Conn waited a breath, then another, then another. As soon as her brain registered the flash of light in her rendezvous window, she pulled the trigger.
One fighter out front was disabled. It continued toward her, but began to rotate on its vertical axis, spinning as it approached. The other fighter, she couldn’t tell. It might have been disabled, or it might be keeping its distance.
She pressed her bubble to the starboard window. The other fighter was almost on top of her. It wasn’t firing anymore, and Conn guessed it had been disabled, too.
She didn’t celebrate yet. The third fighter was approaching, though much slower than the other two.Now she saw that it too rotated, this one on the lateral axis, so that it was somersaulting, completing a full rotation every two minutes or so.
It looked different.
It looked like one of the Sidereal fighters.
“Ryan?”
She couldn’t radio him. Would she be able to see him as he passed?
She remembered her helmet radio.
She dug that out from where it was stowed and put it on.
“Ryan?”
“Conn? Conn!”
He was alive.
He’d come to save her again.
“Nothing’s working on this thing,” Ryan said. “It’s totally dead.”
“I know. I don’t know what to do about it. Can you get here? Spacewalk, I mean?”
“Are you serious? You’re serious. Um, I don’t think so. We’re not going to be that close, it doesn’t look like.”
“Probably for the best,” Conn said. “The capsule won’t start, and there’s a hole in her.”
“Shit,” Ryan said. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know that, either,” she said. Even if she could fix whatever was broken, her repair foam would close the wound in the capsule, but it wouldn’t make it through re-entry. “Why couldn’t you just go home?”
“Instead of coming here, you mean? Um. Well, if I had to do it over again . . .”
Conn conferred with the Cape, letting them know the condition of her spacecraft, and that Ryan was there and in trouble as well.
Ryan’s fighter was growing in her rendezvous window, just barely. He explained that he’d slowed to aim and fire the fighter’s gun.
“Maybe I can get to you,” Conn said.
“Don’t try it, Conn,” Ryan said. “Look at how far apart we’re going to be when I pass.” He was right. “Besides, I don’t know how to fix this thing either—you’d just be trading one lousy situation for another.”
But there’s no reason for us to be alone for this, she thought. “Better chance of fixing you than me,” is what she said. “It made logical sense.”
“Fille, Cape,” the radio said. “We’re coming to get you. The backup rocket. Izzy’s going to fly it.”
“Ryan, too,” Conn said.
The Cape didn’t reply.
“Cape, Fille. Ryan, too.”
No reply.
FORTY-TWO
Rendezvous
October 1 - 2, 2039
Conn filled the gash in the capsule with foamy sealant, and repressurized. That would let her save the air in her tanks for when she needed it later.
It took half an hour before Ryan was out of range of the suit radio. The last thing she told him was: Izzy and I are coming to get you. She doesn’t know it yet, but we are.
Before that, Ryan had explained that he was guarding his polling place because he was a superman on Mars, and why couldn’t a superman do more productive things? Like find a way to defeat the Aphelials. He slipped away and to the arsenal, which was being guarded by two guards. Ryan took them out with super Earth strength, and forced one of them to open the door.
Inside, he was overwhelmed by the sheer number and size and diversity of the weapons. He picked his way around the room, examining weapons as he went. He lost track of time. By the time he realized both guards had disappeared, meaning he was due some company at any moment, it was past time to go home via the portal. He hoped nobody had been foolish enough to stay behind.
He knew if he left the way he came, he risked being found and punished, and even if not, he may never get in the arsenal again, and those fighters were his only way home. He dragged open the far door, hopped in the fighter closest to it, and figured out enough about how to use it to fly it out of the arsenal. He set down behind the hill where he’d almost fallen and Conn saved him, and hid the fighter as best he could. He picked his way back to the settlement.
He found Jeffrey, and explained what happened. Jeffrey confirmed that no one else had stayed behind. He helped Ryan find a fifth-dimensional route and taught him what all the controls did. Ryan had told him thank you, but Jeffrey said he was just keeping his word. His fifth-dimensional route took eighty-two hours to get him home.
“And you just happened to wind up right in front of me?” Conn asked.
“The fighter told me where everything under power was in orbit, and I figured the big thing flashing red was Aphelial,” Ryan said. “If I designed spacecraft sensors, I would have Aphelial vessels flash red. I saw something the Sidereal spacecraft couldn’t seem to identify heading toward it, and I realized what day it was and figured it was you.”
Some fourteen hours after Conn and Ryan lost contact, Izzy lifted off from the Cape. The second rocket had been primed and ready to go if any trouble befell the first one. All they had to do was roll it out to the launch pad, and get Izzy De Maria in the capsule.
The Cape had stayed in constant contact with Conn, eventually telling her that they would decide whether to go get Ryan based on conditions when Izzy got her. By then it didn’t matter to Conn what the Cape said: they were going after Ryan. She spent four days believing she’d killed him, and she wouldn’t leave him to die again.
Izzy achieved orbit in her capsule Relief and in about two hours caught up to Conn’s capsule. Next would follow Conn’s first spacewalk, not counting moving from one vehicle to another at the space station or her escape from the Aphelial vessel at Mizar and Alcor.
