Velocity (11 page)

The Frenchman exhales, the expletive ‘
merde
’ buried within the expelled air.

Cobbin lurches, drops four metres. Henri, Dirk and Nico move to the base of the mast. As he goes the Frenchman reaches to his waist, unclips his Glock’s holster. If Cobbin is incapacitated, be it a ruptured cruciate or a heavy concussion or a broken foot, then Henri will use the weapon swiftly and without remorse. They will not carry an injured man and endanger the mission or the rest of the crew.

Cobbin drops again, five metres from the base now. Then again. Faster this time, he plummets towards the deck then jolts to a stop, half a metre from the surface.

He’s physically fine, has cut the chute’s cords and let his weight pull him down. He slices the last cord and drops to the deck. Embarrassed, he doesn’t make eye contact with the others. ‘Sorry.’

He removes the helmet and oxygen mask then notices Henri’s unclipped holster. ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right, Commander?’

Henri clips the holster shut. ‘You will do the same for me if necessary.’

‘Of course.’

Henri has a comprehensive disdain for American culture, rails against an imperialism that makes rap the preferred music of youth in his beloved Paris, yet he venerates one quintessentially American icon.
Star Trek.
What he admires about it is the code under which the characters live and work.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few
is that code crystallised, a line of dialogue he heard in a movie many years ago, on a first date with the woman who would become his wife. It’s an ideal he has painstakingly instilled in his men. He’s always wondered if it would have the same resonance if they knew he’d borrowed it from Mr Spock.

Henri looks up at Cobbin’s parachute, still snagged on the mast. ‘Let’s get it down.’ They each grasp a severed line and pull. The chute rips away, drops to their feet, leaves only a small patch of material halfway up the mast, not enough to draw attention.

Henri turns to the others. ‘Be ready to move in ninety seconds.’

They nod, kneel and open their delta wings.

**

10

The White Room’s emergency lights cast a dull yellow pall that makes everyone look like they’ve spent too long in the solarium. Judd had been halfway through checking the seals on pilot Rick Calvin’s flight suit when the lights, and everything that runs off mains power, went bye-bye.

A beam of light plays across the White Room’s ceiling. The torch is held by Sam ‘the Walrus’ Schulman, leader of the Closeout Crew, the guy who runs the White Room. Sam does look like a walrus, though it’s not his weight that draws the comparison so much as the jowls and grey, drooping mustache.

Sam speaks into his headset’s microphone but can’t raise anyone in the Launch Control Center. Not surprising. The communications relay is powered off the pad and the pad has no power. Sam pulls his headset to his neck and pushes a walkie-talkie to his ear. The subsequent conversation with Launch Control is short and sweet because they don’t know what the problem is either.

Judd realises they could be in for a long night. All power and communications run from the Launch Complex to the Launch Control Center five and a half kilometres away along a series of conduits buried deep underground. If the problem is in one of those conduits they could be waiting here for hours doing sweet FA, then be back tomorrow. On the other hand, if the glitch is localised in the new Firing Room they might be able to locate the problem quickly and get on with it.

‘What’s going on?’ Rhonda’s frustrated voice echoes out of the shuttle’s flight deck, swirls through the open hatch and thumps into the White Room. Inside
Atlantis,
she’s already strapped in, as are Martie and Dean Steinhower, the second mission specialist. ‘I haven’t even got comms. Sam?’

‘Travelling.’ Sam starts towards the shuttle’s open hatch to update her. He kneels, crawls through the hatch’s narrow circular aperture, head ducked, arse high. Not a dignified look. That’s why the media were never allowed to photograph astronauts doing it. On the pad the White Room covered it and on the runway the Egress Vehicle did the same.

‘It’s getting stuffy in here.’ Rick says it to no one in particular. ‘I’m going to step outside, take a breath.’

Poor old Rick, a world without air-conditioning is a world he can’t tolerate. Judd rolls his eyes. God forbid an emergency forced him to land a shuttle somewhere unseasonable.

