Steeling himself, he speaks clearly for the benefit of the flight recorder.
“This isn’t suicide. It’s survival.”
The Phaethon passes over Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico. Jackson looks for the wake of boats on the sea, but clouds obscure the gulf.
“I am shifting my search to commercial and private radio channels in an effort to contact someone, anyone.”
Using his computer, Jackson conducts a burst transmission across the major frequencies.
“This is Captain Dan Jackson of the U.S. Phaethon. Is anyone receiving? Over.”
Jackson uses a computer macro to record his outbound transmission and sets it to repeat every two minutes. It takes a bit of savvy, but he figures out how to lock on to any reply and switch exclusively to that frequency, but there’s no response.
Dejected, Jackson sips on a bottle of water.
It doesn’t take long for the monotonous repetition of, “This is Captain Dan Jackson,” to become a point of despair.
Jackson stares out the window as he crosses the coastline. Somewhere down there is his home just north of Corpus Christi. He’s sad.
Static flares and the crackle of a young voice asks, “Hello? Is there someone out there?”
Jackson feels his heart race.
He grabs at the console, pulling his weightless body closer to the controls and yells. It’s as though close proximity and the strength of his voice are somehow going to make his transmission clearer.
“Hello! This is Captain Daniel Jackson. Who am I speaking to?”
His heart pounds in his chest. The voice coming through on the radio is weak, breaking up and crackling.
“This is Daisy.”
“Daisy,” Jackson replies. “Boy, am I glad to hear your voice!”
“Can you help me?” Daisy asks. “My daddy said I should get help over the radio.”
Jackson’s blood runs cold.
“How old are you, Daisy?”
“Seven. I need help. Can you help me? Please? I’m scared. I’m really scared.”
Fuck!
Jackson wants to swear aloud but he holds himself back. Just when he thought there was hope, his lifeline with Earth seems hopeless. Initially, Jackson ignores her plea.
“Where is your daddy? Can you put him on the radio?”
There’s no reply and Jackson panics, wondering if he’s said something to upset the young girl or if he’s moved out of range. His heart pounds in his chest.
“Daisy? Daisy, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“In the police station.”
“Which police station?” Jackson asks.
The silence is painful.
“I can’t help you, if you can’t tell me where you are,” Jackson says, appealing to the young girl.
“Pasadena,” comes in soft reply.
“Pasadena? Out in California?”
“In Texas,” Daisy replies and Jackson gets excited.
“Texas? I know where you are, Daisy! You’re in the southern suburbs of Houston, right?”
There’s no answer.
“Listen carefully, Daisy. I’m an astronaut. I’m above you right now, somewhere up in the wild blue yonder above the clouds. I’m soaring high overhead, do you understand?
“I can’t talk to you for long. I’m moving too fast. I’m going to sail over the horizon. Daisy? Can you still hear me?”
Jackson slows himself down, realizing he’s rushing. The poor girl is scared. She’s asking for help. He needs information, but he’s got to slow down and be considerate. Her silence isn’t helping. He’s not sure if she’s agreeing with him and nodding, not knowing he can’t see her, or if she’s too freaked out to talk. She knows how to use a radio. She’s been using it for a while. Daisy and her father must have made contact with others over the radio or she wouldn’t be using it now.
“Daisy?” Jackson says, slowing his speech.
“Yes.”
That one word sounds so sweet. Just to be in contact with someone, anyone gives him hope.
“Daisy. I want to help you, but I need help too. Is there a police officer down there? Or your mom? Or another adult? Can I speak to them?”
Jackson pulls at a railing beside the window, pulling himself closer and peering out at the brilliant splashes of ochre and sandy browns breaking up the Texan wilderness. The coast slips away. Already, the radio signal is breaking up. He has seconds, not minutes.
“Daisy?”
“They’re monsters!” she yells. “Don’t you get it? They’re all monsters! They lied! They said they’d never leave me, but they did. And now there’s just me. I’m the only one left!”
