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Momentum
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A few years from now…
In a launch shuttle, it takes just over two minutes to leave Earth's atmosphere. Two minutes, three-and-a-half thousand miles per hour, and suddenly everything conceivably alive is left behind in a trail of burning fuel. The shuttle shakes and bucks and roars and clunks as the rocket boosters detach, leaving it to hurtle out of the atmosphere and into orbit unassisted. And it's terrifying.
Hopefully, Blaine will eventually get used to it, and the next time he leaves the planet he won't want to throw up so badly that he has to shut his eyes and wrap his hands around the armrests of his seat. Hopefully. Now, as the shuttle's convulsions slow to an occasional tremor, Blaine is all too aware of the fact that the shuttle wall to his left is quite literally the only thing separating him from the vacuum of space only a few feet away.
"Lose your lunch yet, Anderson?" quips Noah Puckerman, the engineer seated adjacent to Blaine.
"Not yet," Blaine forces out. He still hasn't let go of his armrests, and he's sure his face is tinted green.
Puckerman cackles, clearly enjoying the ride far more than Blaine.
Before today, the highest Blaine has ever flown above the planet was forty-thousand feet, cutting across the sky over the northern Atlantic as he rode a commercial jet from Paris to Boston. He's operated simulators countless times during the course of his NASA training, but this – here and now – is the real thing, and even with his seat belt keeping him in place, Blaine is afraid to let go of his chair.
Luckily, he's not the only freshman on this mission. Jane Hayward, another engineer a little younger than him, is seated behind him and she looks just as nauseous as Blaine (if not worse). This is Puckerman's fourth time in orbit, making him the most experienced person aboard the shuttle.
"Houston to shuttle," crackles the radio on the shuttle dashboard.
Puckerman answers before Blaine has a chance. "Houston, this is Puckerman."
"What's your status?"
"Shuttle is in orbit," Puckerman responds, craning his neck to peer out the small window in the ship's side. "Everything looks good so far."
"Have you got a visual of Zephyr yet?"
"That's an affirmative. It's about three hundred miles away; we should be there in twenty minutes."
"Copy that. Have Anderson and Hayward ralphed yet?"
Puckerman grins at Blaine, far too amused by Blaine's anxiety. "Jury's still out on that one, Houston."
"Well, we've got a betting pool going on who upchucks first, and all my money's on Hayward. Don't disappoint us!"
Jane scoffs in the rear seat. "I'm fine, for the record," she snaps.
"Sure you are," Puckerman says with a disbelieving laugh. "First time ever in zero gravity and you're experiencing no side effects. That's totally normal."
Blaine cranes his neck to peer through the shuttle's tiny window, and his breath leaves his lungs in a great whoosh. Below them is Earth – massive and tiny all at once and a brilliant, brilliant blue. Blaine can only see a thin slice of it through the window since he's still buckled tightly to his seat, but the visible piece of the planet is enough to make him forget his nausea completely. Swirls of clouds dot the landscape, glowing orange in the evening light over Japan. Just a few minutes ago, they were safely on the ground in Florida at Kennedy, and now they're floating three hundred and forty kilometers above Japan.
"Anderson, you've been awful quiet," says the radio. "How're you feeling?"
Blaine forces himself to re-focus on the console. "Just admiring the view, Houston."
"It's a good one," Houston agrees.
There's a sudden hoarse wet cough from the seat behind Blaine, and Jane vomits unceremoniously into her barf bag.
Puckerman only rolls his eyes. "Fine, my ass."
"Was that Anderson or Hayward?"
Jane attempts to make some kind of witty retort, but is cut off by a second heave of her stomach. She tries desperately to keep the contents of her stomach from floating past her ears in the sudden lack of gravity.
"That was Hayward," Blaine answers, unable to entirely omit the prideful tone in his voice. So long as he's held out longer than one other person, he's calling it a victory.
"Well, then, I just won myself twenty bucks."
"Screw you, Houston," Jane growls into the barf bag.
