Space Station Down, page 22
The titanium rod quivered as she waited. She heard Bakhet moving closer and gritted her teeth as she pulled back harder on the bungee cords, stretching them to the limit as she waited, waited …
Bakhet suddenly flew into the module, his arms outstretched. In one hand he carried a long screwdriver. He sailed through the air, coming straight at her, snarling.
His eyes went wide as he saw the crossbow; he tried to pull up and rotate backward. He shouted—
Kimberly released the cords. The elastic lines snapped forward, hurling the prybar toward Bakhet.
The long titanium bar arrowed across the module, but its curved rear end started to rotate upward. For a second Kimberly thought that the metal rod might hit Bakhet on its side and not straight on—but before either one of them could react the prybar’s pointed end slammed into his chest, piercing his clothing and skin. The momentum from the impact spun him slowly backward in the air, head over heels.
He hit the opposite wall and Kimberly saw a look of astonishment flash across his face. He flailed his hands. Blood gurgled in his mouth.
Kimberly quickly unwrapped the bungee cords from the U-shaped stand and started preparing a bola-like weapon as she watched Bakhet grab at the long metal pole. Using both hands, he gave a weak, halfhearted tug, trying to pull it out of his chest. Then his arms drifted off to his sides. His eyes turned glassy and stopped moving. Still rotating slightly, his body bumped against the far wall and bounced weakly back toward the center of the module.
Kimberly’s breath caught in her throat as she watched, carefully, to make sure there was no more movement. After a few seconds, she cautiously pushed off toward him, keeping the makeshift bola at the ready.
She reached Bakhet and grabbed the curved, crowfoot end of the prybar. Grunting, she twisted it several times, to make sure he was lifeless. He didn’t respond.
He’s dead, she thought. I killed him. She expected to feel guilt, remorse. Instead, a voice in her head exulted, Better him than me.
Finally certain that Bakhet was really dead, she pushed him back into the MRM-2 airlock. She closed the hatch and again used the prybar to secure the handle, unwilling to take any chance that he might somehow have survived.
She frantically rummaged through the debris still floating in the SM from when she’d torn the bungee-cord jail apart. She spotted Shep’s knife; feeling relieved, she kicked off, grabbed it, then sailed along the station’s axis to Node 3. Holding the knife out, she entered the module, expecting the worst.…
The hatch to the inflatable Bigelow module was still secure. She floated over to it and checked the entrance to the rubberized plastic of the module. It was still locked, bolted shut. And quiet. Once again she tightened the screws. Farid wasn’t banging around inside; probably his flash-frozen face was still painful, Kimberly thought.
She thought again about depressurizing the Bigelow, using the graphical interface. But she’d already lost enough time dealing with the terrorists, and she still had the EVA to accomplish. And although contacting NASA was supposed to be her first priority, Kimberly decided they would have to wait. They couldn’t do anything to help her, anyway.
She turned for the Joint Airlock. Gliding into the area, she started preparing the EVA suit that was equipped with the Extravehicular Mobility Unit so she could exit the station and de-crimp the propellant line. As she checked out the suit, she thought that now with both terrorists out of the picture, donning the EMU-equipped suit would be the hardest thing she had to do.
17TH STREET AND CONSTITUTION AVENUE NW, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Stuck in the honking, steaming traffic mere blocks from the White House, NASA Administrator Patricia Simone fumed at the delay and debated leaving her chauffeured limousine and walking the rest of the way. But the sidewalks were jammed, too, with angry, frightened people pushing and yelling at one another. And they glanced skyward, as if expecting to see the ISS dropping out of the heavens and falling on them.
The whole city was in gridlock, everyone trying to get away, panic rising higher by the minute.
Normally, the drive from NASA Headquarters to the White House didn’t take more than ten minutes, fifteen at the most. But she’d been sitting in the car for more than a half hour, barely inching along in the honking bumper-to-bumper traffic. She decided she’d give it another five minutes and then she was out the door, no matter what her Chief of Staff said.
