Orbit Page 12

  He makes his way to one of the glassed-in booths at the rear of the control room and picks up a tie-line maintained twenty-four hours a day by a crack team of specialists, a line that can reach the President almost anywhere at any moment. It is a capability approached with great care and some fear. Lifting the handset bypasses the chain of command, and if the reason isn’t as rock solid as the mountain around them, careers can be ended.

  Even that of a four-star general.

  A voice most of the nation instantly recognizes comes on the other end. It’s just past 7 A.M. in Washington, and Chris assumes the President is already away from the family quarters, but the sound of rustling bedcovers, a momentary comment from the First Lady, and a deep, sleepy voice betray the assumption.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. President, General Risen at NORAD. My apologies, sir, but we have a situation in accordance with your directive yesterday on the private spacecraft.”

  “Good morning, Chris. I’m just being lazy getting up. What’s up?”

  His explanation is crisp and clear, and there’s a long pause from the other end before the commander in chief sighs.

  “What do you recommend? And we are on a secure line, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. President, with the considerable damage this will do to orbital safety and the tremendous increase in debris…not to mention the loss of life…I recommend we use Longbow.”

  “Really? Won’t our buddies across both ponds see what we’re doing?”

  “Sir, we have to assume they will. The Russians, Chinese, French, and perhaps the European Space Agency will probably be watching. The National Reconnaissance Office is the better one to answer that.”

  “But you think it’s about time they knew our capabilities anyway, right? I mean, it’s been thirty years and five presidents since we made a show of it.”

  “Sir, you’re asking me a policy question I’m not qualified to answer.”

  “Yeah, Chris, you’re right. That’s unfair of me. Look, I’m glad you brought this straight to me. I know it’s tough to jump the chain even in your position, but I need that direct contact. I realize this was a judgment call and not out of the Defcon procedures.”

  “Thank you, sir. I thought it was justified, because of your statements yesterday on television.”

  “You say we have six hours left?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s barely any time. Okay. I’ve got some tough questions to ask an array of people.”

  “We’ll be here, sir.”

  “By the way, I’m told the astronaut up there is a friend of yours.”

  How on earth does he know that? Chris wonders, a flash of caution rocketing through his head about the source of the information and whether it was passed to the President honestly or with malicious intent. Was someone in the Pentagon waiting in the weeds for him?

  “Yes, sir,” he answers. “Bill Campbell was a NASA astronaut and a fellow Air Force pilot and a friend. But I…”

  “That’s what makes us a great nation, Chris. Not that we know everyone, but that we’re sufficiently family to care. That isn’t an object up there, it’s two of us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. Gotta go. Hang in there, General. You are appreciated.”

  Chris replaces the receiver with a smile. “You are appreciated,” is a signature tag line unique to this chief executive and grossly overreported by the media, but Chris knows the man means it. And despite the fact that his Air Force peers consider it an eye-roller and call it a “warm fuzzy,” the President’s appreciation is, well, appreciated.

  And as he stands to go, Chris Risen gives himself just a few seconds to embrace that very human pat on the head from the most powerful office holder in the world.

  ASA MISSION CONTROL, MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA, 7:45 A.M. PACIFIC

  Diana feels like rubbing her eyes, but with no time to find a mirror and assess or repair the effect a vigorous eye rub would have on her makeup, she stifles the urge, fussing with the microphone clipped to the collar of her blouse instead.

  This is the eighth interview so far, she counts, and there will be dozens more since Richard’s refusal to do anymore himself. She gets into the zone mentally, summoning the vocal tone and the mental sharpness she’s going to need, like an actor with the flu taking the stage and forcing away the pain and the weakness for a few hours. The right tone, the right phrases, the right balance will be critical with each interview…not that she isn’t personally torn up and as scared as everyone else over what’s happening. But “torn up and scared” would be the wrong message. What the public must see is strength, control, concern, cautious optimism, and absolute realism. In the public mind, she is the company, and one misstep on camera could theoretically destroy it.

  She only half listens to the correspondent as he begins his report next to her, and shifts her eyes to him only on the cue of the question.

  “Ms. Ross, there’s been no radio contact of any sort, correct? How could that happen?”

  “It’s not easy for that to happen. A whole host of radios had to have been knocked out, including several backups, but however it happened, we have lost all radio contact, both voice and telemetry. Yet we’re sure, through NASA’s help with their long-range cameras, that the spacecraft is still powered and pressurized, and that someone is at the controls.”

  “Some one, versus both of them?”

  “I’m not going to speculate beyond that. The spacecraft was obviously damaged. NASA, however, has seen solid evidence of sentient human control of the vehicle. But since we can’t talk to them, we don’t know what their status is. I’d like to add that I think it’s pretty remarkable that, regardless of the radio problem, they were apparently struck by a high speed object and yet the craft remains livable. That’s an accolade to the engineering.”

  “But why haven’t they reentered and landed?”

  “There could be a variety of reasons, not all of them bad. But again, we just do not know. What we are sure of is that all our carefully planned emergency procedures are in progress, and the entire space community is joining hands to help get them back safely.”

