Rocket Girls: The Last Planet (15 page)

THEY USUALLY WENT
home immediately after their work was done, but now the girls had to wait until their orbit took them back to the ocean near the Solomon Islands. With the abruptness of their mission, there hadn’t been time to properly mobilize retrieval teams.

That would be another eleven hours, or another twenty-four if they wanted to avoid a splashdown at night. Now came the tough part: killing time. Since they were already there, Yukari and Akane decided to spend that time lounging in the shuttle. The two girls sat by the rear observation window, nibbling on freeze-dried strawberries and observing the progress toward the Orpheus launch.

Norman and Gordon were out there now in their space suits, fiddling with the engine and making adjustments.

“This is incredibly nerve-racking to watch. I mean, it takes them minutes just to pick up a new tool,” Yukari muttered.

“It’s not their fault.”

“I know that. It’s just, it’s hard to sit here and do nothing. I want to be out there helping them.”

“I’m not sure they’d appreciate that. Guys don’t like being helped.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Yukari said, but she understood well enough. This was their chance to reclaim their honor. Even she knew better than to take that away from them.

In truth, the NASA astronauts’ patience and stamina were astounding. Each trip outside lasted several hours, and while they had water and some candy inside their helmets to keep their energy up, they never took anything like a break. That, and just moving your arm in one of those space suits was like doing a rep with a heavy dumbbell in weight training.

I could never do what they’re doing
, Yukari thought.

Disaster struck five hours after the girls’ arrival on the shuttle. They were on middeck at the time. The intercom monitoring the two astronauts’ conversation squawked with static.

“What the hell—”

“Get down!”

Akane and Yukari quickly made their way to the upper deck to find the captain and Luis glued to the rear observation window.

“You two okay?” the captain shouted into his intercom. Yukari peeked over his shoulder at the window and her mouth dropped open.

Orpheus and the upper-stage engine were gone.

The payload bay was entirely empty, save for Norman and Gordon who were drifting around just outside of it.

“We’re okay.” It was Norman. “I felt a little gas pressure, but life support’s all good. Just, we lost it. Godamnit! We lost it!”

“Try to calm down, Norman. I want you back in the ship. We’ll think of a way to deal with this.”

“What happened?” Yukari asked.

“The upper-stage engine fired. Luckily, no one was hurt.”

“What, it exploded?”

“No, it
fired
. Something caused it to start a thrust.”

A call came in from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “
Atlantis
, this is Houston. We saw what happened. Do you have a report?”

“Houston, we have an accident. No injuries or life lost. I’m bringing our two men outside back into the shuttle. I’ll send more details once I’ve had a chance to talk with them.”

“The engine burn’s stopped,” Luis said. He was standing by the window, tracking Orpheus with a pair of binoculars. “It was a controlled burn, looks like—and it’s gone. I’ve lost visual contact.”

“Norman, you copy?” the captain asked.

“We can talk. We’re inside the air lock.”

“Did you check the tag? Can Orpheus be remotely controlled?”

“No remote control. The safety tag was still on.”

“Can you confirm, Gordon?”

“I saw the tag with my own eyes. We checked it before releasing the restraints on the probe.”

“Any idea how the engine could’ve fired?”

“You got me.”

“Houston, this is
Atlantis
. Something caused Orpheus’s engines to fire while the safety tag was still on. It was a controlled burn, lasting roughly three minutes. That’s all we know at present.”

“Roger. We’re checking Orpheus’s telemetry. We’ll let you know as soon as we find something.”

Yukari went back to middeck. She wanted to know what was going on, but now was not the time to interrupt. The air lock hatch opened and Norman came out. He closed the hatch behind him and found the intercom. “You’re clear to come in, Gordon.”

The nameplate on the left arm of the space suit was scorched black and half of his visor was clouded.

“Norman! Are you all right?” Yukari asked.

“I’m fine.”

His face dripped with sweat, and there was a hard look in his eyes. And something else too—anger. Norman began undoing his gear.

“Can I help with anything?” Yukari asked.

“Nothing I want your help with.”

“I’m okay with sweat, and urine.”

