In the heady days of the early space age, amateur radio buffs were often the first to break news of Soviet exploits—the secretive empire preferring not to announce their activities until successful completion. But even the mighty U.S.S.R. of old could do nothing to prevent the interception of their communications. American spacecraft, as well, were often radio-targeted, and attempts were made at communication. Even secret missions had a tendency to be exposed by these enthusiasts.
Now, in exploration’s darkest hour, the president had determined that garage-based enthusiasts were his best hope of reaching his would-be heroes. That popular internet phrase ‘Not the Onion’ kept repeating in Webster’s mind as he mulled over the absurdity of it all.
Rather than drag a bunch of civilians into the mountain, the president sent out agents to make contact, verify the setup and willingness to cooperate, then put them in touch via uplink. That seemed the best way to put together a short list, while maintaining some semblance of national security. Once the candidates began to emerge, he was glad to have been so cautious.
The first kid on the video monitor, and there was no doubt it was a kid, was a zit-faced, smug looking punk with a backwards hat and a vacant expression. It was evident from his demeanor that he either wasn’t impressed with a call from the president, or else didn’t actually know who the president was. Webster sincerely hoped it was the former. Given the amount of airtime he’d had since taking office, if this kid really didn’t know, he’d be worse than useless.
“I guess that agent really wasn’t full of shit,” the kid sneered, peering so close into the screen the red blotches on his face washed out every other color, “you really are him.” He didn’t look impressed. Just self-satisfied.
The notes on the second monitor indicated the kid’s name was Scott Henderson, sixteen, from Bradford Woods, Pennsylvania. Webster decided to start off on an enthusiastic note, ignoring the fact that this punk had begun their conversation with profanity. “Mr. Henderson? Nice to meet you, son. I’m sure you must be a little overwhelmed with this sudden intrusion.”
“Not really.”
Okay then. “Well, thank you for your time. I realize this is a bit out of the ordinary, but as you no doubt know, we’re not living in ordinary times. Wouldn’t you agree?”
No response.
Randall Webster averted his eyes, thwarting his analytical brain’s attempt to pass the time by counting zits. “I understand that you’re quite the ham radio operator, is that right?”
That question gave the kid pause, like he was trying to figure out if he was in some kind of trouble.
No, moron. The president doesn’t handle juvenile misdemeanors.
“Yeah,” he said, slowing his tone markedly, “I guess you could say that…”
* * *
All told, President Webster spoke with half-a-dozen amateur radio operators, and aside from the fact that not a one of them would be winning any personality contests, he also came away with the distinct impression that any one of them would spill his guts for a chance at fifteen minutes. He didn’t feel the faintest inkling of trust from any of them, and that was the one key element he couldn’t proceed without. He was ready to recall the agents, get his trusted engineers to put something together instead, but first he would speak with one last candidate.
Without glancing at the notes this time, Webster was surprised to find himself face-to-face with a girl. Or rather, a young lady. A college student perhaps. Not pretty, but fairly cute in a doe-eyed, farmish way. And she also looked a good sight more serious than the others. Could this actually be a responsible human being?
Her eyes widened in immediate recognition. “Oh my God!” she gasped, her hand shooting up to cover her mouth.
Hadn’t the agents prepped her?
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s just, well…I’m a big fan.”
“Oh?”
“I campaigned for you, three summers ago in Madison, on your—”
“Senatorial run,” he finished, smiling. “Well, it’s always nice to meet a supporter.”
“Yes, sir!” she gushed, unable to contain her enthusiasm.
Over the course of their ten minute conversation, Webster learned that she was, in fact, a university student. And a PoliSci major no less. Working her way through college as a dispatcher for an old-school trucking company, she was fully capable of running a radio link. Better still, she was competent, patriotic, and squarely on Webster’s side for a change. She would do nicely.
When they got off the line, he turned to Harvey Roberts and said, “Recall the rest of the teams. We’ve got our operator. Bring her straight to me when she arrives.”
55.
Commander Mansfield noted several key issues at once. First was the fact that Shane Douglas was struggling mightily at the controls, yet the instruments read nominal, indicating an external cause. Second, he recognized that his pilot had control of the situation, and was in no need of immediate assistance, leaving room for Mansfield to start scanning for the trouble. The third issue had to do with the receding Earthscape, and was at once the most disturbing, yet the least impactful of their immediate issues.
Having observed the Americas for a number of orbits now, they hadn’t been able to see through the debris field that covered the skies. Now, as daylight dawned upon the continental expanse, the air was clear enough to see what was going on down there. The sight was enough to make the commander choke up, though he cut it off quickly so as not to distract Shane.
