Shuttles

I have a dream where I am burning.

The lights on the terminal are flashing, warning klaxons in screaming agony, and the world is shaking itself to pieces. I'm strapped to the chair in my suit, and the acceleration is causing my vision to go red, and the noise is a horrible screeching explosion. Andrew is in his suit next to me yelling, strapped into his chair, shaking like a rag doll. I can't tell what he is saying because the shaking is snapping my head back and forth and I can't focus my eyes on anything. I want to close my spacesuit visor, I know what is about to happen but my arm is pinned to the back of the chair by the force of the rocket and I try to lift it, I try and try and I almost reach my helmet when the screen in front of me peels open and the air rushes in and then fills with fire, burning a horrid red. I see it engulf Andrew and he screams, being shaken apart and burning, and I need to close my visor but I can't and then the fire pours into my suit through the exposed glass over my face and stains the backs of my eyelids as I close them and feel the flesh scorching away off my face!

Then I wake up, sweating. In my bed, in my house, in Florida.

Not in the rocket.

Not in my spacesuit.

Not flying. Not on fire. Not being pressed down by the G-forces. Intact. 

But my NASA flight suit is in the closet, the picture of me and my team in our pressurized suits is on the table next to my bed. The launch pad is a few miles away, the banks of computers with flashing lights and dials and numbers and somewhere, one of them flashes in my mind the bright red words “system failure”, and no one is there to notice it.

I run my hands through my cropped hair, I feel my face, my body, make sure it is there, intact. Only then does my heart begin to slow beating, only then does my breath even out. 

I don't know what it means. I don't know why, but I've had the same dream the past three nights. Each time I wake up and can't go back to sleep. Visions of it haunt me, images of the warning lights, of flames rushing in through a gaping hole in the material of the ship.

I make myself coffee, sip it slowly. The heat slowly fills me up, giving my body substance. The lights of my kitchen are hash, white. They are the same fluorescents as the control room at the station.

The station is in the middle of the plains, dry, flat, and sticks up like smashed bones from the monotony. The scaffolding propping up the shuttle is a dull red, muted by the flames that have poured over it in the past. The checkpoint at the front clears all the cars that go into the station, checks IDs, runs license plates. My dusty civic pulls slowly up the the lonely checkpoint, brakes whining to a stop.

“Hello, James” Bill, the security guard says.

“Hey, Bill.” I hand him my NASA identification, and my drivers license. He laughs. 

“You know, I wonder” he says, drumming his fingers on the metal windowsill. “I run your ID every morning, it's always the same. I wonder why I can't just let you on.” He smiles. “Well, I'll do it anyway. Just a bit funny I guess.”

“Protocol, Bill,” I respond.

“Protocol!” He laughs. “Yeah, they're watching you in there,” he says, gesturing to the security camera pointing at my civic. “Smile for NASA James!”

I look at the camera briefly, it's dull, round lens staring back. Watching. Checking for weakness.

Bill keeps talking. “You know, they take security real serious here. Gave me a gun and all, I've never used it. Why would I need to? It's not like this is the Cold War any more!”

“Sure isn't,” I offer. Russian missiles come to mind, targeting our satellites, our rockets. They don't have those any more, I think. All old, obsolete. Mostly forgotten.

“I can't think of anyone who'd want to do anything here. A terrorist- maybe. But why do anything at NASA when there are all these nuclear power plants all over?” He scratches his head.

“Hey Bill,” I say, rolling my tongue through a parched mouth. “How long you worked here? At this booth?”

“Lemme think,” Bill says, sliding the card in the machine. “It's been... eight, no, nine years now. All in this booth, running the same cards over and over.” He chuckles. “Over and over.”

“Bill, how many times, since you've worked here, has one of these things- you know, the rockets- how many times has one blown up?”

Bill leans down out the window, and frowns. “Now, James, what kind of talk is that? You know as well as I do these things don't blow. Haven't had an issue since the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and that was over in Houston anyway, just around when I was starting over here.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I know.”

Bill drums his fingers against the windowsill. “You alright James? You look tired.”

“Oh, yeah, I'm fine,” I say.

“Good, good.” He smiles, and hands me my identification with a bandaged hand. “Guess what? You're clear.”

“Thanks Bill,” I say. I put my hands on the wheel to drive away. “Hey Bill?”

Bill turns back to me. “Yeah James?”

“What'd you do to your hand?”

Bill smiles, thumbs his bandage. “Stupid, you know? So simple. I grabbed the coffee pot in the wrong place, burned my hand pretty bad.” He shakes his head. “Could've avoided it.”

I nod. “Be more careful, alright Bill?”

“Hey, you too James,” he says, as I pull away into the heat.

Administrator Rogers has a bored look on his face as he reviews the readout. He sighs, tugs his mustache. “Alright,” he says. “What happened?”

