“Sully!” he whispered. “What the hell are you doing?”

“These guys aren’t interested in us. You heard them. They love the K-1. They want big rockets. To match their dicks.”

“Don’t screw this up! Go back and talk to them.”

“Why? They’re not writing us any checks.”

“We lose them, we lose everything.”

“We’ve already lost.”

“No. No, you can sell this to them. All you have to do is tell the truth. Tell them what we really believe. Because you know and I know we’ve got the best.”

Sullivan rubbed his eyes. The aspirin was wearing off, and his head pounded. He was sick of begging. He was an engineer and a pilot, and he’d happily spend the rest of his life with his hands blackened by engine grease. But it would not happen, not without new investors. Not without new cash. He turned and walked back to the visitors. To his surprise, both men seemed to regard him with wary respect. Perhaps because he had told the truth.

“Okay,” said Sullivan, emboldened by the fact he had nothing to lose. He might as well go down like a man. “Here’s the deal. We can back up everything we’ve said with one simple demonstration. Are the other companies ready to launch at the drop of a hat? No, they are not. They need preparation time,” he sneered. “Months and months of it. But we can launch anytime. All we need to do is load this baby onto its booster and we can shoot her up to low earth orbit. Hell, we can send her up to hotdog the space station. So give us a date. Tell us when you want liftoff, and we’ll do it.” Casper turned as white as a—well, a ghost. And not a friendly one.

Sullivan had just taken them so far out on a limb they were clawing at thin air. Apogee II hadn’t been tested yet. She had sitting in this hangar for over fourteen months, gathering dust while they scrounged for money. On this, her maiden voyage, wanted to launch her all the way to orbit?

“In fact, I’m so confident she’ll pass muster,” said Sullivan, raising the stakes even higher, “I’ll ride in the pilot’s seat myself.”

Casper clutched his stomach. “Uh… that’s just a figure of speech, gentlemen. She can be flown perfectly well unmanned—”

“But there’s no real drama in that,” said Sullivan. “Let me take her up. It’ll make it more interesting for everyone. What do you say?”

I say you’re outta yourfucking mind, Casper’s eyes told him.

The two businessmen exchanged looks, a few whispered words. Then Lucas said, “We’d be very interested in a demonstration. It will take us time to round up all our partners’ travel schedules. So let’s say… a month. Can you do it?”

They were calling his bluff. Sullivan merely laughed. “A month? No problem.” He looked at Casper, who now had his eyes closed as though in pain.

“We’ll be in touch,” said Lucas, and turned toward the door.

“One last question, if I may,” said Mr. Rashad. He pointed to the orbiter. “I notice the name on your prototype is Apogee II. Was there an Apogee I?” Casper and Sullivan looked at each other.

“Uh, yes,” said Casper. “There was…”

“And what happened to her?” Casper went mute.

What the hell, thought Sullivan. Telling the truth seemed to work with these guys, he might as well do it again.

“She crashed and burned,” he said. And walked out of the hangar.

Crashed and burned. That was the only way to describe what had happened on that cold, clear morning a year and a half ago. The morning his dreams had crashed and burned as well. Sitting at his battered desk in the company office, nursing his hangover with a cup of coffee, he couldn’t help replaying every painful detail of day. The busload of NASA officials pulling up at the launch site.

His brother, Gordie, grinning with pride. The air of celebration among the dozen Apogee employees and the score of investors who had assembled under the tent for prelaunch coffee and doughnuts.

The countdown. The liftoff. Every one squinting up at the sky as Apogee I streaked toward the heavens and receded to a glinting pinpoint.

Then the flash of light, and it was all over.

Afterward, his brother had not said very much, barely a few words of condolence. But that’s how it was with Gordon. All their lives, whenever Sullivan screwed up—and it seemed to happen all too often—Gordon would just give that sad and disappointed shake of the head. Gordon was the older brother, the sober and reliable son who had distinguished himself as a shuttle commander.

Sullivan had never even made it into the astronaut corps.

Though he, too, was a pilot and an aerospace engineer, things seemed to go Sullivan’s way. If he climbed into the cockpit, that was precisely the moment a wire would short out or a line would rupture. He often thought the words Not My Fault should be tattooed on his forehead, because more often than not, it wasn’t his fault when things went wrong. But Gordon didn’t see it that way.

Things never went wrong for him. Gordon thought the concept of bad luck was an excuse to cover up incompetence.

“Why don’t you call him?” said Bridget.

He looked up. She was standing by his desk, her arms crossed like a disapproving schoolteacher’s. “Call who?” he asked.

“Your brother, who else? Tell him we’re launching the second prototype. Invite him to watch. Maybe he’ll bring the rest of NASA.”

“I don’t want anyone from NASA.”

“Sully, if we impress them, we’ll turn this company around.”

“Like the last time, huh?”

“A fluke. We’ve fixed the problem.”

“So maybe there’ll be another fluke.”

“You’re gonna jinx us, you know that?” She shoved the phone in front of him. “Call Gordon. If we’re gonna roll the dice, we might as well bet the whole house.” He eyed the phone, thinking about Apogee I. About how a lifetime of dreams can be vaporized in an instant.

“Sully?”

“Forget it,” he said. “My brother’s got better things to do than hang out with losers.” And he tossed the newspaper into the rubbish can.

July 26.

Aboard Atlantis

“Hey, Watson,” Commander Vance called down to the middeck.

“Come up and take a look at your new home.” Emma floated up the access ladder and emerged on the flight deck, right behind Vance’s seat. At her first glimpse through the windows, she inhaled a sharp breath of wonder.

This was the closest she had ever come to the station. During her first mission, two and a half years ago, they had not docked with ISS, but had observed it only from a distance.

“Gorgeous, isn’t she?” said Vance.

“She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Emma said softly.

And she was. With her vast solar arrays fanning out from the massive main truss, ISS looked like a majestic sailing ship through the heavens.

Built by sixteen different countries, the components had been delivered into space on forty-five separate launches. It had taken five years to assemble her, piece by piece, orbit. Far more than merely a marvel of engineering, she was a symbol of what man can achieve when he lays down his weapons and turns his gaze skyward.

“Now, that’s a nice piece of real estate,” said Vance. “I’d call that a view apartment.”

“We’re right on the R-bar,” said shuttle pilot Dewitt. “Nice flying.” Vance left the command seat and stationed himself at the flight deck’s overhead window for visual approach as they neared the ISS docking module. This was the most delicate phase in the complicated process of rendezvous. Atlantis had been launched into lower orbit than ISS, and for the last two days she had been playing a game of catchup with the hurtling space station. They approach her from below, using their RCS jets to fine-tune their position for docking. Emma could hear the whomp of the thrusters’ firing now and felt the orbiter shudder.

“Look,” said Dewitt. “There’s that solar array that got dinged last month.” He pointed to one of the solar panels, scarred by a gaping hole.