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Here's two fun facts for this latest installation:
1. This story has a coronal mass ejection as a major plot device.
2. This month's National Geographic's main story is about the upcoming Solar Maximum cycle, including a dedicated section on coronal mass ejections.
On with the story:
SEP-010, Chapter 8.
"Houston, Constitution," Matthew Payton heard in his earbud, "We must've had Pete Conrad with us for that one, but we're on the surface now, and we're stable."
"That's great news, Brian," CAPCOM, Charlie Davis said as a collective sigh of relief washed through the Mission Control Center room. "We have you on the ground . . . location is at 88.5 degrees east longitude . . . and 3.12 degrees north latitude. Right on the northeast corner of Mare Smythii as expected. Good work, you guys. Go ahead and start with your safing procedure, and we'll meet you on page five-dash-two."
"Roger that, Houston . . . and as a personal message, I'd like to thank everyone involved in this project, and everyone viewing in at home. Without your support and enthusiasm, we wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be taking the great strides we are in the pursuit of science. From all of us, we thank you very much."
* * *
The last two days were spent quietly, punctuated by the first observance of intense aurora boreali from the moon by human eyes . . . but by then, the excitement of actually being on the moon had already died away. Mission Commander Brian Adkinson, Pilot Jamie Cunningham, and Mission Specialists Anthony Downs, Sienna Morrison and Svetlana Zaytseva sat, gathered around the small table set in the middle of the mid-deck, which had been the most common meeting spot throughout the day. It wasn't like there was anything to see outside the orbiter; the only light outside was a faint blue glow reflected from Earth near the horizon; otherwise they were firmly ensconced in a star-spangled blackness.
Jamie's eyebrows climbed skyward, and she laid a palm on her chest in a shocked expression.
"What do you mean? You think I can't carry a rhythm?" She growled across the table at Sienna, whom immediately smiled widely at her.
"In my experience," Sienna intoned, "most Americans cannot carry neither tune nor time. Alcohol especially seems to only exacerbate this observation."
"Well, I'm perfectly sober," Jamie growled. "Watch this."
She tapped out a reggae rhythm with both hands. Her left hand balled into a fist striking out the bass drum part, and her right hand palm-down hitting the edge of the table sounded out the 'snare.' It only took a few bars of repetition before Anthony Downs began to hum a bass line. He had a striking baritone voice for someone of his height and frame, and a cold smile began to form across Jamie's lips as she continued to drum.
Sienna sat across the table, eyes locked on Jamie as she tapped out the time, and a slow head tilt that could charitably be considered a nod issued from her head.
"Alright, Jamie. I'll concede you've got rhythm," Sienna said as Downs continued to vocalize. "What are we playing?"
Brian Adkinson cleared his throat, grinned, and straightened up as he sang:
"Ahh," Sienna raised an eyebrow. Adkinson's voice took on a distinct (if not somewhat amusingly awful, in her opinion) Jamaican accent as he sang.
"C'mon, Brit-Girl! Give us some rhythm," Downs stopped vocalizing long enough to say.
"Don't call me 'Brit-Girl,'" Sienna said with a half-smirk.
Heads turned around the table as Svetlana Zaytseva set her notepad down abruptly, and snapped her fingers in time with the music. The addition to the music was enough to stun everyone else, and the mid-deck fell silent.
"Wow. The Russian makes noise," Sienna noted.
"This is not an unfamiliar song," Svetlana said. "It is too bad more people don't take it to heart."
"True that," Adkinson said as Downs' amusement faded quickly from his face and he guffawed in disgust. "Let me ask you something. You've not really participated in anything going on here, or said word one to anyone here since the launch. You've had that head of yours buried in your notebook the entire time you've been with us. What's your game? What's your function in this mission besides medical adjunct and note-taker?"
Svetlana cocked her head, and her brown eyes bore dispassionately into his. "Do you mean besides dealing with astronaut vomit for the last three days?"
Adkinson swiveled his eyes to look at Downs, who glared subtly at Jamie as her hand shot to her mouth to curtail an incipient snicker. Downs had improved significantly since they had set down, he noted. While the small percentage of normal gravity the moon offered wasn't significant, it was enough to obviously quell his constant nausea . . . but the damage to the mission and his self-esteem had already been done. To Downs' enragement and frustration, he had spent a good portion of the trip completely unable to function.
"I've had enough of this," Downs growled as he stood up. "I'm going upstairs."
