LIGHTSPEED PIONEERS: STAR OF WONDER
Written by Lee Fanning
|
Cadets Kent and Jonah are off to Saturn's largest moon, Titan, for a program-sanctioned routine maintenance mission-- where they land into some trouble. They'll need to rely on their training-- and maybe even a Christmas miracle-- to get out of this one!
HOW THIS ADVENTURE MAKES YOU SMARTERSCIENCE
HISTORY
|
|
Down! The lander jabs and crackles into the vibrant icy terrain, shrugging an encumbered weight in a manner better fit for a homecoming. A large, angry drill at the columnar structure’s base tears with a terrible whine, gnarling the ice and stone as it settles into the earth beneath-- well, not exactly “earth”-- but the drill doesn’t distinguish the alien soil of Titan as anything particularly different than that of home. The drill just does its job, and secures the lander craft-- a codenamed “Corkscrew” due its similar appearance-- into a snug foundation from where later the upper stage will erupt with enough thrust to escape gravitational pull. But suddenly the whine sharpens-- the drill chokes-- the craft bucks wild before its hull sparks bright and vivid like Christmas lights-- until finally slumping in a powering-down drone.
Jonah-- the commander-- is the first out of the hatch, sheltered from the sub-300 degree temperatures of Saturn’s largest moon in his lean, armored space suit, regulation for all cadets in the LightSpeed Pioneers program. He bounds-- Titan’s gravity is roughly 14% of Earth’s-- pivoting deftly as he stops to scrutinize the Corkscrew’s lower stage. He moves too sharply and almost slips, recovering himself not-so-nonchalantly. |
Kent-- burdened slumped shoulders obvious despite his armor’s rigid spine-- follows his commander, if more slowly.
“We felt that pop,” Jonah begins. “Mighta’ worked the drill too hard. Maybe struck something it couldn’t eat through.”
“I’m-- it’s, my fault Jonah, I’m sorry--” Kent manages.
“Don’t be sorry,” Jonah dismisses, a comforting smile softening the blow. “Just help me make sure this ravioli can can still get off the ground.”
They’re teens, thin and agile. Jonah’s a bit brawnier, a bit paler, while Kent’s tan skin carries the lineage of indigenous Chippewa. With a swift wipe of his right hand above his left wrist, Kent summons a holographic GUI, which spread like a spider-web between five fingers, he flicks in one motion, spinning the hologram over the lander. The upper stage is consumed in a sudden holographic skeleton of its inner workings, while system functionality diagnostics populate rapidly with affirmations.
“Power, all systems go. Communications array, go. Navigation and trajectory, go. Life support…” Jonah nods along as Kent calls the logs.
“Seems we’re all right,” Jonah eventually shrugs. He closes the hatch, before a peripheral glance halts him. His chest relaxes, he blinks in awe-- for the first time, actually seeing the wondrous frozen world around him. Kent softly turns in tow, and the pair stand side by side.
“Wow,” Jonah manages. He nods towards a mountain ridge some hundreds of kilometers away, taller than Everest. Kent nods in a quiet wonder.
“Commander to Centauri. Commander to Centauri!”
Garbled static, that’s all. Jonah and Kent crunch in bouncing strides along the golden-tinged tundra, its alien color stemming from the moon’s hazy, methane-rich atmosphere. “The path loss in this fog is no joke-- it’s killing the coms,” Jonah confesses, chuckling over the obvious. “I reckon maybe that’s why they sent us here to fix the relay. Gina? Yo Gina?! Gah!” He wipes frustratedly over the wrist mounted com, ending the hailing RF. “Just have to wait ‘til we’re done, I guess.”
This time Kent doesn’t even nod. Jonah doesn’t seem to notice anyway, as the duo trudge forward, silently, mission-bound.
What feels like an hour later they reach the communications relay, a colossal mechanical spike screeching out from the golden frost. It’s essentially an amplifier, catapulting signals in this part of the solar system back towards Earth. Kent’s repairs are swift and quiet, and Jonah follows with a renewed attempt for the orbiter.
