ASA MISSION CONTROL, MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA, 9:25 A.M. PACIFIC

Richard DiFazio has never walked into Mission Control in a real crisis, simply because there’s never been a real crisis. A few scary moments, yes, but nothing like this.

Careful not to usurp the flight director’s authority or give any of his gravely worried crew even more worry, DiFazio stays by Arleigh Kerr’s side and merely nods an affirmation when any of the other technicians look his way.

The briefing has been chilling, and the time in transit from his home in Lancaster has provided no relief, no indication that it’s all a false alarm. Bill Campbell’s fate, Kip Dawson’s, and the fate of the entire operation is anything but assured, and he can just imagine NASA’s Geoff Shear monitoring this same information—and even doling it out to ASA.

He knows Shear all too well and loathes him. A Machiavellian, master bureaucrat.

“Are they helping?” he asks Arleigh regarding NASA’s role.

“So far, whatever we’ve asked for, they’ve provided.”

“What are our options, Arleigh?”

The question seems to stun the flight director into silence. DiFazio watches his face turn pasty, sees him swallow hard and struggle to find the appropriate answer.

“Well, sir…”

“Too soon to ask?”

This question is a welcome rescue and Arleigh nods energetically. “Yes. Too soon. We need to exhaust all other explanations first.”

“Is Ventureunusable? Could we get her ready to go up?” DiFazio asks, referring to the only other spacecraft ASA has, the ship now sitting with a damaged landing gear in one of the hangars.

“I don’t know yet.”

“If I have to send it up in less than perfect shape to get them back, I’ll do it. It’s guaranteed that no one else is going to help us.”

More engineers are gathering in front of Arleigh now, and DiFazio pats him on the shoulder, announces that he’ll be in his office, and steps away, rather than stand like a rock in the river, disrupting the flow of their urgent consultations.

The news coming into the control room is no better, the info from NASA and NORAD confirming that something was seen streaking in and apparently striking the spacecraft just as communications were lost.

“In twenty minutes,” Arleigh decides, “I want us all in the conference room with any and all ideas about what we should do and how we should proceed. Any ideas. Okay?”

He turns them back to their consoles and resumes his position, the iron-jawed leader standing at the helm in hurricane force winds, undaunted by the ferocity of the storm.

But inside he’s dying.

Plaques, models, and framed memorials to a full if frustrating career surround John Kent. He sits at his desk and rubs his closed eyes, wondering what else he can say to the wife of his longtime buddy Bill Campbell.

“Katie, it is entirely possible that Bill’s okay and working hard to get them down, and just hasn’t been able to cure the communications blackout.”

“I know,” is the barely controlled response from the Campbell home somewhere near Lancaster, California. “I’ve always known the risks.”

“Look… I’ve got all our people monitoring everything, and I’m… do not repeat this, okay?… but I’m working on a rescue plan if, for some reason, we need to go up there and bring them back.”

The silence is long and telling. Katie Campbell knows well her husband’s heartburn over NASA’s official position regarding private spaceflight. And she knows John Kent doesn’t run NASA.

“Thanks, John.”

“I’ll call you with any news. Immediately. But you hang in there and have faith.”

The call ends and he sits back, his mind spinning with possibilities, his personality geared to analysis, action, and cure. The course seems clear: Prepare for the worst case, regardless of Shear’s rancid attitude.

He lunges from his chair, swinging open his office door and sticking his head into the outer office where a half dozen other astronauts and engineers are waiting.

“Everybody come on in here. None of this leaves this room, but we’ve got to plan a rescue, just in case.”

There is a magnificent planet to admire just outside his window, and Kip forces himself to look up and take quick note of it. He remembers standing beneath the star field last night at the side of that desert road, wishing he was up here. Now he wishes he was back on that deserted road looking up.

But whatever happens, he made it to space, and the incredible beauty of it somehow blunts the lethality of his situation.

In other words,he thinks, itis worth it, whatever happens.

But the thought is short-lived, and he feels fear returning like a thief to steal his resolve.

He brings his eyes back to the checklist, hopeful he has his jitters sufficiently under control to begin a run-through of the procedure for automatic retrofire. The prospect of having to fly Intrepidmanually if the automatic system flubs up terrifies him.

The autoflight panel is called something else, but it serves the same purpose, since Intrepidis programmed to fly automatically. The ship was set to keep its length parallel to the planet below, the nose in the direction of flight, and rolled over on its back so that the Earth is actually the ceiling, the “up” in the up/down equation. He’s verified the blinking lights and read the messages on the computer screen to make sure it’s all working as advertised, and he’s heard and felt the little reaction jets firing to keep Intrepidfrom turning or yawing around.

According to the checklists, just prior to firing the engine to slow down, the astronaut is supposed to feed the computer a new set of coordinates, three numbers which Kip has already found and written down. When those numbers are safely locked in the tiny silicon brain, the machine will automatically fire the reaction jets in just the right sequence to turn their tail end around almost a hundred and eighty degrees and get the ship in the correct position to fire the engine backward.

Kip looks at his watch. Thirty minutes to the turnaround maneuver, which he’s decided to do about halfway through the second orbit. If Intrepidwas programmed to turn itself automatically on the fourth orbit, he wouldn’t be messing with it. But—provided he’s read everything correctly—the commands have to be manually typed in or the ship will never turn around. And only if the rocket motor is firing almost precisely against the direction of flight will they be able to slow down and essentially drop out of the sky.

He feels momentarily frozen. Part of him wants to stay for the full four orbits, but another part clamors to know whether or not he’s going to survive this. He feels a turf battle in his brain between those competing desires.

Maybe we should do it now,he thinks. After all, the automatic system can hold us in that backward position for a half hour as easily as it can keep us flying forward.

He thinks about the fact that he keeps using the pronouns “us” and “we” in every thought of what he should do and what’s happening. Bill is dead. No other living being is aboard, yet he can’t bring himself to shift to “I” and “me.”

Not yet.

His hand hovers over the small keyboard and he pulls back, deciding to be disciplined enough to wait for the right moment. Twenty-nine more minutes. Right before the sun sets behind him, which means he’ll be able to see it this time. Sunrise has been in his face, and it was incredible. But he can do twenty-nine minutes.

He takes a deep breath, the first time in perhaps the past hour. At first there were short, panting, almost hyperventilating breaths, sheer panic. Then his reluctance to breathe deeply lest floating debris from the projectile’s passage get in his lungs. But while some tiny things may still hang in the weightless environment, the air is mostly clean, and he supposes the air filters are responsible.