Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (27 page)

           
Gulaev
looked on, thinking that he would not want to exchange places with his
commander and pilot this strange craft. There was something ominous about the
spaceplane’s dark interior. It had never struck him so before, but now.... He
broke from his reverie and checked his watch. “Excuse me, General. We must
report back to the command post.”

           
Govorov
nodded, still running his hands over the controls. A few moments later he
grabbed the entry bar above the hatch and pulled himself out of the cockpit.

           
“Yes,”
Govorov said, “yes.... ”—and patted the exterior of this flying marvel, or was
caressed
a better word . .. ?

 
          
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

 
          
“Attention on the station. Target
horizon crossing. Situation is red alert.”

           
Ann was at
her station in the engineering module when the latest announcement came over
the speakers. Until a few minutes ago she had been trying to make up her mind
about leaving
Silver
Tower
.
It had been one of the hardest decisions of her life, and what made it worse
was knowing
that Skybolt was literally just a hairbreadth
away from operational effectiveness. If she could only
do
just one more test.... But there seemed no chance for that now. Things down
below were happening too fast. Even she had to recognize priorities.
Besides, the argument Jason...
Saint-Michael
... had made about there maybe being too many Pages
involved in this thing was beginning to sink in. She really hated not knowing
what kind of shape her father was in, or even if he—

           
She’d made
her decision. Go. She’d have another crack at Skybolt, maybe before too long,
and meanwhile she wasn’t doing a hell of a lot here. She
would
miss the stubborn general, though. It felt strange to admit
that, stranger still that it was true.... They’d hardly done anything but go at
each other since she’d come on board. But now she felt she knew the reason for
it, at least part of it. They were two of a kind, she and Saint-Michael. Both
driven. Both territorial, possessive. Both unsure how to connect on an
emotional level. Had he been trying to make contact with her all along and she’d
been too dumb, or stubborn, to recognize it? Was their interrupted exchange
before the attack on the
Nimitz
carrier group leading up to something? Thinking on it now, she believed so and
wanted to kick herself. Great going, Page. You’ve done it again. This is a man
to appreciate, for God’s sake. And he
is
a man... like someone else she cared about on the
California
.
... She could hear the broadcasts and
conversations about the stricken USS
California
but fought back the impulse to leave her station again and rush to the command
module. She wriggled uncomfortably in the “g” suit she’d put on in preparation
for leaving
Silver
Tower
aboard the shuttle
Enterprise
and tried not to think dreary thoughts.

           
In the
command module the engineering chief, Colonel Marks, asked Saint-Michael: “Are
we going to attack their carrier, General?”

           
Saint-Michael
shook his head. “My orders are to protect
Iran
from Soviet invasion, not to destroy the
Brezhnev.
It seems we’ve made a hard but fair trade—the
California
for
those Soviet transports and fighters we jumped over
Tehran
.
If the Russians back off now this whole thing just may blow over—”

           
“Aircraft
launching from the
Brezhnev,”
Sergeant Jake Jefferson broke in. “High speed. Heading west.”

           
“Westbound?”

           
“Yes sir.
Nimitz
launching aircraft in response.
Also heading west.”
Jefferson
turned to Saint-Michael.
“Looks like no one’s going to back off today, General....”

           
Saint-Michael
activated his communications panel, checked the scrambler/descrambler and keyed
the microphone.
“Nimitz,
this is
Armstrong. Come in.”

           
“Clancy
here, Jas. Go ahead.”

           
“We picked
up those Flankers heading west, Admiral. Are your aircraft pursuing?”

           
“Affirmative.
The Air Force has a 767B AWACS orbiting east
of
Riyadh
. It asked for protection
from those Flankers until it can get some F-15 reinforcements from Kigzi
Airbase. The 767B will be returning back under friendly Rapier SAM cover until
our F-15s catch up to them.”

           
“Copy.
We’ve got the whole area covered. Are you receiving
our data transmissions okay?”

           
“So far.
The
Ticonderoga
is relaying SBR surveillance data to us.

 
         
It’s a bastardized way of doing it,
but with
California
out of commission we don’t—”

           
The
transmission halted in a loud, piercing squeal that caused everyone listening
in to rip their earsets away from their heads.

           
“What the
hell
... ?”

           
Just as
Saint-Michael called out for a damage report a tremendous lurch threw everyone
on
Silver
Tower
towards the Velcro-covered floor. Technicians yelled out in pain—no one could
stop himself as bodies slammed to the deck. It was as though they were rag
dolls hurled to the floor by an angry child. The module seemed to be spinning
in several directions all at once.

           
General
Saint-Michael, the only one secured in place, set his communications panel to
stationwide address. “Attention on the station. Collision warning. Damage
report on loudspeaker.
Enterprise
,
clear for emergency
disconnect
.
This station is on red alert.” He unfastened his safety belt and tried to rise
out of his seat but found he was held fast.

           
Gravity!
For the first time
Silver
Tower
had been exposed to it. Whatever caused it, the station would soon tear itself
apart if the huge forces did not stop.

           
With great
effort Saint-Michael managed to overcome the unexpectedly severe “g” forces and
haul himself out of the commander’s seat. It felt as if he was riding a fast
express elevator from the first to the eighth floor—the gravity had a terrific
pull after weeks of microgravity.

