04.07.2008
"That's a roger, Houston," Sarah said from Low Earth Orbit. Even from five hundred kilometers above the ground and relayed through a tracking station in fucking Australia I could hear that tone in her voice. She was breaking up with me.
I found myself speechless. My finger hovered above the orange transmission button that would send my voice down under and up into space. I didn't want to say anything but I needed to hear it for sure.
"Could you repeat that, Atlantis," I asked.
"I said 'that's a roger, Houston'," she said.
I could feel my shoulders fall and my posture slump. She always did this to me. She made me feel about five feet tall. Enough to pass the minimum height requirement perhaps, but a full foot shorter than I was. I punched the transmission button and sighed into my headset, "Thank you, Atlantis. Houston, out."
I fell into my desk chair and stared up at the shuttle's flight path schematic, watching it tick across the Pacific Ocean. It was leaving the ISS behind in preparation to de-orbit for a landing at Kennedy two and a half days from now. Sarah couldn't even wait until she got back to dump my ass.
#
When I was twenty, I had a girlfriend who went to London for a semester to study abroad. She was gone for four months and, though I had a few opportunities, I never cheated on her. I didn't even think about other girls. She was the one for me. Maybe it wasn't glamorous, but I always pictured her as being my Air Force wife, my partner in promotion. She saw it differently. Maybe I moved too fast? I don't know. But she ended up meeting a New Waver named Giles whose hair put the Flock of Seagulls to shame. That and a trendy addiction to heroin and a squat outside of London seemed rosier to her. So I graduated at the top of my class alone, joining the Air Force, fueled by a hatred of electronic music and anyone with stupid fucking accents.
#
"Bob," asked Thomas. "Bobby... you all right?"
I broke my unblinking gaze from the super sized television bolted to the wall and glanced at him. He looked concerned. Thomas always looked concerned. It was his job as mission commander. Mine was to get us from one point to the other but his was to worry about what we did once we got there and whether we were trained well enough in the first place. I exhaled sadly as I pondered whether his look was one of actual concern or just an evaluation as to whether I would be useful on launch day three months from now.
"You want a cup of coffee," Thomas asked.
I wanted a drink but the salad days of hotshot alcoholic flyboys running NASA were long over. Saying you wanted a whiskey in the middle of a workday was a good way to be decertified. So coffee it was.
"Yeah," I said.
Thomas walked with me over to the coffee pot shoehorned into one of the least used corners of mission control. He searched through the identical mugs, each with their blue meatball and red swoosh logos, for a clean one and filled it to the brim with coffee provided by a woman or minority owned contractor at government markup prices. Dunk'n Doughnuts was better.
"What's up," asked Thomas. He sipped from his own mug and scowled at the bitterness.
"I think Sarah's done with me," I said.
"Yeah," he asked. "Damn. I'm sorry."
We stood around stoically, as military men are prone to doing when hugs of support would otherwise be called for. Thomas looked from his coffee to me and back to his coffee, kicking his feet against each other as he pondered. He looked up curiously.
"She said you were done," he asked. "Over the air?"
"She didn't, you know, say it but she said it," I explained. "It was in her voice."
Thomas broke into a grin.
"Are you serious," he said. "For all you know it was a carrier wave squawk. You're saying you two are done because a solar flare might have screwed with the transmission? Come on..."
"Yeah," I asked, somewhat doubtfully.
"Sure, absolutely," he said. He clapped me on my shoulder in that way of his meant to feel reassuring but which came off more like a middle manager giving a pep talk. Air Force Academy my ass, I thought they were supposed to teach leadership there.
"Yeah, well," I said. "I mean, I guess I could... clarify or something."
"Absolutely," said Thomas.
#
When I was stationed at Tinker Air Force Base outside of Oklahoma City in the nineties, I was dating this nice young woman who owned a little coffee shop in Nicoma Park. We met because she spilled a cappuccino on me as I was reading the latest Tom Clancy book, I think it was Patriot Games but I can't say for certain. We got to talking and one thing led to another.
Six months later we were engaged.
Six months after that, I found her in bed with a guy I can only describe as the prototype for the young buff cowboy women masturbate to when left to their own devices. It was the ultimate betrayal. Not only was she going behind my back but she was sneaking him onto base. Where the fuck were the MPs when you really needed them?
