SpaceCorp (3 page)

“Stall the Supreme Leader? Have you any idea how absurd that sounds?” asked Shirazi. “Come, General. If we board the helicopter now we may be able to brief the Supreme Leader before he retires for the night.”

14 December 2069

NORAD Headquarters, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

“Any word on 12363?” asked Major Skip Arnold.

“No sir, not with Eglin offline,” said Master Sergeant Tom Irving.

Arnold gritted his teeth and shook his head. The Satellite Surveillance Network was down to three functioning radars. The AN/FPS-85 phased array radar at Eglin may have been an antique, but constant repairs had kept it working for nearly a century. The problem with constant repairs was that when they were major, which was often, the system had to be shut down. This latest mishap had put the old girl to sleep for nearly a week now.

The Master Sergeant shook his head. “You want me to call them, sir?”

“When did you call them last?”

“This morning soon as I got in.”

“And they said?”

“The same thing as last time and the two times before that, ‘
within 24 hours.
’”

Arnold scowled again. “Yeah, call ‘em.”

“Anything special you want me to say?”

“Tell ‘em I gotta missing rocket ship. Ask ‘em what I’m supposed to do about it.”

16 December 2069

Captain’s Stateroom,
SSS Werhner Von Braun

“Ma’am, ma’am! You’re needed on the bridge. There’s a priority message from NORAD!” The watch orderly, a young black woman with close-cropped platinum hair, shook the captain’s hip to wake her.

“Okay, okay, I’m awake!” Hernandez said. She sat up clutching the comforter to her breasts. “Put ’em on the vidicom while I find my clothes. Then rustle me up some coffee.” As the orderly scurried away, she yelled after her, “Make sure it’s
real
coffee, not that algae poop comes in on resupply!”

At 31, Captain Raquel Hernandez was the same age as the
Von Braun
, and coincidently, the youngest space station captain in SpaceCorp which she found ironic given that the
Von Braun
was the oldest station in SpaceCorp. She’d worked her way up through the enlisted ranks, then getting accepted for officer training. After commissioning, you had to show you had the right stuff on the ground. She was a full lieutenant before she got a berth on the
Von Braun
. The high radiation of space required that space careers were of necessity short—ten years or ten rems, whichever came first. When you worked in an environment where the external radiation was typically ten rems per year, it was easy to guess which factor would ground you first. And that was in spite of staying indoors all the time where the hull gave you a modicum of shielding. There were occasional space walks—EVAs or Extra-Vehicular Activities—but they were always inside the ring. Most of the outdoor work, especially the work done outside the ring, was done by robots.
We’re here to diagnose impact damage, design repairs, fashion parts, and program robots.

“Captain Hernandez, this is Lieutenant Garza. I have Major Arnold from NORAD online.”

“Good morning, ma’am. ‘Sorry to wake you.”

“Good...” she looked at the bank of clocks until she found one labeled Colorado Springs “...I guess it is morning. Don’t worry about waking me—sleep is overrated up here. What’s your message?”

“We have a missing debris item—a Centaur.”

As she zipped up her coverall and cinched the belt, she took a quick glance in the mirror and combed a cowlick down with her fingers. It popped back up immediately, even with spit.
Oh well, Arnold, if I can face me in the morning, you can too.
She hit the curtain button on the vidicom.
Hmm... cute. I wonder if he’s...
“And where did you lose your Centaur, Major?”

“We didn’t. The Iranians used it for target practice. We have a track-file on a
Shahab-7
launched about that date—”

Her face blanched a moment, then turned hard. “Never mind the crap, Major. Where’s the goddamn Centaur?”

“We’re not sure. We just picked it up again as a new piece of debris. We’ve only had time to put two positions on it but it looks like the
Shahab
knocked it out of its inclination of 20.3°. We think it might be aligned with an intercept trajectory on your position... approximately.”

“Lieutenant Garza, put the ship on YELLOW. Now Major Arnold, tell me just
how
approximate?”

“Azimuth is plus or minus 5 mils, elevation is plus or minus one mil with a descent angle of 250 mils.”

