Oxygen Series Box Set: A Science Fiction Suspense Box Set

by John Olson

  Bob hurried up the stairwell and floated back to the CommConsole. Kennedy was talking into the headset. “That’s affirm, Houston. Holding steady at 80 percent nominal power.”

  Bob pulled himself over to look at the powerflow readings. Had something fixed itself?

  “Roger that, Hampster. We’re going to push back TMI until tomorrow morning. Noon at the latest.” Josh’s voice crackled over the comm speakers. “Valkerie’s report has Flight Med in a tizzy. We’ve added med exams and a final systems check to the schedule. Oops, we’re hitting Loss of Signal. Acquisition of Signal in six minutes—pick you up on TDRSS-east.” Static filled the speaker.

  “Hampster, that’s 74 percent nominal power,” Bob said.

  Kennedy looked at the numbers again and let out a low whistle. “You’re right, Kaggo. I must have messed up the calculation. That was stupid. Is Valkerie done downstairs?”

  “I didn’t ... um, she was still working when I left.” Bob switched screens to check the ship’s vitals. “Did you report the bioreactor and the RCS jets?”

  Kennedy pulled out an aspirin packet and ripped it open. “I reported everything.”

  Bob turned his head sharply to look at Kennedy. Did that mean yes or no?

  “You wouldn’t believe the headache I’ve got.” Kennedy swallowed the aspirin dry. “I need to take a few minutes’ break, crew. Lex, you’re in charge of the ship.” He disappeared into his cabin.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saturday, January 25, Year Three, 10:00 P.M.

  Valkerie

  VALKERIE SHOOK A TINY DROP of water loose from the tip of her pipette and let it hang shimmering in the air. She touched it with a glass slide, and it stuck to the charged surface of the glass. Clipping the slide under the microscope, she examined the free-floating microorganisms. Everything looked fine. Their water-recycling bioreactor was good to go. She looked up from the scope and checked it off her list.

  Kennedy poked his head into the lab. “Computer systems are all 100 percent.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve checked the hull, the scrubbers, the fuel cells, RCS, navigation ... Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Then why are you telling—”

  Kennedy disappeared. She listened as he bumped and thumped his way down the circular corridor.

  Something was definitely wrong. In the year and a half that she’d trained with him, never once had his actions been so erratic—even when he was drunk. He was really starting to scare her.

  And why was he reporting every little thing to her? She wasn’t the flight engineer. She had a feeling that it had to do with the spill. But if he didn’t want her to know what was on the wall, wasn’t that his business?

  Maybe he just had a headache. Something two aspirin and a ... Valkerie looked at her watch. Oh no! She didn’t have her gear together yet, and she was supposed to start Bob’s physical in three minutes.

  Valkerie dabbed the slide dry with her sleeve and ricocheted her way down the hall and up the stairwell. Lex was hovering over the NavConsole, typing away.

  “Where’s Bob?”

  Lex didn’t look up. “In his cabin.”

  “So how are you doing? Are you feeling okay?” Valkerie pulled out the med supply bin and started stuffing supplies in the med kit.

  “I’m fine.”

  “It was a pretty rough launch.” Valkerie tested a stethoscope and clamped it around her neck. “Any headaches? Dizziness?”

  “Listen, Valkerie.” Lex pushed herself back from the console. “I’ve got a tight schedule to keep to—and that schedule doesn’t have me down for a med exam until 2300 hours.”

  “I’m sorry. I just thought I’d—”

  “If this ship isn’t in tip-top shape soon, Houston is going to start having second thoughts. We’ve got a ton of work to do, and we’re running out of time. And your little med exams aren’t helping.”

  Valkerie felt like she had been slapped. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to do my job.” She retreated around the stairwell to the crew’s quarters.

  She pushed herself through the corridor and grabbed a ceiling strap outside Bob’s door. First Kennedy and now Lex. Was it her or just them?

  “Come in.” Bob’s voice sounded loud and clear through the thin plastic door.

  Valkerie sucked in her breath. Had she made that much noise? Did he know how long she had been there?

