Jill Hewitt was gasping in pain, short little whimpers that punctuated every push of a new button on the control panel. Her head felt like a melon ripe to explode. Her field of vision had so narrowed that it seemed as if she were peering down a long black tunnel and the controls had receded almost beyond her reach. It took every ounce of concentration for her to focus on each switch she had to flip, on each button wavering beyond her finger. Now she struggled to make out the attitude-direction indicator, her vision blurring as the eight-ball display seemed to spin wildly in its casing.

I can’t see it. I can’t read pitch or yaw …

“Discovery, you are at entry interface,” said Capcom. “Body flap on auto.” Jill squinted at the panel and reached for the switch, but it seemed so far away… “Discovery?” Her trembling finger made contact. She switched to “auto.”

“Confirm,” she whispered, and let her shoulders go slack. The computers were now in control, flying the ship. She did not trust herself on the stick. She did not even know how long she could remain conscious. Already the black tunnels were closing over her vision, swallowing the light. For the first time she could hear the sound rushing air across the hull, could feel her body being shoved back against her seat.

Capcom had gone silent. She was in communications blackout, the spacecraft hurtling against the atmosphere with such force it stripped the electrons from air molecules. That electromagnetic storm interrupted all radio waves, cut off all communication. For the next twelve minutes it was only her, and the ship, and the roaring air.

She had never felt so alone.

She felt the autopilot begin to steer into the first high bank, rolling the spacecraft on its side, slowing it down. She imagined glow of heat on the cockpit windows, could feel its warmth, like the sun radiating on her face.

She opened her eyes. And saw only darkness.

Where are the lights? she thought. Where is the glow on the window?

She blinked, again and again. Rubbed her eyes, as though to force them to see, to force her retinas to draw in light. She reached out toward the control panel. Unless she flipped the right switches, unless she deployed the air-data probes and lowered the landing gear, Houston could not land the ship. They could not get her alive. Her fingers brushed against a mind-numbing array of dials and buttons, and she gave a howl of despair.

She was blind.

At 4,093 feet above sea level, the air at White Sands Missile Proving Grounds was dry and thin. The landing strip traced across ancient dried-out seabed located in a desert valley formed between the Sacramento and Guadalupe mountain ranges to the east, and the San Andres Mountains to the west. The closest town was Alamogordo, New Mexico. The terrain was stark and arid, and only the hardiest of desert vegetation could survive.

The area had long served as a training base for fighter pilots. It had also seen other uses through the decades. During World War II, it was the site of a German prisoner of war camp. It was also location of the Trinity site, where the U.S. exploded its first bomb, assembled not far away in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Barbed wire and unmarked government buildings had sprouted up in this desert valley, their functions a mystery even to the base of nearby Alamogordo.

Through binoculars, Jack could see the landing strip shimmering with heat in the distance. Runway 16/34 was oriented just slightly off due north-south. It was fifteen thousand feet long three hundred feet wide—large enough to accept the heaviest of jets, even in that rarefied air, which forces long landing and rolls.

Just west of the touchdown point, Jack and the medical team waited, along with a small convoy of NASA and United Space Alliance vehicles, for Discovery’s arrival. They had stretchers, oxygen, defibrillators, and ACLS kits—everything one could find in a modern ambulance, and more. For landings at Kennedy, there would be over one hundred fifty ground team members prepared to meet the orbiter. Here, on this desert strip, they had barely dozen, and eight of them were medical personnel.

Some of the ground crew were wearing self-contained atmospheric protective suits, to insulate them from any propellant leaks. They would be the first to meet the orbiter and, with atmospheric sensors, quickly assess the potential for explosions before allowing doctors and nurses to approach.

A distant rumble made Jack lower his binoculars and glance due east.

Choppers were approaching, so many of them they looked like an ominous swarm of black wasps.

“What’s this?” said Bloomfeld, also noticing the choppers. Now the rest of the ground crew was staring at the sky, many of them murmuring in bewilderment.

“Could be backup,” said Jack.

The convoy leader, listening on his comm unit, shook his head.

“Mission Control says they’re not ours.”

“This airspace should be clear,” said Bloomfeld.

“We’re trying to hail the choppers, but they’re not responding.” The rumble had crescendoed, and Jack could feel it in his bones now, a deep and constant thrum in his sternum. They were going to invade the orbiter’s airspace. In fifteen minutes, Discovery would drop out of the sky and find those choppers in her flight path. He could hear the convoy leader talking urgently into his headset, could feel panic begin to ripple through the ground crew.

“They’re holding position,” said Bloomfeld.

Jack raised his binoculars. He counted almost a dozen choppers.

They had indeed halted their approach and were now landing like a flock of vultures, due east of the orbiter’s touchdown point.

“What do you suppose that’s all about?” said Bloomfeld.

Two minutes left of communications blackout. Fifteen minutes till touchdown.

Randy Carpenter was feeling the first flush of optimism. He knew they could bring Discovery down safely. Barring a catastrophic computer failure, they could fly that bird from the ground.

The key was Hewitt. She had to stay conscious, had to be able to flip two switches at the right times. Minimal tasks, but crucial. their last radio contact, ten minutes before, Hewitt had sounded alert, but in pain. She was a good pilot, a woman with a steel backbone tempered by the refiner’s fire of the U.S. Navy. All she had to do was stay conscious.

“Flight, we have good news from NASCOM,” said Ground Control. “Mission Control Moscow has made radio contact with ISS on Regul S-Band.” Regul was the Russian S-band radio system aboard ISS. It was completely separate and independent of the U.S. system, and it operated via Russian ground stations and their LUCH satellite.

“Contact was brief. They were on the tail end of LUCH satellite comm pass,” said Ground Control. “But the crew is all alive and well.” Carpenter’s optimism flared even brighter, and he tightened his plump fingers in a triumphant fist. “Damage report?”

“They had a breach of the NASDA module and had to close off Node Two and everything forward of that. They’ve also lost two solar arrays and several truss segments. But no one’s hurt.”

“Flight, we should be coming out of comm blackout,” said Capcom.

At once Carpenter’s attention snapped back to Discovery. He was happy about the news from ISS, but his first responsibility to the shuttle.

“Discovery, do you copy?” said Capcom. “Discovery?”

The minutes went by. Too many. Suddenly Carpenter was back dancing on the brink of panic.

Guidance said, “Second S-turn completed. All systems look good.” Then why wasn’t Hewitt responding?

“Discovery,” repeated Capcom, his voice now urgent. “Do you copy?”

“Going into third S-turn,” said Guidance.

We’ve lost her, thought Carpenter.

Then they heard her voice. Soft and unsteady. “This is Discovery.