“Mayday, mayday, this is Air Hawaii flight 103 out of SFO. We have suffered sudden decompression. Beginning emergency descent to FL100. Acknowledge.”
The pilot had just released the transmission button when the cockpit suddenly pitched nearly straight up. He looked behind him to witness the top of the airliner passing beneath the missing cockpit door before the tall spine of the tail sliced through the cockpit and the twin winglets on either side of the tail crushed both pilots' chests.
“This is SFO TRACON. Descent to FL100 authorized. Advise when you pass FL120. Do you require revectoring to SFO, or are you continuing on to Hawaii?”
Silence.
“SFO TRACON to AH103. Descent authorized. Please verify.”
The controller motioned for his supervisor.
“AH103 requested decompression descent to FL100, then nothing.”
“Radar?”
“Out of contact range.”
“Dammit. Hang on,” he said. “Keep calling.” He punched his computer frantically, looking up radio logs. In the background, he heard the controller calling the missing airline. The supervisor pulled up the ACARS messages from the automated high-frequency transmitters on board all ocean-crossing aircraft.
“AH103...AH103,” he muttered, over and over, as he constructed the filters that would narrow down the voluminous data set to just the flight in question.
“Got it,” he said with some satisfaction. “Let's see, automatic transmit, looks like every three minutes.” He flipped through pages of routine messages. He glanced at the clock. 0138. He quickly paged to 0115. “Okay, here we are. Routine, routine, then here. Frank, when did you get that mayday?”
“0133.”
“Got it right here. Sudden decomp, right. Engine warnings, hydraulics issues, yeah, that figures. Engines spooling down, angle of attack bending down. That must be when he descended. Huh. Code I've never seen before. Then nothing. That was on the HF. SatCom? Nothing. Damn. Out of VHF range, too. Looks like she just stopped transmitting.”
“I'm calling to other airliners for visual,” said Frank. “They're reporting meteor activity. Sky lighting up like a laser light show.”
Frank turned to his boss. “Burning slick on the ocean surface. They're gone.”
The TRACON supervisor punched the large red button labeled ISOLATE on his console. Throughout the complex, external doors were released, swung shut, and locked. Elevators returned to the ground floor, opened their doors, and turned themselves off. The fire doors that led to the stairwell latched, and their motion sensors became live. Nobody was getting out of the Center until the boss or someone higher than himself released them.
***
The cable provider had warned that this day was coming. They were down to the last geostationary satellite in the sky. The number of television channels available suddenly became a matter of transponders and ratings, cash flow and short-term benefit. Throughout the country, network engineers worked frantically to erect microwave relays to carry telephone and cellular traffic that had previously been bounced off of satellites.
The chunk of stone was nothing special. Throughout its two and a half billion years as a solid object, it was alternately baked by the sun during the two-week lunar day, frozen when the Moon rotated away from the sun, and impacted by the ejecta of inbound meteors large and small. Dust grains traveling at twenty kilometers per second exacted a slow but inexorable erosion on the rock. There was still plenty of mass left to it when it the most energetic event since it had solidified from the molten globe propelled it into space.
It had been falling towards Earth, the mother planet, for three months now. Its orbit around the Moon turned chaotic. Large masses ripped off the surface of the Moon, pulled on the rock, perturbing its orbit. Now, it was well beyond the Earth-Moon Lagrange point, and was headed towards the Earth.
The television distribution model that had held ever since Telstar bounced signals across the Atlantic Ocean ended when the three-and-a-half-kilogram stone drilled right through the DBS-57 geostationary satellite at better than six miles per second. The main computer was crushed, the star pointing telescopes were shattered, and the fuel tank that assisted the in-satellite station-keeping went up in a very short-lived ball of flame.
With no warning at all, the last television signal from space ceased with the destruction of the DBS-57 satellite.
