“Hang on. Oh, and Bill, be advised that the solar arrays are about to start cycling in, so you might want to steer clear of that.”
“Right.”
Gary Childers was in his Lexington, Kentucky, headquarters building with Paul Gesling and Caroline O’Conner watching the press coverage of the Mercy I’s flight. Like most of the world, they’d been mesmerized by the saga of the rescue mission. They’d been elated when the Chinese crew was found alive, on the edge of their seats when they learned that the crew had almost not survived the hike from their crashed ship to the American lander, and shocked when the broadcast had been abruptly cut off not long after the crew had spoken with the President and Chinese Premier. They were now grieving over the pending death of Mission Commander Stetson.
For what seemed like the thousandth time, the newscaster began to describe the aerocapture maneuver that the Mercy I was about to attempt. “In just under twenty minutes, the Orion’s heat shield will begin to get hot as its friction with the Earth’s atmosphere is used as a brake to both slow the ship and change its flight path so that it can subsequently dock with the International Space Station. Under normal circumstances, the Orion would simply enter directly into the atmosphere, like the Apollo missions, and come straight home to the surface. But these are hardly normal circumstances. The ship, occupied by a crew of six—before the unfortunate absence of Commander Stetson—is simply too heavy for a safe landing here on Earth. Instead of coming directly home, they will be docking at the International Space Station. Once there, the two wounded crew members plus another astronaut can return to the Earth in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that is docked to the station as a lifeboat. At this time, NASA has not decided how to bring the remaining crew back home to Earth. Neither the U.S. nor the Russians have any ships ready to fly, and it could be months before this situation changes. Back to you, Jane.”
Childers picked up the remote and muted the sound before he had to endure more inane comments from the empty-headed newscaster in the studio.
“Paul, I have an idea. We use the same docking ring that NASA uses, right? Didn’t we standardize on that after we won the space station robotic resupply missions contract back in 2012?”
“Why, now that you mention it”—Gesling leaned forward—“yes, yes, we did. It was too expensive to do anything else. NASA had spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing the docking ring, and it didn’t make sense for us to reinvent the wheel. Though there are some things about the design that really need to be changed.”
“Good, good,” Childers said. “Tell me if I’m wrong about this. There’s nothing that’s keeping us from flying Dreamscape again, right? I mean, the ship is supposed to be able to turn around and fly again in just under two weeks after an orbital flight. Is there anything unique about your trip around the Moon that would make this turnaround time any different?”
“No, not that I am aware of.”
“Good. Go out to Nevada and see to it that the Dreamscape is ready to fly as soon as it is safe. You’re going to the Space Station and bringing home some real God-damned American heroes. We found these people, and now, by God, we’re going to help bring them home.”
Gesling and O’Conner rose from their chairs and began to move toward the door. Gesling, as usual, took the lead just ahead of O’Conner so he could open the door for her.
“Caroline.” Childers stopped her. “Please stay here. After I call our illustrious senator, I suspect I will be not only speaking with the NASA Administrator, but I’ll also be holding a press conference. I need your help to put together the talking points and the not-so-subtle message that Space Excursions is not only about joyrides but also search and rescue. If we pull this off, we’ll have customers beating down our doors for the next quarter of a century!”
Caroline looked momentarily at Gesling, offered him a smile, and then returned to her seat in front of Gary Childers. Gesling paused, left the room, and closed the door.
“Don’t worry.” Childers leaned forward toward Caroline. “He’ll be all right. He’s leading a charmed life, and I suspect that you are making it even more so. Let’s get this plan together so you can get out to Nevada yourself as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir!”
Bill sat straddle-legged as best he could on the capsule, keeping one hand on the handhold and staring off into space. Earth was filling up a good portion of his field of view now. There was nothing he could do but sit there and contemplate. He contemplated his childhood, his life before NASA, then when he became an astronaut. He thought about his wife and kids. It made him happy to think of them and sad that he might be leaving them to fend for themselves in the world. Then he wondered if he should have done anything different. His final conclusion was no. If he ended up making the ultimate sacrifice, that would be okay with him. His mission had saved several lives and showed everyone that humans could work in the vast emptiness of space. Humanity could now go to the Moon to perform rescue missions. And, eventually, his mission would show that, even though space was a tough place to survive, humanity had what it took to do it. He was certain every other astronaut felt the same. He was pretty sure that even the Chinese taikonauts felt that way or they wouldn’t have taken the risks they did to beat the Americans to the Moon.
Bill was pretty sure that if things went bad, there would be a bit of backlash from the public. There might be that knee-jerk reaction to resist spending more resources on such a risky thing as space travel. But he also knew that everybody wanted to see Captain Kirk. Since before he was born humanity had wanted to explore space. Granted, for the most part, everyone wanted somebody else to do it and somebody else to pay for it. Well, Bill was that somebody else to do it. He had no regrets. He would do it all over again even if it meant that he would end up in exactly the same predicament, or even worse.
“Bill, are you still with us?” Chow said into the radio.
“I’m here. Where else would I be?” Stetson responded, sounding not at all like a man about to die.
“They’ve got your wife and kids on the private line. Do you want to speak with her now?”
“That’s a stupid question. Put them on.”
“Right. Here she is.” Chow changed the setting to channel five, the private line that would allow Stetson and his wife to speak without anyone aboard, in the press, or even in mission control listening. The call would be recorded, but it, like other private-line calls before it, would not be made public without consent of the astronaut. Long ago, NASA had decided that everyone was entitled to private conversations with their loved ones, even astronauts.
Bill Stetson had wanted to go to the Moon since he had been old enough to remember. It was his main goal in life. Well, he had gone to the Moon. In fact, he had done more than go to the Moon. He had gone to the Moon and rescued a ship full of stranded astronauts and done his best to get them home. And, as far as he could tell, it looked like they were going to get home. He sat on the lower half of the Orion space capsule just beneath the solar arrays staring aimlessly the beautiful starry space. He didn’t really wonder about the afterlife, because he felt at one with the universe right then and there. The problem wasn’t fulfilling lifelong dreams and goals. The problem was leaving behind the ones that he loved. And he loved his wife with all his mind, body, soul, and heart. Then there were his two kids. His daughter was fourteen going on twenty-three and looked just like her mother—acted like her, too. And his son was eleven and every bit as bullheaded as his old man. It tore at Bill’s insides thinking of them growing up without him there to see it. He indeed felt he was making the ultimate sacrifice to push humanity into space and was proud of what he had done, but right then and there he just wished he could hug and kiss his family.