Out in the distance, he could see a gleam of metal, and walked slowly towards it. The shadows danced in the moonlight as the perimeter searchlights snapped on, swinging around as the motion sensors detected his presence before one of the guards quickly overrode the system, permitting him to have his peace. He reached the metal, and his eyes widened as he realized what he had found, the wreckage of one of the test rockets that had once been launched from this base, back when it had been an Army testing ground, after the war. A faded plaque had been placed near the site, but he couldn’t make out the text in the dark. Not that it mattered.
They’d had the same dream he had, but had known they would never be able to truly savor it for themselves, would be destined to remain Earthbound for their whole lives. Except perhaps that a part of their souls could soar with the rockets they poured their hearts into, labored over for years, the culmination of their efforts all too often a thunderous explosion and a shower of molten debris burning into the dirt.
He knelt to look at the debris more closely. This had touched the very fringes of space, almost a century ago. It was strange to think of this precious piece of the past simply lying here in the dirt, all but forgotten. The desert was littered with such remains, of course, the legacy of a decade of test launches, but somehow it seemed wrong for such a craft, the bearer of hopes and dreams, to be left out here to rust.
In the corner of his eye, he spotted someone in the distance, a solitary figure standing on top of a nearby hill, setting some sort of equipment up on the ground. He glanced at the perimeter fence, one of the guards marching past the wire, waving to attract his attention before turning back to the hill, running towards the person he’d spotted as fast as he could. Belatedly, he realized he was being foolish, without even a pistol to defend himself, but by then the figure had spotted him, and was waving in greeting towards him.
“Colonel, I didn’t know you were taking a walk out here, or I’d have invited you to join me,” Maxwell said, kneeling by a worn, obviously well-loved telescope. “I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d see what I could spot up there.”
The guard raced up, rifle in hand, only to stop dead as Knox waved his hand at the man, saying, “Sorry, Corporal, false alarm. You can get back to your regular patrol.”
“You’re sure everything’s secure, sir?” the guard asked.
Nodding, Knox said, “Just my paranoia kicking in. Though thanks for responding so quickly.”
“My pleasure, sir,” he replied, returning to his patrol.
Maxwell looked up with a wry smile on his face, and said, “I suppose I should have thought this through a little more. Never occurred to me that setting up a telescope out here might be suspicious.” He paused, then asked, “Any progress on the suit?”
“Obviously sabotaged. They weren’t even particularly subtle. The likely suspect is a suit technician named McCrae, but he’s not reported to work for the last two days. FBI’s already looking for him, but he’s probably somewhere in Mexico by now. We’re not going to find him. A few known friends are being questioned, but he was something of a loner, so that’s probably a dead end.”
“Pity, but not unexpected. They’re covering themselves well.” Maxwell made a few adjustments, peered into the viewfinder, and smiled, saying, “Got it. Want to look?”
“Sure,” Knox said.
“Just be careful not to touch anything. She’s pretty sensitive, these days.”
Knox squinted into the eyepiece, seeing a beautiful view of Saturn, the glorious rings framing the mysterious, distant world, a single bright star that he knew to be Titan, right next to it. He carefully pulled back from the telescope, turning to Maxwell with a smile on his face.
“How long have you had this?”
“Since I was a kid. Fifteenth birthday present, though I’ve tinkered with it a bit over the years. I always wanted to be an astronomer, but it just never happened. I got sidelined into engineering instead. That’s how I ended up working for the NRO. Building telescopes to look at Earth, rather than space. I’ve been hoping my company might get the contract to work on one of the new space telescopes, once James Webb goes dark, but I guess that’ll go to one of the big boys.” He frowned, then said, “Pity. I’ve got some ideas…”
“Not too late to retrain, when we get back,” Knox replied. “You’d be able to write your own ticket into any university in the country.” He looked down at the small telescope, and said, “Though somehow I don’t think that anything you might build out in space would have quite the same charm. Pity you can’t take it with us.”
“Yeah,” he said, kneeling behind the scope. “When I was a kid, I used to go out into the back yard, sometimes all night long, just looking up at the stars, wondering what it would be like to go there. When I got picked for the James Webb mission, it was the fulfilment of a dream, but when I got back, I just wanted more.” Turning to Knox, he said, “I did apply to join the Astronaut Corps a couple of times. No sale. I guess they figured once was enough.”
“Their loss, our gain.”
“I hope so.”
Before Knox could reply, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, and pulled it out to look at the number. It was unfamiliar, but a faint logo was glowing in a corner of the screen, warning him that this was an encrypted call. Whoever was calling him, they were going out of their way to make it secret.
“I’ve got to take this,” Knox said. “Clear skies, Max.”
“Thanks,” the amateur astronomer replied, returning to his telescope. Knox swept his hand across the screen, walking out into the desert again, where he could not be overheard, waiting for the two phones to handshake and link their secure networks together.
“This is Colonel Knox. To whom am I speaking.”
“Good evening, Colonel, it has been too long,” a faintly French-accented voice replied.
“Felix LeGrand. I suppose I should have expected to hear from you sooner or later. Aside from the obvious, how the hell are you?”
