He turned and floated into the pod feet first. Before closing the hatches, he took a lingering last look around his ship, sighing and sincerely wondering whether he was making the right choice. Soon he would know. If he found himself in an interrogation room, or worse, in an hour or so, then he would be sorry he ever left the serenity and relative security of his floating home.
He closed the ship's hatch, then the pod's hatch behind him, strapped himself into his couch and stuck his music player onto a Velcro patch attached to his leg. As the music rang home between his ears, his eyes and fingers danced over the pod’s many switches bringing it to life.
he activity at BC1 had reached a fevered pitch. For some unknown reason, it seemed everyone there had put on their best clothes. It was as though they were forcing themselves into an upbeat mood, or, at the least, that they very much wanted to show a fellow member of their race that they were not uncivilized after all.
Peter insisted that Hernandez occupy Lipton's seat in the Launch Control Center while Peter sat in Hernandez's old seat. He had handed over nearly all of Lipton's administrative tasks to Hernandez who was not only trained to handle them and was good at it, but also actually enjoyed such duties. Peter detested managerial details and had pledged long ago to avoid them whenever possible. It was a pleasure to delegate all these to Hernandez who was truly honored to be given such vast responsibility on his own. Hernandez had been taking care of many of them for Lipton, anyway; a fact he had not shared with Peter or anyone else. Peter's goal was to lead and share, not drag the community along, jealously hording power and credit, as he felt Lipton had done.
Something of a shuffle reordered the Launch Control Center’s top row of consoles. Peter and Hernandez now shared seats with Francis, Gorteau and Toon. Peter wanted his own team there if things began to go wrong.
"Goddard, BC1," the launch director said over the net.
"This is Goddard, go ahead," Kerry replied.
"Goddard, are you ready for disconnect?"
"Any time."
"Would you like a short count?" the launch director asked politely.
"I'll give it to you," Kerry replied. There was a several minute pause as he set his switches then checked them for accuracy. The procedure would be to undock the pod from the Goddard, back away a safe distance then set the computer to fire the retro-rockets. The gumdrop shaped vehicle would ride down on its heat shield then the retro rockets would slow him down. Once they slowed the capsule to a satisfactory speed, a giant parachute would unfurl. At 100 meters, the pod would break free from its canopy and retro rockets would slow him to a safe landing speed.
"Okay, BC1, …all set here. I'll give you a short count and undock," Kerry said conversationally, although he was seriously concerned about who was listening below and under what conditions.
"Three... two... one... breakaway! Undocking successful."
A ripple of applause spread through BC1. Peter sighed and flexed his shoulders. At least things were off to a good start.
"Okay, BC1. Minus seven minutes, fourteen seconds till retrofire," the astronaut reported.
"Roger that, Gumdrop," the Flight Director said smiling.
"Gumdrop?" Kerry asked, slightly amused.
"Roger, Lieutenant Kerry. We just realized your escape pod had no name, so we christened it. Hope you like it."
"I'm not so sure that it's splendid enough for its one and only voyage. But if that's what you guys want, well, okay, we'll be Gumdrop today. Although, I guess you know you’re plagiarizing Apollo history,” Kerry recounted, referring to the Apollo 9 capsule by the same name.
“No problem, Gumdrop. The old timers are all dead and wouldn’t care anyway,” the Flight Director mused.
The seven minutes passed quickly both on the ground and in space. Kerry backed slowly away from the massive Goddard with its attached cargo pod. He shivered involuntarily as he viewed the pod, fully loaded with water and consumables - all items vital to the survival of the humans below. With the crash of the lander vehicle, there was now no way to recover these vital materials, attached firmly to the Goddard and stranded in space.
The huge, dark grey hulk reflected the colors from the planet’s ruddy surface, the dim red glow making the ship look like an immense live ember. Its cylindrical edges rotated slowly in orbit; the bright, solar powered strobes centered on the docking collar blinking their silent good-byes.
"Minus 45 seconds," the ground reported to him.
"Roger, I’m oriented properly and onboard logic has been enabled to perform the retrofire."
Kerry's mind raced through his options for the last time. There were still enough seconds left on the clock to change his mind and re-dock with Goddard for the trip back to earth. All he had to do was cancel the retrofire command and return to dock. In less than half a minute, he may never be able to return to space again. But Kerry was, to his very core, a being of logic and discipline. He willed his mind back to flying his spacecraft; the decision had been made and there would be no turning back.
"Minus ten seconds," the ground reported, and then counted them down. At zero, Kerry felt the familiar thump of the retrorockets kicking in and he reported a successful firing. Those on the ground responded with another ripple of applause. But the dangerous part of the voyage had just begun, and no one dared display too much excitement yet.
Kerry watched his instruments carefully. The spacecraft was automatically taking care of orientation. All he had to do now was wait for the long fall into the plains of Elysium.
"Ground control, Gumdrop," Kerry said evenly. "I’m in good shape. Touchdown in 29 minutes. Ionization begins in eight. You've got a good data stream. I'm going off line."
The Flight Director looked momentarily confused, then worried, then over to the flight dynamics officer, shrugging his shoulders. Why would Kerry cut himself off from communications? No one on the ground had any answers.
