Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (61 page)

By the time the
Independence
made its rendezvous with Alpha, Commander Carson Blake had come to the same conclusion as the engineers down at the Cape. It was sheer luck that they hadn’t gone the way of the old
Challenger
.

Scott Rutledge met him in the access tunnel. “Damn fine piloting, Carson.” The Station Commander was all smiles as he congratulated the astronaut.

“I’ll tell you what,” Steph Grissom his co-pilot said, right behind him in the shuttle hatch. “This man bleeds ice water.”

“No biggie,” he said, shrugging. “It’s what they pay us for. Now if you don’t mind, do you think we could get your space monkeys to give Steph a hand getting unloaded? They want me to borrow one of your high-pressure EVA suits and go out and make an eyeball inspection of the oxidizer pumps as soon as you can get the spent HSRB cartridges pulled."

“No problem,” Scott said, punching in to the intercom. “All hands to the Docking Module for unloading. Looks like you guys get to eat after all."

Two hours later, the shuttle was unpacked and Carson was standing on the end of the station’s Canadarm feeling like a human suppository being pushed into the tail-end of the shuttle. They’d pulled the spent solid fuel cartridges and tossed them Earthward, and Scott was carefully easing the shuttle commander into the narrow sleeve.

“This feels a lot tighter than I expected,” Blake said. The tunnel was five feet in diameter and almost forty feet long. The pump manifold was all the way inside at the top and then through another two feet of piping. He carried a small inspection mirror on the end of a telescoping wand so that he would be able to see the fittings. Hopefully.

Scott slid him all the way to the end before he felt the need to swear. “Som-Bitch,” Carson said. “There’s oxidizer all over the primary manifold."

“We can see that on the video,” Commander Rutledge said. “Can you tell if it’s a blown pressure valve?”

“Negative, there’s too much floating around to be sure,” he said. “Hang on while I wipe some of it off.” He stretched his hand out and slid it along the pipe, trying to drag the thick liquid off the assembly. He felt his finger-tip snag on something sharp and heard the pressure alarm the next instant.

“Commander, we’re showing a pressure drop in your suit.” Hiroko Tamami came on the circuit from the Control Module. She’d been there monitoring his life support telemetry.

“Yeah, I copy that,” he said. “I cut my glove on a piece of metal. Looks like I found the leak though. We’ve got a split pipe.”

“Roger on that,” Scott said. “Let’s get you back inside before we’ve got more than a pipe to worry about.”

“Copy, I’m clear,” Blake said, feeling the manipulator arm pulling him as quickly as it could out of the shuttle’s engine tube. He clamped the leaking glove, making a fist and wrapping his other hand around it to try to slow the venting air. It was bad. Real bad. His fingers were already starting to go numb. And stiff.

***

Show Low Regional Airport, Show Low, Arizona:

General Marquez had been polite when he’d asked Takao Mito to explain why he’d changed his profession from Aerospace Administrator to Diplomat. He’d also been polite when he’d listened to him try to lie, but it wasn’t a skill that Mito had acquired, so he was terribly bad at it. The General knew.

He and his people had been the guests of the General at Camp Kryptonite almost all night, facing the gentle but persistent questioning of Marquez, and then the Secret Service agent that apparently was the original manager of the operation. Although Marquez had never overstepped the line of propriety, it was obvious that he’d been tempted.

Japan’s presence at Stormhaven was something that meant trouble, even if he hadn’t figured out why.

They’d been let loose at sunrise with a warning not to come back, and then escorted as far as the pavement. Their driver, who was actually from the Consulate in San Francisco, unloaded their baggage in silence at the airport's small charter terminal. Bowing deeply he turned and drove off without a word, his silence an indication of how deeply their failure had been understood.

Mito’s phone beeped as he watched the attendants loading their gear onto a cart and wheeling it out toward their jet. He answered the call without looking at the ID.

“Takao, I understand you have been denied permission to see Colton Taylor?” It was the Ambassador.

“Hai,” he said, wondering how he’d found out so quickly. “I fear that I have failed more completely than that.”

“How so?” Kuromori asked, his voice sounding gentle and sympathetic.

“Did you know that General Victor Marquez is in charge of the military-cordon around Stormhaven?” he asked.

“Yes, I had heard that,” he said.

“Did you also know that the General had been a guest of JAXA last year?” Mito said. “I spent several days showing him around our launch facilities.”

“No, I did not know that you were acquainted,” Kuromori said. “That is most unfortunate.” His voice carried the weight of understanding. “I should have anticipated this. The failure is mine.”

“I do not hold you responsible,” Mito said. “It was my failure to read the latest updates on the situation. If I had known that he was in charge I would have refused to come.”

After several seconds of silence the Ambassador said, “At this point it is irrelevant how we affix the blame, we must now assess the damage. How did General Marquez interpret your presence at Stormhaven?”

“He never once made an accusation of the truth, but I have to feel that he could not have misunderstood the nature of our mission,” he said. “There could be only one reason for the Director of JAXA to be there, and I am sure he saw that."

“The question now becomes, how the American government will react to this discovery,” Kuromori said. “I am afraid that this may have an adverse affect on Stormhaven’s chance of extricating itself from the predicament."

***

Chang Er Prefecture, Tycho, Luna:

Lin-Tzu stood outside the Prefect’s door gritting her teeth. She’d just spent the most uncomfortable half-hour of her life trying to defend herself from an unjust accusation. She’d recorded the unusual take-off of the American lander and had entered it into her log. Her orders regarding the American activities had always been explicit. Apparently though, they had changed, and no one had notified her. Now she was expected to call it to the attention of her superiors any time the United States did
anything
out of the ordinary, and not just when their activities brought them within range of Chang Er or Amundsen.

