by Dean M. Cole
"Calm down. They'll clear."
Panting and blinking, Singleton scanned the room, testing his vision against varying backgrounds. He was about to ask Mark how the hell he could know his sight would return if this were new, but the next time Vaughn looked at the hovercraft's instrument panel, he saw more detail. He looked at Mark. Blue spots no longer obscured large portions of the man's face.
Vaughn pointed at the walls and raised an eyebrow. "You think that light came from a short circuit?" he said skeptically.
Mark smiled reassuringly and started climbing out of his seat. "Yeah, my money is on it being an electrical overload that even fried some of the systems in here." He paused and looked around. Then he turned back to Vaughn and shrugged. "I don't see how it could've been anything else."
The astronaut finished climbing out of the seat and stepped down from the module. In spite of the madness of the moment, the ex-helicopter pilot had landed the module almost exactly where it had started. The nearby gantry deck was inches from the side of the module. The man inspected the outside of the vehicle—probably searching for the source of the electrical arc.
Vaughn raised his eyebrow again and looked at the chamber's walls. "Any sign of what short-circuited?"
Now standing outside of the module on the gantry's upper deck and looking at Vaughn through the craft's open architecture, the astronaut shook his head. "No. Everything up here looks normal." He tapped the side of his helmet. "Whatever caused that flash probably fried the vehicle's communications link. Our commo is routed through it." Mark pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Let's head down. I can reconfigure the links on the radio racks downstairs."
Vaughn nodded and unbuckled his restraints. He began to stand but knocked his helmet into an unseen obstacle, falling back into the seat with teeth-jarring force. For a panicked moment, he sat there listening for the hiss of a cracked helmet. It was hard to hear anything over the rasp of his breathing and the pounding of his heart.
"You didn't crack it," Mark said with a chuckle. He extended a hand through the module's open architecture. "Come on."
Vaughn batted away the glove. "I got this."
"Suit yourself."
On the second attempt, Vaughn cleared the obstacle and exited the vehicle.
Finally out of the thruster module and wheezing again, he followed Mark down the gantry ladder. When they reached the bottom, the astronaut started studying the underside of the vehicle. Breathing heavily, Vaughn looked over Mark's shoulder. "What are you looking for?"
The colonel shrugged and then pointed into the shadowed interstices of the thruster's undercarriage. "I thought the light might have come from beneath us."
Vaughn shook his head. "Sorry, buddy. I have to call bullshit on that one. If the light came from under here, there would've been long shadows running up the walls and overhead. I was looking up. The ceiling glowed just as brightly as the walls."
Mark stared at him for a long, silent moment. In spite of his outward calm, the look on the man's face reflected Vaughn's unease. Finally, the astronaut nodded and walked toward the chamber wall.
After glancing back into the arcane plumbing that crowded the module's belly, the Army aviator chased after his friend.
When they reached the perimeter, the colonel slowly extended a gloved hand toward the inner surface of the aluminum wall.
Vaughn's eyes widened. "What the hell are you doing, Mark? Did you see how bright that metal got? It could be hot!"
Ignoring Vaughn's protestations, the astronaut touched the metal tentatively and then inspected the fingertips of his spacesuit's glove.
"You crazy son of a bitch!" Vaughn said.
The astronaut held out the glove. "Nothing."
Vaughn shook his head and then pointed at the wall. "Did you stop to consider the consequences of failure? What if that had melted a hole through one of your fingertips?"
Mark shrugged. "Duct tape."
Vaughn smiled and shook his head. "So now you're Mark Watney? This ain't the fucking Martian."
The colonel laughed and then touched the wall again, this time sliding the gauntlet's palm across the silver surface. "It's not hot. Like I said, I think we just saw an electric arc."
There was something about the way that wall had appeared to flex that had Vaughn's short hairs standing on end. Had he just imagined it? He must have, right? The amount of energy required to make the entire wall flex like plastic exceeded anything he could imagine.
Well, there was one: a nuke detonated next door would probably do it, but if that had happened, they were likely dead men walking. Vaughn didn't want to contemplate that possibility. And he sure as hell didn't want to think what would be waiting for them outside these walls if that had happened.
