Burnout: the mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 (3 page)

"Hm," Jones observed, "pretty messy."

"Looks more like a smudge to me," Brown agreed.

"Well, we just don't have enough data yet," Anders pointed out. "You only have, maybe, a hundred or so data points for it to work with, if that. If we had more, say on the order of four or five hundred, we'd likely start seeing a distinct pattern emerging. At the level of a thousand or so data points, we'd have a clear cut solution."

"Doctor Anders," Brown began, "we were wondering, since you are already headed to the States to work with the Very Large Array, if you would be willing to, in your spare time with the Array, help us add to the database?"

Anders wondered for a moment how Brown knew of his impending session on the VLA, then remembered these were government agents; they had probably thoroughly investigated him before ever approaching him. "I don't see why not," he consented, "as long as I get credit in any paper that gets published."

Brown and Jones raised eyebrows, and Jones answered mildly, "Of course, Doctor."

The food came, and their conversation drifted onto innocuous subjects, most notably the poor performance of the New South Wales rugby team in the State of Origin match against Canberra, as the three men tucked into their dishes. When the waiter arrived with the check, the two G-men took it, Jones flipping a government credit card down onto it.

As the three men exited the restaurant shortly thereafter, carrying their various briefcases, they paused at the window of the martial arts school next door, watching the kung fu class underway inside. In an idle tone, Jones tossed off, "Doctor, have you ever practiced martial arts? Just wondering…"

Anders nodded with a shrug. "Yeah, did some karate, way back when."

"Really?" Brown responded curiously. "How far did you get?"

"Oh, I made it to purple belt before I ran out of spare time. Won my belt level in a few tournaments, sparring." Anders beamed in recollection. "Sensei said I was pretty good if it came to a scrap."

"Not bad," Jones noted, impressed. "You keep it up?"

"Well, I don't have a regular studio anymore; I travel too much," Anders admitted. "But I still try to practice the katas, and I spar with a bag. It's a good way to stay in shape, and I don't have to have a gym handy."

Brown and Jones glanced at each other behind Anders' back, and nodded, satisfied.

* * * *

As Anders arrived at his car, the agents handed him a small packet. "Contact information," Brown murmured, by way of explanation.

Anders nodded and began searching pockets, looking for a business card. "Don't worry," Jones waved him off, "we know how to reach you, if we need to."

"Oh," Anders answered, nonplussed and more than a little uncomfortable.

"It's all right," Brown chuckled in sympathy, reading his expression, "we aren't following your actions that closely. We just needed to verify we could work with you. You were appropriately vetted, and you checked out. End of story. But we did end up with all your contact information as a result."

Anders nodded again, their statements confirming his earlier suspicion. "Well, I'll let you know what I dig up as soon as I find anything."

"We appreciate that," Brown said. "Oh, when you get to New Mexico, be sure to contact your friend Carl at Cornell, and ask him for a copy of that analysis software he's been developing. We'll grease the skids for you. Our analysts indicated that would be a very good tool for work on this."

Anders grinned appreciatively. "Cool. Sounds great."

"Oh," Jones added, tensing in mild trepidation, his face tightening, "you might expect a package or two to be waiting for you, too. And… please forgive us, Doctor… but we've arranged to have a few little modifications made to your recreational vehicle--purely for safety's sake. Not everyone cares for the Department of Defence, or those who work with us, I'm afraid. You know how it is."

Anders nodded his approval, failing to grasp exactly what the two agents were implying, and therefore, unconcerned. "I figure you blokes are just doing your jobs."

"Thank you, Doctor," Jones said in relief. "That's more appreciated than you know. We have authorization to provide you with whatever you need to perform this study for us, including a… special bank account, should it be required." Jones handed a credit card to Anders, who studied it for a moment, curious.

"Uh, gentlemen," Anders offered quietly, "I don't have a graduate assistant, let alone one named…" he glanced at the card, "Todd Wilson."

Jones and Brown smirked at each other. "Let's just say, you do now," Brown offered, with a knowing wink. Anders caught on.

"Damn," Anders murmured, impressed. "Remind me to work with Canberra more often."

"We will," Brown chuckled, and the two men left Anders, headed down the street.

* * * *

Jones got into the driver's seat, and Brown took the passenger side of the dark government vehicle. But instead of starting the ignition, they sat in contemplation for long minutes. Brown took out his palm computer and studied its readout. "Did it get anything?" Jones asked, seeing what his partner was doing.

"No," Brown answered quietly. "No surveillance. No cameras, audio bugs, nothing."

