Eagle Station

Sky Masters engineers and technicians had worked miracles to fit out the Xeus lander prototype with a working life-support system, flight controls, and navigation sensors in less than three weeks. But not even their superb craftsmanship and attention to detail could overcome the fact that this was essentially a shakedown cruise for a brand-new spacecraft. Meshing so many complicated mechanical and electronic systems and expecting them to work together perfectly the first time out was just not realistic.

Brad, Nadia, and Vasey had been lucky so far. Nothing major had gone wrong. But they’d been kept busy over most of the past two days in space improvising fixes for minor electrical faults, computer control program software glitches, and other small mechanical problems. As a result, none of them had gotten much deep, restful sleep. They were either working on some piece of equipment to keep the Xeus’s different, interconnected systems up and running… or worrying about what might crap out on them next. Brad had gotten to the point where he’d scrawled a notation on a page of their maintenance logbook: Next time, bring more chewing gum and duct tape… plus several reels of baling wire.

Maneuvering carefully in zero-G, Brad pulled himself over and down into his seat and buckled in. Then he reached out and tugged his control panel and its attached hand controllers away from their “at rest” position against the lander’s curved forward bulkhead. A key press on one of the panel’s three LCD touch screens brought it live.

Nadia pulled her own panel into place. “Approximately ten minutes to our planned correction burn,” she announced after a quick check of their navigation program.

Brad nodded. Ever since the Falcon Heavy’s second stage had boosted them toward the moon at more than twenty-four thousand miles per hour, the Xeus had been coasting “uphill” against Earth’s constant pull. Now it was just about to glide over the top of that gravitational gradient and enter the moon’s own influence. And as the lander sped up again, they needed to make a very precise, short burn with its main RL-10 rocket engine — one that would align the spacecraft to come in very low over the lunar surface as it raced around the far side. “Okay,” he said. “I guess it’s time to pop the top on this space-going beer can of ours.”

“It has been getting a bit stuffy in here,” Vasey said. He pulled up a command menu on his own display and quickly entered a key code to activate it. Then he tapped one of the menu bars. It glowed green. “Fairing jettison Master Arm is on.” He glanced toward Brad with just a hint of devilish glee. “Permission to set off a number of explosive charges just outside our spacecraft, Major McLanahan?”

“Be my guest, Constable,” Brad said grandly.

Nadia rolled her eyes. “Boys and their toys.”

“You’re just upset because I’m the one who gets to push the button,” Vasey noted.

“Well, yes,” Nadia admitted with a smile of her own.

“Thought so,” Vasey said. Triumphantly, he tapped the glowing menu bar.

WHAANG. Small explosive bolts detonated, shearing through the connections between the twin halves of the payload fairing and the Xeus itself. Fractions of a second later, powerful springs shoved both fairing panels away. Cameras rigged to various points outside of the lander showed them whirling off into space.

“This would be a lot cooler if we had windows,” Brad said meditatively. Unfortunately, Jason Richter and Boomer had adamantly vetoed the idea of adding windows or viewing portals to the Xeus. Given the short time available to finish retrofitting the prototype for space flight, neither of them wanted to risk the structural integrity of what was basically just a converted fuel tank by slicing through its hull any more than was absolutely necessary.

From her station, Nadia set their stellar navigation program in motion, instructing her computer to find their position relative to three prominent stars. Comparing those results to the data provided by their inertial guidance system, which had been measuring every change in the spacecraft’s velocity or direction since liftoff, yielded a remarkably precise fix — accurate to within a few hundred feet, despite the fact that they had already traveled more than two hundred thousand miles.

Using one of his hand controllers, Brad rotated the Xeus, swinging the spacecraft around so that its main engine was aimed correctly for the upcoming burn. He opened new windows on his LCDs. They showed information collected by the sensors set to monitor different parts of the RL-10 engine. “Fuel line temperatures look good,” he said aloud. “Tank pressures are good, too. The engine looks ready to go.” He glanced along the row of seats at his crewmates. “Fingers crossed, guys.”