“Ladies and gentlemen, please place your seats and tables in the upright-” Ryan cut the small joke short and lowered his head. Ryan not finishing a joke worried Will far more than anything he had seen from Jason.
“Ah, hell, just remember where all your emergency exits are located and where the life rafts are located under your seats. Release time in one minute-stand by.”
Mendenhall smiled and nodded. Seeing Ryan not give in to the panic he was feeling was far more comforting than seeing him go silent.
“What are you nodding your head for? You look like one of those dashboard bobble-heads.”
Mendenhall’s face dropped and he glared at Ryan-sometimes quiet from the man was better than the cocky version.
“Okay, Maggio, don’t let in any strangers while we’re out. The number for the restaurant we’ll be at is on the table and don’t let the kids stay up past ten.”
“Roger, Altair, the house will be here when you return. Good luck,” Maggio said. He swallowed the lump in his throat and raised the plastic cover on the release switch that would electrically unscrew the lead that held the two spacecraft together. “Separation in five, four, three, two, one,” he said. He pushed the button and was satisfied when it went from a soft blue to a blinking red. He heard the electric motor engage as it automatically unscrewed with a loud whine. Then there was a pop as the two ships came apart. The snapping of the communication systems came as shock, because it was far louder than the simulations back at the Johnson Space Center. It was so loud that everyone, including the seven Green Berets, thought something else had gone wrong.
Maggio knew it was only his imagination, but he could swear he felt Falcon 1 become noticeably lighter without Altair riding nose to nose with her. He closed his eyes and hit his transmit switch, even though he knew none of the lunar excursion team could hear him.
“Godspeed. Come back home soon.”
Inside the command deck, the absence of the feeling of motion was at first disorienting to both Ryan and his copilot Mendenhall. Altair separated cleanly from Falcon and seemed to be drifting backward, but Ryan knew their forward momentum was still well in excess of 25,000 miles per hour.
“Will, open fuel pressure valves one and two,” Ryan said calmly.
Mendenhall’s eyes widened.
“Right there in front of you, buddy. Just like in our practice runs.”
Mendenhall remembered. He took a deep breath and threw the two blue-colored switches until the lights flashed green.
“We have green on fuel pressure valves one and two.”
Everyone onboard the craft heard the fuel as it rushed through the metal fuel lines.
A young sergeant looked at Sarah. Through her clear visor Sarah winked and the sergeant seemed to relax.
“You’ve flown with the lieutenant before?” he asked.
“Not now, Sergeant,” the Green Beret master sergeant said.
“No, it’s okay, Sarge,” Sarah said, smiling at the two men. “Yes, I’ve flown with Jason three times in various aircraft.”
“All good outcomes, I assume,” the young sergeant said, relief etching his voice.
Sarah couldn’t help it. She just couldn’t let it slip by without comment, as she knew Carl and Jack relished opportunities like this with their younger charges.
“As a matter of fact, the first time was in a Black Hawk. Jason slammed the helicopter into a large rock and knocked our landing gear off. The second time was in a seaplane. We cracked up on a river in the Canadian wilderness. And the third time was two days later when he crashed a brand-new Sikorsky into a forest. We burst into flames upside down and forty feet off the ground.”
The men lining the lower deck of Altair stared at Sarah as if she were joking. She raised her left eyebrow to let them know she was dead serious. She decided to stop toying with the guys.
“He’s the best pilot I’ve ever seen.”
Up on the command deck Ryan flexed his fingers and placed them gingerly on the handles that controlled the jets that the OHM used for maneuvering and for flight. He looked at his attitude gauges.
“Stand by for retro burn and trim maneuver,” he said easily and confidently. Ryan knew he had time and space for mistakes up here, but once close to the surface, the mission became a little more unforgiving.
Will watched as Jason pulled slightly back on the right control and twisted the handle at the same time. He heard the satisfying sound of the OHM’s jet popping loudly as it threw Altair on its back. Ryan hit the left handle to stop the turn maneuver. He checked his navigation and saw that he had fifteen seconds to start the main engine before they bypassed their first option for slowing the craft down enough to get her into the upper reaches of the Moon’s gravity. “Will, I need a ten-second burn on the main engine. Remember, all you have to do is hit the main engine start switch. The computer will do the rest.”
“Right,” Mendenhall said. He waited without breathing.
“Main engine start in three, two, one-burn,” Ryan said calmly.
Mendenhall threw the switch and they heard the loudest pop of all as the main engine came to life. Inside Altair they could hear the rumble of the exhaust as it exited the confines of the main engine bell below them. They felt the ship slow as the minimal gravity started to take effect.
“Main engine cutoff in two, one, zero,” Ryan said. He watched the attitude compass swing north and south on a correct horizontal plane with the surface of the Moon. They were now flying upright, as was the natural order of things.
Altair became silent. Each individual’s breathing was concealed behind their helmet. The rapid breathing that each feared the others would hear was self-contained, so nobody had to worry about being the only one to have shown fear.
“Standby for main OHM burn for insertion,” Ryan said, as he adjusted his feet on the Velcro mat beneath his boots. “Everyone go to internal oxygen at this point, please.”
All crew members, the flight team included, unplugged their suits from the Altair ’s air system. Air conditioning and oxygen would be in self-sustaining mode for the duration of the landing procedure-for obvious reasons, Jason thought.
“Well, I guess we’re ready,” Will said. He looked at the altimeter as Altair screamed down from high orbit at close to three thousand feet per second.
“This is really going to add to our frequent flyer miles, huh, buddy?” Ryan quipped. He also watched the altimeter. “Stand by for main engine thrust-seventy-five percent power until I say so.”
“Ready for main engine start,” Will said, his finger poised over the covered switch.
“Keep a close eye on fuel consumption. We only have five minutes of sustainable thrust.”
“Five minutes? Oh jeez, I forgot about that.”
“Should be plenty of time, unless we run into rocks where they have no right to be. Or craters that have up and moved on us since the photo run an hour ago. Or the shots from the Hubble Telescope last month. We should be fine.”
“If you say so,” Will said.
“Three, two, one, main engine start at 0120 and thirty-two seconds. Start the clock.”
Altair slowed its descent and they all felt the craft jerk and shimmy. Outside it was deathly silent as the vacuum of space sucked up sound like a sponge.
Ryan watched the NAV board closely, adjusting trim to the descent easily, trying hard not to overcompensate. He was learning that the simulator back at Houston was tougher to fly than the actual spacecraft.
“Three degrees off center, and three and half minutes of fuel remaining,” Will called out louder than he intended. “Altitude is thirty-five thousand feet.”
Ryan turned the right-hand handle five degrees to port and adjusted angle. Altair at that moment was coming down right on the target mark.
“Uh, we’re coming down a little fast,” Mendenhall said. He watched the LED readout of the altimeter spiral down by thousands of feet in the wink of an eye. “Thirteen thousand feet.”