The Commander

by CJ Williams

  “Keep them away from me,” was Morrow’s reaction.

  Luke nodded in amusement but didn’t speak. The three lapsed into a companionable, if troubled, silence. Everyone was overwhelmed with the day-to-day business of extraordinary growth. The new challenges that kept cropping up just added to the burden.

  “This is a dangerous time for us,” Luke said. “This is the period that every startup company goes through. Excitement, events, and fast moving changes carry us along and adrenalin helps us keep it together for a few months, maybe a year. But without a solid backend bureaucracy, employees will start cutting corners or make up rules based on the situation at the moment. It’s a recipe for disaster.”

  “So what do we do?” Roth asked. “Want us to pull back? Slow down?”

  “Nothing I’d like more,” Luke replied seriously. “Except for one small factor.”

  “The Bakkui?” Morrow suggested.

  “Exactly.” Luke sighed heavily. “We don’t have a choice. We have to keep plugging away; keep moving as fast as we can. But let’s start thinking about long term, let’s get policies and regulations in place. And I hate to say it; but we need one more thing.” Luke looked at his two best friends. “We’re not going to be around forever. We need to establish a self-sustaining system that will keep going long after we’re dead and gone.”

  “You mean politics,” Morrow said, his face sour.

  “Yes, God help me.” Luke nodded. “I mean government and politics.” He looked at Roth. “This is your baby. Start working on it.”

  Roth shook his head slowly while Morrow burst out laughing and pointed at Roth’s long face. “Thank God he picked you for that. I want nothing to do with that kind of thing. Just make sure whatever you come up with includes free beer.”

  After his two colleagues departed, Luke opened just such a free beer of his own and sat on the couch, waiting for his new lover to come back from the surface. Today Moonbase had started building its own navy, and Luke felt good about their progress. But in the evenings, when he rested on this very couch with Annie sitting beside him, he worried about what kind of technology the Bakkui were bringing to the party. The thought made him shudder. He wished that Annie would hurry and get home. He looked forward to next week when it would be his turn to commute.

  Day 355—Population 9,359

  Luke stood over the sizzling skillet in his Earthside home, expertly flipping the omelet into thirds, neatly encasing a sprinkling of diced ham, grated cheese, and spicy vegetables.

  To be together as much as possible, he and Annie took turns commuting, and this was his week to make the twice-daily trip between Earth and his place on the moon. Their unspoken agreement was that the person commuting would make breakfast and the one remaining was responsible for dinner.

  After many serious discussions with Luke, Annie put her grandmother’s house on the market and moved into Luke’s planetside residence. It was bigger, if a bit more rundown. During his life of solitude, Luke hadn’t put much effort into renovation. Annie had assumed that responsibility and Luke was happy with the changes, which were many. As long as he wasn’t involved with decorating decisions, much less any actual labor, she had carte blanche.

  CNN was muted on the living room TV. The overly cheerful newscaster changed her expression to one that was particularly serious. Whatever breaking news she had been discussing was being replaced by even more urgent breaking news.

  Luke heard the closet doors in the bedroom closing, which meant his timing was good. The omelet would be ready when she got to the kitchen. The microwave dinged and…

  Commander Blackburn. The International Space Station is experiencing a disaster.

  The sudden intrusive message brought Luke up short. “Explain that, George,” he ordered.

  Details are unavailable, but it appears there has been a catastrophe. For the moment no fatalities have been reported but the situation is deteriorating.

  Luke glanced at the TV. A large photo of the ISS, overlaid with an explosive graphic, was on the screen. “Can we provide assistance?” he asked.

  Doctor Higgins wishes to speak with you regarding that.

  “Put him through.”

  Connected.

  “Luke, you there?” Roth’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “I’m here, Roth. What’s the story?”

  “George just informed me the ISS is in the toilet. I’m looking at the report. CNN said it’s an explosion but NASA doesn’t know if the crew is okay. We had a mechanic on the way back from Far Side and I told her to head straight there. It’s Carrie Faulkner; you’ve met her.”

