Death Orbit

by Maloney, Mack;

  Where the old NASA designers and engineers had used the latest in microtechnology to construct and power the shuttles, the ham-handed Zon designers had used everything from standard-gauge fray-happy electrical wire to antique vacuum tubes to get their baby into space. Where the Americans had built in a microprocessor-based triple-plus redundancy system to make sure the shuttle was as fail-safe as could be, the Zon’s builders had simply double-wired everything and let it go at that. Even such things as quadruple-layered pressurization seals—needed to keep all the valuable oxygen in—had been glossed over. Whenever they came to a particularly irregular or hard-to-access construction point, the Zon builders had simply painted the oxygen seal on, using a highly reflective polymer-based goop that was full of trapped oxygen bubbles, and therefore porous and dangerously brittle.

  A testament to bravery or stupidity or both, the Zon was amazing in that it was so obviously thrown together by unenlightened or unconcerned engineers, yet it was still able to fly in space.

  Keeping it together was Geraci’s job. He was, after all, the engineer of the UA crew. But he felt more like a train engineer than someone who was responsible for keeping the spacecraft intact as it sped along at seven miles a second. A seam could bust at any moment, and Geraci would have little else but a roll of duct tape and a bucket of the Russian goop to make the patch. Should any of the electrical systems go, he would have exactly six replacement parts to work with.

  And if something cropped up with the main engines? Well, it would be a long, cold night, because there was nothing on board with which he could repair them.

  Geraci was in the midst of soldering a particularly scary-looking wire bus—it contained many yellow, green, red, and blue leads, all of which seemed to be going everywhere and nowhere at the same time—when he heard the radio softly beeping.

  The sound startled him at first. He knew well the intense restrictions on communications between the Zon and Earth. Security being what it was, contact was supposed to be nonexistent. He hadn’t even heard the radio call signal before this.

  So why was it beeping now?

  Geraci glided over to the radio set and contemplated it for a moment. The laminated list of code-phrases was floating nearby. If Geraci understood the procedure correctly, to answer the radio call, he would have to push in the receive panel, activate the scramble mode, push the power button twice, and then wait. But should he do it? Cook had told him something about hearing a strange transmission on the radio earlier—it was unclear exactly what happened as the Zon had been dodging space mines virtually nonstop ever since.

  Maybe this was another one of those crazy calls…

  Or maybe it was an actual radio transmission from Cape Canaveral.

  Geraci finally pushed the receive panel, simultaneously punching the scramble button. The speaker exploded in a storm of static. He quickly hit the power button once. Twice. Then he released the receive switch and waited.

  At first the voice sounded very strange. Distorted. Eerie. But then Geraci pushed a couple of filter buttons on and the words cleared up immediately.

  “A low front expected tonight along the eastern seaboard,” the voice intoned in obvious code. “Tides will be running much higher than expected.”

  It was the Cape!

  Geraci quickly retrieved the floating code-phrase card and ran his finger down the list. He was startled by what he found. “Low-front” was code for a major military action was in the offing. Any indication of “high tides” meant the situation was extremely serious and ongoing.

  “Damn,” Geraci breathed. Something big must be happening below.

  At that moment, JT floated down into the crew compartment. He looked worn-out and tense after manning the co-pilot’s seat for the past two days straight. Still, Geraci was relieved to see him.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he told JT, indicating the flashing radio light.

  JT was beside him in a second. He, too, was amazed that the radio had suddenly come alive.

  “Shit,” JT cursed. “This is going to be bad. I can just feel it.”

  He finally pushed in the scramble panel and kept it in. A moment later they were talking to Yaz, duly scrambled and unfettered. All radio protocol was quickly dismissed with.

  “We’ve got to make this brief,” Yaz began.

  “What’s the occasion?” JT asked his friend. “Something big?”

  “Would you believe World War Four, maybe?” was Yaz’s reply.

