by Tom Abrahams
Bingo.
The Node 1 computer had clicked and buzzed to life. Its indicators had flashed and blinked. Simple systems were on.
Next, he’d entered a series of commands to reboot the Command & Control computers. There were three of them on either side of the ISS. Although he couldn’t know from his position if the Russian side was operational, it didn’t matter yet. He’d needed at least one on the American side to reboot and function, and that was what he got.
Step one was complete. He had basic power inside the American half of the ISS, and external systems had rebooted as well. Clayton had hoped those systems returned quickly enough for the men stuck outside. He’d checked life-support monitors on their EMUs that indicated heart rate and breathing. There was no biofeedback available. He still had hope though. Those monitors frequently malfunctioned because of sweat or poor skin contact. The lack of data wasn’t good news, but it hadn’t deterred him from what he had to do.
It could be they were unconscious but alive. It was a small chance, but it was there. At every chance, Clayton had peeked through the small windows that gave him narrow glimpses into the space around the station. The men weren’t moving. Clayton was nauseous with each panicked look through the glass. His pulse thumped. Sweat clung to his face.
From Node 1, Clayton had quickly maneuvered to the Destiny module, a twenty-eight-foot-long cylinder that housed the ECLSS—the Environmental and Life Support System—on the American side of the station. Before he could do anything else, he’d needed to ensure the main control computers and the ECLSS were functional, most critically the carbon dioxide scrubber. If that wasn’t working, he’d suffocate.
Clayton had hovered in the module for a moment, holding the rack supporting the system with one hand, and with the other he’d held a crude sketch he’d drawn to remind himself of the electrical systems on board the station. He’d kept it in his pocket, folded inside a small red journal, since the launch from Baikonur in the Kazakhstan Desert more than two months earlier.
He’d essentially created a simplified flowchart. At the top was the Command & Control computer. Remarkably, it was working.
To the left was Guidance; to the right were Payloads and other internal functions that were mostly redundant. He didn’t care about those.
The two center boxes were labeled Internal Systems and External Systems. Connected to the Internal Systems was a trio of boxes labeled Thermal, Audio, and ECLSS; the External Systems connected to Communications and Electrical.
It had appeared to him the ECLSS was functioning properly, at least as far as the most critical systems were concerned. The atmosphere was preserved, and the scrubber was working. The water recovery system, however, which recycled water from the toilets and humidity in the air, was fried.
That would only be a problem if they planned on staying aboard the ISS for a long period of time. Clayton didn’t.
The Russian side also had a similar system in the Zvezda service module. Also considered the “central post,” the Zvezda contained Russian and American computers and was the gathering place for the crew whenever an emergency arose.
Pushing himself past the camera equipment lining the walls and into the service module, he made a cursory check of the Russian systems, which appeared okay, though he didn’t have time for a thorough evaluation. He’d needed to start the EVA procedure as quickly as he could. When he hit the airlock and the mechanical process had clicked, he’d known, at the very least, the critical electrical components on the Russian side of the station were functional for now. The radios were down. Even the HAM radio they used to communicate with schoolkids and interested radio operators wasn’t functioning. He was alone.
His heart was pounding. The thoughts of his family coping with…whatever had happened…was untenable. It was exacerbated by the idea of waiting for hours inside the ISS while his friends were helpless in space, just beyond his reach. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and tapped out syncopated beats with his fingers. He was like a child in the middle seat on a long road trip.
To comfort himself, to erase the fires of Armageddon from his mind’s eye, he imagined Jackie might not even know what had happened. It was nighttime. She could be asleep. She could be reading a book. She loved to read. Steinbeck and Hemingway were her favorites. Jane Austen wasn’t far behind, although she considered Austen summertime beach reading.
Clayton forced a chuckle, thinking about his wife with a stack of books beside their bed, all of them dog eared and coffee stained. He could feel her feet under the covers, rubbing up against his calf. He longed for the gravity of Earth, the weight of her arms around him.
