CHAPTER 47.
“All secure?”
Madeline checked all the telltales once more; all the ones that mattered for this maneuver showed green. “All secure, Horst.”
They were the only people aboard Munin and Nebula Storm. All the others—Joe, General Hohenheim, Helen and A.J., Jackie, Petra, Larry, Brett, Mia, Dan, and Anthony—all of them were now aboard Odin, stowing away all supplies, preparing for their departure.
She looked at the main display of Nebula Storm, to see the oddly-tilted view of Europa Base—the living quarters, Hotel Europa, the circular track and armature of the centrifuge. The structures remained standing; there was no good reason to pack them and bring them along on this trip back, and perhaps future visitors would find them useful, if they survived.
Athena, too, was staying. Despite its glitches the melt-probe had performed heroically, but it had no purpose on the return trip. If anything remained for Athena to do, it would be here, on Europa. Mia and A.J. had carefully shut the probe down into storage mode, locked into its support structure above the last hole it had made, braced to withstand even another monster quake.
The view was tilted because—with muscle power, mechanical advantage, and judicious application of Munin’s jets—Nebula Storm had been turned around to be sitting at an angle on the ridge into which it had crashed. Munin now sat underneath the IRI vessel, locked to it by the best umbilical restraints they could devise.
The fact that she was here to pilot Nebula Storm and that Horst was piloting Munin had been settled in somewhat acrimonious debate. The General, it turned out, was more than capable of flying Munin, and had intended to do so for this final maneuver. However, he had been overridden. “General, our endgame for this entire adventure relies on your presence,” Maddie had said. “I am expendable, you are not.” She had silenced Joe with a gesture. “I know that isn’t a popular way to state things, but it’s easier if we address this directly. I am also the person who landed Nebula Storm after flying her tandem, and similarly Horst is the one with experience—much more experience, now—in flying Munin.”
The General had, grudgingly, accepted this logic.
And now we come down to the end. “Munin, we are coming up to launch window. Is everything a go on your end?”
“All green,” Horst reported.”
This will be trickier, Maddie admitted to herself. With the nozzle now gone, she really couldn’t use Nebula Storm’s main rocket anymore. Munin would provide almost all the transport this time, until it was necessary to dock with Odin. “All living quarters folded back and locked. Tether release mechanisms armed.”
“Acknowledged,” Horst replied. “Munin engines now readied on standby. Launch window in ten seconds.”
“Nebula Storm maneuvering thrusters fully charged, ready for use. Model reports all operations within parameters. We are a go for launch.”
“Understood, Nebula Storm. We are go for launch. General Hohenheim, please confirm.”
On the tight-beam communicator, the General’s voice was steady and certain. “All telemetry shows green. Launch window has arrived. Launch when ready.”
“Beginning countdown,” Maddie said, and took a deep breath. The automatics would stil do most of the work, but this cobbled-together vessel, modeled or not, would almost certainly need the human touch to fly straight. “Ten seconds to launch. Full control of Nebula Storm attitude jets now assigned to Munin. Override controls on Nebula Storm show green.”
“Five seconds,” Horst picked up the countdown, “Prepared to launch…two…one…”
The belly thrusters of Munin activated first, rearing the double ship up until it pointed upward at an angle of eighty-two degrees. Then the main drive cut in, a rumble, then a roar, and the implacably heavy hand of acceleration pressed down on her. I am so weak now; even with all the exercise in the centrifuge we have all weakened. Bone structure, at least, hasn’t shown much deterioration. If this works, we will have better options for keeping us fit on the way home.
“We have liftoff from Europa,” she reported, and could not keep the excitement and triumph from her voice. “Nebula Storm and Munin are up and accelerating.” A higher-pitched jet sound. “Nebula Storm maneuver jets firing automatically for pitch and yaw. Minimal roll tendency.”
Don’t need to endure much of this. “Past the halfway mark, all green. Yellow now on course—”
“On it,” Horst said, cutting her off. The side jets of both Munin and Nebula Storm fired. The plot went green again. “Course now optimal within projected limits. Main burn concluding in three, two, one, zero!”
Even as she said it, the main rocket went silent. “On course for rendezvous,” she said, and heard the responding cheer. “Matching burn at Europa L-1 point in less than one hour.”
She let herself relax, read a few chapters of the latest novel she’d had transmitted from Earth, and re-checked all systems again; this took up the time until they were closing in on the matching burn.
“Odin, this is Nebula Storm and Munin,” she said. “We are now on approach to match with you at the Europan L-1 point. Confirm you have us on radar and visual?”
