Skywave

by K Patrick Donoghue

  “I don’t want to go into details, but this trip isn’t a junket. Pebbles went through some trauma a little while back. She’s mostly recovered but there are some lingering issues we need to work out. So, this trip is part pleasure, part therapy. I’m not putting her on hold. Not for you, not for anyone, not for anything,” Anlon said.

  At that moment, Amato felt about an inch tall for his own selfishness. And in the time that had since passed, he hadn’t grown any taller. Yet, Anlon had offered a concession, one that Amato readily accepted.

  “I’ve got more comms gear on this boat than you have on your probe, I’ll wager. You need to talk, need me to look at something, I’ll tell you how to reach me before you leave. I can’t promise an instant response, and I’m going to be available sparingly, but I’ll do what I can to lend a hand.”

  With Anlon’s words echoing in his mind, Amato closed his eyes and said, “Now, if only I can get Paul Morgan to lend a hand, we’re in business.”

  11: WAKING THE DEAD

  Benny’s Burger Shack

  Hanalei Town, Kauai

  July 22, 2018

  The burger shack was open as far as Amato could tell. There were no cars parked outside, but he could see ceiling fans whirring inside the dimly lit eatery. He pulled into a space toward the back of the small lot and parked the rental car. Before stepping out, he checked his phone for messages and discovered he had no cell signal. Another casualty of the recent floods, perhaps?

  Above, the thick cloud cover obscured the Moon, leaving the town of Hanalei dark save for the lights of nearby shops and homes that lined the main road. As he walked toward the restaurant’s wood-planked steps, a misty rain began to fall. Around him, fronds of the lush foliage surrounding the shack rustled from a gust of ocean air.

  Amato crossed his fingers, hoping Morgan was still there. After the long drive from Lihue Airport to Hanalei, Amato had run into an unexpected snag. Many of the side roads off of Kuhio Highway were closed, including the street on which Morgan resided. Barricades in front of some of the streets announced “Road Closed Due To Flood Damage.” Other roads, including Morgan’s, had orange cones blocking the entrance with posted signs that read “Residents Only.”

  Risking the wrath of angry residents, Amato had climbed out of the car, moved aside the cones guarding Morgan’s street, and driven through. The road had been caked with thick, red clay and in spots the car shuddered from unavoidable potholes. In the darkness, he’d had to drive slowly in order to spot the numbered mailboxes at each driveway.

  When he arrived at Morgan’s stilt-supported house, he found it dark save for a solitary light above the front door. Despite the home’s unoccupied appearance, Amato had walked up the front steps and knocked, calling out Morgan’s name a few times.

  That’s when an elderly lady had appeared from the neighboring house and told Amato Morgan was still at work in Hanalei. After administering a brief interrogation as to the purpose of Amato’s visit, she gave him directions to the burger shack. She finished with stern instructions to replace the cones on his way out.

  Mounting the burger shack steps, Amato peered through one of its windows and saw Morgan, spatula in hand, tending to patties on a cooktop. The restaurant door was propped open, allowing Amato to see a middle-aged couple seated at a table watching a baseball game on a television hung from the ceiling. No sound emanated from the television. Instead, a Beach Boys tune blared above the sizzle of cooking food.

  As he approached a diner counter lining the breadth of the restaurant’s kitchen, Amato’s eyes focused on Morgan. It had been years since he’d seen him in person, and on that last occasion, Morgan had been a shell of the fabled astronaut known among his peers as “Skywalker.”

  It was a moniker Morgan had earned for a daring spacewalk to rescue an injured crewmate during a botched Space Shuttle satellite deployment in the late 1980s. At the time, Morgan had been one of NASA’s most experienced astronauts and commander of the ill-fated mission. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, sunbaked Texan with a relaxed country manner.

  But when Amato had last seen him at Morgan’s retirement party in 2010, the man had looked more like an emaciated prisoner of war, with stooped shoulders, pale complexion and vacant eyes. Some had said Morgan had withered from the long-term radiation effects of his three trips into space. Others pointed to depression associated with his move from active astronaut duty to a string of NASA “desk jockey” staff positions. A few, including Amato, knew the real reason for Morgan’s transformation.

