Touchdown

Touchdown

Story Post for October, 2016

Originally printed in Roar, Volumn 3

10,965 words

God I am so so behind on posting full stories. But, here's one I hope you all enjoy. It's a stand alone science fiction story about exploration and those moments of transition, where one era ends and another. Moments that history will remember forever, whether it be liftoff, touchdown, or disaster.

***

Everyone was speaking in hushed tones as they waited in the predawn darkness. There were a few coughs and the shuffling of paws as people shifted their weight, but no one was willing to disturb the silence as they waited in the chilly wind coming off the lake. The crowd here was big. Several hundred furs had gathered at this spot alongside the edge of the water. There were even a few media crews here just to film the crowd, but their footage wouldn't win any awards. The mood of was a somber anticipation of people waiting for something important. There was no denying the significance, because today was the last time anyone would see a space shuttle being launched. This was the last mission, and the area along the water was full of the dedicated dreamers. These were the furs that couldn't get tickets to the VIP areas, or even the bleachers, but had come to witness this any way they could. In silence and darkness, everyone focused on the towering structure across the lake or off to one side where a big lighted sign counted down the time slowly to zero.

Then at 6:21 am exactly, there was a flash of light at the base of the tower which grew so bright it turned the night into day. For just a moment, everyone watching could make out the majestic form of the US Space Shuttle Constellation on its launch pad before the light grew so intensely it prevented the crowd from seeing anything but the light itself. With one voice the crowd burst into cheers, and every head turned upward as the space shuttle lifted off into the sky. The silence broken, the crowd began howling, whistling, and crying out in triumph, waving their arms and wagging their tails in celebration as the huge ball of light filled the sky with a swirl of color and light. Many of the watchers were even crying.

Then the sound of the rocket hit the crowd like a wave, drowning out the cheers with a thunderous roaring. Much of the crowd covered their ears, especially the species with sensitive hearing, but they kept their eyes open, trying to catch another glimpse of the shuttle above the light of its engines. The boom of the engines continued, becoming a rumbling, crackling burn in the distance as the massive rocket rose into the sky like an ascending star.

Joseph Ryans didn't look away or cover his ears, but kept the hand held video camera he carried trained on the rising light. The gray and white husky stood at the edge of the lake, his eyes never leaving the space shuttle as it disappeared into the clouds and into history. The crowd around him was breaking up in celebration, but he didn't want to miss even a moment of this. Joseph stood there filming until the five minute mark had passed and the shuttle crew was actually in space, suppressing the urge to wag so he wouldn’t mess up the shot. The light from the shuttle’s engines grew smaller and smaller, eventually became impossible to see as anything other then a point of light in the night sky as it left the earth's atmosphere. Joseph said a little prayer for her crew. The Constellation’s mission wasn’t especially dangerous; they were simply recovering several scientific satellites that needed to be brought back to Earth before the shuttle program ended, but no space mission was without risk.

Then, the husky turned the camera on himself, grinning as he spoke into the microphone. “Well Paul that was the space shuttle Constellation taking off at 6:21 on May 24th, 2024, the very last shuttle launch ever. I wish you could have been here it, but I doubt you would trade places with me right now. See you when you land tonight.”

Joseph sighed as he turned off the camera and packed it away carefully in his shoulder bag. It was true really; there was no way that his best friend Paul Dawson would have ever swapped places with him. The big Doberman was, after all, actually in outer space right now. Paul was hurtling away from the Earth as commander on the first manned mission to Mars. That was the only way Paul had ever missed a shuttle launch, by actually being on a space mission himself. He and Joseph had watched every shuttle launch together since they were eight, most of them from the husky’s back yard. You could see a shuttle launch from almost anywhere on the Cape, but Joseph’s back yard faced the space center much more directly than Paul’s house down the street had. Being an astronaut was a dream come true for the Doberman. It had been Joseph’s dream too, until the technical and design side of things had proven to be more his ability.

Two decades ago, they had both joined the NASA space program right out of college. It had been the natural career path for two science obsessed dogs who wanted to see the stars. Paul’s build and athletic nature had led him to become an astronaut, while Joseph had helped design upgrades to the replacement space shuttle Constellation. NASA had built the brand new space shuttle Constellation as a way to keep the Shuttle program going a few more years. The previous shuttles had simply been too old to fly safely anymore, and after the Columbia everyone knew they needed to be retired. Joseph had been a part of the team in charge of updating and improving the shuttle’s design specs as a way to convince the government to continue the program, since the proposed shuttle successors had proved less than viable. Joseph had made a real name for himself on that project, and it had put him on the fast track into NASA’s management. Now, even the Constellation was on its final mission.

The crowd of furs around Joseph gave one final rousing cheer as a NASA official in charge of the countdown sign thanked them all for coming. They began milling about, everyone talking and celebrating the launch. Joseph slipped away as the sun began to rise, his curled tail wagging. He would have stayed to revel in the moment with the other NASA employees, but there was too much to do today and he didn't want to be recognized by one of the reporters.

The morning air was crisp and sharp as Joseph made his way to his car, but the dog didn't need a coat. He was a husky after all, and winter in Florida was one of the few times he felt comfortable in his own fur. Eventually he made his way through the crowd of furs, avoiding the media vans as he got into his car. He drove the long way around the lake towards the Kennedy Space Center, listening to the music on the radio, changing the channel any time one of the morning disc jockeys came on. He didn't want to hear the news today. He and Paul would be making it soon enough.

***

Joseph slipped into the dark control room of Operation: Mars Eagle without disturbing his coworkers at their control stations. The husky made his way across the bottom of the room, and then up the wide center isle. The big room was built something like a high tech movie theater, and served as the control center for the next generation of space craft, a deep space capable ship called the Traveler.

Where the movie screen would have been in a theater was a huge multitude of readouts and displays, some on monitors and others projected from the back of the room on the wall. There were even live video feeds from cameras monitoring the crew. It meant that everyone in the control room could, at a glance, see all of the important data about the Mars Eagle, the first Traveler type spacecraft, as it sped its way to the red planet. The seating of this strange theater were tiered rows of desks and control stations where the mission control team sat, each desk mirroring a different critical feed on the big board as the ground crew monitored the mission twenty-four hours a day.