  “Hey, Bob. Ready for your med exam?”

  “Sure. Come on in.”

  Valkerie hesitated. It had been a long time since her intern days. It was going to be hard to get back that sense of professional detachment. And it didn’t help that she was starting out with a house call.

  She opened the door and floated awkwardly into the tiny cabin. Bob was leaning over his computer station. His legs were hooked around two pull-down bars that served as a zero-g chair.

  “How are we doing?” Valkerie asked.

  Bob pressed his hands to his eyes. He looked exhausted. “I hope I’m missing something simple, but the data bus diagnostics are not looking good. I was just checking the manuals and ...” He shook his head.

  Valkerie nodded. “Um, do you mind if I ask you a question while you work?”

  “You just did.”

  “I’m sorry. If you’re busy, I can come back later.” Valkerie turned toward the door.

  “No, I’m fine. Really. I’m sick of this manual. You may doctor at will.” Bob turned to face her. He didn’t seem angry. “What’s wrong? You look like you’re expecting me to sprout fangs,” he said with a grin.

  “To be honest, after dealing with Kennedy and Lex, fangs wouldn’t be that bad.”

  “I’ve noticed. That’s why I’m hiding in here. If Lex was wound any tighter, we could use her as a NavGyro.”

  Valkerie nodded and pulled down the stethoscope that floated out from her neck. “So ... how are you feeling?”

  “A little tired of having to go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes, but fine other than that.”

  “It’ll taper off soon. All that fluid has to go somewhere. You don’t have gravity pulling it down into your legs anymore.”

  Bob’s face clouded.

  Valkerie regretted her words immediately. He knew that. Of course he knew that. Why did she have to be so patronizing? Why did ...

  “Valkerie. I’ve been wanting to ... I really need to apologize for barking at you this afternoon after MECO. I was way out of line.”

  “Um, sure ...” Valkerie didn’t know what to say.

  Bob stared up at her. Waiting. She dropped her eyes, fidgeting with her stethoscope.

  “So! How’s your neck? Any headaches?”

  Bob shook his head.

  “Let me just check.” She anchored her feet to a Velcro strip and reached a hand to Bob’s shoulder. His muscles tensed at her touch.

  “The launch really did a number on your back. Your shoulders are as tight as steel-belted radials.” Valkerie started kneading his shoulders. “Are you sure you haven’t been bothered by headaches?”

  “Maybe a little.” Bob rolled his shoulders and rotated his head in a slow circle. “This feels ... nice.”

  Good, his voice was mellowing. He was beginning to relax. “Bob, I need your advice.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How long have you known Kennedy?”

  “About eight years. Why?” His voice was cautious.

  “Oh, no reason. Just wanted to know more about him.” Valkerie worked at a knot in his back. “So I take it you know him pretty well?”

  Bob nodded.

  “What’s he like? You know, his character ... I mean is he the kind of guy you can depend on? Is he a good friend?”

  “From what I hear, he’s pretty typical for a navy pilot. They kind of live by their own code. You could trust him with your life—just don’t ask him to watch your beer.”

  Valkerie chuckled. “Okay, I need to get your blood pressure and listen to your lungs.” She pulled a sphygmomano
meter out of her bag. “Then I’ll check your eyes and ears and get out of your way.”

  Bob watched her intently as she wrapped the cuff around his arm and pumped it up. A barely perceptible smile danced at the corners of his mouth—as if he knew something she didn’t. Something important.

  “What’s Kennedy’s family like? Has he ever been married?”

  Bob’s smile wilted into a frown. “Why are you so interested in Kennedy all of a sudden?”

  “One-forty over sixty. Normal for this soon after launch.” Valkerie put the cuff away and pulled out her ophthalmoscope. “I’ve just been thinking about him lately. He really ... wants to make this mission work.”

  “What about me? I want to make it work too.”

  Valkerie checked Bob’s eyes. “Sure, but you’re not—you know—as much of a gunner.”

