8
From the Global News Network
“Yesterday’s solar flare proved to be an almost unprecedented astronomical event. The closest analogy occurred back in 1859 in a geomagnetic storm known as the Carrington Event, named for the astronomer who first observed the solar eruption that sparked it. It caused worldwide disruption of the telegraph system and caused auroras to be visible as far south as Mexico.
“Today, we are seeing widespread failures of electrical grids from the northern US deep into Central America. Besides our society being so dependent on electricity, another feature of life today markedly different from 1859 is the advent of space travel, where human beings now risk being in the direct path of these deadly solar flares.
“Most notable of this group are the explorers Max and Jasmine Jiang, who are well beyond Earth’s protective magnetic field. We were able to speak with them after the flare had safely passed and they could emerge from their spacecraft’s radiation-hardened shelter. The interview has been edited to remove the light delay due to their extreme distance.”
The picture transitioned to the interviewer posed in front of a stylized starfield. “Mr. and Mrs. Jiang, it’s good to see you both again. Let me begin by saying it was difficult for us to appreciate how much danger you were in until the solar flare hit Earth. I believe now we understand.”
Jasmine Jiang smiled in the gentle manner that had endeared her to millions. “We have been perfectly fine,” she said. “Our home up here is well prepared for emergencies like this. All we had to do was stay in the designated safe zone.”
Max Jiang spoke up. “Yes, we managed quite well. We’re just relieved that it didn’t happen a week from now.”
“You mean during your rendezvous with the asteroid?” the announcer asked rhetorically, as he already knew the answer. “That would have been unfortunate indeed. Several commercial satellites in Earth orbit have been damaged, and apparently even the military has suffered some losses. Did you notice anything unusual aboard your spacecraft during the flare?”
“Nothing of importance, thank goodness. Our ground control had us shut off everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. We’ve had to reset a few circuit breakers but that’s it.”
“It was to our advantage to be so far beyond Earth’s magnetic field,” Jasmine explained. “It channeled and amplified the stream of charged particles. We were more concerned with everyone back home.”
The camera cut to the interviewer, now wearing a grim expression. “I’m afraid you were right to be concerned. Much of Central and South America is still without power and a large number of communications satellites are out of commission.” The camera cut away to an illustration of a Stardust spacecraft. “Perhaps most concerning is the report of a manned capsule on some sort of maintenance mission in geosynchronous orbit; they have not been heard from since the flare hit.”
The Jiangs traded looks of surprise and genuine concern. “That is . . . that’s quite disturbing. We will be praying for them.”
“Skipper says the ship’s in good condition, but we’re going to have our work cut out for us,” Chief Garver said when he visited the rescuer’s workspaces. “There’s a lot of fried satellites on the other side of GEO, and it looks like their operators want to cut their losses and just move them to the graveyard with service drones. But there’s a couple in LEO we might get tasked to deorbit.”
Marshall noticed his crewmen looking fidgety, if such a thing were possible in zero g. It wasn’t like they could shuffle their feet.
“Anything else, Chief?” Rosie asked hopefully.
“There is,” he said, with a dire look that suggested he’d wished for better news. “We received a mayday call from Stardust’s ops center. That civilian expedition was still in GEO at 83 West when the flare hit, and they’ve been out of contact with it ever since. They lost telemetry and voice comm.”
Rosie and the other spacers exchanged pessimistic looks. That position put it almost dead center in the CME’s impact zone.
“So it’s a recovery op, then.”
Garver looked at Marshall, deferring to his position as their officer in charge and thus throwing his weight with the enlisted crew behind him. “Sir, I know the captain said to have your people be prepared for rescue ops.” He paused for effect. “But no voice comm suggests otherwise.”
It was a breach in protocol Marshall couldn’t help but notice—if the boss needed to relay orders to a junior officer, he’d have the XO or another officer do it, not the senior NCO. That told him they were getting swamped back on the control deck. “How’s it going forward, Chief?”
Garver lifted an eyebrow, the most expression he typically allowed. “It was already asses to bellybuttons, sir, when they got the mayday call. Now it’s all hands on deck,” he said, answering the unspoken question. “We suddenly went from moving dead satellites out of the way, to, well . . .”
“Dead people?”
They were startled by the buzz of the maneuver alarm, quickly followed by a distant rumble as the engines lit and built up to full thrust. The floor moved up to meet them. With barely a warning, they were burning for a new orbit already.
“Like I said, sir. Asses to bellybuttons.”
“New frag order,” Ivey announced as he breezed past Roberta at the watch officer’s console, just returning from group command’s morning meeting. He swiped at his tablet and a tasking order appeared on the main screen. Dozens of lines of text in coded shorthand he was only beginning to understand scrolled past.
“That’s a lot of dead birds to move around,” Roberta said as she studied the growing list of problem satellites. Between their lone X-37 in orbit and the half-dozen maintenance sats they controlled, it was going to take a lot of time and propellant to deorbit or reposition crippled satellites. “Wasn’t the Borman supposed to clear some of these lanes?”