"Gumdrop, BC1. Acknowledge please."
There was no response. The Flight Director checked the stream of telemetry coming in from the spacecraft. Kerry's heart rate was normal, life support normal, all systems operating as designed. Kerry was simply not talking.
In space, Kerry slipped his headphones on. He keyed in John Williams' American Classics, turned the volume all the way up and relaxed, his eyes on the instruments. If this may be his last chance to fly in a spacecraft, then he was not about to let any senseless yammering from the ground interfere. This was his ride.
The first glimmer of atmospheric contact sent a flickering orange hue across the tiny window just centimeters in front of his face. He narrowed his eyes against the glare and sighed heavily as Aaron Copeland's brassy Fanfare for the Common Man seemed to transform the colors and send them rippling along his spine. The G-forces pressed him far back into his seat as Gumdrop slammed into the Martian atmosphere at Mach 18 and was enveloped in a brilliant, white-hot shield of ionized air. At that moment, all data from the capsule was lost.
18
oya Dimitriov touched the tips of her thin fingers together and held them still, inches from her face. Her eyes swept across the surface of the holographically projected chess board in front of her. Her analytical mind evaluated the options of the game with cold precision. From time to time, her eyes shifted to size up the man who sat opposite her, measuring him with the same indifferent standard used toward the chess pieces illuminated on the board before her.
Vladimir Dybenko shifted restlessly in his seat, his eyes darting nervously about the room, while Dimitriov contemplated her next move. He was not a chess player, yet Dimitriov continued inviting him to play frequently. He could hardly refuse; she was his commander. Dybenko was her second in command.
She delighted in toying with him on the board. Like a rat cornered by a barn cat, Dimitriov lured him, pawing him into grievous and embarrassing losses of his assets before she actually moved in for the mauling kill. She allowed the games to drag on endlessly, wordlessly, for hours while she humiliated him in th
is process of pure logic, strategy and unadulterated intellectual combat for which both knew he was not her equal.
She did it for a reason, of course. She forced him time and time again to submit to her unequivocally superior intelligence so he would never dare challenge her command, to her face or behind her back. He knew it and she knew it. These games served to remind him of the reality of life at Shturmovoi. She took special delight in driving it home.
Dimitriov had seen the checkmate three moves ago, ignored the rules and let it pass, to see if Dybenko would attempt to slither away. He never saw it at all. He had quit competing hours ago – months ago.
"Checkmate," she announced stoically, matter-of-factly. She did not even bother to command the movement of her piece.
Dybenko did not look at the board. He stood up, so restless with pent up anxiety, he was almost ready to explode with an unfortunate display of impertinence. Wisely he held his tongue.
"Another marvelous game, Colonel," Dybenko lied, so clumsily it was laughable. "Well, I must depart; it is late," he said moving quickly toward the door of her office.
"Just a moment, Major," she said slowly.
His hand, already touching the door control, froze. He did not turn around, waiting for Dimitriov to continue. But she did not, taking some pleasure in seeing how long Dybenko would wait for her.
"Yes, Colonel," he finally said, propping his chin up artificially as he turned around to face her.
"Sit," she said, her voice sterile and rigid. “Board off,” she commanded and the holographic board dissolved slowly from the tabletop before them.
As Dybenko sat down into his still warm seat, Dimitriov lit up a brown cigarette, blew smoke in his direction and never for a moment looked away from him. Her thin nose seemed to spike out from her black eyes, framed below two narrow, obviously penciled eyebrows. She might have been attractive except for her determined effort not to be. Had she entered a contest for the most sour looking woman in the Reunified Soviet Empire, she would have walked away with the roses. On Mars, she had no peer. To her eternal credit, she deftly coupled her looks with her demeanor. Her personality fit her appearance like nylon spandex on a Muscovite whore.
She looked across the table at this pitiful excuse for a soldier, assigned to her as her deputy in command of Shturmovoi. While she should have received the hand picked senior military officer she had asked for, the Committee had sent her this pathetic cosmonaut. Being a decorated Hero of the Empire was not so difficult, she had said to Dybenko on more than one occasion. When strapped to millions of kilograms of screaming rockets, where does one run? When forced to make life-critical decisions, who decides? The computers decide. When faced with a multitude of options, what process does a soldier quickly use to guarantee life over death? The committee on the ground decides.
Dybenko's handsome face looked like it belonged on a magazine cover; best kept on Pravada, not paraded before an ambivalent and disorderly assembly of ground troops.
"Major, what have you heard of the American revolt?" she asked him, then shifted her head slightly to the side, moving her cigarette and its blue smoking trail out of the line of her vision of him. As her eyes cut into his, he looked away.
"The American lander will reenter tomorrow afternoon, between 1600 and 1730. The ten Americans onboard are presumed dead," he said quietly.
"I know that, Dybenko. You briefed me on that information this morning."
"Of course, Colonel; how stupid of me. I lost track of that fact in the heat of our game," he said with a nervous laugh and smile, grasping, in a useless attempt at eliciting a return smile. Dimitriov stared back at him without expression as one would stare at the death throes of a dying insect.