Joseph paused for a moment at the top of the central ramp, eyes scanning the displays. There was Paul asleep in his bunk. The pilot, a lion name Robert Parker who was the second in command was at the Traveler’s helm. It looked like the lion had carefully brushed his short mane today rather than left it shaggy like he normally did. Robert had shaved his mane just before the start of the mission in deference to his co-passengers and the demands of the air filtration units, but it was coming back in nicely now. Robert had been worried it wouldn’t grow long enough to look regal in time for the landing.

On a separate screen were George, the Dalmatian payload commander and Evans, the badger who served as the science officer. They were in the science section securing all the various experiments the crew had been doing on the trip to Mars for their impending landing on the red planet. At the top of the wall were two digital mission clocks. One was counting down to the Traveler’s planned landing time on Mars, while the other had been steadily counting up since the initial launch. The clocks had been designed to count not just minutes and seconds, but days and months as well. Everyone was currently focused on the countdown timer. Only hours remained.

It was so early in the morning that the night crew was still on duty, so when Joseph sat down at his station he startled the tiger working the communications control station next to him. Joe Tyson looked up at him in surprise and adjusted his tie. "Director Ryans, how are you this morning?" the stolid tiger said. The older tiger's brow furrowed as he watched the younger project director curiously, his starched white shirt clashing with the husky’s business casual attire. Tyson was old school NASA, a Bengal tiger in his sixties who had lived and breathed the space program his entire life. He was always dressed as though he had stepped out of an old time film about the program in a starched white shirt and black tie.

"I'm fine." The husky replied absently, his tail wagging a little. "And I've told you to just call me Joseph, Tyson. You're mission controller, not some junior technician." The dog switched on his screen at the central control station and began checking his email to see if anything that needed his attention had cropped up over the night.

"All right, sir." The tiger said calmly and there was silence in the control room for a while. One of the other technicians got up, nodding a hello at the husky as he moved past. Eventually the tiger said, "What brings you here so early this morning?" He said it as casually as he could, but the husky heard the hint of trepidation in his voice and could see his tail twitching.

Joseph stood up and got a cup of coffee before answering, stopping behind the tiger to look over his shoulder at his terminal. "I wanted to see the shuttle launch. Why? Is everything alright?"

"Fine, fine," the tiger said as he tapped on his keyboard. The tiger was working through his own mountain of emails. "Just wondering, you're not usually in this early that's all." Joseph’s tail wagged once at that comment, because he knew what was really hiding behind that comment. Tyson didn’t like when people changed their routines.

"Well, I needed to reset my sleep schedule. I want to be alert for the big show after all." The husky smiled at the tiger reassuringly.

"Right," the tiger coughed a bit and adjusted his tie again. Over the last two years, Joseph had come to hate that cough. It meant that the tiger wanted to bring up something unpleasant, and didn't have a good way to broach the subject. "We've getting a lot more media attention as we get closer to landing, sir. And the shuttle lift off today has... focused the media's attention." The tiger shifted uncomfortably, one ear turning back as he said, "Have you heard what the Post has been saying about the Mars crew since the medical readouts got leaked?"

"I haven't kept up with it, honestly." The husky grinned at his coworker as he sipped his coffee. "I’ve got too much that needs to be done for the landing to worry about what gets leaked to the media. That's your job."

"Yes well, there has been a lot of talk lot about the black outs and feed cuts in the crew quarters. Some of the media is saying that the crew has been... having nervous breakdowns." The tiger said quietly, both ears now flat against his head.

"You're joking," the dog almost laughed. Joseph quirked his ear to one side as another smile curled the edges of his muzzle. "What in heaven makes them think that the crew is having problems now?" Joseph asked. “They’ve been doing fine for months now.” Whatever could be said about the four astronauts who manned the Mars Eagle, they were not breaking down mentally. In fact, the four men had formed a weird bond as they floated together thousands of miles from home doing science experiments and keeping each other in shape.

Tyson replied, "The Post is reporting that there are... signs in the health readouts for Paul." The tiger coughed a bit as he looked away. "Every time he goes off camera his blood pressure goes up and his heart rate rises. They've got some quack doctor saying he must be having nervous breakdowns and we're hiding it..." Tyson was looking up at the ceiling now, his ears back and whiskers flared, clearly flustered. "And the internet is rife with people claiming that's how we smuggle them on and off 'set', if you can believe that."

"Oh good god, not those idiots again," Joseph sighed and rubbed the palms of his paws into his eyes. It never ceased to amaze him how much people wanted there to be a conspiracy surrounding the Mars Eagle program. "Has it never occurred to these people that four men, in a space ship not much bigger than a school bus, thousands of miles away from Earth, might want a little privacy when they use the damn shower?"

"Evidently not," the tiger said, smiling very slightly. "But we've gotten a third request from Congressman Barnes for access to all the tapes from the sleeping quarters cameras, not just the edited feeds. Just to prove this isn't all a hoax to bilk the tax payers."

"Deny him—again—and this time spell it out in terms even he can understand why he can't have the video. Bring him down here and show him the videos if you have to, but I'm not having somebody in his office leak the video like they did the medical readouts." Joseph said forcefully. "I will not have naked videos of the crew getting out. The biggest mistake we've made on this project was giving public access to the live video feeds. It's going to be a circus when the landing happens." There was a bit of a growl in the husky’s voice as he thought about the media waiting for him outside.

"It's brought us a lot of publicity." The tiger said defensively. "We need the public's support if we're going to keep the space program alive Director. People are watching the feeds twenty four hours a day from all around the world. They’ve started fan clubs for the crew and the NASA chat channels are always full of people, sir.” Tyson shifted some papers around on his desk, his ears perking up some. “Sir, in the last six months there has been a huge groundswell of support for NASA. We need those feeds. I have about 600 different networks around the world wanting to carry the landing footage live. Well, as live as we can be now."

The husky sighed as he looked up at the big wall and the footage of the crew. It was all true. The Traveler’s revolutionary Laser Relay Antenna, or LRA, allowed the ship to send and receive enormous amounts of data, including a constant stream of high resolution video from dozens of cameras all over the ship. Tyson had spent much of the last several months arranging for the crew to keep in contact with their fans on Earth and scientist all over the world were analyzing the footage. "Yes, but look where all that publicity has gotten us,” Joseph said irritably, his ears folded back. “No one ever demanded to see the Apollo astronauts in the shower."

