by Andrew Mayne
"Why are you here?" asks Sonin.
"Why have you tied me up?"
"You ask questions not," growls the round-headed man.
"Let me guess, you're Sergey."
"See! He is spotter!"
"That's spy, Sergey," says Sonin. "Why are you here?"
Sergey isn't having any of this. "We must tell Commander Yablokov!"
"Yablokov is the one that locked us in here," says the blond. "Let's see what the American has to say."
"I say you let me go and we talk about this like civilized people."
The other man watches me quietly from the sideline. I can see he's holding something behind his back.
I nod towards him. "And tell this guy to lay off whatever he's got planned?"
They ignore my plea to be set free.
"Okay... So we're just going to hang out here while your commanders start World War III? Fine. I can chill."
"What do you mean?" asks the blond woman.
"Hi, I'm David Dixon." I manage to tumble around and bring my open hand towards her.
"You are not amusing. Last time you were here we lost a crew member."
"Well, if he was helping your commanders with what's in the secure section, then it wasn't much of a loss. Two good people died up here because of what you assholes are hiding."
Sergey turns red, raises a fist and kicks off towards me.
Sonin pushes him out of the way. "Nyet!" She turns to me with an equally angry expression. "Explain everything now!"
"Fine. You just want the broad strokes? Your boss back in Roscosmos, Zhirov, had his pals smuggle a nuclear weapon up here so he can use it to threaten President Radin in a coup attempt. Right now your commanders are squirreled away in the secure module trying to figure out how to make it go 'boom' without the trigger chip my friends stole."
"This is lie," says Sergey.
"Then why did I find you locked inside here?"
The blond is the first to speak up. I get the sense she's the nominal leader of the group. "Commanders Yablokov and Domnin said that one of us is a spy selling state secrets to the Americans. They secured us inside here while they are searching the station for evidence."
"Right. That makes sense. Except for the fact that I've been in every section of this station except the secure section – which I assume only they have access to – and didn't run into your crack team of detectives scouring for clues. So either this was just a ploy so Yablokov and Domnin could enjoy some man-on-man quiet time away from your prying eyes, or they're lying to you."
"This bomb, what would it look like?" asks the man floating in the corner.
"They described it as a suitcase nuke, which I guess means roughly suitcase-sized."
"And what is the yield?"
"Nobody told me. But enough to cause an EMP that would wipe out the power grids and telecommunication systems, plus fry most anything that has a circuit board."
"This is a lie," insists Sergey.
"Life is full of disappointments, pal."
"And why are you here?" asks the woman.
"I'm the fucking cavalry. I volunteered to come up here on a one-man mission to try to steal the nuke before your boss back on Earth pulled the trigger."
"Your plan doesn't seem to be working very well," says Sonin.
"That's all a matter of perspective. A few minutes ago I didn't think I was going to have any help. Now I have all of you." I try to give them a smile that's far more cocky than I feel. "So who wants to let me out?"
Sergey blurts something that sounds a lot like, "Let's beat him until either blood or the truth spurts from his cracked skull."
"Sergey, watch him," says the blond as she pulls the others into a floating huddle.
My bodyguard brings his round face in front of mine, waiting for me to do something.
"So...you read any good XKCD cartoons lately?"
I watch something flicker in his eyes. For a brief moment I think he's about to hit me. Instead he growls, "They are not funny. You are not funny."
"Maybe not intentionally."
The conversation comes to an end and the others drift towards me.
"Sergey, cut him loose," says the woman, then adds, "If he does anything suspicious hit him."
"He already looks suspicious to me," Sergey replies as he unties my hands.
I rub my wrists and fake a smile. "I'll work on that. So can we try this again? I'm David Dixon." I hold out a hand.
He stares at it for a moment then reluctantly shakes it. "I still believe nothing."
"Well, let me tell you everything I know and then you can decide."
73
BAD INTENTIONS
I GIVE them all the details I can, while watching their reactions. I know one of them is Markov's insider, probably Sonin or the other woman, Vera, but I keep my mouth shut. I never went to spy school, but I imagine that rule number one is probably don't tell anyone that you're a spy – and rule number two is to never call out another fellow spy.
From their questions, I can tell they already knew something very shady was up. The commanders cut them off from talking to Roscosmos and rushed them into this section on short notice.
"Alright, hypothetically, let us say that we believe you. What is your plan? And how did you get here, by the way?" asks Vera.
"That's top secret." I don't actually know if it is, but better to keep my invisible spaceship a secret for as long as I can. There's the distinct possibility that one of these people could be an insider for Zhirov.
"I got in through one of your spacecraft berthed below." I almost said "Ivanka." That would have been interesting. "As far as my plan, um, well I was going to try to subdue one of the commanders and get him to let me into the secure module where I was going to use a sleeping gas to knock out the other."
"This plan is a stupid plan," says Sergey.
"Well, yeah, pal. You're right. I didn't have a whole lot of time to come up with a better one. Maybe the politburo here can think of something better."
The other man, who had been fairly quiet until now, Yves, speaks up in precise English. "How do you believe the commanders are going to detonate this bomb?"