Singleton looked from the wall to see Mark staring at him with raised eyebrows. "Earth to Captain Singleton."
Vaughn blinked. "What?"
"I said, if it wasn't an arc, what was it?"
Vaughn glanced back at the wall, and then shook his head. "I-I don't know, but if something shorted out or arced under the module, why weren't there any shadows?"
Mark pointed at the wall again. "Shiny metal walls. Lots of reflective surfaces. They could've spread the light around."
"I don't know," Vaughn said, shaking his head. He couldn't purge the image of the walls bowing in like a sheet flapping in the breeze. Could it have been an illusion created by the light?
The colonel looked about the chamber. Then he pointed off to the side. "Let's try the radios."
Singleton gave the wall one last wary look and then followed the astronaut to a nearby rack of electronics.
Mark flipped a few of its switches and then said, "This will bypass the module's radios and route them directly to our suits."
Vaughn nodded. "At this point, I'd take a couple of cans and a goddamned string."
The astronaut smiled behind his visor. "I might be able to do better than that."
A few flipped switches later, the astronaut toggled his suit's radio. "Sandusky, this is Team Sigma, over."
Nothing. Long, silent seconds ticked by, but the radio remained stubbornly quiet.
"Control, This is Colonel Hennessy. Come in, please."
Still nothing.
Captain Singleton glanced back to the wall. Something was very wrong here.
"Damn it," Mark whispered. He selected a new intercom channel. "Space Power Operations, this is Team Sigma," he said, a nervous edge clipping his words. "Sorry to bother you guys, but we've lost commo with Sandusky Control. Can someone over there try to raise them on a landline?"
Deafening silence greeted even this new effort.
A knot began to twist in Vaughn's gut. "What kind of screwed-up operation are y'all running?" he said.
Mark looked at him and shook his head. "Nothing like this has ever happened. Ever!"
Vaughn pointed at the rack of electronics. "Maybe the power surge cooked the radio stack, too." That knot in his gut said this was bullshit, but Vaughn didn't know what else to say.
The astronaut shook his head. "They're all live connections." He pointed at the rack. "All of the lights are green. The radios are transmitting and receiving, both over the air to our suits and through their hardwired connections to the outside world. Nothing's fried, and it's not a power failure," he said.
"Guess that rules out World War Three," Singleton said with a relieved chuckle.
"What?"
Vaughn waved him off. "Nothing. Just my imagination getting the better of me."
Mark cocked an eyebrow but nodded his understanding. He switched to a third line. "Glenn Research Center Operations, this is Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hennessy in the vacuum chamber. Is anyone there?"
Vaughn's hand went to his right rear pocket. Of course, his spacesuit didn't have one, so his questing glove came up empty. It didn't matter. A cellphone was useless in the chamber. The room's metal walls blocked all radio signals. A mobile phone could neither send nor receive calls or the inte
rnet. Previously, Mark had told him that the communications cables, as well as the power wires, ran through a heavily sealed conduit that penetrated the chamber's aluminum and concrete walls. The only way they were going to talk to anyone was through those wires.
When the third call to Glenn Ops went unanswered, Mark toggled the fourth line. "Plum Brook Station, this is Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hennessy in the Space Power Annex. Please come in!"
Silently, the two men exchanged worried looks.
Vaughn felt a fresh bead of sweat trying to breach his improperly donned headband.
Frustrating minutes later, they had worked their way through NASA's complete local organizational chart. Mark had tried to contact every echelon. Each unanswered radio call had tightened the knot in Vaughn's gut another notch. From the upper management at Sandusky Mission Control—the space center's main operations command—to the tech reps that should be standing just outside of the vacuum chamber's massive door, each call had apparently fallen on deaf ears. That last attempt had been through an old-school telephone. The red handset hung from an antique phone base that had no buttons. Big white letters spelled out EMERGENCY across its spine. Because of the room's lack of atmosphere, the astronaut had pressed the phone's mouthpiece to his helmet and yelled for someone to pick up. He told Vaughn that the visor's vibrations would transmit into the device's chassis and therefore into the microphone, and vice versa from the phone's speaker into his helmet.