Ignoring the eyes locked on him, he ascended the ladder. Adkinson swiveled in his spot, electing to let Downs go off on his own, and he steepled his fingers in front of his face as he stared Svetlana down.
"I've been on the International Space Station before, Svetlana Andreyevna," Adkinson intoned. "I also happen to know a little about how Roscosmos works. They wouldn't fly a cosmonaut halfway across the world in the middle of the night before a big mission in another country unless something big was going on, or they stood to gain something useful. I'm very curious to know if I'm wrong or not."
"You're right," Svetlana said. "My primary mission is, of course, to support this crew and this mission."
"And your secondary?" Adkinson intoned evenly as he worked hard to keep himself from rolling his eyes.
"Constitution, Houston."
Adkinson growled under his breath as he woke up the bluetooth earset in his ear.
"Go ahead, Houston."
"Brian, we have a special request from the flight director."
"Copy," Adkinson said. "What's the request?"
"How many EVA suits do you have on-hand and readily available?"
Adkinson's eyebrows narrowed, and a small smile formed on his face. "We have three . . . and they should be fully functional, Houston."
"And can you verify the status of the crew elevator?"
"It's working. We've had no error indications come up with that subsystem at all."
"Copy. We have a request from the President. You are to pick three crewmembers to do an EVA at this time. Do you copy?"
"Roger that, Houston," He said. Looking up, he smiled at Jamie, Sienna and Svetlana, who returned his expression curiously.
"What's going on?" Jamie ventured.
"You know how to put an EVA suit on, don't you?"
"In my sleep," Jamie replied. Then the color drained from her face as she caught on. "You're kidding me!"
Adkinson shook his head. "The President wants an EVA. I want you to get suited up, and help Sienna and Svetlana get suited up as well. Camp-out in an hour, and we'll get you going before the end of the day."
"I . . . you mean I'm going to walk on the moon?" Jamie gobbled.
"That's right, sweet-cheeks," Adkinson chirped.
"I . . . no! No way!" Jamie said firmly, and Adkinson grinned at her.
"I am mission commander, Jamie Leigh Cunningham," He intoned, "I'm also your de facto parental unit, and probably persona non gratis at the moment."
"But--"
"And I am not letting you get away with saying no to this. I will not listen to you whine all the way back home about how you chickened out and didn't get to walk on the moon."
"Hey, Downs!" He shouted as Jamie opened her mouth again, and her retort died behind her lips.
"What?!"
"Get your butt back down here. We've got a job for you."
Adkinson heard a growl as Downs stuck his head through the transfer tunnel.
"What's going on?"
"We're being totally emasculated," Adkinson said cheerfully, and Sienna guffawed in response. "Now get down here, fulfill your engineering specialist position, and help these ladies put their suits on."
* * *
The crew elevator lurched as the clamps gave way, and the articulated arm lowered the pressure chamber into the blackness underneath Constitution. Jamie Cunningham flexed her fingers within the thick gloves, aware of the clammy, stifling feel of the EVA suit she was cocooned in. Turning slightly to her left, she saw Sienna's suit shoulder next to her.
"Hey guys," She said.
"Yeah, Jamie," Sienna replied.
"We've . . . got three people from three different countries . . . and an entire world watching us. This may sound stupid . . . but who's gonna go first?"
"I don't know. If Russia over there steps out first, that'd be one thing, but I'd think you Americans might rub the wrong way over that. I could be wrong, but I'd think the Crown could care less. Now, if I go first," Sienna snorted, "it might be considered British imperialism at its most uncouth."
"And if I go first," Jamie concluded sourly, "it'd just be another way for America to prove how great it is in front of the whole world."
". . .right."
"I say we all go at the same time," Svetlana said.
Jamie looked from Sienna to Svetlana, and nodded. "That's a great idea. How do we time it right?"
Svetlana held out a hand as the crew elevator made contact with the soil underneath them. Jamie took it, and stuck out her other hand as her eyes tracked over the blackness around her.
"Ladies, I'm working on getting the RMS overhead for you. There's a projector light that should help you out," She heard Adkinson's voice in her ear.
"Copy that, and thanks," She replied.
They waited for what seemed like an hour until a thin sliver of light snuck its way into sight several feet in front of them. The light exploded in front of them, showing a brilliant light grey landscape at their feet.
"Jesus, that light is bright!" Jamie whispered.
"Uh huh," Sienna bleated as she blinked her eyes.
