Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (64 page)

***

Washington:

Al Stanley actually trembled standing outside the President’s office door. His hands were sweating, and he could feel his heart pounding like it hadn’t since the day he’d heard the news the first time. Three nitro, and still no relief from the pain. Staring at the floor, he waited for her meeting to end, trying to steady his breathing. “Does she know it’s urgent?”

“Yes, she does, Dr. Stanley,” Janice said, smiling even though her eyes were begging him not to drop dead in her office. “She left specific instructions to have you wait.”

The door opened and Secretary Worthington stood there, looking at him through his narrow blinking eyes. “Dr. Stanley?” he said, his thin and reedy voice strange coming from his monolithic mountain of flesh. “The President has a new procedure for appointments,” the Secretary turned and invited him into the office with a wave. “If you have an emergency that needs her attention, you need to bring it to my office, and then we will come together to present it. That way I can guarantee you won’t have to wait.”

“Ok, whatever,” he said, dismissing the new policy. “Hammerthrow may be dead. We’ve had an accident in orbit.” His mouth dried up as he said the words he’d repeated over and over again on the way to her office.

Sylvia sat staring at him. Not moving. A stone effigy to a dead moment in time.

“Excuse me?” the DHS Secretary asked. “What happened?”

“All we have is that ...” he paused, gasping as the knot in his chest tightened, “the Russian supply vehicle crashed into the ISS.” He sat down in one of the chairs facing her desk, struggling to go on. “The survivors are trying to fill us in on the damage, but it’s bad. It’s going to be a while before we can get it sorted out. Alpha is completely offline and radar shows at least one module may have torn loose.”

President Hutton laid her head down on her desk groaning, while Al slipped another nitro under his tongue and continued. “The only communication we have is with the construction crew that was outside when it hit. Their suit radios are very weak without the repeater in Alpha, so we have to wait for them to get over an antenna facility to talk to them.” Glancing at his watch he said, “We’ve got about five minutes until we get a signal.”

“Casualties?” she asked, her voice muffled through her arm.

“One confirmed, outside, but the station’s lost its atmosphere, so we’ve got to assume there are more. There were nine of the crew working the EVA."

“So that leaves eight unaccounted for,” she said.

“Yes, plus the three who’d just arrived on the
Independence
and were laying over for the TLS.” Al reached a hand across her desk to touch her arm, trying to be reassuring, but knowing that the hardest point was yet to be made.

“It doesn’t look like we’ve got any way to rescue the survivors before they run out of air,” he said

Al caught a deep breath, and sat back in the chair, looking over at Secretary Worthington and then back at the President. His vision was fading into a red fog of pain.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered between gasping breaths. He closed his eyes, leaning his head back and listening to the sound of his heart racing faster, and faster. Pounding louder in his ears.

And then there was silence.

***

The Tyranny of Time

ISS Alpha:

The lifeboat was a small independent vehicle designed for one purpose: making an emergency descent to Earth. It attached near the bottom of the station, slightly above the airlock that had taken the initial hit. A second lifeboat had been planned for the opposite side of the module, but it hadn’t been delivered. Not that it would have mattered anyway, the docking port was depressurized.

Sergei stared out the pilot windows, trying to assess the damage to the station. It was obvious Commander Rutledge had underestimated the magnitude of the impact. Hiroko lay unconscious in one of the acceleration couches. She’d been coming down the corridor towards the leaking compartment when a second vibration started with the roar of shearing metal. Air began flowing back toward the science stations and he’d grabbed her as she tumbled past.

He’d managed to squeeze her though the tiny hatchway as the air thinned around them. With his last gasping breaths, he’d shoved her into the lifeboat and climbed in after her. Now sealed and pressurized, he could take a couple minutes to make some decisions.

He’d decided not to blow the explosive bolts and drop free from the station until he knew for sure what had happened, and whether or not there were others in need. The onboard computers had completed the power-up sequence and the comlink was ready to operate. Punching the mic, he asked tentatively, “Commander Rutledge, I am in lifeboat. Do you copy?"

Static filled the small cabin and then Scott’s voice came through. “Sergei, I’m glad to hear your voice. Are you ok?”

“I am uninjured, Commander,” he replied, trying to hide a sudden rush of emotion. “Only Hiroko and I made it to lifeboat, but there could be other sealed modules.”

“Negative on other modules. We might have a baggie or two,” he said, referring to the emergency bubbles they kept throughout the station, “but I really doubt it. Most of the second team should have been in the Science Module, and there was a major impact there."

“What happened?” Sergei asked, pressing his face to the window and realizing the station appeared to be tumbling. Where the nose of the tiny ship should have been looking straight up, he could now see the limb of the Earth.

“You managed to miss almost everything. I think we’d only have one casualty except that the transfer vehicle nailed the fuel cluster dead-center.”

“Poor choice of words, Commander,” Sergei said, turning to see Hiroko was stirring. The bruise on her forehead had swelled, and she had a slow nosebleed. If he’d had his med kit he’d have been able to give her a better exam, but for now there was little he could do except wait. “I take it there is shrapnel damage all over Alpha.”

“Roger that,” Scott said, drifting across in front of the Lifeboat. “You look reasonably unscathed in there. The heat shield appears intact, and other than a couple scrapes, you’re good to go.” After several seconds of silence he added, “Belay that. You’ve got a piece of debris twisted around your port release. If you blow the bolts you might be in trouble.”

“We aren’t planning on going anywhere, Commander,” Hiroko groaned, regaining consciousness, “as long as there are others alive out there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Commander Rutledge said. “You can’t depressurize, and even if you did, that thing doesn’t have a hatch that we can get into wearing EVA gear.”

