Freefall: A First Contact Technothriller (Earth's Last Gambit Book 1)

by Felix R. Savage

  “What the hell was that about?” Lance said suspiciously.

  Then he spasmed. His arms and legs splayed out rigid to the extent that his spacesuit allowed.

  A coughing gurgle splashed onto the radio channel.

  Alexei shouted, “What was that?”

  Liquid oxygen is stored at very low temperatures. 90 Kelvin. That’s two hundred degrees below zero.

  Heating gasifies it.

  But if your heater gets broken, or disconnected, now you’ve got LOX hitting the regulator, which controls the flow of air to your suit. That’ll FUBAR it right quick.

  Diaphragm fractures.

  Liquid oxygen floods into your helmet.

  You die.

  Jack knew all of this. He had known it as he yanked out the heater connection, and he rehearsed it once more as he clung to the truss, watching Lance’s spacesuit drift higher, tether trailing out behind it.

  Way above the bioshield now.

  That suit was soaking up whatever funky stuff the reactor was putting out.

  Better safe than sorry.

  Jack stayed where he was and pulled Lance’s spacesuit down, like reeling in a man-shaped kite.

  Alexei yelled at him over the radio, begging for a sit-rep.

  “We may have a slight problem,” Jack told him. “Give Hannah the bridge. Meet me at the airlock.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Jack, Alexei, and Lance floated in the storage module.

  Lance was still in his spacesuit.

  The LOX that filled the inside of his helmet had gasified, leaving his face clearly visible. His skin was pink. He did not look frozen.

  But his eyes had burst into mounds of ice crystals.

  A horizontal icicle—frozen spittle—protruded from his lips like a mutated, spear-like tongue.

  “He’s dead,” Jack said.

  “He might be only mostly dead,” Alexei said. “But I think you’re right. He’s all dead. In that case there’s only one thing to do.”

  Jack dredged the next line up from his memory. He said in unison with Alexei: “Go through his clothes and look for loose change.”

  Alexei laughed. He flipped the spacesuit over, hiding that terrible sight. The cover of the PLSS flapped open again. Alexei clicked his tongue against his teeth. “The heater connection,” he said, almost under his breath. He looked up and met Jack’s eyes.

  Knackered from his spacewalk, stripped to his underwear, soaked in sweat, Jack nodded.

  “OK,” Alexei said. “Give me the 13 millimeter flare nut wrench. Over there in the locker.”

  He reconnected the tube Jack had yanked out. Then, using the titanium nut wrench, he worked away at it.

  “What are you doing?” Jack said.

  Alexei just shook his head. When he was finished, he beckoned Jack over.

  The connection now appeared to have frayed loose. It could have got that way over time, if a tyro astronaut didn’t bother to check his equipment properly.

  “Work of art, mate,” Jack managed. He felt nauseated.

  Alexei snapped the PLSS cover closed. He reattached the fabric cover. “Now we wake Kate. You’ll have to tell her what … happened.”

  Jack scrambled for the medical supplies locker. He found a barf bag and pressed its seal to his face, just in time.

  Alexei floated in the air, watching him vomit. After a couple of minutes he drifted closer and steadied Jack with an arm around his shoulders.

  Jack lowered the barf bag and sealed it. He felt really ropey, unlike himself. Everything had a dreamlike quality. He tried to joke, “Must be the rads.”

  “I’ll let you know if you start glowing.”

  “He wanted me to go behind the shield. Actually, if you were listening, he tried to taunt me into proving my masculinity, or some fucking thing—are you chicken, are you pussy? Maybe that works on the sort of guys he normally hangs around with.” Jack caught himself referring to Lance in the present tense. He shuddered.

  “But you didn’t go back there,” Alexei said.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then you should be OK.”

  “Christ, yeah. I’m fine,” Jack said. On the other side of the storage module, Lance’s spacesuit moved, as if waving weakly at them. Jack clamped his lips shut.

  Alexei sighed. “It’s OK,” he said, patting Jack on the back. “It’s your first time, right? It’s natural to puke. I puked my first time, too. Although, maybe that was the vodka.”

  Jack stared at his friend. “Hang on, you’ve …?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “In Chechnya?”

