“I know. I’m aware of how this works. Just … gimme a minute to think.”
Aggravation and fear quickly settled in on Riggs.
There, near the hinge for the port’s outer door, was the pinched power line that led to the hovering portable POG … on the outside of Cloud Two. Next to the crimped power cord was Riggs’ comm-link, which was still attached to the POG. Unbeknownst to Armada and Chloe, Riggs’ EVA training team was in the process of evacuating Cloud Two when they remotely disabled the energy supply. The team had already safely reached the floating oxygen generator and were retracting their comm-links when the power was cut. Riggs, however, had yet to reach the dock or detach the POG from the Cloud when the massive steel door suddenly closed, trapping him inside.
“How much reserve power is left in the battery?” Riggs asked.
“Sir, right now we’re showing less than sixty percent,” a team member answered, drifting next to the POG.
“Can you establish a connection with one of the other Clouds?”
“Negative, sir. We aren’t picking up any signals to synchronize with.”
“What about Cloud Ten? Can you see the Pantex crew? Are they still installing launch tubes?”
“Yes, sir, Team Pantex is currently on Cloud Ten, but no, we can’t piggyback their POG.”
“Can you connect to the Aerie or SUBOS?”
“No, sir. We’re dead in the water.”
The pod of cosmonauts was stranded.
Riggs mentally sifted through several rescue scenarios, but ultimately saw no viable means of escape for himself or the crew.
If he disconnected the comm-link from his own suit’s coupler, he’d run out of oxygen more quickly. Even though the airflow from the POG was at a reduced rate, Riggs’ oxygen was still being filtered and recirculated through the partially crushed umbilical. He could go back to the bridge and command center, but wouldn’t know where to begin with the restoration of power. Plus, with the door closed so tightly on the charging cable, it was impossible to transfer the POG to another Cloud; the enormous coaxial was hardwired internally.
The EVA training team members couldn’t disconnect their couplers from the generator due to the fact that the closest source for power and oxygen was CARBEL One, three quarters of a mile away. Unless that specific POG-equipped elevator just happened to be docked when they arrived, the trainers would asphyxiate on their own carbon dioxide.
Stay or go—either way, Riggs and his companions were doomed to die.
***
“And … forty-one,” Chloe perkily stated. “Forty-two, forty-three….”
“Beautiful! Excellent!” Armada proudly praised his wife. “This is exactly what I need!”
He positioned himself in front of their wall of tablets and watched as Chloe populated the blackened video monitors with live feeds from the newly selected cameras.
“Forty-nine. And … ta-dah … fifty!”
“Thanks, baby!”
“Yay for me!”
She slowly rose from her chair and stepped in front of Armada. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck as they viewed the new images.
“Wow!” she exclaimed, pointing at one of the computers. “Cloud Two has really shifted.”
“Yeah, I know. Since it’s in a low-Earth orbit and its SRBs have been disengaged, the orbital decay will be greater. Now, if the Cloud were in geocentric orbit, it’d take forever for the planet’s gravitational force to pull it down.”
The couple closely scrutinized each monitor, hungrily absorbing the new and crucial visual information from a fresh perspective.
“So why is Cloud Two not descending?” she quizzically asked.
“I imagine they’re all tethered….”
“Did you see that?” Chloe interrupted, aiming her index finger at one of the screens. “Something’s moving on the belly of Cloud Two.”
Armada stepped out from behind her and leaned in close to the tablet.
“You’re right,” he said after staring intensely at the video. “Something’s out there.”
Chloe returned to her seat and began pecking at her computer. Within a few keystrokes the camera zoomed in and the images on the tablet grew sharper in detail. Armada tilted his head from one side to the other as he examined the video feed.
“It’s a POG,” he exclaimed. “It’s a portable POG … and there’s people attached.”
“What’re they doing?”
“Can’t tell. From this angle, it looks like they’re just … sitting there, like they’re waiting for something.”
“Can we listen to them?”