Worse, the fragments from the disintegrating satellite also disrupted the nearby GOES-44 satellite, shearing off antennae and crushing the engine bell of the small, station-keeping rockets. A hurricane-following sensor suddenly died during image transmission.
In a single day, the world was transported straight back to the world of 1940. The loss of the satellite television hurt, but television was already falling back on fiber or microwave link for transmission. The destruction of the last undamaged weather satellite was far worse.
No longer would Hawaii get timely warnings about tropical storms. The Caribbean Islands used to get detailed imagery warnings about incoming storms as much as five days out. Automated buoys reported their weather data through satellite transceivers. No longer. Hurricane forecasts of twenty-four hours, or even less, in advance of the storm became the norm.
***
The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the owner and operator of the GOES satellite constellation, shrugged his shoulders at the next Department of Commerce executive meeting.
“Secretary Magness, there's really nothing that we can do about this. Frankly, I am surprised the GOES constellation lasted as long as it has. We've been losing satellites ever since the Moon exploded—everyone has. Even replacement missions get ruined before they get to a point where they can release the satellites from the rockets that launch them. Rumors are that the nuke missiles are having the same problem, and the Bavarian folks resist launching much further than the hundred KM line.
“I don't like it any better than you do, sir, but we cannot build a satellite robust enough to remain in geosynchronous orbit for any useful length of time.”
Secretary Magness shook his head. “I know—I've seen the vehicle mortality figures. But that's not good enough. I want an answer. I want something I can take to the President and tell him that we're taking leadership in the satellite gap. Now that GOES is gone, how are we going to predict hurricanes?”
“The way they did in 1940, sir. Ship reports.”
“What? Ship reports! We don't use those for anything except confirmation.”
“Exactly, sir. Right now, there's a tropical wave coming off Africa. We know because we have data from the Moroccan Weather Service. Once that wave's off to sea and has cleared the Azores, it becomes essentially invisible. We don't know the first thing about it, unless a ship passes through a part of its path.
“I'm worried, sir. There are sections of the Atlantic where there are no ships and there, we are blind. Something pops up outside shipping lanes or aircraft routes, we won't know what happened to it for at least three days. A lot can happen in three days.”
Secretary Magness fumed. “I don't like it. I can't go to the President and tell him to wait three days for some gully-washer to make its debut. You have to come up with something a lot more sophisticated, Mr. Chan, and fast, otherwise, you're not going to last long in your job.”
***
The train was making good time as it rolled on over the great plains of Canada. The people in the dome cars saw it first, a glowing ball headed downward like a bright thread of light. The bolide increased its brightness a thousand-fold as the meteor dug deeper and deeper into the atmosphere. After several flashes of brilliance, the bolide went out—proof that the meteor was traveling slowly enough to escape incandescent friction heating, but it was still going fast enough to deliver a shattering blow.
The entire process occurred in an eerie quiet, with none of the sonic booms which normally accompany incoming bolides. The passengers, staring out the all-glass domes atop the cars, saw nothing after the
bolide passage until the multi-ton rock slammed into the mountainous dike high above the track.
Millions of tons of rock rained down the sides of the vertical dike, crashing onto the slopes of scree that had gathered at the bottom of the hills. The scree was also unstable, but there had never been a large enough disturbing force to mobilize the shifting rock on the top of the pile. That force had come.
The falling rock rebounded off the piles of scree, creating an avalanche composed entirely of rock. The dome car passengers watched in horror as the rippling clouds resolved into thousands of bouncing, fragmenting, hurtling boulders racing straight towards their train.
In the seconds they had left, they regretted only those moments of joy that they had not grasped when they had the chance to. They held tight to their loved ones as the enormous boulders pulverized them and the train, then buried it below dozens of meters of granite.
Someone Set Up Us Da Bomb
Aboard Perseus, October 22 2084, 0351 GMT
Eighteen days later, the Perseus, still not completely fitted out, turned under the impulse of the hydrogen-oxygen thrusters to point at a precise location in the sky. All human activity ceased, and the sixteen men lay in their acceleration couches in full vacuum suits, with helmets closed and locked.
