Ancient Birthright (24 page)

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The vibration and noise had to be experienced. None of the descriptions of the initial liftoff had conveyed the sheer physical assault to the body and senses they were experiencing. Beldon slowly turned his helmet to look at Cindy in the acceleration couch next to him. He could see she had her eyes squeezed shut and was gripping the arm restraints as if her life depended on her hold.

“SRB burnout in five...four...three...two...one,” some of the pressure lifted from Beldon’s chest. “SRB separation, in three-two-one. Good SRB sep,” the orbiter pilot’s voice continued as he communicated with launch control.

“Control,
Endeavour
is throttling back, we have MECO,” the pilot Major John Rishly reported main engine cutoff. They were now in orbit and chasing the two solid rocket boosters that launched the day before. When they caught the boosters, it would be Beldon and Striker’s job to don their spacesuits, go EVA, and attach them to the orbiter. They had trained for the last five weeks for this task. Beldon lost track of the number of hours he’d spent in his spacesuit working in the training pool alongside Striker to move the simulated SRB’s into position and bolt them down to the retaining clamps. Cindy received extensive training in using the shuttle’s robotic arm to assist them. Once they had each booster close enough, she would grasp it with the manipulator and hold it in position, while they bolted it in place. Their last duty outside the orbiter would be to move the liquid fuel tank mounted in the lift-module to a position in the payload bay and lock it in place, then connect hoses into the fuel-system-manifold.

A day later, they were within three hundred feet of the SRB-fuel-tank module. The lift-module had acquired a slow tumbling motion when it achieved orbit. Beldon and Striker would have to use their maneuvering units to stop the rotation before they could begin their assigned tasks.

Beldon pulled on his insulated body suit in preparation for donning the remainder of his pressure suit. When he completed dressing with Cindy’s help, they ran through a full systems check. Cindy then helped Striker complete the same tasks.

Striker cycled through the airlock into the load bay first then waited for Beldon to join him. They strapped on the maneuver packs and disengaged from the storage racks before Cindy opened the bay doors.

At Striker’s command, Cindy started the open bay door sequence and began her pre-operations check of the arm. As the massive load bay doors opened, Beldon got his first look at Earth without the distortion of the orbiter’s thick windows. “My God, that’s beautiful,” Beldon said.

“I couldn’t agree more.” The two men stood transfixed, staring at the floating blue and white globe.

“If you two want to go sightseeing, take a tour bus. We have work to do and people and civilizations to save,” Cindy reminded them as she watched them on her video monitor.

“You ready for this?” Striker asked Beldon.

“Let’s see if what we learned over the past five weeks really works.” Beldon launched out of the orbiter load bay with a gentle puff from his MU. Striker followed within seconds and trailed Beldon toward the refueling module.

“How do we stop its spin?” Beldon asked.

“We match the spin and clamp on at the spin axis. Once we are both in position we use the MU’s to stop the spin,” Striker said.

“I’ll take the far side,” Beldon told him.

Bel waited for one of the extended lengths of SRB to pass then nudged his rear maneuver jets to send him across the center of the spinning assembly. He took his position directly opposite Striker and centered himself over the point on the assembly that was the spin axis. “Ready,” he reported.

“Start matching spin, now,” Striker called.

Beldon used two of his maneuver jets to match the movement of the module. When his motion matched the modules exactly, he moved forward and gently grabbed the support frame. “Contact,” he reported as he clamped his maneuver unit to the frame so he could use his hands.

“I’m ready,” responded Striker, “on my mark let’s try slowing the spin. Three...two...one mark.”

Beldon activated the maneuver jets to begin damping the spin. “It’s working, but this is taking a lot of our maneuvering charge.”

“Just keep going, and let’s see if we can get this pig stopped. Make sure you have enough propellant left to get back to the orbiter.” They had the motion slowed, so the assembly made a revolution once every five minutes before they had to break off and return to recharge their MU’s. The schedule listed the spacewalk for four hours. They’d already used two and hadn’t even gotten the first booster in position.