Conn depressurized the capsule again. She pulled a twenty-meter tether out from where it was stowed, and attached one end to a handle next to the hatch. She looked out the port window. Izzy approached from above. Though they were both hurtling through space at about 28,000 kilometers per hour, Izzy seemed to be approaching at about thirty kilometers per hour.
She slowed as she approached. Izzy’s computer was tracking Conn’s position and speed, and was tasked with pulling alongside and matching that speed. Conn spotted a problem.
“Cape, Fille. My instruments have me going seventeen KPH faster than Izzy’s do.”
“Ah, we square with the Relief—are you sure your instruments are functioning, with the damage?”
“They’re functioning and seeing a seventeen KPH difference.”
“We’re so advised, Conn. Stand by.” Conn rolled her eyes.
After a time, Izzy was right alongside Conn, some thirty meters away. The Cape advised Conn to open her hatch. She was abandoning ship.
Conn opened her hatch at around the same time as Izzy opened hers. Conn saw the Relief receding behind her, at a relative speed, Conn could guess, of seventeen kilometers per hour.
“Stand by, Conn.”
Conn watched as Izzy reoriented her capsule and sped up to again line up with the Fille. The vessels were still creeping away from each other, but very slowly. Izzy did well.
Izzy appeared in her open hatch, and the women waved to each other. Conn took hold of her tether, and with no place on her flight suit to attach it, she wound the end around her left forearm. Izzy was about ten meters farther than the tether could reach, but once Conn came to the end of her line, Izzy would throw her a tether attached to the Relief.
There was no time like the present, and Conn carefully stepped out of her hatch. Once she was outside, she got a foothold on the skin of the capsule, and lunged toward Izzy—softly, so as to not be yanked back too hard b
y recoil.
She floated toward the other hatch. Izzy, tethered herself for safety’s sake, had another tether in her hand, ready to toss it to Conn.
Conn reached the end of her line. She twisted and had a hard time righting herself in the microgravity. She used leverage from the taut tether to ease herself back into the correct orientation.
Izzy pumped her arm underhand twice, and on the third she let go. One end of the tether snaked toward Conn. She caught it on the first try. She wrapped it around her right forearm, and released the tether to the Fille. She pulled herself into Izzy’s capsule.
Izzy muscled the hatch shut and locked it, then repressurized the capsule. The women hugged.
“New flight suit,” Conn said. Izzy’s was red with yellow trim. “It’s cute.”
Conn was grateful that she didn’t have to convince Izzy to go after Ryan. “We’re astronauts,” she said. “We don’t leave people behind.”
# # #
The Cape helped them find Ryan’s dead vessel, using telemetry data gathered when Ryan was passing over Conn. In space, he would remain at a constant speed, and go in a straight line, until acted upon by the Earth’s gravity. They knew his trajectory and speed, and the force and direction of the gravity acting on his fighter. They led the Relief directly to him, after three orbits and a few hours.
Izzy went through the same motions as with Conn. Conn raised Ryan on suit radio and explained the plan. She could tell he wasn’t excited about it, but he knew they had no other choice.
Problem number one: there was no tether aboard the fighter, that Ryan could find. “Believe me, I’ve been over every inch of this thing the last four days,” he said. “There’s no tether here.”
Izzy had managed to get within twenty-five meters of the Sidereal fighter, meaning they had to find a way to bridge a five-meter gap.
Problem number two: the spin of the vehicle. Ryan would exit from the cockpit on top of the fighter, if one were looking at it landed on the ground. The spin would make it so he was only lined up with Izzy’s hatch for a few seconds. Also, he would have some momentum in the direction of the spin when he lunged from outside the cockpit. To the Relief, he was spinning clockwise. So when Ryan left the vehicle, he would tend to continue in a clockwise direction because of the spin. He would have to account for that drag when he timed his leap from the cockpit.
Conn looped the other end of the tether around her waist, clasping it behind her back. She would move out twenty meters and catch Ryan when he lunged for her.
When the time came, Conn exited the Relief hatch, bound for a point twenty meters away. When she reached the end of the tether, she would be pulled back again. They had to time Ryan’s leap with that in mind as well.
Ryan climbed outside the cockpit. Conn had an idea.
“Scooch backwards out of the cockpit until you’re at the axis it’s spinning on.”
“Without a tether?”
“The closer you are to the axis the less spin momentum you’ll have.”
Ryan did as he was told, scrabbling aft from the cockpit, holding on to the fighter for dear life.
“Now I’m turning faster!”
“Less chance you’ll throw yourself into space when you lunge for me. Get ready.” She was coming to the end of the tether.
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Don’t vomit in a breathing bubble in zero gravity! You’ll choke!”
“Conn, I’m not trying to vomit.”
She came to the end of her tether. “OK, Ryan. Ready?”
“No.”
“Too bad. Lunge for me.”
“Gaahh—”
“I’ll catch you.”
“. . .”
“Hurry up! I’m being dragged backwards! I’ll catch you. I promise. Just get in my neighborhood, everything will be fine.”
