Pale Blue

by Mike Jenne

  More than concerned about the potential hazard inherent in the fuel cell, he decided to depart from established protocol. Pointing to the abbreviated tunnel that led to the freighter, he stated, “While you’re checking the furnace in the basement, I’ll get the lifeboat ready to go, just in case we have to abandon ship.”

  “Abandon ship? But how about the Egg?” blurted Travkin. Their orders were clear, if not painfully stringent: if need be, they would perish at their stations to protect the weapon. They were authorized to depart the Krepost in only two circumstances: either after they had deployed the Egg, or after they had been relieved by another crew.

  “Damn the Egg! We sure can’t deploy it if we’re dead, can we? So what’s the point of staying on board if the fuel cell decides to rupture?”

  Travkin nodded. As his crewmate disappeared through the access tunnel into the freighter, Vasilyev made sure that their own Soyuz was ready for immediate departure. He checked the hatch and docking port fittings to ensure that they were free of obstructions, should a rapid escape become necessary. Even the most miniscule piece of debris could preclude the hatch from properly sealing, and the results could be disastrous. After verifying that their lifeboat was functional, he returned to the docking hub.

  Moments later, Travkin emerged from the access tunnel. His ventilator mask trailed behind him from its corrugated rubber hose. “No smoke or flame,” he reported, stuffing the mask back into its cloth container. “But you were right about the sour smell, Pavel. I found a spot where the wiring harness had been scuffed, and the wires were warm to the touch. I flagged it, and I’ll make a point to keep an eye on it.”

  “Good plan,” replied Vasilyev, removing his own mask before scratching his nose. He used a small sponge to wipe out his perspiration before stowing the mask in his emergency satchel. “Anyway, this should suffice for our daily emergency drill.”

  The two men returned to the snug galley, where Vasilyev took a quick sip of water from the dispenser. “I appreciate your loyalty, Petr,” he said, putting away their magnetic chess set. “But I’ll be damned if I’m staying aboard to babysit the Egg if that damned fuel cell blows. We don’t have to tell Control, but I think we need to adjust our emergency protocols to beat a hasty retreat, if need be. Are you with me?”

  “Always, Pavel, always,” replied Travkin. “So, are we going to play cards or are you going to waste the day gawking at the stars again?”

  7

  STUMBLING BLOCKS

  Krepost Project Headquarters

  10:30 a.m., Wednesday, October 4, 1972

  “Well, this is it,” declared Abdirov somberly, holding up a formal memorandum. His voice was raspy and hoarse, like he had been screaming all morning. “Our goose is now officially cooked. Our stalwart comrades in the Korolev bureau have finally seen fit to officially announce that the next freighter will not be delivered on schedule.”

  “But it will still be delivered?” asked Yohzin.

  “Eventually.”

  “Did they present any prospective dates, Rustam?” asked Yohzin. “What would be the best case?”

  “No earlier than the end of October,” answered Abdirov. “That’s ten days after our cosmonauts will have exhausted their supplies.”

  “And the worst case?”

  “It might take another month, so theoretically the freighter might not be delivered until the end of November.”

  Shaking his head, Yohzin replied, “That is bad news.”

  “It’s all over, little brother,” mumbled Abdirov, slumping in his chair. He was highly distraught; almost incoherent, he sounded like he was on the verge of babbling, as if he had completely lost his equilibrium. He looked haggard; even with the mass of pink scar tissue, his face was deathly sallow.

  Yohzin found himself assuming an unusual role, serving as a counselor to the well-grounded man who normally offered Yohzin his counsel. He sought to soothe Abdirov’s anguish. Hoping to coax his friend back from the precipice, he said quietly, “I really don’t think it’s over, Rustam.”

  “But it is. Can’t you see that, Gregor? It was a monumental struggle just to get this project approved. It was approved with the understanding that once the weapon was armed, it would be constantly manned at all times. Now, unless some miracle happens, it looks like we’ll have at least a two-week lapse where there will be no one up there. The weapon will be unattended and the Krepost will be vulnerable.”