  “You can’t fly another of your ships up there and rescue them?”

  “We only have one other ship at this time, and that very operation is being considered as we speak, yes.”

  “And how long do they have? How much air?”

  “Four days at least. They are in no danger right now, but we wouldn’t want to see them stay up there more than a few more days.”

  Something catches her eye off camera and Diana glances to her right, spotting Richard, who is peeking around the corner and gesturing to her to finish and follow.

  “I hope you’ll excuse me, but I have to go attend to something. We’ll keep you briefed.”

  The reporter turns to the camera as Diana unclips the microphone and hands it off, pushing past six other camera crews to hurry from the room.

  Her CEO is waiting at the end of the hallway, his expression even more sallow than before, and she wonders how that’s possible.

  “What?”

  “In here.”

  She follows him into an empty office and closes the door.

  “Diana, they’ve stayed up there too long.”

  “Excuse me, isn’t that a ‘Well, duh!’ statement?”

  “No, no…I mean, our orbital debris clearance was only good for half a day. They were never supposed to be in that orbit this long.”

  “Richard, you’re trying to tell me something. Stop dancing.”

  He sinks into the nearest chair, defeated. “NORAD called. There’s a piece of an old Russian booster in a polar orbit that’s going to take them out inside three hours.”

  “What?”

  “They said it’s a dead-on collision—they called it a conjunction—from the side at seventeen thousand miles per hour. It won’t be survivable.”

  It’s her turn to be staggered, and she leans on the edge of the desk to absorb the
news.

  “There’s nothing we can do?” she asks.

  “Maybe if we could talk to them! Otherwise, they’ll never see it coming.”

  “God!”

  “I know it.”

  “Well…do we have to tell the world? I’d recommend we sit on it for a while at least.”

  “Okay.”

  “And, Richard, there’s one other thing, though it’s going to make me sound even colder than before.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Which is better? A catastrophic collision we can’t control instantly ending it, or a spacecraft with two dead people in it circling for a half century?”

  “Good God, Diana!”

  “Sorry, but think about it. Not that we can do anything.”

  He’s on his feet and she can tell it was the wrong thing to throw at him. His frustration and panic have been looking for a target and she just handed him one.

  “Don’t you have any feelings at all?”

  “Of course! But it’s my…”

  “What the hell’s the matter with you? Damage control is one thing, but…but…”

  “Richard! There are two guys up there I care about. I was trying to make you feel a little less panicked.”

  “Two you care about? I mean, I know you know Bill…”

  She’s blushing and can’t figure out why. There’s no love interest regarding Kip Dawson, but she remembers his big eyes lighting up and his little-boy enthusiasm and suddenly thinking about him being smashed to atoms after the terror he’s already been through is too much. She feels the tears before she realizes they’re falling, and she lets Richard gather her into his arms.

  “I’m sorry!” she says, heartfelt.

  “Me, too,” he answers. “I apologize.”

  They part awkwardly and she searches for a Kleenex. “I’ve got cameras waiting. I’m not telling them this. And I still think you should be the one doing these interviews.”

  “I can’t. And you’re doing wonderfully.”

  She turns to the door and stops to look back.

  “Richard, is it truly unavoidable?”

  He nods sadly. “Unless we can talk to them or they light off the rocket or unless NORAD is wrong. There’s just nothing we can do.”

  “I guess we can pray. I haven’t done a lot of that for a very long time.”

  Chapter 19

  ABOARD INTREPID, MAY 18, 8:45 A.M. PACIFIC

  For just a moment several hours back Kip saw a glimmer of something on the horizon, a momentary flash just enough to convince him that he isn’t yet resigned to his fate. During the next entire orbit he’d strained to see it again, whatever “it” had been, his hopes telegraphed through a pounding heartbeat that maybe, just maybe it was a rescue craft. But by the fourth hour after the flash, his hopes evaporated.

  This time his sadness and the letdown are muted, as if he should be embarrassed for even raising the possibility of deliverance again, and especially for crabbing backward along the emotional arc he’s tried to travel to reach a state of acceptance.

  Before that flash—that glimmer of hope now dashed—he’d slept some more, shaken by the realization that more than a day has elapsed since launch.

  The laptop has been opened and closed several times, but the words he wants to type seem stuck in his heart. Yet, once again he pulls the weightless machine to him, secures it to his lap, and stares at the keyboard for the longest time before his fingers move to the keys.

  A strange message pops up asking his approval for some sort of connection and he answers yes without thinking, then can’t get it back.

  What the heck was that? he wonders, taking a quick detour into the Windows Control Panel to see if something’s unusual. But nothing jumps out and the connection utility shows the computer connected to nothing, no networks, no modems, no other humans.

  He calls up a word processing window and begins anew.

  Anyone out there?

  Of course not. At least not in my lifetime, which will be short.

  But let’s pretend you are there, whatever year it is when you finally read these words.

