Pale Blue

by Mike Jenne

  “And then what?” asked Ourecky, rechecking the Disruptor’s function lights.

  “Ram it.”

  Ourecky swallowed and replied, “I was afraid you would say that.” The two of them had discussed this very situation in the past, but had never considered a serious option. Of course, they never even contemplated that the Disruptor might fail, since it had functioned flawlessly on seven previous missions.

  “If we were forced to ram it, I’m sure that we could pick up sufficient velocity to disable it,” noted Carson. “And although we probably wouldn’t survive, there’s still a chance that we might. Our nose would bear the brunt of the impact, and there’s nothing up there we really can’t live without, since we’re flying this job without radar. Provided that the pressure vessel isn’t compromised and we’re intact enough to make reentry, we could probably still limp home.”

  “But it’s still pretty damned unlikely that we would live, right?” asked Ourecky.

  “Affirmative. So, I need to know now: Are you in or are you out?”

  “I’m in,” answered Ourecky. “If it comes down to that, we’ll do what we must.”

  “Good. Now, like I said, let’s keep working the problem. We’re going into darkness in a few minutes, so I’m going to back away slightly while you continue working with the Disruptor. If we can’t fix it before we go back into daylight, then we’ll punt toward doing an EVA. We’ll fly a close-in all-around inspection to see what’s immediately vulnerable. After that, we’ll put you outside as soon as possible to break stuff.”

  “I suppose I should clip their antennas first, and disable the docking mechanisms?” asked Ourecky.

  “Good call. After you’ve done sufficient damage, your next priority will be to head back to the adapter to see if you can determine why the Disruptor is jammed up. If you can fix it, we’ll deploy it after you climb back in.”

  “One question,” said Ourecky. “What if the warhead breaks away while I’m outside?”

  “Always with the negative waves, Ourecky. Always with the negative waves.”

  Krepost Project Headquarters, 3:15 p.m.

  Sunday, October 22, 1972

  Looking for Bogrov, Yohzin strolled into the mission control facility. He sat at the table at the rear of the room and watched.

  On the Control side, the mission controllers were rehearsing launch procedures for tomorrow’s Soyuz mission. Yohzin was aware that Gogol was in a simulator somewhere else in the building, so that he was able to practice his ascent in concert with the mission controllers. On that side of the big room, the atmosphere was calm and unhurried, like a skilled construction crew applying the finishing touches at the end of a long project.

  On the Perimetr side of the room, however, things were immensely different. The usually complacent Perimetr engineers had stashed away their chessboards and novels, and were huddled around a television monitor. They seemed frantic; something was obviously very wrong.

  Wearing his customary grey suit, poorly fitting and rumpled, Bogrov walked up to Yohzin’s table. The Perimetr engineers had obviously chosen him as their emissary.

  Yohzin noticed that Bogrov was sweating profusely, and the Perimetr engineer seemed to be in somewhat of a daze.

  “What, Aleksey?” asked Yohzin. “Why did you ask me here?”

  “Comrade General, can you tell me if your Control people have received any telemetry from the Krepost?” asked Bogrov.

  “You called me here to do your bidding?” asked Yohzin. “You couldn’t just ask them yourself?” It seemed so idiotic that the Perimetr people could never see fit to leave their well-appointed enclave, even though only a waist-high wooden partition separated their side of the room from Control’s. The simple divider might as well have been the formidable Berlin Wall, festooned with broken glass and razor wire. He just could not comprehend how two teams of professional officers could function in such close quarters, day after day, and yet allow so much animosity to separate them.

  “Bear with me, puzhalsta, Comrade General.”

  Yohzin grudgingly pushed himself out of his seat, walked away from the table, and waved over the flight director.

  “I know that this may sound absurd,” he said. “But have you received any telemetry from the Krepost?”

  The flight director shook his head, slipped on his reading glasses, referred to a clipboard, and then replied, “Comrade General, the last contact window was roughly twenty minutes ago. It wasn’t a full pass over Soviet territory, but just involved an abbreviated pass over the communications site on Sakhalin Island.”

