by R Davison
“We copy you, NORAD, this is Susan Corin, Commander of the shuttle Endeavour, on board the International Space Station.”
“Commander Corin, it’s good to hear from you! You being on the station answers a lot of questions we had down here on the ground.”
“Sorry, if we caused you any confusion. You were not in contact with Korolev Control?”
“Yes, but only briefly. We did not have time to really exchange any information, and we heard nothing about the station. There appears to be a lot of confusion over there. I am not quite sure what is going on, but we had trouble getting through to them, as you might expect, communications are in a bit of disarray. How are you and your crew doing?” Silence filled the room again, and Susan drew in a deep breath before she composed her answer.
“Well, that’s a long story. We have had some problems. The asteroid that hit the States struck the shuttle on its way in. Mission Specialist, Jill Peterson, was killed in the collision.” Susan’s voice cracked, and she shut off the mic for a moment to regain her composure. Come on…come on…come on, she told herself. Don’t lose it now. “Ah…the rest of the crew is doing okay,” she paused again, debating whether to mention Jerry’s condition, or not. Deciding that Jerry’s situation was not critical information at the moment, she continued. “We also have Commander Alexander Orlov, and Captain Nicholas Zuyev from MIR on board with us.”
There was no immediate response from NORAD, and Susan felt awkward with the silence. She looked at Ivan and Paul, who returned her questioning stare with a weak smile. The intercom snapped again but this time it was Nicholas, notifying them that Alexander was safely on board. Susan informed them that they were in contact with NORAD and thanked Alexander for his efforts.
“Commander Corin, we are deeply sorry to hear about Jill. It is great news to hear that you have the MIR crew on board. We were tracking MIR until it broke up after passing over the impact zone several hours ago.”
“It’s too bad that MIR was lost, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be around too long,” Susan said. We had to abandon Endeavour once we got to the station; it was damaged too badly for reentry. We thought it best to move the station to a higher orbit to avoid the worst of the debris.” Susan filled Lieutenant Barnes in on the details of their battle with Captain Mikhailovich at Korolev Control. She also explained why the communication systems were down and why they had not evacuated the station aboard the CRV.
“It was smart thinking to move the station, I don’t think you would have survived several passes over the impact area at the original altitude,” said Lieutenant Barnes. “You have my sympathies in dealing with Captain Mikhailovich. I’ve not dealt with him before, but I’m familiar with his reputation. Some of the information that has come over in the last few hours from Korolev seems to indicate that he has been relieved of his duties. Maybe someone found out about his power play with you.”
Susan found herself smiling a small smile. She thought it would serve the good Captain well to throw him in the brig for a few years for the grief he put them through. Her smile faded as she realized that NORAD was tracking the station and was curious why they were trying to contact the station. “Lieutenant Barnes, have you been tracking the station all the while?”
“No, we were trying to pick up the pieces after the impact and keep an eye on all the low orbit satellites we were beginning to lose. When we lost contact with NASA’s major centers in the south, NORAD started to pay more attention to the shuttle and station. The military lost a lot of their observation satellites as they came over the impact zones, and they were scrambling to move whichever ones they could to a safer orbit. Someone noticed that the station had suddenly started to change position and altitude. At first, we thought that it too had been damaged or may have had a malfunction that caused the engines to fire. After watching it for a while, it seemed to be on an orderly, controlled trajectory. We were guessing that maybe the computers might have been damaged in a way to initiate a preprogrammed burn. There was some hope that maybe you guys were on it. We were not sure, so we decided to try a voice link. We’ve been trying that for a while and were just about to give up.”
“Well, I can easily speak for all of us up here, it is great to hear your voice!” Susan said, as Alexander and Nicholas entered the module. She looked over to Alexander and could see the fatigue on his face as clearly as his sweat-soaked hair. He put his time in for his paycheck today, Susan thought. Upon entering the module he perked up, gave everyone a thumbs-up and a big smile. He and Ivan exchanged a few words in Russian, as he settled by Ivan’s station.
“Commander, we will be losing your signal soon due to some of the damage we have sustained here. We will be able to pick you up as you come back around in, what, about an hour or so? I will pass the word of your status. Is there anything that you need from us down here?”
Susan thought for a moment, trying to keep her mind on things that were a priority for all of them and not personal priorities. “Thanks, Lieutenant. A phone call from home would be nice,” she ventured, and then added, “but, seriously, we will be using the CRV to come back in, so if you can get somebody online to talk us through some of the particulars on guidance and site selection, that would be great. We don’t want to have the onboard computers route us through the worst of the dust and debris to get down.”
While she waited for a response from NORAD, she noticed that she was feeling very tired and hungry, but relieved to have contact with the ground again. She thought that at least there was some sort of organized, structured activity going on down there; that was comforting.
The speakers cracked with static, the Lieutenant’s voice sounded faint, “Do my best…catch you next orbit.” The speaker spewed static and then silence, as the electronics automatically shut down the receiver once the signal was gone.
