by L. S. Wood
Commander Ivan happily pushed the button control for releasing the module’s securing clamps. The crew inside the space module heard the metallic ringing in their ears as the clamps of the space station released the module from its grasp, and let them float out into limbo drifting out away from the security of their dock. The release did not cause any sensation of movement to any of them, but hearing the sound of the clamps releasing gave them a feeling of insecurity knowing they were on their own now, and it was up to them from this point forward to perform on their own behalf or not perform it properly. Their lives were in each other’s hands now, and all they could do was to pray and work together for their safe return back home to earth. Nervous sweat began to seep from the pores of the crewmembers in the space capsule.
The sky below was clear but pure reflections of the neutron’s colorful sheen attacking the Omega One were stuck firmly in their minds. Everyone knew what they were about to enter, and hopefully pass through the realm of the beast safely before returning safely back home to the earth’s surface without a mishap. Smiles, glancing from left to right to each other, giving happy signs of elation on their success of going home while their subconscious minds had thoughts of the dangers that lay ahead of them, and if this would be the last happy time they all would spend together before meeting their maker. Whatever happened, whether it be for the good or bad, at least they were all together in this hopeful voyage as one! It was their destiny now, to face the future whatever that future held in store for them. They fired the capsule’s booster rockets, sending the module down toward the spinning globular ball below, putting them into a path of reentry while slowing the space capsule down so it could make its reentry into the earth’s atmosphere without it burning up.
A couple of the older cosmonauts leaving the space station had never experienced a reentry flight back into the earth’s atmosphere before. They were very nervous about doing it, and very glad someone experienced was at the controls of their module during this dangerous time in their lives.
When the capsule would lose its electrical power, hopefully their selected navigator would have the timing for reentry down flawlessly for discharging their parachutes well programmed in his mind for a safe execution of the critical landing device allowing them a safe and happy return to the earth below. It was an uplifting experience as they passed down through the outer ozone layer of the stratosphere. They felt the booster rockets ejected from the module when they threw the switches to rid them from the module. This would allow the retro rockets to burn up as they fell toward the earth below leaving the capsule with its heat shields to absorb the intense heat buildup the capsule was designed to absorb, withstanding the immense reentry heat before the parachutes were released for their safe landing. They shot into the atmosphere with their heat shields glowing orange hot with heat. The neutron field struck as was expected, absorbing away the power from within their craft’s battery packs, as the critical time of reentry was now upon them. The next move for them would be to execute the landing parachutes in order to slow their decent back to the earth’s surface down for a safe landing.
“One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three”, the capsule’s navigator was counting down the seconds quietly in his mind as they shot down toward the round sphere below. Having reached an altitude he thought was safe, and the heat contained in the base of the module, he blew away the safety shields surrounding the portal window in front of him. The sky ahead of him looked a crispy blue in color. The sun shone bright above them as the horizon of the earth was becoming enormously round in size as they descended downward toward it. He continually counted down, trying to open the parachutes at the precise time during their descent was nerve wracking to him, but very critical for a happy ending to their flight. They knew the eye in the sky was watching their every move as they made their reentry back to earth. Commander Ivan had planned for the reentry when the space station would be above them during its orbit.
Commander Ivan was at the monitor counting every second as well, from the time the onboard computer of the module told them to release the booster rocket package until the time they released the main parachutes. He felt and knew the timing for releasing the parachutes to be the most crucial of all the reentry, and wanted nothing to go wrong with the ones he was watching when it was their time to fly. If the crew of the first capsule released the parachutes too soon, he on the next mission would want to wait a little longer in his own timing before executing his judgment in releasing their chutes. If they released them too late, they were destined to crash. If that was to happen to them, he would then subtract a certain amount of seconds from the number of seconds counted to ensure a safe landing for his comrades if he and his fellow cosmonauts made it through the monster in the sky’s habitat, that he looked forward to passing through without difficulty, he hoped. Boy was it hard judging the right time to release the main chutes without the computer working to help. The navigator watched as the earth’s horizon became more and more pronounced, and extreme in size. He determined it was time to execute the hardest decision he had ever made in his lifetime, other than shooting down another human being during a dogfight with his fighter jet one day. He knew the outcome of that day was either he or the enemy who had been pursuing him, but this critical decision was for him and several of his very dear friends.
Commander Ivan and the space station were just about out of sight of the descending module when he saw the spiraling of a tiny chute flutter as it shot up above the capsule, pulling out the main parachutes attached to a long tethered line. He marked this time down on the chart in front of him, and would have to wait till their next orbit around to tell if the capsule made it safely back to Earth or not.
