Perigee (6 page)

Donner wiped his hands and sighed. He appeared drained. “Nah, I’ll just re-install the piece of crap and sign it off. I’m still checking some plumbing in the back end, so if I don’t find anything else we’ll close her out.”

“You look whipped,” the younger man said as he slid the module back into its protective case. “Tell you what…don’t let me hold you up with nitpicky stuff. Go ahead and take it so you can get done, and I’ll bring the logbook back to you.”

For the first time in a long time, Donner looked pleasantly surprised. “Thanks Chen,” he said, taking the case and heading off for the main hangar.

…

“This had better be good news.”

“Relax, Leo. The package has been delivered.”

“And the enhancements we discussed?”

“Everything’s confirmed on-site. It will all be unwrapped tonight.”

“That
is
good news. You know we…”

The line disconnected before he could finish his sentence.
Ungrateful pinheads
.

6

Castle Rock, Colorado
Two days earlier

A gibbous moon hung low over the mountains as Tom pulled into his driveway, leading to a sprawling ranch home built of masonry walls and rough-hewn timber. After ending his last trip early, he had stayed for the night’s launches and watched the spaceplanes line up one by one to blast down the runway. He still couldn’t resist the urge to gawk when he heard them fly overhead, and was reminded of how he would joke about it with his wife:
the day I stop looking is the day I hang all this up,
he’d always said. Another thought had remained unspoken:

Who knows when it may be all I have left?

It was three A.M., and he lingered on their front porch to take in the cool autumn night for a few minutes before finally going inside. Still wound up from a whirlwind flying tour, it would likely be well after sunrise before he’d be ready for sleep.

Tom set his roller bag by the hall closet and hung up his overcoat, then flipped through the mail his wife had left on a table in the foyer. He was prone to forget about that sort of thing if she didn’t put it somewhere immediately obvious.

Finding nothing that warranted close attention at this time of night, he stepped softly across the open family room toward their bedroom. Elise was in a deep sleep, not stirring when he gingerly cracked open the door.

Good
,
he thought.
She needs it. Better not surprise her right now
.
She knew he would have been up in Denver tonight but wouldn’t be expecting him home until much later. He planned to leave that surprise for morning and wake her with breakfast.

Slipping off his boots, he grimaced as they clunked onto the floor. His wife tended to be a light sleeper whenever he was away. She fortunately didn’t stir this time, so he went to put on a fresh pot of decaf in the kitchen. Grabbing a new
Field and Stream
from the stack of mail, Tom settled onto a plush leather sofa in the great room.

He was asleep within minutes.

7

Denver

Penny hopped up from the booth and grabbed their check. “Thanks for letting me ramble,” she said, then pointed at the counter. “I see your FO over there with that lost-puppy look, maybe you need to go retrieve him.”

Tom tossed a five for a tip and followed her across the room. “Hey Ryan,” he called, “gotten any better out there?”

“Nope,” his first officer grumbled. “The freight sort is being pushed back and the passenger hub’s a mess. The usual chatter about rerouting birds is turning into a dull roar,” he said, grabbing a sandwich and following them down to the briefing room.

“So no word from maintenance on that write-up yet?”

“Nothing,” Ryan said, exasperated. “Reckon we’ll find out soon enough if it’ll be the ‘cannot duplicate on ground’ song-and-dance.”

“Like taking your car to the shop,” Tom said dryly. “Works fine soon as they get under the hood.”

“What’s the story?” Penny asked, sensing trouble. “You guys have gripes on the way in?”

“Lost autothrottles in the skip again,” Tom explained as they turned a corner. “We were pretty heavy and had already diverted around weather out of Sydney, so there wasn’t much gas to play with.”

Penny frowned. “How close were you able to hold m-dot?”

“Close enough,” Tom said. “Touchy, but we kept it just inside the green band. Ryan babysat the gauges for me.”

“So thermal equilibrium was okay?”

“Well, at least the nacelles didn’t melt,” he said nonchalantly.

Ryan jumped back in at that. “Don’t let him BS you. It was brilliant airmanship, positively inspiring for a young lad like me.”

“Well, that’s just dandy,” she retorted. “But I’ve got to run this place tonight. Either you slackers are going to burn out your duty clock, or we get to recover your sorry asses with a sick plane. Way to go, part-timers.”

Ryan whistled. “Somebody’s jealous.”

“The fury of a woman scorned,” Tom said glibly. “This is how she always gets when she’d rather be flying.”

“You’re both a couple of wussies,” Penny said as she headed for the control center. “Leave it up to the girl to fix your mess.” She would never admit he was right.

…

“System Ops, Grant.” He pressed his headset to his ear, struggling to get information from a call full of background jet noise as he quickly scribbled notes. “Got it. Thanks.” One of their feeder airports had just reported another delayed flight. Three more lines were still blinking away, demanding his attention.

He punched the next line, from crew scheduling.

“Bad news, Charlie. We just had two crews call fatigue,” which meant they had officially declared themselves worn out and unsafe to fly.

“Where does that leave you for reserves?” he asked, masking his frustration. He couldn’t legitimately challenge them, but it was still another wrench thrown into the works.

“Short. We’ve got one crew left in the bullpen.”

They were getting stretched thin. “You’re going to need them, the way things are looking,” he thought aloud. “Anyone you can call in from their days off?”

“Not if they’re smart,” she replied. “If anyone’s home they’re not answering the phone. Soon as they see our caller ID, they ignore it. But I’ve got ways around that.”

He quickly deduced what she was up to. “You’re using your cell phone?”