He sucked in a breath of filtered air and sighed.
If she was awake and she’d lost power, she’d probably chalk it up to a surge of some kind. Jackie wouldn’t know how dire the situation truly was until the next day.
He hoped that was the case. He prayed she’d have one more good night of sleep before her world turned upside down, and he was stuck in orbit, passing by every ninety minutes, unable to help.
She’ll be okay, he silently assured himself. She’s got neighbors. She’s got a Concealed Handgun License.. There’s plenty of food in the freezer she can cook on the charcoal grill. And we’ve got gallons of water and gasoline left over from hurricane season.
He kept repeating the mantra, trying to convince himself it was so.
CHAPTER 2
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2020, 9:25 PM CST
CLEAR LAKE, TEXAS
Jackie Shepard was two pages from finishing The Grapes of Wrath for the fourth time when the lights went out. “Seriously? You have got to be kidding me.”
She pulled the covers back and planted her feet on the cold Spanish tile floor. She’d made it from her master bedroom into the kitchen when her daughter called from upstairs.
“Mmmommmm!” yelled the aggrieved sixteen-year-old. “The Internet died. I can’t get YouTube.”
Jackie stopped at the large granite island and leaned on it. “The power’s out, Marie,” she called back. “It’s not just the Internet.”
“So unfair!” Marie yelled.
Jackie chuckled. “Snap your displeasure. Or Tweet it. Whatever it is you’re using these days.”
Marie appeared at the top of the stairs and bounded down the steps. “I can’t,” she whined, walking into the kitchen. “I’ve got no service.”
Jackie looked at the glowing white screen and took the iPhone from her daughter’s hand. “Huh,” she said, noticing the lack of cellular signal. “That’s weird.”
“What do we do?” Marie had headphones around her neck, her shoulder-length hair pulled into a ponytail.
“Good question,” said Jackie. “I guess you could hang down here with me. You could fill me in on the last dance team drama.”
Marie shrugged. “I guess,” she said. “I’ve got nothing better to do.”
Jackie popped Marie on the bottom as her daughter led her back to the bedroom. “Gee, thanks.”
Marie giggled. “Anytime, Mom. I guess it’s just us girls tonight.”
The two climbed into Jackie’s bed and pulled the covers up to their necks. Jackie lay on one side to face her daughter.
“Yeah,” she said. “Tomorrow night too. Chris isn’t back from his camping trip until Sunday.”
Marie fluffed the pillow on her side of the bed. “I don’t know why he likes that stuff. Camping is so totally unsanitary.”
“He’s a thirteen-year-old boy,” Jackie replied. “Everything about him is totally unsanitary.”
“True.”
Jackie rolled over to check her phone. It was plugged into a charging dock on the bedside table. Its display was off. She punched the home button; it didn’t respond.
She pulled the phone from its base. “Huh. It’s not working at all.”
“Try a hard reset,” Marie said. She grabbed her mom’s phone. “I’ll do it.”
Jackie chuckled. “Okay.”
Marie tried the rese
t sequence. It didn’t work. She tried it again. Nothing.
“Power surge,” Marie suggested.
“Maybe,” said Jackie. “No big deal. I’ve got insurance. So, about the dance team…”
Marie wasn’t looking at her. Instead, her attention had shifted from the phone to beyond Jackie’s shoulder and the window that faced the backyard.
Her eyes widened. “Um…Mom?”
Jackie frowned, sensing something was wrong. “What?”
Marie pointed out the window. “That! What is that?”
Jackie looked out the bay window at the red light bathing the sky through the slats of the white wooden shutters. She slid out of bed and moved to the glass, pulling open the shutter casement to get a better look.
The sky was undulating with a multihued red wave. It pulsed, seemingly breathing in the atmosphere above southeast Texas before exhaling.
“C’mon,” Jackie said to Marie. “Let’s go check it out.”
