Oxygen Series Box Set: A Science Fiction Suspense Box Set

by John Olson

  Josh looked stricken. “We did the best we could, but they won’t get it in time.”

  Nate stared at him. “Get what in time? Who won’t?”

  “The crew,” Josh said. “We just heard from the Ares 10.” He pulled out a cell phone.

  Nate listened to the recorded message.

  By the time it finished, Josh was crying like a baby. “I’m ... sorry, you guys. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”

  Nate stared at the phone. “Their backup aerobrake was functional! Did you tell them the primary is out of commission? They’re dead meat unless they switch to their backup. And they have to know that in advance. They won’t have time to deploy with the primary, detect a failure, clear the bay, and deploy with the backup. The whole aeroentry is timed down to the second.”

  “I tried,” Josh said. “I sent them a message right away. Here’s the log.”

  Nate stared at the time on the log. 11:37 CST. “And what time were they going to enter the Martian atmosphere?”

  “Eleven forty-five,” Josh whispered. “Maybe five minutes ago.” Tears streamed down his face. “I’m sorry, Nate. The one-way radio delay is eight minutes, twenty-five seconds. Even if they left their radio on to listen, the message couldn’t have got there before they entered the atmosphere. By then—”

  “Twenty-five seconds,” Nate whispered. “We missed ‘em by twenty-five seconds.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Thursday, July 3, Year Three, 11:38 A.M.

  Valkerie

  VALKERIE LOOKED AROUND THE CABIN. Kennedy was on her left, at the Flight Console. Bob was strapped in on her right, typing feverishly at the NavConsole. And Lex ... Lex was all alone downstairs. When they left, she had been drifting in her seat like a fragile ghost. Her eyes were closed, but she was smiling. Probably remembering something precious. Something Valkerie had never experienced.

  A pang of regret shot through Valkerie. She’d worked hard all her life and had so little to show for it. No husband. No family. No friends. If she died, who but her father would truly mourn her? Even Gina-Marie barely knew her. They had just gotten to be friends before Gina’s work took her back to MIT. Besides her father, the only people Valkerie felt really close to, the only people who really appreciated her, would die with her—without ever knowing how much she really cared. She had to make sure that two of them would survive.

  “Bob?” Her breather pressed her microphones tight against her lips.

  Bob didn’t respond. He didn’t give any indication that he even heard.

  “Okay, y’allf. Seffen minuff till enffry. Frrrff in tight. Frrf gonna be a bumphy riffe.” Kennedy’s voice vibrated through Valkerie’s headset. The comm links sounded terrible. The microphones weren’t designed to be worn inside breathers.

  Bob leaned over and shouted to Valkerie, “Can you hear anything? I’m getting nothing but static.”

  Valkerie lifted off her breather. “Kennedy said seven minutes till entry. Are you getting anything at all in your headset?”

  Bob shook his head. “Must be busted. I’m taking it off. I can’t hear a thing with it on.” He lifted his breather and pulled off his Snoopy cap.

  “Bob, I just want you ... to know that I ... I really ...” Valkerie felt light-headed. Out of breath. “Bob, I ...”

  “T-minuh siff minirrr,” Kennedy’s voice blared in her headset. “Frrrrr fffrrr ffrr see ffrr monitors. Ffrr ffrr ffrrrr spectacular.”

  Valkerie pulled her mask back on and took a few panting breaths. Her heart pounded in her chest. I don’t know if I can go through with it.

  Valkerie turned back to Bob. His eyebrows were creased in a pensive frown.

  “What’s wrong?” she shouted through her mask.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said slowly. “If nobody’s trying to kill us, what was all that hocus-pocus with the backup aerobrake-deployment system?”

  “Maybe they were just curious. Maybe they didn’t think it was important enough to mention it.”

  “Ffrrr-frrrrf! Ffrrr-frrrrf!” Lex’s voice buzzed in Valkerie’s ears.

  “Lex, are you okay? I can’t hear you. What’s wrong?” Valkerie tore at the buckle of her harness.

  “John Glenn.” Lex’s whisper was faint but clear.

  “What? Keep whispering.” Valkerie lifted her mask so Bob could hear. “What about John Glenn?” she shouted into her mikes.