"Good," Jones murmured, satisfied. "Until we get a handle on who in the government is on which side, it's probably best to keep that little thing handy."

"You think we can trust him?" Brown wondered.

"Yeah, I do," Jones noted calmly. "He's got a good reputation as a researcher. He hasn't yet understood what we're really asking, but he will."

"And then we need to tell him," Brown declared.

Jones nodded agreement. "And then we need to tell him. Meanwhile, we have to keep our own bums clear, or this whole thing will be shut down faster than a pub at closing time."

"You've got that right, mate," Brown agreed.

Jones started the car, and moments later, they were headed out of Sydney, back to Canberra.

* * * *

On his way out of Chinatown, Anders found himself increasingly annoyed by a tailgating local in a black Subaru. "Dammit," he cursed under his breath, "if this bloke follows any closer, he'll ride up my exhaust pipe. Never mind if I have to stop fast."

Just then, as if conjured by Anders' thoughts, an elderly Korean man tottered out into the dark street.

"SHIT!" Anders exclaimed, hitting the brakes hard and desperately praying that both he and the tailgater would manage to stop in time. The old man glanced up, seeing the approaching vehicle, and froze in panic. Everything seemed to go into slow motion, and Anders wrestled with his automobile to avoid the jaywalking pedestrian without going into a skid. The air filled with the sounds of tires squealing.

When it was all over, Anders' vehicle had come to a stop at an angle, in the wrong lane; the tailgater behind him missed him by inches as that car stopped straight, and the pedestrian scuttled back to the sidewalk. Fortunately, there had been no oncoming traffic at that late hour of the evening, or matters might well have gone ill. The tailgater eased by and continued on his way. Anders swallowed his heart back into his chest before beginning to maneuver his car back into his lane, where he continued on to his destination.

Chapter 3

As Crash watched the last of the sparks fade in the eastern night sky, his mind drifted back in time.

The experimental craft was coming down. No power on earth could prevent that now. Crash watched in horror from the control center, unable to turn away, as it nose-dived for Earth. Somehow, though, some part of Crash's brain kept him speaking coherently, talking his buddy through efforts to control the runaway bird.

"Jet, get your smash up…"

"Trying… Crash," Jackson gasped into the comm, fighting the g-forces as well as the damaged craft.

"Good job, good job. Get ‘er nose up," Crash instructed, examining the craft's descent with a practiced eye. "Little more… little more…"

"Damn hydraulics. There… that… enough?" Jet's panting was audible as he wrestled the recalcitrant controls.

"Yeah, buddy, that oughta do it. Can you hold ‘er there and still trigger the eject?" Crash wondered, apprehensive for his friend.

"Think… so…but… I can… hold it… get ‘er down smooth…"

"NO, Jet!" Crash shouted into the mike, desperate to talk Jackson out of that idea. "It's not worth it, pal. She's comin' down the hard way whether you hold it or not. You got next to NO control surfaces, and NO LANDING GEAR. Get outta there while you still have enough altitude!"

The cool, calm voice of the colonel in charge of the project interjected then, sounding clearly over the comm. "Major Jackson, this is Colonel Lorentz. Eject. That is a direct order."

"Yes… sir…"

Thank God, Crash mouthed absently, his eyes still glued on the crippled bird. The colonel was a good man. He cared about those mechanical birds, had once been a pilot himself, but he cared more about his people than about the machines they flew. Crash tensed for the distant sound of the ejection pyro.

He heard it--and something else: The sound of Jet's scream, high pitched and pain filled, cutting off mid-sound as the ejection seat severed the comm and took him away from his aircraft. Crash cringed despite himself, wondering what, exactly, had happened, and how serious Jackson's injuries were.

Crash's eyes snapped to the small black speck that hurtled from the experimental, as he steeled himself against the sights and sounds of the aircraft as it obliterated itself on Mother Earth, and watched the white canopy of Jet's parachute billow in the wind as it drifted down. He keyed the mike.

"Colonel, Major Murphy. Permission to--"

"Go, Crash," came the quiet reply. "See to it he's properly taken care of, and report his condition back to me."

"Wilco, sir," he replied, gratified.

And Crash was off, leaping into a waiting Jeep and flooring it across the dry lake bed, toward the descending ‘chute.

He pulled up in a cloud of dust beside the ejection seat at the same time as the emergency vehicles. Jet, still strapped in, stared up at him--or rather, his dark tinted visor did. He clutched his left wrist. Crash dropped to his knees and peeled off the helmet and O2 mask, to reveal Jet's eyes, large and dark in his drawn white face.

