Earth Lost Without Power

by L. S. Wood

  “How is that damn repair coming along, Captain?”

  “Not very good commander, I am afraid to say, sir. As soon as we get this control panel back together, we are going to go out into the cargo bay and try to find the real problem out there, sir.”

  “How long will that be Captain?”

  “I don’t really know, sir, but we are trying our best!”

  “I know, Morris, I know!” This is really starting to bug the hell out of me. What in the hell else can go wrong now, I wonder? Maybe the damn fools on the ground forgot to charge the rocket fuel tanks before we left the launch pad. If so, we will be in the same frigging fix the laboratory is in now because I gave orders to use up all the fuel in the jaytoe bottles.”

  Lieutenant Steven and Captain Morris went directly to the cargo bay as soon as they put the control panel back together at Ann’s station. The entire electrical panel assemblies were carefully protected by the installation of the panels within the walls and beneath the cargo floor of all the food, water, filter carbon boxes for retrofitting the fresh water filtering system, and the many pallets holding the oxygen cylinders.

  There were several electrical panels that Captain Morris had to open up to view in order to find and correct the problem they were experiencing. The entire crew including Ann went out to the cargo bay to help to move the payload of supplies out of the way from the electrical access panels. Moving the huge containers of supplies was extremely difficult and dangerous. There was hardly little room for one crewmember to move around fully outfitted in their full flight gear suits, never mind the seven of them with re-breathers attached to their backs.

  The containers of supplies were heavy and bulky, and once the crew got them to move up and away from their tie downs, they also had to stop the movement of them in order to prevent them from damaging the inside of the cargo bay where they were drifting to. The task was hard, long, and time consuming. Using their hands and feet, they managed somehow to unstrap container after container while in their space suits. Weightlessness definitely had its advantages and disadvantages all at the same time in this situation. Crate after crate They moved away crate after crate from panel after panel, securing the cargo back into its original position before going on to the next panel for its inspection. As luck would have it, they should have started at the very last protective panel first because there was where they found the problem.

  The crew wasted most of the day searching for a harness connector that had to have come apart during the Twitchel’s reentry better than three months earlier when it rolled and twisted on reentry. The extent of the huge g-force exerted on everything including the crewmembers back then must have loosened the connection, and it was just hanging there freely in the compartment separated.

  Captain Morris pushed the two separated plastic harness connectors back together as Ann floated back into her station inside the cockpit to see if everything was back to normal again for the main booster rockets, and it was. The panel lit up like a Christmas tree. “All set, Commander! It was that connector that had come apart all of the time, sir.” After securing the electrical panel’s cover and getting the cargo bay back into shape with everything in its original places, everyone returned to their flight deck cockpit stations to resume their original flight plans.

  What else could go wrong now, Commander Anderson thought?

  “On the three count, Captain, one, two, three.” (The jaytoe bottles had worked earlier, but the Twitchel was hundreds of miles from its final destination.) The main booster rockets came to life. Commander Anderson’s face went from a very concerned frown of dissatisfaction to a more normally relaxed pleasant smile when he heard and felt the main rockets of the Twitchel kick in.

  “One long ten-minute burn on both rockets, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir, ten minutes.” Ann set her timer instrument on ten and then sat back and relaxed for the first time since their liftoff.

  Everyone onboard had time to relax now for a short time. Everything seemed to be going on as planned, but that could change at any given moment. Commander Anderson sat back in his seat waiting for the best or worst to happen. When the timer reached ten, Ann switched the main rocket boosters off. The space station was getting closer, but not fast enough for Commander Anderson‘s likings.

  “One more hard-long burn, Captain Mitchell, another ten minutes, please. On the three count again Captain, one, two, three. Ann flipped the toggle switch for the main rockets to on and the main booster rockets came to life instantly. Ann set the automatic timing device to a ten-minute burn again.

  Things were going too good for comfort this time, something amiss just had to take place. At the ten-minute mark, Ann turned the booster rocket switch to off. The speed of the Twitchel had greatly increased as they were closing in on their target, but it was still a very long way away.

  Commander Anderson was still very concerned for the safety of the space station crew, and wanted to be with them right then and not wait another minute of precious time gone by.

  Major Bill could still hear the faint voices over the radio, but they seemed ever the more faint and weak to him as they did to Commander Anderson as he listened in on the communications channel, and tried to make out what they were trying to say to them.

  “Another ten minute-burn, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir, Commander, another ten-minute burn, sir.”

  “On the three count again Captain, one, two, three fire.” Ann switched on the main thruster switch, and again the main rocket thrusters came to life. Everything was going way too smooth now. On the ten-minute mark, Ann switched off the thruster switch. This time the Twitchel was closing in real fast on its intended target. It had been a long time since Ann had last fired the main thrusters, and the strobe beacon on the bottom of the space station was becoming bigger and brighter.

