Page 28 of Atmosphere

Her throat catches as she sees his expressionless face. But there is no time for that. She pulls his body toward hers and swims slowly through the mid-deck.

She pushes him inside the airlock and knows that she will need to shut the inner hatch to keep him from floating back into the mid-deck. Before she does, she wants to tell him that he’s the best commander she ever had. But she knows what he would say to that:I’m the only commander you’ve ever had.

Anyway, it would feel awfully final. It doesn’t need to be like that. She closes the door.

Afterward, she takes Hank and pulls him toward the airlock, the same as she did with Steve. She tells him that his joke earlier about getting home in time to watchM*A*S*Hwas funny. But she cannot bring herself to reassure him about Donna and Thea. All she can think of is Donna bringing Thea to the Outpost last month, Hank showing his baby girl off the entire night.

Vanessa snaps herself out of it. This is not something she can indulge right now.

When she gets to Lydia, she looks at her face. It is swollen but peaceful, without any of Lydia’s usual consternation. In this one acute moment, Vanessa regrets not trying to understand Lydia better when they were both on Earth. Joan was the only one who had ever really tried, the only one who had ever seen what Lydia was capable of. Joan had tried to tell her. Vanessa sees that now.

Carefully, Vanessa unzips the top of Lydia’s flight suit and applies the sensors for respiration, temperature, and heart rate. She zips it back up and takes Lydia’s hand in hers for a moment. She squeezes. Wordlessly, she pulls Lydia to the flight deck and puts her in the chair behind the commander’s seat. She buckles her in.

Then Vanessa takes Griff in her arms and carries him to the flight deck, putting him in the seat next to Lydia. And in a moment that she does not know is happening until it is over, she leans forward and kisses him on the temple.

“Navigator,this is Houston.” Joan. Finally, Joan is back.

“Copy.”

“Prepare for a contingency deorbit. We can land at Edwards in three revs. They have full trauma center capabilities. We are going to begin the deorbit checklist.”

All on her own, Vanessa will need to stow away all the equipment—including everything that was torn off the walls—and shut the payload doors. Then she will have to get in the pilot’s seat and begin the process of reentry.

She has been through enough in her life to know that there is no value in long-term thinking right now. In a crisis of this magnitude, you are best served by evaluating second by second.

So Vanessa does not imagine herself back on Earth. She does not imagine landing this shuttle. She does not imagine preparing for reentry.

Instead, she imagines strapping the lockers back onto the walls.

That, she can do.

Almost anyone who is clearedto be in the flight control room is there. The director’s suite is filled with men in jackets and ties. The simulation supervisors’ room is packed.

Joan can tell, just based on the hum within the room, that the theater behind her is filling up.

She cannot turn around, and she cannot consider just how many people are listening in on the main loop right now. It is accessible to almost three thousand people, across the Johnson Space Center and the wider Houston area, including the astronauts’ homes and news organizations.

On a normal day, most of them would not be listening. Now they almost certainly all are. This accident has, most likely, already been reported all over the world.

Which means that Donna and Helene know. Even if they weren’t listening earlier, they know by now.

In fact, because of the way some of the men keep glancing behind themselves, Joan suspects that either Donna or Helene is in the theater now. Most likely Helene. Donna is the sort of person who needs to be alone in a situation like this. She has most likely handed Thea over to someone and locked herself in her bedroom or bathroom, refusing to respond to anyone. Helene, on the other hand, is the sort of person who needs to see what is happening for herself. It is almost certainly Helene.

Joan keeps her gaze forward.

The commotion around her is distracting, but the din of murmurs and whispers within Mission Control forms a calming reminder that NASA is not merely a collection of individuals. NASA is a team. Joan had never before in her life felt the sense of belonging that she has with the people here at NASA.

If they get the shuttle home with Vanessa, Lydia, and Griff still alive, the entire campus will share in the relief. And if tragedy strikes further today, Joan knows this team will carry that burden together.

Still, there is a burden that Joan will carry alone.

Joan watches Jack. His shoulders are hunched, his fists tight. Joan opens and closes her own hands, trying to make space in the bones.

Since the end of November, Joan has been having dreams in which her life is less complicated than it really is. When she wakes in the morning, she always has to take a moment to understand that the dream wasn’t real.

But today, she keeps forgetting that thisisreal.

Steve and Hank are dead. Griff and Lydia might not make it.

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