Midway: Chapter 29

  “Alright Tycho, just like in the simulator.”

  “Yes sir, Flight Operations this is Tycho One, requesting permission to launch.”

  “Acknowledged Tycho One, you are cleared for launch.  Good Luck Tycho.”

  Tycho and Captain Tynes were strapped into their respective seats on the flight deck of Shuttle One, one of the two shuttles which were included in the original design and construction of the New Horizon.   This was the final phase in Tycho becoming a fully qualified pilot, to be taken through a series of maneuvers by the captain, and completing them to his satisfaction.  There was no formal test, only performing to the captain’s personal satisfaction.  Though it was not necessary, Tycho called out his maneuvers to Anaru; he was simply the type of person who found it useful to think out loud.

  “Forward thrusters to ten percent.”  Most shuttle operations could be run automatically by simply commanding the onboard artificial intelligence by Brainchip.   You could just inform the shuttle of what maneuvers you wished accomplished, and all of the hard work would be done for you by the onboard computer.  This was not always possible or practical though, and it was certainly nowhere near as much fun for the experienced pilot.  Manual control though, was an art form, one which required a particular knack to pull off.  Although the individual jets and thrusters could also be independently and manually operated by Brainchip, the full piloting qualification which Tycho was testing for required the ability to use the old style manual controls on the large touch panel at the helm.  After pushing off of the engineering section from which they entered the shuttle through the ceiling, they were now falling behind their mother ship.

  “Aft thrusters to stabilization.”  The shuttle came to a relative stop about fifty meters behind the New Horizon.  Back on Earth, if one was driving along at speed in a Roadpod, anything thrown up in the air kept the forward momentum of the pod and simply fell straight back down to you, as opposed to shooting backwards once you let it go.  Likewise, the shuttle maintained the momentum of the New Horizon while hurtling through interstellar space at well at over a tenth of the speed of light, even if the shuttle was no longer physically attached.  Its flight speeds and orientations were only meaningful in relation to how it moved around the much larger New Horizon.

  “Coming about, and… moving towards the habitat ring.”   When not in use, the shuttles were nestled in the space between two of the cylindrical casings for the ion drives, with their nose up against the rear of the engineering core just ahead of the engines and fuel pods.  The engineering section shielded the shuttles from any interstellar debris when they were docked.  The design of the shuttles was rather similar to that of the orbiters which had been in common use on Earth at the time the ship had left.  They were a critical element of the mission since they were the primary way by which the crew would be landed on Haven upon their arrival.  

  One significant difference between the two types of shuttles though, was that the standard Earth based orbiters were launched into space via a magnetic launcher in conjunction with a mother aircraft.  No such infrastructure existed on Haven of course, so most of the interior of the shuttle was dedicated to storage tanks for liquid hydrogen and oxygen to independently power a return trip to orbit, in conjunction with inflatable cryo-storage fuel tanks which hung under the wing when deployed.  For an emergency drop and return mission, the internal fuel tanks could be filled before de-orbiting to allow a faster return time, but the volatility of the fuel made this very dangerous and it was generally avoided.  The preferred alternative was to use the atmospheric separators built into the shuttle to fill all of the tanks while still on the surface.  By separating the moisture in the air into its constituent elements, the shuttle was able to fully refuel itself with liquid oxygen and hydrogen for a return to orbit in only eighteen hours.

  The area occupied by the shuttle’s fuel tanks unfortunately left only the flight deck for passenger space, which itself could only hold six people at the most (and uncomfortably at that), and this including the pilot and co-pilot.  However, if the tanks were empty they could double as room for passenger and could hold up to eighty people.  This made it quite easy to land over half of the crew on a planet in just one trip using both shuttles (provided there was a planet conveniently nearby to land on), but far more challenging to ferry significant amounts of people back up to orbit.  Such a task was nowhere in their mission profile though.

  “Alright Tycho, you’re good so far, now bring her up to the habitat ring,” Anaru ordered.  Flying around the habitat ring in relatively close proximity was the primary part of the test and was incredibly challenging on manual control.   One had to negotiate forward and dorsal thrusters as well as pitch, in order to fly around in a large smooth circle in the absence of gravity.  It took forward thrust to move around the ring, downward thrust to stay with the ring, and nose down rotation to keep the belly of the shuttle flush with the New Horizon’s circular hull.  It was every bit as hard as this sounds, especially on manual control.

  “Yes sir.  Firing ventral thrusters.”  Tycho gave a soft burst from the thrusters on the underside of the twenty meter long shuttle to nudge them out towards the habitat ring, and then once clear of it, fired the dorsal thrusters to cancel out that movement and hold position again, calling out the operation to himself as he did.  He then carefully fired the main thrusters to push them over top of the exterior of the habitat ring, and then fired the thrusters in the nose of the shuttle to cancel the motion.  Firing the forward starboard thruster simultaneously with the rear port thruster, he swiveled the ship to the left so that it was lined up with the ring, and then used the inverse thrusters to establish a stable position away from the massive rotating hull.  With satisfaction, Tycho watched as the arboretum section of the ship passed slowly from below them to out in front of them, and then over the horizon of the habitat ring.  It was identifiable by being the only outer section of the habitat ring which didn’t have any windows.  “Ready,” he informed the captain.

  “Very good Tycho.  Now, try to catch up again with the arboretum again.  Take your time though,” Anaru encouraged.

