Perigee

by Patrick Chiles

  “Houston, CDR. How copy?”

  There was a crackle and hiss, followed by the telltale beep of a radio transmission from Houston.

  “CDR, Houston. We have new priority tasking for you. I am bringing Blue Team flight director on freq now. She needs to speak with you directly.”

  “Understand Houston. Standing by for Flight.” That’s strange, he thought, then asked one of his European crewmates watching over systems behind him: “Gerard, anything going on I should know about? System problems, new orbital junk?”

  “No system anomalies. One new transient uplinked from J-SpOC overnight,” the Frenchman replied. “A failed satellite launch, possibly. Our orbits intersect in ninety-seven hours but altitudes are clear.”

  Beep.

  “CDR, this is Flight Director Wilkes.”

  He knew her fairly well from his own stint as a CapCom. “Morning, Aud. Shouldn’t you be home in bed right now? Over.”

  Beep.

  “They’re telling me the same thing down here, Simon. Have you seen yesterday’s news feed yet?”

  He looked back at Gerard, who shrugged his shoulders. There had been nothing for a couple of days, though the crew had customarily been too busy to notice or care.

  “Negative, Houston. Why don’t you fill us in?”

  Beep.

  “Stand by for uplink on channel Alpha. Stay on freq, I’ll provide the color commentary.”

  About ten minutes elapsed. Audrey gave him a few minutes to watch the video, and then filled him in on what they were going to do about it.

  Gerard spoke first. That certainly explained the new transient. “What is your phrase, ‘mushroomed’? Kept in the dark while they cover us with…manure?” This seemed like information they would’ve wanted to share sooner.

  Poole floated in stunned silence as he absorbed her plan, and then reached for the station’s intercom system. There were only six crewmembers, but the complex was so big that there was no telling how strung apart they might be. “All hands assemble in the wardroom in five minutes. Repeat, five minutes. If you’re not there, you’re wrong.”

  It was starting to feel like he was back on the boat, all right. “Sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms!” he joked excitedly and pushed off for the common area.

  …

  Calling the cramped space a “wardroom” was being charitable, but naval traditions had been taking over since the first crew expedition. The station commander back then had made it a priority to mount a big brass ship’s bell by the main entry airlock.

  Like everything else onboard, it was a multi-functional area. A small table, just barely large enough for six people to gather around, shared space with galley, entertainment and exercise equipment.

  Gerard came in right behind Poole, having already heard the conversation with Houston. His face gave away nothing, stereotypically detached French. Poole knew better: the man was a talented engineer and had been an invaluable systems expert over the last few months.

  Sergei Petrov, one of the Russian Soyuz pilots, came in next. His counterpart, Natalia, was close behind; they were the first married cosmonauts to fly as a crew. Setting them up together in shared quarters had been difficult, as it was not something the complex’s designers had ever planned for. But in Poole’s opinion, this was an important experiment for any future long-duration missions.

  Max Becker, a German ESA astronaut, floated in after a few minutes. He was wiping his hands clean of dirt, as it was his day to work in the hydroponic gardens. Another useful experiment; it would be far better for long-haul crews to grow their own food from seeds instead of hauling it all into orbit pre-processed.

  Renee Watson brought up the rear, which was about as Poole had come to expect. Her face was pinched up; they were once again interrupting something terribly important. She’d have to get over that real quick, he thought. What he was about to tell them would be their entire reason for existence the next couple of days.

  Poole stuck his Velcro boots onto what passed for a floor at the head of the table. Floating there, he crossed his arms as the rest of the crew took their accustomed places. Even this bunch of prima-donnas eventually found their own pecking order, he observed.

  “I just got off comm with Houston, and they’ve got a problem.” He hoped someone would notice the pun, but if so they were silent about it. So much for opening with some levity. They were a notoriously humorless bunch.

  “Okay then, I’ll just let them do the talking for me.” He pulled a tablet computer free from the bulkhead, and brought up the news feed from the ground for everyone to see. It only took a few minutes to get the story across, and for the speculation to begin. Everyone clearly had their own ideas about what may have caused it, which overcame the offense of Houston withholding an otherwise important news story from them for the last two days.

  “Runaway engines? How the hell does that happen? This isn’t the Fifties, for crying out loud.”

  “Negative-feedback fly-by-wire, possibly. Airbus had a similar problem some years ago,” said one of the Russians.

  That brought a disdainful snort from Max. “Most unlikely. Those stories are…how do you say…baloney? Old wives tales.” The French and Germans could always be counted on to furiously protect their state enterprise.

  Poole saw it was time to jump in. “Okay people, settle down. How and why doesn’t concern us. What to do now, that’s the issue at hand.”

  Renee was nonplussed. “What to do? If Houston’s concerned about orbital debris, they’ll send up a plan to re-boost. That thing can’t be much of a collision threat, anyway.”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not the point, Doctor. They’re not debris.”

  “Then would you mind getting to the point, Commander? Otherwise I fail to see how this concerns any of us. This is tragic, a senseless accident of someone’s overgrown ego to be sure. But just because it’s in space doesn’t make it our problem,” she sniffed.