"Constitution, Houston," She heard. "We show three good suit telemetries, and we have a good picture on the downlink from the RMS. Jamie, Sienna and Svetlana, you three are 'go' for EVA."
"Copy," Jamie croaked softly. "We are go for EVA."
Turning to her companions, she shrugged. "Jump on three?"
"Right," Sienna said. "Three . . . two . . . one . . ."
"Jump!" Jamie hissed.
The jump took longer than she expected. She seemed to float across the threshold from crew elevator to virgin lunar regolith, and she lost sight of the ground immediately at her feet as Svetlana pulled her down from the right. Sienna's jump was more spirited, and her movement pulled her forward from the left.
She felt the impact on the ground through her feet, and she heard the subtle hiss of her own breathing bouncing off of the glass in front of her face.
The impact was soft. Not quite unlike jumping into sand at a beach . . . but utterly soundless compared to the constant hiss of the air supply flowing into her helmet. It took a moment to register fully where she was, and what she was doing.
I'm standing on the moon! She reminded herself as her heart pounded within her chest.
"We're on the moon!" She heard Sienna's voice shout giddily. "Na zdarov'ye, Svetlana!"
"Za druzhbu mezhdu narudami," She heard Svetlana reply pointedly.
"I don't know what you just said, but that sounds great!"
Jamie stood stock-still as Sienna and Svetlana turned to her. The animal part of her brain worked hard to control her breathing. No American . . . no human had been where she was now standing in nearly half a century. And she was there. She was really there.
"Neil Armstrong said, 'That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind,'" She said softly. So softly that she was sure the microphone attached to the side of her face wouldn't pick it up. "Pete Conrad said, 'That may have been one small step for Neil, but that was sure a big one for me!'"
Her brain . . . she noted with a sudden spat of frustration . . . simply would not work. She bent slightly, angling her suit to look at her feet, and she flexed her toes. The boots looked gawky, ungainly, and bent slightly at her prodding as they displaced some of the silk-like powder at her feet . . . and then she looked up abruptly.
Looking at her crewmates once more, she sighed.
"Guys, I've got nothin'," She lamented with a wistful look in her eyes.
Sienna smiled broadly at her, and nodded.
"You've just said it all, my friend."
* * *
1. This story has a coronal mass ejection as a major plot device.
2. This month's National Geographic's main story is about the upcoming Solar Maximum cycle, including a dedicated section on coronal mass ejections.
On with the story:
SEP-010, Chapter 8.
"Houston, Constitution," Matthew Payton heard in his earbud, "We must've had Pete Conrad with us for that one, but we're on the surface now, and we're stable."
"That's great news, Brian," CAPCOM, Charlie Davis said as a collective sigh of relief washed through the Mission Control Center room. "We have you on the ground . . . location is at 88.5 degrees east longitude . . . and 3.12 degrees north latitude. Right on the northeast corner of Mare Smythii as expected. Good work, you guys. Go ahead and start with your safing procedure, and we'll meet you on page five-dash-two."
"Roger that, Houston . . . and as a personal message, I'd like to thank everyone involved in this project, and everyone viewing in at home. Without your support and enthusiasm, we wouldn't be here, and we wouldn't be taking the great strides we are in the pursuit of science. From all of us, we thank you very much."
* * *
The last two days were spent quietly, punctuated by the first observance of intense aurora boreali from the moon by human eyes . . . but by then, the excitement of actually being on the moon had already died away. Mission Commander Brian Adkinson, Pilot Jamie Cunningham, and Mission Specialists Anthony Downs, Sienna Morrison and Svetlana Zaytseva sat, gathered around the small table set in the middle of the mid-deck, which had been the most common meeting spot throughout the day. It wasn't like there was anything to see outside the orbiter; the only light outside was a faint blue glow reflected from Earth near the horizon; otherwise they were firmly ensconced in a star-spangled blackness.
Jamie's eyebrows climbed skyward, and she laid a palm on her chest in a shocked expression.
"What do you mean? You think I can't carry a rhythm?" She growled across the table at Sienna, whom immediately smiled widely at her.
"In my experience," Sienna intoned, "most Americans cannot carry neither tune nor time. Alcohol especially seems to only exacerbate this observation."
"Well, I'm perfectly sober," Jamie growled. "Watch this."
She tapped out a reggae rhythm with both hands. Her left hand balled into a fist striking out the bass drum part, and her right hand palm-down hitting the edge of the table sounded out the 'snare.' It only took a few bars of repetition before Anthony Downs began to hum a bass line. He had a striking baritone voice for someone of his height and frame, and a cold smile began to form across Jamie's lips as she continued to drum.
