Space Cowboy Arc
26th April
Following our decision to go ahead with Petr's plan to reach the asteroid before the Hawk does, I went back to our room to try and get a couple of hours sleep before we started, but I couldn't. I've never been able to go back to sleep once I've already woken up, especially since I walked around and talked with all of them. Petr came in shortly after me. Once he adjusted the course, it was decided he would also take the last few hours off before we start our operation. Ahmad and Hana were about to get up when we had our meeting anyway, so them starting their shift now was fine, but I wouldn't want to be up there with them now. After their argument, I imagine that it's quite tense up there, which is why I'm lying down in here rather than getting up, even though I know that there's no way that I'll get back to sleep.
Also, I'm still tormenting myself, wondering whether I've made the right decision. Ahmad was against it, and Hana only agreed to it because she was annoyed at Ahmad for assuming that she would respond the same as he did. The two of them have been like that quite often, and Hana always responds the same way. Ahmad assumes something, and Hana then decides to do the exact opposite in spite of him. Or at least that's how it comes across. Even so, I think this was probably the correct decision. It's risky, yes, but getting this asteroid is much better than the alternative. I trust that Petr can get the calculations correct, and I trust my own skills as a pilot.
I'm still wide awake when Ahmad comes to wake me and Petr up. I get up quickly, and walk down the hall shoulder to shoulder with him.
"Sorry about earlier," I say, "I hope you'll forgive me."
"Don't worry about it. You're making the decision that you think is best as Captain, aren't you? And besides, we all need to be focused on what we're doing now."
"Thank you, Ahmad. You're a real friend."
"Remember that next time."
The two of us come out into the lounge. Hana has prepared food for both me and Petr. They waited as long as possible to wake us up, so that we'd be as prepared as possible it seems. As we wait for Petr to make his way down the hall, the three of us sit around the lounge without speaking. Ahmad and Hana refuse to make eye contact with each other, and sit on opposite sides of me. I sigh. I thought it might've been like this, but I'd been hopeful that they may have worked out their differences while me and Petr were asleep. The last week or so should've taught me to not be so hopeful. It would seem their family has long fights when they do fight.
Once Petr shows up, it puts an end to the painful silence, as Ahmad briefs us on what has happened while we were sleeping.
"The Hawk has decided not to follow us on the more direct path. They're still circling around the asteroid, and will probably land in about eight hours' time. We're currently on a near collision course with the asteroid, and would fly right past it in three hours' time, if we decided not to try this. When are we going to spin the ship around?"
"I'll run the calculations again just in case," Petr, "but I was thinking if we spun around fifteen minutes before the asteroid hits, we should have enough time to get back up to a fast-enough speed to pull this off."
We all fall back into silence again. We'll need to decide for certain in about two hours whether or not we should do this, but as far as I'm concerned, the decision is already made. We will reach the asteroid, and claim it. I'm not going to pull out at the last second, unless Petr says he can't do it.
I run through the scenario with everyone. Me and Petr will be piloting the ship. I will have my hands on the controls, but for most part I'll be listening to Petr's instructions. Ahmad and Hana's jobs are to be on the ready to hook the ship onto the asteroid once we're close enough, so that we can lower ourselves down onto the surface once we've matched speed with the asteroid. We still have two hours till then, so for now there isn't much for us to do. Only Petr has work to do. The rest of us can only prepare ourselves.
When the time comes, we head to our positions. I've already been in the cockpit for an hour when I took over from Ahmad. Petr joins me here, with his calculations written out on his tablet. Though the two of them aren't going to be needed just yet, Ahmad and Hana make their way down to the hull, where the tethers are located. Hana will be operating the tethers at the front end, and Ahmad at the back, where he should be able to see the asteroid approaching. If Petr got things wrong, he's going to be the first to know. Ahmad and Hana both have a radio, and there's one sitting in the cockpit here. We're ready.
"Okay, I'm going to spin the ship now."
I slowly decrease the speed of the ship, decreasing the output of the main engines. To spin the ship, we come to a stop, and then use much smaller engines located on the sides of the ship which are designed for readjusting direction, to spin. The asteroid, which is still directly in front of me and Petr at this point, gets bigger and bigger, even as we slow down.
"I never thought I'd see one from this angle," I say absentmindedly. No one responds. In fact, I'm not even sure that I said it aloud. Everyone's just too tense to respond. They're all nervous, all scared.
The ship slowly positions itself, spinning one hundred and eighty degrees, during which we can't see the asteroid at all. We can only hope that Petr calculated the speed correctly. It'll take the ship about three minutes to complete the rotation, during which time the asteroid is constantly gaining on us. By the time we've finished spinning, we should have about ten minutes before the asteroid reaches our current position, and maybe twenty minutes before it catches up to us. That means we're going to have ten minutes to get up to speed, and then try and reach an equal speed with the asteroid.
"I can see it. I can see the asteroid!" Ahmad's voice comes over the radio.
"How big is it?" Petr asks.
"About what you said it would be. Maybe a little closer than we'd like."
"How much closer?"
"I don't know. I can't tell that much just looking at it, can I? It shouldn't cause any problems."
"Okay, that's fine then."
They're all a bit tense. I don't know who wouldn't be in this scenario. It's a tough position to be in, but this is what has been decided. And I know we can pull this off. It'll be worth it when we do. I just hope we can. No, I believe we can. The console blinks in front of me. We've completed the rotation.
"I'm restarting the main engines," I say. We're on the final stretch now. All going according to plan, in about ten minutes the asteroid will be parallel to us, Ahmad and Hana will launch the landing tethers, claiming the asteroid for ourselves.
Things go well for us. In fact, they couldn't have gone better. It takes us about five minutes to get back up to our average travel speed, though we need to go a bit faster than that. Ahmad reports that the asteroid is almost entirely obscuring his view out the back by the time we reach the speed that Petr had calculated we should be at. The asteroid is still travelling faster than us, but not by much. Once the asteroid draws level with us, we'll only need to increase speed by about another fifty kilometres an hour to match its' speed. The thing I'm most worried about is how long we can maintain this speed for. It's draining on the battery. That's the only issue now. It seems that Petr got his calculations correct. We're going to land on the asteroid, and it'll all work out for us. I look over at Petr, and see that he has a nervous smile on his face.
"Seems like it all worked out," I say to him, "good job."
He laughs and it seems as if there's a load off his shoulders, "to be honest, I was extremely nervous. I couldn't stop myself from thinking about what would happen if I got it wrong. I'm glad that it worked out."
"Yeah, you should be," I smile at him, "you did well."
"So did you."