"That's because the internet didn't exist back then. Besides they didn’t have a shower on the Apollo Lander." The tiger snorted in amusement. Tyson looked back at his screen for a while, his fingers dancing over the keys as he checked the telemetry data from the Mars Eagle. He glanced up when he heard the sound of Joseph speaking quietly, and furrowed his brow when he saw the video camera sitting on top of the husky’s station.

“What’s that, sir?” the tiger asked, straightening up a little bit to get a better look at the husky’s screen.

“It’s the video I made of the shuttle launch. Paul wanted me to record it for him to watch before they land.” Joseph said casually. “I’m adding it to the upload queue on low priority so it shouldn’t interfere with your telemetry.”

“Why in heavens name did they ask you to tape it for them?” the tiger asked in confusion.

“The official video won’t be released until tomorrow, and they’ll be much too busy to watch it by then." Joseph said as he finished encoding the video and began uploading it to the Eagle.

Tyson’s nose wrinkled in confusion. “Why do they want watch it at all?”

"Because it's the last Space Shuttle launch, that's why.” Joseph said with a slight grin.

"That's what they said five years ago, and five years before that. The Shuttle Program isn't going anywhere." Tyson said dismissively.

"The program is never going to get extended again, not after the success we've had with the Traveler." Joseph sighed, feeling a bit sorry that it was his program which was killing the venerable backbone of the American space program. Considering what was replacing it, however, that feeling was mostly nostalgia. The Traveler Project, as it was officially called, was a true revolution in spaceship design. It was capable of extended deep space flight, asynchronous low earth orbit, and even controlled landings like the shuttle. It would probably be the gold standard in space travel for the next thirty years. "When the Eagle lands on Mars successfully tomorrow, that will be the last Space Shuttle flight ever. I wasn't going to miss that, and Paul would kill me if I hadn’t made a tape for him."

The tiger shook his head. "I'll never understand you Joseph. We are about to make history, and you go off to visit the past." The big tiger snorted in annoyance at his younger director.

"The past says hello Tyson." Joseph said his voice light with humor at having once again tweaked the tiger's sensibilities. "It wants its wardrobe back."

***

Several hours later, Joseph watched as Paul sat in the communications chair of the Traveler’s bridge and stared at a computer screen which was just off camera. The Doberman’s face broke into a huge grin, and Joseph could see the light of the shuttle launch reflected in his eyes. “Wow Joe,” Paul said approvingly. “You got a really good shot there.” The Doberman’s face was rapt as he watched the video, his broad smile reflected on Joseph’s face. “Thanks man, I can’t believe that’s really the last shuttle launch.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much.” Joseph said with a smile, his voice being picked up by the headset microphone and transmitted a million miles away on a beam of light to his best friend’s ears. “Did you guys get everything secured in the lab?” The husky asked, and then turned his attention away from the camera, watching the video feed of Paul out of the corner of his eyes as he worked on something else.

This was, strangely, the best and worst thing about the Mars Eagle program. Because of the LRA, Joseph could still see his friend every day. He could still talk to Paul any time he wanted, but not without a delay in the communication. At the beginning of the mission, the delay had only been a few seconds, like the delay in a satellite TV interview. The crew of the Mars Eagle had spent hours just talking with the ground crew, telling each other bawdy stories and bad jokes. They even did live news interviews. But as the months slipped by and the Traveler got farther and farther away from Earth, those seconds started to add up. Conversations with mission control became a weird sort of live video chat program where everyone was perpetually away from the keyboard for five minutes at a stretch.

Now that the Traveler was nearly at its destination, you would say something and have to wait six minutes to get a response from the other end. It wouldn’t be that bad, except that you could still see the other person the whole time. The video cameras at either end never stopped recording. So the person you were talking to would just stare blankly at the cameras mounted over their computer monitors, waiting for what you had said to come through. For the most part everyone adapted well enough, growing accustomed to conversations that took hours instead of minutes, but it was still a strange way to communicate.

Still, it worked well enough for the daily banter and news updates. Joseph knew that some of the crew, Paul especially, felt really isolated by the inability to have a sustained, normal conversation with the people on the ground. They felt alienated and were under a lot of pressure to be professional all the time. Footage from the Mars Eagle was on live TV almost twenty four hours a day now that they were nearing their destination, and that put a lot of strain on the crew. The astronauts kept those feelings to themselves, only confiding their feelings in private text communications that wouldn’t be made public. It was a small cost for this adventure of a lifetime, and their excitement and willingness to go all the way for a mission like this was why they had been chosen.

Eventually Paul responded to Joseph’s question. “Yes, we have everything in the lab secured,” Paul said. “But tell Richards that her little project has been a failure, will you?”

“What happened?” Joseph said automatically, even though his response wouldn’t reach the dog for several minutes. “I thought her self-contained aqua culture purifiers were working well.” Joseph tilted his head a bit. The husky tapped few keys and brought up the statistics on the Traveler’s water supply. All of the readings and measurements were well within tolerances. “They’re still recycling the water well enough.”

Paul’s response came back much too quickly for him to have actually seen or heard what Joseph had just said, but the Doberman knew Joseph so well that he could guess what the husky would say. “Yes Joe, I've seen the statistics and output. The purifiers are just fine. It's this experimental bullshit she keeps asking us to do. The crew took a vote and we’re refusing to do any more tests on them.” Paul said evenly, smirking at the camera with one ear cocked to the side.

“We’re tired of smelling like fish afterwards!” Robert shouted from another part of the ship, and Paul laughed. Joseph laughed too as the lion floated into view of the camera. “Tell our taskmasters that we’ve made the final course adjustments needed to bring us into low Mars orbit, and we can start releasing the laser relay satellites if you’re done with your history lesson commander.” The lion’s tail flicked playfully, and the rest of the crew laughed. A couple of the ground crew even chuckled as well.

“Alright then folks,” Joseph said, activating the control room’s loudspeaker. “The Traveler is ready to get the satellite relay set up. We’ve got ten satellites to put in the skies of Mars before they can land, let’s do this.” The control room settled down, and Joseph gave Paul the go ahead for deployment. They then watched as the crew settled into their seats on the bridge of the Traveler, anticipating the transmission of the deployment sequence now that they were in position.

