Oxygen Series Box Set: A Science Fiction Suspense Box Set

by John Olson

  “No way,” Valkerie said. “Lex is the last person who’d want to sabotage this mission. She’s been a Mars freak since she was eight years old.”

  “Did you know her when she was eight years old?” Kennedy asked. “What do we really know about Lex, anyway?”

  Valkerie leaned forward. “Lex is the ultimate Mars fanatic. She’d never do anything to wreck the mission.”

  “Nice cover story, anyway,” Kennedy muttered. “Maybe she’s been pretending all her life. Maybe she ...”

  “Maybe she what?” Valkerie asked. “Be serious.”

  “I am serious,” Kennedy said. “Lex is a little secretive, isn’t she? Have y’all ever had any kind of deep conversation with her?”

  “She doesn’t talk much,” Valkerie admitted.

  “And what about that IMU that kept glitching on the test stand?” Kennedy asked. “Kaggo, you traced that back to that guy at AresCorp, that friend of Lex’s.”

  “And she defended him,” Bob replied.

  “That’s what friends do,” Valkerie said. “This is ridiculous. I don’t believe Lex put a bomb out there any more than you do. Do we even know for certain it was a bomb? What makes you so sure, Bob? I mean ... doesn’t a bomb need oxygen to explode?”

  “Not if it’s a NASA pyro,” Bob said. And I know where it came from. He pulled out his cell phone and opened up his personal work log.

  “It wouldn’t take much of a charge,” Kennedy added. “That was a small explosion.”

  “Got it.” Bob pointed to the record in his phone. “August 29, two years ago, the day Josh resigned from the mission. Lex came in real early that day. Got there before I did, and I—”

  “So?” Valkerie said.

  Bob turned off the phone and put it in his pocket. “That was the same day a storeroom in Energy Systems was broken into. When I got in that morning, they were installing retinal scanners on all the rooms in our building and in ESTL.”

  “Do you have a point here?” Kennedy asked.

  “An audit showed that storeroom to be missing a couple of pyros.”

  “I never heard anything about this,” Valkerie said.

  Kennedy leaned forward. “So you’re suggesting Lex moseyed in early, broke into the storeroom in ESTL, stole some pyros, made a bomb, and planted it in the deployment bay?”

  “I’m not saying Lex did it, but somebody—”

  “It couldn’t be Lex,” Valkerie insisted. “She’d rather die than miss Mars.”

  Bob remembered Lex practically begging him to take her to Mars. No ... she didn’t plant that bomb. He was sure of it.

  “There’s one thing you haven’t explained yet.” Kennedy’s bloodshot eyes flickered in the dim light. “Who told you about the missing pyros?”

  Bob felt his ears going hot. Somebody at JSC had gone to a whole lot of trouble to cover up the missing explosives. The information had never gone public.

  “That’s a good question,” Valkerie said.

  Kennedy held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

  Bob didn’t move.

  “That’s an order.”

  Bob slowly pulled it out and handed it over.

  Kennedy glared at him. “It’s password-protected.” He held it out to Bob.

  Bob felt his guts lurch. There was a lot of stuff on that phone. His personal journal. Passwords he’d hacked. And data he’d gotten from secure NASA databases.

  “Do I need to order you to do this?” Kennedy asked.

  Bob took the phone and punched in the password. “There’s personal stuff on here—”

  “I’m not going to steal your girlfriends’ phone numbers,” Kennedy said. “But right now, you’re our main suspect.”

  “I am!” Bob shouted. “That’s ridiculous!”

  Kennedy eyed him coldly. “You know more about explosives than any of us. You’d know where to set them to do maximal damage to the Hab. You knew pyros were missing, and none of the rest of us did. And you set off the explosion.”

  Bob shook his head and stared down at the table.

  That’s real fine logic, Hampster, except for one minor problem.

  I didn’t plant the bomb.

  Which means somebody else did.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Friday, April 4, Year Three, 11:15 P.M.

  Valkerie

  VALKERIE LISTENED IN STUNNED DISBELIEF as Bob and Kennedy argued. Ridiculous. They couldn’t really believe it. One of them—a killer? It didn’t make any sense. What possible reason would anyone have for not wanting the mission to succeed?