One of the radar technicians had known the new policy. He’d alerted Commander Feng and they’d quickly moved to issue her a reprimand. Her first since she’d been at the base, and most assuredly a terribly inappropriate mark for the Chief of Communications. Prefect Czao had been reasonable, and had listened to her argument that she’d never been informed of the changes, nor had she been aware of the Tsiolkovskiy test site. Certainly if she had been privileged with that information, she would have notified the commander.

Finally Czao had agreed to reduce the formal reprimand to an informal warning. At least then it wouldn’t appear on her permanent performance record. So she had won, but the burning in her heart and stomach refused to accept it.

She walked slowly toward the dining hall, her head down and her fists clenched. She struggled to let go of the anger, trying to release it with several deep cleansing breaths.

In. Out. Relax. A little better.

Again. In. Out. Relax.

When she got to the dining hall, it was crowded. Over crowded. It was a wonder that the life support ventilators were able to keep the air breathable. It was shift change, when those about to come on duty were finishing their first meal, and those that had just come off were getting their third. More than a dozen new bodies had arrived since the initial round of personnel for
Zhen-Long
. Most of them were construction workers, easily recognized by their exaggerated motions.

She grabbed a Meal Kit III, Beef Stir-Fry with Soy Noodles, and a Rice Wine from the dispensers and was abruptly smashed into by one of the newcomers. Fortunately her food and the wine were still in their unopened Mylar pouches.

“Excuse me,” the man said, leaping back and nearly vaulting over one of the tables in the middle of the room. Food and bodies went flying in all directions before someone grabbed him with enough force to stop his cascading series of tumbling pratfalls. She tried not to laugh as she watched him bow deeply in sincerest apology and shuffle, very carefully, out of the room. Presumably to wash at least a half-dozen meals off his uniform. There were widespread chuckles rippling through the hall.

“Lin-Tzu, join me,” someone called across the room in English. She looked in the direction of the voice and saw the Prefect’s wife waving. Not really who she’d wanted to sit with, considering where she’d just come from, but it looked to be the only table with a free seat. Forcing a smile, she made her way through the crowd, making sure to steer wide of the other flying elbows and knees.

“That was quite a feat of acrobatics,” she said in English, as Lin-Tzu got to the table without further mishap.

“Worthy of the Beijing Circus,” she said, sitting.

“I’ve been looking for you for weeks,” she said. “Have you been avoiding me because I am the wife of Czao Yeiwan?"

“No, not at all,” she lied. “I have been very busy.”

“I know,” she smiled. “You’re so very young to be in such an important position.”

“As are you, Madam Prefect,” Lin-Tzu said, pointedly emphasizing their difference in position.

“You’re not going to go formal on me, are you?” she said, rolling her eyes. “If anything you deserve your position more than I do mine. You earned it on merit, I got mine by right of marriage.”

“You flatter me,” she said, pausing before she added, “Becki.”

“You remember my Western name,” she said, grinning.

“Of course,” she said. “I was very impressed with your fluency in English. Mine is adequate, but yours is exceptional. Natural.” She sipped the rice wine and blinked in surprise. It was a new addition to their menu, and it was excellent. The package was color coded for consumption with Meal Kit III only. End of shift, and not while on duty.

“The other day I was wishing I had you in the Com Center. I was monitoring an American woman and I believe she was very upset with one of our pilots, but I could not understand several of the phrases she used,” Lin Tzu said. The warmth in her belly already smoothing her rough mood.

“What did she say?” Becki asked.

“As near as I could tell she called the pilot,
a person eating dinner and a factory worker,
” she said, shrugging. “It made no sense to me."

Becki raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “Do you remember her exact words?”

“Yes. She called him a rabbit-forking cork-sacker.”

***

ISS Alpha:

Carson Blake hung by the window watching Commander Rutledge and Sergei Titov repairing the ruptured oxidizer line on the
Independence
. They were doing his EVA. Fixing his orbiter. They’d been at it for seven hours and still had two more to go, if everything went well. Scott was easily the best spacewalker in the Corps, and he and Titov had racked up more hours outside Alpha than any crew in history.

Carson looked down at his blackened hand. Bruised and frostbitten to the point where he might lose two of his fingers. As it was his co-pilot would be sitting left seat and making the reentry in his place. He couldn’t use his hand on the stick. Trying to move his fingers, he grimaced in pain.

Outside, and out of site from the window, the astronauts had already unmounted the piping manifold. They’d salvaged some tubing from the partially completed TLS, using an oxygen tank as a form to bend it to fit. Then they’d managed to press the compression fittings into place with a pair of modified vice-grips. It was an amazing effort in weightlessness, but somehow the replacement parts were lining up correctly.

He listened to the chuffing sound of Scott breathing heavily against his helmet mic, straining to torque the fittings into place with an old-fashioned crescent wrench and brute force.

“That’s the last one,” he said finally. “
Independence
, let us back up a bit and then test it. Are you in place over there Sergei?” The Russian was in Number-Three Engine Tube while Scott worked in Number-Four.

“Da, Commander, I am in place” he said.

“OK, Steph, let’s pump it up and see if we got it,” Rutledge said.

“Activating primary starboard O2 pumps,” she said from the flight deck of the orbiter. “We’ve got pressure on the gauges.”

“Anything over there?” Scott asked.

“Negative,” Sergei said. “I see no evidence of leaks.”

“Then I think you’re good to go,
Independence
,” Scott said, appearing a moment later at the end of the tube. He twisted toward the view port and gave Carson a thumbs up. Untethering his MMU, he swung it behind his back and grabbed the tie-down strap to secure it to his waist.