Stall, was all she could think of. "We have to get Dr. Emerson off the shuttle first," she told him, "You can't risk his life on this."
Rayburn snorted impatience. "All right. Doc! No, you—Doc Emerson. You're to get your things and leave; Skyport orders. Sorry, no... but, look, thanks for everything."
The earphone went silent. Betsy pushed the mike away from her with a trembling hand. Whitney's earlier words echoed through her mind—but it did no good to recognize on an intellectual level that once Rayburn defied her instructions she was absolved from all responsibility for the shuttle's safety. Emotionally, she still felt the crushing weight of failure poised above her shoulders.
Because, down deep, she finally knew what the real problem was. Not theoretical concepts like command and responsibility; not even Rayburn's open rebellion.
The problem was her. Leadership is what command is all about, she thought, a sour taste seeping into her mouth. A captain needs to act; but all I can do with Eric is react. She should have seen it long ago, and recognized it as the one remaining legacy of their long-since-broken relationship. Then, for reasons that had seemed adequate at the time, she had allowed his overpowering personality to take charge, submitting to his lead in all things, until in its subtle and leisurely way a pattern had been set for all their future interactions. He acted, she reacted; a simple, straightforward, and unbreakable rule... and men would probably die today because of it. And even as she contemplated that consequence of her failure, a second, more brutally personal one drove itself into her consciousness like a thorn under a fingernaiclass="underline" for a year and a half Rayburn's name, face, and voice had been instant triggers of guilt-tinged pain to her... and if he died now, under these circumstances, he would haunt her from his grave for the rest of her life. "No!" she hissed aloud, beating gently on the edge of her instrument panel with a tightly curled fist. The pattern could be broken; had to be broken. She couldn't afford to accept his assumption that no alternative solutions existed. Their lives, and her future sanity, could depend on her proving him wrong.
Gritting her teeth tightly together, she stared at the monitor screen, her eyes dancing over the broken shuttle, the inside of the bay, the inadequate cable. Somewhere in all of that there was an answer.... Dr. Emerson's legs appeared through the cockpit window, his hand groping upward with the hook until the man on the windshield took it from him and set it in place. The line tightened and the doctor popped out of the window, flailing somewhat with his carry-on bag as he swung in midair.
And Betsy had the answer. Maybe.
"Peter!" she called, spinning around in her chair. "Did you finish that second landing-distance analysis yet?"
Whitney looked up at her. "Yes—it came out a little better this time: about seven point seven one kilometers, plus or minus five percent, maybe."
"How much worse would it be on a foamed runway?"
He blinked. "Uh, I really don't know—"
"Never mind. Warm up the machine again; I need some fast numbers from you." She flicked on her mike again. "Eric? Hold the ceremonies; I've got an idea."
"Save your breath. Whatever you've come up with, I'm going anyway."
"I know," she said, smiling coldly to herself. "But you're not going alone. We're going to hand-deliver you."
—
The sky had been a perfectly cloudless blue when the Skyport first approached Dallas earlier that morning. Now, five hours later, it looked exactly the same, giving Betsy a momentary feeling of d?j? vu. But the sensation faded quickly. The airport that was just coming into view through the flight deck windows was to the north of them this time, instead of to the west, and even at this distance the heavily foamed runway was clearly visible in the noonday sun. And the throbbing roar of the engines behind her was a powerful reminder that this time the silver giant that was Wing Section Seven was fully awake.
"Range, twenty miles," Greenburg said from the copilot's seat. "Sky's clear for at least five miles around us."
She nodded receipt of the information, her eyes tracing a circuit between the windows, the computerized approach monitor, and the engine and other instrument readings. They were barely six minutes from touchdown now, and the pressure was beginning to mount. For a moment she wished she'd accepted Lewis's offer to do the actual landing, which would have left her with Henson's task of coordinating operations with the shuttle. But Lewis had already put in a full shift when the accident occurred, and whether he would admit it or not he was bound to be getting tired. Besides, this gamble was Betsy's idea alone. If something went wrong, she didn't want anyone else to share in the blame. Or in the physical danger, for that matter—but there she'd met with somewhat less success. Ordering Lewis and the rest of Seven's off-duty flight crews to join the passengers in moving across to Five and Six had resulted in a quiet but firm mutiny. They'd helped the flight attendants get the passengers moved out, but had then returned en masse to the lounge, where most of them had spent the rest of the morning anyway, out of the way of the on-duty crew but close by if needed. Betsy had groused some about it, but not too loudly; though she couldn't imagine what help they could possibly be, their presence was somehow reassuring.
And reassurance was definitely something she could use more of. "Eric, we're about four minutes away. Are you ready?"
"As ready as I'm going to be." Even half buried in the rumble of Seven's engines, Rayburn's voice sounded nervous, and Betsy felt a flash of sympathy for him. The shoe that had been pinching her all morning was now squarely on his foot. Not only was his plane going to be brought down by someone else while he himself had to sit passively by, but he was going to be essentially blind during the entire operation. "You just be sure to hold a nice steady deceleration once we hit the runway."
"Don't worry." Betsy stole a quick glance at the bay monitor. The escape system had been dismantled before Seven broke off from the rest of the Skyport, and the passenger tunnel retracted into the bay wall; the front landing gear, freed from the tethering cable, had been similarly retracted into its well. Betsy's jaw tightened and she winced at the thought of the shuttle hitting that foamed runway belly-first at a hundred-twenty knots. Rayburn would have a massive job on his hands at that point, trying to maintain control of his skid while bringing the shuttle to a stop. But there was no way around it—the shuttle couldn't leave the docking bay with its nosewheel extended, and with less than a six-foot drop from its docked position to the ground there would be nowhere near enough time to get the landing gear in position once the shuttle was out. She hoped to hell the airport people had been generous with the foam.
"Seven miles to go," Greenburg murmured. "Final clearance has been given. Speed at one-seven-five."
One hundred seventy-five knots—one statute mile every eighteen seconds; a good fifty knots higher than the shuttle's own landing speed—and even at that Seven was barely staying aloft. Betsy's mouth felt dry as she made a slight correction in their approach path. Not only did she need to put Seven down on the very end of the runway if they were going to have any chance of pulling this off, but the runway itself was only two hundred feet wide, barely thirty feet wider than Seven's wheel track. She needed to hit it dead center, and stay there... and all of its markings were hidden by the foam.
"Betsy!" Henson's voice crackled with urgency. "Rayburn's lowered his main landing gear!"
"What?" Both her hands were busy, but Greenburg was already leaning over to switch the TV to Seven's outside monitor... and Henson was right. "Rayburn!" she all but bellowed into her mike. "What in hell's name do you think you're doing?"