“What happened, Daisy?” Jackson asks, panic rattling his voice. “Can you tell me what happened to everyone down there?”
“I’ve got to go. I can hear them. They’re coming. They’re coming for me!”
“Daisy!” Jackson yells within his empty spaceship.
Daisy screams. She must have locked the transmit button because Jackson hears the microphone being dropped. Furniture is knocked over. Someone scrambles away, bumping into a chair, causing it to scrape across the ground. There’s yelling, screaming, growling and groaning.
“DAISY!” Jackson yells again.
The radio signal breaks up as the Phaethon moves out of range, sailing on at five miles a second, several hundreds of miles above Earth.
“Noooo!” Jackson cries, slapping his hand against the window and peering back at Texas. The gulf coastline disappears over the horizon. “Goddamn it, no!”
Jackson doesn’t understand what’s happening on Earth, but what was a vague, general crisis is suddenly personal.
“I’m coming, Daisy. Hold on. I’m coming for you!”
Static dominates the radio waves.
“Hold on, Daisy,” Jackson repeats, feeling helpless, knowing she can’t hear him. With the radio conversation over, the automated scanning routine kicks in again, racing through thousands of frequencies, but there’s no one else down there listening. No one that can talk back to him and explain what has happened.
Jackson brings up a map of Houston on his computer. When it seems no one is alive down there, one solitary voice is enough to stir something deep within him. Self-preservation is suddenly subordinate to the survival of humanity as a whole.
“What are you doing?” he asks himself. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you dumb fuck!”
He zooms in on southern Houston, looking for the Pasadena police station.
“This is stupid,” he says, berating himself. “You can’t come down over land.”
His finger runs over three airports on the outskirts of Pasadena: La Porte, William Holly and Ellington Air Force Base. Lots of clear land. Nice, long, flat runways.
“What else can I do?” he asks himself. “Sit up here waiting for a call that will never come? And then what? Splash down in the Pacific and paddle like crazy?”
On the map, it all looks so simple. There are no houses, no buildings, and no topographical markings, making the land beyond the various airports look flat. For Jackson, the deception holds a certain appeal, helping him to justify the lunacy of his plan. If there was anyone at mission control in Houston, they would say he’s crazy, and they’d be right, but it’s Houston. Jackson’s been to Houston enough times to know the lay of the land. If there’s anywhere to come down, it might as well be somewhere he knows. If mission control won’t talk to him, he’ll go to them!
“I-45 cuts right through there,” he says in one breath, followed by, “You can’t be serious. Your landing ellipse is at least eight miles in length and a mile or two wide, depending on winds. You could hit goddamn power lines, skyscrapers, trees.
“No, there’s three airports. It’s going to be wide and open. Nothing above two stories. No high power lines.”
His finger picks out several parks and a golf course on the map.
“You can’t
do this,” his rational mind says. “Touchdown speed is 30 miles an hour. You’ll break your stupid back!”
No sooner has he spoken than he grabs his toolkit and unscrews a panel on the bulkhead beside the reentry pod.
“I’m not leaving her,” he says softly, knowing his voice is being picked up by the flight recorder. “I don’t know what the fuck has happened on Earth, but Daisy’s alive. I can’t pretend I never spoke to her. Judge me if you want, but I can’t live with myself if I don’t try something. I can’t turn my back on the only person I can reach down there… I can’t abandon a child.”
The aluminum panel drifts to one side, turning freely through the air as abandoned screws summersault slowly around the cabin.
“I’m not crazy.”
Jackson pulls at the thermal foam lining the inside of his spaceship, tearing out a long sheet and cutting it off with a box knife. He leaves the foam floating beside him as he pulls off another two panels and tears at more foam.
“I’m coming down sooner or later. Why delay the inevitable? And why risk drowning? I can do this. Get down in one piece. Figure out what’s happened.”
In the back of his mind, one word leaves him unsettled.