“Gina! Gina, this is Jonah, do you copy?”
Still nothing, and Kent offers: “Won’t work. Twelve hours until the relay is functional. The Corkscrew’s antennas are designed much better-- they’ll be able to reach, when we get back.”
“Then let’s go home!” Jonah bounds to point and leaps in enthusiastic steps-- before blankly halting and angling back wearily at the plodding Communications Specialist.
“Coming?” Jonah barks, almost shouting from the distance though they communicate through coms. Kent responds with an unconcerned grimace.
“Something the matter?” Jonah calls.
“That’s quite an assumption,” Kent says, annoyed.
“How?”
“Just because I’m not skipping you think something’s wrong with me.”
“No, I think something’s wrong with you because you always act like there’s something wrong with you.”
Kent glares at the jab.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry-- but for a guy whose squad is due two weeks on Earth for Christmas R&R the second we get back to New-Geo, you’re sure a Charlie Brown.”
Kent just barely shrugs, plods along. But this time that’s not good enough for Jonah.
“Gotta give me more than that.”
“Is that an order, Commander?”
“Why not?”
“Because that order would break about four different cadet confidentiality policies and leave you open to all manner of legal actions--”
“Yeah, it’s an order.” Jonah crosses his arms.
Kent rolls his eyes. He gazes off to the wild, winter wonderland.
“Earth sucks.”
Jonah lowers his arms, genuinely struck.
“It’s dirty, and crowded, and noisy, and selfish, and bitter, and angry, and violent. It’s the story of hate and bad ideas. The First-Gens at Armstrong are the lucky ones. Real-life Martians. From another world. No guilt.”
Jonah considers, following Kent’s gaze to the icy terrain. This time he doesn’t respond. Kent sits down, arms around his knees, and looks out.
“Obviously, that’s-- that’s hyperbole, I don’t really mean all that-- at least not quite like that, but-- Earth, doesn’t have anything left to offer me.”
“Something happen?” Jonah finally asks. “Your family--”
“They’re fine. It’s not-- I’m not a trauma case, all right?” he bites. Jonah holds up his hands in surrender. Kent shakes his head.
“It’s just sometimes all I can see is the worst parts. And they outshine everything.”
Back inside the Corkscrew lander, the two cadets quietly prepare for launch. Jonah toggles controls on his colorful holographic dash.
“Centauri, this is Corkscrew! Gina? Gina!?” Jonah slumps back. “What the heck?”
A garbled, pixelated roar suddenly responds-- this time offering the faint touch of a human voice-- but still nothing resembling a useful communication.
“Shouldn’t this work by now?” Jonah eyes Kent, who, making a face, nods. Kent concentrates on his own holographic dash-- before grasping a section with his fingers and examining it closer.
“Unless….” He mumbles it to himself. He flicks the hologram above him, which spreads widely through the chamber, the holographic webwork shimmering in bright colors all around them as they search for the culprit. Kent suddenly notices a flashing red pinprick at the base of the craft’s primary communication connector.
And it’s fried. Kent had missed it before.
“Guess those fireworks did do some damage,” Jonah laments. Kent heaves a breath, shakes his head.
“I’m sorry--”
“Don’t be sorry-- think we can fix it?”
Kent shakes his head.
“Well-- can we just lock on their beacon and do it silent--?”
Kent shakes his head harder. “The damaged connector pings the beacon.”
“Meaning there’s no way to intercept their orbit to dock,” Jonah sighs. “And if we get lost in orbit-- we could be stuck there longer than we have air.” He’s matter-of-fact, assessing their options out loud, but Kent can’t help but cringe. This was his fault. He’s silent in a crisis-- Jonah plots aloud.
“What’ll we do? Maybe-- a distress call? Centauri surely would get that-- send a Pioneers evac team. Except we don’t even have enough time for that, do we? Even with our suits’ air? No-- good chance we run out of power and freeze to death.” He stops and glances out the porthole at Titan, now appearing more formidable and aggressive than before. Kent glances curiously, but doesn’t speak. Jonah waits, almost nudging Kent to actually say something verbal-- but then relents.
