Skywave

by K Patrick Donoghue

  “I thought we were speaking hypothetically?”

  “Right. Sorry. Assuming you knew a resupply probe was within ninety days’ reach, wouldn’t that escalate the urgency to reestablish communications with NASA? Without comms, there would be no way to guide the probe to your location to dock, meaning the slim chance you had of getting home alive would be gone.”

  “Yes, I suppose that would light a fire to reconnect.”

  “You wouldn’t have cared what band, and you would have tried every means available to you.”

  “Of course.”

  “And you would have kept on trying until the bitter end.”

  “There wouldn’t be a reason not to.”

  “So, why is it so hard to believe they wouldn’t have tried the EVA comms?”

  “Because NASA wouldn’t have been listening, Augie. Neither TDRS or DSN monitors HF.”

  “You’re wrong, Paul. Dead wrong. Goddard or Houston may not have been listening, but that’s not who I think the crew was trying to reach,” Amato said.

  Morgan stared at Amato the way one might look at someone who’d suggested the sky was green with pink polka dots. He held that expression for several seconds of silence before his eyes widened. “Atlantis.”

  “Exactly,” Amato said, pounding the counter. “Shuttle crews have been taking ham radios into space since 1983. Talking to schoolkids and radio buffs on Earth. You probably did it once or twice yourself. And don’t forget Mir! The Russians used ham radios, too!”

  “My God,” Morgan said. “Avery was trying to reach Dillon.”

  In late June 1995, the Space Shuttle Atlantis performed the first-ever docking with the Russian Mir space station. The copilot for the mission? Major Dillon Everett…the former Air Force Academy classmate of Lieutenant Colonel Avery Lockett, Cetus Prime’s commander.

  Morgan stood and walked into the kitchen. Hovering over the sink, he began to wretch. In between heaves, he said, “It’s not possible.”

  From the other side of the counter, Amato spoke with a sympathetic tone. “I know it’s a shock, but it’s more than possible. It’s probable.”

  Morgan snapped his head from side to side. “No, you don’t understand.”

  He wretched again, then turned to Amato, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. “Cetus Prime did survive the attacks. It did communicate with NASA. But not on HF…on UHF.” Morgan’s gaze drifted away from Amato as he continued to talk. “There was only one message, and it came through weeks after we lost communication with the ship, mid-July time frame. The message was garbled, couldn’t make much sense out of it. Still can’t.”

  “What? You heard from them?” Amato said.

  Morgan bent over the sink and vomited again. He had barely finished when he reared up and started to punch the wall behind the faucet. Chunks of drywall sprayed the kitchen as each wild flail rammed a new hole. Amato watched in silence as Morgan dispensed twenty-three years of pent-up rage on the diner’s kitchen wall. When it was over, Morgan slumped to the floor, hands bloodied, and began to sob. “They were my responsibility, Augie. Mine! And I let them down. I let it happen. I waited too long to warn them!”

  He wasn’t prepared to share it with Morgan, but Amato knew what had happened. The renegade Lieutenant General Timothy Ferris, head of the U.S. Space Command, had taken control of Cetus Prime’s computer system to lure the UMOs into a trap, expecting to test onboard EMP missiles against the electromagnetic creatures. The trap had failed and with it, Cetus Prime went dark.

  Despite Morgan’s self-admonition, from all accounts of people Amato had spoken to over the years, people who had been in Mission Control on that fateful day, Morgan’s actions stood tall. The man known as Skywalker among his peer astronauts had done more than any living soul to protect Cetus Prime’s crew, but his supply of heroism ran short.

  Amato walked into the kitchen and took a fresh towel from the shelf above the stove. Handing it to Morgan, he sat down on the floor next to him while the former astronaut cried into the towel. He felt awful for having dredged up such painful memories, especially given Morgan’s news.

  Cetus Prime had communicated with NASA in mid-July 1995 on UHF? It seemed to invalidate Amato’s theory. Or did it? While he strongly suspected Commander Lockett had tried to use the HF band to reach Atlantis or Mir, it was evident the effort had been unsuccessful. But just because it failed didn’t necessarily mean the crew gave up. Maybe they found a way to reestablish their UHF link later on? They would have tried to communicate by any means possible.

