Launch (11 page)

Over the next months, Claire and David explored
the remaining planets and their many moons.

Minor-5 was smaller than Earth with a rocky
core covered entirely with thick ice. Stress made elaborate patterns of cracks
in the ice. The planet had a thin atmosphere of mostly hydrogen and helium and
a cratered moon less than 25 miles in diameter.

Minor-6, the second largest planet, was more
than 1,000 times larger than Earth and had 29 moons. The pressure at the bottom
of its thick hydrogen atmosphere was so great that both liquid and liquid metallic
hydrogen were produced.

Minor-7 was the largest planet in the system,
more than 1700 times the size of Earth. It spun on its axis more than twice as
fast as Earth, and it had 22 rings and 42 moons. The hydrogen and helium
atmosphere was hundreds of miles thick and blew around the planet at speeds
near 500 miles per hour. Dust in the atmosphere obscured the surface, and
friction between dust particles generated spectacular lightning bolts with the
power of nuclear weapons.

Minor-8 was a dense planet that seemed out of
place among the giant gas planets in the outer Minor system, more like an
escaped moon. It was small, a little more than half the size of Earth, with an
orange tinted atmosphere of methane and nitrogen. Liquid methane at 300 degrees
below zero carved the surface like water carved land on Earth.

▼

On the way to Minor-9, Claire became depressed
as she studied childhood diseases in a pediatric textbook. She forced herself
to finish the chapter and then went to the fireman’s pole in the study.

David was on his way from the shirtsleeve
control compartment to get a cold drink when she landed on the middle deck. He
smiled. “Hey, Cougar.”

She did not pause on the way to the other
fireman’s pole. “Not now, please.”

David was puzzled. He heard the gym clanking below,
went up to the study, and discovered what she had been studying. Then he went
to a storeroom, brought back one of Claire’s favorite desserts,
pineapple-coconut cheesecake, and put it in the refrigerator to defrost.

A half-hour later, carrying her own cold drink,
Claire kissed him on the neck while he sat working at the shirtsleeve control
panel. “Thank you,” she said and continued on to the shower.

▼

Minor-9 and Minor-10 were both water-covered
planets. Their atmospheres of hydrogen, helium, and methane were so thick that
atmospheric pressure made the surfaces of the oceans hotter than the surface of
Minor. Only immense atmospheric pressure kept the water from boiling.

Origin
’s
last survey satellites were placed in orbit over Minor-10 and two of its nine
moons. Cougar Flight spent a week around Minor-10 surveying the details of the
rings and the seven moons not covered by satellites. This was their only visit,
and they had to get it all.

▼

Claire and David started the long journey back
to M9 to survey the details and moons they had skipped on their initial visit. They
had been very busy, and the flight would give them a chance to rest. It would
also give David a chance to catch up on reviewing data from the 29 surviving
satellites in orbit throughout the Minor system.

They slept together then had egg substitutes,
pancakes, and real coffee for breakfast. Their life-in-space habits were well ingrained,
and they secured their utensils immediately after eating. That left them with
the remainder of their coffee.

“Do you know what today is?” Claire asked.

David made a show of squinting at the monitor.
“What day? It looks pitch dark out there to me.”

She ignored his pathetic attempt at humor.
“It’s the half-way point of the mission.”

“We’ve been so busy, I haven’t looked at the
Earth clock for a while.”

“And . . . ,” she said.

“Michael’s gift!”

David retrieved the gift from storage. Inside
was an ebony box with an engraved gold plate on the top:

To our dear
friends

Claire and
David Archer

Godspeed

Joanne and Michael Bedford

May 1, 2050

Inside the ebony box was a collection of gold
coins from around the world. Each was in mint condition and secured in its own
red velvet pocket. A picture of Joanne and Michael was in the lid.

“It’s beautiful,” Claire said.

“Joanne and Michael were trying to look out for
us—again. They wanted to make sure we had money when we got back to Earth in
case our investments failed. This will be worth a fortune as a collector’s
item.”

“I could never sell it.”

“Me neither,” David said.

After a minute, she asked, “Are you sorry we
left?”

He shook his head. “No. We’ll always miss our
friends, but I’m sure we did the right thing. How about you? You had second
thoughts the night of the party.”

She shook her head. “I’ve been fine since we
launched.”

David said, “I used to have dreams the night
before combat missions and long over-water flights. My dream before this one
was about being all alone in the middle of nowhere.”

“Now?”

“No dreams since launch. You’re here. Wherever
you are is where I belong.”

She smiled. “I love you too, Buni.”

As she reached for his hand, the collision
warning horn went off. The howgozit monitor showed normal instrument readouts,
the blackness of space, and an “
ABNORMAL SHADOW
”
warning flashing red. Something was blocking light from the stars.

“I’ll secure the box,” David said. “Still your
ship.”

Claire put their cups away and sprinted to her
maneuvering compartment. She cancelled the collision alarm, reduced thrust to
one-tenth
g
, put on her spacesuit, and belted herself in her console.

Her monitor showed David with his spacesuit on
and starting to put on his helmet when she heard a horrendous bang, a rush of
escaping air, and a shrieking pressurization alarm. He became invisible in fog
caused by rapid depressurization. Claire knew his compartment had been hit by a
meteoroid, and she was paralyzed by panic. It was identical to what she had
felt when her mother was killed by a meteor.

She rebelled against her panic.
NO!
NOT
DAVID TOO!

Claire opened the adjoining door to David’s
compartment from her command console. Air rushed from her compartment into his,
and the drop in air pressure filled her compartment with fog.

