Orbital

Twenty-One Hazardous

As the Unicorn slams back into the atmosphere, and begins its rocky reentry, my passenger remains perfectly still in his seat as the cabin shakes us like ice in a cocktail mixer.

I keep having to check his suit lights to make sure he’s alive. If he dies on reentry, this is going to look very, very bad. And of course be a tragedy for his sake.

Thankfully, the Unicorn has the smoothest reentry of any spaceship out there. It’s a veritable first class luxury ride compared to my last time.

As far as my Chinese astronaut sharing this ride, if he’s reentered before, it was most likely onboard a Shenzhou space capsule — which is based on the Russian Soyuz design. Dependable, tough and sheer hell to land in. They’re still working on propulsive landing, having instead to rely on parachutes and landing zones the size of states.

The Unicorn does its reentry burn, which slows us down from 17,500 miles an hour. We spend the next several minutes just falling as the atmosphere blasts our heat shield, transforming all that kinetic energy into heat.

Outside the viewport I can see an orange glow as the energy turns the surrounding air into a plasma like a neon glow.

“How you doing, Mongoose?” Laney asks over the comm.

We haven’t mentioned the moment when Kevin Flavor decided to cut communication. I have no idea what kind of mess it going on downstairs. Right now everyone is just focused on getting us home. Which is good, but I’m worried about the aftermath.

“Sitting inside air-conditioned comfort, able to talk to you folks, life is good. I just hope my friend makes it.”

Thankfully for my sanity, the Unicorn is able to use an up channel radio link to talk to Ops despite the fact that most of my ship is enveloped in transmission blocking Faraday cage of ionized air.

“How’s he doing?”

I give my new friend a thumbs up and shout, “Okay?”

He manages to raise his own thumb slightly. I take that as an encouraging sign.

“He’s still managing.”

“Okay. You’re due to land in about eight minutes. We have two ambulances standing by from the Air Force base.”

“Two? I’m only bringing one person back.”

The Ops physician takes the comm, “This is the radiation medical team. We need to get you into isolation to make sure you’re okay.”

“Yikes. Can someone check and see if I still have coverage after I was let go?”

“Hilarious,” replies Laney, although she’s clearly not amused.

The numbers on our altimeter slow as the ship begins to reduce speed to terminal velocity. We just passed a very critical point in our reentry. If our heat shield was going to burn up and let us boil alive like cheese in a microwave burrito, that would have happened.

Now we wait for the Unicorn to get closer to ground and do a quick test burn to make sure the landing rockets are working. If there’s a problem, the computer will pop the parachutes and we’ll land like cavemen. If everything is nominal, the rockets will slow us down right over the landing pad and we’ll land like civilized people — which would be a totally new experience for me.

There’s a loud roar and the capsule slows for a second as the thrusters test fire.

That sounded good.

A few seconds later they start up again and the craft begins to dramatically slow down as we go from over two hundred miles to barely falling.

The noise gets louder as we inch closer to the pad and it reflects the sound back up at us.

And then everything stops.

Although the rockets cut out a few feet from the ground, the landing pad is designed to soften that last impact. Unlike the Soyuz capsules that hit hard ground in the middle of the frozen tundra and bounce around like golf balls, this thing comes to rest in its own special cradle.

“We did it, pal!” I look over and give my nameless friend another thumbs up.

His eyes are closed and he doesn’t appear to be moving.

I unfasten my harness and slide out of my chair to go to him. I can’t tell if he’s dead or just unconscious.

Outside, the exterior of the Unicorn is being pelted by cooling sprays of water so the ground crew can get to us. Water splatters the windows like we’re in a car wash.

There’s a hiss and bright lights shine in through the hatch. Yellow gloved hands grab me and yank me out of my harness.

“I’m okay!” I shout as I’m pulled onto a stretch by an overzealous rescue team. “Help him!”

I try to get up, but someone puts a hand on my shoulder. I look up and see man staring back at me from inside a protective suit.

“Do you have oxygen?” he asks.

“Yes…”

Moments later they slide me inside a containment bag, sealing me off from the outside world. I can feel the stretcher being lifted onto something. At first I think it’s the back of an ambulance, but seconds later I hear the whir of helicopter blades as we take to the air.

“What about the other guy?” I call into my radio.

“They’ve got him,” says Laney over the comm.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. How are you?”

“Trapped inside a plastic bag being carried off in a helicopter. Having flashbacks to a few months ago.”

“That’s just in case you’re radioactive. They’re going to bring you to a cleanup site at the Air Force base then to the hospital.”

“What about him?”

“Same thing.”

“He needs help, Laney. Bad.”

“I know. He’s in good hands. The Air Force unit here drills for this kind of thing all the time. Right now we have bigger problems.”

“I’m fine.”

“Not that. Flavor is in a plane heading down here.”

“What?”

“He’s pissed. Real pissed. We think he might try to have you placed under arrest.”

“Jesus.”

“We’re on it. Jessup is in route to the hospital to meet you when you get there.”

“Uh, is that a good thing?”