The LED TV screen embedded in the backseat console showed multiple windows of different national and cable news broadcasts: camera shots of traffic crawling out of the nation’s capital, computer-generated graphics of the paths of the mass evacuations taking place up and down the eastern seaboard, rioting in New York City, Boston, Washington, Atlanta, and even Miami.
Sitting next to her on the backseat, perspiring despite the limousine’s air-conditioning, Simone’s Chief of Staff, Mini Mott, held up a red-bordered sheet of paper with the words TOP SECRET/SCI stamped at its top and bottom. The normally optimistic ex-Marine’s round face was flushed, scowling.
The TV screen suddenly blinked and the words Breaking news from the White House scrolled across its bottom, beneath the Presidential seal.
Simone sucked in a breath. This can’t be good news, she thought. But how can it get worse?
“What do you have, Mini?”
Mott pulled a second page from the limo’s secure portable printer. “The National Security Council has just signed off on the decision paper.”
“Couldn’t they wait another five minutes?” Simone complained. “They only called the meeting ten minutes ago and I was already on my way!”
Simone fumed, but she realized that with the speed with which things were moving, there was no use even lodging formal protest. Damn! She realized that she should have stayed camped out in NASA’s cramped office in the Old Executive Office building so she could have made this last-minute meeting. But with the Dragon returning to Earth and the Starliner still approaching the ISS, she needed to make certain that Kimberly had the resources of NASA and the rest of the government at her disposal to stop those SOBs.
She took the classified document from Mott’s hand and rapidly scanned it. Thank God her secure limo served as a rolling SCIF: her level of political appointment included this mobile Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility to allow her to view the highest-classified documents no matter where she was.
Mini said in a choked voice, “The news release at the bottom of the second page has gone out to every major national and international contact, and the President is going to hold a press conference at any moment now.”
Simone looked up sharply. “But this is illegal! This news release reveals an ongoing military operation. And they’ve bypassed the interagency review! They’ve bypassed me!”
With a shrug of his shoulders, Mott countered, “To stop the rioting and panic spreading up and down the eastern seaboard, the NSC urged the President to announce that he’s approved Operation Burnt Haunt. He’s ordered the Navy to shoot down the ISS on its next pass over the south Pacific.”
“But that’s only one of several options.”
Mini shook his head. “No, ma’am, not anymore. You’ll see that the Decision Memorandum concludes it’s better that the President goes public immediately with Burnt Haunt. It recommends he convince the American public that once the ISS is shot down, the station will fall harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean. They’re hoping that the announcement—and the shoot-down—will dispel the panic and the rioting and things will return back to normal.”
He jabbed a finger toward the TV screen in the back console. The display showed the President sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, looking as though he was about to speak.
Simone slumped back in her seat. “So he’s going to kill one of our own astronauts just to dispel rumors and irrational fears.”
“The rioting is real,” Mott said quietly. “Hundreds, maybe thousands of people will die if we don’t do something. The press is reporting the possibility it may be in the millions.…”
“But the chances that it’ll hit New York—”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s the radiation, Patricia—the plutonium. People are scared shitless. They’re starting to act like animals! The President’s got to stop that. Now!”
“It’s the wrong decision,” Simone insisted.
“Yes, ma’am, I agree. But that doesn’t change anything.”
The NASA Administrator fought back tears of frustration. “Except that my best astronaut will be killed, along with this nation’s space program.”
JOINT AIRLOCK
Kimberly’s side ached and her wounded hand throbbed as she pulled on a thin layer of long underwear, then her custom-fitted liquid cooling and ventilation garment. The garment was threaded with clear plastic tubing, looking like veins running through its skintight length. She felt warm as she dressed, but she knew that once suited up, chilled water would flow through the thin flexible pipes, keeping her temperature down.
She was behind schedule, having programmed a script for the ISS to rotate 180 degrees and engage the thrusters exactly nineteen minutes from now.
