by Dean M. Cole
"Sure, rub it in. You know I always wanted to be an astronaut."
Mark nodded. "Yeah, so what did you do about it?"
"Hey, it wasn't my fault—"
"Yes, it was!" the astronaut interrupted. Before Vaughn could protest, Mark held up a hand. "You're the best pilot I've ever known. Back in flight school, nobody could touch you. We did good just to hang in your wake. Hell, it's because of that fact that I was able to get you in here."
"Yeah, right," Vaughn said sardonically. "I'm sure you—"
"Shut the hell up and listen for a change, Vaughn. I saw the promotion board results. I know you got passed over again. And considering the bad officer eval you got during that last combat deployment, I know you're on your way out."
Vaughn's head rocked backward, his eyes narrowing. How the hell had Mark found that out? He wanted to glare at the man, wanted to yell at him, but all Captain Singleton could do was stare at the floor of the thruster module, gnashing his teeth.
"Listen to me, Vaughn."
Looking up, the Army captain raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the camera that monitored their progress.
"They're running checks," Mark said. "We have a couple of minutes to ourselves."
Vaughn waved the checklist again.
Mark shook his head. "We can't do the next item until they're done," the astronaut said.
Vaughn's shoulders slumped.
Mark smiled, but then it faded to a frown. "You are a hard-headed SOB. You always have to do things your own way."
"I think we've already covered that," Vaughn said.
Mark ignored him. "You're smart enough that it usually works, but not always. And it's made you lazy."
"What?"
"It led to the divorce and the bad eval."
Vaughn felt his face redden.
Mark held up his hand. "It's not the end of the world; it's a chance for you to start over. But you have to lose the chip."
"Chip? What do you mean?"
"I joke about it, but you've always been an entitled little shit, Vaughn. Hell, when we first met, that was one of the things I liked about you. I looked up to you. We all did. But ever since flight school ended, you've done nothing to further your career. It's like you found out you could succeed without trying, so you let that attitude creep into every part of your life. It cost you your marriage and is, ultimately, why you're on your way out of the military. And since Jill left, you've gotten even worse."
"Screw you, Mark. I busted my ass for her and for the Army."
Behind the visor, the astronaut's head shook side to side. "No, you didn't. You always did what you thought should be enough. And for some, that would have been enough. But people see your potential, Vaughn. They see what you're capable of."
"So you're saying they: Jill, the Army, and everyone else, wrote me off because I didn't live up to my potential?" Vaughn said, using air quotes to emphasize the last word.
Mark nodded. "Basically, yeah. You have incredible potential, but you haven't applied it in years." He gave Vaughn's belly a meaningful glance. "That's why you have that."
Suddenly self-conscious, Vaughn tried to suck in his gut. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"We were in our mid-twenties back in flight school," Mark said. "None of us had to work out to stay thin. But that was ten years ago." He pointed to his own thin abdomen and then to the rank insignia and NASA logo Velcroed to the center of his chestplate. "You think any of this came without a lot of work, think I could have attained any of it without applying myself?"
Vaughn opened his mouth to protest, but Mark cut him off.
"We only have a few more seconds, so listen, jackass."
He ground his teeth but nodded for Mark to continue.
"Like I said, you're the best pilot I ever met. No, the military thing isn't going to work out—that career is over. But you're only thirty-five. You have your whole life ahead of you. I have some contacts at Lockheed. They could use someone with your intelligence and ability. If you apply yourself, you can succeed there."
"If I'm so goddamned good, why in the hell didn't I get this assignment?" Vaughn said, raising his voice and pointing at Mark's NASA patch. "No, instead they sent me back to the fucking sandbox and ruined my marriage!"
The astronaut shook his head. "It's not always someone else's fault, Vaughn."
Through his visor, Vaughn glared at the man, but he couldn't hold onto the anger. The mix of pity and disappointment in his friend's eyes cut deeper than the words. Vaughn shook his head, but his gaze fell to the floor.
The thing was, Mark was right, but hearing his internal thoughts parroted by the astronaut had kicked Vaughn's well-worn defenses into high gear.