It took another fifteen minutes to stop the rotation. The first SRB locked into position as if it knew it was coming home. The second reminded Beldon of an unruly two-year-old. Every time they almost had it in position, it twisted or squirmed out of alignment. Striker had almost lost a hand and possibly his life during the last attachment attempt when the SRB had flexed and slammed into its mount just as he was pulling the clamp open. Finally, Cindy ordered them to release the booster and let her move it into position with just the
Endeavour’s
robot arm. She held the SRB away from the orbiter for several minutes to let all the stray movements damp out. Then, with slow, deliberate moves, she lowered it into position. Beldon and Striker moved in to secure it before they returned to the lift-module that still held the tanks of liquid fuel for the main engines.

The aluminum fuel tank locked into the payload bay clamps. Hoses connected the fuel supply to the shuttle orbiter, so they could top off the onboard tanks as necessary, or send the fuel directly to the main engines. If the Russian engine could not be repaired, they would use this external tank to store what fuel they could pump from the damaged ship.

“All locks are in place and the transfer hoses are connected and tested. Time to get inside and light the fires,” Striker said.

“You don’t have to tell me twice. I’m so tired I could fall asleep in this suit,” Beldon said as he moved to rack his MU.

The robotic arm retracted to the stowed position, and the two large bay doors began closing.

“If you two will move quickly to your seats and make sure all luggage is stowed in the overhead compartment or under your seats, the pilot has clearance for takeoff. We’d like to thank you for flying Kluge Space-lines and please think of us for all your future space travel needs,” called the copilot Major Rebecca Jollye over the intercom. “Seven minutes to boost window. Report when you have your seatbelts buckled and tray tables in the upright and locked position.”

“Here we go troops. Let’s kick the tires and light the fires,” Rishly said as his voice rose with excitement. Beldon knew after training with the man for weeks that if there was one thing he lived for, it was to try something new, and this was definitely new and untried.

Rishly used the attitude thrusters to position the orbiter, and then punched the main engine ignition button when the countdown reached two seconds to go to their boost window. The main engines ignited with a soft kick in the backside. Rishly pushed the main engine throttles forward about a quarter of the way. He held the orbiter’s acceleration to match the profile shown on his video display. NASA had calculated the acceleration profile to move them through the mass of manmade objects in Earth orbit. Hitting any of the active or inactive satellites, pieces of space junk, or micrometeorites would end the mission in a spectacular fashion, at least to the viewers on Earth. From the standpoint of the orbiter’s crew, they would be dead.

Beldon shifted to settle his butt more comfortably.
Someone really needs to start a space cleaning business to remove the thousands of chunks of debris circling the Earth.

Rishly announced over the intercom. “We’re clear of the geosynchronous satellites zone. SRB ignition in five...four...three...two...one, ignition.”

Cindy gasped as the acceleration slammed her back into her couch.

Beldon inched his head around to look at her. “You doing okay?”

“It was just the suddenness of the acceleration that surprised me. I’m okay.”

It felt like hours to Beldon, but in reality only lasted two minutes. “Coming up on SRB burnout, now. SRB separation is clean. Our final speed is forty-nine thousand nine hundred miles per hour. We should catch
Nauka 7
in about one-hundred-sixty days. We could get there sooner, if we used the main engines to boost our speed but then we might not have enough fuel to match velocities after we decelerate,” Major Rishly explained. “So unless something changes with
Nauka 7
so that we need to get there sooner, we have less than six months to get to know each other.”

“The pilot has turned off the ‘No smoking/Seat belt’ sign. You are cleared to move about the cabin,” the copilot said in her best flight attendant voice.

Beldon watched as Striker unstrapped and headed to the flight deck. He turned to Cindy and motioned for her to unbuckle and follow him. He went to a computer terminal located against the bulkhead directly under the command deck and out of sight of Striker and the two pilots. Leaning close to Cindy’s ear. “I found this on one of my last training sessions.” Beldon activated the computer and clicked an icon. The Internet browser popped up on screen and indicated they had full access to the World Wide Web. “Since I found this connection, I’ve been writing a full account of everything that’s happened since before I made initial contact with the
Universe Explorer
. I found blogs at ‘Discover,’ ‘Astronomy,’ and ‘Sky and Telescope’ magazines. I’m going to upload the file I created to each magazine and wait to see if word about the
UE
and our situation gets out. It’s the only way I can think to keep our families safe and break the news of the
UE
’s approach to the general population without politicians, DHS, or the military taking over and trying to control the situation.”

