by Peter Damon
“Not right now, but we may need it later, depending on how the investigation goes,” she admitted. “So, what happened?” she asked.
Jerry took a sip of water while he recalled the sequence of events just before the incident. “We’d finished installing the experiment and we had moved apart. I moved towards Hilary to join her for a video session that was planned for some of the schools on earth. Alexei remained in the module talking to CAPCOM and OPSPLAN,” he explained.
“That’s Houston,” Heather asked.
Jerry nodded. “CAPCOM is the main communication point between us and earth. OPSPLAN is like our scheduler of activity.
“I must have only gone a few metres when an ECLSS alarm sounded.” He stopped to smile. “Environmental Control and Life Support Systems,” he translated.
“Those systems are down the other end of the station, but Alexei was closest, and he shouted back that he’d see to it.
“Meanwhile, Houston was on top of things and giving us all the details we needed to fix it. I re-set the alarm from the module I was in and gave Hilary a thumbs-up. It sounded like some part of the air scrubber had lost its power. All fuses are switches, and there’s plenty of alternative power feeds if one was needed, so although it had been a heart stopping moment when the alarm sounded, we were confident that we could get over the problem.
“So we’re all settling down again, when all of a sudden, without any warning, there’s a blast, and we start losing air.”
Jerry shook his head and looked beyond Heather, remembering the moment. “I had to close the hatch to maintain our pressure. That’s the drill. And for a short while, things grew quiet. I could feel the station moving though. Not just feel it either, I could hear it, moaning and whining, never heard the like, I can tell you.
“I was beginning to think ahead, to the next step, when the grinding noise get’s really bad, and the seals pop on the hatch I had just closed and we begin to lose air once more, though not as badly as if it were fully open. More alarms sound, and there’s too many to deal with, and I know that we’re growing low on air because I can feel it, but I figure if I can remain conscious long enough, I can probably keep the station operational, at least Life Support.”
He stopped and hung his head.
“Thank you, Jerry,” Heather murmured.
+++++++++++++
Kevin Law, forensic engineer at Oxford University followed instructions and stepped cautiously into the docking bay at the rear of the ARC, gasping as he felt the sudden loss of gravity, just a metre inside the doorway.
“My God. This is so strange,” he said, laughing as his momentum slowly lifted him off the floor.
Matt landed a few feet away, a spacesuit clinging to a squat but powerful body, a small rubber grip in one hand, and smiled towards him. “The module is there,” he pointed. The two halves were suspended in the middle of the bay, totally stationery.
“Ok. I want to start by getting a full laser image of the exterior and interior. Then move to video, and then to digital images,” Kevin explained. He had a case with his equipment.
“OK, then let me call Peter Bridge in on this. He has experience with Laser Imagery. He can help us set it up just right for you,” he explained, and touched an area just below his collar-bone to wake the communications in his suit. “Peter Bridge,” he said, and waited for the connection to be made.
“Peter? We need your help in the docking bay. Laser imagery,” he explained “Come in your suit. We’re weightless down here,” he finished explaining.
“Can I have one of those?” Kevin asked, slowly floating away, his waving arms only making it worse.
+++++++++++++
Matt breezed into the laboratory with his usual laid-back outlook, slowing his stride as he saw Heather seated at the bench, and the rest of the laboratory empty.
“Am I in the right place, or are you in the wrong place?” he asked pleasantly, coming across to her side.
Heather locked the door from her tablet, and as Matt’s face reflected his confusion, she started using the main monitor to begin a slideshow of the pictures taken by the spy-satellite over Turkey and Syria.
Matt turned to look at them, his look of confusion growing deeper. “What are those?” he asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Heather told him.
She continued watching him as the images changed, only stopping when he nodded. “They’ve got to be of the Turkey conflict,” he told her.
“Good. Can you tell me how they were taken?” she asked.
“What, one of our cameras took those?” he asked.
She nodded and watched him climb onto the stool beside her to place his tablet onto the table top, and begin accessing the control programs to give him the details she wanted. She stopped the display to let him see the camera ID, and then watched him run his query.
Data rolled across the screen. “That’s wrong,” Matt said, as much to himself as to her as it showed his ID as the requesting party. He ran another query, clearly perplexed, and when that gave the same answer, sat looking off into the distance, the implications coming home to him.
“Well?” she asked after allowing him a full minute of silence.
He shook his head. “I didn’t run those instructions,” he told her.
“Your tablet ran those instructions Matt,” she emphasised.
“I couldn’t have,” he told her, and hurriedly looked back to point to one of the entries. “I was out on the hull that afternoon,” he pointed out.
“”How long does it take to prepare and run a five line command?” she asked.
He licked his lips. “I wouldn’t have. You know that, surely,” he pressed.
Heather stood. “We want to believe you, Matt. We really do. But so far, all the proof we have points towards you.”
“I didn’t do it!” he told her forcefully.
“Then you’re going to have to help me find out who did,” she told him, and stood to go. “But I can tell you; if this story hits the papers, or anyone on earth finds out the images come from us, the ARC, then we will have no alternative but to hang you high,” she warned.