  Yohzin knew that the site was their furthest station to the east, a remote facility occupied by just ten men. Sakhalin Island was in the Sea of Okhotsk, roughly sixty kilometers north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. “Did you have any contact with the Krepost?” he asked.

  “Nyet,” replied the flight director. “We did not direct Vasilyev to turn on his transmitters, so we received no transmissions from him.”

  “No data telemetry?” asked Yohzin.

  “Nyet,” replied the flight director. “Begging your pardon, Comrade General, but in accordance with General Abdirov’s orders, we instructed Vasilyev to keep his transmitters off, to conserve power, unless we specifically directed him to turn them on. That includes the telemetry transmitters. Has General Abdirov amended his orders?”

  “Nyet. He has not.”

  As Yohzin started to turn, the flight director asked, “Do you know what’s going on over there, sir? They seem to be acting very peculiar today.”

  Yohzin shook his head, and answered, “Hopefully, I’ll find out soon enough. If I can, I’ll let you know.” He walked back to the table and sat down next to Bogrov.

  “To answer your question, there have been no transmissions from the Krepost,” stated Yohzin. “Including telemetry. Vasilyev is obviously abiding by our orders and is not energizing his transmitters, or he’s dead, in which case the orders are rather irrelevant. Aleksey, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What the hell is going on?”

  “Comrade General, can we speak in confidence?” asked Bogrov.

  “Of course. Now, what is it?”

  “We received telemetry when Vasilyev passed over Sakhalin,” confided Bogrov quietly. “The telemetry indicates that the interlock is disengaged. We don’t know how it happened, but we suspect that there might have been some sort of malfunction, possibly from a power surge.”

  “The interlock is disengaged?” asked Yohzin incredulously. “Did I hear you correctly?”

  “Da,” answered Bogrov meekly. Tilting his face toward the floor, he looked like a mongrel puppy anticipating a brutal beating for soiling an heirloom rug.

  “Wait. This makes absolutely no sense. If Vasilyev hasn’t turned on his transmitters, then how could you be receiving telemetry?” asked Yohzin.

  “Our communications equipment and frequencies are entirely independent,” explained Bogrov. “And they are on a separate power source. Vasilyev cannot activate them, nor can he deactivate them.”

  “Of course. That completely slipped my mind.”

  “There’s more.”

  “More? How can there possibly be more?”

  “You remember that the targeting computer assumes control and aligns the platform once a target has been entered and an authorization code has been verified?”

  “Da?” asked Yohzin.

  Bogrov swallowed deeply and then admitted, “As best as we can tell, Comrade General, those things occurred as well. We received telemetry from the Egg for the entire duration of the contact window, about a minute’s worth. Theoretically, that could only be possible if…”

  “The platform was aligned, and the stabilization gyros halted the station’s rotation,” interjected Yohzin. “What the hell is going on? I sat with you for weeks, and we tested that damned interlock every way from Sunday, and as skeptical as I was, I‘ll be the first to admit that your design was bulletproof.”

  “We were sure that it was
,” said Bogrov, wearing a pained expression. “But obviously it wasn’t.”

  “So the interlock is disengaged,” said Yohzin. “What are the implications?”

  “Since it’s unlocked, there’s absolutely nothing to stop your guy from dropping the Egg on his own,” answered Bogrov. “He wouldn’t need an Independent Action Code or any other code.”

  Shaking his head in sheer amazement, Yohzin said, “Is there any chance that Vasilyev is aware of this discrepancy?”

  “We doubt it. From what we have heard eavesdropping over the partition, we suspect that he is probably just clinging to life at this point, if he’s not already dead, so I doubt that he would apply too much energy to the Egg.”

  “Agreed,” said Yohzin. “Aleksey, you do know that we’re going to have to broach this matter with General Abdirov, right?”

  Bogrov nodded. “Da. I am really not looking forward to that.”

  Krepost Station, On Orbit

  13:47 p.m. GMT, Sunday, October 22, 1972

  GET: 38 Days 13 Hours 2 Minutes, REV # 616

  As he waited for the next contact window, Vasilyev did some quick calculations. Although he would still be compelled to keep the station in a largely dormant state, he now had ample power to activate the scrubbers. Now, he had to decide what to tell Control, because he obviously could not conceal the situation indefinitely. Badly dehydrated, his head pounding from his bender, he forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand.

