The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(119)
The atmosphere in the firing room crackled with such intense focus. Somewhere in the support room, an engineering team was jumping into motion to figure out how to do that. And yet we all sounded as if we were discussing weather.
Cleary might have been offering them lemonade. “Confirmed seal breach. Do not, repeat, do not attempt repressurization. We’ll have the burn attitude and targets for you shortly.”
“Confirmed, Kansas. We’ll stay in our suits.”
Still writing, I glanced at the clock and my insides clenched. 12:32. This was so close. “Expect a forty-three-second burn, starting at 12:35—”
Someone cursed as they saw the margins snap into place.
“Final approach to Lunetta station commences … ten minutes—one zero minutes—after the burn.” I lifted my pencil. “Also contact station and have them maneuver to docking attitude, perform attitude hold, and feather the arrays.” If they didn’t do that, the solar arrays would be in the way.
Nathaniel took a step closer to me. He inhaled, as if he were about to ask if I was sure and then nodded. He looked at the clock. 12:33. “Do it.”
Cleary looked to Clemons, who hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then nodded. “GC. Give us a ten-minute countdown on the clock.”
The ground controller set one of the mission clocks to count down from ten. While he did that, as matter-of-fact as a janitor, Cleary relayed my numbers to the capsule.
From the calm of Cleary’s voice, you’d think we’d just pulled this out of the library. We had hundreds of volumes of calculations for things that might go wrong en route to the moon. But needing to make a rendezvous in forty minutes with a leaking hatch? Nothing we had took that into account.
Benkoski responded with a calm to match Cleary’s. “Copy, Kansas. Commencing burn.”
The next half-hour dragged and raced at the same time. It felt like forever, listening to them and being able to do nothing except adjust numbers as they got closer. And then time would jump ahead, eating up the amount of oxygen they had left.
At some point I moved over to the computers’ table and joined Myrtle and Basira in tracking the two spacecraft.
Engineering managed to buy them fifteen more minutes by having Benkoski bleed oxygen from one of the fuel cells, but it reduced the amount of power that they had available. If they took any more, none of the electrical systems in the capsule would work.
The station came online. “We can see the shape of their vehicle now.”
They were still miles away from the station. If they got the approach wrong, they could whiz past and lose time trying to correct.
“Zero point seven miles out. Closing at 31 feet per second.”
This was all up to Benkoski now. He wasn’t talking, because the flight surgeon had instructed them to remain silent to conserve oxygen.
“2,724 feet. 19.7 feet per second.”
So close. Please let them be okay.
“1,370, 9.8 feet per second.”
“Kansas. Lunetta. We’re braking.” Benkoski’s voice had a wheeze to it. I traded a look with Cleary.
“Fifty feet. And holding steady.”
In the control room, no one was breathing, as if we were all trying to conserve air for Benkoski and Malouf.
“Kansas. We have them.”
Around me, the room erupted in cheers and prayers while I slumped forward to rest my face on the desk. That had been terrifyingly close.
And if it had happened at the moon, with no space station to retreat to, we would be listening to them dying right now.
*
The moment we were through the apartment door, Nathaniel dropped his briefcase and kicked the door shut with his foot. His arms slid around my waist and pulled me back against him where his … attention was quite apparent.
His breath warmed my neck as he kissed it. “You are a miracle.”
“I’m a computer.”
“And a pilot.” He kissed a spot higher on my neck. “And an astronaut.”
“In training.”
Nathaniel nipped my neck.
“Hey!” I laughed and turned in his arms to face him. The apartment was dark save for the street lamps shining through the window in a sodium glaze. “Someone else would have realized the burn issue.”
“But not fast enough.” One hand came up to draw a line across my forehead. His fingers were cool and rough against my skin. “We’ve been damn lucky. And you, today, were part of that luck, by your convergence of experience and your extraordinary, captivating, exquisite mind. So let me call you a miracle.”
“I don’t know … that sounds entirely too holy.” I found the buckle of his belt.
Nathaniel twisted his hips away and spun me so my back was against the wall. Running his hands down my sides, my husband sank to his knees in front of me. “Then let me worship you.”
His hands ran up the inside of my legs, under my skirt, until I gasped. “Confirmed, worship is Go.”
*
A month after we heard about Parker’s surgery, I walked into the Monday-morning meeting and he was sitting there. A stiff neck brace held his head rigidly in place. He was thinner, and he’d been trim to begin with. He had shadows under his eyes, and I hadn’t seen that even during the worst of the leg problems.
But if you just looked at his demeanor, none of his troubles were apparent. Laughing, he leaned back in his chair, using the angle of it to look up at the folks surrounding him. “… So I said that if they were trying to save weight, they’d have to get the astronettes to leave their purses at home.”