“I am working about as hard on my mission as I suspect you are on yours,” LeGrand replied.
Knox chuckled, then said, “I think our security is as much to keep out the press as to prevent you guys from finding out what we are up to.”
“I want you to know that neither I nor any of my crew had anything to do with what happened in the pool last week. Are you recovered?”
“Just got a bit wet, Felix, nothing more than that. I didn’t think you had anything to do with it yourself.”
“Indeed. Just as I am certain that you had nothing to do with the incident with my parachute during jump training yesterday. Fortunately my reserve chute opened fine, and I suffered nothing more than a twisted ankle.”
Knox’s mouth widened, and he said, “Felix, I swear…”
“No need. It is not your style, nor that of your General Cooper, I believe, but someone has a vested interest in preventing both of our missions to Daedalus. That much is all too obvious. It is possible that we are both the victims of an overzealous intelligence network, but somehow, I find that hard to credit. I have heard that there is a potential Japanese-Indian expedition being planned for the end of the year, but I doubt it could be their work. Have you heard anything about Chinese plans?”
“Not a thing,” Knox said. “Our information suggests that they’re over-committed to the Moon.”
“And their Venus Flyby, perhaps,” LeGrand said, a faint chuckle in his voice. “A pointless mission if I have ever heard of it, but I know we would both volunteer if we were asked, yes?”
“Probably, but that’s still years away, assuming it happens at all. They haven’t even started work on any hardware yet. I’m afraid the planets will be for another generation, my friend.” He paused, then said, “Though one of us is going to get to live a part of that dream, soon enough.”
“It’s a shame we can’t do it together,” LeGrand said. “Taking those first steps will be an incredible moment. I would much prefer if you were there to see it.”
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“Don’t worry, I always watch where I step,” Knox countered, yielding a chuckle from his fellow astronaut.
“I gave you that one,” his friend replied. “Seriously, you know where I stand on all of this, and if you’re the one to make it first, I’ll be cheering you on all the way. Right up until your last-second abort.”
“Same here, Felix.”
“Just be careful. There’s more going on here, I think. This isn’t just our rival intelligence agents battling it out. There’s something more going on, something deeper. Watch your back out there.”
Knox paused, then said, “All of that could apply just as well to you. As far as I know, we might be watching you, but we’re not planning any active sabotage. There are a million things I could think of that would cause either of our rockets to blow up on the pad.”
“The thought had occurred to me,” LeGrand replied. “Though somehow, I think not. So far everything they have done is survivable. Someone could easily have sabotaged on my reserve parachute as well, and it is unlikely that we would be having this conversation. I suspect the same could be said of your spacesuit.”
Nodding, Knox said, “They’re trying to slow us down, scare us off.”
“That is my assessment. Take care, my friend. I’ll see you in the black.” LeGrand cut the connection, and Knox slid the phone back into his pocket, turning to look at the spaceport. Even this late at night, thousands of people were laboring in a bid to turn the Icarus mission into reality, working around the clock to prepare the capsule and the booster for the moment of launch. The thought that some of them could in fact be working against them was bitter to the taste, but increasingly, it couldn’t be avoided.
And yet if it wasn’t EuroFed, who could it be? He ran through the possible candidates in his mind, but none of them added up. China, perhaps, hoping to stop either of their rivals attain the prize, but if they’d really wanted to, they could probably have put a mission together. Perhaps even with EuroFed. They’d certainly been trying hard enough to ingratiate themselves with the Europeans lately. Japan and Korea were too interested in staying allied to the United States, with the looming threat of China on the horizon, and India, Brazil and Britain were on friendly enough terms that it seemed unlikely they would get involved.
It had to be EuroFed, didn’t it?
Except somehow, it still all seemed too obvious, too simple. Intelligence operations were rarely this neat. There were always layers within layers, and somehow, he was missing something, some essential piece of the puzzle. He glanced at his watch, shaking his head. Another long day tomorrow, back into the pool again, assuming the safety team had certified it once more. He looked up at the stars, and smiled.
“Soon be back,” he muttered. “Soon be back.”
Chapter 12
The view was stunning, breathtaking, Earth slowly falling away as the capsule sped into the deep space, freed from the remorseless tug of gravity and sailing through the void, travelling faster than any human beings had ever flown before, would ever fly again until the distant day when mankind undertook the great jump to another world. Knox sat back in his couch, looking around the cramped cockpit, his eye quickly running from one monitor to the next, checking that everything was in order.
He’d ridden a Wyvern once before, back at the beginning of his astronaut career, but that was almost a decade ago, and there had been numerous changes since then. It was a struggle to get used to the alterations in the design, the differences from the Orion capsule he was more used to flying, but it was one he was going to have to undertake if they were to complete their mission successfully.
“Icarus One, Icarus One, this is Dry Wells, CapCom, come in, over,” the voice of the duty CapCom, the astronaut who was the only one permitted to directly talk to the capsule, said over the speaker.
Tapping a button, Knox said, “This is Icarus One, reading you in the clear.”
“Prepare for mid-course correction burn, thirty seconds on my mark. Mark.”
