Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam Read Free Book Online Page B

Colonel Olivia Grant ordered. Grant, the commander of STS-128, walked down the line of her crew, stopped in front of each of them for a personal word, a quick check of their garish orange suits. She held out her gloved fists and Tanya Brown, the pilot, did the same, thumping their fists together in sisterly solidarity. Grant moved to Betsy Newell, Mission Specialist 1, inspected her, tightened her suit harness, went through the fist routine. She repeated the exercise once more with Janet Barnes, MS-2. Then Grant stood in front of Penny. Penny was a payload specialist, not a real astronaut, as she’d constantly been reminded by the rest of the all-female crew.
    Penny took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Grant made her nervous. The woman had never made any secret that she resented Penny’s late assignment. She clutched each of Penny’s arms with her powerful hands, checked the wrist seals of her gloves, but avoided eye contact. Olivia Grant, called Ollie by the others, wasn’t a bad-looking woman, Penny thought. She shouldn’t wear her brown straight hair pulled back so tightly, that was all. She had too much forehead and her ears were too large to be so exposed. And a little blush color on her cheeks wouldn’t have hurt either. Penny had brought her own makeup man for most of her expeditions. He could have done wonders for Grant. The astronaut commander darted her gray eyes at Penny as if she’d heard her thought. “You drink plenty of water this morning, High Eagle?” she demanded. “Got to make sure you’re not dehydrated.”
    One of the other three women snickered and Grant shot them a dirty look. “Knock it off.”
    Penny nodded dutifully. She was determined to be a good trooper on this flight. “Four glasses, Olivia.”
    â€œGood.” She glared at the others, then beckoned them to follow her. “All right, ladies. Let’s go to space.” Grandly, she burst through the swinging doors of the suit room and into the hall that led to the waiting crew transfer bus. She nodded to the applause of admiring engineers and raised her hands aloft in a triumphant gesture.
    Penny dutifully trudged along behind until she spotted the reporters shouting questions outside. All of them were calling to her, so she stopped and pirouetted as gracefully as the LES suit and the heavy black boots would allow. Playing to the press was such a natural thing for her that she didn’t even notice the sour faces of her fellow crew members waiting impatiently at the bus door. She believed the press existed for one reason: publicity. Her job was to keep them interested, keep the publicity flowing. The day before, on the tarmac after the T-38 jet ride from Houston, Penny had shown them a glimpse of the frilly white bra she wore underneath her flight suit. She thought it was pretty funny when a reporter asked Ollie Grant to show what she was wearing under
her
flight suit too. For a moment Penny thought Grant was actually going to coldcock the reporter.
    â€œDr. High Eagle,” a reporter shouted at her, “are you scared?” He was a handsome young man, obviously one of the fluffball anchors on local television.
    â€œOf you?” Penny grinned, her perfect teeth flashing. “Petrified!”
    The anchor laughed appreciatively. “No, of flying into space!”
    The NASA publicist, a shrill-voiced woman dressed in a severely tailored gray suit, stepped protectively in front of her. Penny wanted to shove her out of the way. “Dr. High Eagle is prepared,” the publicist told the reporters in a boring monotone. “She has trained diligently.”
    â€œYeah, right,” Janet Barnes gibed from the bus door.
    A female correspondent waved her hand. “Dr. High Eagle, how do you justify going into space? According to my estimates it will cost the American taxpayer one million two hundred thousand dollars to send you into orbit. Considering all the