“Right,” Mendenhall said. He waited without breathing.
“Main engine start in three, two, one-burn,” Ryan said calmly.
Mendenhall threw the switch and they heard the loudest pop of all as the main engine came to life. Inside Altair they could hear the rumble of the exhaust as it exited the confines of the main engine bell below them. They felt the ship slow as the minimal gravity started to take effect.
“Main engine cutoff in two, one, zero,” Ryan said. He watched the attitude compass swing north and south on a correct horizontal plane with the surface of the Moon. They were now flying upright, as was the natural order of things.
Altair became silent. Each individual’s breathing was concealed behind their helmet. The rapid breathing that each feared the others would hear was self-contained, so nobody had to worry about being the only one to have shown fear.
“Standby for main OHM burn for insertion,” Ryan said, as he adjusted his feet on the Velcro mat beneath his boots. “Everyone go to internal oxygen at this point, please.”
All crew members, the flight team included, unplugged their suits from the Altair ’s air system. Air conditioning and oxygen would be in self-sustaining mode for the duration of the landing procedure-for obvious reasons, Jason thought.
“Well, I guess we’re ready,” Will said. He looked at the altimeter as Altair screamed down from high orbit at close to three thousand feet per second.
“This is really going to add to our frequent flyer miles, huh, buddy?” Ryan quipped. He also watched the altimeter. “Stand by for main engine thrust-seventy-five percent power until I say so.”
“Ready for main engine start,” Will said, his finger poised over the covered switch.
“Keep a close eye on fuel consumption. We only have five minutes of sustainable thrust.”
“Five minutes? Oh jeez, I forgot about that.”
“Should be plenty of time, unless we run into rocks where they have no right to be. Or craters that have up and moved on us since the photo run an hour ago. Or the shots from the Hubble Telescope last month. We should be fine.”
“If you say so,” Will said.
“Three, two, one, main engine start at 0120 and thirty-two seconds. Start the clock.”
Altair slowed its descent and they all felt the craft jerk and shimmy. Outside it was deathly silent as the vacuum of space sucked up sound like a sponge.
Ryan watched the NAV board closely, adjusting trim to the descent easily, trying hard not to overcompensate. He was learning that the simulator back at Houston was tougher to fly than the actual spacecraft.
“Three degrees off center, and three and half minutes of fuel remaining,” Will called out louder than he intended. “Altitude is thirty-five thousand feet.”
Ryan turned the right-hand handle five degrees to port and adjusted angle. Altair at that moment was coming down right on the target mark.
“Uh, we’re coming down a little fast,” Mendenhall said. He watched the LED readout of the altimeter spiral down by thousands of feet in the wink of an eye. “Thirteen thousand feet.”
“Copy, Will. Easy there, big fella,” Ryan called out, as he adjusted trim once more.
“Up throttle in five, four, three, two, one-one hundred percent throttle. Burn it, Will, burn it!”
Mendenhall reached over and turned the small red knob that sent the fuel injector to full power as it shot the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen into the mixing hub of the combustion chamber.
Below, on the crew deck, everyone felt the shakes and shimmies of Altair as she neared the lunar surface. They all had their eyes closed and were listening intently to the orders Ryan was calling out. Sarah was glad Altair was shaking so violently because it covered up her own internal shaking. She was terrified beyond belief.
“Five hundred feet and slowing to a hundred feet a minute,” Will called out.
“Stand by to power down to fifty percent thrust.”
“Roger,” Mendenhall said. He tried to swallow but found his throat didn’t work.
“Throttle down,” Ryan called.
Will turned the throttle knob. The shaking and loud noises ceased almost immediately. No one onboard knew if that was good or not.
“Throttle set to fifty percent thrust, two minutes of fuel, altitude at three hundred feet.”
Ryan turned his throttle to the aft OHM’s jets and brought Altair level once more after she had drifted.
“Shackleton Crater at three miles.” Ryan breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the rim of the giant crater close up for the first time.
Suddenly a warning chime started and three red lights started blinking.
“Goddamn it!” Ryan said between clenched teeth. He started hitting the hand-controlled throttle on the left side of his upright chair. “I have a continuous thrust coming from the aft OHM’s jet. It’s pushing us over!”
Mendenhall watched wide-eyed as Ryan tried freeing the stuck thruster. “Damn it, it’s not here. It’s the shutoff valve that’s stuck open. We’re not only losing our correct attitude, we’re burning our fuel too damn fast. We have to compensate for the roll.”
“One minute of fuel, fifty feet to impact,” Will announced as calmly as he could, not wanting to add to what Jason had to deal with.
“Firing starboard OHMs,” Ryan said, more to himself than to the crew.
The roll ceased and Ryan was making the correction, but the fuel warning bells started sounding and the computer started voicing its opinion rather loudly.
“Pull up, pull up. Obstacle detected in flight path. Pull up, pull up.”
“Shut that damn thing up. I hate its voice!” Ryan said, as he adjusted trim for the last time.
Mendenhall switched the audio warning off. He knew Ryan was thinking about the nice voice of Europa, the supercomputer back home.
“Thirty feet, twenty feet, ten feet!” Will called out.
“Main engine to seventy-five percent thrust,” Ryan said, as he eyed the patch of lunar surface below. He knew he had neither the time nor the fuel to maneuver to another spot if he saw they were coming down onto a patch of large rocks.
“That’s it. Fuel is exhausted,” Mendenhall said. He reached out and braced himself for a hard landing.
Ryan clenched his teeth as he felt the main engine sputter once and then stop just as three of four landing pads hit the surface of the Moon. He cringed as Altair went motionless, balancing first on three and then on only two landing gear. The giant Altair teetered, nearly rolling over, and then her momentum shifted and she fell back, her round shape behaving like a teetering beer can. Then all four landing gear came in contact with the soft surface of the Moon. Her hydraulic struts impacted and retracted into themselves, and then expanded once more as the gas was released, easing Altair into stillness.
Throughout the ship, there wasn’t a sound other than the ticking of the cooling engine bell far below the main crew cabin.
Ryan looked over at Will, who was staring out of the large triangular windows at the crater two miles away. His eyelids didn’t blink and his hand was turning white from his powerful grip on the handle above his head.
“That was different,” Ryan said, and started breathing again.
Mendenhall finally blinked his eyes and slowly looked at Jason.
“Thank you,” was all he said.
The small Navy pilot smiled and patted Will on the back.
“Your visor’s a little fogged up.”
“I don’t know how that can be. You have to breathe for it to do that.”
Ryan hit his VOX and waited until he was sure of his voice.
“Welcome to the Moon,” he said.
The president sat in the White House Situation Room sixty feet below the ground floor of the mansion. He sat quietly and listened to the conference call from the Cape and Houston. Hugh Evans was speaking at the moment,
