The President held that stick now under her arm and paused occasionally on her hike so Stein could blow his nose.
“So what’s the latest on the diplomatic front? Something pretty good, I imagine, for you to be up at this hour.”
Stein put on his reading glasses and glanced through a folder. “The secretary of state’s last report was filed two hours ago. She’s made little progress in the negotiations since the last report.”
“The Chinese are stalling. They know they have to do something in the face of this separatist movement. They can’t back down and neither can we. But they know what this would look like if we went to war while we both had people on the Moon.”
“That’s what the secretary supposed.” Stein flipped through a file and held out a stack of photographs. The President took them and glanced through them. “These are satellite photos taken within the last hour. It seems the Chinese are becoming well versed in brinkmanship.”
“Are these—”
“China’s missile silos, Madam President. The Chinese have readied their nuclear weapons and have targeted them on the nerve centers of the continental United States.”
June 27
9:17 a.m., Houston Time
4 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes, Mission Elapsed Time
As the time came for the lunar orbit insertion burn, Moose floated into the command module, where Yuen was running some checks on the Tai-Ping’s systems. The Chinese commander had said very little in the hours since learning that his country stood on the brink of war with the United States. Where other members of the crew had flared up at one another, Yuen had remained quiet and continued to go about his work professionally. Though Wilson had done his best to calm the emotions of the crew, Moose could see that the possibility of war was eating at both commanders and wondered if the mission was at risk.
“Ready for this burn?” Moose asked affably.
Yuen flicked his eyes in Moose’s direction and gave a curt nod. “I am—as you say—ready when you are, Lieutenant Commander.”
Moose floated into the seat next to Yuen and strapped himself down. “Look, Commander, I know things look bad—”
“I should not be here,” said Yuen, still looking at the ship’s readouts.
“Well, none of us should be here, but there wasn’t a whole lot of choice in it for us.”
“It is a fool’s errand. To sit here while our two countries prepare to go to war.”
“That may be,” answered Moose. “The only thing I do know is, whatever’s going on down there, it doesn’t mean much to us.”
Yuen looked up at him, his eyes flashing. “How can you possibly say that, knowing that we—”
Moose pressed on. “Down there, they’ll make a big fuss. Maybe it’ll even get down to shooting. But in the end, a bunch of bureaucrats’ll sign some papers and go about carving up the globe a little finer amongst themselves. And us, you and me? The grunts who won them their little strips of land? We’ll just get scooped up and deposited in the next hot zone they want for their collections.”
Yuen sized him up, trying to figure out if he was sincere. “So to serve your country, there is no honor in that?”
“Sure there is. If we’re fighting to protect ourselves or our loved ones. When I think about my folks or my sisters, well—”
“There are many in my country who would argue that we are protecting ourselves by protecting Taiwan.”
Moose rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Okay, look at it this way, then. Here we are, two supposedly sworn enemies about to fire a rocket that’ll take us to the most incredible discovery in history. Maybe they’re getting themselves all worked up about a war down there, but up here, we’ve got a battle ahead of us too. The difference is, if we pull this off, maybe there won’t be a losing side. Hell, maybe there won’t even be a war.”
There was a slight pause; then Yuen began to laugh. “Such shining American optimism. You’ve watched too many movies, I think.”
“Yeah, well, my mother always warned me—”
“Tai-Ping, this is Houston. Over.”
“Houston, Tai-Ping, go ahead, Deke,” said Moose.
“You’re coming up on the Moon. We need to go over some LOI numbers before we initiate the burn.”
“Copy, Houston,” said Yuen. “Go ahead.”
Deke went over several numbers to ensure that the Tai-Ping would enter the Moon’s orbit exactly where she needed to be. She would then remain in position until the crew fired a second SPS burn to break out of orbit and begin the journey home.
“All right,” Deke continued, “we anticipate this burn’s going to last about four minutes and should slow you down by about three thousand feet per second. You should be getting a nice view of the Moon around that point.”
“Roger, Houston,” said Moose. “Looking forward to it.”
“If all goes well,” Deke said. “Okay, all your systems are looking good as you approach the corner. We’ll see you when you come round.”
“Roger that,” answered Moose. “See you on the other side.”
He switched off the VOX, the voice-operated switch, and gazed out the viewport. As the Tai-Ping slipped around the curve of the Moon, passing into the side that never sees the Earth, Moose suddenly saw stars far more brilliant than he had ever seen on Earth. Without the sun to dim them, they shone brighter than on even the clearest Kansas night. He felt as if he was seeing the universe, its very vastness, for the first time. Even Yuen seemed moved.
Moose whistled. “It’s something, huh?”
“My older son will be very jealous,” said Yuen. “He’s always peering through his telescope, trying to see further and further into the heavens.”
“Just think of what you’ll have to tell him when you get back.”
After another moment of stargazing, the two got down to business.
“Do you have the orientation?” asked Yuen.
“Roger. I’ve got the Zeta Persei right where she should be.” Moose smiled inwardly. Despite all the advanced technology at their fingertips, steering by the stars was still the tried-and-true method.
“Gimbals set?”
