2

2145 GMT
DISCOVERY

Space was silent, which made the slowly unfolding panorama of the blue earth all the more majestic for Paul Thoreau.

Discovery was above and behind the disabled surveillance satellite. Her payload doors were in the open position, the heat reflectors deployed. The open bay was pointed earthward.

Susan Wright had moved them into a matching orbit with controlled burns of the orbital maneuvering system engines, while Wirtanen and Conners waited for the go-ahead to suit up. They would make the EVA for the repair mission, which meant that Dr. Ellis was only a passenger until the repairs were completed and they went on to the space station.

He hung upside down beneath the upper bay port side window in the overhead, while Thoreau watched from the starboard window. Ellis used a Hasselblad camera to take some stunning photographs of the satellite against the backdrop of the mid-Atlantic ocean.

The sky was relatively clear for this time of year, but a dozen jet airliner contrails crisscrossed the ocean between the U.S. and Europe and North Africa.

Each orbit took approximately ninety minutes to complete. In one and a half orbits from now, Conners and Wirtanen would be suited up and outside. They would be two hundred and fifty miles above the Bay of Bengal.

Everyone aboard was tense.

“Can you spot any damage?” Thoreau asked.

Ellis was shooting the slowly tumbling satellite through a 100mm telephoto lens. It was like looking at the wounded bird through a small telescope. “Nothing yet,” he said.

“They probably hit one of the guidance modules in the center bay. Just inboard of the solar panels.”

Discovery was about two hundred meters out, giving them a perfect view.

He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. Certainly not blast damage. Even accounting for the distance, and the relatively low power of a laser portable enough to be carried aboard a small submarine, the beam would not have been very wide here. The damage would be the size of a pinprick compared to the six-ton satellite that was nearly the length of a school bus and almost as big around.

The Jupiter was tumbling at a rate of only a couple of turns per minute. Still, it was hard to brace himself in weighlessness so that he could steady the camera.

Then he had it.

A small blackened spot, maybe a meter or a little less from the junction of one of the solar panel wings that spread thirty meters to either side.

“I see it,” Ellis said, firing off photographs as fast as the camera’s motorized drive would take them.

“I’ve got it too,” Thoreau said. He used a pair of 10X50 binoculars. “Inboard from the port solar panel.”

“Inside the U.”

“That’s it,” Thoreau said. He turned around and handed the binoculars to Conners, who gracefully drifted to the window and braced himself for a look.

He had to wait for the Jupiter to slowly turn around, and he raised the binoculars to his eyes. “Got it,” he said, studying the damage. “They hit the beta package. About what we figured.”

“Stand by, I’m going to get us closer,” Susan Wright said.

They all reached out and grabbed a handhold.

She alternately hit short bursts on the attitude control thrusters, jockeying the shuttle into a position close enough for the remote manipulator arm to reach.

She took her hands off the controls and looked up. “Zero relative velocity. We’re in position.”

“Nice touch,” Thoreau complimented her.

Susan Wright unbuckled from her seat and pushed herself up next to Ellis so that she could look out the upper window. “Cool,” she said. She glanced over at Conners. “Wanna trade jobs, Rod?”

Conners gave her a grin. “Not a chance, Mouse. That’s my ride out there.”