“Well. You wanted to live in another world.”
An hour later, Jonah toggles the power scopes. It isn’t the first time-- he’s done it every few minutes the last half-hour. “We’ve got about ten minutes before we’ve bled too much power to launch.” He motions his holographic dash, silencing their distress call. Kent, pulled from his silent lurch, eyes him.
“Why’d you do that?”
“If they’re gonna hear us, they already have by now. And it won’t save us much power, but it’s the last non-essential system I can kill. Trajectory, atmospheric sensors, launch guidance-- not enough power left to run any of ‘em.”
Kent shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Jonah.”
“Don’t be sorry, Kent. Never be sorry. For anything that happens, or happened, or happened seven centuries ago--! Never be sorry.” Jonah sighs, tries to swallow the rest of the frustration.
Kent considers a long moment. He nods quietly the way Kent nods quietly. He can do nothing but look back out the porthole window-- to the star-filled heavens.
Then-- suddenly, sharply-- his eyes widen.
He slaps open a nearby compartment and removes-- of all things-- a pencil and pad of paper. Jonah doesn’t notice at first-- but as Kent begins to write furiously, he sees him.
“Turn the distress signal back on,” Kent says.
“Why?”
Kent just glares before returning to his frantic work.
“Hey, you don’t get to give orders. So why?”
Kent relents in a way, but does not stop his work. “Because they’re gonna need it to dock us.”
“You wanna launch? With no power left to run any of our guidance systems. You wanna eyeball it?!”
“No. I want to plot it. Apollo-style.”
“Apollo-style?”
“Earth. 20th Century--”
“Kent, I freaking know the Apollo moon missions--”
“Jonah, we’ve got more computing power in our urine purifying system than NASA had in the entire Apollo Guidance Computer. So they did a lot by hand. And as their descendants, so can we. All I need is to plot Centauri’s orbit-- and our trajectory to intercept-- to get close enough for them to spot us. With the distress signal giving our location, they can take over from there.”
“You can estimate where they are? Where they’ll be? Aren’t you just a com specialist?”
Kent marks strong lines on his page.
“Physics is physics. And yes-- we know their orbit, because we know where we were when we dropped. Now, all I need is....”
Kent stands and, pushing past Jonah, looks up through the porthole window.
“What?” Jonah asks.
Kent touches a control on his right glove-- black paint sprays in a tight mist onto the glass. With sharp, quick movements, he plots a crude, circular scope, with key numbers noted around its circumference a full 360 degrees.
“What’re you targeting?” Jonah asks.
Kent nods at the most obvious, brightest, twinkling speck in Titan’s dark heavens, which is right at the center of his target.
“Whatever star that is.”
WWWWHHHHUUUURRRRR!!!!
“Okay, power levels say we gotta move-- now or never, Kent!” Jonah shouts over the purring second stage, though it’s still unnecessary over his suit’s com. Kent grimaces as he acutely adjusts his volume control before responding.
“Roger. Ready boss. Just make your corrections to my calculations. I’ll shout them real time.”
“Copy. Systems up-- count in-- 10!”
Jonah makes his calls; he toggles and clicks and shouts off and checks and double checks. Kent closes his eyes-- before opening them with a new, guiltless determination.
“Main engine engage. 2-- 1-- Ignition!”
BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!
“Lift off!”
ROOOOOAAAARRRRR!!!!
Kent’s focus is ferocious.
“6 degrees latitude-- 2 degrees longitude!” he shouts.
“Copy!” as Jonah corrects. He watches the golden horizon recede. Kent doesn’t see anything but that star.
“2 longitude-- 6.06 latitude!”
“Copy!”
“.09 longitude-- .3 latitude.”
“Copy!”
The ship bucks in turbulence as the heavens give way to the galaxy beyond.
“15 seconds to atmospheric breach!” Jonah shouts.