+++++++++++++
Bloomberg were the first to carry it, with the BBC close on their heels followed by the other large media groups. Within 10 minutes it was the headline on most of the international newspapers’ web content.
‘Rolle College Goes to War with Russia,’ seemed to be a popular headline, while some of the eastern European papers were more direct; ‘Rolle College Accused of Murder,’ in reference to the dead cosmonaut.
Sir Richard Phillips, the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, sat at his desk reading one particular report from his screen. The phone rang and he picked it up to hear his secretary tell him that the Prime Minister was on the phone and wanting to speak with him.
“Prime Minister,” he said in the way of a greeting as the call was put through.
“Sir Richard. I assume you’ve seen the press?” Brian Overton asked.
“I have,” Sir Richard answered.
“What’s Bennett doing?” he asked.
“Taking ROSCOSMO to the International Court of Justice,” Sir Richard answered, smiling to himself.
The Prime Minister sighed. “Which means Cambridge University has taken ROSCOSMO to court,” he needlessly explained.
“I’m fully aware of that,” Sir Richard answered. “And fully supportive of the Head of Rolle College. They did a very brave thing by stepping in and recovering what crew they could. Had it not been for their presence, all three crew would have perished, and no doubt burnt up into the atmosphere leaving no evidence whatsoever as to what had occurred.”
“So you’re suggesting this was done to blacken the college’s name, irrespective of the outcome?”
“Certainly, Prime Minister. The ISS has become an embarrassment to its majority shareholders. What better way of having that embarrassment removed but to implicate the ARC in its untimely demise? Oliver Cole has s
uggested this may also be a move to have the ARC put into the control of the United Nations, and thus out of control of Cambridge University, and in doing so, that of Britain. Such a move would release them, and others, to obtain the secret behind its lifting ability.”
“Yes, I see,” Brian agreed. “The vote on the Outer-Space Treaty is about a month away now, and there’s still very little in it. If it goes Russia’s way, then they’ll be in a strong position to push their case for UN administration.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“The best legal minds obtainable,” Sir Richard said without pause.
“The government can’t get involved, of course. When we do, it will be fully on the side of the victor. You understand that?”
“Of course, Prime Minister.”
“Very well. I’ll talk to a few people. They’ll be in touch, I’m sure,” Brian said, and closed the call.
+++++++++++++
Jon Barrow, the forensic chemist resident at Oxford University, looked carefully at the outside of the SUV, parked in one of the ARC’s many garages. He studied it visually first, taking pictures before removing samples from the wheels, then from various parts of the chassis. He picked up the visible fingerprints, and then began repeating his investigation, this time using White light to find patterns on the chassis that he may have missed. He did the same thorough investigation under Blue light, then Green, before he began a minute inspection of the vehicle using Ultraviolet light.
By late afternoon he was ready to open the door, and used a video camera to record its opening.
With steel windows, it was impossible to see inside except through the internal cameras that were all placed for facial images. Now, with the door open, he could see the foot-well and the discarded items lying there.
He took photographs and peered within under the various types of lighting he had available to him, gaining an overall impression of the interior and the uses it had been put to. Only then did he carefully lift the items he’d found on the floor; the broken RFID capsule, the bloody knife and the similarly blood smeared tweezers, and place them into individual clean bags for detailed forensics later on. With the loose items removed, he returned to the cab to make a more detailed investigation.
September 12th.
Michael was beginning to climb the walls with anxious anticipation of what others would uncover. He knew he couldn’t chase them. He had to just let them get on with their jobs. The lack of control in his future was overwhelming him though, a grate on his nerves that was marring his sleep and limiting his ability to concentrate.
He appeared to be the only one without a job, he noticed, and ambled about the ARC, nodding to the few people he passed, all seemingly busy.
He wondered how the professors were coming along and turned to go forward, quietly knocking on the laboratory door before entering.
He needn’t have worried, the laboratory was empty. He could see where their extra money had gone, though. A new box stood against the wall replacing a good area of counter and reaching almost to the ceiling.
The door opened and the professors returned, Professor Chad Brewer in the lead, the other two following him in, their light-hearted banter coming to an abrupt halt as they saw him.
“Hello,” Michael told them lamely.
“Come to see our little toy?” Pavel asked of him, smiling as he walked forward. “It is called a Diamond Anvil Pressure Cell. We’re still testing it to make sure it’s behaving itself after having been brought up here in pieces. But we aim to put one milligram of HYPORT into this little baby, and generate a pressure of 3 million atmospheres against it,” he said, patting its side.
“What will that do, other than squeeze it?” Michael asked. He’d meant is as a joke, but only Pavel seemed to realise his intent.
“Well, we don’t know,” Don admitted, and took a seat with a sigh before replying. “Or to be more precise, we each have an alternative,” he corrected himself, nodding to the other two professors.
“None include blowing a hole in the side of the ARC, do they? The last thing I need is another hole in a spacecraft,” he told them. That joke fell flat too.