  For the next ten minutes, using a calm if deadly serious tone, Yaz recounted the specifics of how the world had suddenly gone crazy—or better put, crazier—since the Zon had left. Reports were flowing in from all over, telling of major wars erupting, old conflicts flaring up, and nasty sneak attacks and counterattacks. Yaz gave a soberingly detailed account of the firebombing of Key West, the results of Crunch’s Cuba overflight, and the recent attack on the Kennedy Space Center.

  “And you’re sure those guys were Norsemen?” was the first question JT asked him. “I thought we greased all those A-holes a long time ago.”

  “I saw the helmets and swords myself,” Yaz replied. “They were the genuine item. How so many of them got there, no one knows. Maybe they all swam over from Norway or wherever the hell they came from. I mean, it’s as crazy as all the other shit that’s going on.”

  “And is everyone really sure those were Fourth Reich flyboys who took out Key West? And that the Cult is involved?”

  “Sure as the swastikas on their little bitty heads,” Yaz answered. “As for the Cult—who else would be able to float around in so many battleships? It’s the fact that these guys have access to so many nukes that scares the shit out of me.”

  “Jeezus,” JT breathed into the microphone, “what next? Mid-Aks?”

  “It’s as if everyone has suddenly flipped out,” Yaz concluded. “Bottom line, Jonesie thought we should call because we don’t know what will be happening by the time you guys get back.”

  “If we get back,” JT told him.

  Now it was his turn. He quickly detailed the ordeal the Zon had been going through with the space mines, and the wear and tear in both spacecraft and crew as a result of trying to avoid the deadly orbital bombs.

  “We’re like a B-17 on our way to Stuttgart,” JT told Yaz. “We’re full of holes, and the next one could be the last. But we’re getting closer to the target…”

  A burst of static interrupted Yaz’s next transmission briefly.

  “Well, whatever you find up there, I’ll bet it has something to do with what’s going on down here…”

  “Just keep it together,” JT told him. “You never know what’s going to happen…”

  “Exactly,” Yaz concluded. “That’s the problem.”

  With that, he broke off the transmission.

  JT and Geraci just stared at each other as the radio died again. Both were weary, stressed out, and now, extremely concerned.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but I think the wildest thing is this attack on the Cape,” Geraci said finally. “I mean, the Cult battleships are in the area. Apparently, so are some high-tech Fourth Reich aircraft. And if they’re working together, then they have access to a pile of nukes. Why, then, would they send in a very low-tech army to destroy the space center?”

  JT just shook his head.

  “Maybe because they weren’t looking to destroy it,” he replied. “Not completely, anyway.”

  “You mean, they sent in the goons to capture it?” Geraci asked. “That’s not really their style, is it? I mean, those Norse guys are pretty low on the food chain. They fight for booze to get drunk and ammo so they can fight again. I think that’s about as elaborate as their military strategy goes.”

  “True,” JT conceded. “But maybe they were sent in just to fuck us up a little. Like throwing in the fodder first. Bump our defenses before the real attack. I mean, let’s face it: one or two battleships could stand twenty-four miles offshore and with a five-minute barrage wreck everything at
KSC. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.”

  “So if they don’t want to destroy it… what do they want?” Geraci asked.

  “Maybe they want to use it,” JT said with a zero-g shrug.

  “You mean, to launch something?” Geraci gasped. “Something of their own?”

  JT just shook his head.

  “Well,” he said, “that would be a party, wouldn’t it?”

  A minute later, Geraci and JT had floated back up to the flight deck.

  As usual, it was dark and tense there. At last count, they had encountered 16 space mines, the latest just an hour before. This one was probably the most powerful yet; its explosion had been incredibly bright and the resulting shock waves so violent they’d sent the Zon up on its tail even before Hunter had had a chance to steer the spacecraft completely out of the way. The close call only added to the frayed nerves aboard the increasingly dented and battered Zon.

