The European rocket lifted off from a base in South American about four weeks later. We were on the wrong side of the planet to see it, but we could reconfigure some of the cameras so that we could watch the launch using them. To us, it was the most important launch in human history. It was bringing us what we needed to survive for another year. It was food and some water and even a few luxuries . . . things that we had thought had been destroyed by the asteroid. It was even bringing some Snickers.
Guidance for the rocket was from a location in Europe and South America. I was surprised that they would go to the trouble to help just three people but they thought of us as heroes. We were the last of the astronauts, and probably would be for a half century. Other things had to be done before we could begin to step into space again.
I was in the radio room, and watching the rocket’s progress as it passed some of the satellites still in orbit and still working. We talked to the people on the ground who sounded just like those we knew in Houston except most of them spoke English with accents, a few so heavy that they were nearly incomprehensible. But they spoke English and their mission in life was to help us. To keep us alive.
The rocket climbed steadily, circling the Earth until it had passed us a couple of times. Then, using what computing capability was left on Earth, and with voice communications with us, the rocket was brought around until we saw it a mile from us, looking as if it was standing still.
As the rocket neared our docking bay, which was below the area torn out by Jason when he launched his shuttle, control was turned over to us. I was sitting at the console with what looked like an old-fashioned gamers joy stick. I could see, on the screen, the nose of the rocket, or what was the cargo carrying area, sort of the warhead. By moving the joy stick, I could cause small rockets to fire, pushing the rocket closer to us.
This was something that we had practiced before our launch so it wasn’t something completely unfamiliar to me. I just had to remember to keep the motions small and to be patient. Although we both were traveling very fast in relation to the Earth, but in relation to each other neither of us was moving very fast. It was all slow and steady.
Sarah and Sheila watched as I maneuvered the ship closer to us because they knew our salvation was on that ship. If I bungled the approach or crashed it into us, then we would be dead in minutes. We had come so far, and we had moved from despair to hope and I didn’t want it to end in a burst of energy as the rocket slammed into us and the last space effort ended in failure. If I landed it perfectly, then we would live on until a real rescue could be arranged. Maybe not everything we wanted would be on the ship, but we would be in much better shape than we had been in. We would have full rations again and we would have to watch the caloric count to make sure we didn’t over eat.
After nearly thirty minutes I felt a slight bump but didn’t know if that was the actual docking or something psychological. But the rocket was now attached to the station and food and other supplies were inside it. All we had to do was move it from the rocket to the station.
We had survived the asteroid.