The two scurried back to the kitchen and through the door leading onto the covered rear porch. The brick was colder than the tile on Jackie’s feet. They walked from under the porch onto the stained concrete pool deck.
“Except for the color, that looks like the northern lights,” said Jackie, her breath visible in the cool winter air. “You know, the aurora borealis?”
Marie stepped close to her mom, looping her arm around her for warmth. “I know what it is. It does kinda look like it, right? The color though…”
“That’s really weird,” Jackie said. “They’re magnetic. They typically only appear at the poles. And they’re green.”
“So what does it mean?”
“I don’t know.” Jackie curled her toes underneath her feet. “But all the power is out. Look around the neighborhood. There isn’t a single light. Even the light pollution off near the shopping center isn’t there. Everything is dark.”
Marie let go of her mother’s arms and stepped out onto the grass. She folded her arms across her chest and looked up at the sky. “You think Dad’s okay?”
Jackie took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
“And Chris?”
“I don’t—” Jackie stopped mid-sentence.
In the sky behind their house was a dark shadow growing exponentially by the second, blocking out the red aurora. At first, Jackie thought it was a bird. But as it grew in size, the shape of its wings and its tail told her it wasn’t a bird. It was a plane.
It was falling; the only sound was the air rushing through its engines, whistling fiercely as it dove toward them. Jackie stood mesmerized for a moment by the surreality of what was happening in front of her.
She grabbed Marie’s arm and pulled her into the swimming pool. Jackie sank to the bottom of the pool, the cold water sucking the air from her lungs. From beneath the water, she felt the ground rumble and shake.
Still holding Marie’s hand, she pulled her daughter to the surface, both coughing up water as they swam to the edge of the pool.
Marie’s teeth were chattering, her lips trembling. “What was that? What happened, Mom?”
Jackie pushed herself from the water and spun to sit on the edge. “I think a plane just crashed,” she said, helping Marie from the water.
“Our house looks okay,” Marie said.
“We need to go see,” said Jackie. “It felt like the plane crashed on top of us.”
Shivering, both of them ran around the side of the house past the silent pool pump. The crushed granite path poked and jabbed at Jackie’s bare feet. Before she’d cleared the side of the house, she could see the bright orange glow strobing across the cul-de-sac. There were people yelling and screaming. Jackie thought it was raining until she realized the specks of whatever was hitting her shoulders and pinging off her head were tiny pieces of debris.
Jackie led Marie to the front yard. Across the wide circle that marked the end of their street was an enormous fire. Twenty-foot flames lit the thick black smoke pouring from the wreckage of the plane and the remains of the home that had stood there moments earlier.
Jackie stopped in her driveway. The heat emanating from the fire warmed her cold, wet body.
“Oh my God,” she said. She drew her daughter to her chest, wrapping her arms around her. “My God. There are people alive in there.”
The screams and cries for help that pierced the air when Jackie and Marie reached the front yard died within seconds as those trapped in the burning wreckage succumbed to their injuries, the flames, and the smoke.
Jackie’s eyes adjusted the glow of the fire and she saw the houses on either side were also burning. It wasn’t just one house, it was three. She kissed her daughter’s head.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
“Mom, no!” Marie cried, holding on to her mother. “Don’t.”
Jackie pulled away and jogged toward the heat. “I’ll be right back.”
She made a wide berth around the fire to the left. It was too hot to get any closer. When she neared the burning house on the end of the three, she saw neighbors dragging garden hoses into the narrow area between the home that was burning and the adjacent that wasn’t.
“Jackie,” said an older, retired neighbor named Reggie Buck, “that you?”
“Yes,” Jackie said, smoke burning her eyes. “What can I do, Reggie?”
“Help my wife here with the hoses,” he said. “I’m gonna crank on the water. Just keep the house wet. Get any flames that start to creep.”
Jackie reached the hose and helped detangle its end. Reggie’s wife, Lana, was grappling with another hose attached to a spigot at the front of their house.
“Got it!” she called. “You can turn on the water.”