  The moment of truth had arrived. Just a minute prior to the scheduled contact window, he switched on the receivers and donned his headset. In a few moments, a voice cut through the static; he recognized it as Major General Yohzin. “Krepost, turn on your voice transmitter and acknowledge,” ordered Yohzin.

  As directed, Vasilyev switched on the transmitters. Swallowing deeply, he knew that he must be in truly dire straits if Yohzin was assuming the role of communicator. Speaking slowly and deliberately so as not to slur his words, he keyed the mike and said, “This is Krepost.”

  “Good,” answered Yohzin. “We weren’t absolutely sure that you were alive.”

  “I am, sir, but just barely. I need to ask about the scrubbers, I…”

  Interrupting him, Yohzin asked, “Krepost, has your rotation stopped?”

  “It has,” he answered. “The platform has stabilized, and the batteries are now charging normally.”

  “And why did you not inform us of this development earlier?” asked Yohzin.

  “I was following Control’s orders. I was instructed not to activate the transmitters.”

  “Correct answer, Krepost. Admirable,” stated Yohzin. “Now that you have sufficient power, I want you to operate your scrubbers for one hour. We will advise on further actions. We have nothing further to discuss, unless you want to report any other developments up there.”

  “Control, this is Krepost. I have nothing else significant to report.”

  “Then except for the scrubbers, all existing guidance and instructions remain in effect. Switch off your radios.”

  Vasilyev switched off the radios, as ordered. The contact window was a puzzling turn of events, and certainly not the exchange he expected.

  Krepost Station, On Orbit

  14:26 p.m. GMT, Sunday, October 22, 1972

  GET (Ground Elapsed Time): 38 Days 13 Hours 41 Minutes

  REV # 617

  Suddenly, he was distracted by a brilliant flash of light sparkling through a porthole. He chuckled. Perhaps an angel had miraculously arrived to rescue him. Curious to see the source of the light, he lightly pushed off the control panel and drifted toward the window.

  Either as a result of the alcohol or sheer exhaustion, his tired eyes were slow to focus, but he gasped at what he saw. A brilliant dazzling blob of intense light floated outside. It could not possibly be! Mesmerized, he thought that he surely must be hallucinating. His senses must be deceiving him. He shook his head and closed his eyes, resolved to the thought that it would be gone when he looked again. He rubbed his eyes and slowly opened them. It was still there! Only a moment ago, he scoffed at the idea that the captivating light might be an angel sent to save him, but that seemed to be the only logical explanation. It was real, a genuine angel.

  As the lighting conditions gradually improved and his vision was less obscured, what he thought was an angel more clearly came into view. An American Gemini spacecraft was seemingly hovering motionless less than a hundred meters away. The shimmering light he saw moments earlier was a reflection from the grey-painted adapter section.

  An American spacecraft? If an angel’s presence was miraculous, this occurrence wasn’t too far behind. He tried to comprehend how it came to be here, and his only logical explanation was that it was a rescue mission, launched on extremely short notice. While it made little sense that the Americans would send up a spacecraft to save him, he was very aware that a joint Soviet-American mission was being planned to test rescue procedures.

  With their immense wealth and enormous resources, perhaps the Americans had already developed a rescue system; maybe the Gemini was dedicated to the task and had been maintained on constant pad alert. But a Gemini? As a two-seater, it didn’t seem logical as a rescue vehicle. On the other hand, the Gemini spacecraft was proven technology. Besides, the vessel out there might have been flown by one man, with the other seat left unoccupied for Vasilyev’s return. As he studied it, he realized that the spacecraft wasn’t exactly the version that NASA had flown a few years ago; for one thing, this Gemini’s nose was considerably larger than NASA’s version.