Jeff fretted, and Scott obsessively checked the engineering controls. Mickey's couch had the communication board in front of it, the slender thread of the comm laser connecting him with the Moon and McCrary. Ragesh was reading a script to the radio link to JPL, despite no contact in the previous nineteen months.
Roger Smithson and Michael Standish's couches were the center of an array of monitors; their helmet headphones relayed channels of information from throughout the Perseus.
And Ivan Peltyn found himself at the controls of the most unique propulsion system ever designed by man. The familiar controls for attitude control on all three axes were there, but a much more ominous control was dead center. “Bomb Injection Rate” it was labeled, and it varied from zero to ten BPM, or Bombs Per Minute. Never before has one human been in control of so many nuclear warheads, each one-half the size of the one that devastated Hiroshima. There were two thousand bombs in the automatic loaders.
Michael took the role of Launch Control for this most unique event.
“Navigation, status?”
Benjamin Zabor did a rapid check of his readouts. “Perseus' attitude is within specs. Nav is go for launch.”
“Reactors?”
“Nukes are go,” said Duane. “Heat exchangers are at max, cores and pumps are off until after shock wave passes.”
Michael continued down the checklist, verifying every important category for the launch. He saved the most troublesome category for last.
“Engineering, status of the ullage dampers?”
Jeff grimaced. “They should work as designed, Commander. I'm still worried, though. Fluids are in the launch configuration, internal power at maximum, pumps standing by.”
“Noted. Go for launch?”
“Engineering go for launch.”
“Propulsion, you may launch when ready.”
Ivan looked over at Niall. “Okay, physicist. You want the glory?”
Niall shook his head. “No, you do it, I've got too many things to watch here. Reactors, bomb feeders, plus the gauges on the cup. Besides, you Ruskies have been itching to punch off a nuke for decades.”
“Nyet kulturni,” muttered Ivan as he removed the interlocks on the panel. He silently mouthed a prayer, then toggled the intercom. “Firing first bomb in ten, nine, eight...”
“Why not just go from three?” groused Niall.
“...three, two, one, fire.”
A low, gong-like tone sounded throughout Perseus as the first bomb detonated within the cup. The surfaces of the cup immediately heated to several thousand degrees, causing the outermost few centimeters to flash into vapor—vapor that the furiously radiating fireball at the center of the cup kept pushing against the surface of the iron. Thus coupled, the pressure of the vapor continued to rise until the fireball died down, after which the gaseous steel and nickel rushed out the hole in the lid and into the vacuum of space.
The entire detonation sequence took less than five seconds, and the force imparted to the Perseus was large, sudden, and unstoppable. Without some kind of damping, the rebounding shockwaves would have shaken apart the awake crew. It was far more important to protect the crew who were in hibernation. Any significant force would have shattered their cryogenically frozen bodies. Thus, the ullage dampers.
The entire aft hollow space was filled with tanks formed from the leftover parts of the original asteroid that made up the Perseus, and filled with the melted ice from Eighty-two. The tanks were fitted with baffles on pistons and connected to the central shaft of the cup. The tanks were a massively scaled-up version of an automobile shock absorber. The sloshing of the water through the baffles served to spread out the thrust applied to the Perseus, so that by the time the force was felt by the awake crew, it was far below the danger limit to the cryogenically frozen crewmates.
“Thrust levels have returned to zero,” said Benjamin.
“Status check,” called Michael. One by one, the various departments checked in.
“We will pause while Harel goes to check on our snoozing colleagues as well as Hydroponics. The next shot will be in twenty minutes.” Michael toggled Jeff in Engineering.
“Yes, Commander?” said Jeff. “Looks like we're in the ballpark as far as the force vectors are concerned. We pushed within three arc-seconds of dead center. Guess I was wrong about the ullage tanks. I'd like to get a camera and light into the central cavern and see if there are any leaks. I don't see any here, but a pinhole can balloon to a full tank failure in an instant.”
