18
It seemed to take forever for the tow sled to pull Endurance out of her maintenance bay, and back to the American launch hangar. The Moon Station's main generator had failed, causing lights to flicker, and machinery to freeze. A host of auxiliary systems tried to take up the slack, but the going remained slow, and perilous.
Somehow, in jarring fits and starts, Endurance reached the hangar. As Pete dickered with mission control, John began prepping the vertical takeoff rockets. They'd never before been fired, having been assembled in orbit, then mated to the craft under less-than-ideal circumstances. Almost immediately, he received warnings; a hot, tingling flare from his wrist clear up to the back of his head, and a blinking galaxy of red instrument lights.
"What the hell...?" From bad, to worse, to goddam nightmare.
"Thruster damage?" Pete enquired calmly, after signaling a private frequency. John glanced over and nodded, checking his facts with 5 before replying.
"Section C's VTOL rockets have been tampered with. Two of them have holes knocked in their fuel lines, and some wiring's been jerked loose. Amateurish as hell, but effective."
"Okay...," McCord's blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully, his expression nearly lost in helmet-glass reflections. "...let's work the problem, one step at a time. We still gotta take off. What've we got left that'll push us off the launch pad without blowing up?"
He didn't ask how John knew exactly what was wrong with section C. Like the glove-altered gun, Tracy's unexplained 'insight' was a life saver. Leave it at that.
He listened closely as the pilot responded,
"Section A: thruster # 3 is green, and 1 and 2 can be gimbaled downward to give us some additional lift. Section D: #17's got some steering capability. Enough, put together, to get us clear... but she'll handle like a bitch till we're high enough to fire main engines."
On Earth, with its much deeper gravity well, the plan would have failed. Lunar conditions were different, though. No air resistance, one-sixth gravity, and a much kinder thrust-to-weight ratio. All they needed was 1.72 miles per second, with distance to crossover calculated at 23,860 miles. Doable, but only just. Pete gave him a brief nod.
"Into every life, a little rain must fall, baby; and the climate around here's getting real unhealthy. Let's do it."
Muttering something about a 'damn monsoon', John made the necessary adjustments, checking the details out with Houston, IMS and Five. Despite all his busy-work talk, Commander Riley himself showed up at hangar control, giving them a quick salute through the launch room window. Pete returned the gesture with a warm smile.
"IMS, Endurance: Farewell, folks, and God bless. We'll be back to finish those beers in 8 months."
Riley chuckled, his hand on a seated hangar tech's dusty shoulder. At the young woman's keyed-in command, air began howling out of the cavernous launch bay.
"We shall expect you," the base commander replied, adding, slyly, "Title something suitably imposing after me, and you'll have your choice of libations."
A red warning light flicked on: atmosphere evacuated. Under Riley's hawk-like supervision, the overhead doors began to open. Space..., hard, black, and monstrously cold..., waited just beyond.
"Molson or Dos Equis gets you a crater, pal. Serve Miller Light again, though, and it'll be the 'Philip C. Riley Memorial Pebble'."
"Noted and logged, old friend. God speed."
The suspect thrusters were off-line, section C entirely shut down, and the hangar doors wide open. All was as safe as the powers that be could make it. All John had to do now was thread a needle at arm's length, wearing oven mitts. Just another day at the office. Shaking his head, he verified systems one last time, and mourned the lost drinks.
"Too bad about the beer," the young pilot commented. "It's going to be a long eight months."
Pete surveyed the comforting proportion of green-to-red on his status board. Then he okayed the launch, adding with a sideways little smile,
"Goddam alcoholic!"
"Only in my spare time," John replied, as Mission Control ( in possession of news the crew hadn't heard yet) gave their own 'go for launch' signal. Then, "Brace yourselves, people. Might get a little rough."
Small hatches along the hangar's rock walls had opened up, revealing high-pressure nozzles primed to release explosion-dampening gel. In the event of catastrophic engine failure, the sealed crew compartment could also be ejected free. That was Pete's department, though. John's business was flying the ship. With a deep breath, he triggered the burns.
Thrusters 3 and 17 went off at once with matching hoarse roars. 1, 2 and 15, gimbaled so that their thrust was directed as nearly downward as possible, joined the draconic chorus, shaking Endurance like a badly-pegged tent in a hurricane. The opening, two hundred yards overhead, with clearance on all sides amounting to less than fifteen feet, seemed to possess the generous dimensions of a microchip. Pete clamped his hand on the cabin eject lever, just in case.
Slowly, the ship began to rise, nose-first and yawing drunkenly from right to left. Unbalanced thrust. John concentrated ferociously on the distant threshold, fighting to keep Endurance from striking the walls as she lurched upward.
Like trying to parallel park a crash-diving jet...
Pete called out maneuvering data in rapid, snapped bursts, building a picture in John's head to augment the blaring collision sensors, nav computer, and his seat-of-the-pants feel for their wobbling ascent. Juggling five differently-powered thrusters at once, John cursed quietly in every language from Chiricahua Apache to FORTRAN.
He heard McCord's comments without being consciously aware of them, sunk brainstem-deep into flying the dangerously pitching vessel. The entire universe became ship, walls, and vectored numbers; adjusting controls to still a sudden lunge, or quiet a threatening shudder. Then, dark and beautiful and blessedly wide open, space flowered around them once more.