She hit the quick-release button and then rolled
out of her couch. Rushing to the door, she was sucked toward it at increasing
speed. Claire jumped and turned so her right buttock and shoulder were slammed
against the wall. She bounced, twisted, grabbed the edge of the door, and
allowed herself to be pulled through at speed that would not damage her
spacesuit. Its integrity was essential to their survival.

David lay with his helmet beside him, and his
skin was turning blue. Claire locked his helmet into position over his head,
twisted the safety lock around the emergency suit pressurization button, and
pushed it. His suit inflated with oxygen, and pink began to return to his face.
At one-tenth
g,
she was able to pick him up and secure him in his couch.

She raced back to her console. Her monitor
showed that David’s pulse, oxygen level, and respiration had already returned
to normal. He was alive, but was he David or was he a vegetable? She would have
to find out later. Her duty now was to save their lives by saving
Origin
.

Claire applied five
gs
of reverse thrust
to begin reducing the ship’s high speed toward whatever was out there. She
checked again to make sure David was okay and then went to nine
g
s.

Her monitor still indicated an abnormal shadow.
That eliminated the theory that the collision alarm had been caused by whatever
had hit David’s compartment. Still, nothing but stars and the blackness of
space were showing on her monitor. She was wondering if there was a malfunction
when she began to see vague shadows against the stars. More stars winked out.
An invisible threat blocked more space visibility and was growing.
Growing?
She shivered. Then she watched in awe as her monitor filled with images of
asteroids that seemed to extend forever in all directions: a solid wall. The
ship and the asteroid field were on a collision course and had been closing too
fast from the very first warning to avoid it.

Claire began to see space between the asteroids
as she approached the field at high speed. With total concentration and split
second timing, she snaked the ship up and down and right and left through the
gaps. Occasionally she rolled the ship to move a part of it out of the way for
a squeaker. Several times, the only opening seemed too small, and she was
surprised when there was no collision.

Origin
’s
enormous power was an extension of Claire’s will, and she soon mastered the
asteroid dance. That freed up her conscious mind to consider other things. She
checked David’s monitors again. He was normal. She noticed she was drenched in
sweat, despite the cooling system in her suit, and her shoulders and face
muscles were tense. She closed the door to David’s compartment, re-pressurized
her compartment, put its cooling on maximum, and relaxed as best she could.
There was no end in sight, and she knew she was going to need all of her
strength to save the ship.

After a two hour battle, the asteroid field began
to thin. A huge asteroid appeared in
Origin
’s path, and she yawed to
miss it. A smaller rock was hidden behind the asteroid and traveling at an
angle through the field. It appeared on Claire’s display for only a millisecond.
Neither she nor the ship could respond fast enough to avoid it, and engine E-3
was knocked off. The extreme force sent the ship into a wobbling, high-speed
spin. Claire and David blacked out. Not enough blood was getting to their
brains because of centrifugal force.

▼

More space rocks hit
Origin
as it spun
crazily. The last impact before they left the asteroid field slowed the spin
enough for them to regain consciousness. Only sensor arrays on sides one and three
were working and only engine E-4 was on line.

David immediately applied thrust to try to stop
the spin as he marginally regained consciousness. With great effort, he said, “Claire!”
It was hard to talk because the ship was still spinning and he was experiencing
eight
gs
.

His display showed she had commanded the same
thrust nozzle at the same time. The engine responded, and
Origin
’s spin
began to slow.

She said, “I’m okay. Who’s going to fly the
ship?”

“You fly. I’ll do a preliminary damage survey
and restore pressurization.”

“My ship.”

“Stop the spin and go to zero
g
.” David
said.

“Roger. Be a careful Buni.”

David’s couch and control panel had
automatically swiveled to reduce the effects of high
g
loads. It was
positioned over a corner of his compartment, and the centrifugal force was
still too high for him to move. All he could do was wait.

He checked the status of the ship on his
control panel. Only his maneuvering control compartment, the cabin, and some of
the storerooms surrounding the cabin were depressurized.
Origin
had lost
a lot of fuel, but it was not losing any more. There was no response from the six
sensor arrays on sides two and four and no response from engines E-1, E-2, or
E-3.

After Claire stopped the spin, David took a
hand searchlight, grab handles that could be stuck on walls, and a tether from
his storage lockers. One locker had a hole in the door. Inside, a stack of
patches had holes in the first two. The meteoroid that had penetrated the ship
was about one inch in diameter and was embedded in the third patch. He
sandwiched that patch with the embedded space rock between the two damaged
patches and put them at the bottom of the stack. Then he took eight patches and
four plugs from the compartment.

David noted the location of the hole in the
overhead of his compartment and the hole in the cabin wall on his way out.

The passageway he took through the storage area
in the middle sphere appeared to be undamaged. He surveyed the area between the
middle and outer spheres. They appeared to be undamaged except for the holes
made by the meteoroid.

He explored the exit passageways from the ship.
One of the five passageways was blocked. One passageway was completely open and
he had to grab a broken edge to keep from being lost to space. That scared him.
He would have been millions of miles from the nearest planet, and the chances
of Claire finding him would have been slim.

Handholds were built into the edge of the steps
in the passageway, and some remained in place. David secured one end of a
tether to his spacesuit and the other to two step handholds. Then he gently
floated into space and used the powerful beam of his searchlight to look at
side four. He saw ruined fuel tanks visible through gaping holes in the ship and
that engine E-3 was missing. He shook his head soberly as he surveyed the
damage.