Gravity: A Novel of Medical Suspense

by Tess Gerritsen

“It’s down to seven hundred ten…six hundred ninety. Shit, they’re decompressing fast!”

  Breach in the station’s hull! thought Carpenter. But that wasn’t his problem to fix; it belonged to Special Vehicle Operations, down the hall.

  The propulsion systems engineer suddenly broke into the comm loop. “Flight, I’m reading RCS ignition, F2U, F3U, and F1U. Someone’s working the orbiter controls.”

  Carpenter’s head snapped to attention. The RPOP display was still locked and frozen, with no new images appearing. But Propulsion’s report told him that Discovery’s steering rockets had just fired. It had to be more than just a random discharge; the crew was trying to move the orbiter away from ISS. But until they had radio downlink, they could not confirm the orbiter crew’s status. They could not confirm they were alive.

  It was the most terrible scenario of all, the one he feared most. A dead crew on an orbiting shuttle. Though Houston could control most of the orbiter’s maneuvers by ground command, they could not bring it home without crew help. A functioning human being was necessary to flip the arming switches for the OMS deorbit burn. It took a human hand to deploy the air-data probes and to lower the landing gear for touchdown. Without someone at the controls to perform these functions, Discovery would remain in orbit, a ghost ship circling silently around the earth until its orbit decayed months from now, and it fell to earth in a streak of fire. It was this nightmare that passed through Carpenter’s head as the seconds ticked by, as panic slowly gathered force around him in the FCR. He could not afford to think about the space station, whose crew even now might be in the agonal throes of a decompressive death. His focus had to remain on Discovery. On his crew, whose survival seemed less and less likely with every second of silence that passed.

  Then, suddenly, they heard the voice. Faint, halting.

  “Control, this is Discovery. Houston. Houston…”

  “It’s Hewitt!” said Capcom. “Go ahead, Discovery!”

  “…major anomaly…could not avoid collision. Structural damage to orbiter appears minimal…”

  “Discovery, we need visual on ISS.”

  “Can’t deploy Ku antenna—closed circuit gone—”

  “Do you know the extent of their damage?”

  “Impact tore off their solar truss. I think we punched a hole in their hull…”

  Carpenter felt sick. They still had heard no word from the ISS crew. No confirmation they had survived.

  “What is your crew’s status?” asked Capcom.

  “Kittredge is barely responding. Hit his head on the aft control panel. And the crew on middeck—I don’t know about them—”

  “What’s your status, Hewitt?”

  “Trying to…oh, God, my head . . .” There was a soft sob. Then she said, “It’s alive.”

  “Did not copy.”

  “The stuff floating around—the spill from the body bag. It’s moving all around me. It’s inside me. I can see it moving under my skin, and it’s alive.”

  A chill crawled all the way up Carpenter’s spine. Hallucinations. A head injury. They were losing her, losing their only chance of getting the orbiter down intact.

  “Flight, we’re approaching burn target,” warned FDO. “We can’t afford to miss it.”

  “Tell her to go for deorbit,” Carpenter ordered.

  “Discovery,” said Capcom. “Go to APU prestart.”

  There was no response.

  “Discovery?” repeated Capcom. “You’re going to miss your burn target!”

  As the seconds stretched to minutes, Carpenter’s muscles tensed, and his nerves felt like live wires. He gave a sigh of relief when Hewitt finally responded.

  “Middeck crew’s in landing position. They’re both unconscious. I’ve strapped them in. But I can’t get Kittredge into his LES—”

  “Screw his reentry suit!” said Carpenter. “Let’s not miss that target. Just get the bird down!”

  “Discovery, we advise you proceed directly to APU prestart. Just strap him into the starboard seat, and you get on with deorbit.”

  They heard a ragged sigh of pain. Then Hewitt said, “My head—having trouble focusing…”

  “We roger that, Hewitt.” Capcom’s voice became gentler. Almost soothing. “Look, Jill. We know you’re the one in the commander’s seat now. We know you’re hurting. But we can guide you in on autoland, all the way to wheel stop. If you just stay with us.”

  She let out a tortured sob. “APU prestart complete,” she whispered. “Loading OPS 3-0-2. Tell me when, Houston.”

