SpaceCorp (23 page)

“Great! As soon as the flight surgeon clears you for flight status, you can hop the next pod and resume your duties... that is provided you’ve not exceeded your total time in space limits.”

“I’m not getting grounded by some pencil neck, even if it is the great Mack Logan!” Joe said.

“Oh, I’m not grounding you. Don’t have the authority. Hank Larsen does. Spoke to him this morning. He should be arriving in a couple of hours along with a dozen of my people.”

“Your people?” Frieda asked.

“Full system check-out of the
Einstein
before she launches.”

“We do our own system check-outs,” Joe said.

“I know.” Mack changed feet on the coffee table. “You’ll be going back with Hank after he’s had a look around. He may want to stick around for the launch. The
Einstein
is a new class of space station, you know. Never been one like it before. Yeah, he’ll probably want a full tour. Better still, I’ll bet he’ll want to ride along on the launch. You too, I expect.”

“We don’t do that. It’s bad luck for Pelican crew to ride out on new stations,” Joe said.

Mack chuckled. “Oh, that’s just a silly superstition.”

“What if we refuse?”

“Then I’ll get ‘my sweetie’ to change your minds.”

July 2071

Airlock leading to the construction gangway between the
Einstein
and the
Pelican

The construction gangway between the
Pelican
and the
Einstein
was bookended with airlocks on either end. Safety protocols required all personnel passing from one station to the other be suited in case of loss of hull integrity. It had never happened before, but
SpaceCorp
people were safety freaks.

Hank Larsen was suited and standing with Joe Alvarez and Frieda Oh who were also suited. Nobody had their helmets on. It would be another ten minutes before the inner hatch of the air lock was scheduled to open.

“C’mon, guys,” Hank said, grinning, “you get to experience your handiwork first hand—you should be happy!”

Joe and Frieda looked like they were attending a funeral.

“It’s bad luck,” Joe said.

“Well, I see your point of view, but in the astronaut corps we believe we make our own luck. So if you think this is going to be bad luck, then it’s on you.” He wasn’t smiling, and as he spoke, he stared first into Joe’s then Frieda’s eyes until each of them looked away. “You’re sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

“Frieda and I didn’t do nothing to sabotage this station,” Joe said. “Can’t speak for Traynor.”

“You had your own engineers check out your new ride,” Frieda said. “They said it was safe.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Hank said. “Still this so-called superstition of yours… something not right about it. Has a smell to it… know what I mean?”

“We didn’t—”

“I don’t care, there’s gonna be a new policy from here on out,” Hank said. “The captain of the Pelican and all three watch leaders… yeah, and let’s add all three chief engineers… are gonna spend the first week on all new space stations right after launch. You guys are gonna get some skin in the game!”

“Won’t work,” Frieda said. “Somebody’s gotta supervise the launch from the Pelican side. You got all the key personnel on the new station.”

“Good point,” Hank said. “Guess they’ll have to do their jobs from the new station… remotely.”

“Brilliant.” Joe’s mouth said the word, his tone did not.

“What if something goes wrong?” Frieda asked.

“Well, I guess that’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

Five minutes later…

Monica entered the airlock staging area wearing her space suit, helmet under her arm. Mack walked beside her carried her duffle. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into coming with us?” Monica asked. “We’d have that nice cabin all to ourselves!”

“Hmm… tempting,” Mack said. “But if I’m on the
Einstein
when she launches, it could be weeks before I can catch a shuttle back to Earth-side.”

The airlock warning klaxon sounded three short blasts as the rotating beacon lit up in yellow signaling the inner hatch was about to open.

Hank walked up carrying his helmet under his arm. “Last chance,” he said to Mack, eyebrows raised hopefully.

“No, even if you could change my mind, I’m out of time to get my suit on. Anyway, you keep an eye on Monica for me, okay?”

“
Me
keep an eye on
her
?” Hank asked. “Hell, I was hoping she’d be looking out for me!”

