Critical Mass, page 18
Tighe and Jin smiled, clearly feeling the same.
With that, they let go and brought their legs up out of the water, into a kneeling position on their short, rubberized surfboards. They each gripped the trigger of a wireless remote in one hand, and their boards began to surge forward silently.
Tighe had practiced the maneuver hundreds of times over the last several weeks, and he now relished the ease with which he slowly rose from his kneeling position to a low crouch—squeezing the throttle, picking up speed—and then stood on the board as it rose up and out of the water atop a hydrofoil wing. Soon he was soaring at 40 kilometers per hour, half a meter above the water’s surface, the electric motor of the Lift board barely audible as its blade sliced through the waves. He turned to see Chindarkar and Jin cruising alongside. Chindarkar laughed, held up her arms, and screamed in joy as they raced toward a distant coastline, leaving barely a wake as their boards slipped like razors through the sea.
They covered the distance to the coast in less than a half hour, and as the Nezha’s radar had indicated, they encountered no patrol boats. Tighe scanned the beachline, looking for launch and lightning towers in the distance to orient himself. Without his helmet’s HUD, Tighe had to glance at his suit’s integral wrist display to confirm his GPS position.
13°45’30”N, 80°15’18”E
They were right where they should be.
Sriharikota Island had several inlets to permit transport of rocket components—but the trio were going to slip in through a much smaller channel.
There. Tighe noticed the narrow waterway bisecting the beach. It had been dredged to accommodate small boats, and the gates at its entrance were also open.
Chindarkar gave a hand signal and took the lead as Jin and Tighe fell in behind her, single file. They cruised at speed toward the white-sand beach, and Tighe was momentarily alarmed at the sight of a security truck parked alongside the waterway’s entrance. However, the uniformed guard there waved, smiling as Chindarkar waved back, racing past.
Tighe couldn’t help but laugh at the impression she must have made—that they must all have made—as they swept past, like visitors from another world.
The guard shouted after them as he rushed to close the water channel’s chain-link gate, “Surakshit yaatra!”
Moments later, coastal mangroves enveloped them, and Tighe’s focus was total as he raced behind Chindarkar, maneuvering the narrow, winding channel—Jin close on his tail. They had no choice but to keep up their speed if they wanted the hydrofoils to function. Otherwise, the prop would plunge too deep and hit bottom. Fast was the only way to thread this needle. They ducked and dodged overhanging branches as they raced the boards down the winding waterway. However, they soon emerged from the narrows into a much wider pond with finished, sloping banks—part of a launch system water supply.
Just ahead lay Commercial Launch Complex One—and the first sight of their GSLV Mark III rocket, the sun illuminating its upper stages. The logo of India’s leading commercial space firm, Vestar, ran down its side. The GSLV was about 50 meters tall and 4 meters in diameter—a thirty-year-old design transferred from the government space program and put to commercial use. Not exactly cutting edge or reusable, but nonetheless a reliable workhorse that could lift a 2,500 kilogram payload into a lunar transfer orbit.
Although the Indian government had launched several crewed capsules into low Earth orbit over the past decade, none of their private firms had launched humans. There was no Indian version of Jack Macy or George Burkette. At least not yet.
And what they were doing this morning was not officially happening. Especially in the event of a failure.
And failure . . . well, Tighe didn’t want to contemplate failure.
The trio now cruised on their hydrofoil boards three abreast in the pond, scanning the grassy shoreline for their contacts. Jin pointed toward a white step van in a distant parking lot. Several people stood around it, waving to them.
The team adjusted course, and as they drew near, eased up on their throttles. The hydrofoils descended into the water, and soon they slid off into the shallows and clambered ashore.
A group of Indian men in lab coats and hard hats smiled broadly and extended their hands to pull the team in. They spoke rapidly in Hindi to Chindarkar. The trio of explorers moved through the knot of engineers and technicians, now both men and women, with one older man in a short-sleeved shirt and tie motioning for them to follow as he led the way toward the open door of the step van. Hindi or no, it wasn’t hard to guess what the man was saying . . .
Hurry. Hurry!
As they reached the van’s door, Chindarkar stopped suddenly and knelt down. Tighe bumped into her and looked to see that she was speaking to two children—a boy and a girl, each perhaps eight years old—who stood alongside their father, one of the engineers. The children spoke to Chindarkar with excitement in Hindi, and she smiled, leaning close as she spoke words that Tighe could not hear—eliciting broad grins from both of them. The girl then offered a pen and a rocket photo, which Chindarkar proceeded to autograph.
Tighe imagined that she seemed to them like a genuine superhero in her white space suit, arriving by hydrofoil.
The lead engineer hollered and pulled Chindarkar forward and into the van, Tighe and Jin close on her heels. Moments later the van door slid closed behind them, and they took seats along the wall in the windowless cargo space.
Jin gave Chindarkar an impatient look. “Hardly the best time to sign autographs, Dr. Chindarkar.”
“They were kids. You want to inspire the next generation or not?”
“How about we inspire them by succeeding?”
