Professor McGee, the other egghead on board, was nowhere in sight. Probably off somewhere dictating to his journal. As mission historian, there wasn't much else he could do. We'll all burn up in a little while if I don't get this done, Gwen thought. Not much of an ending to his story.
"Okay, Major, it's your play. Good luck."
With a practiced hand, Gwen crossed her two red braids behind her neck, removed her Atlanta Braves cap, and clamped the helmet down to seal the Marsuit. Then she entered the airlock, closing the hatch behind her. Through the viewport she could see Dr. Sherman making double-sure it was dogged shut.
Gwen checked the airlock readouts. Praise the Lord, at least this system was in working order. "All secure in here. Commence pumpdown."
Twenty minutes.
"Pumpdown initiated." Townsend's voice was muffled inside Gwen's helmet. The lock began to hiss. Because the Beagle's cabin atmospheric pressure was kept at a modest five pounds per square inch, no prebreathing was necessary, and the depressurization operation proceeded swiftly. As the pressure dropped, the Marsuit began to stiffen.
Gwen looked out the window into space as the hiss and throb of the evacuation pumps grew fainter. As she stared open-mouthed at the wild profusion of stars, with nothing to do but wait, a poignant memory of a long-ago clear night in rural North Carolina briefly possessed her.
She was twelve, looking out her bedroom window on a cricket-haunted night, the full moon hanging peacefully above her apricot tree. Pebbles rattled against her window. "Gwennie, let's go," whispered the boys from the neighboring farm. She climbed down the vine and crawled past the kitchen window, where she could hear her parents talking about her: "I don't know how Gwen's ever gonna get herself a boy if she keeps acting like one. Did you hear how she beat the tar out of the Nichols boy in the schoolyard last week?"
The kids had listened for a bit, giggled conspiratorially, then sneaked off into the barn, where they jumped out of the loft onto haystacks, yelling "Geronimo!" When it was Gwen's turn to leap, it seemed as if she hung in the air for minutes, her heart pounding, while the moon and stars spun around her.
It had been her first taste of weightlessness, of space... .
Finally, the hatch opened, and the last bits of air puffed out of the airlock, sparkling with instantly frozen specks of water vapor. They looked like gold dust in the harsh sunlight of outer space. Time to stop holding your breath, girl. Only eighteen minutes left. Gwen gingerly edged out onto the exterior white-painted skin of the habitat module, her magnetic boots clanging hollowly.
Up the ladder. Gwen made her way to the tether-deployment unit, slowly unreeling the umbilical safety line that would keep her attached if her magnetic boots slipped off the hull. There's the windlass, just a few more steps. Uh-oh. The umbilical is too short.
Sixteen minutes left.
There was only one thing to do and no time to argue about it. Better not even tell Townsend. Gwen detached the safety umbilical from her suit. Okay, now take it easy.
She grabbed the handholds onto the roof of the Hab. The unobstructed view of Mars from the slowly rotating spacecraft was spectacular, but it made her dizzy. Feeling like an ant crawling across the outside of a yo-yo, she paused, feeling nauseous.
Townsend's voice practically shouted inside her helmet, scratchy with static. "How's it going, Major?"
"Almost there, Colonel."
"Well, get to it. We've only got fourteen minutes before aeroentry."
Gwen scrambled forward and grabbed the windlass. Made it. "Ready to initiate manual release."
"Proceed, Major."
Gwen put her hands on the lever, braced her boots under the windlass baseplate, and pushed down hard. No give. Dammit, is the stupid thing vacuum-welded?
She tried again, but the manual still wouldn't budge. She considered trying to cut the cable, but discarded the idea. The spectra tether was over three inches thick. With her sheath knife as her only cutting tool, hacking the cable would take far too long. A secondary set of pyro bolts held the windlass to its baseplate. The bolts had refused to fire—but maybe they could be detached entirely.
Gwen took a wrench from her tool belt and hesitantly placed it on the bolt's hex. If that bolt fires when I twist it, I'm fried. But if we don't get loose, we're all fried. She put both hands on the wrench handle and braced her feet on the windlass. "Okay, stand by me, Jesus." Then she pulled with all her might.
The brittle bolt broke with a snap but no explosion. The force of the push hurled Gwen away from the windlass, but she caught a handhold and swung herself back to the Hab roof. Okay. Now for the other three bolts.
"What's going on up there, Major?"
"The manual release won't move, so I'm snapping off the pyro bolts."
"You're what?"
"Snapping the bolts. One down, three to go."
"Major, Gwen, try something else. If those bolts should fire—"
"No time, sir." She continued with her work.
"Major, this is an order—"
Gwen cut him off. Okay, number two. She braced, pulled, and got another snap. Catching her handhold, she swung back onto the roof. Ten minutes left. Better hurry.
The third bolt broke free with eight minutes remaining. Then, confident, Gwen placed the wrench head around the final hex and pulled. But this time the bolt wouldn't give.
"Come on, break, damn you!" She had one trick left. Fully braced, she kicked down on the wrench handle with all the force she could muster.
Everything changed in a blink. The bolt snapped, the whole windlass tore free of the Hab module—and Gwen lost her footing. She grabbed for a handhold, but the Beagle was now separating from her at a velocity of fifty meters a second. She tumbled off into space.
Watching the ship recede into the distance, Gwen whispered "Geronimo," her voice echoing strangely inside her helmet. Then she fired her cold gas jets to negate her spin. For a moment, she hung weightless with the entire panorama of Mars, the diminishing ship, and a vast, star-studded sky surrounding her.
The spell lasted only a second before she realized that Townsend would feel obligated to maneuver the ship and come after her. With only six minutes left, the risk was too great. She switched on her suit radio.
"You're home free, Colonel; suggest you prepare for aerocapture."
"Major, where the hell have you been? Where the hell are you?"
"I've separated from the ship, sir."
Townsend's voice was hard and no-nonsense. "What's your bearing?"
Gwen looked at the ship, then in the opposite direction. "You'll find me in Pegasus, sir, but there's no time."
"Pegasus? Gotcha. Hang in there, Major, we're coming for you."
Gwen knew it was useless to argue. That colonel was a damn fool; he'd lose the mission to try to save her. She saw a retro flare on the speck representing the retreating ship, and felt a tear forming in the corner of her eye.
He'd never make it. Still, it was good to have friends.
CHAPTER 2
"ONE HUNDRED NINETY seconds to atmospheric contact," Luke announced. Tension sharpened his normally slow, relaxed voice.
The computer chanted softly, counting down the numbers.
Colonel Andrew Townsend's computer screen flashed one dreadful message after another: ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY ANGLE INCORRECT FOR AEROCAPTURE.
SHIP ROTATION INCORRECT FOR AEROCAPTURE.
FLIGHT PATH ANGLE INCORRECT FOR AEROCAPTURE. AERODYNAMIC ANGLE OF ATTACK INCORRECT.