  But as before, each explosion also put them closer to the source of the space mines. Ben Wa had been manning the navigation computer when the latest one had gone off. Despite the jarring that resulted in the space bomb’s wake, he’d been able to get a good retrotrack on its position prior to its detonation. By triangulating backward, Ben determined that whoever was leaving the trail of space mines was now just 35 to 40 miles ahead and maybe a couple of miles above them.

  JT now steered himself over to the space next to the command pilot’s seat and knocked twice on Hunter’s helmet.

  “Can you talk for a moment?” he asked the Wingman.

  Hunter flipped up his visor and took a deep breath of the stale cabin air. He was tired, hungry, and more than a little stressed out—three things that rarely entered his personal repertoire, and never all at once. Something was definitely wrong here. He’d faced larger challenges than this. In the past, he’d gone days without sleep, days without food and hadn’t felt this miserable. He’d fought air battles with the odds a hundred to one against him and still had not felt this uptight.

  What was it, then? He’d thought flying in space was going to be the gas of his life, the realization of his long-held dream. But since they’d begun encountering the space mines, it had been one long, harrowing, uncomfortable, and nerve-frazzling ordeal. He’d always wanted to go into space—and now he was here, and for the most part, the trip had sucked so far.

  Maybe there was something in that old saying: be careful what you wish for, it might come true someday…

  Hunter took in another deep breath, then turned to JT.

  “What are you going to tell me?” he asked his friend. “That this is all just a bad dream?”

  JT hesitated a moment, then slowly nodded.

  “Well, yes,” he replied. With that, he quickly briefed Hunter and the others on what he and Geraci had just heard via the radio call from Yaz. The world below had suddenly gone crazy. Wars and titanic battles were breaking out all over, not the least of which was on the Florida Keys and around the Kennedy Space Center. There were nukes in Cuba. The Cult battleships had been spotted. The long-missing remnants of the Fourth Reich Air Force had reemerged, and even the heathen Norsemen had somehow returned.

  Hunter and the others listened to the report with open mouths and sinking spirits.

  “None of this makes sense,” Hunter finally said. “If someone wanted to destroy the space complex, the last thing they would do is send in an army of drunken slobs…”

  “That’s exactly what we thought,” JT told him. “I’ll bet they’re trying to capture it, not destroy it… maybe to launch something of their own.”

  This sent a chill down everyone’s spine. While supporting control from the space complex would be crucial for the Zon’s eventual reentry, Hunter was confident he could set the spacecraft down somewhere if the complex was no longer in friendly hands. But should that be the case, it would mean that the lives of a lot of his friends and colleagues—not to mention the heart of the UAAF command—would be in peril or even dead, and that the UA’s infant space program might end with exactly one flight.

  “Who knows what those A-holes might be planning,” JT went on. “Maybe they’ve been able to get into a stockpile of Arienes or…”

  But Hunter wasn’t listening anymore. His body had suddenly commenced vibrating. Somewhere in the depths of his extraordinary inner being, a message was coming through.

  JT was staring at him intently—everyone on board the Zon was. They’d seen him like this before.

  “Jeezus, what is it, Hawk?” JT asked him. “Another space bomb?”

  Hunter slowly shook his head.

  “No, not exactly,” he replied.

  Ben did a quick check of the forward radar set. He didn’t see anything unusual—at least, not at first.

  Hunter leaned forward in his seat and stared up through the Zon’s top window. Way up into the perpetual dark night, he saw a tiny greenish speck of light twinkling among the stars.

  “Son of gun,” he whispered to himself. “Will you look at that…”

  Inside of 30 minutes, Hunter had maneuvered the Zon to a position about 32 miles above their former orbital path.

  The small green twinkling light he’d spotted was now just a mile in front of them. Everyone in the Zon had his nose pressed up against the front windshield, trying to get a better look at the strange object.

  It was bulbous yet cylindrical—and as battered as the Zon, even more so. There was a miniature light on the ass end, blinking intermittently. The object was tumbling in such a way that the light caused streaks to reflect off the Zon’s windshield.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Elvis asked, verbalizing what the rest of the crew suspected.