“They were,” he said, “but things just got worse up in GEO and they’re the only game in town.” He pushed another file onto her screen. “They just got underway on a rescue op.”
She read through it quickly and let out a low whistle. “Civilians are stuck up there?” Nobody ever went to geosynch orbit, there was just no need to take the risk. It in fact took more propellant to park a human-rated vehicle into an orbit that far uphill than it would to send it on a loop around the Moon.
Ivey shook his head. “Some kind of satellite recovery proving flight.” He sighed. “Everybody thinks they’ve got a better idea to save money. Those big comm birds aren’t cheap, but geez . . . people aren’t cheap, either, y’know?”
“Says here the spacecraft operator declared the emergency, not the crew. So nobody’s heard from them?”
“They’re all civilian contractors. I think only a couple of them had any time in the seat. Ship’s still sending telemetry but they haven’t heard squat from the passengers. Maybe they’re stuck in its storm shelter. Maybe not.”
Roberta nodded grimly. The “maybe not” part wasn’t something she wanted to think about.
He could see it in her face, and squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t do that to yourself.” He pointed to a prominent listing in the Ops order—tasking to put another X-37 in orbit. “They’re prepping the alert bird for launch right now. This time tomorrow we’ll each be flying our own drones up there.”
“Attention on deck!”
It was a command that in space was more about getting everyone quiet and focused than it was for them to snap to and stand straight. Nevertheless they each drew themselves upright and stiff, heels together with hands clenched and thumbs along the seams of their trousers. Those who could first slipped their feet into restraints along the deck. That some crewmembers floated at odd angles to each other in zero g was a reality of spaceflight that military courtesies still had to adjust for.
The multipurpose module that served as the Borman’s rec room/galley was crowded with the dozen crewmembers. The sharp odor of antiseptic cleaning wipes, mixed with the normal background scent of recycled air, signaled that someone had made sure the space was squared away before the skipper showed up. No doubt it was some of the NCO’s who were already crammed with work. Marshall made a mental note to do a better job of cleaning up after himself.
Poole descended into the module feet first, grabbed an overhead handhold, and somersaulted into place at the head of the table. “As you were,” he said, adjusting his ball cap. “And can everyone please try to get oriented heads up? You’re giving me vertigo.”
A few snickered quietly while others pulled themselves upright, or rather had their feet and heads oriented in the same general direction.
“That’s better,” Poole said, and noticed a few smirks. “Do I look like I’m joking?” The smirks disappeared. “Captain’s privilege. Consider it a professional courtesy to have all your sorry asses pointed in the same direction.”
He continued. “About that short notice burn earlier, it couldn’t be helped. Time was not on our side. You’re all pros so I’m taking it on faith that nobody had any unstowed gear to worry about,” he said with a caustic tone and knowing look.
Marshall noticed a few crewmembers stealing glances at each other: Who’d been guilty of leaving something out that had made an embarrassing mess? It hadn’t been in the EVA section, of that he was certain, while Rosie and the other spacers weren’t showing him any reasons to worry. Maybe it was just his way of keeping them on their toes?
Poole tapped a remote control and flicked on the widescreen monitor behind him. Earth was at the center of a polar graph, surrounded by looping ellipses illustrating their maneuver plan. “We got the warning order for this op without a flight plan, so this was all on us. Soon as Garver figured out the burn sequence, we were already coming up on the first maneuver window.”
There were some understanding nods from the crew and he pressed on. He highlighted a series of cotangent ellipses. A blinking dot representing the Borman slowly moved along the innermost loop. “We’ve lowered our orbit to rephase and will begin raising it back to GEO when we cross opposite their latitude. These are going to be hard burns—this is time-critical and we can top off propellant later. Vandenberg’s prepping two rapid-reaction launches right now; the alert X-37 and a tanker stage to replenish our H2 after we’re done here.” He eyed the crew gravely. “We’re going to need it.”
It was an aggressive plan, only three burns before they intercepted the stranded Stardust with one hard deceleration to rendezvous. That was still a full day and a half’s journey. A dashed curve appeared between the middle ellipse and the circle of their target’s orbit. Poole moved on without waiting for the obvious questions. “As I said, time is critical. So we’re going about this a little creatively.”
Marshall tried not to gulp—was he looking at me?
The chief caught his eye—yes, he’s looking at you.
“Mister Hunter, you and your spacers are going to freelance this one,” Poole said, and zoomed in on the dashed line. “On our second phasing orbit, we’ll pass within six thousand kilometers of the Stardust. We can’t get the whole ship there soon enough, but we can get part of it there. Lieutenant Wylie will pilot the shuttle with you, Chief Riley, and two EVA specialists into a transfer orbit, rendezvous with Stardust and start rescue ops. Clear?”
“Aye, sir,” Wylie answered. “That’ll take a lot of propellant, though.” Marshall thought he did an admirable job of hiding his trepidation.