  “So, Rustam, maybe you’ll be fired. That’s really not so bad.”

  “I would be fortunate if being fired was all that I had to be concerned with,” replied Abdirov. “I don’t think I’ll be so lucky.”

  “What do you think they’ll do?”

  The spindly general tilted his scarred face upward, held his hand above his head and made a gesture like he was being hanged. “The bosses will demand a scapegoat to sacrifice,” he lamented in a quavering voice. “So I’m the most logical candidate to dangle from a noose.”

  “Rustam, the freighter setback was entirely outside your span of control,” argued Yohzin. “I strongly believe that you will maintain control over the Krepost if you go to Moscow with a solid plan to salvage the mission. The Korolev bureau failed you. It is simple as that, and the General Staff of the High Command will surely recognize the Korolev bureau’s shortcoming as well. If you present the High Command with a viable plan, then you will surely keep sway over the Krepost.”

  “That’s all well and good, but that notion is predicated on too many variables that we cannot control,” replied Abdirov. “For example, what if the Americans swat the Krepost out of orbit while it is unoccupied and vulnerable?”

  “So what if they do?” replied Yohzin, raising his hands as if to surrender. “What can we do but hope that they don’t? Likewise, what if the station is destroyed by orbital debris or perforated by micrometeorites? We have no control over those, either. Rustam, why don’t we focus on those matters that we can control and disregard those that are beyond our grasp? Why gnash our teeth and fret over things that can’t be helped?”

  “Perhaps you’re right, little brother, but without the next freighter, we will still be compelled to abandon the Krepost, at least for a while. Those damned Perimetr scoundrels are anxious to wrest this thing away from me, and that’s all the excuse they would need.”

  Yohzin shook his head. “I suspect that you’re right that the Perimetr people yearn to control any and all nuclear weapons in orbit, and they want to eventually transition to an unmanned system like the Skorpion. But you should remember that I have spent a considerable amount of time hobnobbing with their engineers, Rustam, and I think that they have come to realize that an unmanned orbital bombardment system is far too vulnerable to the Americans.

  “I assure you that the Perimetr leadership is scared to death of this satellite interceptor system that the Americans allegedly possess. Until we develop some very sophisticated countermeasures against it, then it would be foolhardy to send up an unmanned system. That’s why I don’t think they will be in a tremendous rush to transition from the Krepost to the Skorpion. And so long as Kreposts are overhead, you’ll keep your hand in the game, so you should not be so despondent now.”

  “Perhaps,” said Abdirov. “But if we are compelled to abandon the Krepost, even for a brief timeframe, then I will not have any recourse but to appear before the High Command and beg for forgiveness.”

  “Sincerely, Rustam, I don’t think that you will be compelled to beg or plead for anything. I think it’s simply a matter of appearing before the High Command to present your case. Merely state the facts as they are and then present a plan to move forward. As I said, it’s the Korolev bureau that failed you, not the other way around.”

  Abdirov nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I’m sure that I am, Rustam. The greatest technical hurdle in our path is that we do not have an effective plan for this contingency, since we had never anticipated leaving the station unmanned. On a positive note, since w
e have roughly fifteen days of consumables on board, we have more than enough time to develop an orderly plan to power down the Krepost to minimum operational requirements, so it can be reoccupied as soon as we are confident that the next freighter is ready.”

  “Nyet, Gregor. Not until the next two freighters are ready,” countered Abdirov, evidently regaining his confidence. “And formal assurance that the third and fourth freighters will be delivered on schedule. I will not allow the Korolev bureau to hold me hostage again.”

  Residential Complex # 4

  Znamensk (Kapustin Yar-1), Astrakhan Oblast, USSR

  8:34 p.m., Thursday, October 5, 1972

  Yohzin’s heart thumped in his chest as he composed his message on the special graph paper. As he had done countless times before, he encrypted it and then transcribed it onto the special paper strip. He let the ink dry before tightly rolling the strip and then inserted it into the capsule. In a few minutes, the capsule would go into Magnus’s kibble bowl, and roughly twenty-four hours later, on command, Magnus would deposit the capsule into the dead drop.