Sienna sat across the table, eyes locked on Jamie as she tapped out the time, and a slow head tilt that could charitably be considered a nod issued from her head.
"Alright, Jamie. I'll concede you've got rhythm," Sienna said as Downs continued to vocalize. "What are we playing?"
Brian Adkinson cleared his throat, grinned, and straightened up as he sang:
"Here's a little song I wrote;
You might want to sing it note-for-note:
Don't worry . . . be happy."
"Ahh," Sienna raised an eyebrow. Adkinson's voice took on a distinct (if not somewhat amusingly awful, in her opinion) Jamaican accent as he sang.
"C'mon, Brit-Girl! Give us some rhythm," Downs stopped vocalizing long enough to say.
"Don't call me 'Brit-Girl,'" Sienna said with a half-smirk.
Heads turned around the table as Svetlana Zaytseva set her notepad down abruptly, and snapped her fingers in time with the music. The addition to the music was enough to stun everyone else, and the mid-deck fell silent.
"Wow. The Russian makes noise," Sienna noted.
"This is not an unfamiliar song," Svetlana said. "It is too bad more people don't take it to heart."
"True that," Adkinson said as Downs' amusement faded quickly from his face and he guffawed in disgust. "Let me ask you something. You've not really participated in anything going on here, or said word one to anyone here since the launch. You've had that head of yours buried in your notebook the entire time you've been with us. What's your game? What's your function in this mission besides medical adjunct and note-taker?"
Svetlana cocked her head, and her brown eyes bore dispassionately into his. "Do you mean besides dealing with astronaut vomit for the last three days?"
Adkinson swiveled his eyes to look at Downs, who glared subtly at Jamie as her hand shot to her mouth to curtail an incipient snicker. Downs had improved significantly since they had set down, he noted. While the small percentage of normal gravity the moon offered wasn't significant, it was enough to obviously quell his constant nausea . . . but the damage to the mission and his self-esteem had already been done. To Downs' enragement and frustration, he had spent a good portion of the trip completely unable to function.
"I've had enough of this," Downs growled as he stood up. "I'm going upstairs."
Ignoring the eyes locked on him, he ascended the ladder. Adkinson swiveled in his spot, electing to let Downs go off on his own, and he steepled his fingers in front of his face as he stared Svetlana down.
"I've been on the International Space Station before, Svetlana Andreyevna," Adkinson intoned. "I also happen to know a little about how Roscosmos works. They wouldn't fly a cosmonaut halfway across the world in the middle of the night before a big mission in another country unless something big was going on, or they stood to gain something useful. I'm very curious to know if I'm wrong or not."
"You're right," Svetlana said. "My primary mission is, of course, to support this crew and this mission."
"And your secondary?" Adkinson intoned evenly as he worked hard to keep himself from rolling his eyes.
"Constitution, Houston."
Adkinson growled under his breath as he woke up the bluetooth earset in his ear.
"Go ahead, Houston."
"Brian, we have a special request from the flight director."
"Copy," Adkinson said. "What's the request?"
"How many EVA suits do you have on-hand and readily available?"
Adkinson's eyebrows narrowed, and a small smile formed on his face. "We have three . . . and they should be fully functional, Houston."
"And can you verify the status of the crew elevator?"
"It's working. We've had no error indications come up with that subsystem at all."
"Copy. We have a request from the President. You are to pick three crewmembers to do an EVA at this time. Do you copy?"
"Roger that, Houston," He said. Looking up, he smiled at Jamie, Sienna and Svetlana, who returned his expression curiously.
"What's going on?" Jamie ventured.
"You know how to put an EVA suit on, don't you?"
"In my sleep," Jamie replied. Then the color drained from her face as she caught on. "You're kidding me!"
Adkinson shook his head. "The President wants an EVA. I want you to get suited up, and help Sienna and Svetlana get suited up as well. Camp-out in an hour, and we'll get you going before the end of the day."
"I . . . you mean I'm going to walk on the moon?" Jamie gobbled.
"That's right, sweet-cheeks," Adkinson chirped.
"I . . . no! No way!" Jamie said firmly, and Adkinson grinned at her.
"I am mission commander, Jamie Leigh Cunningham," He intoned, "I'm also your de facto parental unit, and probably persona non gratis at the moment."
