Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (119 page)

Jeff groaned. “Gabe?”

“Yeah, except for the cryo tank
stirring, it’s all superfluous. It actually sounds like boiler-plate from the
Apollo transcripts. I don’t remember all of it because it didn’t seem that
important, but I wouldn’t worry about it. We’re here, they’re not, and they’re
at least 21 minutes behind us.”

“Gotcha.”

“Abby,” said Gabe, “can you give me
a PROCEED to start the gyro torqueing?”

“Yeah.”

“Gabe,” said Abby, “can you give me
a mark at T
_IG
minus 20 minutes.”

“Yeah, sure. About 15 seconds… and…
mark.”

“Rog.”

“And rendezvous radar mode to MGC,
but leave the breakers out.”

“Rog.”

“And I recommend using the PGNS for
guidance.”

“Rog.”

“Alright, let’s pressurize the
tanks.”

“Rog.”

“Ascent helium regulators 1&2?”

“Two talkbacks Gray.”

“Master Arm – ON.”

“ON.”

“Ascent He select – BOTH”

“BOTH.”

“Ascent He press – FIRE.”

“Fired.” Through their suits, they
heard the squibs ignite to open valves and allow helium into their propellant
tanks.

“Master Arm – OFF.”

“OFF”

“System A ascent feed two open.”

“Two open, two gray.”

“Keep an eye on the manifold
pressure for these.”

“Right.”

“System A main shutoff valve
CLOSE.”

“Closed, barber pole.”

“Crossfeed valve OPEN”

“Opened, gray.”

“System B ascent feed two open.”

“Two open, two gray.”

“System B main shutoff valve
CLOSE.”

“Closed, barber pole.”

“How’s it look?”

“Looks good.”

“Okay. Batteries 5 and 6 ON.”

“ON.”

“Batteries 1 and 3 OFF/RESET.”

“OFF/RESET, barber pole.”

“Excellent. We are Go for liftoff.
Sue, how is my little girl doing?”

“Just fine. Sound asleep, missing
all the fun.”

“Probably for the best.”

“Yeah.”

Jeff chuckled. “Yeah, all we’d need
right about now is a crying baby.”

“T
_IG
minus ten minutes,”
said Gabe. “Abby, do you have a VHF signal from Sundancer?”

“Yeah.”

Gabe said, “Okay. Five minutes. ATT
translation, four jets. Balance couple ON.”

Abby replied, “ON.”

“Thrust/Translation Controller
Assembly jets. Propulsion pushbutton RESET. Abort, abort stage RESET.”

“RESET.”

“Deadband MINIMUM.”

“MINIMUM.”

“ATT control to Mode Control. Mode
Control AUTO BOTH.”

“AUTO, AUTO.”

“T
_IG
minus 2,” said
Gabe. “If you have any last words for Mars, better make it quick.”

“It’s been fun,” said Jeff.

“Yeah, it has,” said Abby.

“It’s certainly been different,”
said Susan.

Gabe joined back in. “Jeff, it’s
nothing like I imagined six years ago when you walked into my office at
Caltech.”

Abby said, “I’ll go along with
that.”

“Me too,” said Susan.

“Me three,” said Jeff.

“Abby,” said Gabe, “Master Arm ON.”

“Master Arm is ON.”

“Okay. At five seconds you’re going
to get Abort Stage and Engine Arm, and I’ll get PROCEED.”

“Got it.”

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, Abort Stage,
Engine Arm, Ascent, PROCEED, and… liftoff.”

The MAV shook a little and began to
rise.

“Hey! We’re flying!” Abby yelled.

“36 feet per second.”

“Newport,
Ares
,” said Jeff,
“we have liftoff at 0200 UTC. We’re on our way home. See you in seven months.”

“Standby for pitchover,” said Gabe.

“Pitching over,” said Abby. “Balance couple, OFF.”

“OFF.”

“One minute, looking good.”

“16 kilometers, 260 meters per
second vertical, 325 meters per second horizontal.”

“Pressures are good.”

“How are everyone’s legs doing?”
said Jeff.

“Fine,” said Gabe.

“Not as bad as I thought it would
be, one G,” said Abby.

“I’m fine,” said Susan

“Two minutes,” said Gabe. “43
kilometers altitude, 459 meters per second vertical, 712 meters per second
horizontal. Looking good. AGS and PGNS are right together.”

“Right down the pipe,” said Abby.

Jeff grinned. “Feel that? Real
gravity.”

“I love it,” said Gabe.

“Enjoy it while you can,” said
Abby. “It’s only gonna last a few more minutes.”