“Just about all of it,” Poole said. “It won’t be going anywhere until we meet you back there after we’ve matched orbits. We’ll top off the shuttle from the tanker stage meeting us down in LEO.”
Marshall stole a glance over at Riley and the spacers. That was a full day they’d be on their own, separated from the mother ship but with no fuel left to maneuver. Rosie spoke up. “Question, sir.”
“Shoot.”
“Do we have any reason to believe there are survivors? Or is this strictly going to be a recovery op?”
If Wylie had been good at hiding his concern, Poole was even better. “No way to know, Rosado. Its operator was getting a data stream up until the flare hit, but that’s all they were getting. For some reason there was no voice comm and no acknowledgment of their storm warnings. It’s like they weren’t listening.”
The crew traded some exasperated looks and murmurs between them. A group of civilians had probably overextended themselves, become overconfident, and gotten themselves good and dead. Nobody on board had bothered talking to the ground—had they even been aware they were out of touch?
“It gets better,” Poole said. “It looks like they cycled the airlock as the storm was starting to hit.”
That sparked concern among them: There could have been spacewalkers out there, exposed in the middle of a flare and ignorant of their fate. “They went outside? Were they trying to commit suicide?”
Poole responded firmly, squelching any speculation. “We’re not going to play that game, people. It’s a mayday call, and we’re answering it.” He paused for effect. “And I will remind you that it’ll take a few more days for this to dissipate in the Van Allen belts, so I expect everyone to observe strict exposure precautions and dosage limits. If you’re not on duty, stay in the core module.” He pointed at Marshall. “Shuttle crew, start taking your preventatives now. I don’t want anyone going back home with extra limbs growing out of their skulls.”
He brought up a graphic of Stardust. It was a large, truncated cone with a cylindrical airlock portal mounted in its nose. “Their control center was able to see from telemetry that two passengers were prepped for an EVA while the other two remained inside.” He zoomed in on the cylinder. “The airlock in its nose doubles as their radiation shelter. It can hold four people in shirtsleeves or two in suits. It’s possible that we have survivors stuck in that airlock who are unable to communicate. I can promise you that is not a pleasant place to be.” He surveyed the room with a look that told of hard-earned experience. “Snap to it, I want the shuttle prepped for departure before our next phasing burn.”
Nick took a sip from his suit’s hydration bladder and could barely swallow. His throat felt swollen and raw—was that a symptom of radiation sickness, or was he just growing paranoid? His mind exaggerated every itch, ache and twitch into looming disaster. Every creak was a seam about to rupture into vacuum, every pop was a dying crewmember trying to get into the airlock with him.
After what he’d heard from their final hours, he could hardly be blamed. It was hard to know who’d had the worst of it—Giselle had been outside, completely exposed, and had received the full force of the flare. She’d succumbed quickly, or at least had been quiet about it. As a professional spacewalker, she must have known it was a unique occupational hazard—right? Her last word while still in control of her own body, trapped outside the closed airlock, had been a single accusation: “Bastard.”
The others, having somewhat better protection inside the capsule’s pressure vessel, had taken considerably longer to succumb. He’d had to turn up his headset volume until the waves of static drowned out their bangs and shouts from the other side of the locked hatch. Billy literally hadn’t known what hit them, but Whitman had of course figured it out quickly. Perhaps Nick’s silence had fooled them into thinking he’d suffered the same fate as Giselle, perhaps not. Whitman was a seasoned pilot and had probably figured it out. Given the sketchy nature of their work, there was no way they could all be allowed to continue existing with such knowledge. It was going to happen up here or down there; you throw your dice and you take your chances.
Lesko had never taken a human life, though he’d been surrounded by others who had. It was always “business” to them, and a side of it he’d preferred to avoid.
What happened next? In his fatigue, he hadn’t thought that part through. He was safe from the flare now, in fact was probably safe to go back down into the cabin, but that was the thought which paralyzed him. His only ride back to Earth was going to be inside a cramped spacecraft full of dead people, and he’d be trusting the automation and ground support to fly him home.
The thought would not leave his mind: Inside a cramped spacecraft, full of dead people.
That was his best option, which only worked if the spacecraft worked. And right now, it appeared that much of the spacecraft wasn’t working. He hadn’t counted on the electromagnetic surges overwhelming its avionics—weren’t they supposed to be designed to handle this stuff? The lights wouldn’t come on and the airlock’s environmental panel was dead. He had no idea how or if air was circulating, so he’d kept his suit plugged in to the spacecraft’s air supply. He would occasionally open his visor for a bite from a protein bar; when he did the air felt close. Stale. He took another sip of water, cringing at its chlorinated taste. After all this time, why was he only now noticing every little irritant?
Perhaps because he knew that nearly every action from now on could be among his last. As he’d reached for the lever that would unlock the inner hatch, he’d found it wouldn’t budge. Whitman—it had to be—had somehow locked him out. He’d known, and he’d taken his revenge in the only way he had left.
Lesko stared at the locked inner hatch, imagining his dead companions on the other side and wondering how long it would be before he joined them.