SubOrbital 7, page 10
“Don’t they have a fix on us all the time?” Burkett asked.
“We have a transmitter that gives it to them, but it’s down,” Strickland said dourly. “Its power source is near the impact area. Smashed.”
“Then we have to repower it,” Mayweather said. “Let’s finish damage assessment. I’ll assign teams.”
* * *
“We’ve lost track of the S-7,” General Carney said. He sounded angry, though there was no particular reason to be angry at the other two people in the conference. “They’re not responding to comms.”
“Hell’s fucking bells,” said Sandy Chance.
“Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds,” Sgt. Susan Prosser offered. “Could be a comm systems failure.”
“Failure from what?” Carney snorted. “Got to have a cause.”
The three of them were talking by video conferencing. Chance from Langley, Carney and Prosser from SubOrbital One—mission control for every S-series flight. She’d been off duty till the call.
Chance was in his office—he’d gotten in not long before, on a red-eye and couldn’t sleep. Now he was nursing a triple espresso at CIA headquarters. The place had high-quality espresso machines.
Glancing out a one-way window, he watched as a helicopter landed in the blue-tinted morning light. He recognized the silver-and-red heli. That would be his boss. He’d hoped she wouldn’t be in the loop on this quite yet. Hard enough to defend the Drop-Heavy program without shit like this. Syl Blackwell, the CIA director, might think that SubOrbital had just lost all deniability.
“Well, Chance?” Carney demanded. “What’re you people going to do?”
Chance studied the two of them, each sharing half the screen. Carney was a white-haired, narrow-jawed, clean-shaven man, his eyes a little too close together, the skin around his mouth lined from being perpetually pursed. Susan Prosser was sixty; a plump woman with kindly blue eyes but a no-nonsense air. Her long white hair was in bangs and tied back in a braid. Without time to get into uniform, she had on a light-blue frock.
Chance spread his hands. “I’ll talk to our Russia and Bulgaria specialists, and I’ll loop in relevant departments in the IC.” More precisely the USIC—United States Intelligence Community. Something from everyone and something for everyone in US intel. “We have any satellites that could look for them, Susan?”
“We’re on that,” she replied. “Comprehensive sensors all round.” Sergeant Prosser, an Army Airborne specialist in satellites, was chief of operational interface on the Drop-Heavy program. She had a proprietorial air about the job. “We’ll find ’em, but I can tell you already that they’re not on course. They’d have been seen by Orbital Station Three; OS Four too, by now.”
“Any chance they’ve had a major incident, Prosser?” Carney asked. “Or been shot down?”
“We tracked them into orbit and halfway home. So if something serious happened, it was in low Earth orbit.”
“It would have made a big damn explosion, if it’d blown up,” General Carney said, massaging his long chin with the ball of his thumb. “Someone would’ve spotted it.”
“Someone probably has,” Chance said, then hastily added, “if that’s what happened.”
“It’ll be a global PR nightmare if that craft is destroyed,” Carney muttered. “We have to ask ourselves if we’re going to lie about who was on board, and what the mission was about.”
“Either way, we say as little as possible,” Chance replied automatically, but he suspected that before this was over, SubOrbital’s secrets would go viral.
NINE
I should hate this, Linda Strickland thought as she began the spacewalk. Because we’re all in major danger. This is a huge responsibility, and we have three civilians—important ones—to get home safe.
Yet every time Sgt. Linda Strickland did a spacewalk, she was thrilled. She’d been tired before suiting up, needing food and sleep, but drifting along the outer hull, she felt energized and wide awake. Her silver-and-black biosuit was about as tight-fitting as a wetsuit, giving her a comfortable range of motion. It was connected to the ship by a long safety tether.
Its helmet, much like a glass-dome bell jar, was actually made of transparent aluminum, though its coating blocked dangerous solar radiation. She had a far better view than the old-style astronauts.