Susan switched off the mic, and turned to Paul who was still studying the radar display. “Paul, were you able to get anymore information from the radar system on what we should expect on our next pass?” She moved over to check his display, which was now showing a visual image of blue ocean and scattered clouds.
“From what I can tell, I think the next pass will probably be about the same as this one. Our biggest problem will be the rogue chunks that are out there, which we know nothing about. If they are big enough, the automated anti-collision system might be able to move us out of the way. But that’s only going to work as long as it knows what’s there and we have fuel to maneuver. The worst we have to deal with is this stuff coming out of nowhere.”
“Anything more you can do now?” she asked.
“No, not until we approach the latitude of the impacts as we come back down toward the equator over the Middle East. I am guessing from your information, the asteroid impacted at a shallow angle, parallel to the equator, and that a good part of the ejected debris will be traveling in the same direction along the latitude of the impacts. We can scan to see if there is anything in orbit there. The next critical point will be as we come back up across the south Pacific, approaching the United States.”
Susan considered Paul’s comment and tried to imagine the station as it moved around the planet. She decided that they had some time until the next event, and they definitely all needed to take a break.
“Well, gentlemen,” she said. “I think maybe we have earned a break for an hour or so. How about we find some food in the Habitation module?”
A chorus of cheers rang out, and the group headed out together, but only after Ivan was certain that the computers were monitoring the path ahead of the station. If anything came up, they would get an audible alarm through the intercom system. Susan detoured from the pack and went in to check on Jerry.
He was still as she had last seen him, floating in his cocoon. She saw a tense expression on Jerry’s face and wondered if he were dreaming or in discomfort. As his expression softened, she surmised that he must be dreaming. She checked his pulse and monitored his slow, regular breathing for a few minutes, b
efore she left him to his dreams and proceeded to the Habitation module.
Susan had not made it all the way to the Habitation module before her nose told her that food was being prepared, and her stomach rumbled in anticipation. Entering the module, she found the group performing a well-coordinated routine: two were cycling packages of different foods through the microwave and light ovens to warm them up, while the other two were securing them to a small table that unfolded from the wall.
“Something sure smells delicious,” Susan exclaimed, as she surveyed the small smorgasbord before her. “Do you think you have enough?”
Ivan looked over and smiled as he pulled a bag of steaming shrimp scampi out of the oven. “We thought we would have a good meal and not let the best food go uneaten! Besides, if you are as hungry as you look, we may not have enough food in storage to feed us all!”
“Very funny! Just remember how many hours you need on the exercise platform to burn off all those calories!”
“Well, I think we’ve earned a few extra calories today,” Ivan said as he popped a shrimp into his mouth and yelped because it was still steaming hot.
“Ah ha!” Susan laughed, “serves you right, eating before all of us! Forgot that things don’t cool down as quickly in zero-g, did you?” Ivan was juggling the steaming shrimp in his mouth while he tried to get a drink of water to cool it off and did not have a chance to reply. The look of sheer pleasure on his face as he gulped the water was hard to interpret. Either the shrimp was very tasty, or he was extremely relieved to have his steaming morsel cooled off.
“Whew! That was one hot shrimp!” Ivan said, his red face matching the color of the tomato sauce the shrimp were marinated in. “I guess the food is ready. Everyone, help yourselves.”
This was the first food they had eaten in more than fourteen hours, and they ate with much gusto and hardly any conversation. They were too hungry and too tired. Besides, eating food in zero-g required much more concentration than it did on Earth. As they picked over the remaining crumbs and pieces hidden in the food bags, the conversation grew casual and light at first, as everyone avoided the obvious topics that loomed over them. No one wanted to disturb the pleasure of their repast with depressing talk of the situation going on five hundred miles below them.
Alexander, always one for a good conversation, was keeping everyone alert with his questions about their careers and activities in the space program.
“Tell me Commander Corin—”
“Susan! Call me Susan, Commander Orlov!”
Alexander laughed, “All right, you win, Susan. Better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Susan…how did you manage to become a pilot and commander of the shuttle? I did not think you were in the military.”
“Well, that’s kind of a long story.”
Ivan interrupted. “Actually, she flew a lot of flight sims on her computer as a child!”
Alexander looked at Ivan, not knowing whether he was pulling his leg, or being serious, until Ivan burst out in laughter. Alexander suppressed a chuckle and turned to Susan for her explanation.
Susan mockingly ignored Ivan and continued. “As a matter of fact, I did play a lot of flight sims as a kid. You can thank my dad for that. Actually, my father had a lot to do with my love of flying. He was an Air Force pilot who flew everything he could get his hands on. He taught me how to fly and I soloed when I was sixteen. Then I discovered aerobatics! I could not get enough of that, and I was fortunate to fly in some national competitions before I graduated from college. I was also fortunate to get a couple of rides with my dad in an F-15 and F-16. I knew then that the higher the performance, the more I wanted to fly it! So I toyed with the idea of joining the Air Force, like my brothers, or the Navy, to fly the real thing, but I wasn’t real crazy about everything else that you had to do to get there. I guess my brothers told me enough stories that dampened my enthusiasm for enlisting.”