"Copy that."
Aboard the Zephyr, safely tucked away in his workspace in Module 07, Finn Hudson clutches his pen between his teeth and squints at the latest sonar readings transmitting to his computer from somewhere in the mid-Pacific Ocean. He absentmindedly drums his fingers and thumb against the clipboard in his other hand, double-checking the numbers before taking the pen from his mouth and making his notes.
"You're doing it again."
"Hm?" Finn looks up from his work. Kurt Hummel is hovering on the other side of the module, by the window. He'd almost forgotten Kurt was there.
"You keep doing the finger drumming thing. It's distracting."
"Ah, crap," Finn says. "Sorry." He's been sharing space with Hummel for nearly four months, and it wasn't like Kurt was a bad colleague or anything, but the guy sure could be persnickety.
Kurt shrugs and goes back to his own work, glancing back and forth between the view of Earth out the window and the data on his computer screen, his fingers clacking away at his keyboard.
Before Finn can refocus on his task, the intercom beeps twice.
"Houston to Zephyr."
Grateful for the distraction, Finn secures his clipboard on its Velcro strip on the wall and floats over to the module's miniature communications panel. "This is Zephyr, go ahead."
"We've got the shuttle Argonaut inbound with new faces for you. Should be docking in just about eight or nine minutes."
"Copy that, Houston. We'll roll out the red carpet. Over and out."
"It'll be good to have some new people around," Kurt says as Finn shuts off the speaker. "Do you know anything about them?"
Finn shakes his head, returning to his workspace to close up his computer. "Just that one's a doctor and the other's an engineer. Puck's the only one I've worked with before." He tucks his pen into his shirt pocket so as not to lose it. "You coming up to the center module?"
Kurt shakes his head. "I'll be there later. You don't need me for the docking procedure."
Finn leaves Kurt in Module 07, using the handlebars strategically placed throughout the station to propel himself through the adjacent rooms, working his way from section to section to the central communications bay. He switches on the external camera for the APAS-95 dock, already able to see the incoming shuttle on the monitor.
Through the door to another adjacent module, Marley – one of the younger and more recent additions to the crew – pulls herself into the central bay and greets him with a pat on the shoulder, floating beside him at the massive computer panel.
"How far off are they?" she asks.
Finn squints at the somewhat grainy image of the Argonaut, the shuttle slowly but steadily growing larger as it catches up with the station. "Couple miles," he says. "Probably another minute or so before they're here."
Flicking a short series of switches for the APAS-95 controls, Finn opens up the docking collar, allowing the ring of teeth surrounding it to extend outward. He lifts the headset away from the massive computer panel, adjusting the microphone before attempting to contact the incoming shuttle.
"Argonaut, this is the Zephyr. We're ready for docking whenever you are."
"Copy that, Zephyr. Should be landing in thirty seconds."
"All right, you head down to the docking bay to meet them," Finn says to Marley, turning off his microphone momentarily. "I'll bring them in."
Marley nods once and disappears back out the door she entered through, floating quickly down the passageway and out of sight.
"Zephyr, we are lined up."
"Collar is open and ready to receive."
"Coming in for the bull's eye."
Finn watches on the monitor as the shuttle takes up the entire screen, then closes in even further, casting the camera into shadow. "Almost there, Argonaut," he says. "Couple more meters."
There's a tense silence for several seconds – dockings are always tense, since even the tiniest thing being off-center could result in an imperfect lock – but finally, the shuttle seats itself neatly into the docking collar. Finn quickly flips the controls to lock the collar, and relaxes.
"We are officially on board," Puckerman says from the shuttle, and it's a welcome announcement. Not only is Finn relieved that the docking was successful, he's also excited to have some fresh faces in the station. Most importantly, he'll have someone to talk to other than Kurt.
Within only a few minutes of being on board the Zephyr, Jane discovers several things in quick succession. Firstly, that the entire team already on the station is a bit of a clique, and she feels oddly like she wants to stick by Blaine's side and remain a pair of newbies on the sidelines. Puckerman's worked with a few of the other researchers before and already has an established rapport, so he's of little comfort.