The S-7 was directly over Baffin Bay, between Canada and Greenland. She could see the chartreuse and rose-red shimmer of solar radiation gathered in the aurora over the gleaming white arctic…
Linda breathed slowly and deeply as she drew herself along the outer hull using maintenance handholds, tugging her way to the rear fuselage. Her boots were equipped with magnets for walking on the hull, but she wanted to get to the job more expediently.
Floating on a short tether attached to her left hip was a case of tools, and the metal box of the replacement power conduit. She had the latest SAFER unit on her back—something like a metallic backpack—with small navigational nitrogen-gas jets to use if she needed them. For the moment, she felt in better control using her hands. A small camera strapped to her forehead took in everything she saw.
Out here she was in no danger of losing touch with the S-7—she and the orbcraft were moving along at the same speed. In a way, it didn’t feel as if they were moving at all. She’d done eleven space walks: four during her training, and seven after she’d become a trainer on Orbital Station Eight, before being transferred to S-7. Strickland had more experience than anyone else aboard in “the great airless outdoors,” as Tafir called it, so she got the assignment.
Linda was reasonably confident she could get the job done, but there were risks…
Her biosuit was the best available, but this new model was so thin—not needing air pressurization, using titanium-coil membranes to pressurize her body—it made her feel exposed.
She passed close beside the orbcraft’s reaction control system jets, each one big enough to fry her suit and her with it, if a course-correction pod burned at the wrong moment.
Ike wasn’t going to touch the controls for the RCS thrusters while she was out here.
But suppose there was another incoming missile? He’d have to burn whatever was needed to evade it. The Captain would order it—he’d have to prioritize the safety of everyone aboard, wouldn’t he?
If she were in his place, that’s what she’d do.
The thoughts flickered quickly through her mind and were just as quickly pushed aside. Being scared was something a Ranger handled routinely. It was like learning to handle electricity without being electrocuted. She had to get rid of the fear before it became panic.
A different kind of fear arose in her. It was an aching fear of failure. If she couldn’t get the emergency-power unit properly attached to the comm system, they wouldn’t have the long-range communication they were going to need to call for help. There was limited oxygen aboard, and little fuel. Everyone was counting on her—not just aboard the S-7. The United States itself was counting on her. Chance had made it clear that this mission had long-term consequences.
Linda Strickland focused on the work in front of her.
“In the moment and on task.” That was the mantra at Station Seven.
Up ahead, just above the main engine’s exhaust port, she could see black impact marks left by the enemy missile. There was no air out here to feed a fire, but superheated expanding gases from the warhead had cooked the insulating cells on starboard rear fuselage, near the main rocket array’s exhaust port. The tail fin was bent just a little out of true, the metal near the fuselage wrinkled.
“You seeing all this, Ike?” Linda asked.
Faraday’s voice crackled in her headset. “Hell yeah, we got a bent stabilizer. That’ll be fun when we’re trying to land.”
As she drifted nearer the impact area, she saw a long rectangular gap where a fuel tank had been ejected. A thin plume of blue gas trailed after the S-7—methane from the fuel leak, clinging to the orbcraft’s mass.
Handholds became fewer and farther between, so she deployed the joystick for the SAFER jets, swiveling it out from the side of the backpack. She fired a tiny lateral jet to tilt herself in the right direction and cautiously aimed her trajectory toward the hull, pressing the joystick’s button very gingerly. It didn’t take much.
There was a heads-up display panel just below her helmet glass, and the 3D arrow was pointing down and ahead, guiding her to hull plate 1733, near the enormous cones of the exhaust ports. The gas jet hissed and she angled down to the underside of the rear fuselage. There she spotted it—the battered panel that contained the power node for the comms.
Becoming suddenly aware of the sound of her own rapid breathing in the helmet, Linda caught at the edge of a blackened, bent-up panel, her hands in counter-pressure gloves holding onto the sharp edges. The serrated edge of the damaged panel was under her gloves.
Bracing herself, her left hand holding onto the inside edge of the open panel, she tugged at the broken piece, trying to pull it out of her way. It came loose too suddenly and she lost her grip on it; the panel flew at her, banging hard into her helmet. The transparent metal remained uncracked, but the impact sent her floating backward, away from the S-7 at surprising speed. Angling toward a lower orbit, she had a mental image of her tether snapping…
Of burning up in the atmosphere.