“I think we all agree that thermodynamic properties improve under pressure,” Pavel looked to the other two for confirmation.
Don looked as if he’d eaten something bad. “I agree in principle, but I still hold that it may not apply in this case,” he said. “As I’ve said before, we could see the chemical transmute, as do some metals at high pressures, or even break apart. It is a hybrid, after all,” he reminded them.
Chas shook his head with definite disagreement. “Far more likely the substance will generate an electrical field. We know it’s electro-magnetic,” he stated, arms rising from his sides as he stated a given.
“You see the difficulty we have,” Pavel said with a grin. “We will only know once we have done the test.”
Michael nodded. “You’ll warn me before you do it, yes?” he begged.
+++++++++++++
Heather sat beside Lisa in the Forensic Laboratory, as it was always going to be known, and reviewed the statements given by the two astronauts. She let Lisa read them while she sucked on the edge of her thumb, waiting impatiently for the forensic scientist to finish and straighten.
“Well?” she asked.
“Two occurrences?” Lisa asked and looked towards Heather for her confirming nod. “The air scrubber further along the space station, and then an apparently unconnected explosion in the nearer module.”
Heather nodded. “That’s the way I read it,” she agreed.
Lisa chewed her bottom lip and stared at the statements, stopping herself when she realised they had nothing more to tell her. “Can you arrange for the recovery of the other module, the one with the air-scrubber please?”
+++++++++++++
It was late morning in London on a blustery day, a touch of cold in the air giving a hint of what was to come in the weeks ahead.
A window rattled slightly in its frame in the main cabinet room of number 10 Downing Street, causing the men and women around the table to stop their discussions and laugh for a moment.
“I will get that fixed one day soon,” the Prime Minister promised them, and looked at his tablet for the next topic on the agenda.
There was a knock on the door and Graham Wallis entered, the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary. “Excuse me Prime Minister, but you’ll want to see this,” he said, picking up the TV remote control to turn the monitor on, and move it to the BBC news channel.
None of those present recognised the slender young man sitting at a desk reading from a sheet of paper in front of him, but the broadcast provided a name across the bottom of the screen; Mr Patrick ‘Paddy’ Miller, previously resident of the Cambridge University Annex, the Rolle College.
“Unwilling to be a party to murder, I left the ship and sought sanctuary with the only people I thought I might be safe with, the people of ROSCOSMO,” he finished by saying.
“When did you first learn of their plans?” someone off camera asked.
Paddy licked his lips and glanced fleetingly at his notes again. “The ISS bit, about a week ago,” he answered. “The other bits, about them wanting to control all of space traffic; they always wanted to do that.”
“Who placed the bomb?” someone else asked.
“Well, once they realised I wouldn’t do it, I think they had no choice and did it themselves,” he shrugged.
“But who? Who would that have been?” voices pressed for an answer.
“Frank Hill,” Paddy said. “Frank Hill and Mr Bennett, they’re like that,” Paddy clarified, holding up two fingers pressed tightly together.
“That’s all for now, ladies and gentlemen. As you can see, we have irrefutable evidence that the current management of both the ARC and the Rolle College has entered into illegal activity, and are now accused of sabotage and murder,” said another voice.
“Turn it off, Graham. Thank you,” Brian O
verton said, and looked around the room, gauging the reaction of his cabinet members.
+++++++++++++
“Do we know where he is, who he’s working for?” Michael asked Stan, referring to Paddy, of course.
“We don’t,” Stan confessed. “We’ve run checks on bank accounts looking for payments, and can’t find anything. We’re running checks on known associates too, and so far nothing. Interpol are not being very cooperative. From their perspective Paddy is now an important witness in criminal proceedings and needs to be protected.”
“His theft of the SUV?” Michael asked.
“He escaped with his life,” Stan answered, provoking Oliver to nod his head and smile bleakly.
“Any forensic evidence yet?” Stan asked.
“Nothing that would help us,” Michael shrugged. “They’ve found a broken RFID and the tools we assume were used to extract it from under his skin. Blood-work and other analysis are still in progress.”
“Well, we’ll keep the pressure up at this end, see what we find,” Stan assured them.
“Yes, thank you, Stan,” Michael murmured.
Heather moved across to wrap her arms around him while the others wondered what more they could do. None had seen Michael look so despondent.
“Let’s keep working folks. We’re still here for the moment,” Michael summed it up.
+++++++++++++
“There it is,” Maddy murmured. It was now visible on her screen, light flashing off its side every few moments as it turned, sailing through space.
It was in a diminishing orbit, ‘falling’ towards earth and unlikely to last very long before the upper atmosphere started dragging it even lower. At a point in its fall, it would begin to burn up, air friction causing it to melt and burn away. Even for so large an object, it was unlikely any of it would survive to land on earth.
Although acting like a single long cylinder, it was made up of three modules put together, two of which looked alike, at least to the two individuals watching it from their SUV.
“Bit bigger than I remember,” Maddy murmured, calculating how to fasten it to the SUV and pull it back to the ARC.