Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(23)

Fowler points to an assistant. “Could you stand here, please?”

To the crew, he says, “This young lady is the Sun.”

She smiles, a bit embarrassed at the attention.

Fowler instructs four more assistants to stand at specific places in the room, which he counts out with steps. “And these fine folks are the planets. The inner planets, anyway—those inside the asteroid belt. And they’re all orbiting the Sun at different speeds and different distances. Mercury is about thirty-six million miles from the Sun. Venus is about thirty million miles beyond Mercury. Earth is roughly twenty-six million miles beyond Venus. And Mars is another fifty million miles away from us—at our closest orbital point.”

Fowler places a stapler between the staffers representing Earth and Venus. “This is Alpha’s location.”

He takes a pen from his pocket and places it a step beyond Mars. “And here’s Beta.

“Our plan has been to use Earth’s orbital velocity to give us a push toward Alpha. And then to use Venus’s gravity to pull us closer.”

Lina cocks her head.

“Keep in mind, the planets are on the same plane, orbiting at different distances—and different speeds. Mercury completes a revolution every 88 days. Venus about every 224 days. Mars takes almost 700 days to orbit the Sun.”

He points to the stapler. “The artifact is orbiting the Sun as well—in a decaying orbit, so it’s spiraling toward the Sun, like a pinball circling a funnel toward the drain.”

Fowler motions toward the young man representing Earth. “The ships will get a push from Earth’s orbital velocity toward Alpha.” He takes a step toward the stapler. “Venus is behind Earth at the moment. But in thirty days, it will pass Earth. In ten more, it will pass the ships, and seven days later, it will pass Alpha. The ships will use the drag of Venusian gravity to get closer to the artifact.”

Fowler gestures for his team members to return to their seats, and he himself walks back to the lectern. “We’re not certain what kind of orbital velocity we’ll pick up from Earth—because we don’t know if there will be some force applied to the ship modules when they reach low Earth orbit. Will it be a similar solar event that hit the ISS? More powerful? Or nothing? We don’t know. However, we do know precisely when the orbital transfer point will occur between Earth and Venus. Our optimal launch window to reach that transfer point closes in twenty-four hours. If we miss the launch window, it’s unlikely we’ll reach the Alpha artifact. At this point, we don’t have enough data to know whether we could reach the Beta artifact.”

A NASA staffer rushes into the room, a strained look on his face. He pulls Fowler aside and whispers to him. I catch only clips and phrases.

“Debris broke apart.”

“Breach.”

“Heat shield compromised.”

He shows Fowler something on a laptop. The NASA director’s eyes go wide. He turns from the man and takes a few steps away, pinching his lower lip. He returns, shaking his head, and speaks quietly, so low I can barely make out the words.

“There’s nothing we can do. At least right now. Just try to keep her alive as long as you can.”





Chapter 17





Emma





I feel weak when I wake up. Bruised. Head cloudy, worse than before, as if I’ve been kidnapped, beaten, and left on the roadside.

Through the grogginess, my gaze drifts to the terminal. There’s row after row of messages from the ground. I try to read them, but I can’t. I just want to go back to sleep.

I shake my head and move my arms, trying to wake myself up. Sleep equals death.

The last message reads:

Commander Matthews? Please respond.





My hands shaking, I reach out, grab the stylus, and peck at the keyboard.

I’m here.





While I wait for the response, I read through the messages above. Asking for my status. Informing me that the capsule was hit with debris (which became apparent when I was bouncing around in here like a pinball). Them telling me they were maneuvering away and to hang on (too late).

Good! You’ve given us a good scare down here.





Sorry. Pretty scary up here too :)





I can’t imagine.





Plan?





Working on it.





Capsule status?





There’s a long pause before the reply comes.

Compromised. But we’re working on it. Don’t worry.





Nothing makes me worry like someone telling me not to worry. Well, actually, there is one thing that makes me worry more: hearing that the capsule I’m in, floating two hundred miles above Earth, is, quote, compromised. In my limited romantic experience, I’ve found that compromise is the key to successful relationships. But when you’re talking about atmospheric reentry at roughly seventeen thousand miles an hour, compromise is not the key to success. That’s how you die.

Heat is the problem. The Soyuz has a ceramic heat shield on the bottom. It’s ablative, which means it burns away as the capsule falls to Earth. The temperatures involved are extreme, thousands of degrees Celsius, enough to boil the ceramic layers. I don’t know how this capsule was constructed—I assume it’s similar—but I do know that if there’s a hole in it, I’ll burn alive in here.