To save time, she’d skipped putting on the modified incontinence diaper she’d normally wear when suiting up. She remembered going through a few diapers she’d found in the JPM and hanging them up to dry; if she really had to go she’d wait until she could get back to the zero-gee toilet. She’d be on EVA only for a few minutes, she reasoned, hopefully no longer than she’d taken to initially crimp the fuel line. Plus, she’d been so dehydrated that she hadn’t even peed for half a day. So bypassing the MAG, or maximum absorbency garment, was a small risk to take.
Her injuries seemed to have gotten worse: she felt stiff and achy, and incredibly tired. She tried to ignore the sullen pain, knowing that she would have plenty of time to attend to her wounds once she’d re-boosted the station.
Suddenly puzzled, she wondered where the cooling garment had gotten to. It should be right here, beside the spacesuit’s outer shell.…
Then she realized she was already wearing it. Stupid. But she remembered that confusion and loss of mental acuity was one of the first signs of the bends.
I’ve got to hurry, she told herself. Get this job done before the bends really hits.
She thought about using SAFER, the cold-nitrogen emergency jet pack. But she’d have to fasten it to the back of the suit, and she was running out of time. Feeling weak, she winced as she struggled to pull on first the lower torso assembly and then the fiberglass hard upper torso.
Fighting against exhaustion, she took three tries before she finally connected the liquid cooling and ventilation garment’s umbilical to the suit’s water supply. Then she locked the upper and lower parts of the suit with the body seal closure before pulling on her gloves and the clear-bubble helmet.
Finally sealed in the EMU, she heard the suit’s regulator and fan whining away at 20,000 rpm as she prepared to evacuate the air from the Joint Airlock. She rotated her arms and twisted her torso, trying to elevate her heart rate. Work as much nitrogen out of your bloodstream as you can, she told herself.
She knew she should have pre-breathed pure oxygen to purge her body of nitrogen to prevent the bends, but because she was so pressed for time, once again she had skipped the normal three-hour pre-breathing routine and opted for the abbreviated in-suit exercise. It was a risk she’d have to take, but in the scheme of things she decided she’d rather chance the possibility of decompression sickness than have the station slip below the point of no return as it continued to drop in altitude.
With purposeful care, she made certain that she was tethered securely and had both Shep’s knife and the EVA-modified vice grip in her equipment pouch. Then she closed the airlock’s inner hatch and started evacuating the chamber, pumping the lock’s air back into the station. Her suit ballooned slightly as the pressure dropped. When it fell below 1 psi she vented the lock and opened the outer hatch.
It swung slowly open. Using the handrails on the station’s outer skin, Kimberly pushed slowly out into the airless depths of space. For a moment she blinked in puzzlement, trying to recall how she could best find her way to the access panel. Then she got her bearings and remembered: it’s on the FGB, the next module over. She thought she must have flashed to where she had exited the JPM through the small experimental lock; with all that had happened since then, the change in her location had momentarily confused her.
She pulled her way forward. Being tethered to the station, she could move faster than she had when she’d been in the second-generation suit. She knew she could take more risk by getting as quickly as possible to the panel where she’d crimped the line.
Bending at the edge of the module, she worked her way toward the FGB, hand over hand, with the long safety tether trailing behind her, playing out as she moved toward the axis of the station.
She reached out with a gloved hand and snagged one of the conformal thermal radiators. Her spacesuited body rotated gently as she moved across the station’s outer skin toward the FGB access panel.
Her heart started thumping faster. She knew this shouldn’t take nearly as long as her last EVA; the access port was already open and the Joint Airlock was closer to the FGB than to the JPM, located at the opposite end of the station’s axis. All she had to do was de-crimp the thin stainless steel line to allow the dimethylhydrazine fuel to flow to the thrusters. A piece of cake, really … but for some reason she was finding it hard to concentrate on what she needed to do.
