Skyfall

There had been clouds over the entire East coast, with Florida socked in solid. They had watched it from space, seen the clouds grow closer and closer as they were dropped back into the atmosphere, until they were in them and flying blind. It made no difference to their flight plan since that was controlled by the computer. There was an invisible highway in the sky they had to follow, a trace on the screen that told them just what to do, just where to be. When the Orbiter broke through the low-hanging clouds the rain-washed length of the runway stretched out before them. Cooke handled the wheel with a light touch, squinting through the tendrils of steam above the nose as the rain vaporized when it struck the silica tiles that covered the hull. Tiles still radiant hot after the 2,400 degree temperatures they had withstood during reentry.

“Down,” Cooke said as the heavy tires impacted the wet concrete. Decosta took off his belt and stood up.

“I'm going to look after our passengers,” he said.

“Give me a report, soonest.”

Decosta climbed down through the access hatch to the mid deck below and opened the inner hatch of the airlock, leaving it open as he opened the other hatch into the blackness of the cargo bay. One of the pressure-suited figures was sitting up, looking in his direction, hands on helmet.

Coretta twisted, pulled at the helmet, tore it off and took in breath after breath of the damp air.

“I can smell the sea,” she said, then raised her hand. “And you can take that damn light out of my eyes.”

“Sorry. Everything all right?”

“It will be when we get their helmets off. Give me a hand.”

The Orbiter slowed, rocked as its brakes were applied, then eased to a stop. As soon as his helmet was off Patrick pressed his hands to the bandages over his eyes, then sat up and turned in Nadya's direction. But he was silent; there seemed to be nothing for any of them to say.

“Be right back,” Decosta said, turning away.

“Hey, leave the light,” Coretta called out. “Or can you turn on the lights in here?”

“There aren't any. Why don't we all go into mid deck compartment.” The floor moved as the tractor hooked on and began to tow them slowly from the runway.

They were clumsy after their stay in free fall and willing to be helped by the pilot. The pressure suits were hot and cumbersome and they took them off before going into the compartment. The numbness persisted; they said nothing, just sat there and waited until they finally stopped and the outer door was opened.

Only when they heard the wild cheering did they realize that the voyage was over at last.

“There, in the middle of your screen, ladies and gentlemen, you can see them coming out, three figures, small at this distance though giants in the history of mankind. The ambulance is drawn up and they are entering it, no wait, they're stopping. Turning. Dr. Coretta Samuel is saying something, we can't hear it, there's no microphone up there. Now she's turning and following the others inside the ambulance and the door is closing. So this epic adventure is over at last. In a moment we will be talking to Major Cooke and Captain Decosta, the pilots of the rescue mission….”

One by one the consoles in Mission Control were shut down, the lights flickered off, the needles on the meters dropped to zero. The big screen showed a commercial TV channel now with a picture of the crew of Prometheus entering an ambulance, the announcer's voice echoing hollowly in the silence of the hall. Flax looked up at the screen, then down at the big cigar clutched in his hand. The victory cigar. Light up and smoke when the mission was successful. He closed his fingers slowly and the cigar broke, flaked, rained down in crumbled pieces to the floor.

Three of them were back, that was something. Grabbed from the fire at the last moment. But two of them pilots, good pilots, with bandages on their eyes and maybe they would never see again. But the greater disaster of a crash had been averted. Prometheus would not be plowing into San Francisco. The Russian had been good, really good.

Flax's thoughts rambled in exhausted circles, fatigue washed through his limbs, the ball of fire that had been growing steadily in his stomach spread out as though to fill his entire chest, his body.

He slumped forward, very slowly, his head dropping to the cold plastic of the console, his arms slipping off and flopping at his sides. Gravity asserted itself more and more as he slid to the floor and lay there. Motionless.

“Oh my God!” one of the technicians shouted. “It's Flax. Get the doctor!”

They straightened his great form out on the tiled floor, opened his collar wide, loosened his yards-long belt. There were running footsteps and they parted to let the doctor through.