  Alexei had flown an Su-25 during the second Chechen war. It was something they both had in common. They’d fought in ugly, asymmetrical wars, and lost comrades to ugly, asymmetrical tactics.

  “Sure, I dropped plenty of bombs in Chechnya. But that’s different.”

  Jack nodded. He, too, had killed people with bombs dropped from on high. It was different. The reaction he was having now had nothing to do with deservingness; it was down to the visceral, overwhelming horror of having slain another human being with his own hands.

  “It was during the war,” Alexei said. “We were headquartered in Dagestan. Of course they hate us down there. I got into a bar fight, I don’t even know who started it. Some shithead Dagestani pulls a knife. Ha! I smash the vodka bottle, stab him in the fucking face.” Alexei related the story as calmly as if it had been a shopping trip.

  Jack shook his head in amazement. You never really knew someone, did you? “Right, I’ll think twice before I pull a knife on you.”

  “If I’m not drunk, probably it’s OK.” Alexei smiled briefly, before pushing off. He floated towards the keel tube. “We raise the alarm now. It looks bad if we wait too long.”

  Jack caught up with him. “Did you hear what he said about Unit 63618, the Chinese government—a spy on board? What did you make of that?”

  “Ha! Everyone on board is a spy. Aren’t you?”

  Jack shook his head. The British government had wished him well and put his likeness on a commemorative pound coin. That was the full extent of his relationship with Whitehall.

  “I’m supposed to plant a Russian flag on the MOAD when we get there,” Alexei said, cackling. “Now I will only have to push two Americans out of the way.”

  Jack noted that Alexei did not count him in the tally of Americans. “One down, two to go,” he quipped.

  Pull yourself together, Kildare.

  He had to take a cue from Alexei. Be tough. Krutoi. There was no exact equivalent in English. To krutit was to walk a steep and winding road with aplomb, carrying a broken vodka bottle.

  Gripping the rim of the keel tube, Alexei paused. “One thing I must ask. Who’s Ollie?”

  “Friend of mine.”

  “So I have one more question. What took you so long?”

  Alexei pushed off and flew up the central tube, shouting in feigned panic.

  CHAPTER 49

  “Hannah come home,” Skyler sang. “There’s a hole in the bed where you slept, and it’s growing cold …”

  C, Em7, B, he put the guitar that hung in the KSC crew quarters through its paces. When he took it down, it’d been so dusty it looked like he’d emptied a vacuum cleaner bag in the air.

  “And I’m leaving the light on the stairs—no I’m not scared; I’ll wait for you. Hey Hannah, it’s lonely. Come home.”

  The quarantine floor of KSC was quiet now. When the astronauts moved out, the reserves had moved in—the actual, official reserves, and the NXC’s second string. They would not be stood down until the SoD left orbit. Skyler had been instructed to stay here and keep an eye on them. However, since no one expected the reserves would actually have to step up at this point, they spent most of their time watching TV and surfing the internet. Understandable. The ongoing dramas on Earth and in orbit were hypnotic stuff. But Skyler did not care to be hypnotized by the 24/7 news coverage. In his position, he was all too aware that the news only told a fr
action of the story.

  He sat crosslegged on the large conference table, guitar in his lap. “Hannah, the spread on the bed, it’s like when you left, I kept it for you ...”

  He couldn’t imagine actually sharing a bed with Hannah. Well, he could imagine it. Her typical uniform of jeans and a t-shirt melted away in his mind, revealing the luscious curves that her frumpy outfits never hid as well as she thought they did. But the fantasies carried a searing charge of regret. She was on her way to Europa.

  The intercom squealed. Director Flaherty boomed, “Holy hell, Taft.”

  “Did it sound that bad?” Skyler parried, aiming an embarrassed grin at the security camera on the ceiling. He hoped Flaherty hadn’t caught him changing the lyrics.

  “Let’s just say Jimi Hendrix you ain’t.”

  “Damn, and I already sent my resume to the Walkers,” Skyler said, referring to the Grateful Dead-like megaband that had grown out of the Earth Party movement. “What’s up, boss?”

  “Come down to the interview room.”