Pulling out the vice grip, Kimberly looped its tether around her right wrist, then grabbed the panel with her free hand. She pulled herself close, until her helmet was almost inside the opening, then carefully pushed the vice grip past the layers of mylar thermal blankets that insulated the line.
A sudden sharp pain pierced through her upper chest and neck, as if stabbing through the suit. It felt as if an army of ants crawled underneath her skin, across her elbows, chest, and thighs. Had she been hit by something on the station, or maybe a piece of space debris? The pain spiraled up in intensity: she could hardly think straight.
She started to pull the vice grip out of the access panel to see what had happened, but a vague thought seemed to grow in her mind. Her suit wasn’t breeched or even struck by some outside object: she must be experiencing the onset of decompression sickness, the bends. Her two EVAs had not allowed her to sufficiently purge the nitrogen from her bloodstream, and now all she could feel was the incredible pain of nitrogen bubbles growing in her veins. Kimberly knew she’d be incapacitated unless she got back inside the station and into a higher-pressure environment.
But she couldn’t leave. Not yet.
Gasping from the pain, her vision blurred as she refocused on de-crimping the fuel line. She had to fight through this. She wouldn’t have a second chance if she returned to the airlock and the safety of the ISS’s normal air pressure. By the time she’d overcome the decompression sickness the station could very well be so low in altitude that it would be beyond the point of ever returning to a higher orbit.
Her gloved hand shaking, Kimberly opened the vice grip and pushed it over the stainless steel fuel line. She barely tightened her grip as she moved the wrench slowly down the tubing. She felt a sudden indentation and stopped. It was where she had crimped off the flow.
Tears in her eyes, she carefully rotated the vice grip until it was nearly 90 degrees from where she’d previously crimped the line. Slowly, she closed the handle. Gently, she worked the grip back and forth. She rotated the tool, trying to ensure that the tube was now as symmetrical as she could make it.
She pulled the grip out of the panel. Grunting through the pain that enveloped her, she pushed her helmet close to the hatch’s opening. She tried to see if she could spot any indentations on the line, but she couldn’t focus her eyes that clearly.
Her skin crawling, burning, it was hard to think straight. She had to see if she needed to try again—
She felt a low vibration run through the FGB as she gripped the edge of the opening. She shook her head inside her helmet, trying to clear her vision. The engines must have engaged, she realized, commanded by the script she’d written prior to going EVA. The thrusters are working!
An incredible sense of relief swept through her pain and fatigue and growing weakness. She’d succeeded, but now she needed to get into the station as quickly as she could as the script she’d written started rotating the station 180 degrees, preparing to boost to altitude.
She used both hands to flip herself over. Floating above the FGB’s outer skin, she started to drift away from the station; the tether securing her to the ISS snaked out as she floated farther and farther away.
Gritting her teeth, Kimberly reached down and grabbed the line with both hands, then started pulling herself hand over hand to the slowly rotating space station. It was revolving so gradually that even through her pain she knew she’d be able to pull herself back to the airlock before the station started ascending—but the effort seemed nearly impossible as the decompression sickness burrowed deeper into her exhausted body.
Little by little she pulled herself toward the Joint Airlock. The station’s low acceleration had moved the ISS so that she had drifted until she was nearly on top of the inflatable Bigelow module. She tried to pull out of the way and avoid hitting the module. Glancing through the Cupola window in Node 3 she saw a faint glow coming from the Bigelow hatch window. Had Farid somehow gotten his hands on a light in the inflatable module? A laptop or something else that he was using to illuminate the supplies stashed in it?
As she laboriously pulled herself along the tether, Kimberly felt an overpowering fear that Farid would somehow get loose, free himself from the Bigelow and escape into the ISS.
A chill of fear swept through her.
With the thrusters now working, he’d be able to rotate the station back again and start it deorbiting once more. At the very least, he’d be able to close the Joint Airlock hatch and prevent her from ever getting back inside.