Focus, she thought. In the moment and on task.
Linda reached the end of the tether and it jarred her, but it held. She pressed the SAFER’s joystick almost convulsively, not aiming properly, and found herself spinning. The Earth blurred by, vanished, spun past again…
She fired a different jet on her backpack, one that hissed counter to her spin, and it stopped her with a jerk.
“Oh jeezus.”
She was floating in space—and gazing down at the Earth. It was all she could see.
* * *
“Linda!” Faraday called. “What’s your status?” Drifting behind him, Burkett heard the alarm in Ike’s voice.
“What’s up?”
“Saw something fly at her, lost the image,” the pilot muttered. “Yo, Sergeant Strickland!”
“Knocked off the orbcraft,” she said, over the radio. “Panel was looser than I thought. Hit my maneuvering jet wrong, got myself in a spin. Got myself out of it. On my way back to the orbcraft.”
“Linda, where exactly are you now, goddammit?” Faraday barked.
“Ike,” Burkett whispered. “Chill.”
“Maneuvering back to S-7. Uh—ten meters out. Almost there. Going to complete the job…”
“How about if we send assistance?” Faraday said, breathing hard. Burkett could tell he had some kind of real bond with Linda. Probably not romantic. More like… being two Rangers who worked closely together.
“Negative on the assist. Almost there. Don’t understand how that piece of the hull came off so easily, so fast…”
“Is the robotic strength enhancement in your gloves turned on?” Burkett asked.
“The… oh crap. That was it, Lieutenant. I didn’t realize it was on. Haven’t used the newest biosuit before.”
“Another one of the General’s little surprises,” Faraday muttered.
Burkett looked back into the main cabin, saw Mayweather floating near Frederic Dupon, talking to him. Dupon was frowning. He looked scared and angry. Beyond Mayweather, Lem Dorman was leading Magonier and Dhariwal back to their seats, having taught them how to use the space toilet. Magonier looked like he might throw up from the foray into weightless motion, but Dhariwal was smiling, seeming to enjoy swimming through the air.
Sergeant Lang had taken over for Dorman at the storage compartment. Tafir Dabiri had finished his inspection—no further damage—and was floating beside Alexi Syrkin’s seat. Syrkin had his hands balled into fists, and was shaking them as he to spoke to Tafir.
Syrkin worried Burkett. Should he place a guard on him?
* * *
Sergeant Strickland switched on the electromagnets in her boots, so she could crouch on the hull, and employed her robotics-enhanced gloves carefully to force the instant-metal out of its tube to affix the power unit. The applicator ran an electric current through the liquid, causing a chemical reaction that hardened the metal into a flameless weld.
Done.
“Ike, I’ve got the battery attached to the hull. Can you confirm that power is shut down in the comms? I’m going to splice the cables.”
“No juice anywhere near you,” Ike said. “But use the current tester, just in case.”
She glanced at the oxygen indicator on her HUD. On the low side. The splicing tool was a bit clumsy through the gloves, but she made it work. She glanced again at her oxy indicator. Less than a quarter of her air remained.
Making herself take very slow, calming breaths to use less oxygen, she continued methodically splicing. It took her a few tries to meld the thick broken cables to the comm unit. She had to do it with exquisite care, to avoid short circuits and damage to the gear. A minute passed.
Then two.
Three, and…
Finished.
She sprayed insulator over the cables and reached for the battery box, hit the old-fashioned on-switch. The power light went green.
“Should be flowing, Ike.”
“We’ve got power flow to the transmitter. Good job. Come on in.”
Switching off her boot power, she used the SAFER to aim her back up toward the airlock. Feeling good.
I did it, by God.
* * *
“Lieutenant Burkett,” Alexi Syrkin said. “I insist that Lieutenant Carney be arrested.” His voice grated. He seemed to be talking through clenched teeth. “Right here on this ship. There’s a utility compartment that’ll double as a brig. You could put him there.”