Again, Ivan interrupted with his running sideline commentary. “She was lazy!”
“Well, yes, you could put it that way.” Susan blushed with her confession. “I might have joined up, if it weren’t for a very fortunate set of circumstances that fell my way.” She paused to take a drink of water, and Nicholas prompted her.
“And what were these fortunate set of circumstances?”
“Well, a friend of my father got his hands on an old F-4 Phantom that the National Guard had retired. This man flew these in Vietnam when he was about my age, and being that he, or his family, had money, he kept up his high performance flying once he was out of the Air Force. In fact he owns a MIG- 23 and a T-38.”
Alexander and Nicholas’s eyes lit up hearing Susan mention the MIG. Each had their time in the MIG-23 and knew of the T-38 trainers that NASA uses for training the flight crews.
“Owning such aircraft is not a cheap proposition,” Nicholas commented, looking at Alexander.
“No, it isn’t,” Susan continued. “This guy had the money, the time and the skills to do it, and he enjoyed it. The F-4 was a trainer, and as a trade-off for my time helping him work on it and his other planes, he taught me to fly it. We actually did the air show circuit for a few summers with it and had a ball!”
“So, how did you get to fly the shuttle from there?” Nicholas asked, being more impatient than his commander and wanting to cut to the meat of the story.
Susan began to help Paul pick up the empty food bags as she continued her story. “I graduated with a degree in physics and aeronautical engineering. I had over two thousand hours of flying time logged in single-engine aerobatic planes plus another five hundred in twin engine, about three hundred of those were in the Phantom. I started looking seriously for work and was picked up by a small company that spun-off from one of the major military aviation manufacturers. They had a really neat design that they were trying to develop. It was a small, high-performance jet that was cheap enough to fit a lot of civilian applications, but could also be used by the military as a trainer. That was their main target. I got a lot of time in the air there with the prototype, as well as a chance to do some really interesting design work. After three or four years there, I had an itch for something a bit faster, and I happened to hit the NASA website one day. After reading the qualifications for a pilot-astronaut, I thought I would give it a try.”
“What happened to the company you were working for?” Alexander asked, before Nicholas could get the words past another mouthful of food.
“They folded because of defense cut-backs and a soft civilian market. It was really too bad, because the plane they had designed was a real joy to fly. It had the performance that would satisfy most civilian jet-jockey wannabes. And, it was very reasonable to maintain. In contrast, I shudder when I think about how much it cost to keep that F-4 in the air.”
Nicholas chuckled and nodded to Alexander. “So, she never had the pleasure of a full military education into the world of jet flight. You missed out on so much,” he said.
“Yes, like waking up at three in the morning to fly wing to a general who needs to keep his hours up and suffers from insomnia!” said Alexander.
“I was thinking more about the ten thousand touch-and-go maneuvers I did one day in a MIG-23, with my commander screaming in my headset that I was never going to have a flying career because my line-ups were sloppy!” Nicholas added, as he finished off his last piece of dinner.
Susan looked at Ivan and asked, “Well, don’t you have a horror story or two to tell, also?”
Ivan smiled and shook his head. “No, my flight training went smoothly. I did what I was told and nothing more, to stay out of trouble, that is.”
Susan laughed. “I’m not so sure I believe that!” she said. “Well, you gentlemen have just confirmed that I took the best path to space. In fact, you’re beginning to sound like my brothers!”
Alexander gave Susan a hefty pat on the back. “Well, Susan, you have my utmost confidence in your flying abilities! You definitely would not be here if you wer
e not qualified. And, I dare say, Ivan would not fly with you if he did not trust your abilities.” Ivan smiled and gave Alexander a nod of thanks.
“I would hope, one day, to be as good a pilot as Ivan has proven to be,” Susan added. “He is a testament to the benefits of doing it the right way.” This brought a round of jeers toward Ivan and a good laugh for all.
Susan noticed that Paul had been very quiet through most of the meal, not saying much but politely smiling at the right time. She knew that Paul must be in tremendous pain, but she was glad to have him there with the group. Much better than being alone, she thought. She toyed with the idea of dragging him into the light conversation, but thought better of it after studying him for a while. Susan knew he would join in when he felt ready.
Paul had been watching the clock. He figured that they should be getting close to crossing the latitude of the impact zones. While Susan continued her discussion with the rest of the group, he made his way over to the computer monitor that was mounted on one side of the module. After a few entries on the keyboard, he was able to have the data from the console he had been working on in the command module relayed to this station.
He carefully watched the radar display and glanced occasionally at the visual image, as he was trying to pinpoint their position over the planet and finally realized that they were crossing over Turkey. The radar image was beginning to show higher concentration of debris as they continued on. The image on the screen also began to show more clouds forming: dirty clouds, not the water-laden clouds he would rather see. He called the group’s attention to these developments and invited them to see for themselves how the debris plume was propagating around the planet.
“Doesn’t look good, does it?” Susan asked Paul, as she made her way over to the display.