Monsters.
What did she mean? What awaits him on Earth?
Is he unduly panicked? Has he taken things too far? Jackson doubts himself.
What the hell are the air traffic controllers at Ellington going to make of a reentry vehicle coming down on three massive parachutes, landing in the middle of a restricted military base? If he’s got this all wrong, he’s going to be on the evening news for months to come as the astronaut who freaked out.
“Houston?”
Jackson doesn’t expect a reply. That none is forthcoming is almost a relief.
Sweat beads on his forehead as he works with the foam, anchoring his feet beneath a railing so he can get some leverage. He stuffs both sheets of foam into his sleeping bag and drags it into the cramped confines of the reentry pod.
“You’re a goddamn idiot. A fool,” he says, loosening the straps on his couch and laying the stuffed sleeping bag on the seat.
“Duct tape,” he mutters, giving both himself and whoever may one day listen to the flight recorder a running commentary of his actions. “Don’t leave orbit without a Texan toolkit-in-one!”
Jackson uses the tape to fasten the sleeping bag to the couch, ensuring the padding covers the headrest, torso and hip area but not bothering with the lower legs.
“This is either the dumbest idea in history or the stupidest. I’m struggling to figure out which. Who put a goddam redneck Texan on this mission anyway? Hah. What else did you expect?”
Jackson laughs as he programs the coordinates for reentry into the onboard computer, centering the landing ellipse on Ellington Air Force base.
“With a little luck,” he says, knowing his comment is a gross understatement.
Static hisses around him.
“I’m coming, Daisy,” he says softly for no one other than himself.
Back in the main cabin of the Phaethon, Jackson suits up, slipping into his day-glow orange recovery suit and white helmet. He programs the Phaethon to move into a higher orbit some fifteen hundred miles above Earth roughly an hour after he departs. As far as he’s concerned, five trillion dollars worth of space hardware deserves more than a deteriorating orbit, the damage to the internal insulation notwithstanding.
Outside the Phaethon, night has fallen yet again. Already, he’s somewhere over a darkened China or perhaps Vietnam.
“Goodbye, old girl,” he says, slipping into the reentry pod and taking one last look at his home for the past two months before closing the hatch.
As crazy as his plan is, Jackson feels positive. To be doing something rather than waiting and reacting is a psychological relief if nothing else.
“Hang in there, Daisy,” he says, finishing his prep before punching the release. A soft shudder announces the separation of the pod. One spacecraft has become two.
“I’m christening her the Odyssey,” he says somewhat proudly before settling into his professional routine.
“Okay, Houston. We have separation. All systems online. Radar is good. Fuel cells good. I’m heating the chutes. De-orbit burn and heat shield alignment are preprogrammed. All metrics are nominal. Switching to internal oxygen.”
Jackson closes his visor, feeling the clip catch. He turns a valve on the side of his suit. Oxygen flows into his suit as a contingency against any loss of cabin pressure during reentry.
“Houston, I am good to go. Repeat—good to go.”
There’s no answer, but Jackson barely notices. He’s too busy checking the subsystems and double checking the landing sequence.
“It would be really nice to get a weather report on the target area,” he says. “I’m assuming light cloud cover and a gentle south-westerly this time of year.”
The reentry pod is barely larger than the old Gemini capsules, intended only for transit or emergency. Comfort isn’t a consideration in space flight.
“Rolling.”
The capsule turns slowly and Earth comes into view through the tiny, triangular windows.
“I’ve got a great view of Miami. Nice day to be at the beach.”
His thick, gloved hands work with a variety of toggle switches.
“Initiating pitch. I’ll see you soon.”
Jackson is surprisingly calm. Most of his reentries have been conducted in the Orion with crews of anywhere from three to six other astronauts, but the principle is the same in the Odyssey.
Slowly, the reentry pod tumbles backwards in response to a soft burst from the forward thrusters. Another burst causes the pod to pause with Jackson facing backwards. Looking overhead, he can see blue ocean and white clouds passing by.
