Death Orbit (17 page)

There was still a little bit of electricity aboard the spacecraft—the tiny light on its rear end was still blinking. But again, this did not provide anything. Fuel cells could go on for years, especially if they were maintaining a small load. But juice on the inside might mean that some of the other instruments could be brought back to life and possibly salvaged to help maintain the Zon.

Hunter was about to push the flight computer power panel when suddenly he felt a familiar vibration rise up inside him.

“Damn,” he whispered. “This is not a good time…”

Their helmet radios crackled to life an instant later. Cook was on the line.

“You guys better get your rear ends back here now,” he told them. “JT just spotted another mine…”

As it turned out, JT had discovered not one but two space mines.

One was orbiting in approximately the same flight path as the Zon had been before moving up 30 miles to inspect the Soyuz. But the second mine was perilously close—less than a half mile below their present position.

Hunter and Geraci scrambled out of the Soyuz as fast they could, all curiosity as to how the spacecraft came to be tumbling out here with its ghoulish cargo now forgotten. Cook gave them continual radio updates on the location of both space mines even as they emerged from the hatch and began undoing one of the tethers from the Russian spacecraft. The lower mine would probably pass by without affecting them. But the upper bomb—well, that would be a different story.

“We read it as coming into a complementary orbit in less than four minutes,” Cook was telling them urgently. “Better speed it up, guys…”

Hunter and Geraci needed no prompting. To save time, they left one tether tied to the Soyuz and shared the other to make their way back to the Zon. They were now streaking toward the mother ship as fast as their zip guns would carry them.

“Three minutes,” Cook said, as they arrived back at the Zon. “Two and fifty-five… hurry!”

But moving quickly in space was impossible. Hunter and Geraci had reached the Zon’s hatchway, all right, but now the simple task of undoing the tether and getting the pressure lock to work seemed to take hours, with every moment performed in painfully slow motion.

“We’ll be in its track in one minute, fifty seconds,” Cook was telling them as the bawky hatch finally snapped open. “One minute forty-five…”

Hunter had to practically shove Geraci inside the airlock; it would hold only one person at a time. The engineer reluctantly went in, headfirst—and then had to stay that way for a long agonizing minute as the primitive pressurization system slowly filled the lock with oxygen.

Hunter, meanwhile, was turned somersaults just outside the hatchway, trying to position his body this way and that in order to get a visual track on the space mine. He finally did catch a glimpse of it. It was indeed about a half mile below them and maybe two miles out. Like everything else around him, it was moving slowly, but spinning in such a way as to deteriorate its orbit—and get closer to the Zon.

“You got about one minute, Hawk,” Cook’s voice told him, just as the pressurization seal light came on. Now, at least Geraci was inside. But how could Hunter get into the pressure lock, wait for it to repressurize, then get into the Zon itself, climb out of his ETA suit, get up to the flight deck, take over the controls, and get them away from the space mine all before it went off?

The answer was, he couldn’t. There just wouldn’t be enough time.

On this one, the evasive maneuvers would have to be done by someone else.

It was Elvis in the commander’s seat when the light flashed on the control panel indicating that Hunter was inside the pressure lock and that the hatch was locked and sealed behind him.

Well, at least Hunter was safe, he thought. But now they had less than 30 seconds to evade the oncoming space mine. That was not enough time for any of the elaborate, ballet-like maneuvers that Hunter had instituted when encountering the previous orbital bombs. Those precise movements had been choreographed in such a way as not to call attention to the Zon while maintaining their orbital path. But now, with every second important, Elvis knew only blunt, evasive action could save them.

Luckily for them, he was the man to do it.

Elvis had been at the controls of the Zon spacecraft for its five previous flights, all of which had been taken under duress at the hands of Viktor and his minions. As such, he knew how to finesse the creaking spaceship and how to kick it in the ass. Right now, it was the latter that was needed.

So as soon as he knew Hunter was safely on-board, Elvis fired the Zon’s main engine, and at the same time, commanded the steering jets to point the spacecraft’s nose straight up. There was a tremendous burst of power felt by everyone on-board. There was also a disturbing buckling sound—once again, it felt like the whole spacecraft was about to come apart at the seams.

