Beyond Sol

Chapter 18

It's been two months since the incident. We had contact with the Event Horizon. They know damn well our little act of screwing with basically all of the Spectrum.
The Spectrum was like a baseball. The engines are gonna hit the ball and the Event Horizon is going to catch it. I awoke at our little basecamp just outside. I stepped outside to see the Spectrum glimmering and sparkling against the K-light.
On the outside, the Spectrum looked normal. But on the inside both of the gravity rings were bare hulls and the main hull of the Spectrum was just wires and fuel lines. There was a small amount of flooring from the Airlock to the bridge.
The others exited the small camp in the orange launch suits, I wore the same attire. "Helmets." I say, placing my helmet on the suit. The helmet fastened and made an airtight seal. The air hissing in. "It's launch day..." The K-rise was gorgeous. I looked to the horizon. The Event Horizon was visible. (In detail too!)
"Our launch window closes soon. It's best to leave as soon as possible." Muhammed says, sighing. We all started to walk up the stairs, I peeked into the Spectrum before entering. It was eerie and dark. I wouldn't be surprised if the Spectrum was haunted.
We sat in our seats with most of the controls ripped out. All we needed to do was get to space. From there the Event Horizon could catch us. "AETHER what's the measured weight of the Spectrum?" I ask, starting the pre-flights.
"Thirty two thousand tons." Oh wow, we're under weight. That's good to have.
"If the Spectrum flips, we're dead. If we're overweight, we're dead. If our fuel level was calculated wrong, we're dead. IF our engines fail, we're dead! If our combustion chamber fails, we're dead. If our fuel fails to ignite, WE'RE DEAD!" Muhammed shouts.
"We all know there are an infinite amount of things that could go wrong."
"Pre-flights finished. Fuel is...On." Muhammed flipped a switch above. "Turning ignition keys." Me and Muhammed turned our ignition keys. I place four of my fingers on four sliders above me.
"Ten, nine, eight, four, six, five, four, three." I slid them forward, the engines igniting, flaring outwards. "Two, one...Liftoff." I pushed the throttles forward, the Spectrums wheels skidding along the mud and dirt. I pulled back on the stick, the front gear lifting off the ground. And then the rear gear. It kicked off the ground and whipped us back into our seats. The Spectrum was near vertical, the fuel gauge dropping rapidly. AETHER threw a fit at us for being underweight and only having a twelfth of our normal takeoff fuel load.
Our altitude hit ten thousand feet when we blacked out. The Spectrum held an angle. AETHER couldn't do anything because we ripped out the navigation system.
I was the first to awake, my helmet frosted up. I wiped it away and gripped the stick. I pushed the throttle to full and started to angle down. And then Parker woke up. "How much fuel do we've got left?"
"Enough...I think. It's gonna be close. We're gonna be clipping the atmosphere." The engines burned for forty more seconds. The others awoke one by one, all the could do is watch.
Wind was being smashed through the Spectrum. All windows were stripped out to reduce weight. The rear of the Spectrum swang right against high winds. "Shit, shit, shit, shit," I said. AETHER threw another fit because we were off trajectory.
"We still have fifty seconds until MECO!" James shouts against the hurtling winds. I went to grab the radio to contact the Event Horizon.
Oh.
I forgot. We ripped out everything. I grabbed air and then swung my arm back down. I attempted to correct the trajectory of the Spectrum but to no avail.
"Carter! The engines are starting to burn up! We can't hold it much longer!" Amelia shouts from her seat. I gazed quickly to my monitor. ENGINE HEAT: 22 THOUSAND I threw my hand over to the switch above me labelled VNT ENG  
I flicked off the safeguard and pushed it forward. Four small panels opened up on the combustion chamber. It vented out the heat before retracting back in.
"Thirty seconds!" Eliza yells.
"I'm well aware!" I shout, I smashed the stick to the left. The Spectrum finally corrected course and continued to orbit.
"Five percent fuel!"
"Four percent!"
"Three percent!"
"Two percent"
"One percent!" Amelia shouts as I pull the throttle back. I flick the engine cutoff button. "Holding zero point five fuel." Amelia said.
"We're in orbit." We all sighed in relief. We started laughing as I unbuckled my restraints.
"Don't make me ever do that again Carter." Eliza says, sitting back laughing.
"Depends if we're dying or not." I say, angling the exterior camera. "Event Horizon is ten minutes away. It's gonna be angling itself. We're just gonna float right into the bay."

