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CHAPTER 59

Low Earth Orbit

Retaken International Space Station

Wednesday

8:33 p.m. Eastern Time


“Jesus, Mac, what did you do?” Frank looked over what was left of the man’s body. Blood had boiled away and frozen. He was a mess.

“Goddamnit, Mac,” Dugan said.

“Colonel, our bad guys have fired deorbit burns on their spaceship. They’re gone. We took a few shots at them but I’m not certain we hit anything useful. Maybe the Navy or somebody can get them, depending where they hit. But my guess is, they just got away from us,” Captain Ames said. “The fourth warhead fired right as whatever happened in there happened. Some debris came through the bulkhead and went careening out of control. By the tumbling of it, I suspect it will burn up on reentry. Be advised there are two more warheads active and connected.”

“We need to disconnect them or make them inert somehow,” Frank said. “We’re coming out.”

“Here, Colonel.” Kenny worked the mechanical hatch controls on the DSIHM airlock the two terrorists, or whatever they were, had escaped through. “Go. I’ll get Mac.”

Frank worked his way out toward the exterior ring around the DSIHM that the warheads had been fastened to. Dugan wasn’t far behind him. The two of them studied the glide bodies and their connection flange closely with hopes of coming up with a plan. Neither of them wanted to say the obvious thing: What if they just detonated them where they were? Their ship was gone and so were the umbilical lines running to the warheads. Frank hoped they were not autonomous or wireless. There were multiple holes in the sides of both reentry vehicles—Frank pointed them out with the barrel of his weapon.

“Think that broke them?” Frank checked the gamma ray detector on his left wristband and didn’t see anything unusual.

“I dunno. Hopefully?” Casey studied them closely by grabbing a handhold near the base of one of them and pulling himself down to it.

“You’re the Sapper. You tell me what to do.”

“The bolts are cheap breakaway bolts. Probably rated for a certain thrust or something.” Dugan studied them closer. “If I had the right tools—but, damn. Looks like a thirteen-millimeter socket-head cap bolt. Probably need some kind of special astronaut drill or something. Not prepared for that. Other than shooting them off of there, I have no ideas.”

“That would be a difficult shot from a minimum safe distance. We’d need a laser sight at a minimum.”

“Did somebody say laser sight?” a new voice said. It was the friendly that Ames had found. “I have one. Hold on a minute.”

It had taken the better part of the next hour to carefully shoot the heads off the bolts with the laser-sighted gun that Allison had taken from the dead bad guy. Allison had first looked for the right tool, and they had even tried pliers. In the end, it had become easier to shoot the heads off the bolts. While she and Dugan worked that, he and Thompson gathered up the dead cosmonaut, Mac, and the dead bad guy, and loaded them into the X-37D. Once the warheads were clear, they were ordered to put them in the Progress and deorbit it so they would burn up on reentry. That had taken an hour or so as well.

Allison and the commander, Ms. Captain Classified, brought the propulsion modules back online and reconnected the satellite communication and control uplink to the Russian Service Module. NASA and Roscosmos would be able to keep the ISS in orbit for at least long enough to send up repair crews or decide to deorbit it.

“Thanks for the assist, Major,” the lieutenant colonel told her. “You slowed them down enough to give us time to get here.”

“Why did they do this?”

“We may never know unless we catch them. We’ll see,” Frank told her. “You ready?”

“Yes. Will I see you guys again? I’d like to join, whatever this team is,” Allison told him.

“Not sure we know whatever this is, and the mission name is classified.”

The X-37D slowed to zero relative velocity only two meters from the Soyuz capsule. With the help of the soldiers, she loaded Major Nolvany’s body inside and strapped him in.

“Thanks for the ride and the help. Maybe I’ll see you again soon?” Allison said.

“Do you drink alcohol, Major?” Thompson asked her. “We have a tradition of toasting our fallen.”

“Let me know when and where.” Allison saluted them. Then she closed the Soyuz up and climbed into the commander’s seat.

“Roscosmos CAPCOM, this is Soyuz MS-53, do you copy?”


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