Free Velocity by Steve Worland Page A

focused on the job ahead. She cannot make any mistakes tonight. If Judd’s career has taught her anything it’s that you cannot afford mistakes. They don’t let people who make mistakes be first.
     
    First. First is her goal. At the age of thirty-nine, having already piloted one shuttle mission and about to command her second, Rhonda is perfectly positioned to be first.
     
    First on Mars.
     
    With the shuttle fleet set to be mothballed within two years, NASA planned to send a manned mission to Mars within fifteen. Of course no launch date had been set and there wasn’t funding in place, but she was working towards the goal as if it were set in stone.
     
    She doesn’t want to be first for glory or kudos. She thinks, as Neil Armstrong did forty years ago, that dealing with fame is a waste of time and energy. No, she wants to be first because she believes that reaching Mars is the single most important challenge facing humankind. She’s convinced humanity needs an event bigger than itself to focus on, to force it to consider the greater universe rather than petty regional issues. She hopes the sheer effort necessary to reach another planet will be that event. And, after careful consideration, she thinks she’s the best person to lead the mission.
     
    Rhonda knows she has the skill set, the leadership qualities and the disposition to do it right. She just has to make sure the powers that be know it too. So that means no mistakes. She can’t let anything divert her attention from the job at hand. Like Judd.
     
    She turns and her eyes find Martie Burnett on the opposite side of the room. The payload specialist for this mission, Martie is a tall southerner with flowing auburn hair and a strong, chiselled face. She looks thirty-five but is actually forty-four. Martie widens her eyes to say ‘hey there’. She’s Rhonda’s best friend in the program and, as Rhonda doesn’t have a life outside the program, that makes her Rhonda’s best friend, full stop. Rhonda hasn’t told Martie about the break up with Judd because she finds the whole thing not-wearing-underpants-when-your-skirt-blows-up embarrassing. The fact that the two women had first bonded by sharing NASA personnel gossip didn’t help matters. She’ll tell Martie once the mission is completed, including the truth about why she left. As annoyed as she was about Judd coming to Thompkins’ home, that wasn’t why she moved out. There was another reason, something that had been playing on her mind for a while —
     
    Stop it. She’s doing it again, thinking about the wrong stuff. She pulls in a deep breath, blinks hard and forces herself to focus on the job she must do tonight.
     
    **
     
     
     
    7
     
     
    Henri grabs the handle and yanks the door open. He leans into the roaring wind and looks down at the slate-grey clouds, illuminated by a three-quarter moon. Through a break he can make out the Atlantic ocean, twinkling 34000 feet below.
     
    The icy wind doesn’t affect him. A matte-black helmet, a head-to-toe triple-layer Nomex suit and thermal gloves keep out the cold. He takes a deep breath from the oxygen mask strapped over his mouth and nose, connected to a canister on his hip. He checks the backlit screen of the small, circular GPS unit attached to his chest. They’re almost in position.
     
    He takes in his team. Dirk and Nico and Cobbin, then further along the fuselage Tam and Gerald, all dressed as he is. He speaks into a microphone located within the oxygen mask. ‘Big Bird, it’s time.’
     
    Big Bird sits at the controls of the Canadian-built Twin Otter aircraft. His response crackles in their helmet headsets: ‘Ready when you are.’
     
    Henri’s eyes flick to the GPS unit. He studies the information that blinks and changes on the screen, then looks at his GMT-Master and waits for the sweep hand to pass twelve, for ten p.m. exactly.
     
    ‘Go.’ Henri steps out of the aircraft and the others follow in quick succession. The