The year is 1947. The war is a fading memory, a brutal scar on the world. But for Hanna Schmidt, test pilot extraordinaire, the war is a constant hum in her eardrums. Today, she’s perched atop a behemoth of steel and fury – the A9, a radical evolution of the A4b. No skids for Hanna, no gentle touchdown. This is a one-way ticket, a desperate gamble to prove manned spaceflight is possible.

The A9, a winged rocket cobbled together from salvaged V2 parts, gleams malevolently in the pre-dawn light. Strapped into the cramped cockpit, Hanna feels a familiar cocktail of fear and exhilaration. Mission control crackles in her ear, Wernher von Braun’s voice a calm island in the storm of her pounding heart.

“Ready, Fräulein Schmidt?”

Hanna takes a deep breath. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

The ignition sequence is a symphony of roaring flames and bone-jarring vibrations. The A9 lurches to life, a beast straining at its leash. Then, with a deafening scream, they’re off. The g-forces press Hanna into her seat, stealing her breath. The world blurs into a kaleidoscope of browns and greys as the A9 rockets skyward, faster than anything human-made has ever flown.

The atmosphere thins, the blue bleeding into the inky blackness of space. Time becomes a subjective concept. Below, the Earth shrinks, a blue marble suspended in the void. Awe battles with the gnawing terror in Hanna’s gut. This is uncharted territory, a dance with death at the edge of the atmosphere.

Suddenly, alarms blare. A wing, weakened by an undetected microfracture during construction, buckles under the stress. The A9 spins wildly, a fiery dervish hurtling back towards Earth. Radio contact sputters and dies. Hanna is alone, a fly caught in a celestial maelstrom.

With a desperate twist of the control yoke, Hanna fights for control. The A9 shudders in protest, but slowly, agonizingly, it responds. She knows the wing is doomed, but maybe, just maybe, she can nurse it back to a semblance of glide.

Re-entry is a fiery inferno. The remaining wing buffets against the atmosphere, a shield against the searing heat. Every fiber of Hanna’s being screams in protest. But she grits her teeth, holding on with a white-knuckled grip. Below, a sliver of hope – a vast ocean, a potential graveyard or a life raft.

With a final, bone-jarring crunch, the A9 impacts the water. The world goes black.

Hanna wakes to the insistent throbbing in her head and the taste of salt in her mouth. Dazed, she looks around. The mangled wreckage of the A9 bobs precariously on the waves. She’s alive. Against all odds, she’s alive.

A rescue plane appears on the horizon, a mechanical angel descending from the heavens. As they haul her aboard, Hanna looks back at the A9, a twisted monument to human ambition. The mission was a failure, but it was a glorious, terrifying failure. A stepping stone on the path to the stars, paved with her own blood and courage.

News of Hanna’s miraculous survival throws the world into a frenzy. The dream of spaceflight takes a giant leap forward, fueled by the daring of a woman who dared to touch the face of oblivion. The A9 program is scrapped, but the dream lives on. Hanna Schmidt, the woman who kissed the stars and lived to tell the tale, becomes a symbol – a testament to the human spirit’s unyielding quest to reach for the impossible.