When he was dressed, Jesse stepped into the crew module to a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ from the crew. Commander Solomon told him that as a reward for gaining such a high score on the simulator – and because Eliot’s injured hand had still not healed – Jesse would be joining them in the shuttle. Jesse was so overjoyed to hear it that he shouted and punched the air.
The crew on Orlando had also recorded a message.
‘Happy birthday!’ yelled Dr Sie Yan.
‘We’re wishing Jesse Solloway of the Damocles a very happy birthday,’ said her husband, Captain Omar Briggs, by her side. ‘We’re looking forward to seeing you folks soon, and eating dinner with you on the Damocles.’
In five hours, Poppy, Harry and Jesse would accompany Sheppard as he docked their shuttle onto the Orlando and met this couple who’d lived in Jupiter’s orbit for a decade. And in just over twenty-four hours, they would ferry them and the rest of the Orlando’s crew to the Damocles for dinner.
Jesse tried to imagine five other people in their kitchen, seated around the table, passing on gifts and letters from Earth and tucking into a meal. How different would it feel? Five other people who also knew what it took to build a life under LED lamps. He was looking forward to the week they would spend together, and felt as if he knew them already, especially the three younger astronauts: sullen but brilliant Kennedy, the xenobiologist, who liked the same synth-heavy glam-rock as Eliot; Cal and James, who looked as if they could be Harry’s brothers. Both MIT graduates, engineers, boisterous and competitive but friendly, their laughter booming down the hall whenever they greeted the others on the video calls. Kennedy, James and Cal had trained at the Armstrong Astronaut Academy in Houston, an imposing rival of Dalton. At the age of twenty, the three of them had left the Earth to join Omar and his wife on the Orlando, and they would not return until the year 2020.
Because of their age, Jesse felt that the Beta had the most in common with these three astronauts, but he knew that Commander Sheppard and Captain Omar were old friends. Omar was the godfather of Solomon’s son, and even though he had never met the boy in person he downlinked videos of himself reading bedtime stories, all the way to Earth.
‘Can you see us?’ Jesse asked over the video feed.
‘Of course we can,’ Captain Briggs said. ‘I could spot the Damocles a lightyear away. She’s a real beauty.’
‘We should be docking with Orlando in ten hours,’ said Solomon.
A shiver ran down Jesse’s spine. That morning he attributed it to excitement.
THEY DEPARTED FOR THE Orlando with an air of jubilation, jostling and bouncing in their seats like children on a school trip. It was strange to find themselves in the shuttle again, the same vehicle in which they had left Earth months ago. Only this goodbye had been through an airlock, with no cheering crowds. Before she’d said goodbye, Juno had kissed Jesse. Strapped in the cramped shuttle, he was distracted by the thought of her – he could still taste the sweetness of her in the corner of his mouth.
As they sped towards the Orlando and away from the Damocles’ gravity, Jesse could feel every metre by the lightness in his stomach. He had always enjoyed the feeling of weightlessness.
‘I want you to remember,’ Commander Sheppard said from his chair beside Harry in front of the control panel, ‘that this is a lesson as well as a mission. It’s the first time you three will have to practise a real-life scenario that you have been training for. Different equipment, a smaller environment than the Damocles. I’m looking forward to taking a back seat. You’ve all been working hard, and I’m proud of you.’
Poppy lifted up her camera and handed it to Jesse. ‘Press this button to start recording,’ she instructed, and he did what she asked. A minute later she was smiling at the screen. ‘Dobriy den, Bon soir, or good afternoon to you all. Welcome aboard the Congreve,’ she said voice taut with excitement. ‘It’s about 1 p.m. here and we’ve finally set off for the Orlando, orbiting Europa – Jesse, hold it up a little higher – my job is to work on the communication. On a mission like this it’s vital that we remain in constant contact—’ she indicated the mass of wires and monitors behind her, and pointed to where Commander Sheppard and Harry were strapped into the pilot seats, ‘—with the crew on Orlando station and the crew back on the Damocles. Information and readouts about Orlando and the position of the shuttle will be downlinked to me on these computers. Which is important for us as we dock, a very delicate operation.’
‘And how’s it going now?’ Jesse had been instructed to ask.
‘I can happily say that all systems are nominal.’ She winked at the camera. ‘Which is space jargon for “operating as planned”.’
Could she imagine the people watching? The young students from Dalton, or in classrooms in Shanghai, the constant replay on the Space Channel. All those distant eyes on her.
Poppy took the camera and turned it on Jesse, who saw his own black eyes reflected in the lens.
‘Can you briefly explain your job on this mission?’ Jesse hated this part, reciting, in a chipper voice, a watered-down version of their various responsibilities.
‘I’m acting in place of the ship’s usual engineer, Igor Bovarin, and Junior Flight engineer Eliot Liston, who unfortunately is still recovering from his minor hand injury.’
‘Most of your job doesn’t really start until we get close to Orlando, right?’ Poppy pushed.
‘Right.’ Jesse pointed to the computer in front of him, which displayed a digital image from the shuttle’s external camera with a grid overlaid. ‘This system uses radar and information from the Damocles to determine exactly where Orlando is. If we looked out the window right now, we couldn’t tell it from another star in the sky. But, in an hour or two, when we get closer, the system will spot it, lock on and we’ll know we’re getting close.’
‘That’s when your job really begins,’ Poppy encouraged. ‘Can you explain it?’
Jesse shifted in his seat; the force of gravity was halving every minute and he was beginning to feel the stretch in his spine. Astronauts grew a few inches in microgravity – a change that was accompanied, at least in Jesse’s case, by almost constant back pain.
‘Orlando is in a very low orbit above Europa. Every ninety minutes it does one rotation of the moon – which means it’s actually moving quite fast. Our job is to catch up with it and dock with it while we’re both moving.’
‘Well, actually – that’s my job.’ Harry’s sharp eyes appeared in the lens and he waved for the camera. ‘I’m the pilot for this mission. I…’