Several attempts later, Mark looked at Vaughn with evident confusion. "They're not answering either." He hung up the phone and shook his head. "What the hell?"
"What about the main conduit?" Vaughn said, thinking about the bundle of cables that, in the chamber's radio-free interior, formed their only link to the outside world. "Maybe the power surge fried all our communication wires."
Mark shook his head again. "No. Like I said, all the connections are live."
Vaughn's eyes widened, and he pointed to the metal walls. "Or maybe that was an electromagnetic pulse, an EMP."
Mark fell silent. He chewed a lip as he considered Vaughn's words.
The Army aviator continued, giving voice to his thoughts as they formed. Pointing up, he said, "If someone popped a nuke in the upper atmosphere, the EMP would have fried every unshielded circuit between Chicago and the East Coast. The wires might be intact, but with its computer chips fried, the radio wouldn't be transmitting or receiving, regardless of what those green lights tell you."
"Holy shit …" the astronaut whispered. "That could be it." Then doubt twisted his face. "But why do we still have power? That's all computer controlled as well."
Vaughn shook his head. "Hell if I know." He pointed toward the fifty-foot-tall door. "Let's get out of here, and then we can ask them in person."
"It's not that easy," Mark said. "The external crew has to start the atmospheric cycle. Otherwise …" his words tapered off. He frowned and shook his head. "Trust me: you don't wanna go down that path."
Mark turned back and stared at the radio rack for a long, silent moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "Screw it," he said and then reached into the electronics and started disconnecting wires. A moment later, the colonel went back to the EMERGENCY phone. He ripped the cord out of the handset and dropped it. The red, dog bone-shaped plastic piece fell to the metallic floor, bouncing away noiselessly in the vacuum. Then he pulled the phone's base off the wall.
The astronaut returned to the radio rack. Severed cords hung from the boxy red telephone like torn entrails. He placed the unit on a shelf. Grabbing a nearby implement, Mark pried off the phone's top cover, exposing a hidden and long disused rotary dial.
"Jesus!" Vaughn said. "How did that museum piece get in here?"
The astronaut shrugged. "Probably came from the old chamber in Sandusky."
Bent over his work, Mark struggled with gloved fingers to connect the frayed wires that extended from the end of the coiled red cord.
Vaughn looked around. Again his eyes returned to the chamber's silvery walls. He felt nauseous. If that had been an EMP, if those aluminum panels had in fact flexed, then it had been a damned close explosion. But they couldn't have flexed. Six-foot-thick concrete walls backed them.
He looked from the wall to the hunched-over astronaut. "Hey, Mark. Just before that flash, did you see—?"
"That should do it," the Colonel said, cutting him off.
"Do what?" Vaughn said.
The astronaut didn't respond. Instead, he stepped back and nodded. Then he flicked a switch on one of the components bolted to the electronics rack. Across its front, the series of green lights sprang back to life.
Suddenly a dial tone streamed into Vaughn's ears.
Mark looked at him triumphantly. "I tied the radio into the landline." He paused and then turned raised eyebrows toward Vaughn. "Now we know it wasn't an EMP. An electromagnetic pulse would have fried the phone lines, too."
"I don't know," Vaughn said.
"What were you saying?"
Vaughn glanced at the wall and then shook his head. "N-Nothing." He gestured to the antique phone. "What's next?"
Mark shrugged. "Let's make a call."
With a gauntleted hand, he attempted to turn the old dial, but the glove's fingertip wouldn't fit in the hole. He grabbed the small screwdriver he'd used to pry off the phone's false front and jabbed it into the first number hole.
"I'm calling the duty officer's station. That phone is manned twenty-four/seven."
Several arcing strokes later, he finished dialing.
A moment later, a warbling ringtone blared from their radio speakers.
"Great job, Colonel!" Vaughn said as the smiling men bumped gloved fists.
Then an automated voice answered the call.
Their grins vaporized. Raised fists fell.