  Morgan had been CAPCOM for the Cetus Prime mission, the man responsible for acting as the communications conduit between NASA and the ship’s crew. In this role, Morgan had been instructor, coach, advisor and friend to the crew throughout their training and the truncated mission. The loss of the ship and crew devastated Morgan. Amato was not privy to all the details of the mission’s final days, but thirdhand he had learned Morgan had been lauded as a hero for his desperate efforts to save the crew.

  Broken and bitter after the 1995 mishap, Morgan faded into obscurity until his retirement. So, it was quite a shock to Amato to find the fallen legend behind the counter of a burger joint tucked in a quiet town on the north shore of Kauai. Yet, the man flipping patties in front of him was no longer a broken man.

  With a long, braided ponytail of snow white hair and a Fu Manchu mustache of the same shade, Morgan’s deep tan had returned, as had his virile posture. Clad in a white T-shirt decorated with the logo of the restaurant, the muscular sixty-four-year-old tapped a sandal-covered foot against the floor while singing along with the refrain, “Ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann…” He looked lighthearted, happy…until he turned and saw Amato.

  The singing stopped. The red-faced Morgan took a step back, the rear of his board shorts nearly coming in contact with the hot griddle. Amato watched his reaction, unsure whether Morgan was angry, shocked or frightened. He stood there frozen in place, gaping at Amato, spatula dangling from his hand.

  “Hello, Paul,” Amato said.

  The words shook Morgan from his stupor, but he didn’t answer Amato right away. He turned back to the griddle to mind his customers’ meals. Over his shoulder, he said, “There’s some tables out on the deck. Wait there, I need to finish these up.”

  Amato turned in the direction of Morgan’s head bob and saw a doorway leading to a small patio at the rear of the restaurant. “Okay, no rush.”

  Minutes later, Morgan appeared through the patio doorway, wiping his hands on a towel. He approached Amato, one bushy eyebrow arched higher than the other. “What in the blazes are you doing here?”

  In an effort to lighten the atmosphere, Amato smiled. “A sudden urge for a Double Benny Burger?”

  Morgan’s eyes twinkled and he began to laugh, an open-mouthed cackle worthy of a drunk cowboy. “Well, you’ve come to the right place, Moon Man.”

  “Ah, so you’ve heard the news,” Amato said, rising to shake Morgan’s hand.

  “Couldn’t avoid it if I wanted to,” Morgan said. “It’s caused more of a ruckus ’round here than talk of our flood.”

  “Oh, I see,” Amato said. “I take it people have come to seek your opinion?”

  “What?” Morgan’s brow furrowed. “Ohhh, I see what you’re getting at. Nah, I’m just a cook to these folks. They don’t know about my past.”

  He turned and looked through the patio doorway at the couple eating. “Kinda like to keep it that way, if you know what I mean. That was then, this is now.”

  “Of course,” Amato said.

  “How’d you find me, anyhow?” Morgan asked, gesturing for Amato to sit. He pulled out another chair, turned its back to face Amato, and then straddled the seat, resting his forearms atop the chairback.

  The earlier drizzle turned into a shower, the rain raking the tropical flora surrounding the patio and pattering against the sloped awning overhead.

  “My assistant’s resourceful,” Amato said with a smile, raising his voice above the noise.


  “I’ll bet!” Morgan said, laughing. “She former CIA or something?”

  “No, nothing like that, but he has his ways.”

  “Well, I’m impressed.”

  A wind whipped up, spraying them both with rainwater. It felt good to Amato, given the long day and sticky night air. Morgan seemed not to notice. He stared at Amato and asked, “So, what’s the deal, Augie? All kidding aside, what are you doing here?”

  Knowing Morgan wouldn’t appreciate a second coy answer, Amato said, “I wanted to talk with you. About yesterday.”

  Morgan looked over his shoulder at the couple finishing their burgers and fries, then back at Amato. “I was afraid you might say that.”

  The wind kicked up again, this time redirecting a stream of water falling from the awning onto Amato’s head. Morgan laughed at the shocked look on Amato’s face as he jumped up from the chair, his golf shirt and khakis drenched. “Come on, let’s get you inside before I have to toss you a life raft.”

