A chill crawled all the way up Carpenter’s spine. Hallucinations. A head injury. They were losing her, losing their only chance of getting the orbiter down intact.
“Flight, we’re approaching burn target,” warned FDO. “We can’t afford to miss it.”
“Tell her to go for deorbit,” Carpenter ordered.
“Discovery,” said Capcom. “Go to APU prestart.”
There was no response.
“Discovery?” repeated Capcom. “You’re going to miss your burn target!”
As the seconds stretched to minutes, Carpenter’s muscles tensed, and his nerves felt like live wires. He gave a sigh of relief when Hewitt finally responded.
“Middeck crew’s in landing position. They’re both unconscious. I’ve strapped them in. But I can’t get Kittredge into his LES—”
“Screw his reentry suit!” said Carpenter. “Let’s not miss that target. Just get the bird down!”
“Discovery, we advise you proceed directly to APU prestart. Just strap him into the starboard seat, and you get on with deorbit.”
They heard a ragged sigh of pain. Then Hewitt said, “My head—having trouble focusing . . .”
“We roger that, Hewitt.” Capcom’s voice became gentler. Almost soothing. “Look, Jill. We know you’re the one in the commander’s seat now. We know you’re hurting. But we can guide you in on autoland, all the way to wheel stop. If you just stay with us.”
She let out a tortured sob. “APU prestart complete,” she whispered. “Loading OPS 3-0-2. Tell me when, Houston.”
“Go for deorbit burn,” said Carpenter.
Capcom relayed the decision. “Go for deorbit burn, Discovery.” And he added, softly, “Now, let’s get you home.”
ITEM 3-7-EXEC
ITEM 3-8-EXEC
OPS 3-0-4 PRO
Jill Hewitt was gasping in pain, short little whimpers that punctuated every push of a new button on the control panel. Her head felt like a melon ripe to explode. Her field of vision had contracted so that it seemed as if she were peering down a long black tunnel, and the controls had receded almost beyond her reach. It took every ounce of concentration for her to focus on each switch she had to flip, on each button wavering beyond her finger. Now she struggled to make out the attitude direction indicator, her vision blurring as the eight-ball display seemed to spin wildly in its casing. I can’t see it. I can’t read pitch or yaw . . .
“Discovery, you are at entry interface,” said Capcom. “Body flap on auto.”
Jill squinted at the panel and reached for the switch, but it seemed so far away . . .
“Discovery?”
Her trembling finger made contact. She switched to “auto.” “Confirm,” she whispered, and let her shoulders go slack. The computers were now in control, flying the ship. She did not trust herself on the stick. She did not even know how long she could stay conscious. Already the black tunnels were closing over her vision, swallowing the light. For the first time she could hear the sound of rushing air across the hull, could feel her body being shoved back against her seat.
Capcom had gone silent. She was in communications blackout, the spacecraft hurtling against the atmosphere with such force it stripped the electrons from air molecules. That electromagnetic storm interrupted all radio waves, cut off all communication. For the next twelve minutes it was only her, and the ship, and the roaring air.
She had never felt so alone.
She felt the autopilot begin to steer into the first high bank, rolling the spacecraft on its side, slowing it down. She imagined the glow of heat on the cockpit windows, could feel its warmth, like the sun radiating on her face.
She opened her eyes. And saw only darkness.
Where are the lights? she thought. Where is the glow on the window?
She blinked, again and again. Rubbed her eyes, as though to force them to see, to force her retinas to draw in light. She reached out toward the control panel. Unless she flipped the right switches, unless she deployed the air data probes and lowered the landing gear, Houston could not land the ship. They could not get her home alive. Her fingers brushed against a mind-numbing array of dials and buttons, and she gave a howl of despair.
She was blind.
At 4,093 feet above sea level, the air at White Sands Missile Proving Grounds was dry and thin. The landing strip traced across an ancient dried-out seabed located in a desert valley formed between the Sacramento and Guadalupe mountain ranges to the east, and the San Andres Mountains to the west. The closest town was Alamogordo, New Mexico. The terrain was stark and arid, and only the hardiest of desert vegetation could survive.