The knot in Vaughn's stomach returned with a vengeance.
"What the hell?" he whispered. Vaughn worried he would soon vomit in his helmet. Just thinking about the possibility almost made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Through a force of will, he pushed the thought aside.
The men exchanged nervous glances. Then shaking his head, the colonel disconnected the call and began the laborious act of dialing another number.
No one answered that one either.
Mark cursed as he reset the phone and then dialed a third number.
Vaughn felt the acid churning in his stomach as call after call fell on apparently deaf ears.
When yet another attempt went unanswered, Mark stared at the radio for a long moment. Finally, he gave a short nod and then dialed a new number with a different area code.
One ring.
No answer.
Second ring.
Still no answer. Mark turned an ash-white face toward Vaughn. "That's Houston," he whispered.
Third ring.
Vaughn felt like Mark looked. What the hell was going on? What had happened?
Fourth—
A loud click interrupted the growling tone mid-ring.
An out of breath female voice said, "Johnson Space Center Mission Control." She paused for breath and then added, "Director McCree's office." The woman sounded nervous, harried. "Who's calling?"
"Yes!" Vaughn said with a spreading grin.
Mark held up a hand and then toggled his radio connection. "This is Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hennessy calling from the Space Power Annex at Glenn Research Center."
"I'm sorry, Colonel, but as you might imagine, Director McCree is extremely busy … Wait!" the woman shouted with a start. "Did you say Glenn Research?!"
Mark looked at Vaughn and shrugged his shoulders. Then he toggled the radio. "Uh, yes, ma'am."
"You're in Ohio?!" the woman asked incredulously.
"Yes, I am in Ohio," Mark said. "Last time I checked, that's where we keep the Space Power Annex."
"Oh, thank goodness," the woman said excitedly, apparently unscathed by Mark's sarcasm. "Hold for the director." A loud clunk followed by a rocking noise came over the conne
ction. She had apparently dropped the handset onto the desk, rather than placing them on hold.
Vaughn's grin faltered. He looked at Mark. "What in the hell is going on?"
The astronaut shook his head again. "I guess something's happened. Something big."
Singleton laughed mirthlessly. "Thank you, Captain Obvious," he said as he cast another uneasy glance at the chamber's walls. Then Vaughn nodded at the jury-rigged telephone. "Guess we're about to find out how big."
Vaughn heard rapid-fire footsteps over the jury-rigged telephonic connection. After another clunk of a jostled handset, a winded male voice said, "This is Director McCree. Who the hell is this?! Better not be a goddamned prank call!"
"Director McCree, this is Lieutenant Colonel Mark Henne—"
"Mark!" McCree interrupted excitedly. "Where are you, Colonel?"
"We're in the new vacuum chamber, sir. In the Space Power Annex."
"In Ohio?"
Mark gave Vaughn another confused look. "Yes, sir. In Ohio," he said, omitting the sarcasm this time.
"Oh, thank you!" the director said with evident relief. "Maybe it's losing power."
"What are you talking about, sir? What the hell is going on?"
"Wait," the director said, ignoring Mark's question. "What were you doing in the chamber, Colonel?"
"I'm with Team Sigma. We were testing the Q-G thruster module, sir."
"Shit," McCree said, his excitement evaporating. "You were in hard vacuum when it happened, weren't you?"
"When what happened, sir?"
"Oh shit," McCree whispered. "You don't know."
"Actually, sir, there was … something," Mark said. "We saw a flash. That's when we lost commo with Glenn Mission Control."
"Colonel, listen, I don't have much time. It's almost here."
"What is, sir?"
"The same light you saw, Mark," the director said impatiently. "It's about to hit Houston. I need to know what you were doing the exact moment you saw that light."
"We were hovering the module."
"Were you still tethered?"
"No, sir."
"So you were in a vacuum and untethered," the director said with a defeated sigh. The man's voice sounded distant, suddenly detached, as if the handset had drifted from his lips and he was no longer talking to Mark. "It hasn't weakened. They were disconnected from the planet, even at the molecular level. That must be what saved them."