Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

‘I didn’t catch that?’ came the captain’s voice. Commander Sheppard groaned and unlatched his helmet, fiddled for a moment with his mic. ‘Can you hear me now?’

‘Loud and clear,’ Omar confirmed.

‘Having a bit of trouble with my helmet and mic.’ Sheppard exhaled. ‘Ready for rendezvous in ninety minutes. Harry, issue the command for docking probe extension.’

They were close, and it was a great feeling. Jesse had watched the videos of docking procedures, seen the probe lock onto the port on a space station and then, once the hatch opened, all the hugs and laughter as the crew on the shuttle greeted the crew on the station. He remembered the air of exhilaration. After the long journey, to be united. The crew on one station had lined the walls with banners and balloons. It had been like a party. That was what awaited them in under two hours.

BY THAT POINT, THE shuttle was so cold that Jesse could see his breath in the air, and ice condensing and cracking on the inside of the little portholes, forming spidery white veins along the edges. He pulled a pair of gloves on and shuddered. His lips and chin had grown numb while he slept, and he wondered how Harry had retained his mobility in the sub-zero temperatures.

‘The crew on Orlando have performed an orbital boost that puts us in almost the same orbit. Now, as we descend to dock with them,’ Poppy was saying into her microphone, ‘we’re being captured by the moon’s gravity. Which is about a tenth of Earth’s. We’re flying just above station now.’ She pushed out of her seat and held the camera near the frosted window. Jesse could just make out the tiny shadow that their shuttle cast over the station’s hulking frame.

‘It’s a very tense moment now, as we reach the space station,’ she said in a shallow whisper. ‘If the thrusters fail to slow down the shuttle could crash into the station—’

‘Harry’s about to perform a side-burn so that doesn’t happen,’ Solomon reassured them, with a relaxed smile at the camera.

That had happened to Jesse a few times on the simulator. He’d come close to the station but failed to slow down in time and crashed into a solar array or, worse, an entire module. At the speed the Congreve and the Orlando were travelling, even a small collision would be enough to tear through both hulls. He felt a brief flicker of relief that it was Harry behind the controls, not him.

‘Is that a docking probe you’ve extended or are you just pleased to see me?’ Captain Briggs chuckled over the intercom.

‘That’s the first time I’ve heard that one,’ Commander Sheppard replied, rolling his eyes.

‘You boys.’ Jesse saw Sie Yan laugh and nudge her husband on the monitor. It was nice to see the easy intimacy between the three of them.

Jesse leant forward in his seat. This was the hardest part. With the docking probe extended, Harry had to bring it in for ‘the kiss’, as Solomon called it, where it would push into the port. Jesse realized he was holding his breath – they all were. There were two hand-controllers to pilot the shuttle; one that controlled lateral movement and another that controlled rotation. Though he ached to watch his own hands steer, Jesse admired Harry’s precision, the exact angles he turned, and he watched through the window and on the monitor’s schematic as they moved into the perfect docking position.

‘Hang in there,’ said Captain Briggs. ‘You’ve got a skilled pilot there, Shepp.’

‘Trained him up myself.’ Sheppard’s voice was humming with pride.

They were about 100 metres from Orlando when it happened. Harry had been about to issue the final command. Jesse had been staring so intently at his display that his memory of it came not from witnessing the incident himself, but from the video that survived on Poppy’s camera.

There was a flash of blinding light, like a star collapsing, but no sound at all.

The Orlando’s central module burst open, metal exploding into the darkness of space.

THERE WAS NO TIME to scream. The shockwave flung their shuttle away from Europa. Jesse’s neck snapped back in his seat. There were a few seconds of pure terror during which he was certain he was about to die. He pushed down hard in his seat to fight the blackness clouding his vision as all his blood was washed into his feet. For a moment, the acceleration was so great that the pressure on his chest and lungs meant that he could not take a breath. By the time Harry and Commander Sheppard had regained some degree of control over the Congreve and they began to slow, Jesse was nauseous and balancing on the dizzying fringe of consciousness.

‘Is everyone okay?’ Commander Sheppard asked. They had been plunged into darkness – the interior lights had gone out, and nothing but the buttons on the control panel and the ghostly light of Europa illuminated their vessel.