“Okay, Flight… Ready on the doors, Jack. Radiators stowed and latched.”
“All yours, Skip.”
At the starboard wall instrument consoles, Parker energized Bay Mechanical Power, System One.
“Doors lever-locked closed, Jack… In motion left and right.”
“See it, Skip.”
Slowly, silently, the motors lifted the great doors upward from the wings. With the inverted bay facing the dawn sea 900 miles east of Okinawa, Parker watched the two doors seal out the brilliant ocean beneath the sixty-foot-long chasm. Like huge white clamshells, the bay slowly closed over Parker’s right shoulder.
“Two feet to go, Jack.”
“Endeavor: Coming up on LOS by Kadena. With you by GDX at 09 plus 20…”
At one minute before Shuttle’s ninth hour aloft, Okinawa fell over the edge of radio range as the ship overflew the Bonin Islands. To Endeavor’s south, 150 miles away, a tiny green dot was visible in early-morning daylight out Enright’s inverted side window: Iwo Jima.
The blue sea disappeared behind the overhead seam of the bay roof. With the bay floodlights burning brightly, it was still daylight inside the closed payload bay.
“All green latches, Will.”
“Okay, Jack. Takin’ my look-see.”
Parker set up a small, telescopic theodelite much like a surveyor’s instrument. With it, the AC focused the optics through the rear window. Carefully, he conducted a slow, meticulous inspection of the bay ceiling seam. The instrument at the AC’s squinting eye scanned the length of the closed roof seam one inch at a time.
“Not a ripple, Number One. Bay seal is secured… Lights off.”
Parker extinguished the six lights inside the bay. Outside the two rear windows, the payload bay was black and ready for the fiery plunge homeward.
“Fifty minutes, Skipper.”
The mission event timer at Enright’s eye level ticked down the time remaining to the de-orbit ignition of the one surviving OMS engine in the broken tail section.
In the rear of the flightdeck, Parker floated from panel to panel where he powered down systems and rear lighting. When he had finished, he floated toward Karpov.
“Time to play musical chairs, Major.”
The Soviet pilot released his lap belt and floated over the center console. Like tandem swimmers, Parker and the Russian floated to the rear jumpseat.
“For the re-entry G-load, Alexi.” The AC handed Karpov his rubber, inflatable pants which had been stowed under the jumpseat. The Russian in his American flightsuit hung upside down in the rear of the flightdeck. Parker held Karpov’s shoulders while the Major pulled on his anti-gravity pants. “Prevents grayout during the re-entry G spike which we take headsup. The inflated pants stop blood pooling in the lower body.”
Wearing his balloon pants like fisherman’s waders, the Russian buckled into the jumpseat. Floating beside Karpov, Parker touched the large overhead window above the Major’s head.
“Escape hatch, Alexi. If you pull here, the whole window frame opens inward like a trapdoor. If we get bent or wet, crack the window seals and punch out. We’ll be right behind you, I promise.”
The sole surviving Russian nodded.
“Enjoy the ride, my friend.” Will Parker’s gaunt and deeply lined face smiled. So did the Major.
As the AC floated forward, Enright had already moved into his right seat. His anti-gravity pants covered his mesh drawers. Parker pulled his inflatable waders from under his seat. He pulled the pants over his own sweat-soaked woolies. He winced as the tight trousers squeezed over his grotesquely swollen right leg. Then he eased his long body over the center console and into the left front seat — the Captain’s Seat. The AC plugged in his communications cable for the soft headset. An air tube went from behind his seat to his rubber pants. Karpov behind Enright plugged his communications line into a wall jack as he plugged his pants into the Portable Oxygen System outlet behind Enright’s seat.
Above the sunshaded windows, the forward event timer ticked down past minus 44 minutes to de-orbit ignition.
Will Parker pushed a floating, three-inch-thick procedures manual down into his lap. For a moment, the Aircraft Commander took the measure of the forward instrument arrays and the brilliant, inverted ocean outside against the flatly black, starless sky.
“I have the bridge, Number One.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”
Enright smiled behind his sticky, hot face mask.
“Tell me again, Cleanne. Please?”
The beautiful young woman with the eyes of a frightened child looked intently at the small woman by her side. The sun of a clear Texas evening shone brightly through the window.
From the setting sun, soft daylight glowed crimson upon the rumpled auburn hair of the younger woman. As they sat on the bedside with their backs to the window, the short blond hair of the older woman glowed warmly. On the nightstand, a round clock showed twelve minutes after six o’clock.
The square bedroom was bright with a child’s stuffed animals and with piles of colorful books about talking animals, fairy godmothers, and trains. In a corner, a short green Christmas tree stood within a pile of brightly wrapped packages. All the little boxes bore “TO MY GIRL’ in thickly printed letters.
“Your daddy and Mister Enright are getting ready to come home, Emily. They will start down real soon. And we can watch them get out of their spaceship on television in just an hour and a half.”
The blond woman looked tired. The angular beauty of her face and her softly dark eyes were heavy with the strain of sounding cheerful.
“That’s my daddy!”
The red-haired, child-woman pointed happily to a Houston newspaper on the floor. Smiling photographs of William McKinley Parker and a youthful Jacob Enright looking like an Eagle Scout were side by side under a banner headline: “SHUTTLE PURSUES INTELSAT-6.” And under that in letters an inch high: “RUSSIANS READY TO ASSIST.”
“What does it say, Cleanne? Tell me again.”
The gentle physician with slumped shoulders tried not to choke upon her words.
“It says your daddy and Mister Enright will be home after dinner.”
“Can we go watch the TV now? Sister Lisa said it’s starting real soon. Oh, please?”
“Emily, I think we should wait until the airplane is really coming home. I mean until we can really see it. Okay?”
The younger woman became serious. Her great eyes studied her happy little tree and its pile of treasures.
“Will Daddy be here for Christmas in this many days?” The red-haired girl worked her hands together to hold up seven fingers. She licked her upper lip as she got her fingers up. “This many?”
The blond woman gently laid her arm upon the girl’s thin shoulders.
“I’m sure of it.” The physician sniffed once, softly.
“Daddy said Mister Enright would take care of him.” The young woman raised her happy face to the exhausted physician who turned her wet eyes away.
“Mister Enright promised, didn’t he, Emily?”
“Left air data probe lever-locked stow.”
“Right air data probe, ADTA Two, circuit breaker, Main bus B, Overhead Panel-15, Row E, closed.”
“Closed.”
“Air data transducer assembly Four, Main C, Overhead Panel-16, Row E, closed.”
“ADTA Number Four, closed.”
“Overhead Panel-6: MDM at FF-2, on.”
“Multiplexor-demultiplexor, Flight Forward Number Two, on.”
“MDM, FF-4, Overhead Panel-6, on.”
“Flight forward, Number Four, on.”
“ADP Right, lever-locked, stow.”
“Air data probe, Right, lever-locked stowed.”
“And, ADP stow to inhibit.”