  He attempted to look through the windows, but the reflections off their glass, combined with his blurred vision, made it virtually impossible to determine how many men were aboard. Without question, the plan surely was for him to don his SK-1 suit, exit the Krepost via the airlock in the docking hub, and then transfer over to occupy the vacant seat. It would be an extremely risky gambit, since although his SK-1 suit was equipped with an emergency oxygen supply, its duration was roughly fifteen minutes at best.

  Since he was marginally fluent in English and knew Morse code, he should be able to communicate with the Gemini pilot, even if they could not converse over the radio. First and foremost, he had to make sure that the Gemini was here to rescue him. He checked his penlight and composed his message. It had to be extremely clear, concise, and leave no room for error.

  As he waited for an opportune moment, the Gemini gradually maneuvered until its truncated nose was pointing directly at him. He could clearly discern the faces of two astronauts looking through the windows. Dismayed that it was likely not sent to deliver him back to Earth, he sent his terse message anyway. Slowly blinking the flashlight in Morse letters, he spelled out RESCUE followed by the Morse punctuation signal—Dot-Dot-Dash-Dash-Dot-Dot—that denoted a question mark.

  Minutes passed as he anxiously waited for a reply. Finally, he watched a light blink from the left side window, and quickly scrawled down the letters. Like his message, the Americans’ reply was short and simple: NO.

  Gemini-I, On Orbit

  14:35 p.m. GMT

  Carson and Ourecky had been shocked to see the cosmonaut’s face in the window, but probably just as confusing was his apparent belief that they had been sent up on a rescue mission. Ourecky’s ferret equipment showed two recent transmissions, but they suspected that the signals were associated with some automated telemetry system. It was almost impossible to believe that someone could be alive over there.

  As they waited for a reply, they discussed alternatives to deal with the unfolding situation. “Drew, you’re the boss up here, but are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” asked Ourecky. “Should we have been so quick to let him know that we’re not on a rescue mission?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Carson. “Look, let’s review the things we know. We have to assume that this guy’s no dummy, or he wouldn’t be up here. He knows Morse code. He obviously knows at least some English. His ship is broken and he has no way ho
me. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “He has to be smart enough to know that we’re not in a position to give him a lift,” said Carson. “So he probably has long since figured out that we didn’t come up here to sell him encyclopedias. Most importantly, he still has a nuclear warhead at his disposal, and we’re essentially dead in the water, at least for the moment.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Ourecky.

  “We bluff,” answered Carson, drafting a message on his kneeboard. “How’s this?”

  “Strongly worded, but certainly gets the point across.”

  Krepost Station, On Orbit

  14:38 p.m. GMT

  Vasilyev read the Americans’ message: DO NOT DEPLOY NUCLEAR WEAPON OR WE WILL DESTROY YOU, followed by the Morse three-letter “procedure word”—QSL—directing him to acknowledge. He copied down the letters; the message certainly appeared to be a threat, but Vasilyev wasn’t confident enough in his English to be absolutely sure.

  He remembered the phrase books and translation guides that Gogol had stashed aboard the freighter. He raced to the docking hub. Gripping his penlight between his teeth, he rummaged through Gogol’s satchel. He remembered that Gogol had stowed his maps and books in a mesh sack that he had jammed in the bottom of the satchel. Digging down, he pulled out the sawed-down Kalashnikov assault rifle, the bag of medical supplies, the multi-band radio receiver, the sextant, Geiger counter and sundry other items, and finally found the flimsy sack containing the phrase books and other references. Clutching the sack to his chest, he rushed back to the control area to make a more definitive translation.

  Carefully translating each word to ensure absolute clarity, he read the message. The Americans weren’t mincing words; it was clearly a threat. The question was whether their threat was empty or they had some means to follow up on it. If they weren’t dispatched to rescue him, then they certainly hadn’t come up here for a picnic, so it was a logical assumption that they did have some sort of weapon to attack the Krepost. In Vasilyev’s mind, that explained why their spacecraft—with its enlarged nose—did not look like a “normal” Gemini. Moreover, since their nations were at a state of war, or at least on the verge of war, then it made perfect sense that the Americans would attempt to destroy the Krepost. Given the timing, assuming that they were aware of the Krepost’s mission, it was a threat they could not possibly ignore.