“.2 degrees longitude, .7 degrees latitude!”
“We are exiting atmosphere!”
“.03 long! .02 lat!”
“Hold on-- it’s-- I got a visual!!! I got a visual on Centauri!!! Gina-- can you hear me?!?”
“.01 longitude, .3 latitude!”
“Copy Commander!” Her voice crackles through loud and clear. “Thought you boys decided to stay?”
“Cost of living is just insane. I want a family someday!” Jonah quips back.
“Stop clogging the RF Commander,” another voice, Bao’s, chimes in with a teasing scowl. “We’re locked in for intercept and beginning docking procedure. You know-- saving your butts.”
Jonah screams triumphantly, his shoulders collapsing back in relief. Kent doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word. He looks back at the star in his scope-- and smiles.
Back on the orbiter, Kent fixates quietly on the view outside the circular port window in the ship’s small briefing chamber. Dressed now simply in his blue and gold flight suit, he watches the Milky Way’s stars twinkle in the void.
The door slides open as Jonah, in an identical flight suit, enters with the rest of Centauri Squad-- pilot Gina, navigator Bao and engineer Kaycee. In contrast to Kent, they are anything but silent-- their celebrations-- of survival, of homecoming, of Christmas-- spill into the quiet chamber. But for now, Kent doesn’t mind.
“How about you, Walker?” Bao asks an orphaned question. Kent looks at him. “You heading back home? Toronto, right?”
“They’re having a white Christmas this year,” Kaycee chimes in. “I just checked.”
Kent doesn’t say anything, but in a different way than usual. Jonah notices.
“Kent, uh-- Kent’s gonna enjoy his time off. Now come on, we actually still gotta get home first--”
“What star did you use, Kent?” It’s Gina who interrupts.
“Huh?” Kent asks, turning.
“To plot your course? Was a perfect pick-- I barely had to correct to you at all.”
“I’m not sure.” He lingers a moment with a port window gaze, then spots it and points. “That one.”
Gina swivels to a nearby control stand, waking a holographic GUI. She lifts it with both hands and throws it onto the large port window. Suddenly, the starfield is graphed out and itemized in colorful lights.
Jonah sees it first. Then the others. Then Kent. And no one says a word.
Because it wasn’t a star that led them. That gleaming light was the Earth.
And Kent wishes he knew what to say.
“We felt that pop,” Jonah begins. “Mighta’ worked the drill too hard. Maybe struck something it couldn’t eat through.”
“I’m-- it’s, my fault Jonah, I’m sorry--” Kent manages.
“Don’t be sorry,” Jonah dismisses, a comforting smile softening the blow. “Just help me make sure this ravioli can can still get off the ground.”
They’re teens, thin and agile. Jonah’s a bit brawnier, a bit paler, while Kent’s tan skin carries the lineage of indigenous Chippewa. With a swift wipe of his right hand above his left wrist, Kent summons a holographic GUI, which spread like a spider-web between five fingers, he flicks in one motion, spinning the hologram over the lander. The upper stage is consumed in a sudden holographic skeleton of its inner workings, while system functionality diagnostics populate rapidly with affirmations.
“Power, all systems go. Communications array, go. Navigation and trajectory, go. Life support…” Jonah nods along as Kent calls the logs.
“Seems we’re all right,” Jonah eventually shrugs. He closes the hatch, before a peripheral glance halts him. His chest relaxes, he blinks in awe-- for the first time, actually seeing the wondrous frozen world around him. Kent softly turns in tow, and the pair stand side by side.
“Wow,” Jonah manages. He nods towards a mountain ridge some hundreds of kilometers away, taller than Everest. Kent nods in a quiet wonder.
“Commander to Centauri. Commander to Centauri!”
