Zeng paused and looked Brown in the eye, his fingers just inches away from the keys that would delete everything. With his many years as an intelligence officer, he had learned to read people, including Westerners—whom he considered relatively easy to understand. He often told his team, “Westerners wear their intentions on their faces. They cannot help it.” In this case, Zeng could tell that it was Mike Brown’s intention to shoot him if he didn’t immediately comply and raise his arms.
Though he momentarily considered performing his duty and lunging for the key that would erase the data, his instinct for self-preservation won out and he slowly raised his hands above his head. He never took his eyes from Brown’s. Had he sensed a moment’s hesitation, the data would have been erased. There was no such moment.
Within a single minute, the van was secure—not a shot was fired.
The Dreamscape rolled smoothly to the end of the runway and waited for the ground crew to bring the portable stairway that would allow Gesling, Thibodeau, Mbanta, Singer, Wells, and Graves to exit. For another few days, they would be the only American astronauts to venture beyond orbit since 1972.
After determining that the vehicle was safe for the passengers to exit, the door opened and the passengers slowly made their way down the stairs and onto a red carpet, where a jubilant Gary Childers met them. They had been in space for almost a week and were now in the middle of getting used to the tug of the Earth’s gravity. For some it was a welcome relief; for others, it was a reminder that their adventure was truly over.
With handshakes to the exiting men and hugs to the women, Gary Childers was again in his element. Speeches followed, and then the entire group awaited Paul Gesling’s egress from the vehicle. As in the dress rehearsals, Gesling had to take care of his post-flight checklist before he could make his exit.
When Gesling appeared in the doorway, the crowd erupted into applause. And the applause was not limited to those in the VIP area. The throngs of people outside the gates that had turned out for the launch six days ago were back; they too clapped and cheered. And more than a few people watching on television did so as well.
Gesling, somewhat taken aback by the whole spectacle, raised a hesitant arm and waved back to the crowd. With a little more confidence in his land legs than the passengers who had exited before him, he made his way down the stairs and received an approving handshake and welcome from Childers when he arrived there.
“Well done, Paul,” Gary exclaimed as he pumped his hand and patted him on the shoulder. “Well done!”
“Thanks” was all Paul could think of to say as he returned the handshake and smiled in Gary’s general direction.
“Smile for the people, Paul. This is our payday.”
“I knew you would do it!” Caroline O’Conner shouted and cheered as she brushed past Childers and threw her arms around Gesling, greeting him with a more than collegial “Welcome home, Paul.” There wasn’t time for the close contact to continue, but it was clear to all that neither O’Conner nor Gesling was quite ready for it to end.
“Payday? We lost money on this flight,” Paul said under his breath to Childers.
“Did we, Paul? I’m not so sure.” While the flight in particular lost money, Childers considered it an “investment.” The bookings on the next ten flights were firm, and by number eight he would be in the black. And he’d been thinking about the rescue mission. He’d heard one of the talking-head science experts on the news claim that all of the American and Chinese astronauts could reenter in the Orion space capsule and that they would likely be dropped off at the ISS. The wheels were turning in his dollars-oriented brain. Of course, his company could use the write-off provided by the first seven flights as “losses” if they needed to. And of course they would do that. With good accountants, losses could be a good thing. But Gary liked making money and planned on doing just that.
Chapter 21
Astronauts Bill Stetson and Anthony Chow were swiftly and accurately stepping through procedures and checking off items on their checklists. Their Orion space capsule sat roughly thirty stories atop more than a million pounds of highly explosive ammonium perchlorate composite propellant and another fairly large volume of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. If things were to go awry, there would be plenty of fuel for that fire. But Bill and Tony were far too busy to ponder the ramifications of such an unlikely event when the solid rocket motors of the Ares I first stage ignited. Unlike the space shuttle, which sat lazily on the launch pad for the first few seconds after igniting its main engines, the Ares I leapt off the pad, the resulting acceleration pushing the two men solidly into their couches with more force than that experienced on any other human-rated rocket.
Selected for safety and not comfort, using solid rocket motors for a rocket carrying people had been controversial from the beginning. Many astronauts, including Stetson, had been skeptical. Unlike a liquid-fueled rocket, a solid-fueled rocket could not be shut off once lit. A solid rocket motor would burn until it ran out of fuel. And it was precisely because of this that the Von Braun team had designed the Saturn V rocket with liquid-fueled engines and refused to use solid rocket motors. But, being beholden to data, Stetson eventually became a fan of the approach when he reviewed the reports showing that solid rocket motors failed far less often than their liquid motor counterparts.
“T minus four minutes and holding.” The voice of the launch director sounded deadpan and emotionless over the intercom, on television, radios, and inside Bill’s helmet speakers. “This is a scheduled twenty-minute built-in hold. The countdown clock will resume in nineteen minutes and forty-seven seconds from now.”
“Getting close, Tony!” Bill couldn’t hide his excitement. “Put your game face on, buddy.”
“Damn close, and put me in coach!” Tony replied then keyed the com after looking at his checklist. “Launch control, we are starting the interior launch cameras and telemetry recorders.”
“Roger that, Mercy I. Be advised that we’ve got launch weather verification, and it looks like all is go at this point.”
“Control.” Stetson added his checklist items to the conversation. “The launch computer is showing green and is configured for launch.” Bill thought about the action taking place back in the launch control center or LCC. The director was probably polling the various console drivers to see if they were ready to continue with the launch. Were Bill a fly on the wall, he would have heard a query of “Launch Authority Team go, no-go?” Which would usually be followed by “Go for launch.” And then “Guidance and Control go, no-go?” “Go for launch!” And the process would continue through all the Ares 1 launch systems until the launch director was assured that, indeed, the Ares 1 launch vehicle was cleared to leave Earth.
“Launch control shows first-stage igniter heater power removed. Mercy I, please verify.”
“Uh, roger that, launch control. We show green light on first-stage igniter heater breakers,” Stetson replied. Bill and Tony responded to what seemed like an endless list of items to be checked until the twenty-minute hold was complete. Finally, the word was given.
“This is launch control. We have final launch status verification and are now resuming the countdown. Start the clock now at T minus four minutes and counting.”
“Roger that, control. Mercy I shows flight-termination system and solid rocket motors are armed.” Bill looked over at his colleague and flashed him a grin. “We’re almost there now!”
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Tony replied.