Secondly, the station smells. Like overly-clean air and sterile metal and just a hint of body odor. Jane wonders how long it will be before she gets used to it, or if she ever will.
Lastly, she had underestimated how easy it would be to navigate a lack of gravity. Yes, she had gone through months of training in simulators and pools and countless tests, all intended to prepare her for this exact moment. But floating through midair, with no ground to stand on, no up or down, and even the weight of her hair lifting off her scalp, is unnerving at best.
This would be her reality for the next six months, at a minimum.
After quick introductions with the rest of the crew, Jane makes her way to Module 01, where her personal bunk is nestled into the interior wall of the station. Her bed (if you can call it that) is essentially a closet – an upright sleeping bag with attached seat belts to keep her in place as she sleeps, a thin door that unfolds to give privacy, and a mount for her laptop in case she wants to work inside her pod. She sticks her vacuum-packed bag into the attached compartment to the side of the sleeping pod, resolving to set up her personal items later. Instead, she turns to the window on the opposite side of the module.
The window is small and narrow, but below it is an unending view. Earth glows blue, surrounded by a halo of atmosphere and mottled by storms. It's simultaneously night and day. Stars glitter against the distant velvet black, and yet the sunlight reflecting up from the oceans is bright enough to make Jane squint. It's utterly disorienting, and Jane's already lost sense of what time of day it's supposed to be. She doesn't suppose it matters to anyone except Houston, since she can already see sunset creeping around Earth's edge as the station hurtles eastward.
Jane lets out a long, slow breath. This is what she's trained for for months. She's sure that in a few days (or maybe weeks) she'll have settled in enough to not be anxious anymore. It's probably just primal instinct making her nervous at the moment – after all, humans aren't exactly evolved to fly, let alone travel in orbit – and she'll get over that soon. Right now, though, home just feels so far away. She draws in another breath and desperately tries to convince herself that she's supposed to be here.
"Hey."
Jane flinches, startled by the sudden voice from behind her. Blaine is in the doorway from the next module, floating in place. Without a floor to walk on, she couldn't hear him coming.
Blaine tilts his head back the way he came. "Come on, we need to go for our checkups. Puck's already in the med bay."
Jane nods, forcing herself to relax. "Okay."
They have to go all the way to the other end of the station to get to the medical bay, where Blaine will eventually be doing most of his work on board. As expected, Puckerman is already there and being seen to by Santana Lopez, the crew's senior doctor and commander – everyone's boss, including Blaine's. For the moment, however, Blaine is just a patient. He and Jane and Puck will all have to go through more frequent checkups for the next few weeks to make sure their bodies are acclimating properly.
"Find your pods?" Puck asks as Santana removes the blood pressure cuff from his arm, marking his reading down on a clipboard.
Blaine nods. "Surprisingly hard to get lost around here."
Puck snorts. "Not like you have very far to go."
"You're done," Santana says impatiently. "Go finish getting settled already. I have work to do."
Puck flashes her an impish grin before getting out of the way.
Santana sighs, like she's glad to be rid of him, and turns to Blaine and Jane. "Right. Who's first?"
Blaine seizes the opportunity to get it over with, letting Jane hang back. Santana wraps the pressure cuff around his bicep, pumping it with one hand while she clips a heart rate monitor to his index finger.
"Any dizziness? Upset stomach?" she asks.
Blaine shakes his head. "Not since the initial launch."
"Good. Look up."
Blaine obeys, looking up towards his own hairline as Santana prods at his face, peering closely at his eyes.
"What are you looking for?" inquires Jane from the doorway.
"Occasionally, the difference in pressurization can lead to burst blood vessels in the eyes," Santana replies clinically. "Yours look fine, though."
Blaine doesn't say anything, hoping Santana will get friendlier once they're actually working together. He has a feeling she won't.