text: The blue mirror of the Earth blinded Steven with reflected sunlight. It was his fault really, as he refused to lessen the view's splendor by lowering the window filters. Better to see his home planet in all its glory now and deal with the cataracts later. After all, an eye exam would be included in the full medical diagnostic mandated by both federal law and SpaceX company policy. Starship rotated away from Earth and Steven was met with the black abyss space. Featureless and without reference points, the wall of darkness could have been across a room as much as an infinity away. Sunlight ran perpendicular to the window and gave off an awful glare. A few minutes of staring produced only a few of the brightest stars. Steven thought it ironic that stargazing was so difficult above the atmosphere. "Room for two, Mister Callahan?" Steven grabbed the bolt-covered windowsill and used it to spin around. The rest of the observation lounge came into view: two titanium gray sofas with fire engine red trim sat on either side of an aluminum coffee table with a magnetized top holding onto four cups designed with a teapot-like spout that allowed them to be sipped in microgravity without fear of spills. The entire back wall was devoted to a kitchen on the left and mini-bar on the right with every drink and snack the company accountants allowed the interior design team to buy. between these two islands of terrestrial comforts lay the entrance hatch, now ajar and hosting a fine silhouette of a woman. "The whole dozen of us crowded in here right after launch," said Steven. "I hope we ain't gained enough weight to reduce capacity to just two." He gave her a disarming smile. "Trying to defuse that bomb you just threw with a smile won't work." She moved with smooth deliberance toward the mini-bar. "Care for a Shirley Temple?" "I'd prefer something stronger." "Too bad. Company policy says no drinking within 24 hours of critical maneuvers." "Ol' Elon doesn't trust his landing computer as much as he publicly proclaims." "Wrong Mister Callahan, he doesn't trust that we won't get plastered and bust the computer." She pushed off the back wall and drifted like a cloud toward him. The resemblance was reinforced by their nimbus white uniforms spattered here and there with the same titanium gray as the sofas. The SpaceX logo and NASA insignia were splashes of blue on their left breast pocket. A tiny American flag adorned his collar while the Union Jack did likewise on hers. She let her shoulder collide with the wall ever so gently and stretched the nonalcoholic drink under his nose. "Thanks Tilly." "You're going to have to stop calling me that Mister Callahan, it's unprofessional." "And what should I call you instead?" "How about Dr. Dahl." "Now that's *too* professional." "Matilda then." "Matilda sounds like someone's granny, which is awkward considering how we feel for each other." "We've only had two weeks of interrupted time together, and half of that was spent collecting samples from Shackleton Crater at the lunar south pole." Steven finally accepted the pouch of pink drink and downed it with vigor. "I'm so glad I could help Elon collect rocks for NASA." "And what's wrong with that?" "14 years and 22 missions; there should be a moon base by now. Instead we stay seven days, plop some new telescope, grab a few hundred kilos of rocks, then it's goodbye Moon." "You know Mister Callahan, you're ungrateful. The Apollo astronauts would have killed for this kind of luxury. They ate food from a tube and were damned grateful when the lunar ascent engine worked on its first and only run. So when your personal fantasies are dashed remember where you are and how you got here. Mr. Musk--" "Can kiss my ass." Even he was surprised by the volume at which he said it. No doubt the rest of the crew heard. Tilly pressed against the wall as if looking to it for comfort. He started to repent but went ahead with the confession. "You don't know him like I do. I was in the first class of private recruits. I stood next to the man as he gave the now famous LA Olympics speech. He told me, face-to-face, that--" "'You'll be the first one considered when the Mars colony starts.' I know, he told me the same thing." "My only condolence is that I didn't put down ten million dollars for a reservation like some. The way money gets passed between Musk's companies, there's no telling where theirs went." Tilly had turned toward the lounge's entrance in the middle of his rant. He followed suit and found mission commander Yojiro Takinawa floating knowingly. "Am I interrupting?" said the man with the tiny rising sun on his collar. Steven and Tilly answered in the negative. "Good, because you two need to come down and get strapped in for reentry." Steven started to push off independantly but found Tilly's right hand outstretched before him. He took it, spoke a three second countdown for dramatics, then both launched together. They flew over the sofas, across the room, and right into Yojiro. All three laughed and slapped the others' shoulders. The thought that this was his last microgee dogpile saddened Steven. But it couldn't be helped. His body had absorbed twice the dosage of career radiation NASA allowed. He should have been barred from this third mission but ability and experience trumped regulation and the agency bent the rules. They would