But Elvis stayed with it, slowly backing off the throttles as the Zon zoomed away from the orbital bomb. A few seconds later, the mine went off, not a kilometer away from where the Zon had been just moments before. The shock wave hit the spacecraft five seconds later, shaking it from nose to stern and back again. The electricity failed; then the computers crashed. The vibrations got so bad, the zero-gravity toilet flushed itself. But finally the violent rattling died away. The electricity blinked back on. The computers regained their previous whir. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. They had survived yet another space blast.

JT and Geraci immediately hurried aft to get Hunter out of the pressure lock. Elvis and Cook righted the Zon again as Ben began backtracking the space bomb’s orbital path. He noticed something odd on the radar. Somehow the Soyuz space capsule had followed them up their escape route and was now tumbling dangerously close to their nose.

“Jeezus, look at that!” Cook yelled, as the oddly-shaped green spacecraft came back into view.

The Soyuz was spinning in such a way that everything not strapped down inside it was now spewing out into space. This included one of the cosmonaut’s skeletal bodies which was suddenly ejected through the main hatchway.

As they all watched in horror, the dead cosmonaut suddenly became entangled in the tether line Hunter and Geraci had left tied to the Soyuz—so that’s how the Russian capsule had followed them up! But now, with uncanny movements, the ghostly spacemen began climbing up the lifeline right toward the Zon itself.

“God damn,” Elvis breathed. “This is too much…”

It took only a few seconds for the skeleton to make its way up the tether and bump against the front of the Zon. The force of that collision then caused it to topple over the snout and lodge right up against the front window.

Suddenly, the dead cosmonaut was staring right in at them.

“God damn!” Elvis cried again. “Damn, this is
way
too much!”

The cosmonaut’s mask was open and his teeth were bared. He was jiggling in such a way, it appeared as if he was laughing hysterically at them.

“Do something!” Ben yelled over at Elvis—but the pilot was already taking action. He fired a side maneuvering jet and the sudden movement dislodged the body and sent it spinning off into space forever. One second it was there, the next it was gone.

Elvis, Ben, and Cook just stared at each other in disbelief. It was as if they’d all just shared the same nightmare.

The words Cook had heard on the strange radio broadcast the day before came back to him.

“The dead shall rise and they will mock you,” the voice had said. “And then it will be your time to die…”

Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral

T
HERE WAS STILL A COLUMN
of ugly black smoke rising above the northern end of the Kennedy Space Center when the six F-86 Sabre jets pulled on to the main runway and prepared to take-off.

Despite the pall from the previous night’s battle, it was a crystal-clear morning; the sun was about 20 minutes from rising and the sky was brightening quickly. The half-dozen Sabre jets, their engines now at full growl, were about to embark on a recon flight which would take them down to the southern tip of UA Florida and back to Cape Canaveral again. Their mission: to look for signs of any “belligerent naval activity” moving toward the KSC from the south. The Sabres were being sent out to search for any Cult battleships that might be in the area.

A recent acquisition from the Empire of Peru, the Sabres had been extensively refurbished by Jeff and George Kephart of Sky High Spies Inc., the same company that operated the world’s last remaining SR-71 hypersonic spy plane. Instead of the antique J47-GE-17 power plant originally installed on the Sabres, the Kepharts put a balls-out J79-GE-11A 15,000-pound thrust afterburner engine in each F-86, the same power plant found on the old yet speedy F-104 Starfighter. These engines gave the Sabres speed and power their original designers could only have dreamed about. Also removed were the airplanes’ inadequate armaments. Instead of a single .50 nose-mounted machine gun, the Sabres were given two M60 aerial cannons attached by pods to the underbelly. Hard points were also installed on the reinforced underwings, allowing the F-86s to carry a variety of ordnance, including antiship, antitank and air-to-air anti-aircraft missiles.

Once their equipment rehab was completed, the Sabres were painted in bright silver with red trim and detailing around the nose intake and rear stabilizer. When finished, the six jets looked like aerial hot rods. The Kepharts sold them to the UAAF for a song. Their only request was that the Sabres be handled by a specialist maintenance crew and that the Kepharts themselves be allowed to fly them once in a while. The UAAF high command readily agreed.