The radio crackled back to life. "Okay, Team Sigma. We're ready on this end," reported the mission controller.
Thankful for the interruption, Vaughn looked up at Mark and raised the checklist. "Thanks, Dad," he said flatly over their private channel. "I'm happier alone. I don't need anybody or anything. Now, if there's nothing else, I believe we have some work to do."
Mark pursed his lips again. "Just consider the Lockheed thing, it could be a fresh start, a chance to apply yourself," he said. After a sigh, he turned from Vaughn and toggled the external communication link. "Roger, Sandusky. We're ready on this end."
"All systems are a go," the controller said. "You're cleared for the first hover test."
Sitting in the capsule's right seat, Mark pointed to Vaughn. "Next checklist item, Captain."
Vaughn quashed the emotions dredged up by the discussion—a task with which he had years of experience. He smiled as his heart started racing. They were about to be the first humans to hover a reactionless thruster in untethered free flight!
NASA had been testing this new thruster technology for several years. Scientists at their Eagleworks Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory drew upon lessons learned on a previous, unrelated technology known as the EM Drive. It inspired them to take the idea in a whole new direction. They created the QG or Quantum Gravity Drive. Initially, most scientists had written off the QG Drive as a hoax, claiming it violated the laws of physics, but to their consternation, it worked. One experiment after another kept showing anomalous or unexpected thrust. The first tests had been at very low power settings, but this was the first test of the drive at full flight power.
Since its controversial inception, many questions had hovered over the thruster, not the least of which was whether or not the tech would work at higher, more useful power levels. If its power-to-thrust ratio proved scalable, if it could be used to move large objects with the same efficiency that it moved small objects in early tests, then the QG Drive would be humankind's ticket to the outer solar system and possibly to the stars beyond.
Considering the controversy and with so much on the line, NASA had clamped a lid of secrecy on this test.
Vaughn started wheezing again. His heart pounded in his ears. He swallowed and read the next item on the checklist. "Gear locks."
Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hennessy flipped a switch. Vaughn felt a soundless metallic clunk radiate through the module's seat.
"Unlatched," the astronaut said.
The module rested on the scaffolding. Only gravity held it in place. Overhead, the previously disconnected hoist hook finished retracting. Now a hundred feet of vacuum was all that separated the top of the skinless module's frame from the domed ceiling.
"Stand by for launch," the controller announced.
The two men exchanged excited glances.
For this top secret test, NASA had designed the module to operate in the vacuum of space, but in here, it only needed to hover. So the engineers had configured its controls like those of a helicopter. Mark held the cyclic stick in his right hand. That flight controller looked like a three-foot-long joystick attached to the floor between Mark's legs. The astronaut would use it to arrest any sideward or lateral drift and keep the craft centered in the chamber. The lever in his left hand looked lik
e an oversized parking brake handle. It replicated a helicopter's collective control. Anchored at its base, the forward-tilted stick would increase the drive's thrust when raised, and reduce it when lowered.
Both men had started their military careers as Army helicopter pilots. After attending flight school together, the two of them had transferred to Fort Hood in Texas. They'd been assigned to the same unit and had flown together during multiple Middle East combat tours. However, in the years since, their careers had taken radically different paths. Mark's had led to NASA via a short stint as an instructor at the Navy's test pilot school.
Vaughn didn't want to think about his own career path.
Mark looked at him and winked. "Ready to make history?"
The Army captain tried to look nonchalant as he shrugged. "It's not like anyone will ever hear about this super-secret test anytime soon."
He had no idea how right he was.
"You're go for power-up," said the controller.
Mark nodded and toggled the radio. "Roger, Sandusky. Increasing power now."
The smile fell from the astronaut's face. With a look of concentration, he watched the module's instrumentation and lifted the stick in his left hand a fraction of an inch.
Through the seat, Vaughn felt a high-frequency vibration, like the physical manifestation of a hum.
"There's ten percent, Sandusky."
"Roger, Sigma. All systems nominal."
