Far Space (10 page)

“Your Personal Reentry System is now in place,” the suit reported.

“What, no ‘good luck’?” Ian muttered. Ian flexed his fingers again. This also proved to be difficult with the stiff material pressing in around his hand
and fingers. But there was enough give to verify the material was not completely solid.

“Ablative material,” Ian guessed, shaking his head inside his helmet. “Like this is going to work.” He did his best to shrug but managed to only move his shoulders against the suit material now immobilized by the mold. “Well, at least this ain’t boring.”

Ian’s thoughts were interrupted as the first lick of flame flashed to life at the edge of the mold. He had seen videos of spacecraft coming back to Earth. This would have been before the space elevator had all but eliminated the need for craft to use the atmosphere to shed enough velocity to reach the ground at survivable speeds. He never thought he would be experiencing such an entry personally and certainly not in such a flimsy contraption.

“Please, God, let these guys have gotten their math right,” Ian said, shutting his eyes.

The EERS was elegant in its simplicity. All it needed to do was to get a relatively slow-moving object through the planet’s atmosphere. In this case, a person forced to evacuate their spacecraft. The amount of heat generated as this object passed through the atmosphere, shedding speed, was in direct proportion to the speed at which it had been traveling in orbit. Since Ian and the other passengers were not moving in relation to the spin of the Earth due to the unique characteristics of the space elevator, their speed upon reentry was simply a sum vector of their momentum upon ejecting from the car and the pull of gravity from Earth. Ian had the added bonus of being caught up in whatever gravitational anomaly had dragged him toward the alien ship. The EERS had to do was produce enough ablative material to get its passenger low enough for what basically amounted to a very high altitude parachute plunge.

Ian felt the vibrations passing through the spongy mold as the atmosphere he was falling through grew thicker. He could not help but open his eyes to take a look. When he did, Ian wished he had just kept them closed.

The starry sky above him had been replaced by the intense flames of the burning ablative material. For the sacrifice of his Personal Reentry System mold, Ian received reduced speed in exchange for extreme heat – the cause of the outer layer of the mold boiling off as it was consumed.

Ian could feel his back growing steadily warmer. He wondered how thick the mold had been when it had finished forming around him. How much ablative material could there be left under his tail bone by now?

The heat in his suit continued to climb until Ian found himself screaming into his helmet.

Ian was still screaming when he realized the intense heat was tapering off. Above him, he could see the flames weakening. He still felt sweat pooling all over his body from the high suit temperature, but at least it was not getting hotter any longer.

“You can do this,” Ian muttered. From his training, he knew the fiery eclipse of reentry was the most perilous time for any craft or object coming back to Earth; out of communication due to the ionization caused by the friction of hitting the atmosphere and subjected to intense heat for the same reason. If something was going to go wrong on the way in, this is when it would have happened.

“Just like Columbia,” Ian said, thinking back to his history lessons on the space shuttle disaster. A crack in the heat shield on the leading edge of the wing had failed. Investigations afterward reveled the destruction of the spacecraft had been the unfortunate result of a piece of foam dislodged from the huge external tank during liftoff. The foam struck and damaged the orbiter. The friction of reentry had heated the area until critical structural damage had destroyed the vehicle. Seven astronauts lost their lives to faulty design. Ian hoped he would not add to the tally.

The EERS had been designed well. The Personal Reentry System, the mold, had been built with enough engineering margin to allow Ian’s suit to produce sufficient ablative material to absorb the energy it needed. This energy was transferred from Ian’s velocity to heat which was bled away with the burning debris. His speed was now slow enough to allow a safe parachute trip to the surface.

Sensing its human cargo had achieved the appropriate speed and altitude, the EERS suit cracked what was left of the mold, allowing it to begin to crumble.

Ian felt the pressure on his arms and legs lessen and pushed out, aiding the final disintegration of the mold into his slipstream.