Judd pulls down a folding seat attached to the wall and takes a load off. He sits with a sigh that says he has better things to do than wait around. The frustration is, in fact, all studied. Truth is, he likes being here because it means he’s close to the action.

**

Severson sits on the riser at the front of Firing Room Four in the heart of the Launch Control Center, stares at the monitor in front of him and tries his best to look cool. It’s not working.

He should know how to fix this problem, he’s in charge, after all, but he doesn’t have a clue. The screen in the console gives him nothing, no information about the state of the shuttle or its myriad systems. All power, video and communication with the spacecraft have been cut off, bar Sam’s walkie-talkie.

Severson stands and looks out the two-storey-high windows to the right, tries to appear thoughtful, like he’s working on a solution. Out the towering window he should see the shuttle lit up like Broadway. Instead it appears like an apparition, a ghostly outline courtesy of the pad’s emergency lights.

‘Shit a brick.’ He says it then instinctively checks that the switch on the comms box at his hip, which is attached to his headset and its microphone, is off. It is. ‘Hurry up, you fools.’ The ‘fools’ in question are Jake Asprey and his band of techno-dorks one floor down in the Shuttle Data Center. They’re responsible for transferring information from the shuttle to this Firing Room and are currently searching for a solution. Severson’s sure they’re to blame for this foul-up.

‘Come on, pricks!’ He doesn’t check his comms box this time. He knows it’s off.

Every operator on the floor turns and looks at him. He realises he’s been flicking the comms box switch on and off, a nervous habit, and spoke while his headset’s microphone was momentarily live. He ignores the staring operators, doesn’t let on that he said anything, or that he’s anything but cool.

Severson knows he isn’t as smart as people think he is but he also knows how to work the system and, crucially, he’s blessed with an abundance of charisma. So he has used those abilities to rise through the ranks to become a shuttle pilot and then a launch director. Who knew where it’d end? This was America and he’d been an astronaut. America
loved
astronauts.
Loved them.
He could run NASA someday and then what, public office? The world was his oyster. He just has to make sure he’s perfect every step of the way, or, more accurately, he has to make sure he’s
seen
to be perfect every step of the way. He has to look cool, and make sure his secret never goes public.

Severson flicks the switch on his comms box. ‘Jake, it’s the launch director. How’s it going down there?’

A voice buzzes in his headset. ‘Still working it.’

‘What’s the time frame?’

‘We’ll get back to you.’

What Severson wants to say is: ‘Hurry up, dickhead! You’re making me look bad!’ What he actually says is: ‘Sooner rather than later, please.’ He knows it won’t go down as one of history’s great inspirational radio communiqués, but he also knows that losing his temper never looks cool.

**

‘Turn the lights back on but don’t show them video yet.’

The words are distant and soft, like they’re tumbling down a long tunnel coated with molasses. Tam finds it relaxing, soothing. His eyes flutter closed and his head nods forward ...

‘Tam, Gerald! Do you read?’ The voice again. Louder. Insistent. Familiar. Henri.

Tam’s eyes blink open and his unbitten hand moves across the keyboard, types two letters.

O N

**

The White Room’s lights blink on.

‘We’re back.’ Judd can hear Severson’s relieved voice over his headset. ‘We don’t have video yet but let’s continue as planned.’

Sam speaks into his headset’s microphone: ‘Roger that.’ He turns to the others. ‘Okay, we haven’t got all night. Let’s get ‘em on board.’ Speaking into the mic again, he says: ‘Rick, we need you back here now.’

There’s no response. Sam breathes out, shakes his head, mumbles something that begins with ‘f’, tries again. ‘Rick? You there?’

No response. He turns to Judd. ‘Find him, please.’

Judd nods and steps through the White Room’s door onto the crew access arm. Judd’s never been a huge fan of 48-year-old Rick Calvin. When he moved to Houston after recruitment, the New Jersey native adopted a southern twang and came over all evangelical to curry favour with a couple of influential people within the program’s hierarchy who leaned that way, faith-wise. It wasn’t so much the shameless act of stunt religiosity that annoyed Judd, but that the strategy had worked so brilliantly. This was Rick’s third flight aboard the shuttle.