"Um, with a detonator?"
He gives me a slightly condescending smile, which I'm sure I deserve, "Yes. But how will they deliver the bomb?"
"Deliver it? We're at the perfect altitude. I was thinking they were just going to press the button when their boss downstairs tells them to."
For some reason this assumption starts another debate that I can barely follow as they argue in Russian.
Sonin explains the discussion to me, "We believe that Yablokov is capable of this, but not Domnin. He is very..."
"Politically motivated," interjects Sergey.
"Well, this is interesting. All along we were working on the assumption the plan was for them to act as suicide bombers."
Sergey shakes his head. "Nobody loves Zhirov that much. Yablokov might do it for the...kink? Is that the word?"
"Close enough." I think he either means thrill or sense of duty, which could be the same thing. "So if you don't think their plan A is to blow the whole station, then what are they up to?"
"Could they eject it from the EVA airlock?" asks Sonin.
Yves shakes his head. "No. That would only put the payload in a slightly degraded orbit from us. If they detonate the bomb while we're in the same hemisphere, we could still be affected."
"Perhaps they plan to load it into one of our spacecraft?" says Vera.
"But there are only five seats in the other," points out Sergey. "That would leave us short one for reentry."
"Sergey, I don't think your commanders are planning for you to make the trip back to Earth. In fact, I'm kind of surprised they left you alive so far."
His face can't hide his reaction. "Commander Yablokov would not kill his own crew."
"Commander Yablokov would put a bullet in your head in a heartbeat," says Yves. "Domnin would do the same if he was promised a pro
motion. They're military men first and foremost. They came over to Roscosmos from the Army Air Force with Zhirov."
"Then why are we alive?" asks Sonin.
"Because Zhirov hasn't asked them to pull the trigger. This is still some kind of bargaining chip?" Yves asks me.
"Yes. I don't even think Radin knows what they have here yet."
"What?" blurts Sergey. "We must radio down and tell them!"
He starts for the door but Sonin and Vera grab him by the pant legs.
"Slow down there," I say. "The moment you send any kind of transmission down to Earth with the words 'bomb' and 'Zhirov' in them, one of his lackeys is likely to tell your commanders and the jig will be up."
"Is it settled then that they're going to use a spacecraft?" asks Vera.
Yves scratches his chin as he floats in mid-air thinking this over. "The prudent thing would be to abandon the station and take both of the spacecraft back down to Earth."
"But that still leaves the commanders with the bomb. Domnin may be the political animal you say he is, but if he's cornered, he might not hesitate to blow the thing out of spite. There's also the chance that Yablokov might not give him a choice. And there's the possibility that they have some other way of getting the bomb where they want to. We'd look pretty silly skedaddling out of here if that was never what they wanted."
Yves snaps his fingers. "Of course. They're not going to use the spacecraft. They'll use the EVO."
"EVO?" I reply.
"Extra Vehicular Orbiter. It's basically a small satellite launcher as big as a trash can. You eject it from the airlock. When it gets a few hundred meters its thrusters fire. After it reaches the right orbit a mechanical pusher releases the payload. Domnin said ours had malfunctioned, but I believe he was lying."
"How fast does it go?"
"Maybe two or three thousand miles an hour after a full burn."
I think it over for a moment. "That would give us five hours before it's far enough away from the station that they can set off the bomb. Regardless of which direction they send it, we'll run right past its orbit five hours after that. So when they launch it, they launch it. There's no going back."
"We have to stop them from getting to the airlock," says Sonin.
"Not so fast. We don't know if they have a dead-man's trigger on that thing. We could yell 'surprise' and the whole station goes boom."
"So what is your suggestion?" asks Vera.
I think it over then shake my head. "It's not a very good one..."
74
STING OPERATION
CAPTAIN BAYLOR CALLS into my ear. "David, are you okay?"
I completely forgot I still had the microphone and earbud in place and think I'm having a psychotic breakdown.
"I'm all good," I reply. My Russian hosts look at me like I'm even more insane than they already believe me to be. "My friends back on Earth. Give me a second. Hey, Baylor. So I met some new friends. Yablokov and Domnin gave them a forced time out and locked them into a storage section."
"Have you been able to capture one of the other commanders?"
"Well, no. It seems they decided to barricade themselves behind two doors in the secure module. There's no way to get to them without a plasma torch and catching their attention."
"That's...unfortunate. Unless you can think of something soon, I suggest that you and your friends make it to the nearest vehicle and hightail it back to Earth before the nuke goes off. We just got intel that Radin placed Zhirov's puppet candidate under arrest for unspecified reasons."
"Wait, what?"
Markov takes the comm. "Hello, David. It would seem that Radin has decided to play his hand on a three-dimensional chessboard."
"Does he know that Zhirov has a nuke?"
"He hasn't taken any direct action to suggest that he does. Arresting Milov is a typical Russian maneuver. We should have seen it coming."
"What does this mean for us?"
"Not good. By going at Zhirov indirectly, Radin is chipping away any advantage to using the nuclear weapon as a bargaining chip. This likely means that Zhirov will have his men detonate it sooner rather than later. Which could be any moment."