Cindy leaned back and looked through the hatch into the flight deck. “Now’s the time. They’re in conference and not paying any attention.”

“Keep an eye out. I’m starting the first upload.” Five minutes later, Beldon had the story uploaded to the blog of each magazine and submitted it as a story for potential publication to several more. “If I have the chance, later...I’ll update the blogs as events happen and try to keep the people reading the blog up to date,” Beldon told Cindy.

Beldon closed out of the Internet browser, then took Cindy’s hand and pushed off for the Extended Mission Module accessible through the shuttle’s payload bay airlock. The EMM, modeled after the living quarters on the International Space Station, provided sleeping quarters, food and water storage, and its own airlock to the remainder of the payload bay.

“Is anyone hungry up there?” Cindy called as Beldon looked through the labels of the food and drink pouches.

Chapter-27

“I don’t like the way Iosif looks. He’s been on painkillers and tranquilizers way too long. It’s almost impossible to get food into him, and this is the last bag of IV TPN we have. I can keep him at starvation levels and stretch it out for maybe a week. Then I’m going to have to bring him down off the pain meds and see if we can get him to wake up to eat normally. Saigg says the
Endeavour
won’t get here for another one-hundred-fifty-eight days. I just hope he can hang on that long,” Nadya told the other two girls.

Katya flipped two switches. “I think the
Endeavour
may be close enough that we can talk to them directly. Try calling them, Anika.” Katya rerouted the transmission to the rear antenna array.

“
Endeavour
, this is
Nauka 7
, do you read me?”

“
Endeavour
, this is
Nauka 7
trying to make contact directly, do you read?”

Two minutes and a few seconds later. “Nau…ven, transmission is bro… nd ver… we..k. Miss..rol repo…s …ou are still twent…ve …llion miles ahead of u…”

“We copy
Endeavour
. Twenty five million miles separation and signal very weak. We’ll continue using the
UE
as a relay station.
Nauka 7
will try contacting you directly again in three days.”

“Rog… Nauk… 7,” responded
Endeavour
as an alarm horn began blasting.

“
Chert poberi
, the cabin pressure is dropping! Katya, start looking for the leak, I’ll be down to help in a minute!” Anika checked the emergency warning enunciator panel.

Katya was three-quarters of the way behind an equipment rack when Anika arrived to begin testing with a cloud atomizer, looking for air currents streaming toward the pressure hull leak.

“I found a small one,” Katya’s muffled voice said.

Anika floated to the buckled bulkhead and began a close examination. “Katya, come look at this,” Anika called as she focused on a line of rivets in the bulkhead. A crack was developing along the rivet line. The stress of the displaced fuel and engine section had apparently created the crack when she’d fired the attitude thrusters to slow down and change their course.

Katya extracted herself from behind the equipment and joined Anika. “That’s new since my last inspection this morning. We can spray it with the small amount of sealant we have left then tape several layers of heavy plastic over it. After that, I think we’ll need to make friends with whatever God seems most relevant.”

“Okay, do that, and I’ll contact the
UE
and then start researching prayer methods…,” Anika said.

Chapter-28

“Team Leader Garuu, we’ve just received a transmission from
Nauka 7
. They’ve developed a serious crack in their pressure hull. They have it patched for now but are out of sealant. Their oxygen supply has been reduced to two-hundred days, at most if they can keep the crack sealed,” Saigg’s radio tech reported.

Saigg paced the team office as Dantee watched him consider the information. “We send help?” she asked him.

“I don’t know if we can help. The planet-to-orbit, ship that can get there the fastest has such a small air lock. I don’t know if it would do any good,” Saigg said.