“The whole crew, sir. The CO sat between Calder and myself, his chair positioned so he could be closer to the pilot. Seated behind me were the two engineers. Dr. Burns, as I recall, sat behind the CO.”
“You’re not sure?”
“I wasn’t paying attention; I was too busy. Besides, it’s hard to see over a pilot’s high-backed couch.
“Was the probe visually inserted?”
“Not only that, sir. I was tracking it on video and with the radar altimeter. After checking its coordinates, I decided it was situated well enough, more or less in the center of the gap, and told Calder I was ready.”
“Ready?”
“For the next probe launch. Calder fired the sledge, the hatch opened, but the probe wouldn’t eject.”
“The ‘sledge’?”
“The hydraulically driven piston that ejected the probe from the launch bay once the hatch was opened. There were three, all mounted aft, to be fired in rapid succession.”
“So the second satellite never left the ship?”
“No, it got jammed in the launcher.”
“Please tell us exactly how it happened,”
“The sequence works as follows. The outer hatch is opened, the hydraulics are activated, and as soon as the clearance signal comes on, the servo-starter is fired. The starter self-ignites after a hundred-second delay, so there is always time to abort in case of a failure. Once the small solid-fuel booster is fired, the satellite takes off on its own fifteen-tons-per-second thrust. The object is to clear it from the mother ship as fast as possible. When the booster burns out, an ionic engine, remote-controlled by the navigator, fires automatically. In our case, Calder had switched on the servo-starter as soon as the satellite started to clear—and when it suddenly stalled, he tried to shut down booster ignition, but couldn’t.”
“You’re positive the chief pilot tried to switch off the probe’s servo-starter?”
“Yes. He was yanking on the abort switch, but it kept flipping back. I don’t know why the starter ignited. But I heard him yell: ‘Jammed!’”
“Jammed?”
“Something jammed back there. With half a minute to go before booster ignition, he tried a second time, raising the pressure; the manometers were on maximum, but the probe wouldn’t come unjammed. He fired the piston again and we felt it hit like a hammer.”
“Was he trying to
“Yes, sir. It was bound to destruct anyway, due to the sudden build-up of pressure. By the way, that showed a lot of savvy—we might have had a spare probe, but not a spare ship.”
“The witness will refrain from embellishing his testimony with such flourishes.”
“Well, anyway, the piston didn’t free it. Time was running out, so I yelled, ‘Buckle up, everyone!’ and fastened my seatbelt as tight as it would go. A couple of others yelled the same. One of them was the CO; I recognized his voice.”
“Will the witness kindly explain his actions?”
“We were orbiting above a ring—at almost zero thrust, in other words. I knew that once the booster fired— and it had to, since the starter was on—we’d get a side reaction and start tumbling. The jammed probe was starboard, facing Saturn, which meant it had to act as a side deflector. I was all set for some somersaults and centrifugal force, and knew the pilot would have to compensate. There was no telling what might develop, so I decided it was better to play it safe and buckle up.”
“Are we to understand that as the copilot and navigator on duty, you had your seatbelt undone?”
“Not undone, sir, just loosened. They’re adjustable. When a pilot has his seatbelt buckled all the way—or, as we say, ‘to the hilt’—he has little freedom of movement.”
“The witness is aware that a slackened or otherwise improperly fastened seatbelt is against regulations?”
“Yes, Your Honor, I knew it was against regs, but it was common practice.”
“Meaning?”
“It’s been allowed on every ship I’ve ever flown.”
“The commonness of the infraction doesn’t make it less wrong. Please continue.”
“As expected, the satellite’s booster fired. The ship began to rotate on its transverse axis, and we were simultaneously, but gradually, deflected from our orbital path. The pilot compensated with side thrust, but it didn’t work.”
“And why not?”
“I wasn’t at the controls, but my guess is that it couldn’t be done. The probe was wedged in the open launch bay, leaking fumes, and the backwash made for an unstable emission. Because of the fluctuating impulses, any correction through compensatory thrust resulted in a lateral swing, and when the booster burned out, we went into an inverse spin. It took the pilot a while to regain control, once he realized the booster had cut out but that the ionic engine was still running.”
“‘Cut out’?”
“The pilot couldn’t be sure of engine ignition, not after trying to force-eject the probe. Maybe he meant to disable it; in his place, I’d have done the same. As it turned out, after the booster died the ionic kept functioning, and again we had a side deflection, of about a quarter ton. It wasn’t much, but enough to make us tumble. At orbital velocity, the slightest variability in acceleration can upset your trajectory and stability.”
“How did the crew react?”
“Quite calmly, sir. Everyone was aware of the risk: an ignited booster inside that jammed launch bay was like a hundred-kilo bomb. If it had exploded, it would have ripped our starboard side wide open like a tin can. Luckily for us it didn’t, and the ionic engine, minus the booster, was rendered harmless. Oh, yes, there was one complication: the automatic fire extinguisher started dousing number-two launcher. Our luck, too, because the foam—foam is useless against ionic—started spuming from the open hatch. Some of it was sucked up into the probe’s exhaust, causing the thrust to choke. The pilot finally managed to shut down the fire-alarm system, but for a few minutes there, we were buffeted around, not too bad, but enough to destabilize us.”
“Who tripped the alarm system?”
“The thermocouple, sir, when the temperature jumped more than seven hundred degrees in the starboard hull. It was the heat from the booster.”
“Were any commands or instructions given by the commander?”
“Not a one, like he was sitting tight, waiting to see how the pilot would handle it. Basically, there were two options: either to break away and fly back up to the ecliptic—to give up, in other words—or to try to launch the third satellite. To quit meant to abort the program. Caught in the drift, without a ‘guardian’ to correct its course, the probe already in the Division would be pulverized in a matter of hours.”
“Wasn’t that a decision for the ship’s commanding officer to make?”
“Should I answer that, Your Honor?”
“The witness will respond to the prosecutor’s question.” “The CO
“But in this particular instance, the commander
“Shortly after 1500 hours, the pilot applied compensatory thrust—”
“The witness is being evasive. Will the Tribunal admonish the witness and bid him answer my question?”
“Gentlemen, I’m supposed to answer questions, but the prosecutor didn’t ask a question. He was offering his own personal commentary on the situation aboard ship. Am I, then, to comment on his commentary?”
“The prosecutor will kindly address the witness with a question, and the witness will oblige by cooperating to the fullest.”
“In view of the circumstances, ought not the commander to have made a definite decision and relayed it to the pilot in the form of a command?”