  Yet, from what Morgan said, NASA had not been able to understand the crew’s transmission. Surely, the space agency would have responded, even if to say, “Repeat message.” Perhaps the crew couldn’t respond, or perhaps they never received NASA’s response.

  They would have continued to try until the bitter end…broadcasting on any and every available channel at their disposal…including the HF band. Other Shuttle missions followed Atlantis, almost monthly, for years, and Mir was continuously manned for five years after Cetus Prime’s disappearance. Even receipt of a posthumous transmission of clicks would have at least provided closure for all involved.

  Left unexplained, however, was the fact that Callisto was in the opposite direction of a return trip to Earth. When formulating his theory, Amato believed this indicated Cetus Prime had not possessed the ability to redirect itself back toward home and instead had been swept into Mars’ orbit and flung away toward the outer solar system. This outcome didn’t negate the basis of his theory — the crew would still have tried every option to reach NASA — but it did point out how desperate the crew had been to even consider using the HF band transmitter.

  Amato looked up to see Morgan wiping blood from his knuckles, his eyes puffy and red. “I’m sorry, my friend. I didn’t intend to upset you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Morgan said, folding the towel into a square. “Besides, your theory explains a lot. Helps me understand their last transmission a bit better.”

  “It does? May I ask how?”

  “I think you’re right about them trying to contact NASA multiple ways,” Morgan said. “In their last message, they mentioned a VLF antenna. At the time, we thought they were trying to tell us to communicate with them via VLF band, that they’d constructed a VLF antenna. But we didn’t have a satellite capable of detecting a deep space VLF transmission in those days, and we couldn’t pick up deep space VLF on Earth. Too much interference in the ionosphere.”

  “A VLF antenna…”

  “Yeah,” Morgan said. “Then there was the transmission’s point of origin.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, it came from an impossible direction and distance. Hundreds of millions of miles away from Mars. In the middle of empty space. We thought it must have been a bogus reading, because there was no way they could have traveled so far, so fast. A trip of that distance would have taken more than two years, not two months.”

  “Oh, my God,” Amato said, a hand covering his mouth. He stood and paced for a moment, then turned back to Morgan. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Amato unlocked the restaurant door and hurried to the rental car, his bare feet splashing in several puddles on the way. He returned with his laptop, tracking red mud across the floor, to find Morgan seated at the counter. As he powered on the computer, the out-of-breath Amato said, “I know you don’t want to see this, but you need to see it.”

  A puzzled look dominated Morgan’s face.

  “The UMOs, Paul,” Amato said. “They took Cetus Prime for a ride!”

  12: FRENZY

  A3rospace Industries Command and Control Center

  Mayaguana Island, The Bahamas

  July 23, 2018

  The intercom chime stirred Kiera awake. Cracking one eye open, she rolled over and saw a blinking green icon on the wall-mounted touch screen next to her bunk. Below it, a digital display glowed with the time, 5:43 a.m. As the chime sounded again, she slid her hand from beneath
the pillow and tapped her finger on the blinking icon. She stifled a yawn and said, “Kiera here. What’s up?”

  “I need you up here, ASAP,” Dante said. In the background, Kiera could hear raised voices.

  “Something wrong?” she asked, yanking her head from the pillow.

  “Just get up here as quick as you can.”

  Kiera tossed off the blanket and sat up. “Okay, I’m on my way.”

  She tapped the intercom icon once again to end the call and then pressed a yellow icon controlling the cabin lights. A globe-shaped fixture above the bed began to glow a dim orange. She tugged off her tank top and reached for a hoodie draped over the desk chair next to the bed. Pulling on the sweatshirt, Kiera stood to search for the matching sweatpants, which she soon discovered under the bed. After sliding on the sweatpants, she slipped her feet into her sneakers and said, “Unlock.”

  With the edge of Dante’s voice bouncing around her mind, she exited her cabin aboard Rorschach at a brisk walk. Something was wrong. Her immediate thought — either a problem with the CUBEs had arisen or the UMOs had showed up again. When she’d left Mission Control at a little after 2 a.m. to catch a few hours’ sleep, everything was calm. The nine probes were lined up in a long row with engines running at ten percent capacity. Stray UMOs flew by here and there, but they seemed to shoot away as quickly as they arrived.