“I guess so, but at this point I’d rather continue with the original plan. It’s irrelevant who’s saying what to whom. It’s a nonfactor.”
Armada turned away from the panel and took his seat next to Chloe.
“I wanna alter our attack strategy,” he announced, turning to face her. “Instead of bringing down each individual system and component one by one for every Cloud, I think it best if we simply delete all guidance and positioning references and initiate a full burn on all of ‘em … at the same time.”
“Ooohhh!” Chloe squeaked, clasping her hands together, “Cain won’t know what hit him!”
“Exactly! We gotta overwhelm their operations centers! They might have a chance dealing with one problematic Cloud, maybe two. But trying to control ten thrusters on ten separate orbital stations? Impossible!”
“Oh, baby! I love this plan! You’ll be … OH!”
Chloe stopped praising her husband when their unborn son let loose with a series of kicks. She grimaced and bit on her lower lip.
“Abdiel?” Armada lovingly asked.
“Oh, yeah!” she blared, breathing deeply. “Go ahead. Finish what you were saying.”
“Let’s pull up the rate gyroscopes and the stabilizing and positioning coordinates, zero out everything, and engage a full burn out manually.”
“Will that be enough?” she asked between respirations. “I mean, how long can it last?”
“Oh, twelve to fifteen minutes. There’ll be no way for Wyczthack, White, and Engenechem to stop us or salvage the Clouds. They’ll be hurling away from our solar system at tens of thousands of miles per hour.”
“How?” she inquired, through closed eyes. “Just … show me; don’t tell me.”
Armada dragged her tablet beside his and exited from their homemade surveillance program.
“First,” he said, raising his left index finger, “I’m locking up access to all geospatial position controls by using the transitional encryption we were discussing.”
After a few silent minutes he informed her, “Done. As of this moment, no one can regain control of the SRBs except us.”
“Good for you, baby,” Chloe mumbled, rubbing her belly.
“Next, we pull up both the rate gyroscopes and thruster levels for each Cloud.”
Armada speedily rifled through the Engenechem Master Server and expanded the properties windows for the gyroscopes and thrusters for all ten Clouds. He then drew half of the tabs to Chloe’s tablet and layered them in sequential order.
“When I back out the parameters for pitch and yaw on the X and Y axes and engage the thrusters, the Clouds would normally look like balloons with the air escaping. But in our case, the gyroscopes will automatically return all thrust vector dynamics to neutral and place the rockets in a perfectly perpendicular, 90-degree position. So when we hit ‘OK and Apply,’ we’re gonna be in for quite a show.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Let me delete the pitch and yaw first and max out the thruster levels. When I’m ready, I’ll tap ‘apply’ for both property screens and I’ll have you exit each as soon as I do. Apply, apply, exit. Apply, apply, exit. This needs to happen boom, boom, boom, like dominoes tipping over one right after the other.”
“Just tell me when.”
Armada robotically tabbed through the SRB property windows, entering ‘one hundred percent�
� in each field for the level of thrust force, and one thousand two hundred seconds for the burn duration period, but waited to apply the new parameters. Once the changes were made for each Cloud, he stacked the windows in numerical order.
“Oh!” Chloe grunted, tilting her head back.
“Okay, baby,” he soothingly stated, standing up. “I wanna scoot you over here, so we can catch all the action.”
Armada grasped the chair back and pulled her in reverse to the end of the panel. Next, he dragged the table toward the wall of tablets, along with his chair.
***
“Riggs! Riggs!” Cain shouted as he zipped through the corridor. “Can you hear me? This is Cain! Are you there?”
Dr. Wyczthack sped along the transit tunnel that led to the docking ports and receiving bay for Cloud Nine.
When he was approaching the docking stations, he again shouted, “Riggs! Anybody! Can you hear me? This is Dr. Wyczthack. I’m preparing to enter the EVA staging area on Cloud Nine for an emergency departure. All Cloud communication systems have malfunctioned. I’m about to suit up and will immediately cross over to CARBEL One. Can you hear me?”