The hatch opened, signaling two minutes to crowd into the airlock. Mack gave Monica a quick kiss and helped her secure her helmet. As soon as it was on, she activated the external sound so she could hear Mack.

“You two stay safe,” Mack said.

Hank scuttled into the airlock, leaving them a last few seconds alone.

“September,” Mack said.

Monica smiled, “September.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

July 2071

Bridge,
SSS Albert Einstein

The bridge of the
Einstein
was remotely similar to the bridge of a starship on an old television series that dated back 100 years. “Why not?” Mack had said. “I needed a layout fast and those old producers put a lot of thought into their set—even had detailed books on it.” Still, there were a few subtle differences. The
Einstein’s
technology was not quite as far-fetched, but what it did do actually worked. And there was no communications officer. All bridge personnel wore lightweight headpieces with built in communicators and eye attachments that gave them a mini head up display. Anyone could talk to anyone anytime they needed to. The headpieces were controlled partly by voice and partly by a new thought interface technology.

The
Einstein’s
bridge was shaped like a large sphere with the crew complement seated on a platform at the end of a cantilever. The bridge complement consisted of three sumptuous chairs in a row—captain’s chair in the middle, first officer on the right and a guest chair on the left. The chairs were equipped with a full harness and could be maneuvered fore & aft and rotated left & right subject to the needs of the situation. Seated on either side of the gangway leading to the captain’s row were a half dozen crew stations.  The entire sphere was lined with a giant continuous monitor providing a full wrap-around view of the forward, port, and starboard situations. The impression was so real and so seamless that first-time visitors sometimes felt they should be suited up.

The bridge rotated about the station’s central axis as did the rest of the hull and was positioned near the outer hull wall for full 1-g gravity. Without software compensation on the monitors, the bridge crew would have felt like they were sitting on a giant runaway merry-go-round. Hence, ‘forward’ was software configured to equate to the direction of travel.

Standard operating procedures called for only essential personnel on the bridge at all times—hence the ‘guest’ chair was usually empty. Today, however, was a special occasion. The
SSS Albert Einstein
was being ejected from the construction yard of the
Pelican
in order to come online and join the SpaceCorp fleet. Today, the guest chair was occupied by Jason Byerly at the special request of Monica Carvalho. “I want him to feel a part of all this instead of like he’s some government wienie from back east,” she had explained to Captain Lalli Dinesh. Strikingly beautiful, Lalli’s heritage was from Tamil Nadu, one of the twenty-eight states of India. In keeping with Tamil tradition, she had taken her husband’s first name as her surname.

“I rather preferred to think of him as a wienie,” Captain Dinesh had said referring to Jason. Jason and Captain Dinesh had not gotten on well since Jason had refused to brief Captain Dinesh on the nature of the special defense cargo that took up all the rentable space for an entire quad and spoke of the
Einstein
. Monica herself sat behind the captain’s row in a temporary jump seat. Monica was being officially transferred from the
Pelican
to the
Einstein
until further notice.

“Will we jettison the algae farms while we’re on the way to our permanent orbit?” Jason asked.

Captain Dinesh smiled. “You don’t like our slimy friends?”

“They’re here to stay—one farm in each quad,” First Officer Chee Chong said. “We’ll keep them maintained with CO
₂
from the crew—algae are pretty good at CO
₂
scrubbing and everyone likes a little extra O
₂
that hasn’t been breathed by his shipmate before.” 

“We can surge extra stores of dry ice and water if we need to switch to structural repair mode,” Chief Engineer Shozo Mori said.

“I thought that’s why we installed a defense system—so you don’t have to make structural repairs,” Jason said.

“And I’m sure the entire crew is sleeping more soundly because of it,” Captain Dinesh said. “But we’re keeping all four farms just the same.”

Captain Dinesh turned to First Officer Chong. “Are we GO?”

“We are fully GO for extraction from the
Pelican
, Captain.”

