CHAPTER 55
Low Earth Orbit
Tuesday
12:01 p.m. Pacific Time
3:01 p.m. Eastern Time
“Okay, that’s close enough, V.” Michael and Vladimir were absolutely exhausted. Adrenaline and stimulants could only take them so far. The two of them had been truly burning the candle from both ends and the middle for several days. Instead of redocking the Progress Vladimir had brought it around adjacent to the Vyrezka and parked it there while they off-loaded the glide bodies into place on the DSHIM. Michael tethered them close so it would minimize the effort of installing them. Once Michael and the warheads were off the spacecraft, Vladimir had brought it back around to the Service Module side and ran the automated docking software.
“I’ll be right there, M.” Vladimir had already begun cycling through the airlock and was on his way to support the installation process. It had taken another two hours to bolt them into place and then plug in the command line umbilicals.
“I’m wiped out, V.” Michael was exhausted beyond being useful.
“Agreed, comrade.” Vladimir helped him with the last of the warhead connections and let out a very long exhale. “As much as I enjoy being a cosmonaut, it would be nice to pee in something other than this suit.”
“Let’s take the time, then,” Michael said. “K, how much time before you would need more from us?”
“I have connectivity with the remaining five warheads. Target two launch window is in three hours and thirteen minutes. I can take it from here if you guys need a rest.”
“We have to take a rest cycle. Should we alternate or both sleep?” Vladimir asked.
“We’ll let K be our eyes and ears. You heard that right, K? You will be our eyes and ears?”
“Copy that, fellas. I’ll keep a watch on the multipath and on the other alerts we have in place. If something is coming, I’ll let you know.”
“Let’s get some rest for a few hours, then,” Vladimir said.
“If there is any movement from the Soyuz, you let us know,” Michael said. “We have a camera fixed on it now so you should be able to track it.”
“Get some rest guys. I have it under control.”
M,
I hope you are happy so far. Target one accomplished. Close to two.
V
“Major, we have a report from Space Command that there was a large object anomaly that approached you a couple hours ago. We were just now fed the report. For whatever reason nobody from Russia said anything either,” the current U.S. CAPCOM told her on a secure channel.
“What was it?” Allison had drifted off to sleep as she awaited her burn package to go home. She realized way more time had passed than it should have. She checked her watch. “I’ve been asleep for two hours!”
“Roscosmos says they didn’t see anything in their live feeds, but they now confirm. It was a Progress Module.”
“Progress? From ISS?”
“Copy that, Major Simms.”
“No! NO!” Allison immediately flipped the docking camera toggle with the long metal pistol grip rod. She couldn’t see the tethered nukes. She toggled the periscope and didn’t see them. She leaned as best she could to the window and looked out. She didn’t see them or the shadow they had been casting across the solar panels of the Soyuz. “Shit!”
“Major?”
“They took the nukes back!”
“What was that?” Michael jumped awake from a deep sleep. Hanging in the sleeping system in the main executive suite in the DSIHM had him confused at first until his tired mind and body caught up with the fact that he was in space. He was on the taken ISS. He was in the DSIHM. And he had a good idea of what had just awakened him. He scrambled through his pouch and pulled his glasses from there. They ding-donged his implants as he put them on.
“K, you there?”
“Yes, M. Did the launch wake you?”
“So, you did just launch number two?”
“Yes. It is away and so far, looks good. Detonation clock is ticking away. In nineteen minutes the lights in Moscow go out.”
“Great. V, you hearing this?” Michael asked. There was no response. “He slept through it, probably.”
“Probably.”
“Next launch window is when?” Michael asked.
“We have to make it eight orbits to get to the right location over Africa. But when we get on that one orbit, we can launch three of the remaining four.” Keenan showed him a graphic of the orbital tracks of the space station in his virtual view with the remaining launch windows marked in red dots with times. The first time was about eight in the morning Eastern Time Zone. “Everything is still moving along.”
“Any movement from our friend in the Soyuz?”
“Nothing so far. I wonder if they even know you picked her pocket yet?”
“I’m sure NORAD saw us and tracked us.”
“Hmmm, maybe I can hack in there…”
“Don’t waste your time. Focus on what we’re doing now. Keep a watch out for anything we need to know and keep the software updates for the warheads going,” Michael told him.
“That is mostly automatic now. I’m pulling the ephemeris data from the ISS directly and reloading the Kalman filters. They recalculate burns to target every minute,” Keenan told him.
“Can you keep watch so I can sleep a bit more?”
“Sure. Rest. I’ll wake you if anything changes.”
“Great. Thanks.”