  Bob yanked his phone out of Kennedy’s hand. “That isn’t the issue! I did not plant that bomb!”

  “And I want to know where you got those access codes! Why do you even have them?” Kennedy lunged for the phone. Bob jerked it away.

  “I’m ordering you. Give me that device right now!”

  Bob turned off the phone and handed it to Kennedy.

  “Okay, now the password. I’m ordering you to give me your password!”

  “Not until we finish our discussion—then I’ll come clean with everything. I have nothing to hide.”

  “Nothing to hide? I already have enough evidence to lock you—”

  “If you want to talk about hiding, what about—”

  “Would you two stop it!” Valkerie’s shout echoed off the main cabin walls.

  Kennedy turned on her with a scowl.

  “I hope you’re done bickering, because it isn’t helping. Lex is in bad shape, and without that solar array we’re hurting for power. If we don’t grow up and start working together, we’re not going to need a saboteur to kill us. We’ll do it ourselves.” Valkerie stared back at Kennedy through tear-saturated eyes.

  Kennedy shot an accusing look at Bob. “All I’m asking is for Bob to tell me why he had a list of access codes.”

  Bob bristled. “I got those codes because I’m nosey, okay? I just wanted to know what was up with all the cloak-and-dagger stuff back at Houston—or didn’t you notice?”

  “I noticed a lot of things, but I didn’t have any reason to worry. Unlike somebody—”

  “Guys. Stop it!” Valkerie snapped. “Nobody here is trying to destroy the mission. Think about it. Do you seriously believe that one of us is a suicidal maniac? We know each other.”

  Bob sighed. “So you think it’s somebody on the ground?”

  “Maybe.” Valkerie scratched her nose. “What if somebody got to the Hab while it was en route to the Cape?”

  “Not a chance.” Kennedy turned to Bob. “Bob and I were there. Nate had the Super Guppy wired tighter than Big Brother.”

  “So is NASA security always so tight?” Valkerie asked.

  “Apparently Nate knew something that we didn’t.” Kennedy turned to Bob. “Did you notice that Nate ramped up the security right after she got to Houston?” He nodded in Valkerie’s direction without looking her in the eye.

  Valkerie bit her lip. She didn’t need to defend herself. Let them play their little games and get it out of their system. She glanced at Bob. His face glistened with a sheet of sweat.

  “What about Nate?” Bob took a deep breath. “He could have done it.”

  “Nate?” Kennedy said. “He was Mr. Security before the launch. Even brought in that FBI chick to work with him.”

  “So what if it was a cover?” Bob said. “This is a long shot, I know, but I’m just trying to think outside the box, okay?” A look of quiet desperation crossed his face.

  Kennedy gave a harsh laugh. “Out of the universe, you mean.”

  “No, it makes sense in a weird kind of way,” Bob said. “Look, if this was a John LeCarre novel, it would be Nate. Just because it can’t be Nate. You follow?”

  Kennedy snorted. “If it were Nate, he would have made sure he wasn’t one of the six suspects. Either that or he would have left enough holes in the security to take the pressure off himself.”

  “But if he were really smart—”

  “Come on, Bob,
you don’t believe that for an instant. We’ve known Nate for years. Valkerie, on the other hand ...”

  “What about you, Hampster?” Bob looked to Valkerie for support. “How do we know it isn’t him?”

  “What’s my motive?” Kennedy sneered.

  “You’re a big chum of Senator Axton,” Bob said. “Maybe you want to destroy NASA like he does.”

  “I can think of a lot more comfortable ways to destroy NASA than bombing my own mission,” Kennedy sneered. “Give me a real motive, Sherlock. Why would I do it?”

  “How should I know? But you have been playing Grand Inquisitor tonight,” Bob said. “That’s exactly the role I’d expect the real bomber to play.”

  “If I were the bomber, why’d I suggest checking out the solar array? Wouldn’t I be afraid that you’d discover the bomb?”

  “Maybe you already knew the wire was broken. Maybe you were trying to—”

  “Then why let you investigate? If I were the bomber, I’d have ordered you back and set it off myself. Just like you did.”