Cain flew through the dual air lock that separated the transit tunnel from the individual docking ports and receiving bay. He slapped the actuator to close off the corridor and pushed against the door frame with his legs.
As he soared through the cavernous storage hangar, he again called out, “This is Cain Wyczthack. I’m preparing for emergency EVA departure from Cloud Nine to the Halos and CARBEL One. Can anyone hear me?”
Still, he received no reply.
“Augh!” he roared, breathing heavily.
Cain dragged himself past the five port doors to the EVA staging zone. He glided into the chamber, grabbed a handle beside the second door frame, and shut himself in.
Once inside, he reached for one of the folded and stacked EVA suits, yanked it off the shelf, and unzipped his one-piece jumper.
***
“All right. Here we go,” Armada gleefully announced. “No turning back now.”
“Mm-hmm,” Chloe hummed, trying to regulate her breathing.
“Now, take a good look at Cloud Ten. Keep an eye on the front left.”
Chloe massaged her stomach as she monitored the craft.
“And … go,” he stated, pressing ‘enter’ on his tablet.
The thrusters for Cloud Ten abruptly returned to their neutral position and ceased firing.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” he proudly chanted, clapping his hands. “Isn’t that a beautiful sight?”
“What’s truly beautiful is the idea of getting this mule out of me in two weeks!”
He diligently disabled the rocket engines for each Cloud and rattled off a slew of praises for himself in the process.
“Cloud Nine … done … and then, because I’m so talented and really know what I’m doing….”
***
As he was pulling up the leg of his EVA suit, Cain glanced out the air lock window just as one of the Cloud Nine thrusters began rotating and locked in its default, vertical position.
“Augh! No!” he shrieked. “No! Riggs! Riggs!”
***
“And when I press this button…,” Armada began. “Well, whadyaknow … Cloud Eight … off-line.”
“You’re absolutely pathetic.”
“Thank you, dear woman!” he jokingly blurted. “Get ready, I’m gonna need you in a minute.”
***
Dr. Wyczthack attempted repeatedly to stuff himself into the tight-fitting EVA suit, but was only successful in losing his temper. He shouted and screamed, helplessly, as he watched the neighboring space stations suffer the same fate as Cloud Nine.
***
Armada triumphantly called out each Cloud by number after successfully sabotaging its propulsion system.
“Cloud Seven … TOAST!”
“Cloud Six … history.”
“Cloud Five … what Cloud Five? I know no Cloud Five.”
***
“What? All of them?” Riggs hotly inquired. “Are you positive?”
“Yes, sir!” the man anxiously answered. “It started with Cloud Ten, and a couple of seconds later, Cloud Nine. The SRB’s just … stopped. They appear to be in hibernation, like when we’re replacing the fuel clods.”
“What’re they doing on Cloud Ten? Is the Pantex….”
“I’m assuming the crew’s evacuating to CARBEL One,” the man interrupted. “‘Cause from here, it looks as if they’ve disconnected from their POG.
“What’s the battery life on ours?”
“Less than thirty percent.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Riggs said, and gave pause. “You all must release your comm-links, immediately, and hightail it over to the CARBEL.”
“And leave you?” one female team member asked. “We can’t abandon you, sir. That’s not an option.”
“I’m not asking for your opinion on the subject. This is an order. You need to….”
“I’m sorry, sir,” another man sternly interjected. “She’s right. We’re not abandoning you.”
***
“Okay! Here we go!” Armada excitedly stated, patting out a drum roll on the table with his hands. “Moment of truth!”
“Please tell me that this is really ‘it,’” Chloe groaned, barely moving. “I just want to be done with the whole thing.”
“I promise you, baby,” he confessed, leaning to kiss her forehead, “a couple of keystrokes and Cain and Doc White are a thing of the past.”
“Just … tell me what to push and when.”