He glanced at her. “Then hold up the bottom half of my suit.”

Yukari got a grip on Norman’s legs while he began undoing the connector with the torso. The space suit split into two halves. He took off his liquid cooling garment until he was in his undershirt and MAG. The letters stood for Maximum Absorbency Garment—basically a glorified diaper astronauts wore during liftoff, landing, and extravehicular activities to absorb urine. The smell of sweat filled the deck.

“Are you injured? Any bruises?”

“I’m okay. The blast only hit me for a second,” Norman said as he slipped on his shipwear. “Any word on Orpheus?”

“The burn went for three minutes, and by then it was out of sight.”

“Three minutes?” Norman bit his lip.

“What does it mean?”

“A three-minute burn isn’t enough to break the probe from orbit, but it makes it very difficult—if not impossible—for the shuttle to retrieve it.”

“Can I ask another question?”

“What?”

“What’s the safety tag?”

“It’s a nonconductive strip that keeps the controller from accidentally activating the engine. Orpheus is wirelessly controllable, but we keep the tag on until it’s completely prepared for launch to avoid an accident. As long as the tag’s on there, nothing like this should ever have happened.”

“So you can’t remote control it and slow it down now?”

“Most likely not. You’d think if it was malfunctioning, we might have a chance, but that’s too much to hope for.” Norman turned to go to the upper deck.

“Norman—”

“Later.”

Yukari’s mouth snapped shut.

Akane came down the hatch as soon as Norman was through.

“Oh, no, Yukari! What do we do?” She had tears in her eyes again, like a dam ready to crack wide open.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s
my
fault. When I went into the engine space to retrieve the valve I must have broken something. That’s what happened! How will I ever face Dr. O’Reilly?”

“H-hey!” Akane pressed her face to Yukari’s chest and cried.

“Just hold on. Do you remember breaking anything?”

“No…but I’m sure I touched the truss in at least a few places. It was hard to avoid.”

“It’s not that easy to break an engine, Akane. You know they’re built to withstand quite a bit of heat and vibration.”

Akane nodded, sniffing.

“There’s still hope. Just try to stay calm. I want to see those ‘I can do anything’ eyes of yours, okay?”

Akane stopped crying.

“Or else I’ll have to take you off active duty.”

Akane hiccuped for a little while longer, then gave a nod.

An hour later, the captain called the entire crew to middeck.

“Let’s go over what we know. First of all, just so there’s no false hope, you should know that the situation is not looking good. The engine burn came when Orpheus was nearly ready for launch. It’s now fallen into a roughly three-thousand-kilometer-high elliptical orbit.

“That’s not all that different from its scheduled orbit, so if we could operate it remotely, it might be possible to refire the engine and send it on its way to Pluto. The fuel loss from the burn was still within tolerance levels.

“However, we’ve been unable to establish remote control over the probe from the ground. This is likely due to the safety tag still being attached.

“Furthermore, I’ve just heard from Houston about why this happened. While they can’t be certain until they actually see the probe, it seems likely that something happened during an unscheduled engine test before launch. Apparently, one of the technicians on the ground purposefully shorted the control circuits in order to fire the engines with the safety tag still on.

“Time is tight, they needed to do the test, and removing the safety tag requires a lot of paperwork. Furthermore, the technician has admitted he has no memory of removing the jumper he used to short the firing circuits.”

While the captain spoke, Yukari was watching Akane’s expression.

At first she looked relieved. But that relief soon shifted to quiet anger. The other crewmembers were making fists with their hands and cursing under their breaths.

“If we were able to rendezvous with Orpheus, the solution would be simple. All we’d have to do is remove the safety tag and the jumper wire from the circuit. However—” the captain paused to let his men prepare themselves for the bad news. “As I mentioned, the orbiter is on an elliptical orbit with an apogee of roughly three thousand kilometers. We don’t have enough fuel to accelerate
Atlantis
enough for a rendezvous with the probe. Not to mention the shuttle has an altitude limit of one thousand kilometers.”

“So we’re done here,” Luis said quietly with a shrug. “Let’s go home, have a few beers, and forget any of this ever happened.”