Once that command was received and acknowledged, the astronauts became completely focused. They checked and double checked every step of an outline developed years ago, and rehearsed endlessly in simulators. If this had been the shuttle program, Joseph wouldn’t have just been watching the readouts and confirming what the crew was doing. Instead he would be leading them step by step through this procedure, but the communications delay made that kind of micro managing impossible. That meant it was left to Robert as pilot to operate the deployment arm, while George the payload commander ran the four astronauts through the satellite release procedure. Then the crew waited for Joseph to confirm that mission command on Earth was receiving each satellite’s signal before moving on to the next release.

Beside Joseph, Tyson beamed as the satellites were placed one after another in orbit around Mars. This system was the tiger’s design, his big idea to make the LRA the revolution that it really was. A carefully calibrated laser was ideal for communicating with Earth. Several lasers working together could be multiplexed across different frequencies for much higher bandwidth than a radio transmission at a much lower power cost. The only problem with the LRA was that once the Traveler had landed on the surface of Mars, the laser would be unable to transmit back to Earth. The planet’s constant rotation would prevent it from holding the kind of steady, pinpoint aim the LRA required to provide the incredible bandwidth it did, and the Martian atmosphere would sap power and diffuse the beam.

To solve that problem, the Traveler was circling Mars and releasing a series of satellites that could bounce the laser signal to a point where it could effectively be relayed to Earth. The older communications satellites that the Mars Rover missions had put in place were reaching the end of their life span anyways, so these satellites had been designed to last for another forty years, conservatively. NASA was even planning on launching two satellites that would orbit the sun and act as a relay for the satellite network when Mars and Earth were on opposite sides of the sun from each other.

This satellite constellation was actually the most significant part of the Traveler’s mission, in some ways even more important than landing on the planet itself. Yes, the satellite launch bay took up valuable payload space, but the array would provide the high resolution ground images and meteorological data of the Martian surface needed to ensure a safe landing site. The additional scientific equipment that piggybacked on the communication satellites would add invaluable data about Mars and provide infrastructure for future missions.

The communications relay was almost all in place when it happened. Mission control was watching the video feed of the launch bay as the final satellite was put through a pre-deployment power cycle test when the video feed from the launch bay suddenly went black. “What happen to the camera?” George asked, and there was a brief alarm from one of the Traveler’s control stations on the bridge. The Dalmatian’s curse was cut off by a hiss of static, and with a heart stopping suddenness the video wall in front of the control room went completely blank as the Traveler lost contact. Every video feed, audio feed, every bit of telemetry data, was just gone. The only thing that remained active was the back up radio transmission that synchronized the mission clock at the top of the wall.

The ground control room was silent for a moment, and then everyone was shouting at once. Tyson was roaring about the LRA being totally off line. The vixen in charge of monitoring the crew’s vital signs was motioning to Joseph that everything had been fine until the readings went dark. Down in front Russell, the boar in charge of the technical staff, was waving his arms in a frantic attempt to get Joseph’s attention. The husky stood up and whistled loudly, bringing the room to a standstill.

“Enough! I want a sensible accounting of what the hell just happened!” Joseph said loudly, making sure everyone could hear him clearly. He kept his tail up, but his ears were flat against his head as he pointed to his staff. “Tyson, I want you to contain the media. Russell, bring up the observatory data feeds. They have a telescope trained on the Traveler for just such an emergency, and I want a status re—”

The husky stopped as Paul’s voice crackled over the loud speaker. "Kennedy ... is Mars Eagle! Can you ... me?" Paul's voice was raised as it broke through the static, but the video feed still wasn't back. "I repeat can you read me?"

"Eagle this is Kennedy we read you!” Joseph said, quickly putting his headset back on. “Please confirm, this is Kennedy, what happened?"

Paul’s voice continued to crackle and pop as he shouted, his voice carried by the backup radio signal. “Kennedy this is Mars Eagle! We have lost power, and are attempting to restart the LRA. It felt like there was some kind of impact. Kennedy this is Mars Eagle, please confirm if you can hear me! Robert what happened?”

On the video wall, Russell pulled up a display of the observatory’s data, but the image from the telescope showed nothing but the front end of the Traveler as it circled around Mars. Tyson was rewinding video feeds, and everyone in the ground control room was scrambling to find the cause. Phones began ringing all over the control room as the events the control crew had just witnessed began to filter out through the live feeds and onto the news. Before long the whole building’s phone system went offline as it was swamped with calls from people trying to find out what had happened. Meanwhile, the Traveler’s crew was doing much the same thing; their radio broadcast a time-delayed recording of a crew on the verge of panic.

"No clue!" Robert roared. "There was a shudder, like we hit something, and then the ship's power went out! I had no visuals on possible collision objects, all of the video feeds were clear, but I can’t review them now, my system is totally down."

“Something happened to the launch bay camera, it died first.” Evans barked, and Joseph heard the fear in the Dalmatian’s voice. “I can’t get the power back online, everything is running on backup.” Joseph could just imagine the bridge of the Traveler cloaked in darkness, lit only by the glow of a few computer terminals.

Joseph had a moment of disorientation as his own voice came through on the radio transmission. “Eagle this is Kennedy we read you! Please confirm, this is Kennedy, what happened?”

“Oh thank god,” Paul’s voice muttered. “At least they’re reading our transmission. Evans, how’s the power coming? We need to be able to review the outside cameras and see what happened. Kennedy, everything is down but the radio and life support. For the moment support readings are all green.”

Tyson touched a few keys and activated his headset so he could broadcast to the Traveler crew. "Paul, telemetry indicates significant vibration during the event, but no drop in cabin pressure. I want someone to check and close each compartment manually, we have to be sure the sensors are working correctly and there are no leaks. The power generators are still active; after confirming hull integrity, check the breakers."

“Paul, repeat, do a cabin check, every compartment.” Joseph said sharply, “Everyone here in ground control do a camera check on the video we have. We need a total visual inspection of the ship’s hull.” With that, Joseph switched the crew’s audio off of the loud speaker and just to his own headset.