A chasmal wound on a planetary scale, that’s what it looked like. Floods and fire and incredible forces, reshaping the Earth itself.
He tore his attention from the state of the world, focusing on the more immediate need—figure out what was wrong with his ship. However, in confirming what was going on down below, he had already arrived at a partial answer. He needed only to contact Doctor Eckert for confirmation.
“You’re seeing what we’re seeing up here, doctor?”
There was a moment of silence, prompting the commander to snap an order for attention at his subordinate. Normally he wouldn’t do so to a civilian, but in this case every moment counted. There was no time for melodrama.
“Y…yes, sir,” Eckert replied in quick reaction to the slap down, “I’ve got it on my monitor now.”
“Could a cataclysm of that magnitude affect the gravimetric barrier?”
“Yes sir. The sub-shelf outgassing could cause it to expand.”
“And that expansion is significant enough to affect us at this distance.”
This time the moment was expected. Eckert was hurriedly making new calculations. “Yes sir. It’s significant enough to reach. That’d explain the turbulence. We’d better—
“Get the hell out of here,” Mansfield finished the thought. “Couldn’t agree more, doctor. Out.”
There was no need to relay any of the conversation to the pilot. Shane had been listening all the while, even as he wrestled for control of the vehicle.
“Getting the hell out of here, sir,” he confirmed to the commander, punching in the coordinates as fast as his fingers could fly.
Space Force One careened through the eddies, listing badly and veering off their planned trajectory. Every step along the way, Shane Douglas fought for control. He risked further damage by swinging their front end straight into the onslaught, hoping to lessen the turbulence and get them back on course. It was a carefully calculated risk, but for a few moments, the decision seemed to be horribly wrong—the buffeting increased tenfold, the groaning, creaking hull sounding like it was ready to buckle any second. Joseph Mansfield occupied the counter position, acting out his role of support while carefully avoiding any distracting commentary. Exceedingly calm and confident as always, he was giving off one obvious tell. He was looking at his wrist, as if to check a timepiece. This meant he thought time was short. His ‘time check’ was an indicator that it was ‘about time’ for the pilot to handle the matter, as in
‘Right the fuck now!’, though he would never voice it aloud.
Instead, it was Colonel Douglas who voiced it for him. “Commander, if you’re not too busy over there, I’d sure appreciate another set of hands.”
Mansfield nodded and unstrapped, pushing back to switch seats, switching up from navigator to co-pilot, a position normally reserved for launch and landing only. Before the commander got himself situated, Douglas slammed the com button once more and shouted “All hands, brace for additional turbulence.”
Shane clocked the responses, including a shaky and distant sounding, ‘Got it!’ from Eckert, and then focused on keeping his ship in one piece. When Mansfield flipped his legs around to take the alternate, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“You have the ship!” Mansfield called out, “I’m on second.”
“I have the ship,” Shane confirmed, cool as ice, giving each scope a fresh glance before allowing Mansfield to take over the responsibility, “second acknowledged.”
The colonel continued to push for the desired attitude, forcing the nose of the ship over hard as it slammed into the eddies, never leaning quite far enough in to slip into the center of the wave. But he kept at it, ignoring the slam-bang of the hull taking ever more damage. It sounded as if the ship might rip in half. And indeed it could, the vehicle was never designed for extended turbulent flight. The battering of re-entry was factored in, but that only lasted a short time, after which repairs could be made. This crew still had re-entry to prepare for, with no way to repair or ready the ship for more punishment in the meantime.
As the engines strained against the dynamic forces, Shane held steady, propping a foot against the console to ensure that his grip never wavered. The ship buffeted violently, resisting his commands. He felt a single, irritating bead of sweat roll down his cheek, but was too engaged even to wipe it away. He looked over at Mansfield, making sure the commander was watching over everything else so he could focus on the singular task of keeping the ship together. With a final, bone-jarring shaaacrash that jerked their heads forward, the craft found the slip-current and settled in. In the sudden silence, the beeps and chirps of every monitor and gauge were suddenly audible, along with the heavy breathing of Joseph and Shane as they collected themselves.
Less than a minute later, barely time enough to catch their breath, as Shane was finally relaxing his grip on reaction control, the ship lurched more violently than ever, just as Shane’s thruster control went dead.
* * *
In the bottom of the cylinder, too close to the engines for comfort, Dean Eckert threaded his way around equipment and hung on tight. Having unstrapped as soon as the shaking stopped, he was heading lower to check on his equipment, and secure whatever was clanging around beneath him in the process. He couldn’t say what had compelled him to do so right this minute, except that he felt like he should make himself useful. He realized how foolish that was as soon as the buffeting started back up again. The intense g-forces threatened to rip the ship out from under him, send him hurtling into a wall, or worse, into something with a sharp edge.