“That’s looking like the best course of action,” the captain admitted, shaking his head. “Incidentally—” He turned to Yukari. “What’s
Mangosteen
’s altitude limit?”

“Eight hundred kilometers.”

“As I thought.”

There was silence for a few moments.

No matter which craft they used, neither of them would be able to reach Orpheus. Though the probe would pass through the shuttle’s orbit at its closest point to Earth, there would be a speed differential of nearly 640 meters per second. Even if they could reach the same exact spot, without matching speeds there’d be no rendezvous.

Akane spoke. “So what happens to Orpheus?”

“It’s pretty low when it approaches the earth. Eventually it will bump up against the atmosphere, which will slow it down, and after several orbits it will plunge.”

“And what about after we return to Earth? Will there be no chance to save it after that?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Then, Captain,” Akane said, “I have a suggestion.”

The captain looked up at her.

“Neither of our ships on its own can catch Orpheus. But what if we combined the ships?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Well, we could put
Mangosteen
inside
Atlantis
and accelerate as fast as the shuttle will go. Then we release
Mangosteen
and accelerate with her.”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s an addition problem,” Luis said, shaking his head. “One thousand plus eight hundred doesn’t equal three thousand.”

“Actually, it does,” Akane said. “What you’re saying would be true if the orbits were circular, but in order to match an elliptical orbit, we only need to accelerate half of the distance between us.”

“Wait, you’re right! We could hit an apogee of thirty-six hundred kilometers!”

“Correct. It helps if you think in terms of velocity instead of altitude.”

“But hold on,” the captain interjected. “We need fuel to adjust our orbital plane, but we also need fuel to get back home.”

“Actually, the orbital plane won’t change that much. And both of our ships can handle atmosphere. You won’t need much fuel to get back.”

“What’s
Mangosteen
’s mass?” Norman asked.

“Roughly two tons, including crew.”

“The shuttle weighs seventy thousand kilograms. That’s barely different than flying with an empty bay.”

“We’ll fit in the payload bay nicely too,” Yukari said. “Even at its widest point, our orbiter’s diameter is only three meters.”

“So we’ve established that theoretically, this is possible,” Gordon said, leaning forward. “As long as we got the rendezvous timing perfect.”

“It is possible. It’s totally possible!” Akane said.

“Now, hold on. Just
hold on
,” the captain said. “Loading a space shuttle with an unscheduled cargo and accelerating has never been attempted before. This isn’t some eighteen-wheeler we’re driving up here. If that orbiter were to, say, topple in the bay midflight we could be looking at a catastrophic explosion.

“Also, the shuttle needs an airport in order to land. If we change our course and have to make an emergency landing, we’ll be looking at a far worse disaster than just losing Orpheus. Not to mention that a height of three thousand kilometers hasn’t been attempted since the Apollo missions. There’s no telling what could happen up there.”

“And we’ll find out as much as we can! Call the Solomon base and the Johnson Space Center and have them plan the whole thing out!” Akane said, a mounting strength in her voice. “If you keep bringing up why we can’t succeed, it just means you aren’t up to doing it!”

The captain raised an eyebrow at her.

“It’s like she says,” Yukari joined in. “We’re ready to go to three thousand kilometers or thirty thousand kilometers, whatever it takes. As long as you’re up to it.”

The captain shook his head, then got on the intercom for the space transmission network. “Houston and Solomon, this is
Atlantis
. Do you copy?”

“
Atlantis
, this is Houston, we hear you loud and clear.”

“
Hoi
,
Atlantis
. Solomon here.”

“We need you to look into something for us. We have a possible way to rescue Orpheus. The idea’s from the SSA’s Miura, and it’s a bit…radical.”

BACK IN THE
control center at the SSA, Nasuda listened attentively to Captain Berkheimer talk. When he was finished, Nasuda practically howled with delight. “She might have fainted, but Akane’s got what it takes! Have our communications group send Houston whatever information they need. Kinoshita, you divide up everything else that needs to be done.”