  Sighing, he contemplated the latest events as he collected and cached the implements of his secret writing kit. As much as he respected and admired Abdirov, Yohzin was anxious for this nonsense to end. He had arrived at the conclusion that the Krepost was just too damned dangerous to leave in orbit. Even if Abdirov failed to make good on his scheme to drop the Egg, it was just a matter of time before an accident occurred and a catastrophe ensued.

  He provided the Americans with the detailed ephemeris that described the Krepost’s orbital track, and made it abundantly clear that the station would be abandoned, at least temporarily, beginning on October 19. Short of drawing up a diagram, he could not have made it any simpler. From his perspective, assuming that the Americans did in fact possess the means to knock the Krepost out of the sky, he was providing them with more than enough information and sufficient lead time to execute. If they failed to do so, then they should be ready to accept the consequences.

  Krepost Project Headquarters

  9:45 a.m., Saturday, October 7, 1972

  Yohzin sat with Abdirov at a large walnut table at the rear of the Krepost mission control facility, reviewing the tentative plans to power down the station before Vasilyev and Travkin returned to Earth.

  Working nonstop, both shifts of Krepost engineers had dedicated the past forty-eight hours to hammering out a plan, but it was far from complete. Presently, except for a handful who were decisively engaged with monitoring the mission, they were huddled around a pair of tables cluttered with large schematics and diagrams of critical systems. The objective was to gradually and systematically switch off non-essential systems so that the station’s batteries, augmented by the solar panels, would keep the critical systems functioning. Above all else, the plan had to ensure that the vacated Krepost could be quickly re-occupied once the freighters were available to sustain operations; to this end, the IGLA automatic rendezvous system, the docking mechanisms and stabilization gyros had to remain powered on. Swilling lukewarm tea and chain-smoking cigarettes, the nearly exhausted engineers patiently labored toward their goal.

  Since the Krepost was not intended to be shut down, developing an orderly plan to do so was purely a process of trial and error. As they drafted a new iteration of the plan, the engineers tested it, step by step, on a fully functional systems mock-up housed inside the Proton processing facility. Once they arrived at a workable and reliable solution, they would brief it to Abdirov. If he approved of their scheme, then he and Yohzin would fly to Moscow on Monday morning to present it to the General Staff of the High Command.

  The mission control facility was divided into two equal parts. Normally, the twenty Krepost flight controllers occupied three rows of consoles on the right side of the large room. Six Perimetr controllers occupied a row of consoles on the left side of the facility. A waist-high wooden partition, like one found in a courtroom, divided the two spaces. Aluminum-bladed ceiling fans slowly stirred the stale air, barely churning the hanging pall of smoke. The large room was marginally lit by a series of incandescent light bulbs, dangling on electrical cords.

  A large global map display, featuring a mechanical tracking device that followed the parabolic traces of the Krepost’s revolutions, took up most of the front wall on the Perimetr side. Beside it, a regularly changing screen showed the next three potential targets, as well as pertinent data—city name, population, latitude, longitude, elevation and theoretical time of detonation—associated with each target.

  The half-dozen Perimetr controllers were rarely gainfully employed, except during contact windows in which they received and analyzed diagnostic data from the Egg. Otherwise, they pretended to be busy, read books, and played chess. Today, their major source of amusement appeared to be observing the hectic activity on the other side of the divider.

  Yohzin casually waved at Bogrov, the Perimetr engineer who had unknowingly surrendered the magic code to unlock the interlock; Bogrov grinned and waved back. Yohzin watched the Krepost flight director approaching. The flight director was a full colonel in the RSVN. Dark-haired, tall, thin and well-groomed, he was an exceptionally competent officer who regularly exhibited calm and effective leadership in crisis situations.

  Standing before Abdirov, the flight director cleared his throat and said, “The flight surgeon respectfully requests a word with you, Comrade General.”

