YUKARI CHECKED THE cabin pressure and carefully lifted the visor on her helmet. The cockpit smelled of rubber insulation. The whir of the ventilation fan and the hum of the electrical inverter were the only sounds that intruded on the eerie silence in the capsule.
“Mission control, this is Tampopo. I’m preparing to engage manual attitude control.”
“Hoi. Copy that.”
Yukari flipped the switch to enable manual control, grasped the control stick with her right hand, and released the safety.
“Starboard roll.”
Yukari tilted the stick gently to the right.
Click.
A magnetic valve behind her opened. The thruster itself made no sound. The attitude indicator on the control panel began to spin.
“Roll rate, twenty degrees per second.”
There was another click as Yukari returned the stick to the neutral position. The capsule stopped moving at once.
“Roll rate, zero. Easier than a video game.”
“We want you to look outside to confirm you’ve stopped moving, Yukari.”
“I can see the moon through the window. As steady as if it was hanging on a wall. It looks like a shining silver platter.”
“It must be beautiful.”
“You can see for yourself on the next flight.”
“That’s right!”
Yukari proceeded to test the manual controls on each of the three major axes of the ship. Everything checked out.
“Looks like the onboard gyroscopes are working fine. The jinx must have been on the booster,” remarked Yukari.
“Oh no!” screamed Matsuri.
“What? What is it?”
“I’m so sorry, Yukari. I did something really, really stupid.”
“What?”
“I forgot to tell Mom and Dad that the launch was delayed. I told them not to put a curse on the rockets going up on the twenty-seventh, but I never said anything about the launch today.”
“That’s it?” Yukari breathed a sigh of relief.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? This is terrible! You don’t know how powerful evil spirits can be.” There was dead certainty in Matsuri’s voice.
“But the rocket didn’t blow up or anything. The orbit’s just a little off, that’s all.”
“We can’t let down our guard, Yukari. There are still evil spirits with you. It will only get worse from—”
A voice in the control room cut her off. “That’s enough of that, Matsuri.” The transmission went silent.
Yukari smiled to herself. “Believe in spirits all you want. I’m putting my faith in science. The attitude controls are working, so if we can do the deorbit burn and the parachutes open like they’re supposed to, we’re home free. Trust me, everything is going to be just fi—”
A violent jolt rocked the ship. Yukari screamed. She opened her eyes and saw the attitude indicator spinning wildly.
“Mission control, Tampopo.” Yukari’s voice was shaking. “We have a situation up here. Something shook the ship, and the capsule is spinning out of control. I’ve got an alarm on oxidation tank two—it’s leaking. Other systems are—”
Kinoshita’s voice came over the radio. “Close your visor and check the cabin pressure.”
“Roger that. My visor is closed. Cabin pressure is normal. The B-39 control valve is lighting up red.”
“Check your oxygen supply. If there’s a problem, I want you to put on your emergency backpack.”
“Oxygen supply reads normal.” Yukari forced herself to breathe normally as she checked her instruments. “Cabin temperature and electric voltage are nominal. Life support systems all check out. Roll rate 314 degrees per second. Pitch rate 140 degrees.”
“How’s that oxidation tank?”
“Pressure is at zero. Must be empty.”
“I don’t want you to touch the attitude controls yet—it might trigger an explosion. As long as you have your number one tank, you’re not in any danger. We can still bring you home.”
“Copy that—Aiieee!”
“What is it?”
Yukari was about to report seeing sparks dancing outside the ship, but then she stopped herself. She had seen this in the videos they watched in class.
“I see ‘fireflies’ outside the window. Thousands of particles sparkling outside the ship. They’re thinning out now.”
“Probably the fluid from the oxidation tank. Do you see anything else?”
Yukari peered out the window. The capsule was still spinning, making it difficult.
“Uh-oh. I see something—something big. It looks like debris.”
“Describe it.”
“There’s a long white piece—like tape or a cable or something. There’s also something square, like a brick. It’s black—I can’t see it anymore.”
“Continue your observations of the craft, inside and out. We’ll be analyzing the telemetry.”