  “Me? Okay, then. What’s my motive?”

  “I’m still working on it. But I do know one person with a motive.” Kennedy turned wolfish eyes on Valkerie. “Bob told us you were a fundamentalist—just like those picketers in Houston.”

  Valkerie glared at Bob, who looked miserably down at the table.

  “And what about that leaky patch?” Kennedy demanded. “That could have killed us all. Why didn’t you check it before throwing the LOX tanks open?”

  “I was trying to save your lives! Get a clue, will you, Kennedy? You were freaking out in the airlock, Bob was unconscious outside the Hab, and Lex was dying in a vacuum. If I were trying to get us killed, all I had to do was nothing! The job was done. But I didn’t, did I? I saved the mission! I put Lex in a bubble, patched the leak as fast as I could, and then brought you guys back in! Why does that bother you? Because I made some mistakes along the way? Sorry! I did my best. Funny thing, I don’t recall training for this particular failure mode.”

  Bob gulped. “Valkerie brought me inside? I thought ...” He looked at Kennedy. “Didn’t you bring me in?”

  Kennedy shook his head. “I was groggy. I thought you were dead and on your way to Neptune. But that doesn’t change the fact that Valkerie here is the only one with a motive.”

  “But why would she rescue me? Why bother to patch the ship at all?”

  Kennedy snorted. “Why did the Crusaders slaughter the Muslims and then care for their wounded? Why do pro-lifers shoot abortion doctors? Why do they worship love but preach hate and intolerance? Maybe it’s cognitive dissonance. They’re full to the brim with conflicting ideas. That’s got to weigh on them. Or maybe she just wanted to drag out this disaster as long as she could.”

  Valkerie hung her head. It was too much. She couldn’t believe any of this was happening. She felt sick—like the day her mother died.

  “She’s the only one with motive, Bob. She had motive. She had opportunity. And none of the security weirdness happened until she got here. What do you think?”

  Bob didn’t say anything.

  “Simple question, Bob. Needs a simple answer.”

  Bob turned away from Valkerie, his face an unreadable mask.

  Kennedy leaned forward. “Answer me, Kaggo. At least you have to admit that she’s a prime suspect. Right?”

  Bob pressed his fingers to his eyes, his head moving in a barely perceptible nod.

  “That’s ... ridiculous.” Valkerie’s voice shook with emotion. “Leave me alone, Kennedy. You know I didn’t do anything.”

  “Leaving you alone is the one thing we’re not going to do.” Kennedy’s voice filtered through the pounding in Valkerie’s ears. “From now on, nobody on this ship so much as takes a leak without someone else watching. Until we figure this out, we don’t trust anybody.”

  * * *

  Friday, April 4, Year Three, 11:45 P.M.

  Nate

  Nate looked around the conference table. “Okay, Gold Team, give it to me straight. I don’t want any sugarcoating—just the facts. Where do we stand?” He pointed at GNC first. “How do you see it?”

  GNC shuffled his papers. “We’re good. The Inertial Measurement Units are working fine. The StarTracker is keeping ‘em in line. They can navigate all the way in.”

  “Fine,” Nate said. “FDO?”

  FDO didn’t even look at his papers. “All clear. No problems.”

  “Good.” Nate pointed to EECOM. “We’ll be operating on reduced power, obviously. How we doing there?”

  EECOM’s face looked green. “We aren’t, sir.”

  Nate stared at her. “I thought you had a team working on that.”

  She bit her lip. “My team just finished the numbers five minutes ago. And we cannot complete this mission. Solar Panel B is gone—blown away to heaven knows where. Solar Panel A is still operating at 48 percent. Their total power production is only 24 percent of nominal, about 6.7 kilowatts. That’s well under the design requirements. We have reduced to emergency power usage. Even so, we only have about 260 watts of surplus power.”

  “So we can bring them in to Mars if we’re very careful?” Nate asked.

  “Incorrect. Their current distance from the sun is 1.23 astronomical units. When they reach Mars, they’ll be at 1.52 AUs. The solar power decreases like one over r-squared. So they will lose 35 percent of their power, and that’s a lot more than our surplus.”