  “It’s an old Soyuz,” Hunter confirmed. “Looks like something from the seventies—or even earlier.”

  The Soyuz was a Russian equivalent to a cross between NASA’s old Gemini capsules and the later space shuttles. Big enough to carry just two or three crew members, the Soyuz crafts were more like space taxis. In the later years, they were the means by which the Russians sent supplies and replacement crews up to the orbiting Mir space station.

  But what was this one doing up here, tumbling and obviously out of control? Something inside Hunter was telling him he should find out.

  “Anyone up for stretching their legs?” he asked, unstrapping himself from his seat for the first time in more than two days.

  The five other crew men looked at each other and then back at Hunter.

  “You mean you’re going over to that thing?” JT asked him. “How come?”

  Hunter just shrugged.

  “If we’re going to be up here a while,” he said. “I think we should get to know the neighborhood.”

  An hour later, Hunter and Geraci were inside two of the Zon’s half-dozen EVA suits.

  Bulky yet tight, the suits made them look more like deep-sea divers than two humans ready to make a space walk. Like everything else aboard the Zon, the “outdoor” spacesuits were crude and uncomfortable, and patched in more than a few places.

  Geraci went through the pressure lock first. In its present state, the Zon was equipped to handle only one spacewalker at a time. Hunter waited patiently as Geraci depressurized the lock and slowly opened the hatch to space beyond. He floated away almost immediately, reappearing once he’d reached the end of his life-tether. A wave and a thumbs-up indicated everything was working.

  Now it was Hunter’s turn.

  He slipped into the pressure lock and secured the door behind him. Working the controls from the other side, Cook and Ben set the depressurization process in motion. Hunter could feel a slightly deflating effect on his suit as all the air left the chamber. Then he gave a thumbs-up to his colleagues, opened the outer hatch, and joined Geraci in space.

  Wow…

  Now this was something. He was floating—though floating wasn’t really the word. He was flying, too—though flying wasn’t the right word, either. What was it, then? He had to think about it for a moment.
Then it came to him. It sounded crazy, but he felt like he was just another body in the universe, revolving, spinning, moving in unison with the zillion other objects in the cosmos. A whole world unto himself.

  Christ, what a feeling it was!

  Almost good enough for him to forget what a miserable experience the spaceflight had been so far…

  Geraci’s somewhat frantic signaling broke Hunter out of his self-induced space rapture.

  Hunter’s tether was slowly becoming entangled in one of the many unsightly projections hanging off the blunderbusslike Zon. He was able to retrieve the slack before any real trouble could occur, knocking himself upside the head twice for letting his inner senses get the best of him.

  He joined Geraci at the edge of what passed for the Zon’s payload bay. It was about two-thirds the size of its American shuttle counterpart and much narrower. The hardest thing in getting the Zon launchworthy after the UA captured it was getting the two big doors of the payload bay to close and seal properly. Geraci’s engineers finally solved the problem, shaving a few inches off the end of each door. Once closed, no one connected with the Zon’s flight wanted anything to do with opening them up again. Hunter and Geraci had exited through a smaller bay just forward of the unusable larger one.

  Both of them had zip guns—these were the small, gas-powered, dual-jet devices that looked like elaborate coat hangers. One squeeze of the trigger expelled a stream of gas which served to propel the user along in the vacuum of space. As far as technology went, these things were old back in the 1970s. But again, the Zon experience was one of settling and using whatever resources one had at hand.

  Slowly, carefully, Hunter and Geraci began their short hop over to the tumbling Soyuz, now about 500 feet away. Hunter was glad when Geraci volunteered to take this trip with him. Like the others aboard the Zon, Geraci was reliable, quick, and fearless. The added bonus was that he was also an engineer—and engineers thought differently than other humans. Hunter knew his help in getting the Soyuz to stop tumbling would be invaluable.