“Garza, belay last order. Go to RED. General quarters. All personnel suited. Non-essentials assemble at assigned escape pods. Arnold, do you have an impact time?”

Arnold looked at his watch, “About twelve minutes.”

“That’s is your idea of early warning?”

“We only just got the second fix—”

“Never mind! Garza, get the sensors looking skyward!”

Most debris orbits were circular, hence the sensors were always aimed horizontal in a 360-degree swath around the ship. Five milliradians of elevation wasn’t very much—0.28 degrees. Maybe they could maneuver out of its path.
But which way? Up or down?
“Garza, light the maneuvering thrusters. I want everything we have going full blast to... to
raise
our orbit! I’m heading for the bridge now. Captain out.”

Fortunately, her stateroom door opened to the bridge and she was there in less than 10 seconds. She slammed through the hatchway not bothering to dog it shut. Everyone was in a flurry of activity getting into their space suits while trying to perform bridge duties. “Report!” she said as she opened her own suit locker.

Lieutenant Garza, silhouetted by the giant monitor at the front of the bridge, was barking orders to different parts of the ship to get the sensors elevated and the maneuvering thrusters up to full throttle. “Sensors elevated and scanning. Thrusters coming up to full throttle. No position on the incoming yet.”

Captain Hernandez fixed her gaze on the monitor trying to see every detail at once. The skies were dark, stellar detail lost to earthshine. “Major Arnold, any help down there?” Hernandez’ gaze fixed on a growing spot of light that seemed to oscillate between dim and bright. The spot moved neither left or right, nor up or down.

“Sorry, Captain. We won’t get another fix until it passes through the Eglin radar again. That won’t be for—”

“Never mind, Major.” Her voice was serene, betrayed only by the white mask of her face. “Thank you for your assistance.”

C
HAPTER
T
WO

16 December 2069

Outside the galley,
SSS Werhner Von Braun

Mack had been on his way to the galley to meet Monica when the klaxon began sounding, stopping him several yards short of the galley door. Monica and he had maintained a professional working relationship for a year and a less professional one for the last two months. At 1.9 and 1.7 meters, respectively, they made a statuesque couple. Or would have but for the sixteen year difference in their ages—a fact he was sensitive about but she was not. They had come aboard a week ago to study how best to retrofit the
Von Brau
n’s aging aluminum hull with nanocellulose. After pausing a moment, he stepped toward the galley door but was then bowled over by a stream of crewmen tearing out of the galley at a dead run.

A young ensign bent to help him up. Mack had met Ensign ‘Freddie’ Fredericks a few days ago. She was fresh out of crew training—a short, somewhat busty twenty-something with bright red hair, young and pink all over except for a pair of dull blue eyes that had already seen too much. She had been studying for her Officer of the Deck quals when she was distracted by escort duty. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“We have an incoming!” she yelled. “I’ve got to get you to your suit locker—do you know where that is?”

“Uh… a big room by the hangar deck.”

“Right. If we get separated keep heading that way, get your suit on, and then head for your escape pod.”

“Are we evacuating?” he asked.

“Maybe… just not right now. If that incoming hits us, things will go sideways in a hurry. C’mon! We have less than ten minutes before impact.”

He amped up his pace to keep up with Freddie who was surprisingly fleet for one so short. “What about Monica! Have you seen her?”

“She’s probably heading for the hangar area—let’s move!”

Mack ran after the crewman. All guests on the
Von Braun
kept their suits in a locker next to the hangar where incoming shuttles docked. Regular crew had their lockers near their work areas.
Monica would be at the hangar area. She has over 10,000 hours in space—she knows emergency procedures.
In fact he’d heard her recite fragments of them in her sleep when she struggled with her more vivid dreams.

“What about you?” he asked. “Is your suit locker at the hangar?”

“No, I’ll find a spare. Right now you take priority.”

“What if you can’t find one?”

“Then I’ll go naked.”

‘Naked’ was ship jargon for going suit-less in a place where you were better off suited. The pods had spare breathing apparatus in case they had to carry extra passengers, but no spare suits. Pods could hold up to ten crewmen. Attached to the topside of each pod were ten standard crew-mass ballasts needed to keep the automatic reentry ballistics true. One ballast would be jettisoned for each crew who boarded the pod. Designing a retrofit escape pod system for
Von Braun
-class space stations had been Mack’s first assignment when he arrived at SpaceCorp nearly thirty years ago.