  “Firing main thrusters.”  The shuttles main ion engines came to life at full power, and gradually imparted a minute acceleration on the shuttle.  The shuttle’s ion engines were only of use while in transit from Earth to Haven or in orbit around either.  The main hydrogen and oxygen booster engines were too powerful and volatile to be used safely during their transit.  Besides, they were essentially water powered and it was their one use of water which could not be recouped and recycled.  Any water used in this way would be forever lost to the deep interstellar medium, which was unacceptable.  Those powerful engines would only ever be used to escape the gravity well of Haven after being fueled by the water in its atmosphere.   Out here, the only place those engines could take you was dangerously far away from the New Horizon and out here, the ship was life itself. 

  Tapping at the panel with increasing attentiveness and focus, Tycho added to the increasing forward momentum a nose down rotation while also adding an acceleration down with his dorsal thrusters.  The result was the establishment of a smooth flight around the habitat ring, though not yet anywhere near keeping pace with the ring’s rotation.  This was the part which most required the artistry and raw talent element of piloting; it was the true test.  One could not be successfully taught this ability to mastery if one did not to some degree have it naturally inside them already.  It required an intuitive feel for inertia and spatial orientation which some people simply didn’t have.

  “Excellent Tycho, keep it up,” Anaru offered in encouragement.

  Tycho was able to find that magic balance point between all the different accelerations, at which point it was just a matter of increasing them all together while keeping them in the same balanced proportion.  Slowly as he tapped at the panel, the shuttle increased speed around the New Horizon’s habitat ring, and slowly but ultimately caught up to the windowless arboretum section of the ship.  Tycho smiled in satisfaction as he reduced all of the forces in balance, and brought the shuttle to a relative stop overtop of the arboretum and happily reported, “Station keeping, Captain. “

  “Excellent work!   Now bring her home and the qualification is yours.”

  Tycho smiled and replied, “Yes sir, bringing her in for dock.”  Before he could begin to fire the appropriate orchestra of jets and rockets to bring the shuttle back to dock, a small piece of interstellar debris about the size of pin head struck the window with a force far beyond that possible with a chemically propelled bullet.  The two men instantly and instinctively turned their head to the left where the impact had been, and then both sighed in relief at the apparent lack of damage.   But when the second, third, and fourth pieces of debris hit the window in different spots within one second a few moments later, each was larger and louder than the last.  Had they not been so startled by the strikes to the window, they would have heard the sound of similar strikes hitting the hull of the shuttle, but those sounds were muffled by the layered protection built into the shuttle’s hull.  Where the last and largest piece hit the flight deck window, a crack had appeared and was now starting to grow at an alarming rate.

  Without an instant’s hesitation, Anaru hammered his fist down onto Tycho’s emergency seat harness release.  In a tremendous burst of physical effort while still strapped in himself, the captain grabbed Tycho with both hands, pulled him out of his seat, and threw him into the rear empty fuel section of the shuttle.  Tycho flew past the emergency bulkhead between the two parts of the shuttle just before it automatically slammed shut once the shuttle’s onboard computers sensed the cabin air pressure falling below a critical level.  This all happened in the space of only a few seconds, and Tycho was locked out of the flight deck before he had even really had the chance to process how seriously they were in trouble.

  “Mission Control, this is Shuttle One.  I have taken command of the shuttle and I am declaring an emergency,” Anaru declared with military calm and precision.  “Take over control of the shuttle immediately, loss of atmosphere on the flight deck is imminent.”  Diligent response being more important at the moment than acknowledgement, the bridge crew took control of the shuttle by remote and began bringing it back down to its dock autonomously in network with the shuttle’s onboard flight computer.

  “Emergency acknowledged Shuttle One.  Hang in there Captain, we’ve already deployed a patch crew to secure the window.  We’re going to stop the shuttle in front of the airlock and hold it there.  The patch crew is already outside the airlock waiting for you, hang tight sir.”

  “Acknowledged Mission Control, hanging tight.”  Anaru Tynes knew better, but it was against his nature to unnecessarily alarm the crew, especially when they were already doing everything they possibly could.  As the crack grew, he understood that the window would breach long before they could get the shuttle in position and get the patch crew to the window in time.   He reached for the onboard ‘gunk’ supply, undid his harness, and pushed his way over to the growing crack to try to patch it from the inside.  He knew it was too big a crack to seal this way, but it wasn’t in his nature to just sit and wait for death without even trying to live.

  Just as he made it to the site of the crack though, the window catastrophically failed and blew out.  The explosive decompression launched everything in the cabin which was not secured, out and away from the shuttle and the New Horizon.   At this point, the shuttle happened to be orientated with the front facing behind the mother ship, meaning that Anaru in being launched out was imparted with a not insignificant deceleration from the ship’s overall speed.  Even if he could survive the vacuum, there was no way to go after him and retrieve him.  He was lost.

  Tycho could only watch in horror through the windows and monitors as his friend rapidly but silently floated away, his skin horribly bruising and flash freezing at the same time in the absence of any warmth or pressure to insulate his skin.

  “NOOOOO!!” Tycho screamed in agony.  “Not for ME!!!  Not… for me…”  He burst into tears, and then alternated between hysterical sobbing and fits of rabid rage in horribly twisted cyclical contortions of emotion.

  “Not for me…” Tycho whispered.