“Catches them off guard when they don’t recognize the number,” she laughed. “But once they answer, I’ve got ‘em.” It wasn’t exactly playing fair, but their crews were paid generously for a short-notice call to work.

“That trick only works once, Liz. But you get points for creativity. Give me a shout once the fleet’s moving and see if we end up with any problems for tomorrow.” If the day’s flying ended too late, the crew’s mandatory rest would overlap with the next day’s trips which threatened to snowball into even more delays.

“Guarantee you we will. We’re ginning up bodies at the out-stations already. See ya,” she said and hung up.

He picked up the next line right away. “Good news?” he asked hopefully.

“Not hardly,” the dispatcher snorted. “Don’t know yet. Depends on what the freight doggies want to do. Right now they’re holding up the sort. Northeast weather’s still crap.”

Grant was at least able to offer some hope: “ATC desk got us priority slots for the northeast departures. Flow control knows we have to hit those boost corridors at the right time or we’ll catch hell from the tree-huggers.”

Noise had been one of the Clipper’s biggest obstacles. This had created some predictable hurdles among the authorities before Polaris could even think about putting them into service, with political haymaking liberally peppered throughout.

“501 is still down but it’s the only bird with any gripes. If maintenance control doesn’t have an answer in thirty minutes I’ll have them roll the hot spare out of the hangar,” the dispatcher explained. “Passenger loads are light at least.”

“That’s just the calm before the storm,” Grant observed morosely before hanging up. The holidays were a uniformly brutal time throughout the industry. The day before Thanksgiving had been known as “Black Wednesday” for decades, and enjoying Christmas at home in their line of work was a rare treat.

“Looks like I got here just in time,” Penny said as she strolled up behind him.

“I’ve got it under control. How are your crews doing down there?”

“Restless. Itching to get moving. Afraid I’m about to make things a little more complicated for you, though,” she said, handing over a tablet as if were radioactive. “One of Taggart’s charter clients just booked a trip.” Their VP of business operations kept a number of high-maintenance clients, almost all of whom were tremendous pains in the ass. But they were willing to pay handsomely for exclusive use of a spaceplane on short notice.

Grant appraised the reservation with a skeptical frown. “Singapore, huh?” And they wanted to leave in two hours. “We’ll put it on 501,” he sighed, glancing at his watch. “Gentry’s crew was going to burn out, but they can handle a one-way trip. This’ll clear out the bullpen, though. Liz has one reserve crew with a hot spare in the hangar that can cover the scheduled routes.”

“Leo was probably betting on that when he accepted the trip. Notice the pax?”

Grant scrolled down to the passenger manifest and rolled his eyes. “Aw hell, Penny. Colin Magrath’s a nightmare, I don’t care how much money he throws at us.”

“I’ll brief Marcy to stow all the sharp objects. All of a sudden I’m glad to be flying a desk this week.”

…

On the ramp by
Austral Clipper
, Gentry and Hunter each reached for their hip pockets as their phones buzzed and simultaneously flipped the screens open. The sight brought a stifled laugh from their flight attendant.

“What’s so funny?” Ryan asked, oblivious to their choreography.

“Who gets to say ‘beam me up’?”

He looked Tom over and caught her joke. “Captain’s privilege. But you get to wear the velour mini-dress and thigh boots.”

“They’d look better on you.”

“You think I’m joking. That was Hammond’s original plan. Remember the hot pants the girls used to wear on Southwest?”

“I thought he wanted old-fashioned classy, like Pan Am.”

“You wish. Skin sells. You’re just lucky the male attendants talked him out of installing those stripper poles in the cabin.”

“But they were okay with the hot pants?”

“Yeah, well, some of them…”

Tom closed his phone with an exasperated expression normally reserved for misbehaving grandchildren. “All right kiddies, knock it off. Change of plans. Hope you packed for warm weather.”

8

Denver

The crew briefing room had been largely cleared out, so Ryan quickly found a network terminal and pulled up their new itinerary. Looking over the plans, they saw the load was unusually light: only a half-dozen passengers and their bags, no cargo except for some random company freight.

Tom cracked a smile when the route appeared. It traced a nearly perfect arc halfway around the world, from Denver to Singapore. “This’ll be a hoot,” he said.

“We’ll be hauling ass, that’s for sure. Trip time’s barely two hours,” Ryan agreed, just noticing that Tom looked like a kid at Christmas. “Guess the only thing left to ask is which one of us flies this leg?” The next one would have ordinarily been his.

Tom studied the plans a bit longer. “Sorry, I’m claiming this one. I’ve got an idea,” he said, and picked up the phone to dispatch.

…

Penny was surprised as well. “Say again—they want to do
what
?” she asked while waving Grant over. “That was one of your dispatchers,” she explained. “Tom just made things a little more complicated. He thinks they can set some speed and altitude records on Taggart’s charter.”

“They’re serious?” he asked, and slung a chair over to her terminal. “Have you seen their release?”

“Right here,” she said as their flight plan appeared on a monitor. There was no arguing with the numbers, despite her mounting skepticism. “Sporty,” she mused. “Plane’s almost empty, inclination’s just about perfect. But what about all that fuel you guys tankered?” With the spaceplane nearly empty, dispatch had arranged for them to carry almost enough propellant for the next trip, saving time and money.

Grant scrolled down the screen. “It adds weight, but still not as much as a full cabin and cargo deck. Half of it will be burned off by the time they reach shutdown. They can definitely hit the velocity targets,” he said. “So what’s got you in a twist?”

Penny frowned. “Probably nothing.” As she reached for a calculator, they were interrupted by a call from the Chairman’s office. Grant hit the speaker button.