“That’s not your call, Specialist Syrkin,” Burkett said coldly. He sympathized with Syrkin but the guy was out of line. “He’s no danger to anyone here. I’ll talk to the Captain about a court-martial when the time comes.”
“Captain?” Ike Faraday was talking to Mayweather over the all-personnel channel, and his voice came over Burkett’s headset. “We’ve got enough power to call base. Maybe you and the XO might want to…”
“We’re on the way,” Mayweather said, drifting up beside Burkett. He led the way forward to the pilots. On the way, Mayweather flipped his headset mic out of the way. “Art, what’s up with Alexi?”
Burkett pushed his mic aside, too. “He wants Lieutenant Carney arrested, Captain. Here and now. Locked up in a storage unit.”
“Christ! Well, I get how he feels. Carney killed his brother in an unforgivable dumb-ass move—but that’s just not his call.”
“That’s what I told him, sir. Lieutenant Carney made some kind of feeble apology to Alexi. Maybe he should try again.”
They reached the flight deck and Mayweather grabbed the bulkhead over the hatch. He carefully ducked in feet-first, stopping between Linda and Ike.
“Sergeant Strickland, good job out there, but I understand you went on a little side trip.”
“Yes sir, very much an unplanned one.”
“Any worse for wear?”
“No sir. Topnotch.”
Mayweather restored his headset’s mic. “Call Sergeant Prosser, Ike, and patch my headset in.”
“With pleasure, sir. Keep in mind, Captain, that this is just a big old battery powering us now, not our usual power source, so we might want to conserve it.”
Too damned bad the ship had so little solar power, Burkett thought. Another “they won’t need it” lack of foresight.
“Let’s do this, Ike,” Mayweather said.
Faraday tapped at the comms, looking for a satellite to route the call. They needed one equipped with quantum encryption, to make sure they weren’t monitored by unfriendlies. He found a military communications satellite, confirmed the link, and transmitted.
“This is S-7, Lieutenant Faraday for Homegirl. You reading?”
There was a long pause as the call bounced around. Then a crackle and a young male voice.
“This is Corporal Feeney, on S-series comm watch. Sergeant Prosser’s on her way in… Ah, here she is now, Lieutenant.”
“It’s Faraday?” Susan’s voice was in the background. There was a scrabbling sound and then she came on the line. “Ike! Lieutenant—what a relief to hear from you! What’s the situation?”
“I’ll give you to the Captain, Sergeant.”
Mayweather took a deep breath and began. “We were dogged by a missile, apparently fired from orbit. It exploded on our aft fuselage. Damage is mixed—no casualties, and we do have airtight integrity, but we lost comms and we were forced out of our course. Some maneuvering thrusters are gone. We haven’t tried our main engine yet—sensors say it’s functional, only we can’t maneuver without more thrusters.” He coughed. Some kind of dust in the air. “Fuel line to some of them has been interrupted,” he continued. “Others knocked to pieces. We don’t know who fired on us. We didn’t get a clear image of the bogey. Had to jettison a cracked fuel tank and the other is low. Not enough to brake with if we come in, and we can only maneuver half-assed. We are in the Compass orbital belt.”
“Compass,” Prosser gasped. “Medium orbit?”
“Affirmative. We’re holding geo-sync over Canada…” He gave the exact position and went on. “We have an injured civilian and a wounded prisoner, as the General is aware, and we have limited oxygen. Right now we’re breathing, but if we don’t get some kind of resupply or manage to land, we’re in trouble. That’s the short version.”
“At least you’re all alive,” Prosser replied, sounding breathless. She was usually more coolly professional. “I just came from my office—got a call from Chance. There’s chatter that Krozkov activated an orbital missile station, and fired it. We were afraid they nailed you.”
“Orbital missile station.” He snorted. “You mean the ones they claim are prototype space labs?”
She chuckled dryly. “One of those, right. We can get a fix on you, now we know where you are. We’ll do everything we can for you. Carney is ready to send up an S-series.”