  As Kiera reached the bottom of the jetway, she quickened her pace to a jog. Thinking of the scheduled tasks for the day, she could not recall anything significant set to begin before 0900, so whatever was going on had to have caught the overnight Mission Control crew by surprise. Had there been a catastrophic failure? Had one or more of the CUBEs run into something in orbit?

  When she entered the elevator, a new thought crossed her mind. Maybe it had nothing to do with the CUBEs. Maybe it was related to the announcement? Had a reporter breached the compound, or worse, had either the Bahamians or American military invaded the grounds? Was Dante scrambling to transfer control of the probes to Ascension?

  The doors of the elevator opened and Kiera saw other off-duty station controllers dashing down the corridor toward Mission Control, panic on their faces.

  “Oh, shit!” Kiera took off running, too.

  She froze when she pushed through the control center doorway. Inside, bedlam reigned. Above the chatter, she heard Dante shout, “Go! Go! Go!”

  Kiera darted her eyes to the bank of wall monitors. Nine different video feeds were streaming, one for each active CUBE. On the main screen, a rear-camera view showed a CUBE’s instrument and comms array. Around it swirled a torrent of the UMOs. Below the image, a caption read, “Cam-2, CUBE-5.”

  On a screen to the right, another group of UMOs were spinning into a ball behind CUBE-11, the fleet’s backup command probe. To the left of the main screen, the forward camera of another probe, CUBE-4, showed debris racing by. The camera shuddered as the probe took a direct hit from a piece of the debris.

  Kiera ran for her control station, waving to Dante as she passed in front of him. He motioned to her to come closer, pulled the microphone bar from his mouth, and said, “Full-on UMO attack. Looks like we’ve lost two already, about to lose another. CUBE-11’s going for a ride like CUBE-1. Get jacked in, I’m activating the fleet program. We’ve got to get away from these things or the fleet’s toast.”

  Kiera gave a quick nod and turned to tap the shoulder of the boost engineer filling in for her at the FAO station. The boost engineer gave her a quick rundown of the situation, pointing to various metrics on the console’s computer screen. When the short debrief was finished, he said, “CUBE-11’s about to go green as fleet commander. She’s at fifteen percent power; Flight’s about to kick up all of them to thirty-five percent and trigger the fleet program. Good luck. I’ll be at Boost if you need me.”

  Kiera saluted and layered on her headset. She scanned the data again while she listened to the chatter from other stations.

  “Flight, INCO. Loss of signal from CUBE-5 and CUBE-3 confirmed.”

  “Guidance, Flight. CUBE-11 pulling away, speed increasing.”

  “FAO, cut power to CUBE-11 engine,” Dante said.

  The instruction surprised Kiera; she had readied the command to raise power to the other CUBEs. “Repeat, Flight.”

  “Cut power to CUBE-11! Quick, before it gets too far away,” Dante said.

  “Roger,” Kiera said. She cleared the previous command and clicked off CUBE-11’s engine. “CUBE-11 main engine stopped.”

  “Increase main engine power to all CUBEs on my command,” Dante said.

  “Roger, Flight.” Kiera turned to look at Dante. His eyes were on the bank of wall monitors. She turned to follow his gaze. As she saw the spinning ball of UMOs behind CUBE-11 begin to slow, she understood Dante’s plan. Once the spin ceased, he would activate the engines of the five other remaining CUBEs, creating a dilemma for the UMOs. Which one do we follow?

  “Guidance, prepare CUBEs to break out from HEO,” Dante said.

  This second command confirmed Kiera’s hunch. They couldn’t control the CUBE thrusters while in the ionosphere.

  “Roger, Flight. Heading?” Guidance asked.

  “Guidance discretion, just get us away from Earth,” Dante said.

  The UMOs’ spin faltered. The creatures began to dart about in confusion.

  “Flight, INCO. CUBE-9 instruments spiking.”

  Dante pounded the top of his console. “Guidance, heading set?”

  “Roger, Flight.”

  “FAO, MES all CUBEs.”

  Kiera clicked the blinking cursor and watched the engine speeds begin to climb on her console. “Flight, MES confirmed.”

