10
Washington
Don Abbot had never been one to hide his emotions well; that he had been able to rise this far within the Administration was widely seen as a testament to his technical abilities and organizational acumen. That it had just as much to do with his knowledge of whose skeletons were hidden in which closets was not as widely known.
As the President and her cabinet filed out of the situation room, Abbot conspicuously remained seated. Tapping his pen against the table, his tense posture and pursed lips broadcast to anyone who bothered to notice exactly how much he was stewing over this latest development.
“Don, you really have to learn to play closer to the vest.”
He looked up to find Defense Secretary Horner lingering by the doorway. He tossed his pen onto the table and pushed himself away. “What’s your point, Hal?” he sighed, knowing full well what the old man meant. “I hardly got a word in edgewise, not that they seemed interested in anything I had to say in the first place.”
“That, my friend, is the point,” SecDef said as he pulled up a chair and grabbed the pen Abbot had been tapping away with. “You don’t play poker, do you?”
“Never had the patience,” he admitted. “I didn’t care to digest the rules: which hand beats which, et cetera.” Though the few hands he’d played had taught him it was remarkably easy to bluff when you really didn’t know what you were doing.
“Yet you literally wrote the book on spacecraft design,” Horner pointed out. “You’re damn near a genius, Don.”
Near? Abbot thought, realizing too late that he’d just been baited to prove a point.
“See?” Horner smiled. “I just insulted you. The look on your face gave it away. Don’t be so prickly. This is one time the President needs everyone to set aside their personal agendas to do what’s necessary for the country.”
“What ‘personal agenda’ would you be referring to?” Was Hal really that kind of gung-ho idealist? It was an easy way for a man to get rolled in this town.
“Art Hammond,” Horner said flatly. “Maybe I’m more attuned to past history than the others because I bought some of his planes, but the fact is he’s been peeling away talent from your agency for years. It happens, Don. That’s business. Don’t let yourself get so pissed off over it. At least don’t wear it on your sleeve.”
Abbot smiled thinly. The old guy almost understood. This wasn’t “just business” and he didn’t care about the people as much as the institutional power they represented. Individuals could be replaced. In fact he’d found organizational control to be much easier when there was a steady churn among the middle managers. The really motivated ones tended to have agendas that didn’t mesh with his own; it was best to keep them off-balance.
No, what really had incensed Don Abbot was the collapse of the human spaceflight program. Having risen through the ranks back when a government ride was the only possible way into orbit, he’d never been able to adjust to the new reality: a gaggle of corporate hucksters and dot-com billionaires peddling rides into space like so many hayseed barnstormers. What were their standards? And to what purpose? Shouldn’t space exploration be something nobler…more nationalistic? Shouldn’t somebody be in charge of it all?
Of course, as Hammond and his ilk saw it, each was in charge of their own domain which meant that nobody was in charge. It was a recipe for disaster, at the very least a wholesale cheapening of the exploration ideal.
Cheap. That was it. They had cheapened the whole experience as they drove towards the lowest common denominator. Hammond’s spaceplanes could barely get a dozen people into orbit at once; that they claimed to make up for it in daily volume was irrelevant. Yet because of that, the ruthless budget-slashers who had overrun Washington with the arrival of this simpleton President had seen an easy target in the space agency. And those other fools with their absurd “reusable” boosters…it was a neat trick, being able to fly a rocket back to land right next to its launch pad. Real 1950’s sci-fi stuff. But so what? If they could only get a dozen launches out of the same machine, how much money were they really saving? It wasn’t like you could pull off such a stunt with a serious heavy lifter anyway. The thought of one of his heavies falling back to the Cape and hovering on its thrust over a concrete platform gave him nightmares.
“Hammond’s bunch can screw around in low orbit all they want,” he said dismissively. “If you want to get anywhere beyond Earth, it’s go big or go home.”
