provide funding for return and recovery operations. NASA is staffing one of
their currently unused MCCs at Houston on a part-time basis and will begin
tracking you, and consulting with us on a regular basis with regards trajectory
and course corrections. They are also going to take a look at our re-entry
checklists and profile, just to confirm that we don’t goof somewhere along the
way. Heidi and I had a lengthy chat with Houston yesterday about splashdown
locations. We’ve tentatively agreed on 16º 39.0’ N, 161º 29.4’ W, and a
splashdown time of around 1930 UTC. That location is about 500 miles southwest
of Hawaii and 500 miles east of Johnston Atoll, give or take. Now, that’s all
subject to change due to weather conditions at the time. But, for now, that’s
the plan.

The Navy has
tentatively slated the USS Makin Island (LHD-8), a Wasp-class amphibious assault
ship, to handle the recovery. They will be fully equipped with helicopters,
divers, boats, medical personnel, etc. to handle the recovery in basically the
same manner as the Apollo recoveries. The only disadvantage to that is that the
Makin Island has no aircraft onboard capable of transporting all of you to
Hawaii. So, you’ll have to spend a couple days onboard making the transit to
Pearl Harbor. But since the government is picking up the check, seems a small
price to pay.

Jeff laughed. “I’ll go along with
that.”

“Might even be fun,” said Gabe.
“I’ve never been on a Navy ship.”

We’ll raid your closets
and send a trunk-full of clothes, toiletries, diapers, etc. for you to the
Makin Island before she sails from San Diego.

I’m certain you will all
be anxious to get home, but we’ve tentatively scheduled two days and nights in
Honolulu to deal with ceremonies, press conferences, and assorted and sundry
administrative matters before you return to CONUS. We’ll have a chartered
Gulfstream to fly you to San Francisco where Heidi and I will meet you with the
CJ3.

Now, everyone in the
known world wants to schedule ceremonies, interviews, parades, and ‘meet and
greets’. I’ve given all but one a “Wait, Out.” Cessna wants to hold a little
ceremony and buy us lunch when we stop to refuel in Wichita. I okayed that one.
They estimate there may be a hundred people there. I’d guess it’ll probably be
more like a couple thousand, and you’ll want to have a brief speech ready. I
can write something and send it to you, but Jeff, if you were to put the other
end on that speech you gave to all those folks at Kennedy the day before
liftoff, that should do it.

“That was a terrific speech,” said Gabe.

Abby and Susan nodded.

Well that’s about it
for now. I’m looking forward to when you’re close enough that we can carry on a
reasonable voice conversation. This 20 minute turnaround time kind of sucks.
I’ve sent along another file with some housekeeping stuff in it that you’ll
probably ignore. Since you’ve got this far, you probably don’t need our help to
find your way home. God speed, Chrissie.

Gabe whimpered. “What would we have
ever done without her?”

“I don’t know,” said Jeff. “She’s
the best. How about I send her a quick received and understood, and we follow
it up later with a list of clothes and any questions we might have about the
recovery and return to civilization? I think all we’ll need is a couple of
fresh flight suits, flight jackets, shoes and undergarments. I doubt we’ll be
attending any black tie events until after we get home.”

The women nodded. “Sounds
reasonable,” said Abby. “At least people will know who we are. Those
rust-colored suits really standout.”

“That they do.”

“Do you think we will have any
trouble with customs and immigration?” said Susan.

“I wouldn’t think so. The only
thing we’ll have to declare is rocks. Everything else we have came with us.”

“Except Ghita.”

“Yeah, but I don’t see where she is
any more of a risk for backward contamination than we are. Sort of an all or
none proposition. Besides, didn’t we and the government come to an
understanding, if not an agreement, on that matter before we left.”

“Sort of.”

“Customs on Navy ships returning
from a deployment are a no-brainer,” said Abby. “I’ve done it several times.
Jeff, you probably have too.”

“Yeah. Everybody on the ship fills
out a short form, then the XO sits down in the wardroom over coffee with the
customs folks, and an hour later, liberty call. I don’t think it’ll be a big
deal. I’ll tell Chrissie to proceed with plans as though customs and immigration
weren’t involved. Just plow forward and ignore them. If they do have something
to say, we’ll address it then. And if she does run into a roadblock we’ll send
Heidi over there in her finest tight black leather to straighten them out.”

Abby shook her head and chuckled.
“That’d put the fear of God in them.”

“Yeah. If she can deal with all
those engineers and bureaucrats at Michoud, customs and immigration should be
putty in her fingers.”

“By the way,” said Gabe, “do you
know what day it is?”

Jeff looked at his watch. “Yeah,
March 22
^nd
. What of it?”

“That date doesn’t mean something
to you?”

He frowned, thought for a moment,
then slapped his forehead. “Two years.”

“That’s right. We launched two
years ago today.”

He shook his head. “Wow.”

They all sat pondering that thought
for a minute.

Abby sighed. “And in six and a half
months we’ll be home, and can return to normal lives.”

“Abigail, I don’t think our lives
will ever be
normal
again.”

She laughed. “Good point.”

Sunday, March 25, 2018

1512 UTC (T plus 733
days)

Jeff pulled into the commons, and
floated up behind Gabe at the navigation console wearing Ghita in her baby
harness. “What’cha doing?”

“A P52.”

“How’s it look?”

“Right down the pipe.”

“What does NASA have to say about
your navigation?”

“Nothing.”

He smiled. “As it should be.”

“Uh huh. I do get a lot of
questions from one guy in their temporary MCC at Houston. His name is Jack
Fuller, and he’s sitting GNC, and I don’t think he ever goes home.”

“Really?”

“He’s an intellectual sponge.”

Jeff laughed.

“He has a Ph.D. in Astronautics
from Penn State, so he’s obviously not stupid. But he keeps asking questions
about how I stay three or four steps ahead of him. So I tell him, first of all,
I’m here and he’s not. And then I try to give him some pointers – short cuts –
like when to use the computers and when to just use his head. He’s a very
bright guy, but he’s too mechanical. He’s store-bought. He needs to learn the
difference between orbital mechanics and intuition. All of this can be solved
with math. But sometimes that’s not the fastest or best way to do it. Sometimes
you can spend hours with calculus, and other times you can just subtract A from
B, and call it close enough. I suppose I’m just trying to teach him the
difference.”

“And with that he will be a better
man.”

She smiled softly and rested her
head on his shoulder. “I hope so.”

“How’s our little one doing?”

“Much better. I think she’s kind of
getting used to weightlessness. She’s eating better and sleeping better, though
she has the sniffles.”

“Don’t we all. Occupational hazard.
How are you doing?”

“Well, now that I can get her to
sleep, I’m sleeping better. So I guess I’m doing better. But I still don’t like
space and I’ll be very happy when we get home.”

“Yeah, it’s been a long couple
years, hasn’t it?”

“Uh huh.”

“Still glad you came?”

“Yes. The ultimate adventure.”

He nodded.

“When we get home, we’ll have
something no one else has, and that no one can ever take away from us.”

Jeff smiled, wrapped his arms
around she and Ghita, and kissed her cheek and Ghita’s. “We already have that.”

Gabe bit her lip and grinned.

Monday, April 9, 2018

1204 UTC (T plus 748
days)

Jeff frowned. “No, Gabriel, I do
not want a birthday party. Which word don’t you understand?”

She groaned and shook her head.
“But it’s a big year. You’re 55.”

“Great. Do you for one moment think
I like being 55? Crap, Gabe, you’re 31!”