Station Breaker

5 Party Crashers

I imagine some kind of high-level negotiation somewhere in a huge, dark tapestry-lined Kremlin office where tsars had been poisoned, disloyal party members had their death warrants signed and pogroms were planned — all based on how high #LetThemDock is trending on Twitter right now.

"You have the post-docking reentry profiles?" Bennet asks Peterson.

It sounds a little presumptuous to me to start loading reentry profiles for departing the station when we haven't even docked yet. We could be there eight hours or a week, all depending on what our sensor inspection shows us. You don't plan a reentry profile for a departure when you don't know when that's going to be. There are thousands of variations.

Maybe Bennet is just running drills so he knows Peterson is ready to take the pilot seat?

If that's the case, then that means he has no plans for letting me sit at a working display.

Relax, David.

Peterson has been into space multiple times. She's NASA. Bennet is former NASA. She's the one he wants working with him in a crisis.

Yeah… but, she hasn't been trained in all the iCosmos procedures. Putting her in my seat is one thing when my panel goes out mid-crisis, but leaving her there after we have a chance to switch seats or fix the problem — totally not cool.

If Bennet is acting out of line, they'll say something downstairs. If I make a fuss, it'll only justify him taking me out of my role.

"Commander, let me know if there's anything I can do."

"Will do, Dixon," he replies without even looking at me.

I feel like a toddler sitting at one of those fake steering wheel consoles they put on the back of car seats. Hell, at least those did something…

"Hey guys!" says Vin as his face pops up on the display. "Man, those Russians. Whew. And I thought dealing with Chinese investment bankers was rough. Long story short, we got hold of President Radin's guy, I met him at an Aspen Summit two years ago. Oxford educated, brilliant. Anyway, he took it to the man himself. Radin, as you know, has been trying to take a more diplomatic role — in no small part because falling oil prices are making them more dependent on foreign investment, etcetera. He said, 'Sure, why not?' Which is great, but then Zhirov, I'm told, lost his shit and said something about the universal docking ring not working on the K1. Which was news to me. So I called up Lena Golov, she's the actual mission supervisor for all the Russian launches. Great woman. I had her and her husband on my yacht last summer. We're trying to get her to come work for us. Fun to hang out with when she's all loosened up. Have you guys been to the yacht? You have to come out sometime."

"Love to," says Bennet, sharply.

"Oh, right, so anyway, I called her direct. She said her boss had no idea what he was talking about and was just quote, 'Being Russian about it.' I love that. Anyway, I tell Radin's guy he should really talk to her. And he did."

"And?" asks Bennet.

"We're still working on it." His screen goes dark.

I can see the muscles tighten in Bennet's jaw. If he wants to use his gun to shoot the screen, I'd totally understand.

I love Vin Amin. What he's single-handedly done for space travel can't be measured. He's one of those people like Musk and Bezos who helped us start dreaming again. He's created three successive startups, each one worth more than the last. Then he bet everything on getting into the space business, going toe-to-toe with the upstarts and the giants. He's got balls.

But he's also the guy in a YouTube video shot at Burning Man, walking around in a silver Speedo, high out of his mind, giving a rambling talk to his iPhone about why this would be the place to meet alien chicks for interspecies sex.

I guess with that kind of brilliance comes a special kind of crazy. His crazy is what got us up here. And it's probably what it will take to get us down. I hope.

"Good news!" says Vin as he pops back up on the display.

"You got the yacht reupholstered?" asks Bennet.

Vin blinks for a moment then bursts out laughing. "Oh man, you NASA guys. Hold on. I'm tweeting that one out…"

And he honest to god picks up his phone and starts typing the tweet.

"I hope my will is in order," I mumble under my breath.

This gets me a sly grin from Bennet and a snort from Peterson. Well holy smokes, Yoga Boy finally managed to do something to get an acknowledgment that he's more than dead weight.

"Where was I?" says Vin.

"Telling us if we're going to live or die," replies Bennet.

"Right! Good news. They're going to let you dock at the K1. And listen, just so you know, there were always going to be other options. I wouldn't let you guys down."

Other options? Does he have some secret rich person's space ark?

Hell, who knows with Vin. Guys like him don't see anything as being impossible. I could almost imagine him telling us we're going to burn up on reentry but he's pretty sure his engineers have time travel figured out so he'll just make sure it all never happens.

"Zhirov is super pissed and has a bunch of conditions for docking with the K1. Apparently they're doing some research on biofilms and whole sections of the station are off limits to us because of trade secrets. Can't wait to hear what that's all about. I'm sure one of their scientists will tell me when they get drunk on my boat and come asking for a job. Oh, man. The stuff people tell you to impress you. Anyway, Mission Control has all the details. I'm going to go look at carpet samples. Later."

I think that was a joke, but I'm not certain.