  “A gunner isn’t going to get us to Mars. If there’s a problem, we’ve got to know about it. It’s my job—”

  “I agree. Being cautious is very important. It’s just that Kennedy—”

  “Kennedy is cautious too, you know. He doesn’t always play the foolhardy commander. He can be downright obnoxious in his attention to detail.”

  “So you’d say he’s cautious?”

  “Sure, he just does a better job hiding it.”

  “That makes me feel a lot better.”

  “What?” Bob turned to stare at her.

  Valkerie examined Bob’s ears. They seemed fine.

  “So how does he feel about women?”

  “Kennedy? Are you kidding?” Bob gave a short laugh. “He’s a total—well, let’s just say that he sees a lot of women.”

  “He’s not threatened by them? Do you think he looks down on women?”

  “Valkerie, trust me. Forget about Kennedy. He’s not worth worrying about.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Trust me.”

  Valkerie nodded. Maybe Bob was right. Maybe she was just being paranoid. Maybe Kennedy’s behavior was normal for a commander on a mission. Speaking of which. She looked at her watch.

  “I’ve got to go. I’m five minutes late for Kennedy’s exam.”

  “What’s the rush? You were late for my exam too. I thought you wanted to ask my advice.”

  “Never mind. It’s probably all in my head.” She packed up her bag and propelled herself to the door with a push from her fingertips. “Okay, I’ll be back later with something to loosen up those trapeziuses. In the meantime, get some rest.”

  Bob shook his head. “I’ve got a schedule to meet.”

  “Take an hour off,” Valkerie said. “Doctor’s orders. You’re going to lose efficiency unless you get some rest.” She pushed out into the hallway before he could argue.

  * * *

  Saturday, January 25, Year Three, 10:00 P.M.

  Nate

  Nate strode into Mission Control. “Okay, Gold Team! I need another powwow!”

  The team left their stations behind Maroon Team and headed for the door. Incredible! They were six hours into the Maroon Team shift, and not one of them had gone home. Which was why they were Gold Team.

  The team settled into chairs in the conference room with little chitchat. EECOM handed Nate a report. “I just received this from my support team. It’s an analysis of the energy budget we are going to use on the mission.”

  “If we continue the mission,” Nate said.

  “What do you mean, if?” Josh jumped up and began pacing. “We have to continue.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but somebody forgot to explain it to Mother Nature.” Nate opened the report and stared at it blankly. “Okay, I need your frank opinions, people. Are we good to go? Blunt opinions—don’t sugarcoat this for me. Josh, if you were on that ship, knowing what you know, would you abort the mission?”

  “No way.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s real simple,” Josh said. “Every life-critical system is known to be good, with a working backup and a working fail-operational option. So our team can safely go.”

  “What about mission-critical systems?” Nate asked. “Any word on the telemetry?”

  TELMU shook his head. “Bob’s been working on the data bus, but no joy yet.”

  “The primary IMU was glitching, right? Without that, our kids don’t know where they are.”

  “It glitched once,” GNC said. “Josh verified that with Lex. It glitched once, and she synced it with the secondary.”

  “Any other problems? Reaction Control? Fuel cells?”

  “Both fine,” Josh said. “I talked to the Hampster in person, and he verified that.”

  Nate narrowed his eyes. “Where was Bob?”

  “Reading manuals in his cabin. Lex said he’s still a bit queasy.”

  “Any medical problems besides space sickness?”

  “Valkerie’s not done with the exams. We won’t get her report until midnight.”

  Nate stared at the energy budget report. I don’t have time to read this thing. “Okay, EECOM, give me the rundown on this. In plain English. I need to fill in Perez and the president in an hour.”

  EECOM folded her hands on the table in front of her. “The solar panels are designed to produce 125 percent of the nominal energy requirements at the worst-case distance from the sun, which is Mars at a distance of 1.67 astronomical units from the sun. We’ve lost a fraction of our power. According to Commander Hampton, we’ve lost 20 percent. Dr. Kaganovski said it was 26 percent, but I believe he gave a pessimistic number.”