not bend them again. Around a corner, down a short corridor, through a hatch and the trio arrived at Starship's heart, the hub room. The hub was a cylinder four meters wide, ten meters long, and containing twelve crew stations. Each station had a reclining seat that doubled as a bed and a flight status monitor that allowed the hub to function as control center for Starship. Two more meters of ship wrapped around the hub. Here was stored the water tanks, HVAC, extra food, and other amenities. A cargo cylinder sat below the hub and contained EVA suits and newly acquired lunar samples. The other nine crew members were already strapped in and ready for reentry. Steven gave the customary greetings and signs of goodwill, though he honestly didn't care for any of them. Tilly and Yojiro had been the only ones who didn't begrudge him for getting this third mission. Strapped in and with a monitor a centimeter from his nose, Steven surveyed their progress. A thin white line wound out from the Moon's south pole, around it the satellite's globe three times, then wofted toward the Earth like a spider silk in a breeze. Starship was riding that line at the point where will be became has been. Green dots were scattered along the "has been" and indicated successful engine burns. Red dots so numerous as to become lines themselves sat on the "will be." These were the burns that had yet to be made. On cue, Starship's six Raptor engines fired up. Two successive bursts turned the same number of dots green. Starship's orbital inclination was made perfect. The Raptors fired again and for much longer. The lowest point of Starship's orbit now intersected the Earth's atmosphere over Baja California. There the red dots really did transition into a line, one that ended at Boca Chica, Texas. The landing computer had calculated, and so far executed, everything to a tee. According to it power, trajectory, and propellant were all nominal. That last would be very important when Starship started plummeting through Earrh's atmosphere and needed to blast its six Raptor engines in a last-minute deceleration burn. If all went right, Starship would land upright on a pad in Boca Chica. If it didn't, well, the paramedics need not bother with body bags. Yojiro motioned Steven to put on his helmet. The helmet snapped to Steven's collar and created an airtight seal, though a valve at the back would let in cabin air until emergency struck. This procedure was a holdover from NASA who often designed their craft with an ejection system. He knew there would be no escape from Starship. Tilly opened an audio link to Steven. "Looks like you're going home old man." "I had hoped home would be a little redder," he said. "And I had hoped th--" Tilly was interrupted by a loud clang and subsequent power outage. The hub stayed dark for only a few seconds before its lights flicked back on. A system startup screen displayed on Steven's monitor. His lip bled from him biting it and his racing heart pushed more and more out. Nothing this severe had happened on the other two flights. Would he and the others have to land manually? The answer came in the form of a heavily distorted trajectory map that showed Starship deep inside the Earth's mantle. The dozen crew members opened audio links with each other to create a group channel. Something akin to bird calls issued from almost every mouth. Only he, Tilly, and Yojiro kept their cool. It was Yojiro who silenced the babble by performing a proper system reboot in the hope of getting the landing computer to at least acknowledge that they were in space. The reboot finished and in turn finished off the landing computer. Power and fuel were accessible through their subsystem screens but there was no longer a trajectory arc between Starship and the ground. Steven reopened the private channel with Tilly. "What the hell do you think that was?" It took Tilly a moment to answer. "If my math is right, and it is, we just passed through the 1000 kilometer medium orbit reserved for the debris of the old satellite constellations. We're not dead, so nothing too large could have hit us. But the more urgent question is, what do we do now that the landing computer is no more?" "Eight minutes until we hit atmosphere and another seven to the pad. We could calculate and fire the Raptors ourselves." "Is there enough propellent for mistakes Steven?" So it's Steven now, he thought. "Maybe for two or three, but any more and we'll have to rely on lithobraking." Yojiro motioned for Steven and Tilly to get back in the group channel. Starship's functions were distributed among five the twelve crew members. Tilly was made responsible for trajectory calculations while Steven was to double check their position by watching the score of cameras strategically placed across the hull of Starship. Two other crew were given care of the engines and power systems. Yojiro oversaw the main computer and made sure the data feeds kept flowing. The necessary burns were mapped out just 30 seconds before the first one was to take place. Tilly sent the direction, throttle, and burn time to the engine controller via audio channel. Steven watched the Raptors light up through the bottom cameras. They were like six torches lighting up the pink landscape of a desert at dusk. Which was strange considering that they should be over the Gulf of California. Yet