  “Go for deorbit burn,” said Carpenter.

  Capcom relayed the decision. “Go for deorbit burn, Discovery.” And he added softly, “Now, let’s get you home.”

  In the hellish darkness, Emma braced herself for the shock of decompression. She knew exactly what to expect. How she would die. There would be the roar of air rushing out of the hull. The sudden popping of her eardrums. The rapid crescendo of pain as her lungs expanded and her alveoli exploded. As the air pressure drops toward vacuum, the boiling temperature of liquid also drops, until it becomes the same as the freezing temperature. One instant, the blood is boiling. In the next, it freezes solid in the veins.

  The red warning lights, the siren, confirmed her worst fears. It was a Class 1 emergency. They had a breached hull, and their air was leaking into space.

  She felt her ears pop. Evacuate now!

  She and Diana dove into the hab, flying through gloom lit only by the bright red flashes of the warning panels. The siren was so loud everyone had to yell to hear each other. In her panic, Emma bounced into Luther, who grabbed her before she could ricochet off in a new direction.

  “Nicolai’s already in the CRV. You and Diana next!” he shouted.

  “Wait. Where’s Griggs?” said Diana.

  “Just get in!”

  Emma turned. In the psychedelic flash of red warning lights, she saw no one else in the hab. Griggs had not followed them. A strange, fine mist seemed to hang in the gloom, but there was no hurricane whoosh of air sucking them toward the breach.

  And no pain, she suddenly realized. She’d felt her ears pop, but there was no chest pain, no symptoms of explosive decompression.

  We can save this station. We have time to isolate the leak.

  She did a quick swimmer’s turn, kicked off the wall, and went flying back toward the node.

  “Hey! What the fuck, Watson?” yelled Luther.

  “Don’t give up the ship!”

  She was moving so fast she slammed against the edge of the hatchway, bashing her elbow. Here was the pain now, not from decompression but from her own stupid clumsiness. Her arm was throbbing as she kicked off again, into the node.

  Griggs wasn’t there, but she saw his ThinkPad, drifting at the end of its data cord. The screen flashed a bright red “Decompression” warning. The air pressure was down to six hundred fifty and dropping. They had only minutes to work, minutes before their brains would not function.

  He must have gone in search of the leak, she thought. He’s going to close off the damaged module.

  She dove into the U.S. lab, through that thickening white mist. Was it mist or was it her vision fogging over from hypoxia? A warning that unconsciousness was closing in? She shot through the darkness and felt disoriented by the warning lights continuing to flash like a strobe. She banged into the far hatchway. Her coordination was off, and her clumsiness getting worse. She slipped through the hatch opening, into Node 2.

  Griggs was there. He was struggling to disconnect a tangle of cables strung between the NASDA and European modules.

  “The leak’s in NASDA!” he yelled over the screaming sirens. “If we can clear the cables from this hatchway and close it off, we can isolate the module.”

  She dove forward to help him yank the cables apart. Then she found one that could not be disconnected. “What the hell’s this?” she said. All cables leading through hatchways were supposed to be easy to pull apart in case of an emergency. This one w
as continuous—a violation of safety rules. “It doesn’t have a quick release!” she yelled.

  “Get me a knife and I’ll cut it!”

  She spun around, dove back into the U.S. lab. A knife. Where the hell is a knife? Through the red flashes of light, she saw the medical locker. A scalpel. She yanked open the drawer, reached into the instrument tray, and went flying back into Node 2.

  Griggs took the scalpel and began to sever the cable.

  “What can we do to help?” came Luther’s shout.

  Emma turned and saw him, along with Nicolai and Diana, hovering anxiously in the hatchway.

  “The breach is in NASDA!” she said. “We’re gonna close off the module!”

  Sparks suddenly shot out like fireworks. Griggs yelped and jerked away from the cable. “Shit! It’s a live wire!”

  “We’ve got to cut it!” said Emma.

  “And get fried to a crisp? I don’t think so.”

  “Then how do we seal the hatch?”

  Luther said, “Pull back! Pull back into the lab! We’ll close off the whole node. Isolate this end of the station.”