  “Yeah. I remember.”

  “She’s on the way, but she’s going to need help. I think you’re closer than anyone else and you’ve got Sadie with you, right?”

  “Correct,” Luke confirmed. “She’s in the hangar.”

  “Luke, this is a bit ahead of schedule, but it might be a great opportunity for us to announce ourselves in a positive light. What do you think?”

  “I agree. Good call, sending Carrie. I’m on the way.”

  Annie appeared from the bedroom. “George had me listening too,” she told him. “You need to go.”

  Luke looked down at his eggs and then back at Annie. She grabbed the spatula out of his hand. “Get out of here. Put some clothes on first.”

  Two minutes later he dashed out of the house. It took several more minutes for their new security firm, Wehrlite Security, to get him through the security fencing that Annie had installed around the airport’s perimeter. Inside the hangar, the huge doors seemed to take forever to open. He was less than two hundred fifty miles from the space station, and yet from the moon, Carrie on a scooter was going to reach the ISS before he did. It was maddening.

  Finally he slid into Sadie’s pilot’s seat. “You know where we’re going, Sadie?” Luke asked.

  “Course set,” she replied.

  “Let’s go then.”

  She rose a foot off the hangar floor, glided out, and then lifted up, her nose pointing into the sky. “The ISS is currently on the other side of the planet, Commander. Time to arrival approximately five minutes.”

  # # #

  When Luke arrived at the International Space Station, Carrie was already there and had dismounted her scooter. She was wearing her normal work attire of work gloves, blue jeans, and a flannel shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, which, in the weightless environment, floated around her head in wispy bunches.

  The ISS itself was indeed a disaster. Its once elegant spidery limbs were all askew and the station itself tumbled slowly end over end. Several solar panel supports had collapsed, leaving them haphazardly arranged like a strewn deck of playing cards.

  “An object struck the station near the middle of the integrated truss structure,” Sadie observed. “The Starboard One truss is severely damaged just past the connection to the Zero truss. The remaining starboard assembly buckled and is now angling sharply toward the zenith. The entire structure is rotating vertically around an axis from the Zvezda Service Module to the Destiny Lab.”

  Sadie’s jargon was beyond Luke’s understanding of the space station. “It’s called a mess, Sadie,” he said. “Christ, what is Carrie doing?”

  Carrie had pulled a coil of rope from the scooter’s saddlebag. She tied one end under the handlebars and fashioned a large loop at the other. She drifted toward the spinning station while slowly twirling the lasso over her head.”

  “Is she going to try and rope that thing?” Luke asked aloud, incredulous at the sight.

  “It appears so,” Sadie agreed. “Her profile states she is originally from Kansas. I assume that as a youth she engaged in rodeo activities.”

  Luke wanted to yell at her to be careful, but she projected a calm self-confidence. In his kitchen it sounded so simple; just jet up to the space station and sort things out. It was a different story watching the young woman float next to tons of spinning, out-of-control equipment.

/>   Carrie approached the plane of arc for the Pressurized Mating Adapter. It was the last tube in the column of habitable modules. As it drifted by, she tossed her lariat around a thick cylinder on the side of the adapter. She pulled the noose closed and then, letting the rope play out through her hands, she mounted her scooter. Moving forward to match the spin of the station, she let the rope grow taut. She gradually applied reverse thrust to slow the spin, adjusting the scooter’s position to steady the entire station.

  A movement in one of the Cupola’s windows drew Luke’s attention. An astronaut was filming Carrie as she worked to stabilize the station. “Are they transmitting these images?” Luke asked Sadie.

  “They are attempting to, Commander; however, their communications are severely degraded.”

  “Can you boost their signal? Or rebroadcast it.”

  “Yes, Commander. I can do either or both. Is it your intention to update the government on current events or do you wish to inform the public?”