“Set.”
“Very good. Prepare to initiate burn on my mark,” said Yuen. “Three . . . two . . . mark.”
As part of their mission, the Phoenix team was to deploy a small Chinese-built satellite in lunar orbit to monitor the site after their departure. Under the terms of the joint-mission agreement, whatever data was retrieved would be shared between the two countries. For the trip to the Moon, the satellite, the Wan-Hu, had been secured to the walls of the Tai-Ping, where Wilson was currently running last-minute checks. In order to keep himself steady in zero-g, he had braced one leg halfway into the hatch leading to the CM. Just as he was finishing up, the Tai-Ping was rocked by what sounded and felt like an explosion. Wilson was thrown violently aside. His leg, wedged inside the hatch, stayed where it was, snapping audibly at the knee. The pain was intense, expanding his understanding of the word far beyond his wildest imaginings. He slumped against the far wall, numb with shock. His eyes blurred from the pain, he tried to focus on his crippled leg. One hazy, distracted thought—broken bone—flew through his mind; then he passed gratefully into unconsciousness.
Donovan, Soong, and Zell were in the lander, going over schematics and plotting out the dig, when the force of the explosion rocked them. Donovan’s head caromed off one of the viewports, striking the Plexiglas with dizzying force.
Zell looked up. “That didn’t sound good.”
Suddenly Benny’s head poked through the hatch. “What the hell was that?”
“We thought you might know,” Soong shouted.
“I dunno a damn thing,” Benny replied. “But you better get up here. Wilson looks like he’s hurt.”
The three scientists floated up from the lunar module to the service module and saw Wilson’s inert form drifting out from the center of the cabin.
Soong gasped. “Is he—”
/> “No,” said Benny. “Just in shock. Any of you know what to do?”
Zell drifted over to him. “Looks like a compound fracture of the right tibia. I’m no doctor, but I’ve set enough of these in the field to patch him up. He won’t be dancing any jigs, but it should be enough to get him home.”
At that moment, Moose and Yuen floated down from the CM, their faces grim.
“What the hell happened?” asked Benny.
“We fired the SPS for the burn, and the whole damn thing went off like a roman candle,” said Moose. “I don’t know why.”
“So what’s going on now?” asked Soong.
“I can tell you this,” said Yeoh from his computer terminal. “We’re off course. Not badly, but it could affect the landing.”
“Yuen and I attempted some minor corrections after the initial blast. What about communications?”
“Negative,” replied Yeoh. “We’re still in communications blackout. But the explosion could have knocked out the array.”
“How long until reacquisition of signal?”
“It’s impossible to say.”
“We’ve got to get that engine working again,” said Moose. “Otherwise we won’t be able to get back on course. Forget about escaping the Moon’s gravity.”
Yuen’s face set in determination. He turned to Benny and Yeoh. “Get up to the command module and get the ship back on course. Fire the aft reaction control system until you get us righted again.” He turned to Moose. “How do you feel about taking a spacewalk?”
“What are you planning on doing?” asked Moose.
“Whatever I can.”
A few moments later, the outer hatch of the Tai-Ping popped open and Moose and Yuen stepped out into the void. The Moon hung below them like an eerie, gray Christmas bauble, suspended in the blackness. The Tai-Ping drifted lazily, her orbit somewhat erratic from the force of the explosion. She currently tilted on an angle, the damaged service module above them on a slight incline. Tethered to the ship, they began to walk. Yuen, ordinarily unfazed by heights, suddenly found himself overcome by vertigo. He shut his eyes, willing the sensation to pass.
Moose clapped a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Try not to look down,” he said.
“It’s space,” Yuen answered. “There is no up or down.”
As Yuen and Moose worked their way slowly up the service module, the damaged engine came more clearly into view. Slightly above it, the dish-shaped main antenna array drifted limply, nearly broken off by the force of the explosion.
“Whoa, that thing is smashed,” said Moose over the comm. “What do you think happened? Something electrical?”
“Possibly. It could have been a ruptured fuel line. Stripped wires. We may never know.”
“You think we can fix it?”
“I think we have no choice but to try,” said Yuen.
When they arrived at the engine, the astronauts began assembling their tools, each one fitted with a tether system, as well as a locking mechanism. Once a tool was locked into place, it couldn’t be removed without a key. Thus, all the tools and their corresponding keys were tethered to the astronauts.
After getting everything organized, Moose turned to Yuen. “You work on the engine while I get started on the array.”
“Are you sure you know what to do?”
Moose smiled. “Just like fixing the weather vane on my dad’s barn.”
Yuen shook his head, smiling slightly as he began work. Moose inched a few steps higher and took a look at the array. Suddenly he heard Yuen’s voice call out.
“Commander Mosensen! There’s something else—”
Before he could finish, there was another explosion, sterile and silent, but powerful enough to knock Yuen off the ship’s hull and send him spinning. The debris from the second explosion whipped through space. Traveling at nearly five miles per second, they hit Yuen with ten times the speed of a bullet and a mass one hundred times larger. The small jagged pieces of metal peppered his suit, tearing through it like paper and severing his tether with surgical efficiency. In an instant he went sailing off into space, turning end over end in a wild circular motion.
