Gravity Read Free

set their return course.
    They were continuing downrange, still climbing to four hundred thousand feet as they dissipated fuel.
    Now she felt the dizzying spin as the orbiter began its pitcharound maneuver, rolling tail over nose. The horizon, which had been upside down, suddenly righted itself as they turned back toward Kennedy, almost four hundred miles away.
    “Endeavour, this is Control. Go for main engine cutoff.”
    “Roger,” responded Kittredge. “MECO now.” On the instrument panel, the three engine-status indicators suddenly flashed red. He had shut off the main engines, and in seconds, the external fuel tank would drop away into the sea.
    Altitude dropping fast, thought Emma. But we’re headed for home.
    She gave a start. A warning buzzed, and new panel lights flashed on the console.
    “Control, we’ve lost computer number three!” cried Hewitt. “We have lost a nav-state vector! Repeat, we’ve lost a nav-state vector!”
    “It could be an inertial-measurement malf,” said Andy Mercer, the other mission specialist seated beside Emma. “Take it off-line.”
    “No! It might be a broken data bus!” cut in Emma. “I say we engage the backup.”
    “Agreed,” snapped Kittredge.
    “Going to backup,” said Hewitt. She switched to computer number five.
    The vector reappeared. Every one heaved a sigh of relief.
    The burst of explosive charges signaled the separation of the empty fuel tank. They couldn’t see it fall away into the sea, but knew another crisis point had just passed. The orbiter was flying free now, a fat and awkward bird gliding homeward.
    Hewitt barked, “Shit! We’ve lost an APU!” Emma’s chin jerked up as a new buzzer sounded. An auxiliary power unit was out. Then another alarm screamed, and her gaze flew in panic to the consoles. A multitude of amber warning lights were flashing. On the video screens, all the data had vanished.
    Instead there were only ominous black and white stripes. A catastrophic computer failure. They were flying without navigation data. Without flap control.
    “Andy and I are on the APU malf!” yelled Emma.
    “Reengage backup!” Hewitt flicked the switch and cursed. “I’m getting no joy, guys. Nothing’s happening—”
    “Do it again!”
    “Still not reengaging.”
    “She’s banking!” cried Emma, and felt her stomach lurch sideways.
    Kittredge wrestled with the joystick, but they had already rolled too far starboard. The horizon reeled to vertical and upside down. Emma’s stomach lurched again as they spun right side up. The next rotation came faster, the horizon twisting in sickening whirl of sky and sea and sky.
    A death spiral.
    She heard Hewitt groan, heard Kittredge say, with flat resignation, “I’ve lost her.” Then the fatal spin accelerated, plunging to an abrupt and shocking end.
    There was only silence.
    An amused voice said over their comm units, “Sorry, guys. You didn’t make it that time.”
    Emma yanked off her headset. “That wasn’t fair, Hazel!” Jill Hewitt chimed in with a protesting, “Hey, you meant to kill us. There was no way to save it.” Emma was the first crew member to scramble out of the shuttle flight simulator. With the others right behind her, she marched into the windowless control room, where their three instructors at the row of consoles.
    Team Leader Hazel Barra, wearing a mischievous smile, swiveled around to face Commander Kittredge’s irate crew of four.
    Though Hazel looked like a buxom earth mother with her gloriously frizzy brown hair, she was, in truth, a ruthless gameplayer who ran her flight crews through the most difficult of simulations and seemed to count it as a victory whenever the crew failed to survive. Hazel was well aware of the fact that every launch could end in disaster, and she wanted her astronauts equipped with the to survive. Losing one of her teams was a nightmare she hoped never to face.
     
    “That really was below the belt, Hazel,” complained Kittredge.
    “Hey,