The van suddenly lurched forward, slamming them against one another. Its diesel engine rattled as the team braced against the walls, and they removed their suit helmets from one another’s rucksacks. With practiced precision they fitted and locked their helmets into place, checking the seals. Tighe then passed around portable life support units that were waiting for them in the van. He connected the input and output hoses to their helmets’ life support systems—much simpler arrangements than the older EMUs, which required the entire suit to be pressurized. After taking a few readings, Tighe powered up his life support, and fresh air started flowing through his helmet. He was now on their private comm network.
The team then double-checked one another’s equipment.
“Radio test. One. Two. Three.”
Jin gave a thumbs-up. “I have you.”
“Good seal.” Tighe also gave thumbs-up. “Hell of a lot easier pressurizing only the helmet—and with regular air, no less.”
Chindarkar finished activating her own life support. “This morning’s launch wouldn’t even be possible if we had to do a two-hour oxygen prebreathe.”
Tighe’s helmet HUD display soon appeared, and he regained normal visibility as the plenoptic cameras embedded into the helmet’s exterior rendered it transparent through his integral optics.
“We are go.”
Within a few minutes the van slowed, then came to a squealing stop. Almost immediately the van door slid open, and a man in a security uniform motioned urgently, speaking in Hindi.
Chindarkar turned to Jin and Tighe. “Follow him.”
They grabbed their mobile life support units as the man led the way.
Tighe glanced up as they crossed a concrete pad toward an industrial elevator. Here at the base of the launch tower, the GSLV rocket loomed over them. A trio of lightning towers stood some ways off, wires strung between them. The rocket looked every year of its design age this close up—much less elegant than one of Burkette’s or Macy’s next-gen reusable rockets. If the Zenith and Starion capsules had been first class, they were about to go via FedEx freight.
The launch tower elevator doors opened, and the group pushed inside. After an interminable wait, the security guard repeatedly jamming the “close door” button, the doors clanked and rattled closed. The elevator ascended.
Tighe said, “I recall there being a lot more paperwork the first time around.”
Soon the elevator boomed to a stop and the doors rattled open. They emerged to find themselves atop the gantry platform, with a shroud blocking the view. The only indication that they’d reached the top was the rocket’s faring directly ahead of them. It was perhaps 8 meters tall and 4.5 meters across at its widest point. A hatch had been removed, lending access to the interior. Technicians in white smocks, booties, and yellow hard hats waited there, motioning for them to enter.
Chindarkar ducked through the entrance—with Tighe right behind her—and came to an immediate stop. The interior of the faring was crowded with equipment—not all of it comprehensible. Tighe looked up to see Chindarkar climbing a narrow utility ladder, and moments later she disappeared at the top, stepping off onto some sort of platform. He climbed up after her, holding his life support unit in one hand. As he reached the top of the 2-meter ladder, he let out an involuntary laugh. “You have got to be shitting me . . .”
Ahead of him was a metal platform near the top of the cargo faring, upon which three fighter jet seats had been bolted into place, arrayed equidistant from each other around a central core—all of them in a recumbent position. Chindarkar was already lying back in one of the seats, knees toward the sky, getting strapped into a harness, while two technicians assisted, hooking up her life support to the spacecraft.
“Time’s wasting, J.T.”
One of the technicians removed Tighe’s pack, restrapping it across his belly. Tighe then moved to the nearest open seat and lay down in it with some difficulty within the confined space. “Erika wasn’t kidding.” He looked above at an insubstantial metal frame with a docking port atop it. “This is a convertible.”
He heard Jin’s surprised exhalation over the radio. “I can only imagine what the mission managers at CNSA would say if they saw this.” He stepped over and past Tighe—with a tight squeeze against the faring wall—then took his seat.
Tighe started strapping himself in, and in a few moments, one of the technicians took over for him, also jacking in his life support and comms to the rocket’s systems. He could suddenly hear a background of Hindi radio chatter from mission control.
Chindarkar’s voice came in over the local radio. “Our orbital window is coming up soon. Let’s clear these techs out ASAP.”
The tight confines became a flurry of activity as the technicians finished and tested life support systems. One of the techs pointed out an auxiliary life support hose.
Tighe nodded and gave a thumbs-up. “Thanks. I see it.” It was a nice sentiment, but the list of terminal scenarios in case of malfunction was extensive.
Soon the technicians gave the team the thumbs-up, and they all descended the ladder—pulling it away and exiting with it, before sealing the faring hatch behind them. Tighe couldn’t help but notice how thin the aluminum was.
He glanced first right, then left, at his crewmates. “In terms of sketchy decisions we’ve made over the years, this one’s right up there.”
Chindarkar replied, “It might be obvious, but . . .” She paused. “If either of you have changed your minds, I can call Master Control to abort the—”
“No.” Tighe waved her off. “Let’s do this.”
Jin’s voice said, “It is appreciated, Priya. But we all know this is necessary.”
She nodded. “The GSLV is a fairly reliable launch system—but it’s a cargo rocket. That means the abort system is a self-destruct. And the payload propulsion module only has 500 meters per second of delta-v and no heat shield or parachute. So even if we slightly miss our orbit, we’re as good as dead.”
Tighe looked around at the lack of a capsule. “At least we’ll have a nice view.” He rapped on the cargo faring, which made a bell sound.