  “Both, actually.”

  “Should I add my own video? I am currently sending a feed of these events to Doctor Higgins at Moonbase.”

  “Yes! That would be great. Let’s make sure that everyone on Earth can see what our Carrie is up to.”

  Carrie’s voice suddenly filled the shuttle. “Commander?” She had dismounted her scooter and floated over to Cupola.

  “Yes, Carrie. Whatcha need?”

  “I’m not sure what to do now.”

  “Coming to you, Carrie.”

  “The equipment you need is in the locker, Commander,” Sadie told him.

  Luke retrieved a tool belt and a personal force field from the equipment locker in the storage bay. He also found a pair of work gloves and tucked them into the belt. He dug through the locker some more until he found a roll of duct tape.

  “Open the pod bay doors, please, Sadie.”

  The shuttle’s large side door slid out and back. Luke stood in the doorway for a second to get his bearings then launched himself in Carrie’s direction. He totally misjudged his leap, veering off at an oblique angle to the ISS. Damn it. At this rate he would pass the station and drift forever unless Sadie came to pick him up.

  Carrie launched herself and thumped into him. They tumbled off in a new direction while she wrapped her legs around his waist. Sticking out both of her arms, Luke watched her flex her fingers outward repeatedly. Each time she did, it took a little off their spin.

  An early briefing he’d received months ago came back to mind. The work gloves had miniature gravity plates built in.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Forgot.”

  He pulled the gloves out of his tool belt and pulled them on. By the time he got them on, Carrie had them aimed back toward the space station.

  “Let me handle it, Commander,” Carrie said quietly. “They take a little getting used to.” They touched softly against the side of the Cupola.

  They crawled over to the large viewing window where the ISS crew was peering out.

  “They’re pretty freaked out,” Carrie observed.

  “I can imagine,” Luke replied. Watching Carrie moving freely outside the ISS, clad only in normal clothing, would be surreal to the inhabitants. “I think we need to get them out of there in a hurry. This thing is leaking all over.”

  “I think so too, Commander.” Carrie was trying to count the people inside. “I only see three of them. I thought there would be more.”

  Luke held up three fingers to the window. The woman inside nodded vigorously. He held up four fingers and she shook her head. “Three must be all.”

  The station continued to rotate slowly, spurred on by the jets of escaping air. There was no way to stabilize it permanently.

  “Sadie,” Luke said. “Can you maneuver so your door is up against their escape hatch?”

  “I can get close, Commander. But there is no way to establish a seal.”

  “Hang on here for a second, Carrie,” Luke said. “I’ll go get three more of the personal force fields. See if they’ll let you inside. Make them understand how they work.”

  Carrie gave him a worried look.

  “I’ll be careful this time,” he promised.

  A moment later he was back, colliding with the Cupola a bit harder than he intended, but still in one piece.

  Carrie took the personal force fields inside the ISS while Luke waited outside. He sympathized with the NASA scientists. For them, it would take an extraordinary leap of faith to let some youngster convince them into coming outside their crew module without their bulky suits.

  A few minutes later, however, the main hatch opened. Carrie stuck her head out and gave Luke a thumb’s up. She had a frightened woman astronaut in tow. The two women made the three-meter passage from the ISS into Sadie’s bay door.

  Carrie remained in the shuttle to calm the older woman and Luke escorted the two remaining men. Finally, with all aboard the shuttle, Luke gave Sadie instructions to head for Moonbase. One of the men was still filming with his camera. As Sadie pulled away, he took a video that highlighted the damage to the ISS. Certainly it could be repaired, but Luke felt that would never happen. It would stay in orbit as a museum piece, outdated now in one fell swoop.

  “Sadie, would you pass the word to Roth to prepare to receive our new passengers? It might be informative for them to see how we welcome new folks to the moon.”

  “Message sent, Commander.”