  “He was ... my hero,” Lex’s voice buzzed through the static. “His first ... mission. 1962. They thought his heat shield was broken. So they asked him in ... a roundabout way ... to check on it.”

  “Lex? Are you—oh no!” Valkerie threw off her flight harness. “That explains everything!” She pushed out of her seat. “Bob, switch to the backup system. The backup aerobrake-deployment system. Do it now!”

  Bob froze, his fingers hovered rigid over the keyboard. “I can’t. It’s offline. Besides, the primary system is fine. The diagnostics—”

  “The diagnostics are wrong. The primary has to be broken. Why else would Houston have been asking about the backup?”

  “But—”

  Kennedy twisted in his seat, pulled off his breather, and turned off his mikes. “Get back in your seat. It’s too late. The solar panel is almost all the way back into the bay. We’ve got four minutes to entry!”

  “Bob, please, do you trust me?” Valkerie asked.

  Bob swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Why else would they be so sneaky? They realized the primary system was out but didn’t want to alarm us until they knew for sure that we had backup. Now help me get the backup system online!”

  Bob’s eyes lit with sudden realization. He unbuckled his harness and leaped toward the instrument wall on the far right side of the command center.

  Valkerie was at his side in an instant, prying at the access panel.

  Bob pulled a circuit board. “Now reach back there in the back and override that interrupt we put in.”

  “Three minutes!” Kennedy cried out. “The solar panels are all the way in. I’ve got to deploy the aerobrake now!”

  “Just a few more seconds!” Valkerie reached into the cramped space. Why had they put the switch so far back? “Bob, I can’t reach it.”

  “It must be snagged.” Bob reached in and pulled a bundle of cables to the side. “Now try!”

  “Two minutes, thirty seconds! I’ve got to deploy using the primary.” Kennedy’s voice hammered into Valkerie’s brain.

  “Don’t you dare!” Valkerie dug though the cables. The switch had gotten tangled in the middle. She could already feel the ship starting to quiver.

  “Valkerie!”

  Valkerie’s hand closed around the switch. “Got it!”

  Valkerie felt herself pulled back out of the access panel. Bob handed her the board and she slammed it into place. “It’s in. Ready to deploy!”

  “Get to your seats!” Kennedy shouted. “Powering up the backup now. We’re already hitting upper atmosphere.”

  Bob grabbed the access panel and aligned it. Valkerie locked it in place, then turned and pushed off for her seat. Missed! Instead of a straight line, she curved toward the floor. “We’re decelerating! I can’t get to my seat!” She smacked into the far wall and slowly drifted to the floor, flailing her arms.

  “The aerobrake arm is fully extended. Firing the pyros!” A ping sounded through the ship. “Inflating, inflating!” Kennedy shouted. “Fully deployed!”

  “Valkerie, stay still!” Bob shouted.

  She turned and saw Bob push off toward her. He flipped and hit the wall feet first beside her, bending his knees on impact. He gathered her in his arms and lunged back toward her seat. Valkerie clutched her seat and scrambled in. The deceleration was getting stronger by the second. The sound of wind began to build up outside the ship.

  Bob yanked her harness in place and cinched it home.

  He lifted his breather away from his face and leaned in close. “I love you, Valkerie.” His words mingled with the rising win
d outside. Warm lips brushed across her cheek. She shut her eyes, letting the rush of warmth fill her. Caress her. She felt her body pressed against her harness.

  “I ... love you too.” Valkerie breathed out the words. She opened her eyes, but Bob was gone. She looked frantically to her right. Bob lay twisted in his seat, clinging desperately to the armrest with one hand while the other hand tugged his harness into place. Had it locked? The rushing wind outside became a gale.

  “I love you!” Valkerie’s shout was washed away by the high-pitched roar.

  Bob didn’t answer.

  * * *

  Thursday, July 3, Year Three, 11:45 A.M.

  Bob

  Bob’s right arm was trapped beneath him. He lay twisted in the seat with three and a half gees of inertial forces pushing his body into the seat. He had only managed to get part of his harness buckled before the ship’s deceleration took over, rendering his hands and arms useless.