The ground control room went into a flurry of busy activity, and everyone there began inspecting the video feeds frame by frame. After a few minutes, Joseph listened as the crew confirmed his orders, Paul relaying them to the other astronauts. The three astronauts unbuckled themselves and fanned out through the Traveler, quickly closing off and sealing each section of the ship. Paul kept a running commentary over the radio as the lion, Dalmatian, and badger gave the all clear for each area. Once the entire ship was cleared for pressure Evans, the most experienced electrician, went to check the main breakers. Many of the systems had tripped, and leery of causing more damage, the badger only reset the breaker for primary communication. After another minute, the LRA feed sprang back into life as the power on the Eagle was restored.

Seven minutes later, that data stream reached Mission Command, lighting up the video wall in front of ground control, filling the room with images and data. Lights flickered across the faces of the ground crew as Tyson called out, "Joseph, Paul, go to camera 22. The launch bay doors." Tiger watched Joseph's face darken when he switched to the camera.

"Holy hell,” The husky muttered. "What the hell happened to the satellite?"

It was Russell who spoke first. "It looks like the solar panel opened and became caught on the launch bay door." The boar sat sullenly in his chair, pointing at his screen with a pen. “See here, these scorch marks—and the debris from the stabilization plate? It looks like the satellite tried to go into deploy and positioning mode before it was released.”

“That's impossible. There are fail safes!” Tyson jumped from his chair, yelling at the boar in the front of the room. The tiger’s tail lashed back and forth like a whip, and Joseph caught a hint of the boar’s fear as Russell paled. The room was on edge and everyone could smell it.

“Tyson!” barked Joseph “That's enough. We'll have plenty of time to figure it out. Right now we need to make sure that no other systems on the Eagle have been compromised. Remember, there are four lives at stake here.”

The anger drained out of the tiger's face as he immediately sat back at his console and began querying system status updates over the restored LRA link. Joseph assumed his command voice, overpowering any other conversation or second thoughts in the room. “That goes for everyone here! First order of business is to completely verify the status of every system on the Eagle. Second, download all backup data. Priority goes to any system that may have either caused or been damaged by this power issue. Then we get down to business and see whether the hell we're still landing on Mars today.”

***

An hour later power was fully restored on the Mars Eagle. The circuit breakers had done their job, preventing an unexpected and as yet unexplained power surge from the final LRA orbital satellite from damaging the electronic systems aboard the ship. Now the focus was on the physical damage

The room watched as the video of the incident played on the big screen, heads raised as the satellite began to leave the rear of the Traveler, when one of the big solar collectors jerked and began to unfurl. There was an agonizing moment as the panel expanded and then caught on the open cargo bay door. In perfect silence the satellite swung round, smacked heavily into the side of the Traveler’s tail section, and then began to swing back as the launch door began closing. "It’s caught on the door’s locking clamp, gets pulled back in, and..." the boar trailed off and half the control room winced as the delicate satellite was crushed when the doors tried to close. The relay satellite crumpled and became wedged in between the now stuck open doors. "Not good." Russell finished lamely.

There was silence in the room, as everyone waited for the Traveler’s crew to review the video as well. The ground crew revisited their initial horror, which was reflected on the faces of the astronauts on board as they got their first look at full sequence of events in the cargo bay.

"Great. Well, can we open the doors and get it out?" Robert asked as calmly as he could. The lion's face was a mask of worry, and he ran a paw through his short mane. The crew of the Traveler waited, floating silently in space until the ground crew responded. Joseph raised his eyebrows and looked down the row of seats at the boar.

"No," Russell said sullenly, "both locking clamps are now hooked into the guts of the satellite, and the door's hydraulics are frozen. There's no way to open or close the launch bay now." The boar had a resigned look on his face.

"Alright, listen up people." Joseph said to the room at large, causing the room to grow perfectly silent. "The Traveler can't land with the relay stuck like that. Tyson, you're in charge of getting it unstuck mechanically somehow, see if they can remove those solar panels or manipulate the door’s locking hooks manually. Russell, you start putting together what the crew will need to do a space walk. I want a plan to have someone be able to leave the Eagle safely in under six hours. Everyone else, I need an explanation for what happened, and Tyson and Russell are going to need help.” The husky pointed at the two men. “Go pull a rabbit out of your hats.”

Joseph turned to address the camera directly. “Paul, begin a full systems test of the LRA satellite constellation. Test every bird that made it out those doors, we have to make sure they are in the right place, especially now that we've lost one. We are not losing our connection again. You should be able to verify all the positional and communications systems about two to three times faster than we can from down here. After that I order you guys to get some rest. It was a tense day getting those satellites placed even before this happened. Do what you have to do. We can't have a landing with you guys asleep at the helm.”

Tyson looked at the husky nervously as the ground crew began to carry out his orders, “What are you going to do sir?”

“The hard part—deal with the media.” The husky said gravely. “We lost contact with our crew live in front of tens of thousands of people, and who knows how many more heard the news by now. I want the crew feeds back up, but without sound for now. And route them through an offsite server. The public will be clamoring to know that the crew is alright and I don’t want the traffic bringing down any of our systems.” The entire control room began talking, each scientist scrambling to find a solution to this new problem.

Joseph sat down and switched his console into private communication mode so that he could speak with Paul on the Traveler. The husky spent several long minutes waiting for the Doberman respond to the orders he’d just received and put his own headset on.

Paul’s face was drained of color and exhaustion showed in his eyes when he finally looked into the camera on his end of the video feed and said, "It's going to take one of us removing that thing manually, isn't it?"

"Probably, you feel up for a walk?" The husky said casually, but it was forced joviality. Joseph was deeply unhappy about this. They were not supposed to be doing a space walk on this mission. Joseph worked at his computer for several minutes, setting up a press conference as he watched Paul’s worried face. The Doberman’s ears splayed out when he heard the husky’s reply.

"I've never turned down a space walk before now," the Doberman said calmly. "But we're millions of miles from home, none of the crew has been on a space walk in the past year, and we don't have any specialized equipment for a job like this." The Doberman added darkly, "I don't like this Joe."

"No one does. I’m going to go handle things on this end. I’ll call you again in an hour with an update." The husky replied, and went to deal with the news crews who were gathered outside for what was supposed to be a news conference about the upcoming landing.

