Launch on Need by Daniel Guiteras (small books to read txt) 📗

in together. In just a glance he read their faces. They were alive with pride and ready to go.

Thomassan had a keen sense of character, a trait that had helped him tremendously with astronaut selection and mission assignments. He watched his one-woman, three-man rescue crew slowly snake their way toward his table. Astronauts are a funny bunch, he thought. When you talk to them, you can’t help but notice the way they radiate living. It’s in their speech, their walk, it is written on their faces. They flat out love their work. It’s never been about the money.

Thomassan stood to greet his rescue crew.

“Hey, Rivas,” Thomassan said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks again, Greg, glad to be here.”

“Mullen, welcome,” Thomassan said warmly, stepping out of the way so the astronauts could start sliding in around the U-shaped booth.

Terry Mullen reached out to shake Thomassan’s hand. “Thanks for the look, Greg.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

“Garrett. Any trouble finding the place?” Thomassan joked, referring to the three years that had passed since Garrett’s last mission.

“Found it just fine, Greg, thanks,” Garrett said, smiling at the crack. He released his handshake and moved closer to the booth. He noticed his best friend Mullen sliding into the booth, and doing everything he could not to touch the table or even the seating surfaces. It had nothing to do with the place or this particular booth. It was Mullen. He had a cleanliness compulsion that he was usually able to conceal in public, but Garrett guessed that launch anxiety had already set in, loosening the fasteners that held Mullen’s neuroses in check. Garrett slid in next to Mullen. “Cool it,” he said quietly to Mullen.

“The table’s gross, what am I supposed to do?”

“Just cool it,” Garrett repeated in a low tone. “You don’t want people thinkin’ you’re some kind of wack-job.” The two of them looked up as Avery arrived at the booth.

“Avery, thanks for accepting the assignment,” Thomassan said, almost sheepishly, as if meeting her for the first time and being struck by her confidence, smile, and dare he think it, her beauty. Avery stared at Thomassan as he shook her hand, her intense, green eyes burned into him. In that brief moment, Thomassan imagined her in some other setting, away from the amped-up persona she sustained to keep the boys in their place. He couldn’t keep from wondering about her softer side, one he sensed was present, a side she kept safely buried beneath countless layers of protection.

Avery sat on the left end of the booth, directly across from Thomassan, who was seated at the booth’s right end. Next to Avery was Rivas, then Garrett and Mullen.

“What can I get you to drink?” a waitress asked attentively once the astronauts were all seated.

“How about four more of whatever he’s drinking,” Rivas said, pointing to Thomassan’s schooner of beer. The crew agreed. Rivas was the only one seated at the table who was single, and he ordered as if well practiced—like it hadn’t been more than a few days since he had been at a similar bar with other friends.

“Four more Hefeweizens, be right back,” the waitress said.

Then one after another the astronauts all expressed feeling as if they’d won the lottery. They were convinced that the rescue mission, with all its hype, would propel their careers in incredible ways, ways they couldn’t even comprehend yet.

After the drinks arrived, the crew reminisced about previous missions they had shared, and talked about being selected for the rescue mission. Thomassan sat quietly, listening to the crew, painfully aware of why he really wanted to gather them tonight. It certainly wasn’t to congratulate them on having been selected for the rescue mission. He imagined himself 10 to 15 years younger and still a “practicing” astronaut. He wondered how he would have handled being chosen for such a high-profile mission, such a dangerous mission.

“Godspeed!” Thomassan said, raising his schooner for a toast. The crew raised their schooners as well. “Godspeed!” they repeated.

“We need to talk about a few things first,” Thomassan said, wrangling the crew’s attention, “that is, before we get to mission specifics and training schedules.”

“Is this the part where you tell us that rockets are dangerous?” Mullen said as he wiped the table in front of him with a cocktail napkin. Nervous laughter from the crew ensued.

“Well, actually you’re not too far off the mark, Mullen,” Thomassan said, showing a more serious face. “I’ve met with you all in this very place for previous missions, and those meetings focused mainly on mission specifics. But this rescue mission, well, it’s something none of us has any experience with. Atlantis could end up just like Columbia, damaged wing and all. We’ll be launching to the same orbital inclination as Columbia, so we still won’t have the ISS as a safe haven if something goes wrong during launch.”

“But that’s when we would launch Discovery though, right?” Rivas said, trying to lighten the moment. But Thomassan ignored the comment and continued.

“Your names have been released to the media. The world now knows which astronauts will comprise the rescue crew. But I want you to know, you still have an out. A simple phone call by me to the PAO gets you out. They can use any excuse you like—illness, previous commitments, whatever. Now, I know what you must be feeling; I’ve flown on the shuttle four times myself, as commander on my last two missions. You’re astronauts, so naturally your first reaction is, ‘Of course I want to do this, of course I want the rescue mission.’ But you must think about who you will leave behind in a worst-case scenario.”

What if something happens to me? Avery had given plenty of attention, possibly too much. Ever since the prospect of a rescue mission had surfaced, she’d been tormented by an inextinguishable battle of sentiments. Should she save her friends by commanding a once-in-a-lifetime rescue mission—a veritable astronaut’s dream—or listen to the maternal instincts that scolded her for not automatically