  “You’re half right. We’ve no responsibility for this at all. But we are the only ones in a position to do something about it.” He turned to the station engineer: “Gerard, can you bring up our orbits on the monitor over there?”

  A 24-inch flat screen TV, a station luxury, came to life with a familiar Mercator projection of the Earth. Their current position, marked with an outline of the ISS, showed up over the familiar yellow sine wave. Austral Clipper’s path then appeared in white, its position marked by a triangle. Gerard tapped a few commands onto the keyboard in front of him, and the paths gradually shifted position as he scrolled the time-stamp ahead. “You can see our trajectories will intersect in about four days.”

  “And how close will they be?” asked Sergei.

  “Not very,” Poole said. “Ninety miles at closest approach.”

  He was met with more disbelieving looks. They would be the proverbial two ships passing in the night—close, but only just enough to watch each other whiz by. Poole knew he still had a hard sell ahead, just as Audrey had back on the ground.

  “Houston’s had a pretty good look at trajectory analysis. We’ll only get one shot at it, but we should be able to manage prox-ops for a rescue,” he said, referring to another vehicle working in close quarters with the Station.

  “With that thing?” Renee shot back, waving at the monitor. “Isn’t the whole problem that they have no maneuvering fuel? If they can change altitude, why not just do a retro burn and land? If their TPS can handle hypersonic acceleration, it’s probably strong enough to handle re-entry heating. Heat is heat, going up or coming down.” An obvious fact to her, it certainly should have been to rest of them. She wasn’t even a pilot, after all.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, Doc. Again, you’re halfway right.” He could see her already thin patience wearing. “Their thermal protection might handle re-entry if they could decelerate enough. But they’re unable to either do that, or to change orbits and meet us.”

  Poole gave that a moment to sink in. “But th
e ATV or one of our Soyuz vehicles can. Folks, they don’t have the fuel to do a damned thing. We have to go after them.”

  38

  Denver

  Walt Donner stalked about the dark tool room and ran a hand across his scalp. They’re gonna nail me good, he kept thinking. No doubt the company was even now looking for a handy scapegoat to bail them out of the PR mess they were surely in. And they’d never blame the pilots…no, it would always be laid on the wrench monkeys. Always. The old aviation pecking order would prevail: designed by a PhD, built by a Master’s, broken by a Bachelor’s and fixed by a high school graduate.

  A persistent buzz in his coat pocket competed for his attention. He grew more frustrated as he fished about, spilling a pen and some foam earplugs onto the floor. Finally, his hands found the phone. “Donner,” he answered sharply.

  “Mr. Donner,” the voice said. “This is Leo Taggart. May we speak?”

  He recognized the name, associated it with someone of importance in the company, but couldn’t be certain. “Sure, I’ve got all night. Who is this again?”

  “Leo Taggart, VP of Business Operations.”

  “Sure you got the right person there, Mr. Leo Taggart?”

  “I’m certain, Walter. You’re a busy man so I won’t take up too much of your time. But I’d like to speak with you about the situation on 501.”

  Uh-oh. Here it comes. “Not without my union rep.” He expected that would either finish the discussion or provoke a fight. If anything, the voice on the other line became more controlled.

  “No need for that, Walter. This isn’t about a personnel investigation or disciplinary hearing,” he said pleasantly at first, before turning firm. “But as an officer of this company, I’m requesting that you meet me outside by the southeast door in two minutes.”

  Click.

  He stared at the phone, wondering what could possibly be going on now.

  …

  Exactly two minutes later, he slipped out the back door and cast a long look up and down the hangar. The building stretched on for at least a hundred yards in each direction, a four-story mass of steel sheeting and concrete. The soft yellow glow of sodium bulbs illuminated its length. Across the way, white lights along an adjacent runway shone through a light fog. He pulled up his collar against a chill breeze blowing from the north, made all the colder for the mist.

  A thin figure stepped out of the shadows, likewise pulling his collar up close. Moving into the light, Donner saw he wore a tan London Fog coat over a black suit. A hand went up to slick back his hair, revealing smartly cuff-linked sleeves.

  “Good evening, Walter,” the man said, extending a hand. “Leo Taggart.”

  “Evening,” he replied cautiously.

  “Smoke?” the man offered.

  He was surprised that at least one other person at the company still smoked, especially a Veep. “Sure. Got any menthol?”

  “Camels, unfiltered. I thought you’d be more hard-core than that, Walter.”

  “Doc said I had to lighten up. Figured they were better than nothing,” he said, taking the cigarette and leaning into the silver lighter Taggart offered him.

  Both men inhaled quietly, enjoying the brief rush. Donner nervously looked up and down the hangar again. Taggart seemed unconcerned.

  “I’m taking a big risk talking to you like this,” Donner said. “The union would blacklist me for sure.”

  “I understand your point. But it’s often in the union’s interest to be confrontational.” He could see Donner bristle at that. “You know that as well as I do, probably better. And frankly we don’t have any time for it. So let’s cut the crap, Walter.”

  “But the company’s investigating. And they want to see my work records.”