“Sure about that?” Horner asked pointedly. “They managed to get a couple of moon-orbiting vehicles up there. Kind of the point of this whole problem, Don.”
Abbot’s face flashed red with anger. “And they couldn’t even do that on their own! They had to hire their own competitors just to get the major structures into orbit.”
“So what? They’re serving completely different markets. That’s how it works. When I was at Lockheed we’d contract with Airbus all the time. They were the only ones with freighters big enough to move an entire fuselage.”
“Yet none of these yokels could’ve launched Gateway in one shot,” Abbot argued, stabbing a finger into the air for emphasis. “Or for that matter, had the spare ISS modules on hand to build it. We did that.”
“For which you’ll have the eternal thanks of a grateful nation…someday,” Horner said. “I have to admit it’s a good thing you had a couple of those big bastards sitting idle in the VAB.”
What Horner had just offered as conciliation instead had the opposite effect. “And if they’d given us the budget I’d asked for, we could’ve had a whole fleet of them at the ready,” he fumed, “instead of cobbling together some damned fool escapade on a slapdash ‘spaceliner.’ We wouldn’t be having this conversation if Hammond hadn’t been selling rides around the moon in the first place.”
Horner’s expression darkened. “You’re not the first to voice that opinion,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be in Art’s shoes once this is over with. Dollar to a doughnut says Homeland Security will be three feet up his ass the minute our guys land. They’ve already got an agent on site, and from what my contacts tell me the guy’s already been reeled in a couple times just to keep this operation on schedule.”
Contacts, Abbot realized. That’s how an idealistic ninny like Horner thrived in this town. Information was power, an asset he’d played well in Houston but had yet to develop in DC. “Mark my words,” he grumbled, “Hammond is going to get people killed, on a scale even I couldn’t have imagined.”
SecDef stretched with an exhausted groan as he considered Abbot’s prediction. “I hope to God you’re wrong, for all of our sakes.”
. . .
Gateway
Omar Hassani silently cursed the persistent fog inside of his faceplate. With each successive breath it threatened to spread until it blocked his vision, something Varza had warned him about. He ground his teeth against rapidly mounting anxiety, struggling to recall what he’d been told to do about it. Something to do with the regulator, which he couldn’t see. How was he supposed to adjust his air flow if he couldn’t see the blasted controls? How were they expected to keep anything straight when surrounded by certain death in hard vacuum?
His newfound appreciation for the actual hard work of being an astronaut was interrupted by a gloved hand tapping his visor. “Hang on, buddy,” Briggs’ voice rattled in his earphones. The tinny radio only amplified the man’s grating northeast accent. Hassani had spent enough time in America to become well acquainted with most of its regional dialects and had come to especially hate this one. “We need to dial down the temperature and get more air moving across your faceplate. Hold still and breathe easy for me, okay?”
Hassani nodded hurriedly and gave his spacewalk partner a quick thumbs-up once he realized the man probably couldn’t see his face. He resented being coddled like a child but played along for now. A cool breeze soon caressed his face and the fog on his visor began to clear.
“Wow,” Briggs said. “You’re really sweating there, buddy. Remember, there’s a microfiber towel sewn inside your helmet liner.”
Helpful advice, but if Briggs called him “buddy” one more time the fool was likely to find his suit sliced open. All in due course, as Varza would have reminded him. Hassani turned his head and pressed it into the padded microfiber. “Thank you,” he said with only partially-forced sincerity. “Good to go now.” The casual lingo felt equally stiff, though it had been effective at placating their companions. “Shall we continue?”
“Absolutely,” Briggs said. “Not quite the same as floating around in the vomit comet, is it?” Before leaving Earth they had chartered several training sessions in a converted airliner, flying endless stomach-turning parabolas high above the Gulf of Mexico. They might have been better served practicing in a neutral-buoyancy simulator, though a scarcity of the giant swimming pools ensured they would have attracted too much unwelcome attention.