“Um, Kinoshita? That black thing…” Fear had crept into Yukari’s voice. “It looked like a heat shield tile.”
It was three seconds before Kinoshita replied. “The tiles are diamond shaped, with a slight curve.”
“That sounds right, but I didn’t get a good look. I can’t think of anything else it might have been.”
If even one of the reinforced carbon tiles had become dislodged, reentry would be impossible—a simple fact known to everyone in the program, Yukari included.
“This doesn’t look good…Do you know what happened?”
“That’s what we’re going to figure out. We have to take this one step at a time.”
“I know, it’s just…”
“Stay calm, Yukari.”
“I am calm!”
“Oh? Your vital signs tell a different story.”
“Huh?” Yukari’s eyes went immediately to the heart-rate monitor. It was over 120 beats per minute. “Did Satsuki put the medical feed up on the screen?”
“I did,” said Satsuki, her voice filling Yukari’s helmet. “And if you want me to pull it down, you need to take some nice, deep breaths and relax.” It was the first time Yukari had heard Satsuki’s voice since the launch.
“I will, just shut it down! Or else I’m gonna rip the cables off myself.”
“There, that’s better.” There was a smile behind Satsuki’s words. “I think your body likes being angry, Yukari.”
Yukari had played right into Satsuki’s hands, which only upset her more.
“When you have some answers down there, I want to hear them. I’m the captain, remember? This whole thing caught me a little off guard, but I’ve got it together now. I can handle this. Tampopo, over and out.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Despite her brave words, the realization that she might not live through this had been kindled in the back of her mind. She would have to will herself to overcome her fear. It was the only way, and she knew it.
✦ ✦ ✦
[ACT 3]
✦ ✦ ✦
“IMPOSSIBLE!” SHOUTED MUKAI. They had woken him after four hours of sleep to break the news to him. “The designers would have taken the possibility of a tank overload into consideration. This isn’t Apollo or Mars Observer—there’s no way that tank could have ruptured on its own.”
“All right,” said Director Nasuda, folding his arms. “Space debris then.”
There were countless pieces of trash in orbit around the earth, most of them little larger than specks of dust. But all of them traveled at speeds faster than a bullet fired from a rifle, each one a small, man-made satellite.
“The odds of an on-orbit impact with debris capable of crippling the ship are practically zero. Unless…” Matsuri’s evil spirits came unbidden to Director Nasuda’s thoughts, but he stopped short of blaming them.
Matsuri sat at her station, mouth agape, eyes vacant.
“Tank number two is here.” Mukai indicated the tank on a diagram of the spacecraft. “This sausage-shaped object wrapped around the outside of the engine. Based on the location of the damaged valve, the debris must have impacted the side at an angle, piercing the tank and the heat shield.”
“How do we fix it?” asked Director Nasuda.
Mukai started to speak, then paused again before answering. “I don’t know if we can. Even assuming we could recover the tile, there’s no way to reattach it to the hull.”
“We might be able to use the adhesive in the space suit’s repair kit,” interjected Motoko. “It’s good up to three hundred degrees.”
“No, if the damage was bad enough to rip off a tile, the surface underneath will be a mess. Like a piece of paper with a hole punched through it.”
“In light of the circumstances, I think it’s worth a look,” said Kinoshita. “We have to send Yukari out there to see what we’re dealing with.”
“In that suit? It’s too dangerous,” said Satsuki. “It was designed for use inside a spacecraft. It may be airtight, but it doesn’t afford any protection against space debris or solar radiation.”
“Then we’ll only send her out while she’s on the night side of the earth. And if somehow she does get caught on the day side, she can take shelter in the shade of the spacecraft. We can make this work.”
“This is what manned spaceflight is all about!” crowed Director Nasuda. “We have eight hours. Time to pull out all the stops.”
“You’re enjoying this,” said Satsuki.
The public relations officer entered the control room and approached Director Nasuda. “The press is going crazy. They want to know why the spacecraft is off its orbital flight plan and what we plan to do about it.”
“We have nothing to hide,” said Director Nasuda. “Get back out there and tell them the truth—all of it.”
A minute later, it was headline news throughout the world.
✦ ✦ ✦
[ACT 4]