Nick, the engineer leans forward. “The, uh,” he coughs. “There was a warning readout on the pre-launch sequence- an oxygen tank blew a gasket, ah... put a small hole in the framing, caused a small fire... all under control of course.”

Everyone at the table is silent. I can't remember the last time we had a problem with pre-flight- it always goes smoothly. The fluorescents burn a slow white light.

“Repairs?” Administrator Rogers asks.

“Oh, ah, of course! We've run another pre-flight, a clean sweep. We're set to launch on schedule.” Nick pushes up his glasses. I look left to Andrew, who was leaning over to whisper something to Amanda, one of the computer people. I can see the oxygen tank rupturing, shrapnel punching a neat hole in the side of the shuttle, flames boiling out of the side of the ship.

“So,” Administrator Rogers said, shuffling to sit up. “Why'd this happen?”

Julie, one of the other engineers, clears her throat. “We usually put these through heavy testing. The failure was a... surprise, and was damaging. We're lucky to catch this now, it could have caused a catastrophic failure during launch.”

I know what catastrophic failure means. It means a botched launch. It means an explosion. It means a crashed rocket. It means me dead. This catches Andrew's attention, he sits up.

Administrator Rogers grunts. “You didn't answer my question. Why did the tank fail? I want a direct reason.”

Julie frowns. “We're... not actually sure. It could have failed for any number of reasons, unnoticed damage, faulty equipment, installation problems-”

“Sabotage?”

I said it before I meant to, and I regretted it already.

Julie seems surprised, and Administrator Rogers manages a distinct croak of the word, “what?”

Julie coughs. “Unlikely- there is no reason or evidence of any sabotage for any-”

“Why would anyone sabotage the shuttle?” Administrator Rogers stands, cutting off Julie.

“They wouldn't,” Nick says quietly.

“No!” Administrator Rogers quips sternly. “Let him answer. Why would anyone sabotage the shuttle?” His eyes burn into mine, angry.

“They wouldn't,” I can only echo Nick. My throat is a desert. “I- it was just a theory.”

Administrator Rogers leans back, and regards me with a frightening intensity. “You've repaired the damage and replaced the part?” 

“Yes,” Julie answers.

“And you've run the test again? The shuttle passed?”

Julie nods again.

“Then I see no problem proceeding with launch.”

Everyone is getting up to leave, but I stay seated. The walls seem closer, and I can feel a pressing heat- I feel a fire, somewhere. That rocket must have dozens of tanks of oxygen, each with a fragile o-ring gasket, one which seems fine down here but when the rocket is being shaken apart during launch, thrust into space with inhuman intensity...

I can feel flames licking at the walls, I can feel a slow bead of sweat tracing down my jaw. I can see images of the old Russian warehouses, missiles and explosives stockpiled quiescent, and one of them suddenly lights up, active, preparing to shoot me down...

“What the fuck, man?” Andrew whispers in my ear. “It's fine. Routine. Bringing up sabotage doesn't do anything, just pisses off Rogers.” I don't answer.

“Whatever. Just figure out your shit before we climb on that rocket.”

My mother's house is small, modest. My father died when I was young, but he was an astronaut in the golden age of space travel. My mother's shelves are filled with photos of him in the old suits, sown-on american flags, smiling faces, posing in front of the old rockets. She keeps the house neat, still has my room arranged as it used to be. There is still a picture on the wall of me when I was five, gripping a toy shuttle as my father smiled with me in front of the life-size toy, the real rocket. That was one year before he died of cancer.

“Your father would have loved to see you now,” my mother says over my shoulder, mixing batter for cupcakes. She always makes me cupcakes before a launch.

“I know,” I reply. My father would have loved to see his son in his shoes. But the dread is creeping on me, it's beginning to consume me. I can see men loosening bolts, prying away panels. I can see loose tanks, frayed wires. I can smell fire.

“He told me he knew you'd be an astronaut, you know,” my mother says, wandering down the hall back to the kitchen.

“I know mom,” I say. “You told me.”

“Did I?” she says. 

She did, several times. I walk slowly out of the living room, floorboards creaking loose underneath me.

“Well,” she says. “No matter. I love the idea of the two of you, up there, exploring the stars. Get the oven, would you?”

I open the oven door and heat billows out, and I flinch before I can control it. She slides in the pan of fresh batter. “Oh, careful!” my mother says as I close the door. The glow of the heating coils leaves an imprint on my vision, the hot air leaves a slight burning feeling on my arm.

“Well,” she says, taking off her oven mitts and looking at me. “Are you alright dear? You look worried.”

I close my eyes, and take a breath. I can see the flames from the engines, I can see a crack spreading the length of the shuttle, I can see the explosion, the flames everywhere.

