SEP-010, Chapter 20.

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An edit . . . because I wasn't ultimately happy with what I posted earlier. This should be an improvement even with my own standards of writing! :p

I give you once again:

SEP-010, Chapter 20.

Constitution, Flight Deck.

Sienna Morrison made an odd noise.

Both Jamie Cunningham and Greg Williams turned their head as they heard the outburst -- first in the form of a barely-restrained snicker. Then it metastasized into a full-blown guffaw, followed by a ripple-effect of unrestrained mirth.

"What the hell?" Williams grunted.

"I'm sorry-- I just . . ." Sienna managed to get out, before another wave of laughter overpowered her. This one was much louder than its predecessor, and her laughter resonated off of the flight deck's walls and windows. Jamie cast Williams an incredulous glance as he unbuckled himself, and the sound of a hand slapping fabric accentuated the confused air around them.

"Are you okay?" He demanded as he labored himself out of his seat, and he stopped as he saw her face.

She was thoroughly amused, and Williams cocked his head querulously. He couldn't fathom what was going on inside that woman's head.
The air stirred amidst the chattering over the radio, and a dull metallic pop! resonated in the compartment. Jamie Cunningham jerked her head upright, and an instant headache formed above her eyes as she did so.

"Constitution, this is Flight Control," She heard as she winced. "Side hatch is unlocked and opened. Stand-by to receive the recovery crew."

"Copy that, Flight Control," She said as she heard footsteps below her.

"I'm fine," Sienna finally had the wherewithal to say. "It's just . . . here we are, sitting on the runway for the past two hours; we've just had one hell of a landing, a fire in the rocket chamber, a partially collapsed landing gear . . ."

She sniffled as she fought back another wave of laughter, and Williams smiled at her.

". . . and I finally got what you said an hour ago, Jamie," She said. "'We're going to come back to Earth the same way we left her: At Mach twenty-five plus, with our asses on fire.' We were certainly on fire, now, weren't we!" She laughed again.

Jamie thought about what she'd heard. A mental picture of Constitution streaking through the atmosphere, with her ionization trail lighting up the night sky dawned upon her, mixed with the other mental picture; that of an ink-black smoke trail from Constitution's backside during landing, and she chuckled.

"Alright," Williams said with another grin, and Jamie snickered again. "We should get out of these suits; I'm sweating like a pig here."

"Me too," Jamie agreed.

Doing that was easier said, than done. Her arms felt like they were weighed down in a lead soup, and she hadn't even thought about testing out her leg muscles yet. Her ACES suit weighed eighty pounds, and this time she felt every ounce of fabric press against her body almost twice as commandingly as when she'd left Earth so long ago. She heard Williams straining to extricate himself from his seat. It took a moment to get her hand up to unlock her helmet, and she felt strong hands grapple her helmet and pull it up.

"Thank you," She said to Williams as he offered her a hand with a bland smile.

She stared at his hand for a moment. As she continued to think about the force of gravity acting upon her, her body felt like she weighed more and more. It was a cumulative effect; she felt like she weighed over a ton now, and she suddenly felt unsure about her ability to so much as lift a finger. She knew that adjusting from normal gravity, to a microgravity environment was an ordeal quickly mastered, but she'd also seen the video footage of the cosmonauts and astronauts returning from the International Space Station expeditions after having spent months in space.

She sighed. She knew intuitively that she'd only spent the upshot of a month up there, and she was in excellent physical condition . . . but she'd also been under a great deal of stress. She felt . . . mentally drained, as well as physically bombarded by the constant unyielding pull of gravity keeping her glued to her seat.

She needed help.

She took his hand, and he hauled her upright. Step one was complete; her back was off of the seat, and now she could concentrate on using her leg muscles.

It took a moment, and in that time Brandon Harris and Jim Ahern filed into the flight deck.

"Hi, everyone!" Harris said as Ahern went to work on Sienna.

"Hi Brandon," Jamie replied. She wanted her voice to sound strong . . . but to her mild consternation it sounded more like a whimper came out of her mouth.

"Wait 'till you see what we've got going on out there," Harris said with a huge grin fixed to his face. "There's over a million people at the space center alone, came to see your landing."

Jamie froze. A million people? That many people came to see the launch of STS-1. The last Space Shuttle launch. The Apollo 11 launch. Events of real historical significance.

Harris grinned at her perplexed expression, and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "You've just lit up the whole state of Florida, Jamie," He said.
"The minute we heard about your debris strike, the news agencies picked up on it like it was a Colorado wildfire."

"Really?" Jamie mumbled.

"Do you feel you're able to walk?" Harris said.

Jamie blinked at him. "Walk? Hell, I've been weightless for a month. I've already proven I can fly."

"Well, let's start with getting you up out of that station," Harris suggested. "The surgeon should be up here in a moment to give you all a post-flight."

"Good idea. I'd like to spend a moment in the aft-deck freshening up?"

"Of course," Harris said. "Just remember: In an hour, we'll have you back in the astronaut quarters, and then you can have a real shower. How's that sound?"