  Griggs looked at the sparking wire. He didn’t want to close off Node 2, because it meant sacrificing both the NASDA and European modules, which would be completely depressurized and unreachable. And it meant sacrificing the shuttle docking port, which also led off Node 2.

  “Pressure’s dropping, folks!” called Diana, reading a handheld pressure gauge. “We’re down to six hundred twenty-five millimeters! Just pull the fuck back, and let’s close off the node!”

  Emma could already feel herself breathing faster, trying to catch her breath. Hypoxia. They were all going to black out if they didn’t do something soon.

  She tugged Griggs’s arm. “Pull back! It’s the only way to save the station!”

  He gave a stunned nod and retreated with Emma into the U.S. lab.

  Luther tried to tug the hatch shut, but he couldn’t get it to budge. Now that they were outside Node 2, they had to pull, not push the hatch shut. And they were working against the rush of escaping air, in a rapidly depressurizing atmosphere.

  “We’ll have to abandon this module too!” yelled Luther. “Retreat to Node 1 and close off the next hatch!”

  “Hell no!” Griggs said. “I’m not giving up this module as well!”

  “Griggs, we’ve got no choice. I can’t pull this hatch shut!”

  “Then let me do it!” Griggs grabbed the handle and strained to pull it shut, but the hatch moved only a few inches before he had to let go in exhaustion.

  “You’re gonna kill us all just to save this fucking module!” shouted Luther.

  It was Nicolai who suddenly yelled out the solution. “Mir! Feed the leak! Feed the leak!” He shot out of the lab, headed toward the Russian end of the station.

  Mir. Everyone immediately knew what he was talking about. 1997. The Progress collision with Mir’s Spektr module. There had been a breach in the hull, and Mir had begun to leak its precious air into space. The Russians, with years more experience in manned space stations, were ready with their emergency response: feeding the leak. Pour extra oxygen into the module to raise the pressure. Not only would it buy them time to work, it might narrow the pressure gradient enough so they could pull the hatch shut.

  Nicolai came flying back into the lab with two oxygen tanks. Frantically he opened the valves all the way. Even over the screaming sirens, they could hear the screech of air escaping from the tanks. Nicolai tossed both tanks into Node 2. Feeding the leak. They were building air pressure on the other side of the hatch.

  They were also pouring oxygen into a module with a live wire, thought Emma, remembering the sparks. It could trigger an explosion.

  “Now!” Nicolai shouted. “Try to close the hatch!”

  Luther and Griggs both grabbed the handle and pulled. They would never know if it was due to their combined desperation or if the oxygen tanks had succeeded in dropping the pressure gradient across that hatchway, but the hatch slowly began to swing shut.

  Griggs locked it in place.

  For a moment he and Luther simply hung limp in midair, both of them too exhausted to say a word. Then Griggs turned, his face bright with sweat in the flashing lights.

  “Now let’s shut off that fucking racket,” he said.

  The ThinkPad was still floating where he’d left it in Node 1. Peering at the glowing screen, he rapidly tapped in a series of commands. To everyone’s relief, the sirens stopped screaming. The flashing red lights also stopped, leaving only a constant yellow glow on the caution-and-warning panels. At last they could communicate without shouting.

  “Air pressure is back up to six hundred ninety and rising,” he said, and gave a laugh of relief. “Looks like we’re home free.”

  “Why are we still at Class 3 caution?” asked Emma, pointing to the yellow light on the screen. A Class 3 caution meant one of three possibilities: Their backup guidance computer was down, one of their control motion gyros was inoperative, or they’d lost their S-band radio link to Mission Control.

  Griggs tapped a few more keys. “It’s the S-band. We’ve lost it. Discovery must have hit our P-1 truss and taken out the radio. Looks like they also hit our port solar arrays. We’ve lost a photovoltaic module. That’s why we’re still in power down.”

  “Houston must be going bonkers, wondering what’s happening,” said Emma. “And now they can’t reach us. What about Discovery? What’s happened to them?”

  Diana, already working the space-to-space radio, said, “Discovery isn’t responding. They may be out of UHF range.”

  Or they were all dead and couldn’t respond.