Michael rode him down. “Hang on. We still have those pipes for water injection into the cup?”
“Yeeees,” said Jeff. “I’m not sure I'm going to like what comes next.”
Michael laughed. “Just hold your horses. I don't want a cup full of water. I just want a few centimeters washing down the walls and bottom plate of the cup when we set the next bomb off. I am looking at the camera overlooking the cup, and it seems there's a hell of a lot more scouring than I'd like.”
“We've got a minimum of fifty meters of annealed iron-nickel on all sides. We can afford to lose three-quarters of it and I'd still certify it as safe for flight.”
“You're worried about cold water on hot iron.”
“Well, that, and polluting space with radioactive steam.”
Michael's voice dropped a half-note. “And I'm worried about getting home. You know how tight the timetable is. I felt that push from the last bomb. Benjamin's working up the numbers now, but just from my panel, it's not enough. We have to figure out a way to couple the bomb output to thrust a hell of a lot better, and I think water is the way to do it. Humor me on this next shot, will you? Ten seconds before ignition, put enough water in the cup to equal a few centimeters on all surfaces.”
“And that's an order, I suppose,” said Jeff. “I'd like to log my concerns in the Engineering log, though.”
“Fine. But make sure that water's there.”
“Wilco. Engineering out.”
***
Jeff set the controls for a water curtain inside the cup, wondering as he did so if his worst fears would soon be realized.
A nuclear bomb going off in space is far different than one going off in the Earth's atmosphere. There are three main effects from nuclear explosions: blast, radiant heat, and ionizing radiation.
As far as those on the Perseus were concerned, ionizing radiation didn't matter—the entire explosion was contained within the cup, and all of the vaporized bomb debris was exhausted backwards, away from the ship, leaving behind only a shell of radioactive iron and nickel on the surface of the cup. Gamma rays from the explosion had at least three walls of fifty-meter thick steel to pass through in order to get to any humans. The radiation meters insid
e the living area of the Perseus never even flickered off the zero peg during the explosion.
Blast was an extremely minor effect. In atmosphere, the X-rays from a bomb blast heat the surrounding atmosphere and transmute their energy into a nuclear thunderclap. In the vacuum of space, the only physical matter near a fireball are the vaporized components of the bomb itself, at best a minor force.
Radiant heat was the most important effect. X-rays from the fireball flashed into the nickel-iron substance of the cup, heating the surface layer and vaporizing it. Continued heating from the central fireball had the effect of driving the vapor up against the walls and floor of the cup. Heat transformed into a hard push on the cup, and through the ullage dampers into the rest of the Perseus.
With a surface layer of water, though, the X-rays would be more thoroughly coupled. Flashing water to steam to plasma used less energy than vaporizing iron, so the vapor layer formed earlier, compressed more, and shoved the Perseus harder, faster, and longer. However, there could be too much of a good thing. Too much water would mean too much high-pressure plasma trying to escape the cup.
Jeff imagined the worst-case scenario. A cup with too much water in it, and a bomb detonating inside. The daydream abruptly consumed him:
The water immediately flashes to incandescent plasma, and frantically tries to vent its overpressure to the vacuum of space. Asymmetric heating, impossible to avoid, sets up huge whorls and eddies in the escaping flow. Vast stresses are applied to the walls of the cup, inducing cracking. The shove of the central cup cylinder is not uniform, causing the ullage dampers to be stressed unequally. One tank shatters, spraying water into the vacuum of the aft cavern. The other tanks have to cope with suddenly altered and off-center forces. A piston snaps in another tank and spears through the side and into another highly pressurized tank. The central cylinder bottoms out against the fifty-meter wide rim of the aft cavern, resulting in a large shock to the entire spaceship.
Dead Men Flying Page 22