  The roar was terrific. The ship bucked and pitched around him like one of those hideous mechanical bulls in a Houston bar. Bob could hear nothing, see nothing. Had they peaked on the deceleration curve yet? His heart was going to explode under the pressure, and he was going to die without knowing. He had said the words. He had kissed her on the cheek. What did she think? Was it too soon? Had he finally driven her away? Did it even matter?

  The force began decreasing, and the shaking gradually faded. The roar of the wind died with it. From very far away, Bob thought he heard Kennedy yelling—something about a parachute.

  Slam! Then silence.

  “Bingo, guys!” Kennedy sang out through his breather. “The chutes are open and they are beautiful. Everybody okay?”

  Bob groaned. “Just ... get us on solid ground.” They were now in Martian gravity, just over a third of a gee, and floating downward through the thin atmosphere toward the Red Planet.

  “Releasing chutes and aerobrakes and ... activating landing engine ... now!” Kennedy said. A low roar throbbed below them, and the gravitational force seemed to increase a notch.

  “Okay, we are hovering,” Kennedy called out. “Distance to base camp is ... uh-oh!”

  “What’s wrong?” Valkerie said.

  “We’re ... off target a couple of klicks.” Kennedy’s voice sounded tight. “I’m on it, don’t worry.”

  Bob opened his eyes and tried to raise his head. This gravity thing was gonna be a bear! He felt as if an elephant had quietly decided to invade his body. His head had to weigh fifty pounds, and his arms were lead.

  “Um ... guys, we’re getting closer,” Kennedy said. “We’re about thirty meters above a rocky plain. I have the base camp on visual. It’s about ... fifteen hundred meters. We’re down to ... one hundred twenty seconds of bipropellant. I’m gonna bring us in as close as possible and lay us down like a baby.”

  Bob lay back and closed his eyes. Fifteen hundred meters was too far. He couldn’t walk a mile in this gravity wearing an EVA suit. Not in half an hour. He just couldn’t.

  “Sixty seconds, and we are one thousand meters from base camp. Eat your heart out, Neil Armstrong. I’m gonna make you look like an amateur—with one eye tied behind my back.”

  The Hampster probably even believed it. All pilots thought they had the rightest stuff in the known universe. Which meant that all but one of them was wrong.

  “Thirty seconds, and seven hundred meters to go. Yes ... baby! We’re at ten meters altitude, guys, so keep cool. If the engine conks out, we don’t have far to fall.”

  Valkerie was praying audibly now. Bob would have joined her, but he couldn’t speak.

  “Slowing down lateral motion. Ten seconds of fuel left and we are skimming the tops of those rocks. Six hundred meters to base camp. Prepare for landing.”

  Bob’s heart pounded in his ears. His breath was coming in great gulping pants. His breather ... He was running out of oxygen.

  “Five seconds of fuel, and we are at four meters altitude. Three meters. Two. One. Fifty centimeters. Ten.”

  There was a gentle thump on the floor.

  “Zero seconds of fuel left, zero centimeters of altitude, five hundred and forty meters to base camp. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Mars.”

  Bob ripped the breather off his face and gulped at the thin air in the Hab. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. He had gotten so close, but he wasn’t going to make it.

  * * *

  Thursday, July 3, Year Three, 11:55 A.M.

  Valkerie

  “Is everybody okay?” Valkerie fumbled at her flight harness with leaden fingers. “Nice landing, Hampster! Bob? How much time—” Valkerie froze. Bob lay in his seat, panting like a fish out of water. His breather was gone.

  “Bob!” Valkerie flung off her harness and leaped to her feet. Too fast. The world spun around, filling her ears with a high-pitched ring. She collapsed to the deck floor, then pushed herself to her knees through the tingling haze that fogged her senses. Ripping the breather from her face, she reached up and pressed it to Bob’s face. “Bob, it’s okay. Calm down. Just breathe. Breathe into the mask.”

  A crash sounded behind her. Swearing.

  “Kennedy, get over here! Bob needs help!”

  Bob’s breathing started to slow. Valkerie relaxed. “Okay, Bob, can you hear me?”

  Bob nodded at her through the mask.

  “I’m going to take the mask for just a few breaths, then I’ll give it back. Understand?”

  Bob nodded, lifted the breather from his face, and held it out to Valkerie. Their eyes met. For a moment Valkerie forgot all about the breather. He’d said he loved her.