  For the record, I suppose I should yell Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! ( At least I think that’s the right phrase.) I’m a passenger on the private spaceship Intrepid, which launched from Mojave, California, and we were hit by some sort of small object which came right through the cabin and right through my pilot’s head, killing him instantly. No one can hear me on the radios, and apparently I only have four days of air left.

  And this isn’t fun anymore.

  I probably had more days of air than five at first, but I used it the first day panicking, crying, raging, and generally acting like an idiot. But it’s okay now. Death happens. I know intellectually that there’s no chance of rescue or survival, and I realize that there will be no reprieve, no heroic stretching of the available air supply, and no magic solutions derived by teams of sweating scientists below in the eleventh hour. This won’t be. Apollo 13

  When I won this private spaceflight, they warned me very carefully that if anything happened, neither NASA nor any other country’s space program was going to attempt to save me. I accepted the risk, and I’m sure what happened was beyond anyone’s ability to foresee, as far as I can tell. But now…here I sit, knowing I have four days left to say something to a mute disc drive, and the worst part is I can’t even say good-bye to my family and friends or anyone else, even though I’m passing over their heads every hour and a half.

  What’s wrong, by the way, is that because of the thing that hit us, the retro rocket won’t fire. So I’m stuck in a stable orbit and sick with guilt over the fact that my wife, Sharon, begged me not to take this risk. Turns out she was dead right, pun intended. It was an unforgivably selfish act. I expect my son, Jerrod, will never forgive me either, since he already continues to blame me for his mother’s death, and my little girls will never have the chance to hear directly from me why this all happened, and why I decided to come up here and ended up depriving them of a father.

  Then he considers addressing his words to Diana, and the thought surprises him. She’s the first name that pops into his head, and he decides it has something to do with hers being the last smiling female face he saw before launch.

  For the tiniest moment, the idea of her feels like a focal point, an inspiration, a reason to struggle hard to come back.

  And just as quickly that sparkle of thought evaporates.

  At my ripe old age of forty-four, I’m that worst of all white Anglo males, the middle-aged dad with a mid-life crisis, and I’ve been feeling for a long time like I’ve wasted the last twenty years, or at least that I went down the wrong road somehow.

  No, no, no, he thinks. I’m not going to sit up here and whine in print.

  He pauses, aware of a vague pain in his stomach, at first not recognizing the symptoms of simple hunger. There’s a selection of protein bars and other packaged food in a side compartment that he’s already raided, and he pulls one of the stowed bars out of the ankle pocket of his flight suit and wolfs it down with a water chaser from his squeeze bottle. Food is one of his lowest priorities.

  He’s distracted by the sun disappearing over the horizon again, the beauty of the rapid change from ruddy red to deep purple and inky, star-studded black absolutely amazing. He wonders whether, when it’s all over and he’s…wherever…beauty like this can still be perceived. Maybe it’s even prettier there. Wherever “there” is.

  Heaven. He has his own definition, probably born of too little intimacy in the last few years. He’s enjoyed poking fun at straight-laced male friends who still think sex is a four-letter word. “Heaven’s right here,” he’s fond of saying as he enjoys the shock value, “In the arms of whatever pretty female you can find.”

  But in his early years he’d occasionally fallen in love so deep he couldn’t eat or think for weeks.

  There was, for instance, Linda Hammel, and he smiles at the warm memory, wondering where she is. He has never dis
cussed her with anyone. His folks would have been scandalized, and her father would have killed him. But now…

  He looks at the keyboard, suddenly excited at the prospect of reliving those moments, even if only through a dreamy window of words.

  All right, let’s begin unconventionally. I’ve got to start somewhere, and both I and whoever I mention will have been long dead by the time you, my reader, find these words, so I think I’ll tell you about my happiest times, my teen years, and my first real love.

  Chapter 20

  SITUATION ROOM, THE WHITE HOUSE,

  MAY 18, 8:00 A.M. PACIFIC/11:00 A.M. EASTERN

  The President pauses before unlocking the bathroom door and walking back into the world. He shakes his head to think that the only privacy the most powerful leader on the planet can have is in his private water closet, but too often it’s true.

  He rummages through his pants pocket for a breath strip, aware of his growing case of coffee breath, and does a quick reassessment of his image in the mirror before drying his hands and opening the door. As usual, several people are hovering right outside and waiting for him, this time the number includes the White House Air Force liaison officer.

  “Ready, Mr. President?” she asks.

  “Yes, Kim. Lead the way.”

  They quickly move into the inner chamber of the Situation Room, a small conference room festooned with communications equipment and liquid crystal screens.

  Colonel Kim Wallenda lights up one of the screens, a real-time image of an Air Force hangar complex in Nevada undulating in the morning heat. One of the hangar doors is open, with nothing but black visible inside.

  “Good show and tell, Kim, but why?”

  She looks taken aback, but she knows this President and knows it’s not a challenge.

  “Just an establishing shot, sir. To be honest, I just put it up there to show off our real-time video capabilities.”

  “Let’s get to the details.”

  Charts and tables alternately fill the screen with the top secret deployment details of a standby force ordered quietly into existence by President Reagan in the early eighties.