  “Roger, FAO. INCO, give me Cam-2 feed, all CUBEs.”

  She glanced up at the wall monitors. As the engines increased power and the CUBEs changed direction, the video feeds for the seven active probes all cut to rear views. The remaining two panels were dark, showing only the digital label for each of the destroyed probes with the acronym LOS, for loss of signal, below each.

  As the active CUBEs adapted to their new heading, the orb of Earth filled the seven screens. All except CUBE-9. On its screen, the swarm of UMOS flashed brighter and the camera’s image of the probe’s instrument array shook violently.

  “Flight, Guidance. CUBE-9 not responding.”

  “Roger, Guidance. FAO, full power to CUBE-9.”

  “Flight?” Kiera asked.

  “Full power! Now!”

  Kiera clicked on CUBE-9’s settings and shifted her cursor to the engine power box. She typed in “100” and punched the enter button. “CUBE-9 set to one hundred.”

  “Let’s see how much power these bastards can take,” Dante said.

  On the other screens, the Earth rapidly shrank. Only one of the probes, CUBE-11, had any UMOs trailing it, but it wasn’t a spinning ball. They seemed disorganized, and many began to veer out of the camera’s view.

  “Flight, CUBE-9 LOS,” said INCO.

  Kiera looked up to see CUBE-9’s video feed go dark. Dante’s gamble had failed.

  “FAO, engine power to sixty percent, all CUBEs,” Dante said. “Mark CUBE-11 as CDR. Activate Fleet.”

  “Roger,” Kiera said, entering the combination of commands. “All CUBEs sixty percent. CUBE-11 is active commander. Fleet program activated.”

  “Cross your fingers, people,” Dante said.

  Dr. Dennis Pritchard’s home

  Bethesda, Maryland

  The cell phone on the nightstand began to buzz. Pritchard’s wife sighed and covered her head with a pillow, shaking the whole bed as she sought sanctuary from yet another interruption of her sleep. Bleary-eyed, Pritchard reached for the phone and slid from beneath the bedcovers.

  Exiting the bedroom, he looked down at the caller ID and answered the phone. “Hello, Helen. What now?”

  The voice on the other end of the line, equally as tired and frustrated, said, “Houston just got a call from NORAD. Amato’s CUBEs were attacked by m
ultiple swarms. Debris from the attack has already taken out two satellites, and the swarm attacked two others.”

  “Damn it,” Pritchard said, hustling down the stairs to reach his home office. “Were the satellites military or ours?”

  “Neither. Commercial. But the debris field is growing. It’s going to get worse,” Brock said.

  Pritchard closed his office door. “Has anyone talked to Amato’s people?”

  “Not yet. Houston tried to contact Mayaguana but couldn’t get through. Same with A3rospace HQ in Orlando,” Brock said.

  “What about Dr. Walsh? Did you try to reach her directly?”

  “I did. No answer.”

  “All right. I’ll call Amato right now.”

  “Dennis,” Brock said. “Don’t go yet. There’s more.”

  Pritchard collapsed onto his desk chair and rubbed his forehead. “Christ. What else?”

  “We still have tracking on CUBE-1; Amato’s people haven’t switched off the transponder code yet. It shot out of orbit again. I checked a number of the amateur sites. They’ve noticed it and have posted alerts. It’s only a matter of time before the networks pick it up. It’ll be all over the morning talk shows.”

  “But, he promised—”

  “Hold on, I’m not finished,” Brock said. “NORAD says they picked up multiple radiation signatures leaving orbit with CUBE-1. No one on the outside knows about that yet, but whatever Amato’s up to, it involves more than CUBE-1, and…our UMO-SAT closest to the attack tracked a large swarm following the CUBEs. Largest I’ve ever seen,” she said.

  The UMO-SAT was part of a top-secret network of high-Earth-orbit satellites launched to monitor UMO activity. The network was managed by U.S. Space Command but NASA had direct access to the live data feed.

  “I haven’t contacted Dr. Shilling yet, but I’m sure he’s already been alerted by Space Command,” Brock said.

  “Make sure he gets all the data,” Pritchard said. “And when you talk to him, find out if he’s got any further ideas about VLF, Dr. Walsh’s riddle about HERTS and Amato’s trip to the Moon.”