Armada layered the windows displaying the fields for the Clouds’ default positioning and stabilizing values. He maxed out the input levels for thrust force, zeroed the trajectory and vector angle, and extended the burn duration period of each rocket.
“The only thing you gotta do … is tap ‘exit’ after I okay and apply the settings. All right?”
“Okay.”
“But I need you next to me, here on my right.”
“Ugh!” Chloe sighed and forced herself to stand.
“As soon as I press ‘apply,’ watch the monitors. This should take no more than two or three seconds.”
His index finger hovered over the two command options.
“And … go,” he said, and quickly pressed the two buttons.
The couple’s eyes were glued to the tablets streaming the live video of Cloud One. Suddenly, all ten rocket engines ignited in near perfect unison.
“Yes! Yes! Whoo!” they shouted as the massive steel vessel began ascending.
“Exit, baby, exit!” Armada crowed.
***
“Sir, Cloud One’s thrust engines just engaged!” the man shouted to Riggs.
“Detach! Detach! Now!” Riggs screamed. “Disconnect from the….”
Before he could complete his order, Armada and Chloe sent the new parameters to the Cloud Two propulsion system.
The Cloud’s SRBs sprang to life with such power that the floating EVA crew didn’t have adequate time to react. The ten rocket engines, capable of generating a million horsepower each, provided a force so tremendous that the comm-link couplers were ripped from their suits as the craft accelerated away from them. The gaping holes allowed the frigid vacuum of space to suck the lifesaving oxygen and heat from their suits. Within seconds, the clan of cosmonauts was frozen stiff.
***
“Cloud Three … apply, apply, exit,” Armada coolly recited.
Chloe gently pressed the red ‘x’ in the top right corner of the command boxes as he instructed.
“Cloud Four … apply, apply, exit.”
“Cloud Five … apply, apply, exit.”
They watched the monitors as the artificial environments noiselessly rushed away from them. Chloe wept almost uncontrollably, lurching forward with every breath and surge of emotion.
***
“This is Dr. Wyczthack!” Cain shouted, panic-stricken, fidgeting with his earpi
ece. “Can anyone hear me? The propulsion systems have malfunctioned on all Clouds! I’m about to eject from Cloud Nine EVA.”
He put on his helmet, twisted it in place, and locked the clasp. After entering his identification credentials on the kiosk for the first air lock, Cain entered the chamber and quickly closed the inner door behind him. He punched at the large red button to initiate the decompression process and an amber warning light began flashing.
***
“Cloud Six … apply, apply, exit.”
“Cloud Seven … apply, apply, exit.”
***
“C’mon, c’mon!” he muttered, peering through the window in the outer door.
He could plainly see the hard tether line securing Cloud Nine to Cloud Ten and Halo One. The twelve-inch diameter cord lay no more than thirty feet away. With one solid push of his legs, Cain could easily sail to the safety cable and drag himself to the Halo and CARBEL.
Finally, the amber strobe light stopped blinking and a solid green light shone on the panel, signifying that it was then safe to raise the outer door to the air lock.
Cain tapped the green button and the door slowly swung open.
***
“Cloud Eight … apply, apply, exit.”
“Cloud Nine … apply, apply, exit.”
“Cloud Ten … apply, apply, exit.”
***
Cain had yet to clear the path of the outer steel door when Armada and Chloe engaged the propulsion systems for Cloud Nine. Because the SRBs had been activated, the Cloud’s safety features were automatically triggered to ensure that all external points of entry were closed.
The retracting, hinged slab of metal caught Cain just below his shoulder blades, dragged him down and back, and pinched him against the EVA portal frame. Powerful hydraulic pumps sent thousands of pounds of pressure to the air lock door cylinders, slowly crushing his chest.
Unbearable pain cauterized Dr. Wyczthack’s nervous system as his lungs filled with blood. The weight of the EVA outer door, combined with the power of the hydraulic pumps, folded Cain in half, backwards, like an inverted V, squeezing the life out of him.
***
Armada stood and edged closer to his wife.
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