I'll admit I was bitter. For the rest of my posting I harbored a unique kind of anger and took a pleasure in destroying ground targets one would have to describe as sexual. Then, just before shipping out for six month assignment in Germany, the state of Oklahoma gave me the greatest present a cuckold could wish for, my ex sentenced to five years for sexual contact with a minor.
Apparently most of her lovers to that point had been about fifteen. I was the exception.
#
"Uh, Atlantis," I said, my finger trembling as I held the transmission button. The orange light flickered nervously as if to reflect what was happening inside my chest. "Come back Atlantis."
The shuttle was in their sleep cycle but Sarah should have still been awake. There was always at least one person awake, just in case we needed them to stir their oxygen tanks or some other necessary menial task. I once had them reboot one of their computers to check their RAM integrity. In the shuttle there was a combined total of eleven doctorates. They were the most highly educated computer technicians ever. It was even funnier to watch them weld.
After a minute, Sarah's voice buzzed in my ear and the ears of about twenty other people in the room. I thanked Christ she wasn't using video.
"Hey, Atlantis," I said. My throat was dry. I swallowed hard but that just seemed to make it worse. "I think we may have had a problem with our last transmission."
"Roger, Houston," said Sarah. She sounded distant and it had nothing to do with being three hundred miles up. "You're clear now, what do you need to know?"
"Could you repeat your last in regards to spec-one," I asked, using our code for mission specialist George Cavaness. He had two doctorates, one in astrophysics and another in I-don't-know-what, but his job was to fix the plumbing for the station's toilet. "Was that kay-spec-one on arrival or eff-spec-one, over."
I could see the odd looks of the other people in mission control. I stretched an awkward grin across my lips and nodded, hoping they would understand. Most of them shrugged and returned to their games of solitaire.
"Houston, to confirm, that was two eff-spec-one in orbit and eff-spec on arrival, over."
Son of a bitch. Cavaness was a dead man on landing. Assuming the shuttle made it.
#
Sarah and I were in the same astronaut class at NASA, that was how we met. We were both pilots though she was from the Navy. I'll admit, those carrier landings gave her kind of an edge as I was used to the wide runways of Air Force bases to set my birds down on. Maybe it was the competition, maybe it was the fact that she was a tiny little thing who barely met the height requirement and looked so cute in the cockpit, but for me it was love at first sight.
We played a little dance for a few years, occasionally getting together but usually orbiting like gunslingers waiting for the other to draw first. Our moment came two years ago when she was selected to fly the mission that would deliver the new kitchen segment to the space station. We went out for a night in Cocoa Beach and, after a rack of ribs and one too many drinks in novelty glasses at Slow & Low, we ended up back at my bungalow.
Something was different. I could see it in her eyes. She was seeing the world with new eyes and that included the way she saw me. And like the shuttle's hatch, we clicked into place as though we always belonged to be together.
Everything seemed fine until two months before launch. That was when Cavaness replaced a team member who came down with sarcoidosis. Cavaness was the kind of ass that referred to himself as "doctor" even when in a room full of them. But I could tell Sarah liked him. And even if I couldn't, the time she called me "Georgie" in bed would have been a sufficient clue.
When I asked her whether there was anything going on she told me I was paranoid, that it was my prior history with women making me so crazy. I wanted to believe her but the little things had changed. Sex--the one area we'd never had a problem--ceased. It was as if her tail hook latched onto a cable and she went from five hundred miles an hour to zero in seven seconds.
I guess I should have seen this coming.
#
Sarah still sounded distant, which meant that I wasn't interrupting anything. When she was in the act or just after, her voice took on a breathy quality, like Kathleen Turner except on helium. Now, all I heard was exhaustion. It was understandable. Eleven days in space wasn't exactly easy. But there was an extra level, as though she thought the matter was all ready closed.
"Roger, Atlantis," I mumbled. But I wasn't done yet. There was still more pain I could bring myself. "Atlantis, can you confirm eff-spec prior to launch?"
"Negative, Houston," she said. "First eff-spec event occurred after launch."
"Acknowledged," I said. It wasn't as bad as I feared but somehow I didn't feel any better either.