We floated in between the rings and the hull of the Event Horizon, the frozen nitrogen of its RCS sprayed, angling the Event Horizon to pick up the Spectrum. I'm tired of saying Event Horizon, I'm calling it the Horizon from now on. The front gear touched down on the tracks of the catapult, retracting the Spectrum in.
The back wheels slammed onto the floor from the resistance on the catapult. Ground crew tossed over ropes that tightened the Spectrum down.
"Holy shit..." Parker says. "Finally, finally home."
"Don't be happy yet. We still have fifteen thousand kilograms of liquid uranium. Until all that is drained we might still die." Amelia says, floating up from the restraints.
"Ass." Parker says, sighing. The Spectrum's suspension lowered down, the five of us falling briefly. We floated through the stripped hull, wires dangling in weightlessness. The airlock hissed violently, the five of us tumbling out. A few medical officers rushed over and checked us for injuries.
"They're good. Just cuts and bruises on the face." One said. A few ground crew immediately hooked up fuel lines to the Spectrum, draining out the small amount of fuel left. Some of the crew hurrying into the Spectrum, shining a flashlight inside.
"Christ," one of the crew said. I mean, the Spectrum's were never intended to be stripped of forty thousand tons of weight. Makes sense that an engineer might crap themselves.
"Carter," The Captain of the Event Horizon spoke.
"What's up."
"You seem unaffected by the fact you just launched off of a planet with thirteen percent of your usual fuel load, with no navigation systems."
"Why would I? I trained for seventeen years on Earth. I was trained mentally crazily so intensely there was a risk I wouldn't be fit for the mission. I was pressed under twenty G's for training to make sure the Beyond Sol program could continue under every circumstance. I was trained for engine failures, hydraulic failures, entry interface complications, launch complications, overweight, underweight situations."
"Well you certainly humbled me there. "She read a small engineering guide to the Spectrums. "If the data here is correct and my maths is correct, you had just a three percent chance of surviving. You saw how the tail started to swing? That had a ninety seven percent chance of happening. That tail swing was intended to throw the Spectrum into a spin, and we both know the Spectrum had nowhere near enough fuel to recover. So how'd you do it?"
"We were underweight. We stripped another thousand tons then we were supposed to. We stripped the hull. We know we were supposed to only strip the systems and flooring. But we also stripped the structural beams. The Spectrum's hull is a solid jello. Especially the rings. Go touch the rings. They're actual jello," Parker sighed.
"You know how dangerous it is to be underweight of your original weight goal which was already severely underweight."
"Bold of you to assume we care." I walked up (Floated up?) from the stairs to the Captain. "I'm sorry but last time I checked you received a year of training—which was only to man the Event Horizon. Me and my crew here received seventeen years of training for every possible situation. My crew is more mentally fit, trained better, stronger in every way then you. You cannot control us. You cannot command us. We have gone to hell and back five times over. I will overpower you, your crew and your 'Security'" I mocked.
"You and your crew have been sitting in orbit for the past eighty years doing jack shit!" Muhammed says, slamming his fist on the railing of the Spectrums stairs.
"Muhammed I will remove you from my ship right now."
"No you wont. Last time I checked, we all outrank you. If anything, we will remove you from our ship." Amelia says, playing with a knife.
"This is bull shittery!" She yelled.
"Captain, I can assure you, your opinion here does not have a play," James sighed.
"Everyone! Quiet! I am going to put a bullet hole in every one of you! Shut up!" I yell.