Garbled static, that’s all. Jonah and Kent crunch in bouncing strides along the golden-tinged tundra, its alien color stemming from the moon’s hazy, methane-rich atmosphere. “The path loss in this fog is no joke-- it’s killing the coms,” Jonah confesses, chuckling over the obvious. “I reckon maybe that’s why they sent us here to fix the relay. Gina? Yo Gina?! Gah!” He wipes frustratedly over the wrist mounted com, ending the hailing RF. “Just have to wait ‘til we’re done, I guess.”
This time Kent doesn’t even nod. Jonah doesn’t seem to notice anyway, as the duo trudge forward, silently, mission-bound.
What feels like an hour later they reach the communications relay, a colossal mechanical spike screeching out from the golden frost. It’s essentially an amplifier, catapulting signals in this part of the solar system back towards Earth. Kent’s repairs are swift and quiet, and Jonah follows with a renewed attempt for the orbiter.
“Gina! Gina, this is Jonah, do you copy?”
Still nothing, and Kent offers: “Won’t work. Twelve hours until the relay is functional. The Corkscrew’s antennas are designed much better-- they’ll be able to reach, when we get back.”
“Then let’s go home!” Jonah bounds to point and leaps in enthusiastic steps-- before blankly halting and angling back wearily at the plodding Communications Specialist.
“Coming?” Jonah barks, almost shouting from the distance though they communicate through coms. Kent responds with an unconcerned grimace.
“Something the matter?” Jonah calls.
“That’s quite an assumption,” Kent says, annoyed.
“How?”
“Just because I’m not skipping you think something’s wrong with me.”
“No, I think something’s wrong with you because you always act like there’s something wrong with you.”
Kent glares at the jab.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry-- but for a guy whose squad is due two weeks on Earth for Christmas R&R the second we get back to New-Geo, you’re sure a Charlie Brown.”
Kent just barely shrugs, plods along. But this time that’s not good enough for Jonah.
“Gotta give me more than that.”
“Is that an order, Commander?”
“Why not?”
“Because that order would break about four different cadet confidentiality policies and leave you open to all manner of legal actions--”
“Yeah, it’s an order.” Jonah crosses his arms.
Kent rolls his eyes. He gazes off to the wild, winter wonderland.
“Earth sucks.”
Jonah lowers his arms, genuinely struck.
“It’s dirty, and crowded, and noisy, and selfish, and bitter, and angry, and violent. It’s the story of hate and bad ideas. The First-Gens at Armstrong are the lucky ones. Real-life Martians. From another world. No guilt.”
Jonah considers, following Kent’s gaze to the icy terrain. This time he doesn’t respond. Kent sits down, arms around his knees, and looks out.
“Obviously, that’s-- that’s hyperbole, I don’t really mean all that-- at least not quite like that, but-- Earth, doesn’t have anything left to offer me.”
“Something happen?” Jonah finally asks. “Your family--”
“They’re fine. It’s not-- I’m not a trauma case, all right?” he bites. Jonah holds up his hands in surrender. Kent shakes his head.
“It’s just sometimes all I can see is the worst parts. And they outshine everything.”
Back inside the Corkscrew lander, the two cadets quietly prepare for launch. Jonah toggles controls on his colorful holographic dash.
“Centauri, this is Corkscrew! Gina? Gina!?” Jonah slumps back. “What the heck?”
A garbled, pixelated roar suddenly responds-- this time offering the faint touch of a human voice-- but still nothing resembling a useful communication.
“Shouldn’t this work by now?” Jonah eyes Kent, who, making a face, nods. Kent concentrates on his own holographic dash-- before grasping a section with his fingers and examining it closer.
“Unless….” He mumbles it to himself. He flicks the hologram above him, which spreads widely through the chamber, the holographic webwork shimmering in bright colors all around them as they search for the culprit. Kent suddenly notices a flashing red pinprick at the base of the craft’s primary communication connector.
And it’s fried. Kent had missed it before.
“Guess those fireworks did do some damage,” Jonah laments. Kent heaves a breath, shakes his head.
“I’m sorry--”
“Don’t be sorry-- think we can fix it?”
Kent shakes his head.
“Well-- can we just lock on their beacon and do it silent--?”
