K. Ball: Flotsam

“Okay, Mary Shelley,” he said. “It’s time to set off the cans.”

“Copy that,” Jill said. She was sniffling from the cold. “On my mark.”

Under the foil, the cans began to exude their orange bubbles. The bubbles touched and flowed together, constrained by the loose-fitting foil. The foam filled every opening, swelling the foil into a rounded, metallic face that mirrored the contour of the module. Quin watched the holographic timer on his helmet’s faceplate. When it reached zero, he reached out and touched the foil. It was unyielding.

“The cake is baked, Mary Shelley,” he said. “I’m coming inside.”

It had taken fifteen hours to complete the work and temperatures inside the capsule were frigid. Vapor trailed behind Quin, swirling about in miniature cirrus clouds, as he moved to his place in the empty acceleration couch. Jill already was in place in the pilot’s position, and she had swaddled Zoe in every bit of available fabric after strapping her into the central couch.

It was time to do this thing.

“We expect splashdown in the Pacific between the Marquesas Islands and Hawaii,” Emil said. “Recovery vessels will be tracking you all the way down, using your GPS signal.”

“Thank you,” Quin said. “For everything.”

“Buy me a beer next time you see me,” Emil said. “Hey! We’ve just got the weather report—blue skies and calm seas.”

“Mary Shelley copies all of that,” Quin said.

“And we’re ready to blow this pop stand,” Jill said.

“Do it,” Zoe whispered. She sounded purposeful.

Jill nodded and tabbed an ignition switch. The capsule vibrated as the array of solid-fuel cells Quin had set up on the scaffold caught fire and pushed with all their puny might against the forward progress of the Mary Shelley command module.

Precious seconds passed. Quin watched the gauges, intent upon the numbers, listening as Jill continued to talk to Emil. They needed to bleed away 2 percent of forward speed to begin the drop out of orbit and put them into the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere. Air drag and gravity would do the rest.

“It’s all about drag coefficient,” Emil had said earlier, trying his best not to lecture. “The greater the drag, the less the heat load. Air will build up under the capsule and act as a cushion to push hot gases and heat energy around you.”

“Burn is over, Emil,” Jill said.

“Copy, Mary Shelley. ”

“Velocity is dropping,” Quin said, watching the gauges. “How do we look?”

“We’re coming onto track.” Jill’s voice could have been generated by a computer. “And lining up five by five. I’m initiating turnover now!”

Quin couldn’t feel the change in orientation, but his gauges soon told him the attitude jets had rolled the capsule into a new position. They were moving backside-first again and falling, committed now to the flames.

“Velocity is still decreasing.” Quin struggled to keep rising emotion from his own voice. “At 2 percent now and still going down!”

Cheers filled Quin’s headset. Dierker might not be pleased with the dismantling of her precious equipment, but the rest of Cayley Station was celebrating.

“We are in the pipeline and on our way down,” Jill said, in her best test-pilot voice.

What was left of Mary Shelley began to bounce, as thickening atmosphere wrestled against their extreme velocity, and Quin began to feel the rise in temperature.

“We’re losing signal, Mary Shelley,” Emil reported.

His voice sounded hollow in Quin’s headset. It died away and then came back, faint and distant, one last time.

“God bless, Mary Shelley.”

Quin was sweating now. The gauges showed the module’s interior temperature at ninety degrees Fahrenheit and still rising. Intensity of vibration continued to climb, as well. It felt as if they might shake to pieces at any moment.

Flame licked at the Plexiglas ports, Emil’s promised shock wave building beneath the capsule, creating a pocket of heat so intense it ionized the very air. Quin didn’t want to consider what would happen if his handmade shield produced uncontrollable wobble, so that what was left of Mary Shelley flipped end for end to finish a hellish descent with its unprotected nose falling into the flames.

“Quin?”

It was Zoe. Quin looked to the central acceleration couch. Her face was turned toward him. She was so pale her skin seemed translucent, but her eyes were bright and she was smiling.

“Thank you,” she said, whispering.

“Yeah,” Jill said. “You’re a god-damned genius, Junior. We need to celebrate.”

She grinned then and touched a switch on her control console. A high, clear, recorded harmony filled the cabin. A single tone. The opening Oh! toQueen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” with Quin’s own guitar licks laid over top of it. Jill had pirated his pod.

He grinned too. That was just what they needed right now, what he hoped he had been clever enough to fashion for what was left of Mary Shelley, a fat bottom that would carry the old girl through the ferocious heat of re-entry. He flicked off his own microphone, cleared his throat, and sang the opening line of the chorus. Outside the ports, the matte black had gone to vivid orange. Jill joined him for the second line. Their voices filled the capsule, howled defiance of the odds, as the music swelled.

And together the three of them rode the fire home.