The first action the Sabres saw was during the mass suicide attack by the mysterious army of Norsemen the previous night. Loaded with full cannon pods and a wide array of ground ordnance, the F-86s had bombed and strafed the attackers on the fringes of the battlefield while the three huge C-5 gunships concentrated on the main enemy force in the middle. Despite their small role, the rehabbed Sabres had given a good accounting of themselves, proving an airplane could look sharp and still perform well in combat.

This recon mission out over the Atlantic would be a little less strenuous on the Sabre jets and their pilots—or so it was hoped. Ever since the fleet of Asian Mercenary Cult battleships had been spotted off the Florida Keys, the UA command had been garnering all its recce elements in an attempt to locate the elusive enemy fleet. Because of the attack the night before, this effort was redoubled since a follow-up Cult attack on the KSC seemed like a real possibility. And though the Sabres were not your typical recon plane, the way things were going, every little bit would help.

For this mission, the Sabre flight would first head east out over the Atlantic, then turn south over Grand Bahama Island, then southwest to an area off Key Largo. Once there, they would land and refuel at an auxiliary UAAF naval station, then make the return flight to Cape Canaveral. In all, the entire mission would cover just 320 miles. For radio purposes, the collection of Sabres would be known as Flight 19.5.

Two of the airplanes were fitted with dual seats and dual controls; these planes also carried extra navigation equipment on board. The other four Sabres were hauling heavy weapons, including one Harpoon antiship missile apiece. Leading the flight in one of the two-seaters was a UAAF lieutenant named Taylor “Chuckie” Charles. A veteran of the war against the Fourth Reich and a pilot in the UAAF’s 1st Aerial Expeditionary Force, which had deployed to Vietnam the year before, Charles was known as a level-headed, competent officer and an extraordinary flyer. He was due for a promotion to Captain as soon as this mission was completed.

The six airplanes took off without incident. The weather was surprisingly crisp for August, and the worst of the heat had yet to hit the Florida coastline. The flight reached its first vector point just 13 minutes after take-off. Because the armed recon mission was being undertaken in strict security, a near-total radio blackout was mandatory. Still, as per the mission paper, Charles’s back-seat systems man sent a brief message to Kennedy Control that the six Sabres had reached their first objective and were now turning south.

The radio blackout was reimposed, to be broken only after Flight 19.5 reached its second objective, the northwestern tip of Grand Bahama Island, or if it spotted any sign of the Cult battleships.

But shortly after the radio man reported this first position check, another message came in from Flight 19.5. It was received by air controllers both in the Kennedy Space Center main control tower and the tower at the old Banana River Naval Air Station nearby.

The radio message was unclear and broken up in transmission—this was the first sign of trouble. Though garbled, it sounded like the radio man was saying, “We seem to be off course. We cannot see land. Repeat: we cannot see land…”

This was very strange. If Flight 19.5 was following its flight plan correctly, none of its pilots would be
expected
to see land, as they would be flying too low and too far out to sea. Also disturbing was the fact that the second radio transmission had been sent unscrambled and on the Sabre flight’s main frequency, not its emergency one.

Both control towers attempted to send a coded message back to the Sabre jets telling them in effect to shut up and go on a scramble line if they had to talk to the base control. Whether these messages were simply ignored by Flight 19.5 or not received at all, would never be determined. The only thing for certain was the radio man continued broadcasting on an open and unscrambled line.

“We are not sure of our position,” came his second message from Flight 19.5. “We cannot be sure of where we are. We seem to be lost…”

At this point, air traffic controllers at both the space center and Banana River were beginning to think they were being targeted for some monstrous practical joke. It was nearly impossible for Flight 19.5 to be lost—they were just 20 minutes’ flying time from the coast, 10 minutes or less if they all went to afterburners. Plus it was still a clear morning; the sun was obviously still rising in the east. Even if every one of their navigation devices went wrong, the Sabre pilots could simply position themselves with the sun on their left and then fly to the right and reach land. But even this simple solution to their problem seem to elude them.