Mark Anson - Below Mercury

Beneath the belly of the spaceplane, the refuelling operator disconnected the liquid oxygen hose from the filling point, and latched the cover hatch closed. White vapour streamed from the end of the hose and swirled around him as he coiled the heavy hose back on to the tanker.

The ground dispatcher supervising the loading made the final checks of the spaceplane’s hatches and landing gear. He walked round each of the main landing gear bogies, running his hand over the pitted rubber surface of the tyres, and shining his flashlight over the landing gear struts and up into the wheel well bays. Satisfied that there were no fluid leaks or any tyre damage, he walked the length of the lower fuselage, checking every service hatch for security, and finished up at the twin wheels of the nose landing gear, where the ground power truck was plugged into the spaceplane by a heavy cable.

‘Shit.’

Captain Clare Foster enunciated the word clearly.

She sat in the commander’s seat on the left side of the spaceplane’s cockpit, gazing through the wipers at the downpour outside. The runway, some way off to her left, was invisible behind sheets of driving rain. Each time the wiper passed, there was a moment’s clarity, in which grey sheets of rain were visible, swirling over the concrete taxiways, and then the view dissolved again into a watery blur before the wiper made its next pass.

She watched the liquid oxygen tanker make a slow, wide turn in front of the spaceplane and move off, its rear lights flaring in the downpour. Now, the only vehicle near the spaceplane was the ground power truck, providing the external power to keep the spaceplane running until it started its engines.

‘If this gets much worse they’re going to scrub it,’ she said at last, shaking her head.

‘Tower says we’re still go,’ Wilson said, listening to the voices in his headset. ‘They say it’s within takeoff limits.’

‘I’d like to see them take off in this shit,’ Clare muttered, as another sheet of rain smacked into the windows. ‘And this is supposed to be the dry season.’ She stared out through the rain. ‘Have we got clearance for engine start yet?’

‘Uh, nearly, they’re just waiting for the vehicles to get clear.’

‘Right, we’d better get ourselves sorted then.’ Clare tore herself away from the scene outside and looked across at Wilson. ‘Have you got the final fuel load from the dispatcher?’ Her right hand hovered over the keyboard of the mission management system.

‘Yeah – twenty-one thousand kilos dead on.’

Clare entered the weight into the MMS, adjusting the entry slightly to compensate for the boiloff of the cryogenic liquids. As she did so, a series of coloured markers appeared on the primary flight displays, showing minimum airspeeds for critical actions during the takeoff and climb.

‘Arm LNAV.’ Wilson continued with the checklist.

‘LNAV is – armed.’ Clare pressed a selector button on the mode control panel.

‘Runway heading.’

‘Set at zero six zero.’

‘Fuel pumps on.’

Clare reached upward to the control panel on the roof above her, and clicked the fuel selector switches.

Matt gripped the arms of his ejection seat, and his stomach twisted into a tight knot again. He had done the trip into Earth orbit several times before, but for some reason he was unusually anxious today, and the pre-flight checks seemed to be interminable.

Matt and Bergman had won the draw for the coveted two front seats behind the pilots, and had a good view of the flight deck and out of the forward windows. Behind them, Abrams and Elliott had to lean inwards into the aisle to see what was going on.

The flight deck was dominated by the sweep of large colour displays that surrounded Clare and Wilson, showing flight, navigation, engine and systems information. To the left of Clare’s seat, and to the right of Wilson’s, were the two ‘sidestick’ hand controllers for flying the big spaceplane under manual control. Above the pilots’ heads, a wide panel was filled with switches that controlled the fuel system, cabin environment, electrical system, and hydraulics.

The spaceplane’s interior felt cramped and claustrophobic; the curve of the hull arched up and over the seats, and there was little room for anyone to move in their bulky, bright-orange crew escape suits. Like the others, Matt had his helmet faceplate open; he would need to close it for the ascent but for now he relished the additional air.

He glanced at the emergency escape instructions on the seat back in front of him. The writing was scuffed and faded. He tried not to think of the age of the spaceplane, about how many cycles it had been through, but the fact remained that space flight was dangerous. If the spaceplane failed to get airborne, and crashed with a large load of fuel and liquid oxygen on board, it would be over in moments. The commander could trigger an automatic ejection sequence that would blow the roof panels off and fire all of them in sequence up and away from the stricken craft, but if they crashed on takeoff, even the ejection seats might not get them clear in time.

It was always the things that were closest that scared you the most, Matt thought. This voyage had so many dangers, the greatest of which lay far ahead on Mercury itself, but right now, he was suffering from plain old fear of flying. He smiled to himself at the thought, and his stomach settled slightly.

Bergman, on Matt’s right, was thinking of his family, and mostly of his young son. He could imagine him now, his face glued to the rain-covered window of the rented Toyota, watching the huge bulk of the spaceplane on the fuelling apron. Bergman’s mouth curved upwards in a smile. How Simon would have loved to come with him on this trip. It didn’t matter that his father was travelling to an abandoned tomb in a dark crater floor tens of millions of kilometres away, to find goodness knows what; all his son cared about was that his Dad was going on a spacecraft, up and out amongst the stars.

Behind Bergman, Abrams sat back into his seat. His neck ached from craning into the narrow aisle to see up front. He suddenly felt tired, and he closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. He had been luckier than most in his position; he had never had to go on the long voyage out to Jupiter, and had enjoyed most of his trips into space, but as he sat there with the seat straps pressing into his shoulders, waiting for the engines to start, Abrams wondered if this had better be his last trip.

Elliott was watching the proceedings on the flight deck intently. This was his second time in space, and the experience was fascinating to him. He watched every motion of Clare and Wilson’s hands as they checked the positions of switches and the settings of the flying controls.

‘You guys okay back there?’ Clare’s voice came abruptly over the intercom, and she turned her head to the right. She could just see Bergman out of the edge of her helmet.

‘Fine,’ and ‘Okay here,’ came back from Abrams and Elliott in the rear seats. Bergman raised his hand and smiled back at her.

‘How about you, Matt? We’re about to start engines. You okay?’ Matt could see Clare’s eyes reflected in the glass of her head-up display, looking back at him.

‘All fine here,’ Matt said, wishing that he felt as confident as he sounded.

‘Not long to go now. We’re just waiting for ground control to tell us we can start up, and then we’ll get going. While we’re waiting, can I remind you all of the emergency procedure: if there’s any problem during the taxi, I will stop the aircraft and direct you to evacuate. Release your seat straps and get to the main door at the rear of the cabin. The escape slide will inflate automatically once the door is opened. Once you’re down the slide, get as far away from the aircraft as you can.