"Hey, buddy," Jet gasped, managing a weak grin. "Here's a lesson for ya, a damn important one: Never, ever hang onto the stick once the pyro triggers."

"Busted?" Crash asked, shocked, as he stared at Jet's wrist.

"To hell and back." He stared up at Crash, and Crash knew what he was thinking, because it was what they were both thinking: Was Jet's career as a test pilot over?

"Don't worry, Major," one of the medics reassured them just then. "We'll get ya patched up to fly again. Got my word on it…"

* * * *

The front yard of the comfortable two-story ranch house was deathly silent as the seven stood watching the last bright sparks sputter out in the dark heavens.

"Oh, dear God," Tracy whispered, horror stricken. "Scotty was the payload commander… and Carrie… and Pete…" Tears began to fill her eyes as reality set in. "They're… they're gone…"

"Dammit, Jet," Crash murmured, forehead creased in pain, "we made it all the way through ‘Nam together… then through test pilot training at Pax an' Edwards… now… this."

Ham snapped the cell phone closed and handed it to Crash. "You think this is any less dangerous?" he all but barked, his pet peeve having been triggered. "I figured y'all to know better. Hell, everybody thinks space flight is just routine these days. But think about it: Flinging seven human beings, on top of thousands of tons of high explosives, into an environment where they wouldn't survive a fraction of a second without layers and layers of protection, and bringing them back in a ship that comes screaming through the atmosphere at high Mach--when you look at it that way, you quit taking it for granted." Ham's voice was taut, serious.

Crash nodded agreement with a resigned sigh. "You're right, of course, Ham. We do a damn good job keeping these guys and gals safe. You know, since 1960, there's only been… what? Apollo One,
Challenger
… and now
Atlantis
. We bust our butts, but I know as well as you do that space exploration is never gonna be a hundred percent safe--no exploration of the unknown ever is. But, Ham, it's the complacency, the attitude of routine, that's the killer. That's the real reason I got out. I just got tired of fightin' it. When it gets into the general public, it's hard. When it gets into the politicians an' bureaucrats, it's even harder. But, dammit, if it ever gets into the Agency, we might as well all hang it up." Crash sighed again, as all too vividly he recalled why he had retired from NASA.

Hamilton replied softly, "We may be doing that anyway, now… once the media gets a hold of this. Come on, Tracy. You know the drill."

"Yeah. Let's go, honey," Tracy told Bob. "I've gotta get back to Houston, in reach of the MCC--" she glanced apologetically at Sally, "Mission Control Center--and at least check in. Sorry to break up the party, Crash."

"I'm about to break it up in a big way," Ham said as he helped Elaine gather her things. "This is unprecedented. Crash, they want you to come in, too. Independent investigator. The entry phase expert."

"How did I know that was coming?" Crash sighed into the darkness, wanting only to be alone with his grief for awhile. "Okay, Ham. I'll stow everything here and bring it on in," he capitulated with reluctance.

"Fine. Meet you at the Flight console."

* * * *

When Crash was escorted into the Front Room of the MCC, he ran headlong into a scene that only deepened his sense of unreality and depression. The flight controllers were in shock. Most of them had worked closely with the crew members for at least the last several years, and were in various stages of exhaustion, denial, and grief. The soft sound of men and women weeping permeated the rooms in the MCC. PAO had immediately discontinued live broadcast on the NASA Select channel as soon as an off-nominal situation had been realized; the windows into the observation area at the back of the control room had also been closed, and the controllers could give vent to their emotions in relative privacy. "Suits" wandered among the flight controllers, mission management putting aside their own grief for the time and going about the business of conducting discreet interviews with various console positions and gathering information on the nature and extent of the disaster. Other personnel searched systematically through the entire control center, confiscating console logbooks and other pertinent documentation, and locking down computer accounts so that potentially valuable information couldn't be inadvertently lost.

"Last time I saw the MCC in this much confusion was in ‘86," Crash murmured to Ham as he walked up to the Flight Director's console.

"That's because it was the last time we had a disaster of this magnitude," Ham replied, grim-faced.

The retired flight controller looked around for familiar faces. "Where's Freddy?" Crash suddenly asked with concern.

"Capcom is… in the men's room," Steve Greggs, the Entry Flight Director, told him. "He… well, he and Carrie were gonna… he'd just given her the ring… he's not in… good shape. Not in good shape at all."

"Damn," Crash sympathized. "Yeah. I copy. He's not--?"

"No. George is in there with him. We didn't leave him alone." Greggs nodded decidedly.