  “The flight surgeon?” growled Abdirov. “And pray tell, what the hell would he want to chat about? Perhaps he has he grounded someone else? Gogol would be up there right now, if the doctors had not fallen down on the job.”

  “It’s not about Gogol, Comrade General,” explained the flight director. “Sincerely, sir, I think it’s something that you’ll really want to hear.”

  Abdirov gestured for the flight surgeon to approach. “Make this quick,” he said.

  Dressed in his doctor’s whites, the bespectacled flight surgeon saluted and then said, “Comrade General, I have consulted with my nutritional scientists, and we have devised some viable alternatives to abandoning the station when the supplies run out.”

  “Go ahead.”

  The flight surgeon placed a meticulously drawn graph before Abdirov. “Comrade General, you should be aware that we assume the fuel cell will continue to properly operate at its current capacity, so water and electricity will not appreciably factor into our calculations. Consequently, the availability of food is our principal concern.”

  “Agreed,” said Abdirov. “Go on.”

  “At the present rate of consumption, Vasilyev and Travkin will exhaust their food in eleven days.”

  “Doctor, don’t waste my time with things I already know. I am very aware of when Vasilyev and Travkin will run out of groceries, which is why we are planning their return on the nineteenth.”

  “Da, Comrade General. Now, to continue, if you ordered them to subsist on half-rations, they could theoretically extend their stay to twenty-two days, but we don’t recommend that option.”

  Looking over Abdirov’s shoulder, Yohzin noted that twenty-two days would carry them almost to the end of October, which was the Korolev bureau’s best-case scenario for delivery of the next freighter. But even if they delivered the freighter earlier, it would still have to be loaded with commodities, and could only be launched if an optimal window was available to facilitate a rendezvous with the Krepost. He remembered that the launch parameters for the freighters were much more stringent than the manned Soyuz vehicles, because the crewed spacecraft had considerably more latitude to make orbital adjustments to ensure a successful rendezvous.

  “We don’t have empirical data for extended duration missions,” explained the flight surgeon. “But we must assume that surviving on severely reduced rations would exact quite a toll on their bodies in weightlessness. We are aware that cosmonauts suffer considerable loss of bone and muscle mass during prolonged flights. Frankly, your men might be too debilitated to survive reentry.”
>
  “Agreed,” replied Abdirov. “But that’s a risk that I might be willing to accept, if it might buy us some more time.”

  “There’s yet another option, Comrade General,” said the flight surgeon. “One that might yield even more time, possibly enough to keep the Krepost occupied until the next freighter can fly.”

  “That does sound intriguing. You have my ear, or what’s left of it, so go ahead.”

  The flight surgeon leaned over Abdirov’s desk and traced his finger along a faint dashed line on the graph. “Here’s what we can theoretically achieve if we send one of your men home tomorrow. We can prolong the mission to at least thirty days, assuming that your cosmonaut subsists on reduced rations. We think three-quarters rations would be sufficient, but suffice it to say, he would still be considerably weakened by the decreased caloric intake.”

  Abdirov nodded his head. “But it still sounds like a very viable concept,” he said.

  “I’m not sure that I would agree, Comrade General,” interjected Yohzin. He was trying diligently not to display any outward signs of panic. He had just told the Americans that the Krepost would be unoccupied after the nineteenth, and ripe for attack, and now it appeared that Abdirov was seriously considering a hastily conceived concept to keep one cosmonaut in orbit. Magnus had “transmitted” the message last night, so it was likely well on its way to the Americans, and there was no way to recall it.

  “You don’t agree, Gregor?” asked Abdirov.

  “The cosmonaut left in orbit would have no means to escape if there was an emergency aboard the Krepost,” explained Yohzin. “Moreover, as the flight surgeon implied, he might not even survive reentry later.”

  “Correct,” replied Abdirov, obviously growing impatient with Yohzin’s discord. “And realistically, we have no solid evidence to indicate that he could indefinitely remain alive in weightless conditions, not to mention the potential exposure to other environmental factors like cosmic rays and the like. Regardless, Gregor, you’re missing the point.”