  “Bob, I don’t know ...”

  Footsteps sounded behind her. “We’re running out of time, people.” Kennedy put his own breather on Bob’s face. “Let’s go get our suits on!” He hoisted Bob to his feet and put a shoulder under Bob’s arm. “Just stand still a minute, buddy, and let your blood pressure stabilize.”

  Valkerie slipped the breather over her face and stood up slowly. Kennedy was already walking Bob to the stairwell. She hurried to catch up but stumbled and fell.

  “Valkerie!” Bob broke free from Kennedy, turned, and lifted her to her feet. “Are you okay?”

  Valkerie nodded. The cabin started to spin. “I’m fine. I just stood up too fast. Go with Kennedy. Get into your suit.”

  “You don’t look fine. Let me help you.” Bob put his arm around her and started leading her into the hatch.

  “Go with Kennedy. Please! You’ve got his breather.”

  “But ...”

  “Go! I’ll be down in a second.” Valkerie pulled away from Bob and pushed him toward the stairwell.

  Bob rejoined Kennedy. Together, they stumbled through the hatch, sharing a breather. Bob looked back once, and then they disappeared down the stairs.

  Valkerie dropped to her knees and lowered her head, waiting until the dizziness stopped. After a few minutes she rose slowly to her feet and clomped to the hatch. The dizziness was almost gone. She descended the stairs one painful step at a time. Maybe she only weighed forty pounds on Mars, but it felt like four hundred. How was Bob going to make it five hundred meters in a suit that added half again to his weight?

  Valkerie was panting and out of breath by the time she reached the decontamination room. Kennedy was just helping Bob into the upper half of his EVA suit.

  “Valkerie, are you okay? I was just about to go up looking for you.” Bob started toward her, then jerked back. His pack was still mounted on a stabilizer rack.

  “Valkerie, can you give me a hand?” Kennedy lay on the floor struggling to work his feet into his boots.

  Valkerie looked up at Bob. She hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him. She wanted to let him know, to tell him how she felt.

  Bob looked into her eyes and gave a slight nod.

  She gave him an apologetic smile and turned to help Kennedy hold up the lower half of his suit while he burrowed up into the top half.

  Valkerie glanced back at Bob. He nod
ded and pulled on his gloves. Before she could even think of what to say, he placed his helmet over his head and snapped it in place.

  “Gloves!” Kennedy’s shout broke Valkerie out of her daze.

  Valkerie helped Kennedy with his gloves, but all she could think about was Bob. She didn’t know if it was true, but she wanted to tell him she loved him. That she was in love with him. Could it really be true? It must be. Why would she want to tell him if it weren’t true?

  Kennedy handed Valkerie his breather and reached for his helmet. “You’ll have to refill it. I think it’s about out.” He pulled the helmet over his head and snapped it in place.

  Valkerie turned. Bob was right beside her, holding out a transfer hose—the hose they had rigged to refill their breathers from the EVA packs. Bob motioned to the back of his pack and turned to join Kennedy, who already stood facing the airlock.

  Valkerie stared at the hose, then at the backs of the two men. No more indecision. No more doubts. She knew what she had to do.

  Valkerie stepped back and peered through the doorway, holding the transfer hose up where Lex could see it. Lex looked down for a few seconds. Her shoulders rose and fell in a deep sigh. When she looked up, her eyes blazed with determination. She nodded her head. Yes.

  Valkerie turned and fumbled with the back of Bob’s and Kennedy’s backpacks, going through the motions of filling her breather. She moved between them and gave them the okay sign. Kennedy and Bob rocked back and forth in a nod and stepped toward the airlock. Kennedy walked through the hatch. Bob started to follow, but he turned back for a last look at Valkerie as if he wanted to tell Valkerie something but couldn’t say it.

  Valkerie stripped off her mask and tiptoed to plant a kiss on his visor. Then, before he could waste any more time, she pushed him through the doorway and began securing the hatch. As she locked it down, the emergency lights went black.

  The fuel cells had run out.

  Valkerie wondered at her equanimity as she felt her way through the tomblike chamber back to Lex. The two women huddled quietly in the darkness. Clasping each other’s hands. Whispering words of comfort and love.