Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (34 page)

           
“Roger.
Opening the hatch now.” Moyer depressurized the engineering module, opened the
hatch leading into the connecting tunnel, then closed and sealed the hatch
behind him and moved toward the large airlock module.

           
It didn’t
take long for Moyer’s report. “Skipper?”

           
“Can you
make it into
Enterprise
?
How does it look?”

           
“I’m at the
hatch to the airlock module. I’ve got a FIRE light on over the hatch—” The
transmission stopped.

           
“Moyer?”
No reply. “Moyer, report.”

           
“Skipper...
my God... the whole airlock module is burned out. I can see two bodies in the
airlock. They’re both burned. I think it’s Kelly and Bayles.... I think they
tried to get back to the station....”

           
“Moyer....” Saint-Michael paused, tried to calm himself, to think it
through.... A fire in the airlock, at least two dead. .. two dead outside....
“Moyer.. . Ted, we need you to inspect the
Enterprise
.
It’s our only chance to get out and be
rescued. You’ve got to check out the shuttle.”

           
Moyer’s
voice was remarkably steady. “Yes, sir. I understand. I’m ready.”

           
“Stand by.
Depressurizing the airlock.” Saint-Michael turned to Marks, who activated the
station’s environmental control panel. Marks nodded back to the commander.

           
“Docking
airlock module
at five p.s.i
.”

           
“Roger,”
Moyer
replied,
his voice hoarse but steady. He waited
until the FIRE light over the entry hatch went out as the thinned atmosphere in
the module extinguished any last remaining fires. “Entering airlock.” In spite
of all his efforts, Moyer could not avoid looking at the charred remnants of
the men who had been his best friends for so many months. His stomach took over
then. .. .

 
          
ELEKTRON ONE SPACEPLANE

 
          
From his vantage point high over
Armstrong Space Station Alesander Govorov saw the bright flash and the
explosion as the crew compartment of
Enterprise
was rent apart by Voloshin’s
missile. He saw the reflections of light in the cockpit windows and the rapidly
spreading cloud of gases and debris around the shuttle.

           
“Elektron Two.
Report.”

           
“Moving
into position, Lead....”

           
“That explosion.
What happened?”

           
A slight
pause, then: “Teaching the Americans a lesson, Lead. Before they can attempt
another attack—”

           
Govorov
pounded on an armrest in frustration, trying to vent his anger. Voloshin was a
top-notch cosmonaut and atmospheric fighter pilot. He was also five years
younger than Govorov, and like most young pilots displayed more than a little
impetuousness. Govorov would have strong words with him later. For now. .. .
“Follow your orders, Colonel. We have a job to do. I want it done as surgically
as possible. We are not teachers or butchers.”

           
Govorov
activated his laser designator and swept it across the center beam of Armstrong
Space Station. He had had only a few minutes to study the sketches of Armstrong
Station before this flight, and those sketches had obviously been outdated. But
some of the targets were obvious.

           
Such as space-based radar.
One of the huge phased-array
antennas had been sheared off, but its mate on the underside of the center keel
was still intact. Using the green-screen TV camera integral to the laser
designator, he zoomed the picture in until the aiming reticle was centered on
the huge control junction linking the radar antenna to the keel. Destroy this
one junction box and the radar’s steering, power and electronics went with it.
He activated the arming panel, placed one gloved finger around the
stick-mounted trigger and gently squeezed.

 
          
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

 
          
“Cabin pressurization zero. Fire in
middeck spread to upper deck. Big hole in forward bulkhead. Three... bodies in
middeck... Davis, Wallis and Montgomery.
Montgomery
is still strapped into his chair. They... they didn’t have a chance.”

           
Saint-Michael
was leaning on an overhead handhold receiving Moyer’s damage report of
Enterprise
.
Seven dead on
Enterprise
.
Seven dead. . . .

           
“Can you
find the damage, Ted?”

           
“Yes, sir.
Huge explosion somewhere in the lower deck. Might
be a fuel-cell rupture. There’s a big hole in the forward bulkhead. Looks like
it goes clear through.”

           
“Is it repairable?”

           
“I don’t
think so, not without a welder. Looks major.”

           
Enterprise
was
gone. “Whatever the Russians shot at her, it was effective,” Saint-Michael said
to no one in particular.
“Ted, report back here on the
double.”

           
“What
should I do with the
Enterprise
crew? Just leave them here—?”

           
An
ear-splitting sound like the crack of a whip echoed through the command module.
The entire station began to vibrate. A warning message appeared on a screen
surrounding the master SBR display.

           
“We’ve lost
the entire number-two SBR array,”
Jefferson
said,
scanning his instruments. “No signal from that side at all.”

           
“They’ve
started,”
Walker
said. “They’re not
going to stop until they’ve sawed this station to pieces.”

           
“Moyer, get back here.
All of you, report to the lifeboat,”
Saint-Michael ordered. “I’ll set the thrusters to deorbit the station; we’ll
time it so that—”

           
A voice
broke in over stationwide intercom on the CALL position: “Control, this is
Skybolt. I think I have the laser operational again. I told you I was close to
it....”