The men stood around the console, silent, at a loss.

"You lost a buddy on this one, too, didn't you, Crash?" Greggs finally mustered voice enough to ask him.

"Yeah… the commander, Jet Jackson. Jet was my pal from our Air Force days. They never would let us fly pilot and GIB together, though. Something about the call signs ‘Jet-Crash' bein' a real bad combination…" Crash smiled fondly in bittersweet remembrance.

Greggs chuckled once in response, then sobered, feeling awkward. "Sorry…"

"Yeah. Me too," Crash told him, hollow voiced, then glanced away. "Well, I'm supposed to be one of the investigators here, so I guess I better start investigatin'," Crash noted. "What's the word?"

"
Atlantis
came down in the Gulf, Crash," Ham told him then. "Roughly 250 nautical miles east-southeast of Galveston Bay. T-38s have already overflown the area, but it's too dark to see much. Recovery ships are en route under full steam; they're expected on site by daybreak. They'll send divers down, maybe attempt a rescue."

"Any chance of getting anybody back okay?" Crash said in surprise, as hope rose inside.

"You want me to be realistic?" Greggs responded, shaking his head. "Just following protocol at this point."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so," Crash mumbled, remembering the searing white fireball in the heavens. "So we play the waiting game?"

"Yep," Ham said. "GNC's over there. You can go start with the questions…"

* * * *

Thirty-six hours later, Crash was boarding an early morning commercial flight at Houston's Hobby Airport, en route to Huntsville, Alabama. The first pieces of wreckage had been recovered and were being taken to the Marshall Space Flight Center for analysis. Hopefully the flight operations recorder would be located soon, and the orbiter's status during the critical re-entry comm blackout could be determined. Meanwhile, Crash had copies of the GNC, Trajectory, Pointing, Flight Dynamics Officer, Track, Entry Support, and Navigation console log books for review, and copies of the exo-atmospheric telemetry as well.

He spent the flight time, as well as the layover in Memphis, reviewing the log books and launch video, to no avail. There was absolutely nothing in the logs or any of the video camera angles to indicate an off-nominal flight condition in either the insertion, or the final hours of the flight. By the time he had finished reviewing the last twelve hours of each log book, he had arrived at Huntsville International, and it was time to get a rental car and head into MSFC. The rest of the log books, and the telemetry, would have to wait.

Despite the bright, sunny day, traffic in and around the field center was practically nonexistent.
Looks like a ghost town around the center
, Crash thought with a sigh. Not surprising: The Marshall Payload Ops Control Center had been in charge of the Gaia-1 payload, and these guys had known the crew just as well as the folks in Houston had.
The roads may be empty
, Crash noticed,
but the church parking lots sure are full…

Crash checked in at Gate 9 and parked, heading straight in to Security. Security, in turn, notified his point of contact in Building 4203.

"Hello there, Crash," Jack Woodard's voice sounded over the phone, as the security officer began processing Crash's car pass and electronic key card. "Good to hear from you again."

"Yeah, Jack, same here. Sorry it had to be like this."

"Yeah. Listen, Crash, I'm sorry about Jet."

"Thanks, Jack," Crash sighed, "but he knew the risks."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make it any easier for those of us left behind. Marshall is pretty much at a dead stop right now. Well, except for the high bay receiving the debris. They're running around the clock on overtime."

"I can imagine. Just like last time?"

"Yup. Reconstruction's underway in Building 4619. Soon as they get you processed through, head on over there. I've got a meeting with the Center Director in a few minutes, then I'll try to meet you there," Jack said. "But don't hold your breath waitin' for me."

"Lucky you," Crash said ruefully. "I can guess what that'll be about. Glad I got out before I reached your GS level."

"You always did hate dealing with upper management," Jack responded, amused.

"Nah, upper management's fine," Crash replied, unconcerned. "Wouldn't be talkin' to you if that was the case. I just never trusted all that high level bureaucracy."

"Well…" Jack began in a strange tone, then abruptly broke off. "I'll see you at the high bay in a couple of hours."

* * * *

Crash held the key card to the touch pad, waited until he heard the click, then entered the small white locker room. Once inside, he donned a disposable paper suit, booties, hair cover, hard hat, and gloves, putting it all on over his khaki chinos and red polo shirt. Then he headed for the clean room area of the high bay beyond, pressing his feet onto the sticky floor to clean the bottoms of the booties, and passing over the air blower to remove any loose dust and dirt from his person as he traversed the airlock entranceway. Once inside, he stopped, overcome by a powerful sense of déjà vu.