***

Six hours later, the senior members of project were in a meeting room, their notes and plans spread out across the big table. Joseph was the last one to arrive, cup of coffee in hand. Between the press conference, checking in on the Eagle's crew, and making it to the briefing, Joseph had been cornered by the director of NASA, a five star general, and spoken to no less than three congressmen. The husky sank down into the chair at the head of the table and arranged his papers as he took in the room. Everyone had their heads down, and the room smelled of worry. “Alright,” Joseph said solemnly, “what’s the final verdict?”

“Nothing good sir,” Tyson said calmly. “The doors can’t close or open, not without risking permanent damage to the hydraulic system. The satellite is firmly lodged in the door mechanism. On its way out, it hit the fuselage and put a gouge into an exterior panel which will need to be replaced. We've worked out a preliminary space walk plan that will enable us to partially disassemble the disabled satellite. From there we will be able to jettison it and free the cargo bay doors. There are plenty of replacement fuselage tiles; though we'll have to hope we don't need to replace too many more after entry into the Martian atmosphere. We may have to work out a subsequent repair in low earth orbit before the Eagle hits final reentry, but we've got a couple months to deal with that.” Tyson then turned to Russell.

The boar picked up the briefing, showing some video clips to illustrate the sequence of events. “The good news is we were able to pretty much isolate the cause of the incident. Upon review of the footage, we spotted an electrical arc between the manipulator arm and the last LRA satellite in the last few frames of the video. Looks like the arm somehow picked up a charge, then blew out one of the solid state chips. It was just damn bad luck. The power feedback from the pre-deployment test shorted out several electrical systems in the cargo bay, disrupting initial footage.” Russell grimaced, and then replayed the already infamous footage in extreme slow motion to show the spark jumping the gap.

“As we all saw, the satellite entered deploy and position mode, breaking free of the staging platform,” the boar continued. Around the room people flicked their ears back and their tails sank even lower then they already were. “The impact with the fuselage temporarily disrupted the Traveler’s communication systems by putting the LRA out of alignment. That in turn overloaded additional circuits, causing the main breaker to blow, but thankfully the battery backups kicked in immediately for all essential computer systems. We lost approximately thirty seconds of secondary telemetry data from the launch bay video cameras. All primary system data have been retransmitted.”

“Thank god for redundancy.” Joseph said without much pleasure in his voice. “Are you sure you can't get those doors freed remotely, Russell?”

The boar shifted unhappily and shook his head again. “No. I don’t dare force the doors open. Something will break. Either the satellite—which will risk shrapnel hitting the tail section again—or the cargo bay doors, which would prevent them from entering the atmosphere at all. Someone is going to have to do a space walk to remove it carefully.”

Tyson coughed to clear his throat and smoothed his whiskers down with a paw. “We’ve recalculated the landing trajectories and time frame needed for a space walk. It’s well within tolerances. The ship will be able to land with only an eighteen hour delay, and we won’t have to do another burn to keep them on track.”

“Do you have a full repair plan worked out?” Joseph asked calmly, looking at Tyson. The husky kept his face neutral and his ears alert. It was a mask of confidence, but it was important that someone in the room look that way.

The tiger grimaced and looked down at his papers. He had a haggard look on his face and the husky had never seen him look more disheveled. His tie was even askew as he riffled through his stack of papers. “We have the outline. While we're here I've got some crew verifying inventory and double checking schematics and tolerances. I'll have the final plan to you in about an hour. There isn’t much room for error but they have the equipment they need. Or at least, close enough to fake it.” No one in the room liked the sound of that.

“What about the communications disruption?” Joseph asked evenly, determined to keep the ground crew from dwelling on things they couldn’t change. “Is there any permanent damage to the LRA?”

“Not for now, the breakup happened because the LRA was knocked out of alignment during the impact,” the tiger said a bit nervously. “There shouldn’t be any more problems.”

“Alright, so they’re still on track to land. Still have power, communications, and we’ve got the space walk planned out so they can do repairs.” Joseph said leadenly, “So what’s the catch.”

Tyson and Russell exchanged angry glances. The husky could tell that they had been avoiding something during the briefing, and the boar was the one to speak. “Because of the delay, they will have to use landing site gamma. That will require a longer entry into the atmosphere on the far side of Mars, outside the tolerances for the radio backup antenna, and…” Russell swallowed nervously as Tyson glared at him. “The LRA transmitter is more susceptible to unexpected shock than we thought.” Russell said nervously, watching the tiger across the table. “I believe it will need to lock it down during landing.”

"We do not have to do that." The tiger said calmly, controlling his voice carefully. Tyson’s face a mask of incredulity and anger as he spoke, and his tail whipped back and forth just once. “I can not believe you are bringing this up again. We had this sorted out.”

"I, I'm sorry sir, but things have changed." The boar shifted uncomfortably, sweat breaking out on his brow as the tiger glared at him. "The antenna is too fragile. The impact might have damaged the housing. It needs to be locked down securely during landing to prevent any possible further damage. There will be too much vibration for the LRA to be any good anyway, Tyson. The thing would be working overtime trying to keep the communication channel open, and it could get seriously damaged adjusting that rapidly if the housing was bent in the impact. I’m sorry but it has to work reliably after they land, and every test I’ve done demands it be secured while the Traveler enters Mar’s atmosphere. The crew can examine the casing for damage after they touch down, but I have to insist it be offline for the landing.”

There was a little groan from the other engineers in the room, and silence as everyone thought about what that meant. “You’re talking about a total blackout of communications then.” Joseph said finally.

“Yes sir,” Russell said, the boar’s eyes still fixed on his papers. “The power requirements and vibration stress we are projecting for the landing will be too intense. The terrain is going to be much rougher than we planned for. They shouldn’t be using the LRA at all when they land."

"Look, I know the bleeding thing is delicate,” Tyson said harshly. “I’m the one who designed the blasted thing, but we cannot black out communications while they land!" Tyson growled. The tiger's fur was fluffed out now and he looked really upset. The starched white shirt he wore was riding up his big bulky frame and sweat soaked the armpits. "We cannot lose contact at the most crucial moment of the mission! We have to be able to react to anything that happens to them, especially now!"