The area had long served as a training base for fighter pilots. It had also seen other uses through the decades. During World War II, it was the site of a German prisoner of war camp. It was also the location of the Trinity site, where the U.S. exploded its first atomic bomb, assembled not far away in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Barbed wire and unmarked government buildings had sprouted up in this desert valley, their functions a mystery even to the residents of nearby Alamogordo.
Through binoculars, Jack could see the landing strip shimmering with heat in the distance. Runway 16/34 was oriented just slightly off due north-south. It was fifteen thousand feet long and three hundred feet wide—large enough to accept the heaviest of jets, even in that rarefied air, which forces long landing and takeoff rolls.
Just west of the touchdown point, Jack and the medical team waited, along with a small convoy of NASA and United Space Alliance vehicles, for Discovery’s arrival. They had stretchers, oxygen, defibrillators, and ACLS kits—everything one could find in a modern ambulance, and more. For landings at Kennedy, there would be over one hundred fifty ground team members prepared to meet the orbiter. Here, on this desert strip, they had barely three dozen, and eight of them were medical personnel. Some of the ground crew were wearing self-contained atmospheric protective suits, to insulate them from any propellant leaks. They would be the first to meet the orbiter and, with atmospheric sensors, would quickly assess the potential for explosions before allowing doctors and nurses to approach.
A distant rumble made Jack lower his binoculars and glance due east. Choppers were approaching, so many of them they looked like an ominous swarm of black wasps.
“What’s this?” said Bloomfeld, also noticing the choppers. Now the rest of the ground crew was staring at the sky, many of them murmuring in bewilderment.
“Could be backup,” said Jack.
The convoy leader, listening on his comm unit, shook his head. “Mission Control says they’re not ours.”
“This airspace should be clear,” said Bloomfeld.
“We’re trying to hail the choppers, but they’re not responding.”
The rumble had crescendoed, and Jack could feel it in his bones now, a deep and constant thrum in his sternum. They were going to invade the orbiter’s airspace. In fifteen minutes, Discovery would drop out of the sky and find those choppers in her flight path. He could hear the convoy leader talking urgently into his headset, could feel panic begin to ripple through the ground crew.
“They’re holding position,” said Bloomfeld.
Jack raised his binoculars. He counted almost a dozen choppers. They had indeed halted their approach and were now landing like a flock of vultures, due east of the orbiter’s touchdown point.
“What do you suppose that’s all about?” said Bloomfeld.
Two minutes left of communications blackout. Fifteen minutes till touchdown.
Randy Carpenter was feeling the first flush of optimism. He knew they could bring Discovery down safely. Barring a catastrophic computer failure, they could fly that bird from the ground. The key was Hewitt. She had to stay conscious, had to be able to flip two switches at the right times. Minimal tasks, but crucial. At their last radio contact, ten minutes before, Hewitt had sounded alert, but in pain. She was a good pilot, a woman with a steel backbone tempered by the refiner’s fire of the U.S. Navy. All she had to do was
stay conscious.
“Flight, we have good news from NASCOM,” said Ground Control. “Mission Control Moscow has made radio contact with ISS on Regul S-Band.”
Regul was the Russian S-band radio system aboard ISS. It was completely separate and independent of the U.S. system, and it operated via Russian ground stations and their LUCH satellite.
“Contact was brief. They were on the tail end of LUCH satellite comm pass,” said Ground Control. “But the crew is all alive and well.”
Carpenter’s optimism flared even brighter, and he tightened his plump fingers in a triumphant fist. “Damage report?”
“They had a breach of the NASDA module and had to close off Node Two and everything forward of that. They’ve also lost at least two solar arrays and several truss segments. But no one’s hurt.”
“Flight, we should be coming out of comm blackout,” said Capcom.
At once Carpenter’s attention snapped back to Discovery. He was happy about the news from ISS, but his first responsibility was to the shuttle.
“Discovery, do you copy?” said Capcom. “Discovery?”
