Page 52 of Stars

“You’re bringing your phone, right? The ISS has Wi-Fi.”

NASA’s silver Astrovan, an antique from the earliest days of spaceflight, still shuttled the astronauts down to launch pad 39A. It picked them up as their final earthbound sunset started setting the skies ablaze.

T minus five hours until launch. Launch pad 39A was a monster, a Godzilla made of steel and aluminum.Freedomwas a speck on top of the SLS. Inside the capsule, they would be nothing more than ants hitching a ride on a cannonball.

Sasha saw fire trucks and ambulances parked behind blast-scarred concrete bunkers. “If anything goes wrong,” Mark said, leaning into Sasha’s side, “they come rescue us.”

“If 8.8 million pounds of rocket fuel ignites wrong—”

“They have to be there,” Sarah said. “If there’s a problem where they need to rescue us, we won’t ever know. It will be quick for us.”

Sergey. Sasha reached for his dog tags and for Sergey’s ring.

Was it worth it?

He closed his eyes. This launch was different. This mission was different. He was needed. NASA, America, the world, but most importantly, Sergey needed him.

That Soviet satellite had to come down.

“I remember my first mission,” Mark said softly as the van bounced over cracked, rocket-blasted concrete, brittle and fractured in spiderwebs of ridges and troughs. “I was your age. Lindsey and I had just married. I had a perfect career. I had everything. At least, that’s what everyone told me. But nothing in the whole world would have stopped me from climbing in that rocket. My life wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t take that flight. It was something my soul knew.”

The van pulled to a stop at the base of the launch pad. Mist swirled in the twilight, vapor from liquid oxygen playing on the ocean breeze, tickling the gray rocket skirts towering over their heads. The SLS was a ladder to space, disappearing into the distance three hundred feet over their heads. Surely they could just climb the rocket into orbit. They didn’t need to blast off.

Loudspeakers droned the countdown, Kennedy’s Launch Control Center moving methodically through their checklists. Technicians on the tower checked and rechecked the fuel lines, the O-rings, the fail-safes. A low hiss thrummed through the air, liquid hydrogen and oxygen cycling in the core stage. Rumbles echoed through the solid rocket boosters, and the launch tower creaked as the wind curled through the steel latticework. Ice slid off the SLS in slushy sheets, turning to a wet dust that misted Sasha’s face as he, Mark, and Sarah stepped into the tower’s elevator.

In less than a minute, they were 340 feet in the sky, stepping out onto the crew access arm of the launch tower, and heading toward theFreedomcapsule.

Sasha’s palms cradled lakes of sweat. His thoughts were a blur, a smear of Sergey’s face and shooting stars and pillars of fire, rockets igniting and satellites breaking apart, skies turning dark as they reached orbit—skies turning black with smoke and debris falling to Earth. Sergey’s voice filled him, steadied him.I love you, Sashunya. I’m so fucking proud of you. Chase your dreams. I love you.

The White Room was the last place on earth astronauts saw before boarding the rocket. Inside, a closeout crew of fellow astronauts helped them one by one into their ACES launch suits. The orange jumpsuits were like the pressurized flight suits he’d worn as a fighter pilot—but bulked out on steroids. Oxygen pressurized his suit through valves at his thigh and the back of his neck while the closeout crew strapped his survival pack and escape oxygen into place and fitted his communications cap over his head. At each step of his suit-up, the closeout crew asked him for an A-OK. He nodded, gave his thumbs up. He couldn’t speak. He could barely see. The world swam. He was going to swan dive off the launch tower.

When they fitted his gloves on, Michael Gibson, an astronaut Sasha had met maybe twice, squeezed his shaking hand for a full minute before locking his gloves in place. “Godspeed,” he said, pressing his cheek to Sasha’s and whispering in his ear. “It’s the ride of your life.”

Images of Sergey again filled his mind. His smile, his head thrown back in a belly-shaking laugh. Sergey curled by the fire, Sergey beneath him, on top of him.The ride of my life is loving you.

He was the last one loaded into the capsule. The world almost tilted over, nearly tunneled down to nothing as his vision darkened. He grabbed the edge of the hatch and squeezed his abs, contracted all his muscles, and pushed the blackout back.

The closeout crew strapped his five-point harness down and velcroed his checklist to his arm. “Don’t drop that,” Mark said, moving swiftly through his own prelaunch checklist. “Anything you drop will slam aft during the launch. You won’t get it back until orbit.”

Sasha nodded. He tried to swallow. He could barely hear Mark over the rush of his blood in his veins.

“Kennedy, this isFreedom, do you copy?” Mark said, beginning the air-to-ground radio checks. Around them,Freedomgrumbled as she awoke, her power moving from standby to ready state, her ignition switches arming to fire.

“Freedom, we read you loud and clear.”

“Roger that, Kennedy. Houston, do you copy?”

“Freedom, Houston reads you loud and clear.” Dan’s voice at CAPCOM flowed over the radio.

“Roger, Houston.” Mark smiled at Sasha, then over his shoulder at Sarah. “Countdown is T minus three hours, Houston. Proceeding through preflight checks.”

* * *

Kremlin

Moscow, Russia

Begin roll program…Go at throttle up… Roger, go at throttle up.