Kinoshita wasted no time. “I want the navigational team calculating an orbit. Go from the moment
Mangosteen
separates from the shuttle and try to predict as many variables as you can.

“I want the orbiter systems team figuring out how we can mount
Mangosteen
inside the shuttle. Whatever it is, it will have to be able to withstand three hundred kilograms at 0.1 G acceleration. Work up a chart of anchor points on our orbiter and any anchoring materials we might have and send it on to Houston. They’re calling the shots on this one, so whatever they need, they get.

“Medical team, I want you to do some modeling on Yukari and Akane’s life support systems. Remember they’ll be going to three thousand kilometers.

“One last thing, and this goes for all of you. We’re working in lockstep with Houston on this. I want you to share data and any ideas, no matter how far-fetched they might seem. Communication, work on setting up contact people from each team to facilitate this.”

The relationship between an orbiter and ground control is a bit like the relationship between the bridge and the deck on an old large-scale sea vessel. The lower deck was where all the crew worked, and the bridge backed them up. On the water, both were in the same boat, but as space on orbiters was limited, astronauts left the bridge back home. Though space jockeys didn’t like to acknowledge it, the real captain of a spaceflight was on the ground. Either way, constant contact and communication between the two was vital, especially during crises.

The response at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, was little different from that of Solomon Mission Control.

“That little girl up there is upping the ante in a big way on us,” mission director George Grant muttered. What got him most was not that it was a bad idea, but that the situation forced him to take it very seriously.

Once they acknowledged the possibility, however slim, that it might work, they couldn’t afford to not take it seriously. Grant himself was ready to do whatever was required to get Orpheus back under control.

The biggest hurdle they had to pass was safety regulations. Everything about this plan was going to push both crew and equipment to their theoretical limits. Just getting the shuttle by itself up to an altitude near two thousand kilometers would require using most of its remaining fuel. And then they had to factor in the strange, tropical cargo it would be carrying.

In order to calculate the amount of fuel required for the shuttle’s return, they would have to assume a worst-case scenario in which they were still carrying
Mangosteen
after a launch failure. Was saving an unmanned exploratory probe worth this kind of risk?

George’s mind went back to the
Apollo
13 disaster.

It was already thirty years ago when it happened: the oxygen tank on a spacecraft bound for the moon exploded, and though they were short on fuel, electricity, and air, somehow they managed to get the astronauts back home safely.

At the time, George had been a twenty-year-old recent hire at NASA, but he still remembered going for sleepless days and nights hunched over his IBM 360 making and remaking orbital calculations. No one could’ve predicted what happened, but they had made it through by using what they had on hand to make the impossible possible.

George was proud to have been part of the effort to bring the
Apollo
13 crew back home. That pride had kept him at NASA all these long years.

Well, let’s do what we can do.

As a senior engineer, George was quite adept at making rough calculations in his head.

Orpheus has an orbital frequency of one hour fifty-nine minutes.

Atlantis
has an orbit of one hour thirty minutes.

It was roughly a ratio of 4:3. Once
Atlantis
had gone around four times and Orpheus three times, the two would meet. If somehow before that moment they could accelerate
Mangosteen
to 640 meters a second, they would be able to rendezvous with Orpheus. The acceleration would have to happen in two steps, with the separation of the orbiter from the shuttle between them. They couldn’t leave this one entirely to the nav computers; it was too complex.

Already an hour had passed since the accidental engine burn.

So, what, I only have five hours left to make this happen?

George picked up the phone and dialed the person in charge of mock-ups down at the training center. Previously, they had constructed life-sized models of
Atlantis
and Orpheus for use in prelaunch training.

“I need you guys to work on something right away. I’m going to be accelerating
Atlantis
with the SSA’s
Mangosteen
orbiter in her payload bay. You should be receiving specs on
Mangosteen
any moment now. The bad news is, you only have five hours—no, make that four and a half.”

“We’re on it.” The engineer on the other side of the line thought for a moment. “Might be able to use the platform we put in there for Orpheus.”

No waffling, no extraneous questions. I love working with professionals
, George thought. For the first time in a long while, he felt genuine excitement stirring in his chest.