  # # #

  Luke was impressed with the crowd Roth had waiting in the main hangar. Amanda, their PR director, and about twenty others applauded as the astronauts disembarked. Some children were even holding a big paper banner that said WELCOME SPACE STATION CREW.

  Roth shook hands with the newcomers and introduced his two twenty-something assistants. “This is Sheri and Milo,” he told them. “They’ll take you to your quarters. Since we yanked you out of there unexpectedly, I thought you might like a chance to spruce up before our medical folks take a look at you. Then we’ll get you in touch with Houston. They know you’re okay, by the way. While you’re here we’d like to show you around, let you meet some of our people. Then, if you’re up to it, we’ll get you back to Earth in the morning.”

  The NASA astronauts were no different from everyone else who experienced Moonbase for the first time; they were stunned by what they saw. Yet they rolled with each new revelation. Some of the shock had worn off by the time Sheri and Milo brought them to a conference room where Luke and Roth were waiting.

  “Medical gave you a clean bill of health,” Roth told them. “How you guys feeling? Ready to phone home?” He gestured to a screen with a live feed from the Mission Control Center in Houston. Shane Rosa, the lead flight controller for ISS operations, looked concerned.

  “Hi, Shane,” the female astronaut said.

  “Everyone there okay?” Shane asked.

  No one spoke. They looked at each other with disbelief, not sure what to say.

  Luke interrupted the awkward moment and spoke to the ISS crew. “We’re going to leave you here for a few minutes so you and Mission Control can get each other up to date. Let them know that we’ll have you back on Earth tomorrow, around five in the evening Mountain Time, at the spaceport in Baggs, Nevada.”

  # # #

  Roth sat down in Luke’s office to fill him in. “Annie called Hawley, Hepworth, and Kidwell and told them to get down to Baggs. Lots of new legal ground here. Amanda and her team will fly down in just a few minutes. I’m going to send someone to bring back the Gulfstream. I wouldn’t be surprised if the government or the military show up. We don’t want anyone trying to confiscate anything.”

  “I don’t want to leave Annie down there alone,” Luke said. “The place is going to be overwhelmed with media and who knows what else. I’ll go with Amanda.”

  Roth nodded. “I’d just as soon you stayed away from that madhouse, but I assumed you’d be going down regardless.”

  “I have to be there for this one. It’s the big reveal.”

>   “I understand. What else?”

  Luke thought for a moment. “We have a recruiting ship scheduled for tonight, don’t we?”

  “Two, actually. One in Baggs and one in that small airport near Austin.”

  “Okay, let’s reroute the Texas flight to Baggs. I think it’s time to mothball our 737. This would be a good time to introduce our new passenger shuttle. Sunni’s ready isn’t she?”

  “Good idea,” Roth said. “She’s configured for five hundred passengers at a time so capacity won’t be an issue. The new look might scare a few people from getting on though.”

  “The entire world has seen our place here now. Amanda did a good job getting everything broadcast into the news feeds. Wonder what the talking heads are saying?”

  “I don’t even want to know,” Roth admitted. “But Amanda said she kicked off Operation ‘Hello from Moonbase’ with the first video of Carrie lassoing the space station. She’s got our own experts on all the talk shows right now. We’re sending feeds from our broadcast center down on level seven.”

  “Should we leave her here for now?” Luke asked.

  “Might be a good idea. She’s the face that people are getting used to, along with our experts. Take the PR ground team, though, you’re going to need help yourself. George? Can Sadie be configured to carry passengers?”

  “Not a problem, Professor Higgin,” George replied. “It is being done now.”

  “Taken them down with Sadie,” Roth suggested. “Amanda told me your new hotel convention center is open for business so you can have them established there. I’ll send Amanda down tomorrow when we fly the astronauts back.”

  “Okay,” Luke agreed. “Tell her to start pushing the opportunities for colonists. And have someone tell our recruiters that our secret research center is actually on the moon.” Luke gave Roth a worried look. “Mostly, I just hope all this works out.”