The ensuing silence prompted Dybenko to speak again. "Other than that, we have received no radio intelligence. They are still attempting to contact us by..."
"You are repeating yourself, Major," she said again.
A bead of sweat trickled down his neck onto his collar, just as she had calculated it would.
"Do you know that their director is dead?" she asked, crushing her cigarette out.
"No, I did not," he replied, half wondering whether she was lying to him or really had access to intelligence to which he was not privy.
"He is dead, Dybenko. Murdered by the criminal element who started the rebellion. The American base is tearing itself to pieces." She left the comment to dangle in the air for effect before beginning again.
"The war on earth has left us in a rather precarious position, comrade. Our life support and consumables are limited, do you not agree?" she asked, leading him.
"Yes, Colonel. We have had the scientific branch working in an effort to pinpoint..."
"Please, Dybenko!" she said, cutting him off. "Working to what end?" Then she moved her body forward in her chair toward him till he could smell the foul stench of the tobacco on her breath. "Play the game of our own survival with more zeal than you play this one," she said, pointing at the now empty table top. "Evaluating the inevitable is a waste of our resources. Do you not agree?"
Dybenko felt the same surge of stupidity and ineptness that he always felt when sitting across from her at the game board. Already she was several moves ahead and he was hopelessly lost.
yodore Kirov and Petroskovich Drobkiev found themselves immersed in evaluating the extent of their life support capacity, including detailed calculations of water, food, power and consumables. No official word had been released as to what was going on. Yet the initial suspicions became the obvious. Word had been circulating around Shturmovoi there had been a war on earth which had disrupted communications.
The reality of interrupted communications was obvious to everyone. The pitiful deceptions offered initially for the loss were quickly exposed by the rumor mill as originating in the Director’s office. Finally, there circulated a substantial story that there had been a war on earth and most seemed to cling to that as factual within a certain respectable range of probability.
The contingent of the Reunified Soviet Empire on Mars, much like the Americans, consisted of two groups: the scientific branch and the executive branch. The scientific branch was made up of 28 scientists, engineers and researchers. The executive branch was comprised of 29 administrators, consisting of Dimitriov and her staff, including Dybenko. The executives were assembled from a large number of military personnel and a few politicians sent to Mars on a career enhancing junket more than to serve any useful function.
Such was the tendency observed before on earth in nearly every generation of exploration. After the initial voyages of discovery to any new frontier, within the next group were a few individuals who coveted the instant, effortless fame associated with the voyage alone. This kind of waste was made even worse when government funds were involved. Political strings were easily pulled by politically motivated fiscal ploys and soon politicians were involved in the business of exploration. It was true in the exploration and discovery of the "new world" on earth, the Arctic, Antarctic and eventually space; an inauspicious reality of centuries of human exploration.
Kirov and Drobkiev decided that they would no longer tolerate being kept in ignorance of such a critical situation. Between themselves, they formed the "Council of the Informed". Their ultimate plan was to involve as many other RSE scientists as could be safely assimilated into the group and establish a covert, direct communications link with the American scientific branch.
The formation of the Council in itself was a perilous act. Control of information in the Eastern Bloc system of government was a technique that ensured absolute control. To challenge that system of restriction was tantamount to treason
The Council currently had four members other than Kirov and Drobkiev; four other scientists who they felt they could trust absolutely. While they worked to established communications with the Americans, the council also developed strategies to share information freely among themselves.
The Council of the Informed never met together at the sa
me time. They passed information back and forth by computer wafer. The files were encoded so that they could only be deciphered by a password and were read once then obliterated. The password was changed daily. It consisted of the first three words in the Daily Plan, a positively nauseating house organ published by the executive branch.
Kirov and Drobkiev found themselves together in an airlock, following wires to a defective probe. Kirov, following the wire conduit along the floor of the airlock on his hands and knees, looked carefully around him, reached over and pulled the door closed.
"Fyodor, I have heard a rumor that the American Director has been murdered," Drobkiev said breathlessly.
"It is a clumsy ploy, Petroskovich. Dimitriov has planted that rumor to make us believe the American base has been engulfed in civil strife. For what purpose, I do not fully understand."
Petroskovich Drobkiev sighed and sat down on the floor of the airlock. "Everyone now believes that the earth has been cut off from us by war. We have been busily engaged in life support calculations, in figuring out rations, in making detailed assessments of survival, yet not one word has been published about why we are doing these things. Does Dimitriov think we are idiots?"
"Not at all, Petroskovich," Kirov replied with a wry smile. "She knows well what she does. I suspect she has carefully monitored the rumors, and, in fact, may be responsible for some of them. I suspect that is the case with the rumor of the American director's death. Dimitriov has been moving all of us along in the direction she has carefully chosen for us."
"What direction? I can sense no direction, only confusion."
"Of course, my friend. If you knew her direction, then she would have no control," Kirov said bluntly.
"When will we attempt to contact the Americans?" Drobkiev asked.
"Soon, Petroskovich."
"How are we to accomplish this feat without being discovered? All communications channels are continuously monitored by people in whom we have no trust.”
Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium Page 22