The minutes went by. Too many. Suddenly Carpenter was back dancing on the brink of panic.
Guidance said, “Second S-turn completed. All systems look good.”
Then why wasn’t Hewitt responding?
“Discovery,” repeated Capcom, his voice now urgent. “Do you copy?”
“Going into third S-turn,” said Guidance.
We’ve lost her, thought Carpenter.
Then they heard her voice. Soft and unsteady. “This is Discovery.”
Capcom’s sigh of relief huffed loudly over the loop. “Discovery, welcome back! It’s good to hear your voice! Now you need to deploy your air data probes.”
“I—I’m trying to find the switches.”
“Your air data probes,” Capcom repeated.
“I know, I know! I can’t see the panel!”
Carpenter felt as if his blood had just frozen in his veins. Dear God, she’s blind. And she’s seated in the commander’s seat. Not in her own.
“Discovery, you need to deploy now!” said Capcom. “Panel C-three—”
“I know which panel!” she cried. There was silence. Then the sound of her breath rushing out in a whoosh of pain.
“Probes have been deployed,” said MMACS. “She did it. She found the switch!”
Carpenter allowed himself to breathe again. To hope again.
“Fourth S-turn,” said Guidance. “Now at TAEM interface.”
“Discovery, how ya doing?” said Capcom.
One minute, thirty seconds to touchdown. Discovery was now traveling at six hundred miles per hour, at an altitude of eight thousand feet and dropping rapidly. The pilots called it the “flying brick”—heavy, with no engines, gliding in on delta-wing slivers. There’d be no second chances, no abort and fly around for another try. It was going to land, one way or the other.
“Discovery?” said Capcom.
Jack could see it glinting in the sky, puffs of smoke trailing from its yaw jets. It looked like a bright chip of silver as it swept around on its final turn to line up with the runway.
“Come on, baby. You’re lookin’ good!” whooped Bloomfeld.
His enthusiasm was shared by all three dozen members of the ground crew. Every shuttle landing is a celebratory event, a victory so moving it brings tears to the eyes of those who watch from the ground. Every eye was now turned to the sky, every heart pounding as they watched that chip of silver, their baby, gliding toward the runway.
“Gorgeous. God, she’s beautiful!”
“Yee-haw!”
“Linin’ up just fine! Yes sir!”
The convoy leader, listening on his earpiece to Houston, suddenly snapped straight, his spine rigid in alarm. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Landing gear isn’t down!”
Jack turned to him. “What?”
“Crew hasn’t deployed the landing gear!”
Jack’s head whipped around to stare at the approaching shuttle. It was barely one hundred feet above the ground, moving at over three hundred miles an hour. He could not see the wheels.
The crowd suddenly went dead silent. Their celebration had just turned into disbelief. Horror.
Get them down. Get those wheels down! Jack wanted to scream.
The shuttle was seventy-five feet above the runway, lined up perfectly. Ten seconds till touchdown.
Only the flight crew could lower the landing gear. No computer could flip the switch, could perform the task meant for a human hand. No computer could save them.
Fifty feet and still traveling over two hundred miles an hour.
Jack did not want to see the final event, but he could not help himself. He could not turn away. He saw Discovery’s tail slam down first, spewing up a shower of sparks and shattered heat tiles. He heard the screams and sobs of the crowd as Discovery’s nose slammed down next. The shuttle began to slide sideways, trailing a maelstrom of debris. A delta wing broke off, went flying like a black scythe through the air. The shuttle kept scraping sideways in a deafening screech.
The other wing broke off, tumbling, shattering.
Discovery slid off the tarmac, onto the desert sand. A tornado of dust flew up, obscuring Jack’s view of the final seconds. His ears rang with the crowd’s screams, but he could not utter a sound. Nor could he move; shock had numbed him so profoundly he felt as if he had left his own body and were hovering, ghostlike, in some nightmare dimension.
Then the cloud of dust began to clear, and he saw the shuttle, lying like a broken bird, in a terrible landscape of scattered debris.
