Page 53 of Stars

The rocket was there, and then it wasn’t. A tower of fire a hundred miles tall had lifted Sasha from Earth, punched him through the clouds. Exhaust left a trail of vapor behind his rocket, a misty road Sergey could follow straight to him. Sasha had been in the center of the sky, a brilliant streak of white and flaming orange against the stars.

He was there, and then he wasn’t.

Instead of a rocket, there was smoke, a black cloud swirling around a ball of flame in the center of the night.

Debris. Fire raining to the ground, a thousand parts and pieces falling from the heavens. A thousand pieces of Sasha, a thousand pieces of his heart, nothing more than ash. He fell to his knees and screamed, and screamed, and screamed—

Sergey jerked awake, almost tipping backward in his chair and falling. On the TV in his office, NASA’s prelaunch feed played: the monotonous drone of Mission Control reading through their checklist and Mark Keating’s subtle Texas twang responding. Sergey had demanded a live feed of the launch and had refused to accept no when Roscosmos tried to tell him it would be difficult.

NASA had people living on the moon. They were building rockets to go to Mars. They could get him the fucking live launch feed. He had an astronaut on the mission.

Sleep had vanished, winked away after Sasha’s announcement that he was on the mission. He was so wired on caffeine and adrenaline his hands shook constantly. The last time he’d looked in a mirror, he saw a zombie gazing back at him. Had he eaten in the past two days? Time was inconstant, its passing measured only by NASA’s countdowns. T minus forty-eight hours. T minus twenty-nine hours.

T minus one hour.

He should never, ever have watched that fucking video. What was he thinking?NASA’s Disasters.ChallengerandColumbia, the two shuttle explosions.

If he hadn’t been terrified before, he was petrified now.

Whose fucking brilliant idea was it to have Sasha chase his damn dreams? Who thought it would be good for Sasha to be a fucking astronaut?

It was supposed to be his goodbye gift. Sasha was supposed to find his happiness in space, away from Sergey. One day, many many years later, Sergey would smile up at the sky and remember the love he’d felt for Sasha, once all the agony and heartbreak had bled away. One day, he’d have felt proud of the Russian orbiting overhead.

He wouldn’t have feltthis. Not the soul-shredding anguish of waiting and watching the love of his life sit on millions of pounds of rocket fuel and strike a match. He’d seen cartoons that began this way when he was a child.

Fuck it. Sergey groped in his desk drawer for his emergency pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t smoked in years. Only if he drank too much, or if he was on the bitter edge.

He’d sailed past the bitter edge yesterday. Now he was in free fall.

“You’re a fucking disaster, Seryozha,” he grumbled, sucking down the nicotine. He closed his eyes and willed his hands to still. Ash trembled across his desk, across the folders he’d scattered. NASA folders, Roscosmos folders, Defense Ministry folders. He was hunting for Soviet ghosts as his lover chased them to the stars. What could possibly go wrong?

He stared at the TV, watching Mission Control decide the fate of the love of his life.

* * *

Kennedy Space Center

Cape Canaveral, Florida

“T minus twenty minutes,”Roxanne called out in Houston’s Mission Control. “Hold the countdown and begin final go-no-go checks.”

Mark responded, his voice thrumming, his excitement palpable even a thousand miles away. “Roger, Houston, T minus twenty and holding.”

“Fido?” Roxanne asked.

“Go, Flight,” the flight dynamics officer said. Everything proceeded in order, a checklist dating back to Apollo and before.

“Guido?” Guidance procedures.

“Go, Flight.”

“GC?” Ground control.

“Go, Flight.”

“Prop?” Propulsion.

“Go, Flight.”