“It certainly isn’t,” Hassani agreed, finally able to see clearly. They were tethered outside of Gateway’s antenna masts, awaiting word from Varza to physically disconnect the system. It would be their final piece of insurance against earthbound interference.
. . .
Varza floated behind his own partner, an annoyingly chatty Midwesterner who spoke constantly of the farm country he’d grown up in. It appeared this pig had taken one too many turns at the feed trough himself, no doubt at all the church potlucks his parents had forced him to attend. Just one more thing Ernest Hadley wouldn’t shut up about.
“Almost done,” the programmer said. “Easier than my last girlfriend, and I don’t even need shots afterward.”
Varza found that surprising – this troll was able to maintain functioning relationships with actual women? The man was a brilliant engineer, but he’d come off as a social zero. “Is that your secret to success? Treat machines like women?” he asked, amused at the idea.
“More like make ‘em my bitch,” he chortled as he tapped away at the keyboard. “About the same, I reckon. Once you understand what makes ‘em tick, it’s all a matter of knowing which buttons to push.” He ended with a grating cackle that Varza forced himself to remain smiling through.
Finishing this job would be a pleasure, of that there could be no doubt. Varza checked his watch – he’d spent weeks building a precise schedule and any delays threatened to begin a cascade with no time to correct. “And will you be able to bring this one to heel in time? If we miss the first emission…”
“You said ‘emission.’ Heh,” Hadley snorted. “Believe me, I don’t want to have to re-sequence this any more than you do.”
Varza was in no mood for making light. “That won’t be the problem. If we miss this window,” he said, really meaning Hadley, “there’s only one way to correct it. I don’t believe either of us wants to think about that.”
“Far be it for me to interfere with the grand scheme of the universe,” the programmer said, and folded the keyboard back into its tray with a flourish. “Done.”
Varza smiled with almost-genuine appreciation as he braced himself against a foothold in the deck. “After all this time, our work is finally done?”
“See for yourself,” Hadley said, and turned back to the fire-control station.
“I would be delighted,” Varza said as he dug into his hip pocket. He moved with surprising speed, sliding the dagger from its sheath and driving it into the base of the programmer’s skull. Hadley’s frame jerked once and went limp. A trickle of blood leaked out, thankfully pooling up on the skin at the hilt. The last one hadn’t been nearly as clean, so this time Varza was certain to leave the blade inside and keep the wound sealed. Too bad; it was one of his favorite knives. Nevertheless, he gave thanks for the time they had invested in those training flights, and especially for bringing the others in only after he and Omar had become comfortable with their zero gravity fighting skills.
He grabbed the body by its feet and pushed it towards an open storage locker, being careful to avoid passing any portholes visible from outside. Waste disposal complete, he thumbed the radio to signal Omar. “Interior work is complete. The targeting routine has been reprogrammed. You are cleared to proceed.”
. . .
“Understand we are go to proceed,” Hassani answered, closely watching his spacewalk partner. “Disconnect the relays.”
Briggs gave him a clumsy thumbs-up as his fingers were barely able to close in the stiff gloves. “Heard him the first time,” he said cheerfully, and began methodically dismantling every physical connection between Gateway’s control module and its comm array. Not only would it be impossible to reconfigure or bypass from the ground, it would require considerable effort to reset even if they sent a crew up here.
Hassani watched with envy as Briggs functioned effortlessly in this frustrating environment. When finished, the maddeningly enthusiastic engineer secured his tools in the beta-cloth pouch clipped to his waist. “Done and done,” he said. “Ready to get back inside?”
“You don’t want to linger and enjoy the view?” Hassani asked with uncharacteristic cheer. It was always good for people to let their guard down after a big job.
“Love to,” Briggs said. “I was just looking out for you, big guy. Maybe you’re finally getting the hang of this.”
“There is indeed much to appreciate out here,” Hassani agreed. He made a circling motion above his stomach. “But nature makes other demands that are not as appealing.”