Mark's hand raised another notch and the vibrations intensified, creating a tingling sensation across the back of Vaughn's thighs.
The astronaut read off the displayed power. "Twenty percent. Thirty. Forty."
The vibrations faded and then disappeared.
"Fifty percent."
Something moved in Vaughn's peripheral vision. Through the flight module's open architecture, he saw the chamber's near wall sliding down.
They were climbing!
The module had left the ground!
The weirdness of it slammed home. No beating rotor blades. No screaming jet engines. They weren't standing on a plume of roaring rocket flames. Without a visible means of propulsion, the module simply rose from the ground like a flying saucer in a sci-fi flick.
Grinning from ear to ear, Vaughn turned to Mark. "This is awesome!"
A smile cracked through the test pilot's serious façade. "Sandusky, we have liftoff! Ten feet. Twenty feet. Twenty-five, thirty."
Then the climb decelerated. As the vehicle ascended through forty feet, the radar altimeter's rate of change slowed, the value increasing in single digits. A moment later it stopped.
"Fifty feet. All systems nominal," Mark said.
Vaughn watched as Hennessy used the cyclic control to arrest a slight left drift, and then guided the module smoothly back to the center of the chamber.
"Sandusky, we're in a stable hover." The astronaut paused, scanning the craft's instruments. Then his smile brightened. "Power at fifty-three percent!" he said excitedly.
Clapping and loud cheers erupted over the connection with Control.
Vaughn toggled their private channel again. "What's significant about that number?"
"It's below the threshold."
"What threshold?"
"Jesus, Vaughn," Mark said, shaking his head. "You're always in your own little world. It means it's scalable! The QG-Thruster can reach space … From the ground!"
Vaughn's eyes widened, and he pointed at the floor of the module. "This thing could reach orbit from here?"
Mark shook his head. "No, it only has batteries for power." He consulted the vehicle's instruments. "We've been going for less than a minute, and I've already used up half of our available power. If we took this thing outside, we'd probably rise a couple of hundred feet and then fall like homesick rocks." With his right boot, the astronaut tapped one of the module's external structural members: a two-inch pipe. "And even if we had unlimited power, its open frame isn't exactly aerodynamic." He looked up through the triangular collection of tubes that formed the conical roof of the module. "I wouldn't want to try to fly this bad boy through the atmosphere."
The cheers pouring from the link with Sandusky Control suddenly evaporated.
A female voice came over the radio. "Team Sigma … uh … Shut it down." The woman sounded distracted.
Mark gave Vaughn a confused look. Turning back to the instrument panel, he said, "Sandusky? Did you copy my last? We're hovering at fifty feet! And well below threshold!"
"Yeah … yeah … we copied you, Sigma," she said sounding completely preoccupied.
Over the connection, Vaughn heard someone yelling in the background.
Now exasperated, the woman said, "Something is happening down here."
Mark's apparent confusion deepened. He looked at Vaughn again and toggled their private link. "That's the local director."
The Army captain shrugged his ignorance.
Hennessy frowned. "The head of the Space Power Annex."
"Terminate the test, Mark!" the director said urgently. "We need to get you out of there."
"Okay, Sandusky," Mark said. He consulted the module's chronograph. "Terminating hover at zero seven thirty-eight."
"Roger, Sigma," she replied, still sounding distracted.
The colonel lowered the stick in his left hand. Vaughn looked through the craft's frame and saw the wall's aluminum surface begin to scroll past in the opposite direction.
"Forty-five feet," Mark called out. "Forty. Thirty. Twenty."
The stick raised a notch, and the rate of descent halved.
"Fifteen feet … Ten—"
"What the hell is tha …?" the director blurted over the radio, cutting off Mark, but the woman's words trailed off mid-sentence. Vaughn could hear her quickening breath. In the background, several voices raised, some screaming. Then the director's voice returned. "What the hell is it? Oh, God! No! … No—!"
The transmission cut out.
Mark gave him a quick, confused glance.