"Look, Tyson, it doesn't matter.” Joseph cut in. The tiger looked geared up to go again for another round of berating on Russell, and the poor boar didn’t look like he could take that right now. "What do you think we can do from here with a six minute response time? We can’t run the landing from here in mission control; we knew that from the beginning. We are going to have to stick to the original plan and let the crew do this by themselves. There is no way we can give them up to the second, much less minute, responses to what happens during the landing, even using the LRA. A total blackout will let them focus on landing safely." Tyson’s fur settled some and his whiskers twitched as he nodded in agreement. The husky turned back to the boar. “I want you to go over that procedure with them one final time. We trained them for this, but we have to make sure they’re ready.”

"They cannot be that out of touch when they land.” Tyson said sullenly. “A total blackout is going to cause riots among the mission watchers. People are expecting there to be footage of the landing as it happens." The tiger glared at his notes, his ears back in defeat.

Joseph sat back in his chair and said, “The cameras will still be rolling. The LRA can broadcast everything back to us once they land.”

“And if they don’t?” Tyson said acidly. “If they crash and we never hear from them again?”

The husky instinctively snarled, baring his teeth. As much as he wanted to snap at the tiger for suggesting the mission might fail, Joseph had to recognize the possibility he may never see Paul or the rest of the crew again. "We'll deal with that when the time comes." Joseph said quietly, forcing himself to be as calm as he could. “Let’s focus on fixing the Traveler so it can land at all.”

***

Back in the control room Joseph sat at his console, looking into the screen which showed the solemn crew of the Eagle. They were discussing the orders Paul had just shared with them.

“Spacewalk repairs,” Robert said leadenly. He and Evans exchanged a look, and it was not a happy one. “Sir,” the lion said cautiously, “we never planned to do any space walks…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Paul cut him off. “This ship is designed for and fully capable of supporting a space walk.” He continued in a gentler voice, “We don’t have a choice here, Robert, and you know it. That door has to be fixed and the relay satellite removed.”

“We don’t have the equipment to do it.” George pointed out meekly. The Dalmatian’s tail was between his legs and his arms were crossed. “And I don’t know if I can jury rig what we’ll need.”

The Doberman shrugged. “Russell has a plan. He knows every gram of cargo on this tin can just as well as you do—he says you can make it work. Look,” Paul said firmly. “The cargo bay doors have to be closed. You all know damn well we can't land with those doors open, and if you think we've come all this way just to turn around and head home with our tails between out legs without even trying to fix it—”

“Hell no!” interrupted the lion, and the badger and Dalmatian muttered in agreement. The other three men had fire burning in their eyes now. Robert said, “Alright, you ready to do this then Paul?”

The Doberman’s grin was a cheerful one, and he was once again in command of his hale and hardy astronauts. Joseph however, had known Paul long enough to see beyond the cocky facade. The Doberman had his ears up and his docked tail betrayed nothing, but Joseph could still see it. Paul was scared this wasn’t going to work. So was he.

***

Joseph watched the video feed intently from his console, surrounded by empty coffee cups. His paws clasped in front of his nose as he just sat there and watched as Paul floated in outer space. The husky’s ears were flat against his head and his tail would have been tucked between his legs if he wasn’t sitting on it. He had his headset tuned into the audio of the crew and the recording Russell had made to walk the Doberman through the repairs, but he wasn’t the only one listening in to the proceedings. Joseph had reluctantly agreed to allow the repairs to be broadcast on the normal video feeds, because as Tyson put it, “The public is ready to tear us apart if we don’t let them watch. The President gave a news conference saying we would.”

So Joseph sat and watched along with most of the country as Paul pulled the smashed relay satellite out from between the doors and let it float off into space.

As the twisted hunk of metal floated away from the ship, Joseph held his breath and prayed for his friend. Paul was experienced with spacewalks. He had actually performed complicated zero g repair jobs with Joseph on the other end of the radio before. The husky wanted badly to be doing that now. He want to guide his best friend through the steps needed to repair the Eagle, but he had let Russell do the recorded directions because the boar had designed the tail section of the Traveler and knew better than anyone the tolerances of each component. Besides, Joseph didn’t trust his own voice right now. He had spent afternoon in front of the news cameras outside, and he was completely on edge. Watching Paul floating outside the ship was almost too much for him.

So Joseph just sat there listening, his eyes scanning the video for any rogue asteroids or possible dangers. Specifically, the dog was watching the condition of Paul’s lifeline. The Doberman had a thick cable attached to his suit that coiled out behind him to the hatch, but the cable was a lash-up. It was actually two cables taken from inside the Traveler and joined them together in the lab using chemicals and some sturdy metal plates, and if the patch job Evans had done failed…

Joseph stopped thinking about that. Here at the back of the Traveler, Paul was dangerously close to the edge. It would take only a few wrong steps or losing his grip on the ship for him to be floating freely behind the ship, towed along by the makeshift cable. If the cable failed there would be no way at all to rescue him. He would lose momentum and plummet to the Martian surface before the Traveler could turn around or circle the planet to catch him, just like the damaged relay satellite was doing now.

Joseph jumped as a loud clunk echoed through the headset. “I've got it, Evans. The door is securely closed, you can engage the lock.” There was a moment of silence before badger confirmed the lock was engaged and the seal was good. “Alright, I’m going to seal it now with the foam cement, and head back inside,” Paul said, his voice filled with relief.

There was another pause, and then Russell’s recorded instructions played again. “Now, you just need to epoxy the replacement panel onto the tail section and you can come back inside. Don’t worry about making it perfect, the inner seals are good enough to keep the plate in place—this is just a backup.”

“I’m always careful Russ.” Paul said calmly, as if the boar could have actually heard him, and began methodically repairing the final panel. Joseph watched in silence, along with most of America. It took another half hour, but soon the Doberman was pulling himself back to the primary access hatch. The lifeline was coiled back inside the ship, and Joseph let out a sigh of relief when the door closed and pressure was restored to the hatch. Paul was finally safe.

The ground and flight crews did their tests, and eventually Joseph stood at the front of the control room and looked up at his team. “Alright, the repairs are done. The door is resealed, and we’ve done a pressure test on the tail section. Is there anything else anyone wants to test or go over before we initiate the landing sequence? Does anyone have any safety concerns about going through with the landing?”