The crew of the capsule felt the huge parachutes fill quickly with air. It gave them a freaky sensation as if they had become attached to the end of a bungee cord attached to the space station, as it slowed the descent of the capsule down. They had all been quite comfortable in weightlessness during the first stage of reentry. Now the great g-force grabbed a hold of them when the three huge main parachutes brought them to an almost sudden halt in their descent so it felt. The huge parachutes let the capsule and its crew fall toward the earth like the downy feather from a bird drifting softly on a warm summer’s breeze. Things definitely seemed to be going way too smooth with this reentry. Something drastic was about to happen at any moment for they all thought the worst was still to come. Things were very quiet aboard the capsule as everyone was waiting for whatever it was to happen, and did not dare say a word to one another about it with fingers crossed. They did not dare look left or right at one another in fear they would see one of their fellow cosmonauts looking the strange yellowy green dead in their seat, after hearing the strange tails about what the strange monster in the atmosphere did to individuals.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
A Lonely Cloud
It was approaching late morning as Colonel Anderson and the ground crew looking skyward spotted a lone colorful cloud above them come floating out of nowhere. When suddenly beneath the bright colored cloud, there hung a dark cone shaped object. It was a remarkable sight for Commander Anderson to observe, as the first space capsule came floating down out of the heavens down toward them where they were standing on the earth. They were very close, very close indeed to landing right on target, Colonel Anderson thought. They might get a little wet, but that all depended upon the gentle breeze of the day as it was not blowing very strong this forenoon.
Whistles, horns, and bells rang out as the ground crew prepared for their next new arrivals from space. Every building surrounding the Florida facility came to life as everyone scurried to the windows or ran outside to catch a glimpse of the cosmonauts landing at the cape, or a sighting of them floating overhead as they descended downward. It was not that they had never seen a landing of a space module before on their monitors, but that they may never see one ever again, at least not in their lifetime.
> The simple risk of space travel these days had multiplied itself a thousand folds more times over, since the loss of electrically operated electronics equipped space vehicles and the future risk of loss of life was not worth a single life to be lost. If Commander Anderson and his fellow crewmembers had not made it safely back to Earth on their first return mission from the space station, the lives aboard the space station would have all been lost because no one on Earth would have dared to chance the risk of an attempted rescue mission to save them. Even if they had attempted to send a rocket full of supplies to the space station, it would have failed without electricity to operate the computers on board to navigate the rocket to its destination.
Colonel Anderson instructed the driver of his rescue vehicle to drive to the far end of the peninsula, for he thought for certain his friends were about to get them themselves very wet, and he was right on the money. The capsule came floating down in shallow water fifty feet from shore, and bobbed up and down in the water on the shallow waves on its inflated orange ring. The space module floated like a cork in the water as the crew inside blew open the capsules door, and readied themselves for their immediate departure from it.
The rescue teams were at the module soon after it hit the water, and there was nothing but happy smiling faces staring out from within the capsule and in from without the bobbing module. Everyone in or outside the module were all elated, but not so much as Colonel Anderson was with himself. He was the happiest being on planet Earth alive at that very moment, as if he had just delivered his own newborn baby into life. Right now he felt he had just delivered sextuplets into the world from outer space. He only hoped he could be lucky enough one more time to deliver another sextuplets alive, and doing well in another forty-eight hours or so in the next capsule.
How happy were the crewmembers of the module? Happy, but how happy would they remain once they found out the truth about their families and friends back home on Earth? Colonel Anderson destroyed all the information he had pertaining to all their families that he had requested. He came to a final decision after many long restless hours of self-debating within his own mind whether to tell his friends before they returned back home to Russia or not. He found it best in his righteous mind not to let the cat out of the bag from him and destroy any good feelings they had had toward him as a caring human being. He did not want to make a single enemy of his dear friends from aloft before any of them returned back home to Russia. They would have their own downfalls when they all returned home, and he did not want any remembrance of him as the grim reaper of bad news to anyone ever again. He knew some would hate him for bringing them home, but he could live with that.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
The Loss of a Mission
Commander Ivan Khrushchev was the last cosmonaut to pass out of the air lock hatch of the floating International Space Station in its orbit. It had been his home in the stars for more than a couple plus years. He slowly and lastly step floated out and into the second space module. He slowly turned around one last time to take a look before he left its sanctuary, and thanked the hulk of steel up in the heavens for taking good care of him and his fellow crewmembers for so long. He felt like he was deserting an old friend. He considered the Space Laboratory more like a family member now, a caring brother who had saved his life, and now he was turning his back on the one who had helped him and the others out so many times in staying alive in the hostile environment of space. Slight misty tears of emotion filled his caring eyes as a warm feeling of thankfulness filled his heart. Were he and the others lucky enough to make the flight back home safely? He would look back up toward the heavens as often as he could during the dark of night, and thank the lonely beacon shining bright in the heavens for his life in her. He wondered if ever there would be anyone lucky enough to venture back to the stars and use her cavity for their every experiment ever again as they had. He felt extremely sad by having to leave such an exquisite component of a learning facility vacant, to drift vacated in space, for there was no hope for her now in these hard times of Earth. There were many new learning processes to be reckoned with back home on Earth, and he hoped whatever this laboratory had taught him and the others in these last couple of plus years, he would be able to use its knowledge back home to make home a better place to live, and he was sure it would in some way or another. Filled with sadness for the craft, he turned off all of her interior lights. He had ordered all of her equipment to be shut down except for the reactivation controls so someone could if they did ever come back some day, bring her back to life before they were to board her, and have everything up to speed before entering her through her air locks. He left her sun-charging solar panels on and charging at controlled full power to keep her batteries fully charged. He left out her airlock hatch leaving her outer beacons brightly beaming in the dark of night forever. When the bulbs life of giving light to the darkness failed, she would become lost in the darkness of the heavens like so many other lost unused satellites had become over the years having all died from old worn out age as useless balls of nothingness as space junk floating freely in space, just waiting to fall into the earth’s atmosphere and burn up on reentry. He set the internal timing device on the computer to release the capsule from its berth in twenty minutes, and then it would automatically shut itself down and remain on standby should someone in the future have to try and access the space station ever again. He saluted his old home in the heavens like an equal or better in rank. He then closed the airlock hatch behind him as he settled down into his piloting seat within the returning module.