A lead parachute shot out from the side of Ian’s’ pack. It caught the wind and whipped Ian into a face-down orientation. The surface of the Earth was lost in the pitch blackness of full night so it was impossible for Ian to use his naked eyes to judge his altitude. Checking the display splashed against the upper left portion of his face plate, Ian noted he was at forty seven thousand feet and falling…fast.

Watching the numbers scroll down, Ian forgot to brace for the initial parachute deployment. As the lead chute stabilized, EERS released the main chute. The broad canopy blossomed behind Ian, yanking him hard along the built in suit strap lines which had tightened automatically when he had donned the suit ages ago.

Overcoming the initial shock, he noted his descent rate had slowed dramatically. With his eyes adjusting to the darkness below him, Ian could make out the lights of cities and even what appeared to be individual houses. He was suddenly worried about landing in the middle of some wood, far from any welcome.

As if reading his mind, an icon began flashing in the upper right hand side of his face plate. His personal location beacon had been activated. Emergency personnel anywhere in the world were equipped to receive the standard format transmission.

At the thought of locals, Ian scanned the lights, wracking his brain to figure out exactly where he was over South America. He was wishing he had paid a little more attention to his foreign language teachers. The limited Spanish he knew was as likely to help as the Mandarin Chinese he had thought would be a good idea to learn last year.

Ian pushed the thought from his head. “Just concentrate on getting back on the ground in one piece.

As it turned out, this last bit of the trip was the least exciting. The amazing pack had one more trick. EERS deployed another chute and Ian was brought to a near standstill above the surface.

Ian’s emergency egress ended in a gentle flutter into a darkened field full of young plants he could not identify. He let his legs crumple beneath him and rolled over on his side. Ian clambered to his feet and pulled the parachute in before it caught in the breeze.

Breaking the seal at his collar, Ian lifted his helmet and breathed in the cool night air. It reeked of manure from a nearby farm. Ian thought he had never smelled anything so wonderful.

Ian did the only thing a man who had just gone through his situation could be expected to do – he fell to his knees and threw up all over the tilled earth.

USS Schriever Command Module

Earth Space

Yates carefully unbuckled his harness and drifted up from his seat with only the slightest flexing of his legs. He reached above his head and grabbed a handhold from practice.

The command module was pitch black. It was also dead silent.

Before Yates could call out, a sob broke the stillness.

“Everyone still here?” Yates asked.

“We didn’t blow up,” Pearl’s voice growled, “where else would we be?”

“Here, sir,” Reeves breathed.

“This should help,” Mitchell said.

A stab of light shot out from Mitchell’s station back toward the commander’s chair.

Yates held his hand up to the light. “Down a little if you please, Mr. Mitchell.”

Mitchell responded by sweeping his small flashlight from Yates to the rest of the crew in turn.

Reeves sat strapped in his chair, his arms motionless to either side of his black control board, eyes staring forward at nothing.

Maytree was busy unlatching her harness, careful to keep her face out of the light.

Pearl shook his head slowly from side to side. His fists were curled in tight balls on top of his smashed console. He looked up at Yates, his grin standing out in the harsh light. “Can my engines give a show or what?”

Yates had to grin back. He was alive. His crew was alive. “Steve, you can paint your name on my ship any day.” Nodding to Mitchell, Yates said, “Check life support and be sure our emergency beacon is broadcasting.”

Mitchell glanced back at his own dark station. There were no weapons on the escape pod. “Should we try and get com up and call in fire support?”

Pearl said what Yates was thinking. “Don’t worry, cowboy. If they were going to finish us off we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Reeves, still staring ahead, asked, “Did we get them?”

Maytree floated to the younger officer’s station and squeezed his arm. “Yeah, Chris, we did.”

Reeves meet Maytree’s gaze. “So we won, right?”

Yates looked around the powerless bridge, the last remnant of his command. He breathed, “Some victory.”

Ganymede Research Station #1

Jupiter Space

After waiting two hours in the service tube, Wu and Deng finally decided it was probably safe to enter the hopper. Once inside the pair had at least been able to turn on the heater and warm themselves. There was also a small supply of rations.