The crew glanced back and forth between each other as the men and women in the control room checked their lists. Tyson glanced around the control room, pointing at each of the technicians as they shook their heads in turn. He waited for a reply from the crew itself and all four astronauts answered him, “No.”

“Alright then,” Joseph said in a tone that made everyone look up. “The Traveler lands in four hours people. We’re fourteen hours behind schedule, but we are still Go for landing. Russell, why does the mission clock show we touched down ten hours ago? Update the countdown to reflect the new landing time, and Paul?” the husky looked up at camera wall. “I need you to do a test of the antenna’s shutdown and secure sequence. I want to make sure one last time that the accident has not in any way interfered with the LRA.”

“Sir,” Tyson hissed at him, covering his microphone. “We shouldn’t be out of contact right now. The media is—”

“I know Tyson. But when they land the LRA will have to be secured. We need to ensure it will work right when they’ve landed. You can keep the radio broadcast live, but I want the LRA tested. If it won't work after a standard reset process now, what would happen after the stress of landing?” The husky went back to his seat, ignoring Tyson's glare as he waited for Paul’s confirmation.

***

The shutdown test went smoothly, and the Mars Eagle reestablished contact with ground control without a single issue. There were several grueling hours as George and Evans initiated solar panel deployment and tested each of the laser array satellites around Mars, a task long delayed by the crisis in the launch bay. During that time, Paul and Robert slept while Joseph made several visits to the growing media throng outside the Kennedy Space Center. It was becoming much more than a circus out there. The relay failure had heightened interest in the landing beyond all expectations. The video and audio feeds were no longer being served directly by NASA computers, but instead being routed out through several high bandwidth mirror sites to avoid completely overwhelming the local network capacity. Hundreds of news channels were simply broadcasting the footage live to the world. They were even broadcasting the video from the control room itself. The crew was on edge. Ground control was now not only fully staffed, but overstaffed as most of the other off duty technicians were on hand to ensure that everything went off without a hitch.

The crew went through the final checklist, and buckled themselves into their stations on the bridge of the Traveler. They looked like sardines strapped into the little room, each one in a full spacesuit in case anything happened during the landing.

Once everything was in place, Paul said. "Kennedy, this is the Eagle. We will have touchdown in seven minutes, thirty seconds on my mark.” The Doberman watched the ship’s clock for a moment and then said, “Mark. We are officially going black for our landing on Mars."

“Good luck and god speed,” Joseph said, even though he was sure the Doberman wouldn’t hear him before the LRA was turned off. There was a crackle, a burst of static, and then nothing but a gentle hum from the speakers.

The control room went utterly still. Not one in the room breathed. No one spoke. There was simply the soft, slow tick as the mission timer counted down. Outside, the media circus came to a standstill as reporters focused in on their live feeds, now all black. Someone had even gone and put the shuttle launch countdown timer out in front of the building. Across the nation, across the world even, people watched a blank video feed as the minutes became seconds.

In the ground control room, there was a quiet clicking sound as the count down timer rolled over from counting down, to counting up. Joseph stood stock still, ears straining, tail held slightly away from his body as he tried to discern any hint of sound or speech in the ever present whine of the static. The husky waited, heart beating in time with the clock as it counted upward, passing ten, twenty, forty-five seconds, a minute fifteen. Joseph's straining ears focused in on a sound, a rhythmic tapping. He realized that it was Tyson tapping a claw on his computer’s mouse, once every two seconds, refreshing his screen in hopes of restoring the telemetry data.

At four minutes past the touchdown mark, people were beginning to fidget. The landing was taking much too long. It was still within the window of radio silence that was acceptable, but the Eagle should have been able to restart the LRA and send something back by now. The months of travel time were forgotten as each agonizing second passed in silence. As the clock ticked towards the six minute mark, the tension built and people began speaking in hushed tones. One of the women responsible for monitoring the life signs of the crew covered her face, the pretty vixen determined not to cry in front of her peers and the cameras.

"Kennedy," the word broke through the static of the transmission. The room erupted into cheers of joy, pure boundless joy as Paul's voice echoed over the com. Only Joseph, who still had his headphones on, really heard the Doberman say the words, "The Eagle has landed."

In front of them, the video feeds sprang to life, the huge video wall illuminating the faces of the ground control team. The men and women in the control room were shouting and jumping. The media outside was cheering, and around the world people reacted with joy at the sound of Paul’s voice. Joseph's reply went unheard by anyone on Earth. "Confirmed Mars Eagle, we have touchdown." The husky glanced at Tyson, and the tiger had a relieved grin on face as his screen lit up with data. "We're receiving your telemetry now. Congratulations gentlemen, you just made history."

***

Hours later Joseph slumped into the rolling chair in his office, sighing heavily. Dully the husky pulled a few pieces of confetti from the fur on his arms, and shook his head to get some from his head fur. That made the room spin, and the husky closed his eyes to stop it. He'd enjoyed a bit too much of the champagne after the news conference, but who cared? It had happened—really happened. Right now, good old Paulie was standing on Mars.

The husky leaned over, grabbed the remote off his desk, and turned on the television hanging in the corner of this office. On the closed circuit TV, the feed from the Traveler's exterior camera flickered to life. They were pumping the footage throughout the building and out onto the internet. Right now, the whole world was watching Paul walk on Mars.

Joseph sat there, watching the astronauts move about the red, gravelly surface as they began setting up their base camp. It was the strangest thing in the world. Paul was out there, in front of everyone, the first dog to walk on another world. He was America's—the world's—newest hero but all Joseph cared about was that the crew was safe. Paul would be alright. Months and years of constant worry and they were finally there.

The mission itself wasn't even half over, of course. So many things could go wrong in the six months they would be planet side, and then the trip back would be just as treacherous. Even loading the ship for the return trip would be a fight, as everyone involved in the project was going to bicker and fight over what samples could or could not be brought back. But for now, after forty-eight hours without sleep, all he could do was smile and peer owlishly at his best friend walking the virgin surface of another world.

***

I hope you all enjoyed this little one off story. It was an amusing story to write and I enjoyed coming up with tech they used. Advanced, but not that advanced.