"There's a cheery thought. The crew here seems to think that at least one of the commanders, Domnin, wants to get out of this alive and Yablokov wouldn't mind either."
"And how would they do this?"
"The most likely scenario is they use a small rocket called an EVO to send the nuke away from the station and detonate it when it's on the other side of the Earth."
"Could you use this rocket to get it to a higher orbit where the nuclear device wouldn't be a threat?"
"Not likely. Right now we're trying to guess if they made a dead-man trigger or not. If they didn't, then all we have to do is wait for them to pop out of the secure module and bum rush them and take the nuke."
"And if they did?"
"Well, that would be the dumbest of dumb ideas in the history of dumb ideas."
"And what is your plan for that situation?"
"Um, something?" I look at the Russians who have been patiently listening to one side of the conversation. "My boss says Radin just arrested Milov. He thinks Zhirov is going to go nuclear very shortly and make it look like it was Radin's fault and stage a coup."
"Yebena mat'!" says Sergey.
"No kidding. So we need a plan real fast. If they don't have a trigger, we ambush them. If they do...um we think of that when we get to it. Any suggestions?"
"We need to know if they have a trigger they can set off right away," says Yves.
"Yes. I thought I just said that?"
He shakes his head. "That means we need a way to know. Right now they should still be in the secure module. One of us can go to the command section and watch the monitors. There's a camera aimed at both hatches." He scratches his chin. "This trigger. Would it be taped to their hand?"
"Probably. That's what I'd do...if I was suicidal and homicidal."
"Okay. We need someone to go to the command center and watch. The rest of us should wait here. If they don't have a trigger we can make it to them before they finish opening the inner airlock."
"Sounds great."
"I want to kill these men," says Sergey.
Man, he sure flipped the bit fast. "I know where you can find a crowbar to do that."
"And what if they do have a deadman's trigger?" asks Vera.
"We hide," says Sergey.
"Basically." I think it over for a moment. "Yablokov would be the one with the trigger, right? He probably thinks Domnin won't push it if things go south. They still have to get to the EVO, right? Where are they stowed?"
"There are two directly above us," says Yves.
I passed right by them without noticing. "The airlock faces the other side, right? I doubt Yablokov is going to do an EVA alone with the bomb. They'll probably both go up there."
"Perhaps, but what good would that do if Yablokov has the bomb and the trigger?" asks Sonin.
"Um...yeah. How are the EVOs programmed?"
"They're not," says Yves. "They're controlled from the command center. Each one has a frequency."
"That's it...Those two have to go outside to load it. Then they have to come back inside here to send it on its merry way. We do a little switcharoo while they're coming back into the airlock."
"A switcha-?" asks Vera.
"One of us is already outside. We unload the EVO without them knowing. When they send it away we dismantle the bomb."
"Outside? In space?" asks Vera.
"I was thinking inside here... Oh, right. Yablokov still has his trigger. Dumb idea."
"What if we take it into one of the spacecraft?" asks Sergey. "The one you snuck aboard? There, perhaps we could dismantle?"
I think it over for a moment. I'm a little surprised that he was the one to figure that out. "Yeah, that could work. There are a lot of 'ifs' in there. Let's just hope they don't have a deadman trigger."
75
HIDE AND SEE
K
"I'VE GOT BAD NEWS," says Sonin as she sticks her head through the open hatch, carefully keeping her voice low. "The helmets. They're gone. All of them."
We'd sent her out on a reconnaissance mission to the upper airlock section, since she was the smallest and most agile. Two minutes later she returned with the dire news.
"What do you mean, 'gone'?" asks Sergey.
"Gone as in they probably locked them up in the secure section to keep you guys put," I reply.
Smart move. And bad for David. This means that there's only one astronaut working for the forces of light with a complete spacesuit. This one. Unless one of the Russians knows how to breathe vacuum, this operation just fell squarely back on my shoulders again.
"Okay. We need an alternate plan," says Vera, casting a look at Yves.
Suddenly Sergey perks an ear up like a mastiff listening to the sound of a can opener. "I think the secure section inner door just opened."
I don't stop to question how he could tell over the cacophony of Darth Vader sounds that fill the station. As a pilot I know to trust the instincts of someone who is familiar with their hardware.
There's no time to think. I have to react.
"Stay here!" I say in a harsh whisper then kick myself towards the open hatch.
I grab Sonin by the shoulder and pull her through then slam the door on her crew behind us.
"What are you doing?" she says, casting a nervous glance towards the other end of the station where the secure section is located.
I ignore her for a moment, grab the crowbar and wedge it back into the wheel that keeps the door shut, locking her comrades back inside.
I pat her on the back, and make a downward gesture towards the intersection.
A quick thinker, she gets it and pulls herself along by the straps then takes a dive down the docking spire. With my nose inches behind her feet, I follow her as she descends into the module.
CLANK!!! The outer door opens above us.
We're still only halfway down the module. If Yablokov and Domnin catch us playing hide and seek, this game is going to be over real quick.