  “Can we get these lights back?” said Luther. “Cross-strap primary power?”

  Griggs began to tap on the keyboard again. Part of the beauty of ISS’s design lay in its redundancy. Each of its power channels were configured to supply electricity for specific loads, but those channels could be rerouted—“crossstrapped”—as needed. Though they’d lost one photovoltaic module, they had three others to tap into.

  Griggs said, “I know this is a cliché, but ‘let there be light.’” He hit a computer key, and the module lights barely brightened. But it was enough to navigate through hatchways. “I’ve rerouted power. Nonessential payload functions are now off the grid.” He released a deep breath and looked at Nicolai. “We need to contact Houston. It’s your show, Nicolai.”

  The Russian understood at once what he had to do. Moscow’s Mission Control maintained its own separate communications link with the station. The collision should not have affected the Russian end of ISS.

  Nicolai gave a terse nod. “Let us hope Moscow has paid its electric bill.”

  ITEM 3-7-EXEC

  ITEM 3-8-EXEC

  OPS 3-0-4 PRO

  Jill Hewitt was gasping in pain, short little whimpers that punctuated every push of a new button on the control panel. Her head felt like a melon ripe to explode. Her field of vision had contracted so that it seemed as if she were peering down a long black tunnel and the controls had receded almost beyond her reach. It took every ounce of concentration for her to focus on each switch she had to flip, on each button wavering beyond her finger. Now she struggled to make out the attitude-direction indicator, her vision blurring as the eight-ball display seemed to spin wildly in its casing. I can’t see it. I can’t read pitch or yaw…

  “Discovery, you are at entry interface,” said Capcom. “Body flap on auto.”

  Jill squinted at the panel and reached for the switch, but it seemed so far away…

  “Discovery?”

  Her trembling finger made contact. She switched to “auto.” “Confirm,” she whispered, and let her shoulders go slack. The computers were now in control, flying the ship. She did not trust herself on the stick. She did not even know how long she could stay conscious. Already the black tunnels were closing over her vision, swallowing the light. For the first time she could hear the sound of rushing air across the hull, cou
ld feel her body being shoved back against her seat.

  Capcom had gone silent. She was in communications blackout, the spacecraft hurtling against the atmosphere with such force it stripped the electrons from air molecules. That electromagnetic storm interrupted all radio waves, cut off all communication. For the next twelve minutes it was only her, and the ship, and the roaring air.

  She had never felt so alone.

  She felt the autopilot begin to steer into the first high bank, rolling the spacecraft on its side, slowing it down. She imagined the glow of heat on the cockpit windows, could feel its warmth, like the sun radiating on her face.

  She opened her eyes. And saw only darkness.

  Where are the lights? she thought. Where is the glow on the window?

  She blinked, again and again. Rubbed her eyes, as though to force them to see, to force her retinas to draw in light. She reached out toward the control panel. Unless she flipped the right switches, unless she deployed the air-data probes and lowered the landing gear, Houston could not land the ship. They could not get her home alive. Her fingers brushed against a mind-numbing array of dials and buttons, and she gave a howl of despair.

  She was blind.

  FIFTEEN

  At 4,093 feet above sea level, the air at White Sands Missile Proving Grounds was dry and thin. The landing strip traced across an ancient dried-out seabed located in a desert valley formed between the Sacramento and Guadalupe mountain ranges to the east, and the San Andres Mountains to the west. The closest town was Alamogordo, New Mexico. The terrain was stark and arid, and only the hardiest of desert vegetation could survive.

  The area had long served as a training base for fighter pilots. It had also seen other uses through the decades. During World War II, it was the site of a German prisoner of war camp. It was also the location of the Trinity site, where the U.S. exploded its first atomic bomb, assembled not far away in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Barbed wire and unmarked government buildings had sprouted up in this desert valley, their functions a mystery even to the residents of nearby Alamogordo.

  Through binoculars, Jack could see the landing strip shimmering with heat in the distance. Runway 16/34 was oriented just slightly off due north-south. It was fifteen thousand feet long and three hundred feet wide—large enough to accept the heaviest of jets, even in that rarefied air, which forces long landing and takeoff rolls.