He was green and looked miserable, but he reared back and drove himself toward Conn. Too high.
“Don’t kick! Be still.”
Conn stretched as far as she could and caught Ryan’s leg.
She held it as tight as she could as Izzy reeled them back in.
She worked her way up his body until they were face to face.
“You don’t look so good,” Conn said. “Hold it together until we’re in the capsule and it’s pressurized. Can you do that?”
Ryan nodded. “Conn?”
“Hm?”
“You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
“You’ve got space dementia,” Conn said.
“That’s not a thing,” Ryan said.
FORTY-THREE
Saved
March, 2040
NASA knew roughly where the twelve devices were, and the paths of their orbits, from studying the density and rate of chemical changes to the air. The devices were seemingly immune to radar. But with a blank check from the federal government, the agency developed four high-powered lasers, and deployed them in super-pressure balloons as high in the mesosphere as they could go. They aimed the lasers in the general direction of each device, and waited for something to block the light. Once they found it, they got more readings, enough to establish trajectory and speed.
The day Conn, Izzy and Ryan returned from space, NASA launched a rocket and deposited a capsule in orbit. It rendezvoused with one of the devices (and thereby proved that they existed). It was disk-shaped, black as space—the better to absorb sunlight, about 3.67 meters in diameter and a meter thick in the center. It seemed impenetrable: no door or panel to open, nothing protruding, just a lozenge-shaped device that was killing the planet.
An astronaut spacewalked to the device and examined and photographed it. Instant analysis provided the best course of action: use a modified version of Persisting’s “drone killer” to disable it. This the astronauts did.
Five days later, four more missions launched, each to rendezvous with two or three of the devices and disable them the same way.
The human race was saved.
There was little to be done to save the ozone layer. NASA couldn’t yet reverse the transformation of N and O2 into N2O, and it couldn’t clear out the NO from the stratosphere. But it would dissipate in time, and consensus was that the ozone layer would heal itself eventually. Until then, global temperatures would be on average four degrees Celsius hotter than normal, leading to ice melt and other dire environmental effects. There would be food shortages and increased cancer rates. People would have to stay indoors during the day. But this all seemed like living high off the hog compared to what the human race could have expected.
“The Aphelials underestimated our technology,” the president said. “But what doomed their effort was that they underestimated our will, our resolve—our people. Our heroes, the spacemen and -women. The scientists, the engineers. The support of millions behind the scenes.” It sounded wonderful, though it was clear that what the Aphelials had really underestimated was indeed human technology, and humankind’s spacefaring capability. But no one was going to suggest to the Aphelials that they should have opted to turn the surface of the planet to glass with their weaponry.
Which they might yet do, those in the know understood. For now, though, the planet had endured, the perpetrators of the attempted genocide were cold and dead in orbit around the Earth, and civilization had the opportunity to rebuild.
# # #
Conn and Ryan didn’t speak to one another for two weeks after their dramatic rescue in space. Ryan wasn’t happy about it.
“You had a hell of a month, and I wanted to give you some down time,” he said when they did meet, for lunch in Palo Alto. “But I thought you might call. Or byte. Or anything.”
Conn sighed. “My head hasn’t been in relationship stuff the last couple weeks, Ryan. We’ve been hiring people at a rate of five a day since we got back. I’ve been talking to EMSpace about buying them—that’s confidential. I’ve met with potential clients and potential astronauts, with Jake. It’s all been work, to the exclusion of everything an
d everyone else. Persisting even got pouty with me, and that was after I hired him.”
“I know you’re busy. And I’m grateful you met me today. It’s just frustrating. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Do we?” Conn said. “Like how you keep trying to rescue me, save me, whatever? Do you see now what can happen when you do that? I don’t need rescuing. Well—I mean, I needed to be rescued by Izzy, but that was different . . .”
Ryan dipped his prime rib sandwich in some jus. “You said you thought you were supposed to be alone. Conn, do you know how sad that is? No one is supposed to be alone. Least of all you.”
“Maybe not,” Conn said, sipping a Diet Coke. “But I choose to be. Don’t you get that?”
“You didn’t want to be alone when we first got together. I screwed it up after that. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“We were going to break up no matter what you did. I realize that now. It just wasn’t for me. A relationship. It still isn’t. Not now.”
“When? Please don’t tell me when you have more time. That’s never true.”
“Maybe when I can buy all the groceries I need? When there’s a bank I can put my money in? When we can go outside in the sun?”
“When everything is back to normal. That’s convenient.”
“How so?” Conn asked with a mouthful of potato chips.
“Means you don’t have to deal with it right now. You can put it off.”
“So? I’m sorry that doesn’t fit into your plans, but that’s the way it is.”
Ryan ate in silence for a time, looking like he had more to say.
“You lost someone you cared about,” he finally said. Conn nodded. “Grant?”
“Well, that’s creepy,” Conn said.
“You rescued him from Saturn. He died recently. I put two and two together.”
“I don’t want to talk about Grant,” Conn said.
“Would you want to have a relationship with Grant, if you could?”
“Grant and I were . . . complicated,” Conn said.
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