Precisely twenty minutes after the commander set the computerized releasing mechanism’s timer, the space module with the remaining crew aboard her drifted slowly away from its berth away from the International Space Station into the darkness of space. Hearing the metallic sounds of the releasing clamps from the space station sent cold chilling goose bumps running wildly up and down their spines. Two of the cosmonauts on board the space station had very mixed feelings about leaving their guarded posts in the heavens, as they did not have the opportunity to complete their original missions sent up into outer space to complete. Another two were sad to leave because they had formed such a beautiful family bond with everyone onboard her. The last two were with plain good old euphoric wonderful thoughts about going back home and seeing their loved ones again. Going back home to Earth was the best thing that could have ever happened to them, or so they thought. It was a capsule full of cosmonauts with very different categories of mixed up emotions in approaching their every need, as they slowly drifted out and away from the space laboratory.
Commander Khrushchev switched on the onboard computers reentry mode system. He quickly punched into the computer the deportment instruction code for reentry back into the earth’s atmosphere. The craft departed the space station at precisely 0400 minus six second hours, as did the first module. Commander Ivan had to subtract the four minutes six seconds for the changing of time back on Earth for the reentry to follow the exact course of its fellow module craft of a mere forty-eight hours past, and hope the wind currents around the earth were precisely the same exact speed and bearings as they had been two days prior.
The disturbance in the weather pattern just off from northern Africa’s most northerly coastline had become a swirling mixture of clouds and forming a huge storm’s eye, as it was traveling westerly toward and nearing the outer rim of the Leeward Islands, but the weather over the Florida landing site still looked pretty peaceful at the time they departed, or was it?
Before closing the mechanical portable heat shields to cover their portal viewing port, the crew aboard the module watched as their orbit brought them around again from the dark side of the earth’s nighttime to the dawning of a new day. The horizon above California was a dark royal blue with puffy high whispery high altitude weather clouds dotting its outline. Early morning was just breaking over the western part of the United States, as they were right on time and track to
make their mid-morning reentry into the atmosphere above the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida panhandle coastline, which would land them right on target at Cape Canaveral, Commander Ivan so strongly hoped.
The computer fired the retrorockets, putting their craft into its final downward mode. Commander Ivan closed the windowed portal-viewing shields making the interior of the capsule black except for the lighted instrument panel, and prepared to start his final countdown for releasing the main parachutes when the retrorocket package was released from the space capsule by the onboard computers. He just hoped his timing would be right for he had all these lives at stake with him, including his own. He definitely cared about his own life, but was more worried about his fellow crewmembers than he was for his own welfare.
The g-force started to increase on them furnishing them all with that sick funny lightheaded feeling for not having experienced gravity for over the last couple of years. It made their stomachs churn as they wondered how stable their weak legs would be when they first attempted to walk again back on Earth with gravity pulling down on them.
The neutron mass engulfed the capsule as Ivan counted one thousand one hundred and ten. It was within two seconds time of the original time he had marked down on his chart from when the first module glowed orange from the orangey yellowy green sheen. Everything went black inside the module as expected, and all he could do now was to continue with his counting down of the numbers in his head until he reached the count of one thousand three hundred and eleven seconds before releasing the main landing parachutes. Neither he nor the crew could afford him having a brain freeze in his counting down now, or they would all surely die, or experience something they were not prepared to contend with when it did happened on landing. It seemed more like hours passing by to Ivan instead of only seconds as he counted down the time for this release of their parachutes. He recalled his training in flight school when they taught him to fly by the instruments of the aircraft no matter what the body or mind felt like and told him to do, as the instruments of the machine you were flying in were always right, and your mind and body were always wrong. Now all he had was his body and mind to rely on. His own subconscious was screaming at him to release the damn parachutes now as he continued with his count down, and ignored his own subconscious screaming at him to do the job right now. He knew better than to rely on his untrusting inner subconscious, and continued to count down to the end before he released the parachutes.