  “Of course they do—there’s no other way. Those people,” he said, pointing upward, “are counting on us. If they don’t come home, we owe it to everyone else to keep this from ever happening again. The company won’t survive if we don’t. If things ever come to that, it won’t matter how good your union is,” he finished sternly.

  “True enough,” Donner conceded. “But you’re still looking for someone to hang,” he said, stomping out the cigarette under his heel. “And it won’t be me.”

  “You understand this matter is of grave concern, and we need to make sure everything associated with it is absolutely above-board.”

  “So why bother with me? Especially if you’re not the one doing the investigating?” he argued.

  Taggart’s eyes flared briefly, signaling Donner that he needed to tread carefully. After a long pause, he answered. “Because I’m in charge of risk management, which means I have a personal interest in this company avoiding trouble,” he finally answered. “I know the people investigating, and they’re looking in all the wrong places. They think somebody here screwed up. I think the problem’s somewhere else.”

  Donner couldn’t hide his cynicism. “So just what is ‘somewhere else’?” he demanded. “And you never really answered my question, Mr. Taggart.”

  “Very well, then. I’ve been concerned about our parts quality for some time now. No doubt you’ve seen it out here working on the line.”

  “All I know is these stinking birds break down a lot for being so new. Never seen anything like it. The eggheads always say we ‘just don’t understand the systems’. Bull. An airplane’s an airplane, some just go faster than others.”

  “I would have to agree with that,” Taggart smiled. “So let’s get straight to it. We have a problem with substandard parts, and it may have led us into an enormous mess. You were the last man to work on 501; you’re one of our senior technicians,” he pointed out. “And that makes you the best one to tell us what’s really going on out here.”

  That got Donner’s attention. About time the suits started paying attention to us grunts out on the line. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to be my eyes and ears so we can make sure they’re not barking up the wrong tree. You give me your side of the story, every step of the way, and back it up with paperwork,” he said. “The work cards will support you, won’t they?”

  “Damn straight,” Donner replied. They’d better, he thought. I’ll have to make sure of that. He wondered who was on shift tonight down in Quality Assurance, where all the master logbooks and work records were stored.

  “That’s what I thought. I knew you were the right man for this job, Walter,” Taggart said solemnly, and gripped Donner’s shoulder for effect. “I’m counting on you to help make things right. Find the real problems.”

  “That won’t be too hard,” the old mechanic assured him.

  39

  Austral Clipper

  Marcy pulled a box of elaborately-packaged dinners from a small refrigerator and began sorting them by preparation time. They could spare precious little power to run the convection ovens, but without them they’d have even less to eat. She tossed the meals through the air one at a time to Whitney.

  “What do we do now?” the young woman asked as she struggled to catch them all.

  “We make dinner,” Marcy said. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “You know what I meant,” she scoffed. “We can’t just stay up here.”

  “I’m afraid we are,” Marcy answered as gently as she could. It did no good to sugarcoat the news at this point. “Trust me, nobody down there has forgotten about us. We do what we can up here to stay alive while they figure out what to do next.”

  Tom had been adamant that she keep the passengers engaged, but finding enough for them to do was terribly difficult. Magrath’s other assistant, Carson, had at least discovered that just keeping the portholes clean of frost was nearly a full-time job. And the constant motion helped him stave off the cold.

  Whitney’s boss had been keeping her busy with something on his tablet computer, no doubt trying to stay on top of his affairs as best as he could under the circumstances. Fortunately for them all, leaving power on for communications meant they still had
regular contact with the world below. Occasional movies on the entertainment system had also become a welcome diversion that kept everyone from retreating into their own mental corners.

  Marcy tried to change the subject. “So what’s he had you working on?”

  “Research,” she said somewhat evasively.

  “That must be hard,” Marcy observed. “Our data link and Wi-Fi are only up in short bursts. What kind of research?”

  Whitney tried to shrug off the obvious probe. “Market trends, that sort of thing. Business never rests, you know.”

  “Glad he’s keeping his head together,” Marcy said, hiding her skepticism. “I suppose he’s a busy man no matter what the circumstances.” She closed up the cabinets and floated past. “Come on, I’ll show you how to work the ovens.”

  …

  Colin Magrath hovered just around the corner and struggled to gather a blanket around him for warmth. To his mounting frustration, it refused to stay in place without having his arms tightly wrapped inside. He finally gave up, threw the blanket aside, and watched it float away. He reached into a hip pocket and surreptitiously turned off the recorder on his phone while pushing his way back towards one of the many empty seats. He buckled in, strapped his notebook to the table by his seat, and began typing furiously. An earbud from the phone floated freely about his neck. He occasionally glanced over his shoulder, but otherwise remained focused on the task he’d assigned to himself.

  40

  Houston

  “So do we call Gene out of retirement for this or not?” Audrey’s telemetry officer joked. The legendary flight director had still been a regular presence around Johnson well past his tenure, frequently being called upon for consultation and motivational talks.

  She looked down at her notes with a shake of her head at TELMU’s irreverence. He was reliable but too much of a class clown sometimes. This was not the time for jokes, and Audrey knew her fatigue would soon have the better of her if she didn’t get things moving.