She let out a nervous laugh. “I hope this works. Because I really want to see this through. I want to build that mass-driver on the Moon, build that rescue ship, save Isabel and Ade . . . and establish humanity in the cosmos.”
Jin chuckled. “I do not think that is too much to ask.”
“Right?”
Tighe extended his arm, and they all clasped hands once more. “Then let’s do it.”
They sat for several minutes, holding gloved hands and listening to Hindi radio chatter. After what seemed entirely too long to Tighe, Chindarkar glanced both ways.
“We’re in final countdown. One minute.”
Tighe centered himself. He didn’t believe in wishing for something to come true, but here and now, he didn’t see the harm in it either.
The radio voices in Hindi continued, until finally vibrations and thunderous noise erupted below and then all around them. Tighe’s chair and the entire cargo faring began to shudder—and suddenly they jolted upward, as though hurled by a catapult. The solid rocket boosters on the GSLV’s first stage were brutal—Macy’s and Burkette’s reusable rockets gentle by comparison. The acceleration did not let up—it increased—and the all-consuming thunderous roar around Tighe made it impossible to hear his own thoughts. If he’d had fillings, he suspected they would have rattled out of his head. It was violent enough that Tighe briefly entertained the notion that the self-destruct had already been activated.
But no, the rocket’s acceleration continued to build as its twin solid boosters thundered like the barely contained explosions they were, plowing straight through maximum aerodynamic pressure. There was no throttling down these boosters once they were lit. One had to simply hold on.
At about the two-minute mark there was a shudder, and the deafening roar died away.
BECO. Booster engine cutoff.
The acceleration eased, only to be replaced by a different, though less aggressive roar as the GSLV’s Vikas main engines kicked in, and the g-forces returned with a vengeance.
Tighe laughed maniacally. It was turning out to be one hell of a ride.
* * *
—
Bobby Cheng made it a principle to never rise in the morning—much less at dawn. However, this was one show even he would rise with the sun to see. And in order to avoid a hangover, he’d kept up a slow, steady drinking pace all night long—meeting the sun on the deserted helipad of the Nezha near the bow, after his guests had quietly slipped away in the predawn darkness.
Cheng now stood in a purple silk robe and pajamas, holding a fifty-thousand-dollar bottle of Pernod Ricard Perrier-Jouët in one hand and a half-filled flute in the other, staring at the eastern sky, craning his neck upward as a distant rocket rode atop a pillar of smoke and buffeting fire. Thunderous booms pummeled the dome of the sky above, but he stared unblinking at the bright light, still climbing.
Cheng held up his glass and howled with joyous laughter. “Go, my friends! Go!” He smiled in wonder, watching the rocket continue to climb. “Never let them stop you!”
As the rocket ascended, disappearing into the distance, it occurred to Cheng that maybe, just maybe, he’d finally done something meaningful with his life. Just this once.
PART TWO
Orbital
CHAPTER 14
Transit
DAYS TO RYUGU DEPARTURE: 1,256
After a few minutes, the violence and noise of their ascent began to fade, and soon James Tighe felt the familiar sensation of microgravity. Then there was a brief jolt, and the second stage kicked in—bringing acceleration g-forces back with them. However, the murderous racket was gone now.
Jin’s voice came in over the radio. “We have cleared most of Earth’s atmosphere but are still parabolic.”
Chindarkar added, “We achieve orbit at SECO.”
Tighe asked, “What are we supposed to be again—a weather satellite?”
“Something like that. It’ll be a while yet until we go ‘off course.’ They’ll keep us clear of other registered objects.”
The acceleration continued for several minutes more until the second-stage engine cut out.
Jin said, “And that is second-stage cutoff.”
Chindarkar sighed in relief. “We’re in orbit at least. One more good burn—our translunar injection just past the lunar antipode. Until that’s complete, any malfunction is . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Tighe was about to say it for her when suddenly the rocket faring walls all around them silently fell away, like the petals of a flower opening, and were lost in the slipstream. “Oh my god . . .”
Below him was all the world.
The sunlit side of Earth spread out and away beneath them as they sat in the open cargo bay, astride the globe. Only a frame of metal rods capped by an international docking adapter enclosed them now—like a flimsy roll cage.
Gazing below, Tighe recalled again the joy and awe he’d felt when they’d reemerged after years in deep space to behold Earth’s splendor.
“It’s so beautiful!” Chindarkar cried out.
Jin shifted in his seat. “And of course, I am on the space side.”
“Maybe she’ll come around.” Tighe leaned forward as far as his restraints would allow—which wasn’t much. Looking across the arc of the world, he could see edge-on how thin the atmosphere was. It seemed miraculous that this tenuous haze had slowed them at all on their return trajectory to Earth all those months ago—much less that it contained all life known to exist in the universe.
They coasted, watching the world roll by below them for fifteen or twenty minutes, but then Tighe was slammed back as the second-stage engine kicked in again. They accelerated rapidly, occasional puffs of thruster gas adjusting their altitude and rotation.
“Here we go!”
“How long’s this burn?”
Jin answered. “Eight minutes—our translunar injection.”