  Skyler hopped off the conference table, replaced the guitar on the wall, and lolloped down the hallway. The interview room was where astronauts historically did their pre-launch press conferences. One wall was a plate glass window. Flaherty stood outside it, wearing a headset.

  Ignoring the chairs, Skyler put on one of the headsets on his side of the window. Now they could talk in privacy

  “News,” Flaherty said, and paused, as if wondering how to break it.

  “China’s declared war on Japan?” For the first time since the Meiwa Massacre, Skyler felt a twinge of alarm. He, and the whole of the NXC, figured that the face-off in the Sea of Japan would sputter out. It would suck to be wrong about something that big. “Japan’s declared war on China? Jesus, we haven’t declared war, have we?”

  Flaherty shook his head. “No one’s declaring war, unless it’s the PLA declaring war on the CCP. Tanks in the streets of Beijing, ‘keeping the peace’ … all it takes is for them to turn around and point their guns the other way. We would tentatively welcome that development if it happens.”

  Skyler uh-huhed. Overseas military coups, in general, were good for US interests.

  “But so far, it hasn’t happened,” Flaherty said. “No, what I got to tell you is something completely different.” He met Skyler’s alarmed gaze through the glass. “Lance is dead.”

  One of the most useful things Skyler had learned in the NXC was how to control his body language. On hearing Flaherty’s words, he did not blush, exaggerate his shock with an open mouth, or hold Flaherty’s gaze with a fake stare of disbelief, like an amateur would. He most certainly did not pump his fists and shout “Yessss!” which was what he would have done if alone. He blinked, letting his gaze dart away, and raised one hand to rub under his eye—a gesture which reliably indicated astonishment when a person had heard something too shocking to take in. “Say again, boss? Lance?”

  “He insisted on that old suit. He should’ve taken one of the new ones. Piece of shit malfunctioned while he was spacewalking.”

  And I’m the Wizard of Oz, Skyler thought.

  Who needs a guided missile when you’ve got Jack Kildare?

  Arm, trigger, and walk away.

  He fought back his grin of triumph. Guilt supervened when he saw the glitter in Flaherty’s eyes. For the director, this must feel like losing a son. “This is a complete fucking disaster,” he said, aiming to take Flaherty’s mind off his personal loss by referencing the NXC’s mission.

  “You’re telling me.” Flaherty accepted the emotional lifeline. He stood up straighter. “We have to have someone on that ship.”

  “Yup.” Skyler’s mind flew to his ‘kids.’ “Assume there’s a realistic possibility of sending up a replacement …”

  “There is, thank the Lord. That refueling flight. It’s gonna be touch and go, but they’re saying they can pull it off. Rendezvous at the SoD’s apogee.”

  “Thought that was gonna be an unmanned flight?”

  “It is. But there’s room for one person in the trunk, provided they’re on the scrawny side.”

  Skyler grimaced. That let out Curtis, whom he’d otherwise have favored. It would have to be Guillermo or Laura. Another problem intruded. “Hang on, are we using the Dragon 2? Can the Falcon 9 booster make it up that high?”

  “Aha,” Flaherty said. “With a second stage, yes it can.”

  Skyler blinked. Two extra stages turned SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster rocket into a Falcon Heavy. Certified in time to participate in the last few months of the SoD construction process, the Falcon Heavy had only ever done unmanned launches. This would be its maiden flight as a manned spacecraft. “Hang on. Two stages? The Heavy has three.”

  “They’re going to switch out the third stage for a LOX tank for the SoD. Astronaut sits in the Dragon 2 capsule up top.”

  Skyler weighed his choices. It felt heady, spiritually perilous, to wield such power. He had only to speak a name to send that person into space for the next five years of their life, maybe never to return.

  He realized, however, that it was pretty dumb to feel this way when he’d just murdered someone by proxy. That was power. This was an administrative decision.

  “Laura,” he said.

  But Flaherty was already shaking his gray-frosted head.

  Smiling.

  “My bad, Skyler. I shouldn’t be teasing you. I know how you felt, stuck here on the ground, left behind while Lance joined the mission. Going into space—that was your dream, and he was the one who got to go? Not fair. I shoulda picked you in the first place.”