The sounds of metal scraping came faintly through the hull, and Sergei knew Scott was trying to bend whatever had tangled around the latch out of the way.

“Stand by, Lifeboat, I’m going to go get help.” Scott puffed a gentle nudge with his steering jets and using his feet for main thrust, he shoved himself away. “Conserving fuel in the MMU. I don’t know how long I’ve got to be playing taxi,” he explained.

“Have you heard from Mission Control?” Sergei asked, listing their options in his head. He’d been around the block enough to know the list of options was short. VERY short.

“Come on, Sergei,” Scott said. “It’s only been ten minutes. They probably haven’t had time to clean the shit out of their pants yet. I know I haven’t.”

“Commander, you know the turnaround schedule they’ve got,” Hiroko interjected. “If we don’t get you guys into the boat somehow ...” she let the thought drop, looking ashamed.

“We don’t know what might happen.” Scott said. “We do need to get you two freed up so we don’t all go down with the ship.” The astronaut appeared at the window again, pulling the frayed end of the umbilical that had stretched from the station to the construction node. “The TLS is drifting closer,” he explained. “I’ve got enough slack to tie it off to the truss up here. At least they can crawl back and we can die together.” The sudden edge in his dark humor was far too intense to draw even a faint smile from Sergei.

The tether began to twist and tug, indicating the astronauts were making their way across. Scott pointed at obstacles that might snag a suit as he watched them ease around the twisted pieces of the station. Finally the scraping started again and the tiny lifeboat shook with a sudden snap.

“You’re free,” Scott said. “Give us a minute to get back, and then blow your bolts and make for home.”

“Negative, Commander,” Sergei said, glancing at Hiroko, who nodded. “We will pull free, but are not leaving. Some solution may present itself.”

“That was not a request,” Scott said, enunciating his words to emphasize his meaning.

“I understand Commander, but once I blow those bolts, this vessel is under my command. And I am attempting to undertake rescue mission.” Sergei winked at Hiroko, who just smiled.

“Friggin’ bureaucrats,” Scott grumped.

“ISS Lifeboat, this is Mission Control, do you copy?” The voice of Capcom came through the speakers.

“Affirmative Houston, we copy,” Sergei said, nodding vigorously.

“Do you have high-gain capability?”

“Affirmative,” he answered, glancing at the readouts to make sure. “We are nominal on all systems.”

“Excellent,” Capcom said. “We need you to stay on location and operate as a transmitter station until we can assess our options for rescue.”

“So there you go, Commander Rutledge,” Hiroko said, clipping a headset over her ear to act as local communications while Sergei switched on the high-gain system. “Now we’ve got orders."

***

Houston:

Joshua Lange sat listening to his engineers report on what they could tell was still operational, and what had happened. For the last two minutes it had been a raging blame festival, and his simmer level was set to full burn.

“Listen to me, people,” he roared. “Heads can roll later. I need to know what we can do for the survivors up there. They’ve got about a half-day of air in the suits. Then what do we do.”

“Send out condolence letters,” one of the military officers said, sarcasm dripping from his tone.

“I don’t need that attitude,” Joshua snarled, fury flashing across his face. “We’ve got to have options.”

“It looks like he’s right,” Don Cramer said. “There are two in the lifeboat, but everyone else is pretty much without hope. We’ve got no working hatches, and hard vacuum on all modules."

“The lifeboat is the only thing up there that’s operational,” one of the other engineers said. “And it was only designed for six to eight hours of operation, in low-use mode.”

“We’re looking at thirty-two hours to rendezvous if we just reload and refuel the
Independence
and forgo everything and assume it’s ready to fly again,” Don said, shaking his head. “Any of the other orbiters are further back than that.”

“I’m not ready to accept that,” the Director said, thinking about what Scott had to be feeling. He probably already knew the same things the engineers were telling him down here.

His phone vibrated on his hip, indicating a priority call. He glanced at the display and recognized it as the White House. “Excuse me people, I want answers, no matter how far outside the box they might be.” He nodded to the room and added under his breath to Don, “Now I have to deal with the Ivory Tower.”

Stepping into the hall he opened the connection, “Joshua Lange here.”

President Hutton herself was waiting on the other end. “Hello, Joshua. I know you’re incredibly busy so I’ll be brief.” Her voice sounded strange. Hollow and empty.

“Thank you Ma’am,” he said. “I don’t know what I can tell you. We’ve not had enough time to assess the situation.”

“I understand and I know that has to be your priority,” she said reassuringly. “I just need to know. Is there any chance that you might be able to rescue any of the survivors?”

“It’s too early to say for sure, but other than the two who made it to the lifeboat, I’d have to say that the rest of them are probably not coming home.” Heavy emotion choked off his throat.

“I know you’ll do what you can, Joshua, but we need to keep our eye on the big picture too.” She paused for a second and then added, “Once you’re through this crisis, we’ll need to decide what we can still do."

“Yes Ma’am” he said, fighting to keep composure. “Of course you’re right, but at the moment I need to focus on the matter at hand.”

“Have you thought about the
Reliant
?” she offered, revealing that she’d been keeping up on things more closely than he’d have guessed. “Isn’t it only about a day out?”

“That’s a good point Madam President,” he said, spinning back toward the room. “I’ll have to check and see. Some of them might have that much air. Thank you.”

“Please let me know as soon as you have any ideas,” she said, clicking off the connection as he burst back into the room.

“What’s the status on the
Reliant
?” he barked, coming to a stop at the edge of the table.