When Freddie and he arrived at the suit locker, Mack was lightheaded and gasping for breath. Words came hard from his dry cotton mouth. He moved toward a fountain. Freddie grabbed him and spun him around.

“Suit first! Water second.”

“But I’m…”

“There’s water in your suit. Do you need me to help you get it on?” She pulled his head closer and slapped his pale face several times. “Ah, shit. C’mon, Mack! Mack! Don’t you short out on me!”

She pushed him down onto the bench, then had to steady him from falling backward onto the floor.

“Jimmy, come here! Gimme a hand.”

Jimmy ran over, tying his suit’s arms around his waist and tucking his gloves inside. He had no helmet. “Who is he?”

“VIP. Gotta get him into his suit.”

“Okay, you find his suit. I’ll get him onto his back and hold his feet up. This would go a lot easier if we could get this big sumbitch to wake up and help.”

Jimmy guided Mack’s limp body onto the floor holding his head in his hands. Once on the floor he picked up Mack’s feet and held them in the air, one on each shoulder.

Mack started to come to, but only a little. He pulled his feet, but Jimmy held them fast. Then he tried to raise his torso onto his elbows.

“Steady, big fella!” Jimmy said. “Put your head back down so you don’t run the blood out of your skull again.”

“Sorry,” Mack mumbled.

“You musta got dehydrated, low on O
₂
from the run down here, then add some situational shock… knocked you out. Coulda happened to anybody. Just hold still a bit longer while we suit you up.”

“Monica? Where’s Monica?”

“You mean Freddie—little redhead brought you in here? She’s getting your suit.”

Freddie ran up with Mack’s suit draped over her shoulder, his helmet, gloves, and outer boots clutched in her arms.

“Took you long enough,” Jimmy said.

“Some asshole pulled the tape off his locker door.”

“You sure you got the right one? He’s too damn big for just any old suit.”

“Yeah, his name’s on the carry strap. I found it in a locker that didn’t have a name.”

As Jimmy and Freddie were struggling to get Mack into his suit, the station suddenly lurched out of horizontal by fifteen degrees. The lurching was followed by a loud boom and then they felt a slight depressurization. The klaxon switched to short rapid pulses that signaled it was time for all personnel—crew and guest alike—to board the escape pods and strap into their assigned berths.

Jimmy and Freddie looked at each other for an instant.

“C’mon! Just grab your shit and his shit and let’s get him to the pod. We’ll finish in there.”

“What about your suit?” Jimmy asked.

“Looks like I’m wearing it.”

Unsecured debris was sliding across the floor which, combined with being fifteen degrees off horizontal, made for some difficult going. Mack could stand and shuffle along, although his legs were wobbly. The trio hugged the wall holding onto the hand rail as they made their way to the escape pod bay.

The bay was designed to accommodate the boarding of ten 10-man escape pods. That meant there would be a hundred people scrambling to find their assigned berths. Assigned berths were a necessity to ensure that each pod would have a full load before ejection.

Escape pods were designed to be semiautonomous. They could eject on command either from within or by general order from the bridge. Command from within would cause them to execute an immediate and violent ejection designed to take them far away from the ship fast. This option was somewhat hazardous due to possible collision with debris, the hull of the ship, or other escape pods. Hence, this option was generally reserved for out of control situations which, as far as anybody could tell, the
Von Braun
was not quite in. The preferred option was the piloted option wherein the pod would ooze out allowing the pilot time to survey the situation and steer a safe course away from the ship.

Reentry was also semiautonomous. Escape pods, even though they had ejected from the station, were still in orbit. And they would continue in orbit until their retro rockets were fired to begin the reentry sequence. The pilot had a display that showed the projected landing points on a map. The idea was to choose one that was near a friendly coast line—all escape pods were designed for water entry. Land entries were survivable but typically involved casualties. Pilots were supposed to coordinate with one another to land in close proximity so as to facilitate rescue.