Bewildered, Vaughn stared past the astronaut, looking over the man's head, watching the metal walls of the chamber as they scrolled upward and the ship descended.
The colonel continued his countdown. "Four … three … two—"
Suddenly, a visible wave passed across the wall.
Vaughn's eyes widened as the aluminum surface appeared to flex. Then he squinted and threw his hands in front of his face as the wall flashed brilliant white like burning phosphorus.
An instant later, the light faded, and the module touched down with a spine-jarring jolt.
Chapter 3
Having freed herself from the wayward airlock and slipped out of her spacesuit, Angela drifted into the Cupola. The station had never sounded or felt this empty. A chill ran through the woman. Wrapping her arms around herself, Angela tried to stifle a shiver as she gazed through the multiple windows of the station's faceted observatory.
The ISS had just flown over the planetary boundary where day turned to night. The late-evening lights of India's southeast coastal communities passed beneath her.
At its current altitude, the ISS still basked in the sun's radiance. To all those millions of Indians and Sri Lankans below it, the ISS would look like a swiftly moving star drifting across their currently cloudless sky.
Commander Brown looked northwest. She could no longer see the curtain of light. Looking down again, she whispered, "Something's coming, folks, something very weird."
With eye-jarring finality, the shimmering radiance of city lights gave way to the oceanic void, painting the jagged shoreline like a diamond-encrusted fractal dropped onto a canvas of black velvet.
Floating in the dark abyss between Heaven and Earth, the station silently glided out to sea, beginning its lonely journey across the Indian Ocean.
Angela stared into the deep. Looking down at its inky surface was like looking into a region of space where ships, not stars, formed the constellations.
Soon the ISS would cross the equator. Its great circle route wo
uld then take her over Australia and the South Pacific. Finally, reaching the southern point of its trip around the planet's tilted axis, the station would begin to track northeasterly, toward North America.
The last vestige of the coastal lights disappeared over the northwest horizon. Angela turned to the observatory's single computer monitor. Currently, the station's predicted orbital plot filled the screen. It featured the overlapping squiggly lines of the ISS's projected orbital track as it worked its way around a planet that spun on a tilted axis. The station's icon drifted southeast along a curving line that ran from India to Australia, but now a new line displayed the progress of her shipmates aboard the descent module. Their deorbit burn had placed them into a reentry track. The Soyuz now lagged behind and much lower than the ISS.
Angela touched the screen and said, "Bill and Ted's not-so-excellent adventure."
She cast a forlorn glance at her surroundings and then looked back to their icon. Angela didn't know whether to be worried for them or herself.
Having already passed over the day-night terminator, the station now flew into the planet's shadow, plunging the Cupola into darkness. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the change, but robbed of the sun's warming rays and still in her spacesuit's sweat-soaked undergarments, Angela shivered in the cold blue light that radiated from the computer monitor.
New sounds joined her dark, lonely universe. Long creaks and sharp pops echoed through the deserted station. No longer heated by the sun, its external surfaces began to cool and contract. Angela hugged herself tightly in a failed attempt to stave off another shiver.
The computer screen flickered. It refreshed, and new data appeared. The astronaut floated closer, studying the details. Then light glinted in her peripheral vision. She looked up to see a pale blue reflection of her face in one of the observatory's thick windows.
Angela frowned. "First emergency on your watch, and you can't even complete a station evac," she said and then shook her head. Imitating Teddy's accented bastardization of her undeserved title, she added, "Nice move, Command-Oh."
She turned back to the screen. A loose strand of her tied-back auburn hair drifted into her eyes. Angela blew it out of the way and studied the computer display. Parallel concentric lines now arced across the image. After a moment, she realized that the arcs plotted the future position of the advancing wavefront. Each line had a discrete timestamp. On the screen's left half, the values increased in thirty-minute increments from east to west. Judging by the station's projected track, it appeared that she would recross the anomaly somewhere near Colorado. The predicted touchdown point of the Soyuz descent module sat in Southern California's Mojave Desert. Their estimated time of arrival or ETA placed her fellow astronauts on the ground just before the wave crossed that region.