Technically speaking, he didn’t require leave to move about the ship. When it came to the solution, and all components therein, he was in charge, and could handle things as he saw fit. Thus nobody gave him a second glance when he made his way below. Now that he was down here, however, he began to suspect he should’ve let them know his intentions. Perhaps even asked for an escort. The rest of the crew being busy with their own concerns, however, left him feeling as though he didn’t want to disturb them. Until now.
Somehow he managed to keep his grip, edging closer to the rear of the cargo bay. He needed to set up the front portion of his apparatus. It would take the brunt of the effect once deployed, and had to be aligned perfectly. Once they flipped it over atop Space Force One, using the ship as a base, it would be positioned in line with the rocket. It had been stowed ass-backwards, the tip elevated, the base tucked down alongside the cargo-bay guide rails. Because of this odd configuration, he would be working in the uncomfortably warm recesses of the ship, at least until the tip was ready for deployment. Might as well get it over now, he had thought. That was the flawed reasoning that brought him to this perilous moment.
Slamming against the hull with every movement, he battled the turbulence, trying to keep his balance and stave off a panic attack at the same time. He felt like the ship was about to rip apart, and his overactive brain fed him images of the airless void, just waiting to envelop him in an airless demise.
When he finally fought his way into the lower bay, unpleasant notions of death in his mind’s eye, the sudden appearance of a gaping hole in the fuselage gave him such a shock he almost lost his grip. Squeezing like his life depended on it, he managed to stay connected to the hull by just three fingers of his bulky glove, his arm straining painfully against the buffeting wall. He stared hard at the torn metal against the opposite wall of the bay, trying to figure out what the hell he could do about it.
Recovering from his surprise, Dean tried to evaluate just what he was looking at, then registered the fact that the tear was dangerously close to the solution. He reached out with a hand and spread his fingers, trying to get a guesstimate of how far apart it was. If the ship could survive the initial explosion, it would probably be alright until reentry. But the solution, if that wound up damaged or destroyed, reentry wouldn’t matter much. Nothing would. The ship gave another sickening lurch, and he grabbed hold of a closer rung, moving toward the gash in the wall.
Dean made his way around until he was above the hole, jutting out of which was some kind of tank. Peering closer, he gasped when he saw vapors emerging from a cracked valve. The ship was leaking fuel.
Grabbing for the tools, he removed a wrench and ducked down for a closer look. It was a busted valve joint alright, and not a hole in the mechanism itself. He might be able to fix it.
Carefully wrapping the wrench around, he pulled hard and managed to close off the leak, but when he tried to pull his arm back the wrench jammed, catching his glove in the process. Pulling on it as much as he dared, he felt a sinking horror when the tank moved along with his trapped tool. Any further tugging might cause further damage. The tank, the wrench, and his gloved hand were now stuck to each other. If he didn’t want to exacerbate the situation, it would have to stay that way. At least he had managed to stop the leak.
With nothing better to do, he looked around the area and tried to evaluate just how bad things had gotten. Observing the hole as the ship buffeted back and forth, he noted that the damage didn’t seem to worsen with the violent rocking. A point in their favor.
Keeping his gaze parallel to the torn section, he took in the circumference of the spaceframe. There were three more tanks of identical configuration, at ninety-degree angles. Booster rockets, he concluded. Maneuvering thrusters of some kind. And of the four he could see, three were in some state of disrepair, housing ripped off and gauges spiking. The one nearest his left was half-opened, clanking against the hull every time the ship shuddered. That had been the noise that attracted him down here, he suddenly realized. If not for that, he might not have noticed the worsening situation at all.
Dean hesitated. He thought about removing the glove, going up and getting help, but things were too unstable to be left alone. He had no way of knowing whether the leak would worsen if he left it there. Eying the communications console, he wondered if he could reach. He stretched out with his free hand, but it was out of his grasp by at least an arm’s length. With his other hand stuck in the valve, it might as well be a mile. There would be no communicating with his shipmates.
Are you serious? he muttered to the empty room.
Pushing off, Dean floated backwards to the top of the apparatus and made contact with the top by the tip of his boot. He pulled again, trying to get leverage from his legs, but the wrench stayed where it was. Dean wondered if there was any chance his absence would be noticed. But the ship was still slamming about, enough to make it h
ard to hang on, which meant they were still focused on control up there. He wouldn’t be missed for a while. Then he thought about the fact that they were still very much in danger, and wondered if he might die down here, never knowing when the end might come.
Dark Alignment Page 35