‘Come on, Rick, time to work.’

He’s not there. The narrow crew access arm is dark and empty. At the far end, where it connects to the Fixed Service Structure, a shadow moves. Annoyed, Judd pads down the access arm, which is covered overhead but open on both sides from waist height. ‘Tell me, Rick, is your religion the one where Jesus and the Devil are brothers? Or is it the one where everyone used to ride dinosaurs to church?’

There’s no answer.

‘Rick, where are you, buddy?’ Judd turns the corner towards the elevator. It’s open and Rick stands in front of it, right hand covering the left side of his chest like he’s pledging allegiance to the flag. ‘Be - be - be - ‘

Judd stares at him. ‘What
are
you doing, man?’ Then he sees blood smeared under Rick’s right hand. ‘What the hell —?’

‘Be - be - behind you.’

‘What?’ Judd turns. A figure stands in the shadows, a silenced pistol raised.

Judd runs, tackles Rick as the weapon spits. Judd’s right hip burns with a bright pain as they crash into the open elevator.

Rick slumps on top of Judd, a dark-red bullet wound where his left eye once was. ‘Oh Jesus!’ He’s dead. Horrified, Judd turns, watches the figure with the pistol step out of the shadows and stride towards him. It’s a blond man, tall, in his late forties, his face somehow familiar.

‘Big Arena.’ Judd says it without thinking.

The man pauses, shocked.

‘You cut down the tree.’

The man’s expression morphs from shock to anger and he raises the pistol. Judd gets behind Rick’s body, pushes it up. The pistol spits. Bullets slam into Rick’s back. Judd drives the body out of the elevator. It slumps onto the man, knocks him back a step.

Judd jams his right thumb against the elevator’s CLOSE button. The door slides shut as the man pushes Rick’s body aside and fires through the narrowing gap. Judd pivots behind the closing door as the bullet thunks into the back of the elevator.

The door judders to a stop, five centimetres from closing. Judd looks down. Rick’s left foot blocks it. Judd reaches to push it clear, feels a bullet pass his hand, sees the hole it leaves in the elevator’s floor. He pulls back, keeps his thumb mashed against the CLOSE button, tries to work out what to do next.

The pistol slides through the gap. Its lone eye swings towards Judd. He turns side on as it fires and the bullet slams into the wall behind him. He steps forward, brings a fist down and a knee up on the man’s wrist, hard as he can.

The man cries out and the pistol is jarred from his hand. Judd catches it and the man yanks his hand out of the elevator.

Judd bends, flips out Rick’s foot in one sharp movement and the door clunks shut. He jams his thumb against the DOWN button and the elevator descends.

‘Christ.’ Judd sucks air, arms tingling from adrenaline. He tries to process the last twenty seconds. Rick Calvin is dead. Dead. A blond man tried to kill him, a man he’s sure was once the lead singer of the German pop group Big Arena.

The adrenaline eases and Judd notices the pain at his hip. He inspects the bloodied wound where his comms box once hung. It’s not so bad, more a graze with delusions of grandeur than anything serious. Not like poor Rick Calvin. Shit.

How in hell did this happen? How did that guy get up there? It doesn’t matter how, what matters is that he’s
still
up there. With Rhonda. Any relief Judd feels at his escape vanishes. He must get to her. Now.

He hits the STOP button. The elevator jolts to a halt. He hits the UP button. The elevator rises. He studies the pistol in his hand, feels its weight. Even though he’s never held a gun before he’s sure it gives him the advantage.

A loud thud from the elevator’s roof. Judd looks up at the ceiling. He’s not sure he still has the advantage.

**

Dirk watches the elevator rise. While researching this mission Dirk had heard all the stories about astronaut Judson Bell. Apparently when
Columbia
broke up he pussied out. Yet here he is, rising
towards
the danger, doing the exact opposite of ‘pussied out’.