Nadia kept a close watch on their speed. After a few more minutes, she announced, “We are subsonic again, slowing past five hundred knots.” She pulled up another display, this one governing the S-29’s twin fuel tanks. “I suggest we begin dumping fuel to reduce our landing weight.”
“Roger,” Vasey agreed. “Inert and dump our ‘bomb’ first.” Bomb was Sky Masters slang for “borohydrogen metaoxide” or “BOHM.” Essentially refined hydrogen peroxide, BOHM was the liquid oxidizer their engines would have needed for combustion after transitioning to pure rocket mode. While not quite as efficient as supercooled liquid oxygen, it was considerably less costly. BOHM could also be transferred by tanker aircraft — which was not yet possible for cryogenic oxygen.
Nadia typed in new orders, instructing the computers to flush the BOHM tank with helium to render the compound safe before she dumped it into the air high over the ocean. Green lights blinked, indicating the job was done. Quickly, she tapped the fuel-dump icon.
“Bombs away,” she said with a slight, twisted smile.
Vasey blinked. “My God, really? That was terrible, Major. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Sorry, Constable. But I’ve always wanted to say that,” she admitted.
She waited another sixty seconds to begin dumping their conventional JP-8 jet fuel. No one in their right mind wanted to risk inadvertently mixing BOHM with jet fuel outside a “leopard” engine operating in rocket mode. Ordinarily, it took a pulsed laser igniter to set off the combination… but sometimes any source of friction or even just a vibration at the wrong frequency could trigger a massive explosion.
The S-29 was down to a little over six thousand feet by the time they crossed the coastline — gliding silently above a shore marked by jagged rocks and rolling, whitecapped breakers. Off to their right, Nadia could see a little town her computer identified as Bodega Bay. Ahead lay a jumble of hills and ridges. The slopes swept by winds coming off the Pacific were mostly scrub brush and tall grass. The hills and narrow valleys farther inland were either thickly wooded or a mix of terraced vineyards and fenced cattle-grazing land.
Buffeted by updrafts swirling above those slopes, the spaceplane juddered briefly. Their airspeed dropped further. Control surfaces whirred open, providing a little more lift as they flew lower across Sonoma County.
Beyond the range of coastal hills, housing developments and vineyards sprawled across flatter, more open country. Santa Rosa’s more crowded streets and denser network of buildings lay ahead and to the right. The county’s regional airport was off to the left, about six nautical miles northwest of the city. Live oaks lined both sides of a creek that meandered across the valley floor.
Nadia checked her navigation display. “Two nautical miles out.”
“Copy that,” Vasey said. He turned his attention to the airport tower controller monitoring for their approach. “Santa Rosa Tower, this is Shadow Two, descending through one thousand feet, airspeed one-nine-zero knots, full stop.”
“Shadow Two, Santa Rosa Tower, winds light and from the west, cleared to land Runway Three-Two. Emergency has been declared. Rescue crews standing by,” the controller responded.
The steering cues on Vasey’s HUD slid sharply to the left, indicating this was the point selected for his final turn to line up on the runway. Concentrating fiercely, he tweaked the stick to follow them — rolling toward the northwest and then leveling out.
“One nautical mile out,” Nadia told him.
Vasey nodded. He tapped the landing-gear icon on his own multifunction display. “Descending through five hundred feet. Gear down.”
Hydraulics under their feet whined. The S-29’s center fuselage gear and wing-mounted bogies were coming down. Robbed of its perfect streamlining, the big spaceplane shuddered and rattled.
An indicator on Vasey’s HUD flashed solid green. “Gear down and locked.”
The runway loomed ahead through the S-29’s thick, heat-resistant windscreen, growing larger with every passing second. He peered ahead, blinking away a droplet of sweat. The gloved fingers of his left hand curled around the stick, making tiny movements as he fought to stay on the precisely computed glide path.
Now.
The spaceplane dropped the last few feet and touched down with a sharp jolt — right at the start of the angled yellow chevrons that marked the runway’s overrun area. Braking hard, it rolled fast along the asphalt strip, slashing past the fire trucks and other emergency vehicles parked off to the side.
Looking ahead, Nadia clenched her teeth. Święta Matka Boża, Holy Mother of God, she realized. They weren’t going to stop in time to stay on the runway’s paved surface.
With another sharp jolt, the S-29 skidded off the far end of the runway. It bounced and bucked almost all the way across a furrowed dirt field before shuddering to a halt in a swirling cloud of dust… barely one hundred feet short of slamming nose first into a rusting metal viewing platform.
For a long, unbelieving moment, there was only silence in the cockpit. Finally, both Nadia and Vasey exhaled sharply, amazed to find themselves in one piece. Then, with wildly exuberant grins, they turned and exchanged high fives.
“Well… that was fun,” Nadia said slowly, trying to control the tiny quaver in her voice. “But let’s not do it again.”
“Definitely not,” Vasey agreed. “My mother always claimed I had a cat’s nine lives. If so, that little exploit might easily have used up number seven.”
Suddenly the view outside their cockpit windows went black. “Mission complete,” the Sky Masters computer said smoothly. Lights flickered on, outlining the door on the side of the S-29 flight simulator. “Emergency landing successful.”
When they unstrapped and climbed out of the simulator, Brad McLanahan met them at the foot of the ladder. The tall, blond-haired young man had a grin of his own plastered across his face. “Nice job, guys!”
“We are not in trouble?” Nadia asked, surprised. “Despite choosing such a risky option?”
Surprised, Brad shook his head. “Heck no.” He turned serious. “This was your graduation exercise. Losing all five engines? At hypersonic and supersonic speeds? Man, that’s called a really bad day on the way into space. And yet you still figured out a way to save the spaceplane? Amazing. Believe it or not, you even managed to impress Boomer. Most trainee crews would have taken the easy way out and just ejected.”
“And if we had?” Vasey wanted to know.
“You’d start over again in the simulator tomorrow morning,” Brad told him. He shrugged. “Of course, the same thing would have happened if you crashed on landing. Boomer’s not screwing around here. And I don’t blame him. Tough, realistic training is the only real way to turn out a solid cadre of space-ready crews for these S-planes.”
“So, what comes next?” Nadia asked quietly.
“Both of you already have decent experience handling high-Gs,” Brad said. “So we can skip that part of the program.”
“Which means we move on to zero-gravity?” Vasey guessed. “Riding the Vomit Comet?” Short of actual spaceflight, the best method of re-creating the sensation of weightlessness involved repeated high-angle parabolic maneuvers in an aircraft. During each stomach-churning climb and dive, passengers experienced short periods of zero-G. Airsickness was common, which explained the nickname.
Brad nodded. “And then you head to Houston for EVA training at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab.”
“It sounds… busy,” Nadia observed.