Kent shakes his head harder. “The damaged connector pings the beacon.”
“Meaning there’s no way to intercept their orbit to dock,” Jonah sighs. “And if we get lost in orbit-- we could be stuck there longer than we have air.” He’s matter-of-fact, assessing their options out loud, but Kent can’t help but cringe. This was his fault. He’s silent in a crisis-- Jonah plots aloud.
“What’ll we do? Maybe-- a distress call? Centauri surely would get that-- send a Pioneers evac team. Except we don’t even have enough time for that, do we? Even with our suits’ air? No-- good chance we run out of power and freeze to death.” He stops and glances out the porthole at Titan, now appearing more formidable and aggressive than before. Kent glances curiously, but doesn’t speak. Jonah waits, almost nudging Kent to actually say something verbal-- but then relents.
“Well. You wanted to live in another world.”
An hour later, Jonah toggles the power scopes. It isn’t the first time-- he’s done it every few minutes the last half-hour. “We’ve got about ten minutes before we’ve bled too much power to launch.” He motions his holographic dash, silencing their distress call. Kent, pulled from his silent lurch, eyes him.
“Why’d you do that?”
“If they’re gonna hear us, they already have by now. And it won’t save us much power, but it’s the last non-essential system I can kill. Trajectory, atmospheric sensors, launch guidance-- not enough power left to run any of ‘em.”
Kent shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Jonah.”
“Don’t be sorry, Kent. Never be sorry. For anything that happens, or happened, or happened seven centuries ago--! Never be sorry.” Jonah sighs, tries to swallow the rest of the frustration.
Kent considers a long moment. He nods quietly the way Kent nods quietly. He can do nothing but look back out the porthole window-- to the star-filled heavens.
Then-- suddenly, sharply-- his eyes widen.
He slaps open a nearby compartment and removes-- of all things-- a pencil and pad of paper. Jonah doesn’t notice at first-- but as Kent begins to write furiously, he sees him.
“Turn the distress signal back on,” Kent says.
“Why?”
Kent just glares before returning to his frantic work.
“Hey, you don’t get to give orders. So why?”
Kent relents in a way, but does not stop his work. “Because they’re gonna need it to dock us.”
“You wanna launch? With no power left to run any of our guidance systems. You wanna eyeball it?!”
“No. I want to plot it. Apollo-style.”
“Apollo-style?”
“Earth. 20th Century--”
“Kent, I freaking know the Apollo moon missions--”
“Jonah, we’ve got more computing power in our urine purifying system than NASA had in the entire Apollo Guidance Computer. So they did a lot by hand. And as their descendants, so can we. All I need is to plot Centauri’s orbit-- and our trajectory to intercept-- to get close enough for them to spot us. With the distress signal giving our location, they can take over from there.”
“You can estimate where they are? Where they’ll be? Aren’t you just a com specialist?”
Kent marks strong lines on his page.
“Physics is physics. And yes-- we know their orbit, because we know where we were when we dropped. Now, all I need is....”
Kent stands and, pushing past Jonah, looks up through the porthole window.
“What?” Jonah asks.
Kent touches a control on his right glove-- black paint sprays in a tight mist onto the glass. With sharp, quick movements, he plots a crude, circular scope, with key numbers noted around its circumference a full 360 degrees.
“What’re you targeting?” Jonah asks.
Kent nods at the most obvious, brightest, twinkling speck in Titan’s dark heavens, which is right at the center of his target.
“Whatever star that is.”
WWWWHHHHUUUURRRRR!!!!
“Okay, power levels say we gotta move-- now or never, Kent!” Jonah shouts over the purring second stage, though it’s still unnecessary over his suit’s com. Kent grimaces as he acutely adjusts his volume control before responding.
“Roger. Ready boss. Just make your corrections to my calculations. I’ll shout them real time.”
“Copy. Systems up-- count in-- 10!”
Jonah makes his calls; he toggles and clicks and shouts off and checks and double checks. Kent closes his eyes-- before opening them with a new, guiltless determination.