  “Don’t give me that,” Nate said. “They can reduce power for comm, for the computers, for a lot of things—am I right?”

  “I told you, we have done that already. We even cut power to the food freezers. We are running the ship below the rated emergency power usage. We’ve turned off every spare computer and navigation device. They are sending no telemetry and will be transmitting vox only at specified times. But the ship has to operate. And we cannot turn off life support. Oxygen production and carbon-dioxide scrubbers by themselves need a couple of kilowatts continuous power.”

  “You’re telling me ...” Nate couldn’t say it.

  “They’re going to die, sir.” EECOM covered her eyes. “They’ve got six days, and then their power production will go below their requirements. The fuel cells could have covered the deficit for some weeks longer, but those have been discharged. Mars is ninety days away. They cannot last that long. It’s impossible.”

  “No!” Nate slammed his hand on the table. “Listen, people, failure is not an option! We’re going to—”

  “You are not listening,” EECOM said. “We have done the numbers. Backward. Forward. Inside out. Unless you want to nicely ask all of them to stop breathing, they are not going to make it. Possibly with a crew of one. We could take Valkerie, or Lex, or Kennedy individually all the way in. Bob probably would not survive because of his higher metabolic requirements. But even a crew of two cannot possibly survive. Four is beyond impossible. I’ve got the numbers. And, sir, you cannot simply wave your hand and make it go away, like Gene Kranz did for Apollo 13. We need three months, not three days. The numbers are not even close.”

  It hit Nate all at once, like a bullet in the gut. His crew was going to die. He could save one if he sacrificed the other three—right now.

  But only if he gave up. As long as he kept fighting, there was hope. Maybe.

  He looked around the table. “Okay, listen up, team. I am not giving up yet. There’s got to be a way. I want a team of you to look at ways we can cannibalize oxygen. Maybe the LOX in the fuel cells—”

  “I told you, the fuel cells are already drained,” said EECOM. “Valkerie dumped the oxygen from the fuel cells to restore pressure after the first leak. The second leak drained all their atmospheric reserves. We’re running a 20-20-60 mix of oxygen-nitrogen-helium, which means they won’t require prebreathing on their next EVA. But we have nothing left, sir. Nothing.” Tears spilled down her face. “I’m so very sorry.”

  “There’s got to be a way,” Nate said. “And we’
re going to find it—hopefully before the crew figures it out themselves.”

  Dr. Abrams stood up. “Mr. Harrington, the crew has probably developed a full-blown case of crisis-induced paranoia by now. If you lie to them and they find out—”

  “We’re not going to lie. We’re going to withhold information until we have a solution,” Nate growled. “If you can’t be constructive, then get out of here.”

  “What about the press?” asked EECOM. “They were expecting to see video of the spacewalk tonight on the six-o’clock news.”

  “Stall the press,” Nate said.

  “What about ‘free and full flow of information’?” said GNC. “That’s the rule.”

  “If we tell the press, they’ll tell the public, and our crew is going to find out,” Nate said. “We can’t control their e-mail.”

  “Sure we can,” said GNC. “It goes through our computers.”

  “And it’s encrypted for privacy,” Nate growled. “Sure we can hold it all back, but they get two hundred e-mails a day. They’d notice in two hours and start asking questions. So we cut this thing off at the source. I’m issuing a gag order on all communications with the press.”

  EECOM cleared her throat. “Sir, we’re going to need an order from higher up on that.”

  “Fine,” Nate said. “Dr. Perez?”

  Perez nodded. “In this case, I think it’s justified—”

  “Sorry.” GNC shook his head. “If you expect us to keep quiet on this, you’ve got to cover us all the way up the chain. We want the president.”

  “I’ll call her,” Perez said.

  Nate cleared his throat. “Listen, team, I wouldn’t ask you to do this except for one reason. Lives are at stake. If our boys and girls up there find out they’ve only got enough life support for one, what do you think’s going to happen?”

  “Murder on the Ares Express,” somebody said in a horrified whisper. “Last one standing gets to breathe.”

  “You got that right,” Nate said. “And if that happens, I’ll hold each one of you personally responsible, is that clear?”