  When the rain tapered off, the dining couple departed, leaving Morgan and Amato alone in the restaurant. Morgan closed and locked the front and patio doors while Amato changed out of his wet clothes in the men’s room. He emerged wearing a Benny’s T-shirt and a pair of board shorts decorated with smiling, cartoon burgers and french fries, both compliments of the merchandise display by the front door. Barefoot, he walked across the wood floors carrying his balled-up wet clothes and shoes. Morgan teased Amato, “Oh, if I only had a cell phone, I’d take a picture and post it online. I can read the caption now. ‘While world awaits word from Amato, billionaire celebrates moonshot at Hawaiian greasy spoon.’”

  Dropping his clothes and shoes on a table, Amato said, “Trying to bolster my credibility, eh?”

  “We do what we can,” Morgan said as he walked into the kitchen. He returned moments later with a pail of soapy water and two mops. “First thing we need to do is wipe down the chairs and tables and then stack the chairs so we can mop the floor. You take that side, I’ll take this one.”

  “Excuse me?” Amato said.

  “You gotta pay for the Benny’s gear somehow. Just don’t slip on the wet floor. I don’t think Benny’s got much insurance,” Morgan said, cleaning off a table.

  “You’re serious,” Amato said.

  “Roger that,” Morgan said. “The quicker we clean up in here, the earlier we’ll finish the kitchen.”

  “The kitchen?” Amato said.

  “Uh-huh,” Morgan said. “Benny’s particular about the kitchen. We need to make sure it’s spotless before we leave.”

  Amato reached in the bucket for another rag. “Isn’t indentured servitude against the law?”

  “Nah, not here. Here it’s called ohana,” Morgan said, moving onto the next table.

  “I thought ohana meant ‘family,’” Amato needled as he swirled the rag over a tabletop.

  “Sorta. It really means a spirit of cooperation and teamwork.” Morgan stopped his scrubdown and looked up at Amato. “Look, you didn’t come all the way here, the day after you shocked the world, to shoot the breeze about the good ol’ days. You want something from me…so, show a little teamwork. We can talk while we clean.”

  The former astronaut extraordinaire returned to his work as Amato pulled out the chairs surrounding the table he’d just cleaned. As he wiped down the seats, he said, “You’re right, I didn’t come here to shoot the breeze. I need your help.”

  “What kind of help?” Morgan asked.

  “I’m taking my CubeSats for a ride beyond the Moon,” Amato said.

  “Yeah? Where to?”

  “Jupiter system.”

  “Jupiter? Why not Mars? It’s a helluva lot closer.”

  “It’s closer, but less challenging,” Amato said, reluctant to mention the true purpose of the mission.

  Finished on his side of the restaurant’s dining room, Morgan began stacking chairs. “Yeah, but if the news reports about your probe aren’t B.S., you could get to Mars in about a week. That’d make quite a splash.”

  “I’m not interested in splashes,” Amato said.

  Morgan burst out laughing. “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m serious,” Amato said, pausing in the middle of cleaning his last table. “If I’d had it my way, no one would have known about the Moon visit. In fact, we had no intention of flying there. It was just a shake-out test of our engine. It was supposed to stay in Earth orbit.”

  “Ah, a rogue flight director? Or did the probe decide to go to the Moon on its own?”

  “Neither.”

  “Then how’d the probe end up there?” Morgan asked, moving across the room to help Amato stack chairs.

  “It was pushed.”

  Morgan stopped stacking to wipe sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. “Pushed? What do you mean ‘pushed’?”

  Having eased into the conversation as benignly as he could, Amato took a deep breath and looked Morgan dead in the eyes. “UMOs, Paul. We ran into UMOs. They pushed the CUBE to the Moon…at almost twice the top speed of the engine.”

  As the acronym for the creatures rolled off Amato’s tongue, Morgan winced. For a moment he stood staring at Amato, then he shook his head. “That’s not something to joke about, Augie. It’s a touchy subject to me.”

  “I’m not joking, Paul. I have my laptop out in the car. I can prove it to you,” Amato said.

  “Keep it to yourself, I don’t want to see anything to do with those little bastards,” Morgan said, moving away toward the kitchen.