           
Saint-Michael
was startled by Ann’s voice. He paused half a second, then flipped a button on
the communications panel. “You
what?
Skybolt’s
working?”

           
“I need you
to switch control of the SBR back to Skybolt from the Thor system. I can’t do
it back here. Switch the SBR over to—”

           
Ann was cut
off by a loud bang and a warning horn blaring from the environmental control
panel. “Control junction on the starboard radiator system,”
Jefferson
said after checking the warning display. “That’s half our environmental system
out.”

           
“We can’t
risk it,”
Walker
said. “A few more
shots like that and we’ve had it.” But Saint-Michael motioned him to be quiet.

           
“Ann, can
Skybolt really be effective?”

           
“Baker
error-trapped the system for me,” she said. “I think the system will track
targets now. I’m not sure if we trapped out the MHD ignition power problem,
but—”

           
“We don’t
have the time, Jason,”
Walker
broke
in, his voice tight. “We’ve got to get to that lifeboat—”

           
Another
loud bang; the station shuddered. The lights in the module dimmed for a moment
and another environmental warning horn blared. The situation seemed too far
gone to bother checking on the damage.

           
“Jason,”
Ann said. “You’ve got to do it now. It might already be too late....”

           
“All right,
damn it. We’ll try.”
Walker
was
about to continue to protest but Saint-Michael rode over him: “But not you
five. I want
all
of you in the
lifeboat.
Immediately.
I want you clear of the station
when I fire the laser.”

           
“You can’t
do it alone,” Ann said. “The laser has to be fired from the Skybolt module and
I need someone to monitor the SBR from up there. We may also need to move the
station. I’ve got to stay here in the Skybolt module....”

           
Saint-Michael
hesitated again, but he knew there was no other option. This was her play. “All
right, Ann, stay in Skybolt.
Walker
,
Marks,
Jefferson
, Moyer, report to the lifeboat.”

           
Several
more loud bangs and a major fuel-cell explosion had occurred by the time
Walker
reported that all remaining crewmembers of the crippled space station were
sealed aboard the lifeboat.

           
Saint-Michael
received
Walker
’s acknowledgment,
wished the men luck,
then
lifted a large plastic cover
on a yellow-and-black-striped button at his commander’s station. Instantly a
series of explosive activators and self-contained hydraulic thrusters pushed
the lifeboat free of its moorings and propelled it away from the station. Well,
maybe somebody would live to tell what had happened here.
And
why....

 
          
ELEKTRON ONE SPACEPLANE

           
“Lead.
Watch out.
Below you.”

           
This time,
Govorov easily spotted the object of Voloshin’s warning. The long, silver,
oblong vessel beneath the cargo-docking port jarred loose from its dock and
moved quickly away from the station. In a few moments it was lost from view.

           
“The rescue
craft,” Govorov radioed back to Voloshin. “They’ve abandoned the station. It
doesn’t appear to have been jettisoned by accident.”

           
“Should we
consider boarding Armstrong, Lead?”

           
“No, I
still think they’ll fire the station’s thrusters by remote control and deorbit
the station. Stay in position and continue to pick off their station
subsystems. If we have missiles left, we can target the pressurized modules.”

           
As he
talked Govorov noticed the station start to slowly revolve and he expertly
maneuvered his Elektron to keep up with the station’s slow rotation. It was not
difficult to do, but the revolutions were a bit erratic—obviously the thrusters
were no longer under computer control—and the station was revolving around the
central keel, not along the pressurized module’s axis.

           
Several
pieces of the space-based radar array and other hunks of debris snapped off the
keel and were sent crashing into the pressurized modules. It looked as if the
station was tearing itself apart. They could save their Scimitar missiles for
another sortie, Govorov decided.

           
Meanwhile,
Voloshin had maintained his position in space and was watching the station
revolve under him rather than trying to maintain his position in relation to
it. The lowermost sections of the station were beginning to come into view
now.... He spotted the strange- looking device at the end of one of the lower
pressurized modules— the Skybolt steerable mirror-housing. The mirror itself
resembled a hugh shiny bull’s-eye.

 
         
As good a target as any, he thought as
he activated his laster target- designator. ...

 
          
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

 
          
“That’s the best I can do, Ann,”
Saint-Michael said over the intercom.

           
Talking was
the least difficult thing to do with the POS mask on. The large curved glass
faceplate distorted his vision and fogged up when he spoke or breathed hard.
The hoses and interphone wires floating around his head obstructed his hands as
well as his vision. Trying to accomplish a task as delicate a steering an
eight-hundred- ton space station was all but impossible.

           
“Can you
hit the positive
X
axis just one
shot?”

           
“It’ll take
me too long to fiddle with these controls,” Saint-Michael told her. “If you
can’t do it, say so. We’ll need time to get into spacesuits before the Russians
blow this place.”

           
He was a
prophet. A huge explosion rocked the station, sending him scrambling for
another handhold. The impact felt as if it was only a few feet away. The lights
flickered, steadied, flickered again, then blinked out. A few undamaged
automatic power-failure lights snapped on. The station’s spin seemed to
accelerate, like a rollercoaster ride picking up speed at the crest of the
incline....