"But--"
"And I am not letting you get away with saying no to this. I will not listen to you whine all the way back home about how you chickened out and didn't get to walk on the moon."
"Hey, Downs!" He shouted as Jamie opened her mouth again, and her retort died behind her lips.
"What?!"
"Get your butt back down here. We've got a job for you."
Adkinson heard a growl as Downs stuck his head through the transfer tunnel.
"What's going on?"
"We're being totally emasculated," Adkinson said cheerfully, and Sienna guffawed in response. "Now get down here, fulfill your engineering specialist position, and help these ladies put their suits on."
* * *
The crew elevator lurched as the clamps gave way, and the articulated arm lowered the pressure chamber into the blackness underneath Constitution. Jamie Cunningham flexed her fingers within the thick gloves, aware of the clammy, stifling feel of the EVA suit she was cocooned in. Turning slightly to her left, she saw Sienna's suit shoulder next to her.
"Hey guys," She said.
"Yeah, Jamie," Sienna replied.
"We've . . . got three people from three different countries . . . and an entire world watching us. This may sound stupid . . . but who's gonna go first?"
"I don't know. If Russia over there steps out first, that'd be one thing, but I'd think you Americans might rub the wrong way over that. I could be wrong, but I'd think the Crown could care less. Now, if I go first," Sienna snorted, "it might be considered British imperialism at its most uncouth."
"And if I go first," Jamie concluded sourly, "it'd just be another way for America to prove how great it is in front of the whole world."
". . .right."
"I say we all go at the same time," Svetlana said.
Jamie looked from Sienna to Svetlana, and nodded. "That's a great idea. How do we time it right?"
Svetlana held out a hand as the crew elevator made contact with the soil underneath them. Jamie took it, and stuck out her other hand as her eyes tracked over the blackness around her.
"Ladies, I'm working on getting the RMS overhead for you. There's a projector light that should help you out," She heard Adkinson's voice in her ear.
"Copy that, and thanks," She replied.
They waited for what seemed like an hour until a thin sliver of light snuck its way into sight several feet in front of them. The light exploded in front of them, showing a brilliant light grey landscape at their feet.
"Jesus, that light is bright!" Jamie whispered.
"Uh huh," Sienna bleated as she blinked her eyes.
"Constitution, Houston," She heard. "We show three good suit telemetries, and we have a good picture on the downlink from the RMS. Jamie, Sienna and Svetlana, you three are 'go' for EVA."
"Copy," Jamie croaked softly. "We are go for EVA."
Turning to her companions, she shrugged. "Jump on three?"
"Right," Sienna said. "Three . . . two . . . one . . ."
"Jump!" Jamie hissed.
The jump took longer than she expected. She seemed to float across the threshold from crew elevator to virgin lunar regolith, and she lost sight of the ground immediately at her feet as Svetlana pulled her down from the right. Sienna's jump was more spirited, and her movement pulled her forward from the left.
She felt the impact on the ground through her feet, and she heard the subtle hiss of her own breathing bouncing off of the glass in front of her face.
The impact was soft. Not quite unlike jumping into sand at a beach . . . but utterly soundless compared to the constant hiss of the air supply flowing into her helmet. It took a moment to register fully where she was, and what she was doing.
I'm standing on the moon! She reminded herself as her heart pounded within her chest.
"We're on the moon!" She heard Sienna's voice shout giddily. "Na zdarov'ye, Svetlana!"
"Za druzhbu mezhdu narudami," She heard Svetlana reply pointedly.
"I don't know what you just said, but that sounds great!"
Jamie stood stock-still as Sienna and Svetlana turned to her. The animal part of her brain worked hard to control her breathing. No American . . . no human had been where she was now standing in nearly half a century. And she was there. She was really there.
"Neil Armstrong said, 'That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind,'" She said softly. So softly that she was sure the microphone attached to the side of her face wouldn't pick it up. "Pete Conrad said, 'That may have been one small step for Neil, but that was sure a big one for me!'"
Her brain . . . she noted with a sudden spat of frustration . . . simply would not work. She bent slightly, angling her suit to look at her feet, and she flexed her toes. The boots looked gawky, ungainly, and bent slightly at her prodding as they displaced some of the silk-like powder at her feet . . . and then she looked up abruptly.
Looking at her crewmates once more, she sighed.
"Guys, I've got nothin'," She lamented with a wistful look in her eyes.
Sienna smiled broadly at her, and nodded.
"You've just said it all, my friend."
* * *