  “I think we’ve found them, Paul,” Amato said.

  With back turned to Amato, Morgan began to fill another pail. “Woohoo for you. They’re not that hard to find, Augie. Trying to get away from them is the challenge.”

  Amato moved to the kitchen entrance. Standing in the doorway, he raised his voice to be heard over the rush of water from the faucet. “I’m not talking about UMOs.”

  “What?” Morgan said, drowning out Amato’s words with a further turn of the faucet handle.

  “Cetus Prime,” Amato said in a near-shout.

  Morgan, hand still on the faucet lever, shut off the water. His face twisted into an expression that bordered between shock and disbelief. “Come again?”

  “I think we’ve located the ship. We think it might be intact. I’m sending my CUBEs to investigate.”

  “You’re out of your mind, Augie.”

  Amato approached Morgan. Standing beside him at the sink, he said, “We’ve picked up some unusual radio signals from Callisto. I think it might be a beacon from Cetus Prime. I know it’s a long shot, but there’s no other explanation that makes sense to me.”

  “Callisto?”

  “Yes. I know it’s a long way from Mars, and the asteroid belt’s in between, but—”

  “Callisto…,” Morgan mouthed, brushing past Amato.

  Amato turned to follow him out of the kitchen. “That’s right. The radio signals repeat every three minutes. They sound like clicks. We think the ship got caught in Callisto’s orbit after drifting through the asteroid belt.”

  Morgan stopped and turned around. “What band?”

  “Excuse me?” Amato asked.

  “What band did you pick up the signals on?”

  “HF.”

  “Your signals aren’t coming from Cetus then. The lowest-band antenna they had was UHF,” Morgan said. Gathering the pail and mops in the dining area, he started back for the kitchen.

  “Yes, I realize that,” Amato said, stepping in front of Morgan. “But you’re forgetting the EVA comms system.”

  “EVA comms?” Morgan said. “It was UHF, too.”

  “No. Not on Cetus Prime it wasn’t. I know that for a fact,” Amato said.

  “Augie, I’ve logged a lot of spacewalk hours. I know what kind of shortwave radios are used to talk to astronauts outside a spaceship.”

  “And I built the resupply probes for Cetus Prime, and I know the EVA comms equipment was swapped to HF to avoid interference with my doc
king system comms.”

  “You’re grasping at straws,” Morgan said. “Now, please, step aside.”

  “Not until you hear me out,” Amato said, moving to block Morgan’s path.

  “Out of my way, Augie.”

  Amato gripped Morgan’s arm. “Look, I know I’m opening up an old wound, but I wouldn’t have come here, come to see you, unless I felt strongly about the source of the signals. Let me say my piece, please. If you want me to step aside after that, I will.”

  The former astronaut sighed and lowered the bucket. “All right, but I’m telling you, there’s no way your signals are coming from Cetus.”

  “Just hear me out. It’s more plausible than it seems,” Amato said.

  After returning to their stools at the diner counter, Amato led into his theory by asking Morgan a question. “Hypothetically speaking, what if Cetus Prime wasn’t destroyed by the UMOs? What if the ship and crew survived for a period of time after the attacks? What would the crew have done?”

  “Augie, you’re treading into territory we’re not allowed to discuss,” Morgan said.

  “Humor me,” Amato said. “Theoretically, if you had been in their shoes, what would you have done?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on how bad of a situation I was looking at.”

  “Okay, let’s assume it was bad. Real bad. Ship hobbled, crew injured, communications out.”

  “I would have tried to stop the bleeding first. Crew and ship.”

  “Right, so comms would have been a secondary concern.”

  “Initially, yes.”

  “Would you have turned for home? Tried to get back to Earth?”

  “If I had power and the ability to control the ship’s direction? Yes. But, Augie, come on. Sixty-five million miles with an injured crew and a damaged ship?”

  “I know, I know. It would probably have seemed futile, but you would have tried, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “And you would have tried to sort out the comms on the way back.”

  “Most likely.”

  “Now, you would have known resupply drones were en route, right? For the scheduled trip home. As I recall, the lead return-leg probe was about ninety days away from Mars when communication was lost.”