Reggie spun the spigot at the side of the house and water sprang from the high-pressure nozzle attached to the end of the hose. He ran to his wife and helped her with the second hose.
Jackie aimed the spray at the flames licking the side of the burning home. It wasn’t doing much. She shifted the nozzle to the side of Reggie and Lana’s house, painting the HardiePlank siding with water.
“Help! Please help! We’re stuck.” The frightened woman’s call came from the burning house next door. There was a window above the two-car garage. From her spot between the homes Jackie couldn’t see who it was, but assumed it was Betty Brown. She lived in the house with her son, who had special needs. Her husband had died of metastatic melanoma two years earlier.
Reggie bolted past Jackie, limping on his bum knee to the garage of the burning house next door. He’d taken off his white undershirt and wrapped it around his face like a mask.
Flames dripped from the house onto the yard, sparking the dry ground. Lana joined Jackie at the hose, trying to beat back the fire.
Lana yanked on her hose to move closer to the neighbor’s driveway. “Be careful,” she called after her husband.
Reggie waved at her before ducking into the house through the open front door. A moment later he was manually lifting the garage door.
“Drop the hose, Jackie!” he said, his voice muffled by the shirt. He coughed and waved her over. “I need help with the ladder!”
Lana reached out with her free hand. “Go, Jackie,” she said. “I’ve got the hoses.”
Jackie handed Lana the hose and sprinted to join Reggie on the driveway. She grabbed one end of the long aluminum extension ladder when Reggie emerged from the garage. Together they raised the ladder against the brick face of the house.
“I’ll climb it,” Reggie said and began climbing the metal rungs. “You keep it stable.”
“Got it.”
Jackie glanced back and saw Marie sitting in their driveway. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and she was rocking in the orange flicker of the fire. Jackie’s heart sank.
“Marie!” she yelled above the crackle of the inferno. “I need you! Come here!”
Marie snapped from her daze and pushed herself to her feet. She raced across the street and joined her mother at the base of t
he ladder. Her eyes were swollen with tears, her nose was running, and her lower lip quivered.
Jackie locked eyes with her daughter. “Worry about us later, okay? Right now others need us.”
Marie sniffled and nodded. She grabbed the rail on her side of the ladder.
Jackie tightened her grip on her rail. “We’ll be okay.”
They both looked up toward the window in time to see Reggie’s foot disappear inside the house. His head reemerged and he looked down at Jackie.
“I’m sending down Betty first,” he said. “Help her if she needs it.”
Jackie nodded. The fire was thickening along the roofline and had consumed much of the right side of the home closest to the crash. They had mere minutes until the entire home was engulfed.
“Hurry up!” she called up to Reggie. “I don’t think you have long!”
Betty appeared feet first. She descended the ladder slowly, skidding her hands gingerly along the aluminum rails. She was barefoot and in a nightgown, her hair in curlers.
Reggie poked his head through the window. “Okay, Betty,” he encouraged. “You’re good. You’re almost there.”
Betty made the final few steps down the ladder. Marie helped her to the last rung and she planted her feet squarely on the driveway.
“Thank you,” Betty sobbed. “Thank you.” She cupped her shaking hands over her mouth and looked back at the window.
Her son, Brian, was standing at the top of the ladder, shaking his head. The smoke was intensifying and he coughed.
“My eyes,” he said, letting go of the ladder with one hand to pinch his eyes shut. “They hurt. My eyes hurt.”
The smoke grew denser, moving in thick puffs that began to obscure Brian atop the ladder. The heat was intensifying, the dry radiation of it forcing Jackie to close her eyes and look away. The aluminum ladder was getting hot to the touch.
“My eyes,” Brian said. He wasn’t moving. The fire was.
Jackie swung herself onto the ladder. “Hold it,” she told Marie. “Don’t let go.”
She pulled herself up the ladder, skipping rungs where she could, to meet Brian at his feet. She gently grabbed the boy’s calf.