Wu had not dared to have Deng power up the hopper’s engines for fear of bringing attention to themselves. In their haste to destroy the main base, the alien craft had overlooked Deng’s hopper and at least one other shuttle on the far side of the field. Deng had wanted to move to the larger spacecraft right away. But, Wu cautioned against it preferring patience over roominess.

Now, nearly four hours after the attack, even Wu had come to think it was now time to act.

“No one’s coming for us,” Deng said.

“We don’t know that,” Wu replied, staring out the forward viewport.

“Someone should have come by now,” Deng said, more to himself to his friend. “Someone would have come by now if they knew we had been attacked.”

Wu looked over at Deng. “Why? We haven’t actually put out the welcome mat to any of our neighbors.” Wu gestured overhead. “The Americans may have met the same fate on Europa and who knows about that EU ship.”

Deng shook his head. “So what do we do?”

“First, we have to check for other survivors,” Wu said, “then we try and boost the range on the hopper’s radio. You know, try and raise a ship.”

“My friend,” Deng said, “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we are in no position to perform a search.”

“The pressure suits…” Wu started, pointing at the small locker by the airlock.

“Pressure suit,” Deng corrected.

“There’s only one?”

Deng closed his eyes and nodded. “There are never enough to go around. I keep one for myself since supply is always running out.”

“The emergency lockers in the hall,” Wu said, “they’re supposed to be stocked in case of emergency.”

“Wu, you’ve been here long enough to know those things are empty.”

“We should look anyway,” Wu said.

Deng raised his hands. “If you must.”

Wu cycled through the airlock and stepped out into the access tunnel. He regretted the decision immediately. With the central power plant gone or off-line, the environmental systems had transferred to battery power which had lasted only fifty minutes. Now, with the heaters and air cyclers off, the temperature was quickly dropping. Wu sucked in a lungful of bitterly cold air and dashed down to the end of the access tunnel.

Wu paused as he reached for the emergency locker handle. Frost was already forming on the shiny metal surface. He pulled his shirt sleeve over his hand and yanked the door open before the cold could pass through the thin fabric.

The locker, nominally equipped with four light pressure suits and two emergency packs containing a variety of equipment, was virtually empty. Only one suit helmet had been left on the rack. Wu grabbed it and cursed. There was a crack running down the middle of the face plate.

Wu kicked the door shut and cursed the fools he worked with and the government which had failed to properly equip this miserable place.

He looked around for anything else which might be of use. Wu contemplated trying to go through the sealed hatch at the end of the tunnel until he saw the red light on the control panel next to the doorway.

Hard vacuum on the outside.

Cursing again, Wu stood staring at the door trying to think of anything else he could do. The cold began to penetrate his bones. Coming up blank, he turned and hurried back to the hopper.

Back inside, Deng asked, “Any luck?”

Wu held up the cracked helmet.

Deng tried to hide his smile.

“What?” Wu said looking at the helmet. “Those idiots…”

Deng burst out laughing.

Wu stared at his friend as if Deng had gone made.

Deng broke down into even more uncontrolled laughter.

Wu could not help but crack a smile. They were lost. He began to laugh. And now they were going insane.

Deng and Wu laughed until tears were streaming down both of the men’s faces. They slumped together onto the floor of their tiny lifeboat, the helmet propped up on Wu’s knee, its cracked face plate staring back at them.

“We’re scr…” Deng started.

A beeping began from the main control console.

Deng and Wu jumped up.

“Is someone calling us?” Wu asked, suddenly hopeful this nightmare might have a happy ending.

Deng looked perplexed. He tapped a few keys and muttered, “This isn’t right.”

Wu pressed close to look at the display. “They’re coming back,” Wu said, his tone flat, “They realized they missed a few of us and they’re coming back.”

“No,” Deng said, tapping a few keys. “No, they won’t pass overhead. The hoppers sensors are not all that good, so I can’t be exactly sure. But, it looks like there are five big energy readings - that would be their engines. They’re heading back in toward Jupiter.”