“Confirmed, Nebula Storm, Munin. Telescopes have you on visual and are tracking. Radar shows you on approach with minimal deviation from projected path. Proceed with matching burn.”
“Roger, Odin,” Horst said. “Rotating both vessels.”
The joined vessels performed a lazy somersault and stopped, oriented now one hundred eighty degrees from their prior heading. “Rotation complete. Orientation now correct. Closing to rendezvous location. Beginning matching burn in three, two…”
The roar of Munin’s engine, transmitted through their mutual connections, was shorter this time, as some of the prior burn had of course been necessary to climb some distance out of Europa’s gravity well. She checked the instruments and smiled. “Relative velocity of Munin and Nebula Storm now five point six meters per second.”
She could see Odin now, the once-elegant ship now little more than a cylinder drifting in space, the old mass-driver units cut so short that they were barely nubs showing at one end. “Munin, Nebula Storm is initiating separation in ten seconds.”
“Initiating separation, understood. Munin standing by.”
And here we go. “Separation…now.”
The tethers and umbilicals were severed in a precise sequence, ending with a tiny burn of one of Nebula Storm’s underjets that set both ships slowly drifting apart. Her smile broadened as she saw the results. “Separation complete and successful, Munin.”
“Munin also shows full and successful separation. Proceeding to dock at hangar. Good luck, Nebula Storm.”
“Thanks,” she said.
She watched Munin move away towards Odin, and waited while the still-huge EU vessel loomed closer. No point in killing her speed until she was very close.
Once she’d done that, though, the tricky part began. “Odin, this is Nebula Storm. Prepare for docking and integration.”
“Acknowledged. We are ready, Maddie. Come home.”
“On my way.”
She used the maneuvering jets to position herself directly “ahead” of Odin, opposite where Nebula Storm’s old rocket nozzle was now installed. She could vaguely see a blackish circle with her unaugmented vision, but by kicking in full assisted display she could see a tapered tunnel built directly into the center of Odin. Even as she watched, bright white LED panels blinked on, positioned all along the length of the tunnel on the four main axial directions. It was a landing strip in three-D. That will help the automatics.
“In position. Accelerating to docking.”
She nudged Nebula Storm forward. At a hundred meters, the closing velocity was a meter per second. When she reached twenty meters, she decelerated, to ten centimeters per second.
The automatics triggered tiny lateral burns. Nebula Storm drifted sideways imperceptibly, a few millimeters a second, until the opposite—side laterals activated, making Odin utterly stationary before her, just looming up now in all directions.
Two meters and she triggered another burn, a centimeter per second, as the sharp nose of the ancient Bemmie hull entered that tunnel. All to the automatics now…and to the design and engineering skills of Brett, Mia, Joe, and Horst.
A sudden, tremendously short burst from the jets, and then there was a jolting impact that echoed through the ship. At the same time she heard other sounds, tiny clicks, subsidiary clacking noises, and green lights blossomed across the panel where things had been dark a moment before. One glowed amber, then flashed to green.
“Nebula Storm,” Hohenheim said, “docking is complete. All connections have been made. Welcome back, Agent Fathom.”
She sagged back in her chair. “Thank you, General.”
“Please wait a few moments. We will begin to spin the ship up to full rotation. Then you may exit.”
“Acknowledged.”
“In addition,” Hohenheim continued, “we are now not two ships, but one ship, on a single and final mission. I do not think it is appropriate to call this vessel by the name of either of its parts.”
“I would agree,” Madeline said. “Did you have a name in mind?”
“I do,” the General said, “and one I think is most appropriate and in keeping with current namings beside.”
“Ha!” came A.J.’s voice. “Then I know what it is!”
“I have no doubt you do, Mr. Baker.” The General’s voice was amused. “And you are a man of dramatics; go ahead, then, tell us.”
“You sure? Don’t want to steal your thunder, so to speak.”
Even Maddie laughed. “By all means, go ahead, Mr. Baker.”
A.J.’s voice was suddenly serious, the same tone as when he had christened Nebula Storm those many months ago. “Okay, than. Born of the power of Odin, wielding the force of the Nebula Storm, this is Mjölnir, Thor’s Hammer, short of handle, mighty in power. Thrown out into the solar system we both were, and now we return!”
The others clapped. “A good name indeed, General, A.J.,” she said. “And I think appropriate in another way.”
She unstrapped herself, feeling that Mjölnir was already rotating, and let the living quarters extend themselves outward. “We are also now a weapon.”