“Houston. This is Odyssey.”
He pauses.
“We are GO for reentry burn.”
Those were supposed to be the words spoken by mission control, but Jackson uttered them habitually.
A gentle rumble passes through the Odyssey as the spacecraft begins slowing, dropping deeper into the thin, outer layers of the atmosphere.
“Picking up some hull ionization. Angle of entry is good. Shield aligned.”
A slight shimmy grips the Odyssey and Jackson tightens his five-point harness, pulling himself hard against the insulation padding his seat. He breathes deeply. From here on out, there is nothing to do but enjoy the ride. Enjoy? That brings a smile to his face, and he shakes his head at his own stupidity.
Strands of plasma flicker past the windows like streamers, fine glowing ribbons of fire.
Some astronauts hate reentry as there’s a sense of inevitability and helplessness about the procedure, but not Jackson. The laws of physics test the engineering prowess of humanity in a fiery display of raw power.
For Jackson, there are worse ways of dying in space than being flash boiled at 7800 Kelvin, a temperature hotter than the surface of the Sun. The tiniest crack in his heat shield and plasma will cut through the Odyssey like a chainsaw. Death will come in microseconds, but that doesn't bother Jackson.
The superheated plasma building up in front of the shield begins buffeting the Odyssey, causing the craft to shake as though it were about to spin out of control, but the weighted center of gravity ensures the pod remains aligned like a cork in the ocean. For all the talk about rocket science, reentry requires no more math than throwing a rock into a pond.
Jackson watches both the altimeter and his airspeed continue to plummet. Slowly, the flames subside and the darkness of space softens, becoming a radiant light blue—a terrestrial welcome home.
“We’re pulling six gees,” he says, as his cheeks sag under the intense deceleration. “Slightly more than expected. Adjusting the glide angle to compensate.”
The capsule rotates slightly, catching the atmosphere at a different angle and changing the rate of fall.
After almost a minute, the capsule jerks to one side.
“Drogue shoot deployed,” he says, not that anyone else cares.
Jackson knows what’s coming next. He’s careful to position his head and arms so they’re not touching any metal or likely to fling into the console when the three vast primary parachutes deploy.
Thirty seconds later, the capsule is yanked violently into the sky. In reality, he’s still falling, plummeting to the Earth, but the sensation of rapid deceleration in that moment gives the illusion of being dragged upwards for a split second. His seatbelt bites into his shoulders, holding him firmly in place.
“Main chutes deployed.”
Jackson is jerked to one side in his seat as the parachutes unravel, unfurling over almost ten seconds.
“External camera confirms three canopies. Looking good at 25,000 feet, Houston. I’ve got to say, it’s nice to be home. Not sure what the welcoming committee is going to be like, but for now, it’s a smooth ride.”
Smooth by his standards. Most normal, everyday people would be terrified by the sense of helplessness in descent, but for Jackson a few bumps along the way keeps things interesting.
Jackson tries to sound confident. In reality, he’s nervous as hell, but not about the flight or the landing. He’s worried about what he’s going to find when he opens the hatch.
Monsters.
As the minutes pass, Jackson busies himself looking at the projected landing zone. The lower he descends, the smaller the landing ellipse becomes, slowly zeroing in on a region north of Ellington Air Force Base.
“Yeah, this isn’t looking good, Houston. There’s a few housing developments down there. Looks like I’m about to drop in on someone for dinner.
“Depending on the wind at ground level, I may come down on the edge of a residential area near what appears to be a football stadium.”
Still there’s no reply.
“Houston, if this doesn’t get some attention from someone down there on the ground, I’m not sure what will. There’s got to be someone alive down there other than a seven year old girl, right? Houston? Do you read me?”
Jackson brings up the Pasadena Police Department and looks at the distance. Drifting north is good, bringing him closer to the station.
The Z Chronicles Page 21