“
Pelican
, this is Captain Dinesh of the
SSS Albert Einstein
. We are departing your construction yard. On behalf of the crew of the
Einstein
, I extend a hearty thank you for an incredible job getting us ready for this day in an unprecedented one year’s time.”

It took an hour for the Einstein to fully emerge from the construction yard and unhook the last of the stanchions and tether lines. And an hour and a half after that she had managed to increase her vertical separation by a kilometer using only her maneuvering thrusters. The
Pelican
remained at her standard 700-kilometers altitude. The
Einstein
was at 701 kilometers. However that one kilometer increase in altitude was enough to displace the
Einstein
behind the
Pelican
by 10 kilometers. By the time
Einstein
was at 705 kilometers,
Pelican
had moved ahead of
Einstein
almost 50 kilometers.

“First Officer, order spin-up to full g,” Captain Dinesh said.

“Aye, Captain.”

While she was inside the Pelican’s construction yard, she matched the
Pelican’s
0.95 RPM spin rate giving her only about 2/3 g at her outer hull. She would now increase her RPM to 1.34 RPM for a full g. Spin up was usually a protracted affair taking up to an hour so as to avoid sudden jolts to the crew and equipment. Years ago, someone had learned the hard way that adding 20 kg to a person’s weight in several minutes could be disconcerting.

An hour later, the First Officer announced, “Full g, Captain.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chong. Mr. Mori, are we ready to light this candle?”

Chief Engineer Mori had been busy at his engineering console monitoring all the check lists to prep the Einstein for nuclear operation. “Yes, Captain. We are GO for light up.”

“Mr. Chong, how far from our inclination burn point?”

“Fifty-four minutes, Captain. Not enough time to rotate the hull to match thrust angle. Recommend three orbits to fully stabilize gyroscopic forces—about five hours.”

“Make it so. Mr. Mori, get the nuclear down thrusters warmed up but keep them at zero thrust.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The
Einstein
needed to tilt her hull plane perpendicular to the thrust direction needed for the burn they would use to change the inclination angle of their orbit. The
Pelican
used a 35-degree inclination to accommodate daily passes over Edwards Launch Center. The
Einstein
would assume a more polar orbit necessitating a 50-degree additional increase in inclination.

“SpaceCorp Mission Ops, this is the
Einstein
. We are commencing hull tilt. Estimate first nuclear rocket burn in five hours. We should be in our stable operational orbit and ready for customers by this time tomorrow.”

“Thank you,
Einstein
. And from the reports we’ve been getting from Sales, you’re going to be pretty busy for the next six months. Sales is calling this a feeding frenzy.”

“Well, that’s a nice problem to have.
Einstein
out.”

Five hours later, Captain Dinesh was back at her chair, along with First Officer Chong. Monica sat in the guest chair at Jason’s insistence while he took his place in the jump seat. She accepted reluctantly saying, “Thanks. This is probably the closest I’ll ever get to a captain’s chair.”

“Mr. Mori, let’s throttle up and see what this station will do!”

“Aye, Captain, throttling up.”

As Chief Engineer Mori moved the throttles forward, everyone could sense a muffled vibration in the hull. The forward situation monitor had been modified to show the four downward thrusting engines firing. And fire they did, a million newtons in all belching from her nozzles.

“Mack was right,” Monica said. “You really can feel the acceleration!”

Captain Dinesh smiled. “Can’t beat the combination of less mass and more oomph! Shozo, we gonna hold together?”

“Engines, fuel, and hull monitors—all nominal, Captain.”

“Chee, how long to operational orbit?”

“I’m recalculating... this is way faster than those aluminum buckets can move. Ah... looks like under three hours!”

“Oh my! Three
hours
? Not weeks?” Captain Dinesh said.

“That’s right, Captain. Three hours.”

“I guess Mack was right about that too,” Monica said.

“You gonna let us in on it?” Captain Dinesh asked.