Station Breaker

15 Drogue

As the atmosphere slams into the Unicorn, attempting to vibrate me into a jelly coating on the floor and walls of the cabin, I watch my velocity, and get ready to release the small drogue chute designed to help slow me down to a less ridiculous speed.

Astronauts who have been onboard Soyuz and the Unicorn say there's no comparison. When working properly, and not doing what I'm doing, the Unicorn is a much smoother ride down on its retro rockets. While the Soyuz is a controlled crash, that despite two parachutes and a last-second retro rocket assist, manages to hit the ground at twenty miles an hour or more and then bounce back into the air — tricking first-timers into thinking they were on Earth. Nope, they get to relive the impact again a few seconds later.

Despite the first ever Soyuz capsule launch — which after a drogue chute failure turned a heroic cosmonaut into a pancake where only his heel bone was recognizable — the craft, as terrifying as it is to ride — ended up having the best safety record of any manned spacecraft until the new generation of capsules came along.

Up until now, the Unicorn has a perfect safety record, which I'm about to ruin when I die because I'm doing everything you're not supposed to do.

I hit the drogue release and get slammed into my seat hard. I was already pulling close to 4 G's — which I was only able to cope with because of prior training and all the practice sessions I did in a mock-up cockpit with a lead-weighted suit that showed me what it's like to try to press a button when your arm weighs a hundred pounds.

With the release of the drogue, there's a shift in my center of gravity and the Unicorn not only vibrates like a mofo, it starts to fly around and spin like a piñata at a birthday party for hyperactive kids.

My display shows a stabilized image of Guanabara Bay below me as a bright blue pool. I focus on the serene waters while my brain starts to liquify.

The Unicorn gradually settles down a bit. Right now, if the voice on the phone is to be believed, Russian fighters, probably launched from Venezuela or Cuba, are plotting an intercept towards me based on what they think my altitude will be when I release the drogue and deploy the main parachute — bringing me to a more leisurely descent at around twenty miles an hour — instead of the two hundred I'm hitting right now.

Ha ha, suckers. Main parachutes are for losers.

Won't they be surprised when they see me fly past at ten times my expected velocity? Won't we all?

BANG! The Unicorn jostles when I detach the drogue. My body pushes against the seat harness as I hang in mid air like the Wile E. Coyote momentarily forgetting that gravity is a thing.

I'm back in free fall — a much slower free fall than when I hit the atmosphere. I'm going just a mere 170 miles an hour now and not the ludicrous 17,000 when I de-orbited.

Ever see what a Ferrari looks like after it crashes into a concrete wall at 170 miles an hour? A lot like a mural of what a Ferrari would look like it if crashed into a wall at 170 miles an hour.

Komarov, that's his name, Vladimir Komarov, the cosmonaut who got to be the first one to ride and die in a Soyuz — they say he knew it was doomed but went anyway, because refusing would have put Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space and a world hero, in the death seat.

And I'm doing this because? Right, some asshole with a voice disguiser says it's the only way to save my life.

My life… fuck… I watched Peterson die in front of me.

Compartmentalize, David. You have two minutes before you have to pull off the most stupid maneuver of your inevitably short life. Deal with their loss later. Stop yours now.

I put my left hand around the stick and get ready to squeeze the throttle while my right finger hovers near, but not over, the hatch release by my head.

The bay grows bigger and I can see individual crests and the long wakes of boats.

Are the people down there looking up in the sky at this missile shooting towards the water?

Hell, is this on the news? I hit the upper atmosphere long enough ago for this to be a breaking story. I doubt anyone other than the United States and Russia has figured out my trajectory well enough to narrow it down. So that means no news crews waiting to film my death. I think. Good thing, because mom had all her students watch my launch.

Well, I'm sure somebody on the beach with a telephoto lens shooting voyeuristic shots of girls in their string bikinis will manage to capture the end of my life. It won't be a total waste. He'll probably be able to sell the footage to a tabloid site within minutes. Good for him.

I suddenly realize that I'm well below the envelope where a Russian fighter could have fired on me over international waters.

So that's good to know. Either this maneuver worked or Capricorn is full of shit.

The bad news is I have ten seconds to decide whether or not after I squeeze this throttle if I'm going to yank the stick to the side and aim the Unicorn straight over a heavily populated city.

Capricorn said that's the only way I survive.

That sounds really selfish now that I can see individual apartment buildings and beaches filled with people.

He also said if this McGuffin in my pocket falls into wrong hands it could mean lots of people will die.

Okay, technically he implied that. But that was the gist of things.

Cosmonaut Komarov took one for the team. Apparently so did Bennet and Peterson. What about you, David Dixon?

I guess, technically, if I do the safe thing and just use the retro-rockets to land in the water, I'm actually acting selfishly.

What would Bennet and Peterson do?

What would Sterner do?

I start the engines, let the hypergolic propellants mix and light up a tower of fire below me.

I can hear the thunderous roar throughout the cabin.

Every single person on the beaches in Rio has to be seeing this right now. They're going to hear it in a second as the sound reaches them…

And if you think that's cool folks, wait until you see my next trick…