there sat a mountainous desert stretching for hundreds of kilometers in all directions. Were they already above the Mexican Rockies? Starship hit the upper atmosphere at about the same time that the Raptors stopped. air friction would play a major role in Starship's deceleration. Or it would have if they had remembered to angle the long axis of the ship 15 degrees off its descent arc like they were supposed to. Instead they retained a large amount of horizontal velocity while falling only a little in altitude. Steven realized that they were going to overshoot Boca Chica before Tilly did and informed Yojiro immediately. "By how much?," said Yojiro to both Steven and Tilly. The pair compared predictions before telling him, "By a lot, maybe 300 kilometers." "That puts us halfway to Florida. Could we make it to Kennedy Space Center?" She replied that, depending on atmospheric conditions, it might take more fuel than they had left. "Then it's worth a shot," said Yojiro. Steven caught glimpses of the seven crew who were left out of operation slim hope. Three were motionless dummies slouching on their seats. Two had taken their helmets off and were touching various icons to their lips. Two others were obviously crying but their tears remained locked behind tinted visors. The last rays of sunlight were now gone and night was complete over the Gulf of Mexico. Starship screamed down through the stratosphere toward cloud tops only made visible by a crescent moon. They would hit the troposphere hard as there was not enough propellant for a superfluous burst of the Raptors. The scream outside became thunderous and the ship rattled from the stress. Steven expected the clouds to part any second and the urbanity of central Florida to light up the sky. But the sky was quite dark under the cloud decks. Light was reserved for a single point on the eastern horizon and even then only at intervals. Then it hit him: they were still in the Gulf and that was a lighthouse up ahead. "Tilly," said Steven, "where should we be right now?" "50 kilometers from Kennedy Space Center," said Tilly. "And if we're just off the Florida Gulf Coast?" "Then we'd better burn all our propellant on a sea landing." Tilly was still speaking when Steven broke the news to Yojiro. The mission commander breathed deeply over the audio link before saying, "okay." The five puppeteers pulled Starship's strings with a deftness reserved for professionals facing death. Starship became ever more vertical as its Raptors burned to Tilly's time. The last kilometer of descent saw the engines burning constantly and at full throttle. Steven stared through clouds of new steam at the lighthouse. It seemed so familiar, so inviting, as if he were a sailor ready to come home. Splashdown shook the ship like an earthquake and brought him back to reality. A few panicked crew members unbuckled prematurely and were rewarded with a toss across the hub when Starship fell over on its side. Yojiro attended to everyone, checking for injuries, restating rescue procedures, and once again proving his fitness to lead. By the time they got around to opening the side of Starship that was above water, a raft from the shore had almost arrived and a helicopter was not far behind. The four in the raft identified themselves as Coast Guard. Yojiro started to explain who they were but a lanky woman in an oversized life jacket waved it away. "We know who you are," she said, "half the world knows who you are by now." With this the crew began descending into the raft under the helicopter's spotlight. Steven caught Tilly as she was sliding off the rope ladder. "I remember you being more agile on the Moon," he said. "I wasn't falling, I was stretching to see the impact that caused all this. Look." Steven swept his eyes across Starship's hull and came to rest on a meter wide crater with a pinhole center. He was forced to look away by a boot tapping his helmet from above. The journey to shore was completed in an eye blink. In another the crew was wrapped in thernal blankets and standing under a billboard that read, "Gasparilla Island." Starship was a distant black cylinder bobbing up and down with the waves. Steven walked to the lighthouse that had help save their lives. He was petting the structure's watertower-like supports when Tilly came up behind him. "Well Ti--Matilda, this ordeal has convinced me that retirement might not be that bad." "Tilly is fine. And I don't think you'll get to retire just yet. We're celebrities now, at least until the next aerial disaster. 'Could even get a movie if we play our cards right." "I'm not interested in--" Steven was broken off by a Coast Guardsman running up with a cell phone stretched out in front of him. He said it was a call from Mr. Musk. "Hello?," said Steven. "Yeah," said Elon, "I heard you were, um, back on Earth after the little, um, mishap." Steven started biting his lip again. "Mishap is a funny way to frame it." "Whatever you want to call it, it's over and you're alive. Now, the press is--" "Are you kidding me?" "I was talking. Now, the press is wanting to interview you and I hope that you'll be completely honest and let them know, um, the role that human error played in this, this, well this." Steven ended the call and handed the phone back to the Guardsman. "What did he say?" said Tilly. "That this is movie material for sure.