"Bobby, what's up," asked Thomas. He was still carrying his mug of coffee around and it looked about as full as ten minutes ago. I think it was just serving as a prop at this point. "Something I should know about?"
"Nope," I said. "Just a little housekeeping. You know."
"Well," he said, shrugging. "Okay. But I have some people asking me how to describe F-SPEC-1 in the transcripts."
Fucking boy scout.
"Just tell them it was a private conversation, yeah?"
"I knew you two would work things out," he said. He clapped my shoulder again and I began to consider knocking him out.
"Thanks, boss," I said. My molars flattened a nanometer as I ground my teeth.
I turned to face the shuttle track on the main display and saw that the shuttle was nearly over Spokane. It moved quick, the result of constantly falling back to Earth and missing. The people inside were oblivious except for the planet spinning beneath and the misnamed zero gravity. But without the usual acceleration indicators experienced in an airplane, the thing could do somersaults and they would only notice if they looked out the window.
I opened my flight manual and checked the levels of liquid hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel tanks against where they should be at this stage of flight. They were a little low but within the normal range. I turned and smiled at Thomas. He returned it nervously.
"Atlantis, Houston," I said. "We're going to need you to do a small RCS maneuver. Quick correction."
"Bobby," Thomas asked. His voice quivered in a small vibrato and his Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. I gave him a thumbs up and a broader grin.
"Roger Houston," said Sarah. "Should I wake Commander Swierzewski?"
"Negative, Atlantis. Shouldn't be necessary."
"Bobby, hold on," Thomas said. He searched for an extra headset. There was one near my flight manual. He reached for it but I got it first. He waved for it but I shook my head.
"Status, Atlantis," I asked.
"Warming up the console, Houston."
"Roger that."
Eyes were on me. A lot of eyes. Nearly every controller had swiveled in their chairs and watched me lazily. So little usually happened that they were rarely prepared for when something did.
Thomas tried to reach past me for the headset but missed as I held it above my head. I had just enough height on him that they were out of his reach.
"Bobby," he cried. "What are you doing?"
I cocked my head in a quick shrug before Sarah's voice returned.
"Ready, Houston."
"Roger, Atlantis," I said. "I'm going to need a fifteen second burn from the port forward RCS, confirm?"
"Fifteen sec, port forward RCS, confirmed Houston. Give the word."
She sounded so sweet. She really was very cute. She was a lot of woman in a little package. The thought of her tiny little legs almost distracted me enough to allow Thomas the headset with a quick jump. I backed away and pushed him with my free hand. Thomas fell into my chair and the little plastic wheels carried him two stations over with a squeal.
Atlantis was flying south over Idaho and would be over the Kansas before long. Fifteen seconds of reaction control should be enough to ensure they ended up where they belonged. It was a rough guess at best but maybe that would be enough. Florida was about to get really interesting.
"Houston," Sarah said, trailing off. "Are you sure about the length?"
"Roger, Atlantis," I said, smiling. Someone put our little conversation on the intercom. I smirked in frustration and hit the transmission override to ensure that no one interrupted our little chat. Thomas, however, was back on his feet. I dropped the spare headset and stomped it to little pieces. "Burn in five, four, three--"
I was hit from behind like a quarterback being sacked. The wire of my headset, still plugged into the console, came taught then whipped off my ears, snapping back in the direction I'd come. I, meanwhile, continued my fall forward, my cheek bouncing off the beige linoleum.
Flight controllers leapt for my headset, dangling from the console. The shuttle was still on its track south, over Colorado Springs now. Sarah's high, girly voice sounded over the loudspeaker.
"Houston? Houston? Houston, are we a go?"
"Now, Atlantis," I screamed, hoping I could be heard through the mouthpiece. My window was closing. "RCS burn a go!"
"Atlantis, abort! Repeat, abort," the other controllers cried in the hope of drowning me out. It was the last thing I heard before a foot came down across my face and black became my world.
#
"Why take out the KSC," asked my interrogator. He was from the FBI, of course, but looked more accountant than g-man. If I wasn't handcuffed to the table, I could have taken him. I wasn't much of a fighter but I had athleticism and Air Force basic training on my side.
"I wasn't aiming for Kennedy," I said.
"Okay," he said looking bored. "Then what were you doing?"
"I was aiming for Slow & Low."