  “Captain Mitchell?”

  “Yes, sir, Commander?”

  “Fire the retro for a quick blast. We have to slow this bird down.” “Yes, sir, Commander.” Ann fired the retro, and the Twitchel began to slow.

  “Another burn, Ann.”

  “Yes, sir, Commander.” Several more retro-rocket blasts and the Twitchel would be ready to dock and couple up with the International Space Station again. Everything about the space station looked exactly as it had the day they uncoupled their craft from it and departed over a few months earlier. The soviet’s escape space capsule still lay attached to the side of the space station in its original docking position where it had been since docking it. It was there in case some one or several cosmonauts became desperately sick and had to leave the space station immediately for whatever reason.

  The exterior positioning lights on the space station switched on as did the docking lamps when the Twitchel came within a mile of the space station. The radio signal was stronger now but still very staticy as it had been before, but at least they could understand each other more now than they could before.

  The Russian crewmembers and the two Germans onboard the space station were ecstatic to hear friendly voices being broadcast to them, no matter how static or scrambled up they all sounded. Time was quickly running out for them, for they were all getting very nervous what was going to take place or to happen to them in their fast dwindling last days aboard the ailing space station. Time for their lives had been running out, as many friends and family aboard would be left to die when only a handful from the station would be able to return home to earth safely, they hoped.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The Lottery for Life or Death

  The crew aboard the space station watched the earth below for months. They kept hoping and praying day after day looking down to see if anything might come about below that might lead to their rescue. The crewmembers of the space station were becoming almost sick with fear they might all vanish except for six lucky ones.

  Everyone on the space lab knew that in the near
future they would have to come up with some sort of an innovative life plan to save the few who would survive. A lottery for life of some kind to enable a few to return back home to earth letting the remaining members of their crew stay behind on the doomed space station without food, oxygen, or any of the necessary equipment and sources of survival needed to go on, and would all eventually die an unpleasant death.

  It would only be fair that the only two German astronauts onboard the space station other than the Russians would be the first to be chosen to leave the doomed craft and wouldn’t have to join in the lottery for life unless they so choose to do so. Had it not been for the Russian’s foolish leaders creating this evil device of destruction, they would all have been safe to live. Now the grave situation around the earth below has left them all captive prisoners in space for something their leaders had caused.

  The space station’s commander, Commander Ivan Khrushchev, being in charge of the laboratory had come up with a fair and equitable solution to pick the four lucky cosmonauts which would be able to leave the laboratory along with the two Germans. This plan was a lottery type drawing, a raffle to save four of their very own comrades and give them a chance at life on earth.

  A raffle, for all the crewmembers to play in case the situation on board came down to one of a very drastic measure, would only take place when a final decision had to be handed down and made by Commander Ivan and then to implement a safety procedure for the protection of the four lucky ones drawn. The entire crew of the laboratory was on the verge of giving up, and some were on the verge of committing mutiny unless something very drastic was to occur.

  In about a month more or less when their remaining oxygen supply onboard the station would dwindle rapidly to an unsafe level, as the plant life aboard supplementing extra needed oxygen in the space station would not be able to convert the massive amounts in carbon dioxide produced by the fretting crew back into usable oxygen. According to the instrumentation onboard the laboratory, the situation was becoming more critical with each passing day. According to the readings taken every day in accordance with the governing air quality control procedures on board the space station, time for the lottery was soon approaching.

  It had been months of continual daily observations of the Soviet launch pad sites from the eye in the sky. No one, not one single solitary person, was doing anything in or around the Soviet launch sites since the horrible missile mishap took place well over a long whole year ago. There had always been a couple of rockets standing at the launch sites from the very beginning of their watch, which in fact looked ready to be launched, but one of them most recently fell over on its side, and split apart. The sight of it lying dead on its side without any ground action taking place around it anywhere took all their wishes and prayers away. There never had in all their time looking down been a sighting of any living sole around any of them except for at the American landing sight.

  Down at the American space sites there were always activities going on around them on the ground, even before their friends chanced taking the Twitchel back home to Earth after their long stay with them in space. There had been trucks, busses, tractors, and Jeeps after several months moving around the sight at the cape.

  False hope had built in the crew a couple of days after the Twitchel had safely landed back on Earth. They moved the Twitchel from the landing strip runway, and brought it back to a large hanger where they always readied the shuttles for launching again.

  Could it be possible that the Americans were getting their craft ready for another mission into outer space? Several days passed on, then several weeks, and then their little ray of hope began to dwindle away from them again.