“Spoil sport.”

“You got your barf bags handy? In
five minutes we’re gonna be back in space.”

“Thank you for that helpful
reminder. Yes, I have them handy. Coming up on three minutes. 79 kilometers
altitude, 595 meters per second vertical, 1,160 meters per second horizontal.”

“H-dot is right on the button.”

“Ghita’s beginning to stir,” said
Susan. “She’s still asleep, but she’ll be waking soon. How long till we can
pressurize?”

“Just after engine cutoff, about
five minutes,” said Gabe.

“Well, as they say, put the pedal
to the metal, because she’s liable to freak out if she wakes up inside this
thing.”

“We’re at 100% throttle right now.
This thing won’t go any faster.”

Jeff put his hand on Susan’s shoulder.
“Calm. If she does wake up, well, she’ll just have to cry for a minute or two.
Can’t be helped. What worries me is how she’s going to react to zero-g.”

Susan sighed. “Yeah.”

“Four minutes,” said Gabe. “119
kilometers altitude, 670 meters per second vertical, 1,671 meters per second
horizontal.”

Jeff pointed out the port docking
window. “Look at the cratering down there in the Sabaea. Those must have been
some huge rocks. We should be able to see the Hellas Planitia pretty soon. We
should’ve got a camera out and taken pictures of this.”

“We took pictures of it in orbit
and on the way in, more would be redundant,” said Gabe.

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m not?”

He laughed. “Okay, I take that
back.”

“You better.”

“Would you two shut up!” said Abby.
“Gabe, how are we doing?”

Gabe chuckled. “Now I know why your
callsign is Bitch. Okay, five minutes, 160 kilometers altitude, 682 meters per
second vertical, 2,244 meters per second horizontal. Right down the pipe. AGT
looks good. And, coming up on maximum vertical velocity. H-dot max… now.”

“Thank you.”

“Our actual velocity at the moment
is 2,926 meters per second. Anticipate cutoff at 7:49.”

“Got it.”

Two and a half minutes later they
were in orbit.

“And… shutdown,” said Abby. “Engine
arm circuit breakers OUT.”

“Rog. Shutdown, 250 kilometers
altitude, 4,537 meters per second. Prefect.” said Gabe.

“How far are we from Sundancer,”
said Jeff.

Gabe replied, “Oh, she’s about 10
klicks ahead of us. I think I can see her out of the docking window.”

“Outstanding! Way to go! How long
to docking?”

“I don’t know. About 20 minutes.”

“Good job, both of you. Newport,
Ares
,
we are in orbit and about 20 minutes from docking with Sundancer.”

“Cabin REPRESS,” said Gabe.

“REPRESS,” said Abby. “Pressure is
coming up. It’ll be about three minutes.”

“Batteries 1 and 3 ON.”

“ON, gray.”

“Rog. AC BUS A: Rendezvous Radar
CLOSE.”

“Closed.”

“And PGNS, Rendezvous Radar CLOSE.”

“Closed.”

“That was a pretty nice ride,” said
Jeff. “My complements to Grumman.”

“Yeah, not too bad,” said Gabe.
“Abby, you want to trim residuals.”

“Rog. Trimming.”

“Okay, that looks pretty good.”

“What’s our R-dot?”

“About 8.3 meters per second.”

“Do we have a solid range on VHF or
radar?”

“I’ve got a good lock on VHF – 19.3
kilometers. I haven’t had time to get the radar on her.”

“Rog.”

“While we’re waiting to catch up
with Sundancer,” said Gabe, “we better get an alignment. I’ll do a P52. And can
you open the circuit breakers on inverters 1 and 2?”

“Got it.”

“And can you close the breaker on
the AOT lamp?”

“Closed. You going to Track?”

“Yeah.”

“REPRESS closed,” said Abby. “4.8
psi. You can all remove your helmets now. And Sue, you can get Ghita out of her
box.”

“It’s about time,” said Susan.

“Hey, sweetie, this stuff takes a
while. Lifting off from Mars ain’t exactly like driving down to the
neighborhood 7-Eleven.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Abby,” said Gabe, “we’ve got radar
tracking. 19.1 klicks.”

“Rog.”

“AGS and PGNC agree very closely.
Wide deadband ON.”

“ON.”

“Sue, how’s Ghita?”

“She’s waking up. Not quite there
yet, but eye’s blinking. She’s fine.”

“Thank you. Hang onto her for a few
minutes, I’ve still got some things to do here.”

“Rog.”

Jeff looked out the window and saw
the Sundancer pass by about 200 meters to their right. “Ah, home sweet home.”

