Below Mercury by Mark Anson Page B

Seven, right turn onto heading one eight zero, clear to climb to flight level nine zero and rendezvous with tanker. Contact Andersen Operations and report when tanker in sight, good day.’
    ‘Right turn to one eight zero, clear climb to nine zero, contact Andersen Ops, Mercury Two Zero Seven, good day.’ Wilson acknowledged the clearance, and began searching for the tanker on the radar.
    ‘Okay …’ Clare selected the new heading on the autopilot. The spaceplane banked steeply to the right as it turned towards the south. ‘Now, where’s that LO2 tanker?’
    ‘I’ve got it.’ Wilson stabbed a finger at his console, and a white diamond appeared on the navigation displays, some way ahead of their current position. ‘They’re holding at nine zero, we’ll be there in … eleven minutes.’
    I would have made it ten, Clare thought, then reconsidered. No, eleven was about right. Relax, she told herself. She removed her hand from the sidestick and flexed her fingers, her eyes moving over the cockpit displays.
    Behind Clare and Wilson, the four passengers sat more easily; the takeoff was behind them, and they were safely in the climb.
    The dim grey light coming into the cockpit lightened to a pearly white, then a bright white, and suddenly the clouds were snatched away and they were in clear air with blue sky above them.
    The spaceplane flew along the bottom of a huge, bowl-shaped valley of clouds, lit by the rays of the morning Sun. Around and ahead of them, hillsides of white and grey foam rose up into the clear blue sky. The spaceplane climbed for a minute in this fantastical scene, then plunged through a hillside of cloud and out the other side, the clouds tearing into ragged streamers behind them.
    Clare adjusted the polarization of the windows, and the glare from the sunlight lessened. Her hands moved occasionally, making small adjustments to the autopilot to take them towards the tanker, ready with its load of liquid oxygen.
    The spaceplane’s nose lowered gently, and the roar of the turbojets lessened, as the autopilot completed the climb and levelled out at 9,000 metres.
    ‘I have the LO2 tanker on radar, five kilometres ahead,’ Wilson reported, ‘they’re rolling out of their hold onto our course.’
    ‘Okay. Report to Andersen when we have them on visual.’ Clare turned her attention to the passengers. ‘Guys, we’re going to be taking on LO2 in a few minutes. You’ll hear some noise when we hook up and the lines are purged, but this is normal, there’s nothing to worry about. Once we’ve tanked up on LO2, there’s just a quick top up on fuel, and we’ll be ready for the orbital climb. Is anyone not okay?’
    Nobody spoke, and Clare turned back to the instruments, then looked out and forward, scanning the sky for the tanker.
    Two minutes passed before Wilson announced: ‘I’ve got it. Eleven o’clock. Can you see it?’
    ‘Yup.’ Clare flicked switches, and banked the spaceplane to the left, adjusting thrust to bring them up behind the tanker, a grey airliner-shape streaming faint contrails in the sky ahead. The Sun glinted along the tanker’s wings as the spaceplane moved onto a closing course.
    ‘Open LO2 fuelling port. Let them know we’re coming in.’ Clare’s eyes didn’t leave the tanker as the spaceplane closed on it from below and behind.
    Halfway back on the spaceplane’s upper hull, a section of the smooth metal surface lowered slightly, to reveal the waiting mouth of the liquid oxygen filling port.
    Clare increased thrust a fraction, and the spaceplane moved towards the waiting aircraft. The tanker loomed above them as they drew closer, its grey-painted wings filling the sky.
    The spaceplane heaved and bucked as it encountered the tanker’s wake. Clare corrected for each unexpected motion, until the spaceplane steadied out in the relatively clear air closer in below the tanker. The contrails from the tanker’s engines streamed out to either side of the spaceplane, racing