  The oxygen alarms around the laboratory began to sound as sections of the laboratory’s outer cubicles needed shutting down to conserve on their expanded use in oxygen. The commander stopped all unnecessary exercise aboard the craft, affecting everyone’s daily activities, altered in any way possible to curb and conserve the precious necessities in food, water, and the precious oxygen supply that was in critical short supply.

  The time had come to implement the use of the lottery for life for the few that would live and the many that would perish onboard. The time of the lottery for life had come!

  “All personnel report to the main assembly cubical at once. I repeat! All personnel please report to the assembly room cubical immediately.” Everyone recognized the forceful voice over the intercom system as the voice of the space station’s commander, Commander Ivan.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to exercise the departure lottery. Time is of the essence, and if we wait any longer, it will be too late. If there is any, the slightest of hope, or the slimmest of chances in hell that any of us might survive, it will be up to the lucky lottery winners of this lottery to see to it that that takes place as soon as possible. As all onboard know, we are desperately low on our oxygen supply, food, and other necessary supplies for our living welfare. We have about a month or less before we have none left at all, and this mission will be over with at that very critical time.

  It will be up to those few lucky lottery winners to secure our needs, and send them back to us if they are lucky enough to survive the ordeal of reentry and make a safe landing in America at the Kennedy Space Center.

  If they do not survive the reentry and cannot report our ill-fated situation to the world below to the Americans, then we shall all perish as a group up here. As you all know, the Americans have been able to remove the Twitchel from the runway and place it back into one of its hangers. That is all it looks like they are going to do with that craft for the meantime.

  We were all hoping with false hopes at first, I guess. We all figured our good friends the Americans would have explained our plight of this poor situation we are in up here to their superiors. If they had, I guess the information they told them fell upon deaf ears. I guess we should have had a couple of more Americans on this mission, instead of you two Germans, no offence men. Maybe then they would have hustled in sending some sort of relief ship up here to help sustain us, and maybe things would have been a little different.

  Commander Anderson from the Twitchel explained to me when the right time came, he did not quite know when that time would come as he and I had miscalculated the amounts of supplies we had onboard when his craft left. He said we should try to land our space capsule on or about the launching sight where they landed, and if Commander Anderson could he would immediately have help sent back up to us if it was at all possible for them to do so.

  Well crew, the time has come for us to send our message down to him, and I only hope he can as he said he would if at all possible send a good craft loaded with supplies back up here for us. The time has come comrades, the time has come to play our capsule lottery of who lives and who dies up here. I would very much like to return back to Earth as one of the few crewmembers aboard the lucky capsule, and I could if I so chose to. You all know I have the authority to make this type of decision for myself if I want to, but I will not. I have had a good life, and would like very much for someone younger than I would to enjoy a good life as I have. It has been a very difficult decision for me to make, but I will not be joining any of you in this lottery for life. I want this lottery to be as fair as possible to everyone onboard this ship.

  Therefore, every one of you will have to win the lottery for life five different times and in five different ways to enable yourselves to board the returning capsule. The winners will play against the winners, and the losers will play against the losers. The winners from the losers will play against the winners from the winners, and losers from the winners will play against the losers from the losers until only four of you remain as winners. These will be the lucky ones to board the capsule at a time I so choose for their departure.

  If I was to play the lottery along with you, the numbers would not, and I repeat, the numbers would not work out for everyone, and I would have to choose the l
ast lucky person to board the capsule myself. I will not choose whether someone lives or dies. Therefore, as commander of this space station, I order myself ineligible to participate in this very special lottery of life. That is an order, and my proclamation before you all. Now let you, as my good friends, play the lottery for life.”

  Commander Ivan passed out the many sealed envelopes he had in his makeshift basket to each crewmember except to the two Germans who were not to participate in it. He let each crewmember reach into the basket one by one and take out his or her first envelope as the commander passed the container around in front of them.

  Commander Ivan had spent many hours upon long grueling hours, designing and redesigning the extraordinary game of life. His next in command aboard the space station did not know how the lottery for life would work. His crew knew nothing about it during the time he was designing it. Only the commander himself knew how it would work.

  The commander mixed up the envelopes so he would not even know who might win in the first round of play or not. He wanted the game of life he designed played in the most honest way, and not like his lost superiors game that had gone and deployed all those damn lethal missiles that cost so many their lives.

  Commander Ivan was more than a fair man and would have loved to see his loving children and lovely grandchildren once again. He knew it was the only fair way for him to show his real character to his loved ones back home and to the world below. He wanted it known to everyone on Earth that he was a true martyr of goodwill and honesty. He didn’t want to go down in history as his wrongful superiors did. He knew most Russian people were good honest hard-working people of the planet, and he wanted everyone below to know that it took only a few bad apples in the leadership barrel of life to make it look like they had destroyed the whole bunch of honest ones, but they had not.