           
Walker
,
Jefferson
and the other techs were slowly overcoming the
sudden gravity surge and struggling to their feet. Saint-Michael made his way
to the station’s attitude control panel.

           
“Check out
Davis and Montgomery,” Saint-Michael told
Walker
,
before turning to the panel.

           
The two
techs were wincing with pain on the deck. “One broken leg,”
Walker
reported after examining
Davis
. He
checked the other tech. “A possible broken rib, maybe internal injuries.”

           
“And
there’s a fire on the number three fuel-containment vessel.” Saint-Michael hit
keys on a keypad, then punched a button. “I’ve jettisoned the vessel.”

           
The sudden
gravity now began to subside. Saint-Michael and the others could hear the loud
bangs and hisses as
Silver
Tower
’s
ten banks of powerful thrusters began to reestablish the station’s normal orbit
and attitude. A few more moments and all but a barely discernible amount of
gravity
was
gone.

 
         
“What the hell
happened?”

           
“The
containment vessels on the right keel below,” the general said, scanning the
computer monitors. “The explosion started the station spinning.” He picked up
his earset. “The damn squeal in the earsets is gone.” He replaced his earset on
his left ear but used the microphone and the loudspeaker system once again:

           
“Attention
on the station. There has been an explosion of one of our fuel cells. Normal
microgravity will be returning shortly. Report by loudspeaker to Colonel Walker
any—”

           
The lights
in the command module dimmed nearly
to
black. A control
panel sputtered and smoked in a cloud of sparks. The air in the module suddenly
felt hot, like a sauna.

           
Saint-Michael
immediately put on his POS face mask and told his crew to do the same.
“Off-duty personnel report to the lifeboat,” he ordered. The lifeboat was a
nonmaneuverable pod fitted with life- support systems.

           
As
Walker
began checking each man’s face mask connections and POS settings, Saint-Michael
plugged his earset communications cord into the microphone jack in his own face
mask. “All personnel report by module.”

           
“Sergeant
Bayles in the lifeboat, Skipper. I’ve got Moyer, Yemana, Kelly and the
engineering techs with me. Everyone’s okay. Sleep and rec modules evacuated,
checked and sealed. I’m in a spacesuit and ready to assist in personal
transport.”

           
Kevin
Baker, still at his post monitoring the command module, fumbled with his POS
mask but finally reported. “Baker here, sir. I’m okay. I can see Ann through the
connecting tunnel. She looks okay, too. The main connecting tunnel outside the
command module has depressurized—looks like
Enterprise
has
emergency-disconnected. Repeat
,
main connecting tunnel
to the shuttle is
not
secure.”

           
“Page here.
Engineering is secure. I’m on POS.”

           
Saint-Michael
looked over at Walker, who was standing over a space-suited crewman. “What’s
the problem, Jim?”

           
“Looks like
Sergeant Wallis’s intercom
is
out, Skipper.”
Saint-Michael threw his notebook toward
Walker
—it
actually arched a bit in the tiny amount of gravity still lingering instead of
floating in the usual straight line. “Pass a message to him with that. Tell him
to start deploying the rescue balls,
then
have him
help Davis and Montgomery into the lifeboat and switch places with Bayles. Have
him fix his intercom in the lifeboat. Sergeant Bayles, come up here to the
command module.”

 
         
Wallis acknowledged
Walker
’s
hastily scribbled note with a thumb’s up and started to unpack the station’s
rescue balls—large man-sized sealable plastic and canvas bags. In an emergency
a crewmember could seal
himself
inside a rescue ball
and pressurize it with his portable oxygen system. The ball could then be
transported by a space-suited crewman from a depressurized or contaminated module
to the lifeboat, another safe pressurized module or the space shuttle or other
rescue vessels. Wallis had a rescue ball open and Velcroed near each person in
the command module by the time Bayles had made his way to the command module,
and then helped the two injured crewmen toward the hatch to the connecting
tunnel.

           
“Station
integrity check, all sections,” Saint-Michael ordered by loudspeaker.
“Atmosphere checks okay everywhere on the station except for main transfer
tunnel and docking bay. No contamination, just a heat build up....”

           
“General, I
think I see the problem,” Wallis reported. He was holding the stationwide
address-system microphone to his helmet glass and screaming at the top of his
lungs, but his voice sounded as if his head were inside a tin bucket. “I’m in
the connecting tunnel between the research and sleep modules. I can see the
keel. The radiators look as though they’ve been ripped apart by a... a giant
lawn mower. Almost nothing—” And then only a muffled scream.

           
“Wallis?
Christ, what—?”

           
At that
instant the lights dimmed again in the command module. Control panels
flickered, then returned to normal. The computer monitors began to fill with
error and warning messages. The air in the module became stagnant, near
unbearable.

           
“Skipper....”

           
“Wallis?
You all right?”

           
“I’m...
okay. We got tagged by some kind of laser beam, sir. I
saw
the damned thing. It hit the heel, then passed over the
pressurized modules. There’s sparks flying out of the keel.... I think it might
be one of the SBR antennas—”

           
“Can you
make it to the lifeboat?”

           
“I think
so.... Sir, it’s the number-one SRB antenna for sure. The antenna looks chewed
up and the control box is sparking—”