Suddenly the ground convoy was moving. As engines roared to life, Jack and Bloomfeld jumped in back of the medical vehicle and began the bouncing ride across the desert floor to the crash site. Even over the roar of the convoy engines, Jack heard another sound, throbbing and ominous.
The choppers were moving in too.
Their vehicle suddenly braked to a halt. Jack and Bloomfeld, both clutching emergency medical kits, jumped to the ground in a cloud of dust. Discovery was still a hundred yards ahead. The choppers had already landed, forming a ring around the shuttle. Barring the convoy.
Jack began to run toward Discovery, ready to duck his head beneath the whirring rotor blades. He was stopped before he reached the ring of choppers.
“What the hell is going on?” yelled Bloomfeld as uniformed soldiers suddenly poured out of the choppers and formed an armed wall against the NASA ground crew.
“Back off! Back off!” one of the soldiers yelled.
The convoy leader pushed to the front. “My crew needs to get to the orbiter!”
“You people will stay back!”
“You have no authority here! This is a NASA operation!”
“Everyone get the fuck back now!”
Rifles suddenly came up, barrels pointed at the unarmed ground crew. NASA personnel began to back away, all eyes focused on the guns, on the implied threat of mass slaughter.
Looking past the soldiers, Jack saw that a white plastic tent was rapidly being erected over Discovery’s hatch, closing it off from the outside air. A dozen hooded figures, completely clad in bright orange suits, emerged from two of the choppers and approached the orbiter.
“Those are Racal biological space suits,” said Bloomfeld.
The orbiter hatch was now completely hidden by the plastic tent. They could not see the hatch being opened. They could not see those space-suited men enter the mid-deck.
That’s our flight crew in there, thought Jack. Our people who might be dying in that orbiter. And we can’t reach them. We’ve got doctors and nurses standing here, with a truck full of medical equipment, and they won’t let us do our jobs.
He pushed toward the line of soldiers, stepping directly in front of the Army officer who appeared to be in charge. “My medical crew is coming in,” he said.
The officer gave a smirk. “I don’t think so, sir.”
“We’re empl
oyees of NASA. We’re doctors, charged with the health and well-being of that flight crew. You can shoot us if you’d like. But then you’d have to kill everyone else here too, because they’d be witnesses. And I don’t think you’re going to do that.”
The rifle came up, the barrel pointed directly at Jack’s chest. His throat was dry, and his heart was slamming against his ribs, but he stepped around the soldier, ducked under the chopper blades, and kept walking. He didn’t even glance back as the soldier ordered,
“Halt, or I’ll shoot!”
He walked on, his gaze fixed on the billowing tent ahead of him. He saw the men in their Racal space suits turn and stare at him in surprise. He saw the wind kick up a puff of dust and send it swirling across his path. He was almost at the tent when he heard Bloomfeld yell,
“Jack, look out!”
The blow caught him right at the base of the skull. He went down on his knees, pain exploding in bright bursts in his head. Another blow slammed into his flank, and he sprawled forward, tasting sand, hot as ash in his face. He rolled over, onto his back, and saw the soldier looming over him, rifle butt raised to deliver yet another blow.
“That’s enough,” said an oddly muffled voice. “Leave him alone.”
The soldier backed away. Now another face loomed into view, staring down at Jack through a clear Racal hood.
“Who are you?” the man said.
“Dr. Jack McCallum.” The words came out in barely a whisper. He sat up, and his vision suddenly blurred, danced on the edge of darkness. He clutched his head, willing himself to stay conscious, fighting the blackness threatening to drag him down. “Those are my patients in that orbiter,” Jack said. “I demand to see them.”
“That’s not possible.”
“They need medical attention—”
“They’re dead, Dr. McCallum. All of them.”
Jack froze. Slowly he raised his head and met the man’s gaze through the clear face shield. He could read no expression there, could see nothing that reflected the tragedy of four lost lives.
“I’m sorry about your astronauts,” the man said, and turned to walk away.
Jack struggled to stand up. Though swaying and dizzy, he managed to stay on his feet. “And who the fuck are you?” he demanded.
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