  “Sounds like Kaggo. So we’ve got 80 percent of 125 percent. You’re telling me we have no margin?”

  “Incorrect,” EECOM said. “Mars moves in an elliptical orbit with moderate eccentricity. The greatest distance the Hab will reach from the sun during this mission is only 1.52 AUs. Since the solar power function is an inverse-square function of radial distance, the solar arrays will produce a decreasing amount of power until they reach Mars, at which point they will still be producing eleven percent more power than required, even with Dr. Kaganovski’s pessimistic numbers. So we have a margin all the way. We are good to go.”

  Nate wondered how he was going to translate that geek-speak to the president. “Any reason not to continue the mission?”

  “None that I am aware of.” EECOM looked to Josh and the others.

  Heads shook all around the table. “Ditto.” “My systems are good.” “Let’s boogie.”

  Nate shook out an antacid tablet and chugged it down with the last tepid dregs of his coffee. “When are we going to get back telemetry? I don’t like having the console boys and girls flying blind.”

  “Once they solve the data bus problems, we can patch together a data channel through the S-band,” TELMU said.

  “So our data rate is gonna be, what, one percent of normal?”

  “In principle, we could do the whole mission at low bandwidth if we have to,” TELMU said. “It worked with the Galileo probe. It was way hard, but they ran the mission.”

  “When are we gonna fix the Ku-band antenna?”

  TELMU leaned forward. “Not before the TMI burn, that’s for sure. It’s a simple fix, but we haven’t got time to do a spacewalk before tomorrow noon, and that’s when we need to do the burn. Right, FDO?”

  The Flight Dynamics Officer nodded. “If we want to land on July fourth.”

  “We have to land on July fourth,” Nate said.

  EECOM’s eyes narrowed. “With respect, sir, nobody is holding a gun to our heads.”

  “We’re still in the hole,” Nate said. “We’re sitting on a pile of debts with more zeros than you want to think about.”

  “We made a pile on the launch,” Josh said.

  “We made diddly. Launches are a dime a dozen. This country wants to see flags and footprints in red dirt.” Nate leaned back in his chair and fiddled with his empty coffee cup. “We knocked a G-bill off our debt. We’ve got 3.8 left to pay down. If we hit a home run on July fourth, we might break even.”

 
“Sir, what happens if we scrub the mission?” EECOM asked.

  “Then we scrub the Ares program, because we’re out of business for good,” Nate said. “Lock, stock, and Ku antenna.”

  * * *

  Saturday, January 25, Year Three, 10:38 P.M.

  Valkerie

  Valkerie pushed over to the command center. Lex was stationed behind one of the computers going through a system check with Houston.

  “Where’s Kennedy?” Valkerie asked.

  Lex motioned to the stairway.

  Valkerie looked at her watch. Eight minutes behind schedule. The controllers weren’t going to be happy. She hurried down the stair tube and emerged into the lower level. A hissing noise directed her around the stair column to the locker cabin. Kennedy was floating sideways beside an open panel in the back of the room. He was welding a valve on a pipe with a small oxyacetylene torch.

  Valkerie waited for Kennedy to finish the weld. “Nobody said anything about a damaged pipe.”

  Kennedy started—like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “It’s just a precaution. It looked a little loose, so I decided to reinforce it.”

  “Right.” That’s why it was leaking all over the wall. What was it with this guy? He was almost suicidal in his zeal to save the mission.

  Valkerie averted her eyes as Kennedy started a new weld. “As soon as you’re done, I need you to stop by the Med Center for your physical.”

  “Impossible. My schedule for the next three and a half hours is mapped out to the last minute.”

  “So repairing that pipe was on your schedule?”

  “No. I was scheduled for a medical exam, but the doctor didn’t bother to show up.”

  “Well the doctor is here now, and I have orders to check you out.”

  “You had orders. Right now your orders are to help Bob reel the solar panels in.” Kennedy turned off the torch and threw back his mask.

  “I’ve ordered Bob to get some rest. He’s been going hard almost ten hours straight.”