“Main engine engage. 2-- 1-- Ignition!”
BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!
“Lift off!”
ROOOOOAAAARRRRR!!!!
Kent’s focus is ferocious.
“6 degrees latitude-- 2 degrees longitude!” he shouts.
“Copy!” as Jonah corrects. He watches the golden horizon recede. Kent doesn’t see anything but that star.
“2 longitude-- 6.06 latitude!”
“Copy!”
“.09 longitude-- .3 latitude.”
“Copy!”
The ship bucks in turbulence as the heavens give way to the galaxy beyond.
“15 seconds to atmospheric breach!” Jonah shouts.
“.2 degrees longitude, .7 degrees latitude!”
“We are exiting atmosphere!”
“.03 long! .02 lat!”
“Hold on-- it’s-- I got a visual!!! I got a visual on Centauri!!! Gina-- can you hear me?!?”
“.01 longitude, .3 latitude!”
“Copy Commander!” Her voice crackles through loud and clear. “Thought you boys decided to stay?”
“Cost of living is just insane. I want a family someday!” Jonah quips back.
“Stop clogging the RF Commander,” another voice, Bao’s, chimes in with a teasing scowl. “We’re locked in for intercept and beginning docking procedure. You know-- saving your butts.”
Jonah screams triumphantly, his shoulders collapsing back in relief. Kent doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word. He looks back at the star in his scope-- and smiles.
Back on the orbiter, Kent fixates quietly on the view outside the circular port window in the ship’s small briefing chamber. Dressed now simply in his blue and gold flight suit, he watches the Milky Way’s stars twinkle in the void.
The door slides open as Jonah, in an identical flight suit, enters with the rest of Centauri Squad-- pilot Gina, navigator Bao and engineer Kaycee. In contrast to Kent, they are anything but silent-- their celebrations-- of survival, of homecoming, of Christmas-- spill into the quiet chamber. But for now, Kent doesn’t mind.
“How about you, Walker?” Bao asks an orphaned question. Kent looks at him. “You heading back home? Toronto, right?”
“They’re having a white Christmas this year,” Kaycee chimes in. “I just checked.”
Kent doesn’t say anything, but in a different way than usual. Jonah notices.
“Kent, uh-- Kent’s gonna enjoy his time off. Now come on, we actually still gotta get home first--”
“What star did you use, Kent?” It’s Gina who interrupts.
“Huh?” Kent asks, turning.
“To plot your course? Was a perfect pick-- I barely had to correct to you at all.”
“I’m not sure.” He lingers a moment with a port window gaze, then spots it and points. “That one.”
Gina swivels to a nearby control stand, waking a holographic GUI. She lifts it with both hands and throws it onto the large port window. Suddenly, the starfield is graphed out and itemized in colorful lights.
Jonah sees it first. Then the others. Then Kent. And no one says a word.
Because it wasn’t a star that led them. That gleaming light was the Earth.
And Kent wishes he knew what to say.
DID YOU KNOW?
NASA Engineers really did have to plot by hand many of the physics involved in all of their early missions, including missions to the moon. NASA Astronauts also had to do many of their jobs manually because the computer onboard the Apollo command and service module-- the module used for all of NASA’s moon missions-- had about one million times less computing power than your smartphone does in your pocket!
DISCUSSION QUESTION
Wintertime can be difficult. The weather’s cold, there’s less sunlight each day, and because of these and other factors, it can affect your mood, like how it seemingly affects Kent in this story. Winter weather can even in some cases lead to actual depression, including for those who suffer from Seasonal affective disorder. But even if you or your friends aren’t dealing with depression, it’s still easy to feel down or sad in the wintertime. Talk or write about a time you felt sad in the winter, and try to explore why you felt the way you felt. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with feeling sad-- but it’s also an opportunity to learn something about yourself!
EXPLORE MORE
|
heroes featured
Kent Walker
|
Jonah Ray
|
MORE FROM THIS SERIES
|