“Roger, thirty seconds,” he replied.
Reaching for her controls, Murphy said, “Burn preparations complete, ready on override.”
Knox nodded, watching the monitors, waiting for the jolt that would announce they had a successful mid-course correction. They were eight hours into the mission, Earth now far behind them, and this final boost would make the difference between a smooth interception and an embarrassing fast flyby, a curved orbit that would take them four million miles from Earth before their final return. He held his hand over the secondary control, ready in the unlikely event that both Murphy and the computer failed to fire in time.
“Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Fire.” The two switches were engaged at once, but there was no response from the system. Knox looked at Murphy, her hands already working the controls, double- and triple-checking the systems to ensure that all was as it should be. The burn was time-critical, but they had a few seconds to spare, and both of them prepared to try again. “Three. Two. One. Fire.”
“Negative,” Knox said. “Pilot, I have a green board here. Everything should be working fine.”
“I show the same,” Murphy replied. “No indications of systems malfunction at all. As far as I can tell, the engine should have fired on time. Computer got it to within a quarter-microsecond.” She shook her head, and said, “Dry Wells, this is PLT, reporting failed boost from engine. Do you show anything down there?”
“Negative, Icarus, our board is green, all systems responding well. Check the breaker, try and software reset.”
“Roger that,” Knox said. While Murphy struggled with the circuit breakers, he quickly restarted the control systems, waiting impatiently for the systems to reboot. Thirty seconds later, they once more had a green board, and were on the outer limits of their firing time. This time, he jammed the switch as soon as he was ready, with the same result. Nothing. No burn. The capsule would continue flying through space for three weeks, hurtling past the asteroid with no ability to reach it, then serenely on into the empty vastness of the solar system. Possibly forever, if they were unable to make any further course corrections.
“Dry Wells, we still show negative burn, and my readings indicate that we are now too late for correction.”
“Roger, we confirm,” the voice replied. “I don’t get it. Everything should be working fine.”
“CapCom,” Knox said, breaking in, “was this a planned malfunction?”
“That’s a negative, Colonel. We had no plans to introduce a system malfunction into the simulation at this time. Everything was set up at our end for a perfect burn.”
Nodding, Knox replied, “Then there’s no point at all continuing this sim any further. I’m calling a hold. Obviously, there’s a flaw somewhere, and until we find it, there’s no point carrying on.”
“Roger, we agree back here. Wait one while we get the hatch open, and start resetting the switches.”
“Will do. See you in a minute. Out.” The lights came up, and Knox looked at the disappointed crew, and said, “Guess we end up getting some fresh air today after all.”
“Not funny, boss,” Maxwell said. “We only have time for three full-run simulations. Now we’ve just lost one. Even if they manage to fix the fault right away, this is going to hurt. And it doesn’t sound like the bright boys back there know what went wrong.”
“Probably a programming error,” Murphy replied, throwing a series of switches. “The master software is copied over from the normal package, and you can take it from me it works pretty well. They had to throw the simulation run together far too fast. Someone maybe missed a step. Worst case, we can probably work this as a series of shorter simulations if we have to. I’m not worried about the launch and orbital insertion. Just the mid-course correction and the approach.”
“I’m getting kinda tired of these delays,” Knox said. “Raul, can you kludge something together, find a way for us to at least practice final approach, like Murph said?”
“I don’t think s
o,” Castillo replied, shaking his head. “We’re going to have to take everything offline.”
“Damn it, Raul, we’ve got to get working on this. We can’t afford to lose a day.”
“We’re risking the mission if we don’t,” Castillo said, shaking his head. “We can go over the surface schedules again, take a look at your experiment packages.”
“We’ve got to get there first, Captain,” Maxwell warned. “Otherwise everything else is academic.”
“The pool is being serviced today,” Antonova noted, scanning through the training schedule on her tablet. “They’re installing the new equipment for the surface training.” She tapped out a series of commands, and added, “I am ready for egress.”
“Same here,” Knox said, as the hatch slid open, a red-faced technician on the far side. The four of them scrambled out of their mock capsule, emerging in the cramped hangar that held the simulator suite, dozens of frantic figures running around, trying to work out what went wrong.
“I don’t understand,” the simulation supervisor, a young man named Cartwright, said. “I don’t get it at all. There was no sign of any problem. It’s nothing we programmed in. We’d planned to give you some life support problems to work out. We weren’t going to touch propulsion this time.” He grimaced, then added, “I’ve got everyone working on this. We’ll get it fixed. Somehow.”
“How long?” Murphy asked.
“That I don’t know,” Castillo replied. “It might be a simple fix, or it might be somewhere deep in the guts of the code. If we have to start from scratch, we’ll do it, but that could take up to a week…”
“A week?” Knox said. “Come on, Captain, we don’t have anything like that much time. We’re forty-one days from launch, and we’re meant to spend at least five hundred more hours in the simulator. Even that is cutting it fine.”
“We’ll do everything we can, sir, I assure you of that,” Castillo replied, frowning. “We’ve had to paste all of these systems together too damned quickly, and I reckon we’re feeling the consequences of that right now.”
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