“Abby,” said Gabe, “ you want to
turn us around and get us into burn attitude?”

“Rog. RCS circuit breakers in, and
turning.”

“Rog. Main engine circuit breakers
in. Standby for 2.1 second main engine burn. Abby, call the ball.”

“Rog. Okay… that’s it. Stable.”

“And, ignition. And… shutdown.”

“Are we stable?”

“Hang on a second. Um… yeah. Go
ahead and take us in.”

Abby turned the MAV toward the
Sundancer and thrusted ahead toward the docking port on the forward airlock.

“180 meters.”

“Rog.”

“150 meters. Slow down a bit. If
you hit hard, you’ll push us off our current orbit and I’ll have to recalculate
our TEI burn.”

“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want
that.” Abby pulled back momentarily on the thruster joystick and slowed their
forward momentum a bit.

“125 meters.”

“Rog.”

“100 meters. You look a tad high.
Maybe one meter minus Z?”

Abby glared at Gabe. “Who’s flying
this thing?”

“I’m just trying to be helpful. 75
meters.”

“Right. Just remember, you wear
glasses and I don’t.”

“What does that have to do with
anything? My vision is corrected to 20/20.”

“Yeah, and mine’s 20/15 without
glasses.”

“Shut up and drive. 50 meters… 25
meters.”

“Translating down.”

“Told you so.”

Abby grumbled. “Slowing. And…
contact. Soft dock.”

“Rog. Retracting. And… hard dock.”

“Newport,
Ares
,” said Jeff,
“we have hard dock with the Sundancer.”

Ghita was fussing. “Gabe,” said
Susan, “Ghita’s gonna start crying any minute now.”

“I know. Abby, help me out of this
suit.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll get the door,” said Jeff. He climbed into the
tunnel atop the MAV, removed the hatch and passed in down to Abby, then
inspected the docking ring latches, removed the docking probe and drogue
assemblies, passed them down to Abby, opened the airlock pressure equalization
valve and, finally, opened the airlock hatch. The procedure was much like that
of docking the CSM to the Sundancer. The main difference was that the MAV was
not designed to withstand the Sundancer’s 10.3 PSI of air pressure. Thus, every
time they would move through the airlock between the MAV and the Sundancer they
would have to close both hatches and go through a pressurization –
depressurization routine. He climbed back into the MAV. “Okay, door’s open.”

“I’m getting there,” said Gabe. She
now had her suit off and was removing her liquid cooling garment. Ghita was now
crying. Once completely naked she turned to Susan. “Okay, give her to me.” She
took Ghita, climbed into the tunnel, then into the airlock, and closed the
hatch behind her.

Jeff sighed. “Well that was none
too soon.”

Abby and Susan were busily stuffing
Gabe’s suit into available nooks and crannies. “Jeff,” said Abby, “what do you
want me to do with this docking probe?”

“Stow it somewhere. We won’t be
needing it again.”

“Rog.”

“Sue, lets unstrap Ghita’s car
seat. Then I’ll help you out of your suit, and when you’re in the airlock I’ll
pass it up to you.”

“Okay.”

“Abby, you want to do the AGS to
PGNS alignment?”

“Yeah, sure. Any particular
attitude for the PGNS?”

“No, I don’t think it matters. Just
so they’re aligned before we jettison.”

“Rog.”

“Alright, Sue, let’s get you
undressed.”

Abby chuckled. “This is kind of
kinky.”

“No other way to do it. I’ll bet
the Apollo astronauts were glad they didn’t have to do this.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been
really
kinky.”

“They couldn’t have done it anyway,
there was no airlock between the LM and the CM.”

“There was the tunnel.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But repeatedly
opening and closing both those hatches would’ve been a real bitch. On the other
hand, they wouldn’t have had to fool with the pressure differential. Okay, Sue,
let me pull you out of there.” He reached in the back, grabbed he around the
waist, and pulled her out of the suit.”

She popped out and looked at him.
“Getting in and out of these is a lot easier in gravity.”

“No kidding. Okay, you’re on your
own. Abby, how you doing?”

“Just about done. Do I need to
align the High Gain?”

“No. Gabe can do that after we
jettison.”

Gabe’s voice came over the
intercom. “Okay, we’re inside and the airlock is depressed to 4.8 PSI. It’s all
yours. I’m gonna throw some clothes on and see if Ghita will nurse.” Ghita’s
wailing was clearly audible in the background.

“Rog. Go do your thing. We’ll take
care of the rest. Sue, need any help with that?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

Jeff took Susan’s suit and handed
it over to Abby. “Can you find a place for this?”