"I know there is no such incantation," Hermione answered. She hesitated, not as long as she would have, but longer than she would have liked. Why couldn't they have sent Harry?
"So, our only chance is to try to invent a spell on the spot. Almost all incantations are simply the Latin for the desired action, but there are numerous ways to express the same thing in any language, Latin being no exception, so it may not be right the first time. If we're lucky, the wrong ones will do nothing serious, I'll be able to keep trying. Then there's the wand movement, the best I can come up with is to use the standard Splinch reunification procedure, and -"
Lawrence cut her off. "At what do you estimate our chances?"
"Well, ah, there's a reason this stuff isn't taught in Hogwarts, and we're deliberately prevented from learning Latin. The first attempts at any new spell can be disastrous. Although, in a way, this is counterproductive, as it inhibits young wizards' ability to determine the effects of the spell from the incantation, which would tend to prevent incidents like the one with Harry and Sectum - "
"Mrs. Weasley, I'm quite sure this is fascinating, but now is not the time. To be frank, I see no other choice than what you propose. We cannot traverse a sufficient distance from here with conventional propulsion, nor can we Apparate that far without a substantial gravity well."
"Right, then," Hermione apologized. "The Latin is 'Unificare' for 'unify', but I'm not certain about the conjugation..."
"Sorry," Lawrence answered after a moment. "We're neither biologists nor linguists."
"I will simply attempt forms until, until we have a success."
"All right, let's do it then," Bernard interjected. Now that he said it, there was no reason to delay. If they failed, no one would ever see anything they wrote or recorded, and their radio wasn't powerful enough to get a message back to Earth (unless radio astronomers knew what they were looking for and exactly where to look, which they wouldn't).
"First, everyone needs to get inside a space suit and strapped in their acceleration couches," Lawrence ordered. "We could lose hull integrity if something goes wrong."
"Henry, if something goes wrong we'll probably all wind up inside out," Cho retorted. "Let's just try it."
"He's right, Cho," Hermione explained. "We might Splinch again, but just shave off a bit of the hull."
The next few minutes were a flurry of chaotic activity. Even with modern designs and two "rooms" in which to do it, five people entering spacesuits in a very confined space with no gravity, and three of them trying to accomplish other tasks at irregular intervals, is not an easy thing to accomplish. Hermione was hit in the face by a flying glove, Bernard banged his elbow on an acceleration couch, and Cho got tangled up with Pierre while they were trying to get their boots on (and stayed that way perhaps a second or two longer than necessary). Lawrence was speaking into an iCube, describing the procedure and slamming his hand over the mike whenever he yelled an order or one of the others started swearing sufficiently loudly.
Finally everyone was strapped in, and silence fell, all eyes on Hermione. A bead of sweat came off her forehead and drifted in her helmet. All she could hear was her own heavy breathing, echoed back by the faceplate.
She raised her wand.
Cho suddenly spoke. "Pierre - I think -"
"Unificare Spatium Superior."
Crushing blackness claimed them. They were whirling, driving, the force crushing, no air, no light...and on, and on, and on. We'll never get out! Hermione thought. We'll be stuck in this until we die! No, calm down, get a grip -
Then a bang, and a lurching shudder, and the capsule again.
No one said anything for a long moment, hauling in air. Pierre and Bernard disengaged their helmets with practiced caution, but the cabin air was fine.
"System status?" Lawrence queried, removing his helmet as Hermione and Cho began to fumble with theirs.
Bernard checked the displays. "We've got it back!" he exclaimed. "A few things are still showing zero or errors, but everything else is back on line. We've got a leak somewhere in the equipment storage, probably the reunification wasn't exact."
He and Lawrence began discussing the systems. Hermione and Cho let go massive sighs of relief, then detached their helmets. Hermione supposed she should be cheering or something, but she was more exhausted than anything. Pierre, however, began punching buttons on the console.
"Monseiur Lawrence," he said, looking at a very clear picture on his screen. "We are not yet out of trouble. We are at Neptune."
All eyes turned to his display, which showed, dimly but clearly, a dark blue planet with an even deeper blue oval in the upper right quadrant.
"Can we determine our velocity?" Lawrence asked quickly. "We are probably not in a stable orbit, and Neptune's magnetic field is bloody awful."
"Yeah, the computer should be able to handle that -"
"I don't know if I can take us back to, ah, LEO from here," Hermione broke in. "Our first attempt was nowhere near its target."
"Zis time," Pierre said, "all your mind, all your soul, will be aimed for the destination."
No one responded to that for a moment. Neptune drifted off the display, and Pierre calmly switched the feed.
"Okay, Lawrence, we aren't in a stable orbit," Bernard reported. "Our perihelion is too close to Neptune. We will hit the upper atmosphere, lose too much speed to maintain orbit, and fall. We just don't have enough velocity. I might be able to buy us a few cycles with the engines, but this planet is probably the worst one for this in the whole system."
"Not to mention," Lawrence noted, "the magnetic flux change will be hell that close. Hardening only goes so far, and we can't control the Apparition at all."
"How's that?" Cho asked.
"It would be like trying to do brain surgery in a car on a bumpy road, signal's lost in the noise," Bernard said. "Not that the guidance seems to have worked anyway."
"Can we contact Mission Control?" Lawrence asked after a moment. "Lightspeed delay's about eight hours round-trip. Do we have that long?"
"What could they tell us?" Bernard pointed out. "Nobody's ever tried to do anything like this before. They won't know any more than we do."
"In any case, we can get a signal to Earth from here," Lawrence decided, "so the first thing to do is to transmit all our data and observations to Earth in case we can't make it back."
"What good - "
"That information will be very useful in determining what went wrong, why, and how to fix it," Bernard cut off Cho. "I agree. Then
Test Flight by William Brennan
Chapter Notes: I might finish this someday, but it's almost already "obsolete".