"Mmm!" Jamie moaned deliciously as she took his hand, and a slow smile crossed her face. A real shower sounded heavenly just then. She hadn't bathed properly in as many days. A towel bath was effective; it got the job done, but it just wasn't as fulfilling as the real thing.

"Alright," Harris said as he helped Jamie out of her station, "Just remember, guys. You've been weightless for almost a month. You may be tired; you'll probably be weak. We'll take as long as you need to, to get out of this ship and down the stairs; the Astrovan is waiting for you on the runway already."

"Good," Jamie said. She cocked her head towards the aft-deck, and Greg Williams stretched his arm out for her. She took it, and they walked carefully around the instrument panels. As Williams led her out, she stopped walking abruptly. Standing still, her eyes glassed over as he turned around, and a concerned look formed in his eyes.

She turned around slowly.

Sienna sat in her chair at the Mission Specialist center-seat, staring up at her with a wooden, scrutinizing expression. Jim Ahern turned to regard her, aware of the sudden lack of movement around the room.

Jamie Cunningham's eyes perused the flight deck in front of her, and she stared long and hard at everything she could see. The two pilot's seats. The instrumentation panels in front of those seats. The windows, and the view she could see of the grey runway concrete mixed with the green grass below her.

Her brain took a picture in every exquisite detail. The sounds of the air circulation and cooling fans. The smell of the recycled air. The heat from the sun washing in from the flight deck's overhead windows.

It was then that she realized . . . even though she had to leave . . . she really didn't want to.

Of course, she knew she would have to say goodbye to the ship as well. The mission was now incontrovertibly over. Constitution was on the ground, and her duties as Mission Commander had come to an end. As a strangely wistful smile started to creep its way across her face, she laid a gloved hand on the closest wall panel -- half for support, and half to sample the tactile feel of the panel's rigidity and verisimilitude one last time.

She drew in a deep breath . . .

. . . and what came out surprised even her: A choking, rasping sob that racked her entire body as her arms fell over her face in a confused state of somewhere between grief and embarrassment.

She felt strong arms envelope her, and she instinctively shifted her body weight into the presence holding her tightly.

"Hey . . . shh . . . it's okay," She heard Greg Williams soothe quietly . . . gently . . . which only made her cry harder.

* * *

Shuttle Landing Facility.

Jamie Cunningham poked her head out of the side hatch and squinted into the sunlight . . . and froze as a tumultuous noise erupted, enveloping her from every angle except behind her.

It took a moment to figure out what that noise was, and when it finally hit her, she grinned, shaking her head at herself.

It was applause. And cheering. Lots of cheering.

The sound of thousands of voices raising up in a thunderous cacophony assaulted her ears, even through the hundreds of feet of distance there was between Constitution and the closest public access. She could hear helicopters in the distance; there was undoubtedly a camera trained upon her, and she steadied herself with a hand on the handrail as she put her best grin on her face and waved.

She hadn't heard anything that loud since the Rammstein concert she attended when she was twenty-five years old. The sound beat into her ego, and she turned her head to see Greg Williams standing with her at the top of the stairs.

She saw people standing on the runway's concrete: workers from the United Space Alliance watching her. She saw seagulls gliding through the air, intermingling their bodies against the puffy white clouds above her.

"You alright?" Williams asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Jamie said lowly. He stretched out his arm, and they latched together as he helped her down the staircase while Brandon Harris helped Sienna down.

Jamie stopped to take a last look at Constitution. The left landing gear was completely encased in suppressant foam, and a structural lattice-work was already erected to keep the landing gear strut from folding in on itself.

Then she spied the hole in the bottom side of the left wing.

"What's going on there?" She said, pointing to the wing.

"Ahh, yes. That," Harris said. "We got the footage from your landing; apparently that thermal protection plate fell off the wing when you touched down."

Jamie paused as she ran the mental image of the thermal plate skittering end-over-end across the runway through her head, and she saw a USA worker carrying something as he walked towards the orbiter. He was carrying a large black object. She recognized it immediately; it was the thermal protection plate she labored so hard to attach to the wing.

"So that's what that warning light was all about!" She bleated, and Williams laughed.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," Harris said, "if you'll follow me, we'll get you into the van, and back to the astronaut quarters."

Jamie nodded. It was time to get out of the heat . . . the pressing gravity her home planet offered her . . . time to look forward to eating real food, having a real shower, and taking a real nap. She held back the inventory of her own exhausted body long enough to turn her head, casting another one last look at Constitution as it sat on the runway.

A wan smile crossed her face. Through everything that had just happened . . . everything they just lived through . . . she knew she'd be seeing that ship again.

"Goodbye," She said softly to the spaceplane, waving stiffly at her wrist.

The Astrovan beckoned her inside . . . and with a jarring slam of the door that shut out all sound from outside, she knew in the depths of her heart that her mission, and quite possibly her time in space, doing the impossibly awesome, was now done and over with.

She stared numbly at the fabric of the van's interior as the vehicle began to move.

* * *
 
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