“I'm afraid, mom,” I say. “I'm afraid to go on this mission. Afraid of sabotage, of system failure.” I look at her eyes, and she smiles. She grabs my shoulder.

“Oh, my son the astronaut,” she says, and hugs me. I don't know what to say, but the dread creeps further into my stomach. “I miss your father so much,” she says, and when she pulls back there are tears in her eyes. All of the sudden I can't hear her, and her lips are moving but all I can hear are the flames, the slow crackle of the flames. And there are tears in her eyes, but I don't understand, and I sit down.

“Well,” she says. “Call me when you land again? I don't think we'll be able to eat all of these cupcakes tonight.”

Every step is heavy. 

The gantry clanks, and the suit is massive, it weighs me down. I can't see side to side, and I can hear my own breathing as I approach the rocket. I look at it, trying to see cracks, holes, but it seems fine. The door is open, waiting, a technician standing, waiting for me. 

It's a bomb.

I can feel the thousands of pounds of fuel, the ignitors, the tanks, the compression coils and wired banks of computers. A thousand things to go wrong.

“Sir?” the technician asks.

“Come on, James,” Andrew says, passing me. “Let's get this done with, I want to be in space.” He climbs through the doorway. 

My gloves are lined with sweat. I look back down the long gantry to the station, but the distance seems to extend to infinity. I slowly step through the doorway, and turn to climb the ladder. The technician closes the door, and I hear the locking mechanisms slide into place.

My fate is sealed.

I strap in in the cockpit, go numbly through pre-flight checklists. Andrew calls out the sequences, and I stare at the bank of green lights in front of me. 

“We are green on all systems, clear for take off,” Andrew says. “Wait- hold on control, I've got a system failure on the oxygen tanks again.”

My attention focuses in like a razor on the tiny, burning red light above “oxygen” on the control panel. The radio is silent for a moment. 

“We read, shuttle,” it crackles. “Try toggling the power, it's probably just a bug in the system.”

“I got you,” Andrew says, flipping a switch back and forth. The light above oxygen winks out and then back on, green this time. “Roger control, shuttle reading green on all systems, including oxygen. I repeat, green for takeoff.”

“Roger, shuttle,” the radio crackles. “Takeoff sequence beginning.”

“No,” I whisper. “No, no.” The light is red again. The oxygen light is red again, it's loose screws, a broken valve- enough to kill us. “It's red!” I say to the radio.

“Engines, preparing to engage,” the radio crackles.

“No!” I yell. “No, no, we've got a system failure on oxygen! I repeat, a system failure on oxygen!” 

 

“James, what the hell are you doing?” yells Andrew. “The light is green! Look at your fucking panel! Control, we are green for launch, confirm no system failure.”

“Confirmed,” the radio says. “Engaging engines.”

“No!” I scream, undoing the latches that pin me to the chair. The whole rocket is about to blow!

“James, what the fuck are you doing? Get back in, stay down, the engines are about to-”

And them the world starts shaking, and I'm half out of my chair, and Andrew's head snaps back as the rocket lurches.

And red lights blossom across the panel, and warning alarms go off. “No!” I scream, as the roar of the rocket engulfs my voice. Andrew's head lolls to the side, his visor still up, and the rocket shakes, air rushing past, gravity pushing in against us. And the screen in front of us begins to warp, and it's the dream, and I've got to get to Andrew before the fire burns him, and I'm halfway to him when the screen explodes and fire pours in and I remember that I never closed my visor either and then the flames turn my vision white and all I can hear is the roar of the rocket.

Bill sits on his chair at the security station, waiting. Another morning. More cards, more coffee.
 

A black Corolla winds it's way towards the station, pulls up to the window. The man inside hands Bill his identification. Andrew Higgins, NASA employee. Bill runs the cards, which come up clear, and hands them back to the man. 

“Thanks,” Andrew says and starts to pull away.

“Ah, excuse me Mr. Higgins?” Bill calls. The car stops.

“I'm sorry, sir,” Bill says. “I haven't seen James in today. He's usually in by now- and I checked, his identification is no longer valid for the station. Why, he's worked here for years, and that usually only happens when someone gets fired...”

Andrew frowns. “James won't be in any more,” he says. “He broke down last launch. Before the engines even engaged, just started screaming, yelling that he was on fire.”

“Oh,” Bill says.

“Yeah,” Andrew says. “He washed out of the space program, I hear Administrator Rogers has him transferred to a desk job somewhere. Said he wasn't cut out for space.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,” Bill says.

“Yeah, me too.” 
 

The car slowly crawls away towards the station. Bill thumbs the burn on his hand thoughtfully.

By Ben Chamberlain

Written 2/20/11

Finished 2/23/11 2:45 AM