“Jesus!” Moose screamed, trying to reach for his comrade. He barely had time to react when something told him to look over his shoulder. He did just in time to see the antenna array, now broken free from its moorings, flying toward him and striking him full in the face.
Moose’s helmet shattered instantly upon impact. He fell back onto the hull, his faceplate gone. There was nothing protecting him from the vacuum of space.
Omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod—
Contrary to what was often shown in the movies, human beings could survive more than thirty seconds of total exposure to space. But the experience was sure to be the most agonizing thirty seconds of their lives, as Moose was beginning to discover. The air rushed from his lungs with explosive force. Fighting the urge to hold his breath and permanently damage his lungs, Moose skittered his way back down the ship.
Move.
The gasses in his body began to expand rapidly, and he felt a distinct sense of abdominal distention. He wasn’t sure if he was just imagining it, but he thought he felt his skin beginning to swell. His oxygen-deprived blood began coursing up to his brain, and he felt his consciousness start to swim.
Move!
He closed his eyes against the pain forming in his temples as he fumbled with the hatch. Small cramps seized his body, a sure sign that the nitrogen in his blood was building up. As he wrenched the hatch open, he felt a strange sensation in his mouth and realized with horror that his own saliva was beginning to boil.
MOVE!
Moose pulled the hatch open and dove through, hitting the deck of the airlock with a thump. Gripping a handrail as he lay on the floor, spasms coursed through his body. Benny, knowing something was terribly wrong, repressurized the airlock. Moose took a deep breath, relishing the taste of oxygen in his lungs. At that moment, the door slid open and Benny dragged him back into the ship.
“What happened?” he asked frantically, propping Moose up in his arms. “Tell me what happened.”
“There was,” he gasped, “a second explosion. It was almost as if—” A series of coughs broke his sentence off. He turned to his side and disgorged a thin stream of blood from his ruptured lungs. After a moment, he tried to speak again.
“. . . as if it was rigged to go off if anyone tried to fix it.”
“Rigged?” asked Donovan. “Are you serious?”
Moose shook his head weakly, still trying to catch his breath. “I don’t know.”
“Where’s Yuen?” Soong asked.
“Gone.” Moose shook his head. “He’s gone.”
Everyone fell silent. In one horrifying instant, everything had changed.
“What’s the situation like here?” asked Moose.
“Well,” said Benny, “we managed to get her back on course, but that second explosion rocked us pretty good.”
“I think I’ve fixed it,” said Yeoh, coming down from the CM. “I’ve reprogrammed the computer to make any course corrections necessary to keep us in orbit. She should fire the reaction control system if anything goes wrong again. It’s not perfect, but it should be enough to see us through the mission.”
“And what about getting home?”
“If you and Yuen weren’t able to fix the SPS, then we won’t have enough thrust to break out of orbit,” said Benny. “Unless we repair that engine, we’re stuck here.”
“To make matters worse, the Tai-Ping is dying,” Yeoh said.
“Say that again,” said Moose.
“The explosions have damaged her power systems. We’re going to lose life support, telemetry, guidance, everything within the next twenty minutes or so. I’m trying to transfer everything over to the Copernicus, but we may have already lost some data.”
Moose groaned, from pain as much as frustration. “No choice,” he said. “We’ve got to use the Copernicus as a lifeboat and compl
ete the mission.”
“You mean to land on the Moon,” said Zell, “with no chance of getting back?”
“It looks like we’ve got little chance as it is, Doctor,” said Moose. “At least some good can come out of this.”
“There may be a way to save the command module,” Yeoh said. “I designed her with a remote power-up system for situations like this. If we transfer everything over to the Copernicus, we should be able to bring her up online again in a few days. I can’t get the engine working, but who knows, maybe we can think of something between now and then.”
“It’s a fighting chance,” offered Soong.
Donovan looked at Zell, his voice flat and numb sounding. “What choice do we have?” He hardly had time to process the horror of what they had just witnessed: Wilson injured, Yuen dead . . .
Moose finally made it to his feet and drifted back over. “Everyone better suit up.”
“Better take it easy,” Zell suggested as he tried to hold Moose in an upright position. “You’ve taken quite a beating.”
“I’m fine. We’ve got to get the lander down.”
“Moose, buddy,” said Benny, “you can’t fly the Copernicus in your condition.”
“I can and I will.” Moose nodded his head. “And you’ll help me. Just like we did in the sim.”
Within ten minutes, they were all piled into the Copernicus. It was an uncomfortable fit all around. Wilson, still in shock, had a seat to himself. Zell had been able to set his leg with a makeshift splint. Soong looked around at the desperate faces illuminated by the computer consoles around her, crammed as they were in the overstuffed lander, wondering how this could possibly work.
Benny and Moose were in the pilot and copilot’s positions. Moose could barely sit up. Nonetheless, he gripped the stick with fierce determination.
“Hatch secure?” he asked.
“Secure,” answered Benny.
Moose coughed. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth. “Prepare to detach on my mark. Three. Two. One. Detach.”
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