Launch: Asya

This will be a launch just like any other, she tells herself again. She sees that Marco is peering back down the bus at the priest. "Old Russian tradition," she says. "Flown from New Delhi three days ago. Very hard to find a willing priest from the small Russian church here in India."

Marco's mouth hangs open for a long moment, then he gets it. "Oh – ahh – like, blessing of the rocket, like you do in Baikonur. Holy water. Cool!"

Don leans over. "Is that strictly necessary?"

She feels his eyes boring into the side of her head, but she doesn't turn. She's making a speech. "Yes, is necessary. Is fitting ceremony to begin our historic mission." A gesture with gloved fingertips indicating the pad and tower, now visible through the trees as a silhouette against the golden dawn sky. She counts points on glove tips. "Our great chariot, inspired by the genius of Russian rocket engineers like Korolev. Your Russian commander, myself. Our perilous voyage. Many Russian engineers on our team. So naturally we carry on the long tradition of blessing the rocket."

Don exhales loudly and flops back in his seat. She can tell that he wants to protest about the quarantine. None of them want to get sick now, of all times. She isn't going to tell him that the priest agreed to stay in medical seclusion for three days leading up to launch. She isn't going to give Don an inch. Let him ask.

She's feeling energised. She was born to fly. Can't this bus go any faster? She sees Annika's bottled-up nerves. "This will be a good launch. I can feel it," she says. "Propellant loading went well. Weather reports are perfect. Naqsh is in perfect orbit, waiting for us."

Annika looks at her with the strain showing around her mouth. "Do you think we'll have any issues with the refuelling?" That was one operation that they have trained for in the sim, trained hard, and last month the unmanned test rendezvous went off without too many hitches, but for the three rookies everything is new and terrifying in its complexity.

Asya shook her head. "Don't worry. We will sit back and watch the show." It's automated, the girl ought to know that, but still… Asya doesn't trust the software. She always watches the auto like a cat at a mousehole.

She can feel herself slipping in and out of that mission state of mind, a concentration, a calmness. She starts assessing the actual risks. The biggest three risks are right here, she thinks. They are barely astronauts. Yes, they've each been up at least once, but as passengers, as trainees. She will need to watch them all very closely and be ready to intervene. How will she sleep? The Mars transfer orbit is almost 240 days long. She sneers to herself. Best thing: they'll all four of them sleep at the same time. She'll insist. Then no idle hands will be pressing the wrong buttons.

The thought of such a long period watching over these novices jolts her out of her calm. She's terrified, actually, because her thirst for space has led her here, where no level-headed astronaut would willingly go, leading an ill-judged mission with an inexperienced team that's too small to contain enough skill to cover all the possible systems in the spacecraft at a high enough level, too small to allow for the incapacitation of even one of the crew, too much pressure from SSI and the political Great Game of Arab princes and Russian crooks and American corruption, and the whole wired world yelling at them to hurry up and rescue the Smaug crew, and they should have delayed until next opposition, but no, they must go now, even though the rocket shell and LOX pressure system and ECLSS need more development and a solid year of testing to be sure… but you can never be sure, there are always risks, the melting-pot team of engineers that SSI hired are a miracle of genius and manic hard work, she actually was tempted to trust them when she sat in their project meetings, and how could she let Russia down? How could she let her team down?

There's Marco, the grown-up teenager from the Brazilian favela, who has a brain like few others, able to design and repair and maintain almost any kind of machine, software too, he loves his machines, he's like a happy zookeeper. But as an astronaut? He doesn't have the right stuff, she thinks. Give me a grey-haired test pilot any day.

Don? Hah. Lost in his science. Spacecraft only exist to ferry scientists to and from their research projects. Yet he tried with all his might to master the ECLSS system and learn the mission lists. He could be an astronaut… in about ten years from now. If I don't kill him first. Is it the male ego thing? Does he imagine that he should be commander? Or is he so messed up about the dead wife?

Annika, too, gave it two hundred percent in the training. She understands how the Jamal comm systems work, and the biomed monitors, and the power train, but put her in the hot seat and she freezes up. Inexperience. Maybe after this 250-day cruise she'll be halfway to OK. At least she's a competent medic and halfway there with her agri-tech.

And me? she wondered. What are my weaknesses? I have none, she told herself. I will never crack. But there was one thought that she avoided forming, a whole subject she avoided. The Mars transfer was a long, curved track along which they would cruise, and she would make sure they reached the end of it. But beyond the end of the track she did not see. There was nothing for her there.

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Onwards to Launch: Marco

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