“Ah. Motion sickness,” the engineer smirked. “Curse of the space age. Wouldn’t do for you to puke in your helmet. Well my friend, let’s get you inside and out of that suit.” He pointed to the airlock and began pulling them along a safety tether towards the open hatch. Briggs slipped in first and pushed off for the inner door. Hassani followed silently and dogged down the hatch. As the tiny compartment pressurized, he noted with satisfaction that their engineer was completely focused on the atmosphere controls. As expected.
“Pressure differential coming up nicely,” Briggs said as the gauge climbed past 6 pounds per square inch, the same as their suits. “I’m getting this helmet off.” Briggs was unlocking the neck ring before he even finished his sentence and set his helmet floating free.
Hassani watched with amusement as the engineer took a luxurious breath. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do that with the helmet on. He began theatrically fumbling with his own neck seal. “Just a moment. This bothersome lock ring...”
“Sit tight, buddy. Let’s have a look.”
Hassani turned and hooked one arm in a handhold. When he lifted his sun visor, his sunken eyes flared with malevolence. “I am not your buddy,” he said darkly, spinning the outer door seals free. The hatch flew open, blinding them in a sudden whiteout as the air exploded in a fog of ice crystals. The roar of escaping gases quickly fell still as the last molecules vented into space.
Multiple alarm strobes flashed angrily in impotent silence. Hassani floated up to the open hatch and was rewarded with the sight he’d longed for: Jonathan Briggs’ face contorted into a mute scream of horror as the vacuum claimed his life. Seeing his mouth agape like a hooked fish as he tumbled into the void made enduring the man’s insipid blathering almost worth it.
. . .
SS Shepard
After a few hours of carefully poking around with a flashlight clenched between his teeth, Simon had finally located the conduit he’d nicked while pulling apart the intercom. It looked frayed, like it had been worn down by some unanticipated movements – yet another debrief item.
You’re an engineer, he scolded himself. It shouldn’t be this easy to short out the lights. He considered the well-worn multi-tool that had lived on his side for so long, then regretfully zipped it into a hip pocket safely out of reach. Only “approved for space” non-conductive blades from now on.
“Screw this,” he finally said aloud. “I’ll be damned if I gonna die cold and dark.” He spliced the wiring back together and wrapped it with electrical tape. He sniffed the air, on guard for any wisps of smoke or telltale scent of ozone. Doubtful with a blown breaker, but now was the time for caution.
He carefully inspected the open comm panel: there was a lot more going on in there than just a microphone, so maybe it was best that he quit using his ersatz telegraph key for now anyway. He fastened his tablet to the bulkhead and zoomed in on the schematics until they matched what he saw. He was in Shepard’s central node: power, water, air…everything came through here. Putting the circuit breakers on the opposite side of the bulkhead had been a necessary design choice, but that didn’t make it any less of a pain right now.
The hab could function unattended for weeks, even though it couldn’t maneuver without being docked to a flight module. So power and water weren’t a problem, barring some unseen damage.
Breathing air would be a different story. The hab used carbon dioxide scrubbers based on molecular sieves of the type he’d been familiar with on the ISS. The airlock, however, was intended only for short-term use and therefore relied on a separate system: the same type of lithium hydroxide filters NASA had employed since the Sixties. The spares gave him about three more days of clean air, which he could extend by maybe eight or ten hours by sealing himself up in a spare EVA suit. After that he’d begin to slowly poison himself with each breath.
He pulled himself over to the hatch and shone his flashlight through its little window. Down the darkened tunnel he could see the air ducts had sealed, so the emergency systems had worked as designed. The ducts had closed as soon as the system recognized an uncontrolled decompression, preserving precious oxygen. All he needed was a way to seal off the tunnel and redirect that air into his compartment.
Assuming he could also get the lights back on.
He stared at the spacesuit, then down at his almost-certainly broken arm. This was really going to suck.