  Flaherty drew himself up and rendered a snappy salute. Skyler thought he saw regret lurking in the director’s sad smile—if he’d picked Skyler in the first place, Lance wouldn’t be dead.

  “Congratulations, Taft. You’re going to Europa.”

  Skyler’s return salute had all the snap of wet spaghetti.

  *

  It wasn’t that he didn’t love space. Ever since he first got his hands on a telescope in grade school, he’d been addicted to the stars. Watching them, learning about them, dreaming about them.

  That’s why he had become an astrophysicist.

  Not an astronaut.

  These two things are not the same, sir.

  If I wanted to be an astronaut, I’d have got a degree in turd-dodging and mindless macho posturing.

  How could Flaherty have got him so colossally wrong?

  He’d pictured himself watching the skies for the SoD’s return, playing melancholy songs on a new and better guitar. Coordinating observations from the new telescope on the ISS, maybe even heading up the worldwide MOAD-watching team. That job would have suited Skyler Taft down to the ground.

  But obviously, Flaherty had seen things differently all along.

  Skyler had never even fucking noticed that all the time he was training his ‘kids,’ he’d been training alongside them.

  Training to be Lance’s replacement.

  And now, well, it was over, that’s all. Years as a federal agent had conditioned him thoroughly. When Flaherty said jump, Skyler said “How high?” even if the answer was 400 million miles.

  They’d got a spacesuit all ready for him. One of the new Z2s, of course. It was the one that had been made for Laura. Skyler had never noticed, or never cared to notice (because frankly it was a bit embarrassing), that he was the same size as Laura: 5’8”, 140 pounds.

  On the scrawny side.

  *

  His last glimpse of Earth: the drive along NASA Parkway East to Cape Canaveral. The water of the Banana River sparkled in the spring sunlight.

  Boats.

  Seagulls.

  He couldn’t even smell the sea air, or hear the birds crying, stuck inside a van sealed up like a biohazard unit.

  He recalled his last phone call home. Dad had seemed distracted, as usual, barely taking in the news. Piper hadn’t been there. Trek had screamed down the phone: “You lucky bastard I am so fucking
JEALOUS of you right now,” and then started coughing.

  Skyler smiled at the memory of his younger brother … and wondered if he’d ever see Trek again.

  If Trek would live until he got back.

  If Skyler ever would get back.

  Let’s not kid ourselves, Taft. What’s going on here? It is fear. Correction: it’s just fear. Fear is an emotion, that’s all it is. (He’d been into Zen meditation for a while when he lived in California.) Experience it, and let it go. It has nothing to do with reality.

  OH YES IT FUCKING DOES, his mind screamed when he saw the Falcon Heavy standing on the launch pad, obnoxiously phallic, poised to punch a hole in the cloudless sky.

  *

  “We have a five-minute launch window,” the ground techs told him. They were snarling, yelling, rushing around like mad dogs, and if there was a method to their madness Skyler Taft did not perceive it as he was lifted 230 feet above the launch pad and thrown into the Dragon capsule like a side of beef.

  Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

  Fear is just an emotion just an emotion—

  Fuck Zen meditation, Skyler decided as he hurtled out of Earth’s gravity well with three gees pinning him into his seat.

  CHAPTER 50

  Jack and Xiang Peixun floated outside the SoD’s airlock. Lance was with them.

  They’d powered Lance’s spacesuit down and stuck him outside to freeze. Sure, his head had been frozen already. But the rest of him was still warm when he died. This way, he didn’t rot in his suit. Less horror for whoever unpacked him on the ground.

  He’d be going home in the Falcon Heavy, when it got here.

  “There it is!” Xiang said.

  A spark glowed against Earth’s nightside. The Falcon Heavy had launched from Cape Canaveral in broad day, but had had to circle halfway around the globe before catching up with the SoD.

  It grew brighter and closer.

  “This is going to be like hitting a topspinner,” Jack muttered. “And we’re the wicket.”

  “No speakee cricket,” Menelaou said amiably from the bridge. “Peixun, the fuel tank is programmed to release at the Falcon Heavy’s point of closest approach. I want you to secure that tank. Jack, your job is to talk the replacement in by radio. I don’t know who they ended up sending us, but chances are he or she is not a proficient broomstick rider. Make sure they get in OK.”