Stephen Coonts - Combat

NASA had estimated the chances of the laser hitting the unprotected sections of the orbiter at less than three percent. And given the fact that she would just be dropping her load and then quickly getting out of the laser’s range, she would be exposed to that three percent for just over twenty minutes. To make matters even safer for the crew of Endeavour , the mission plan called for approaching the station during nighttime, when the gigantic solar panels of the station would be essentially off, and the only power available for the laser would have to come from the GPATS module’s vast array of storage batteries. According to the laser manufacturer, the batteries would only support somewhere around fifteen laser shots, depending on the energy level used and the duration of each event. After that, the Russian terrorist would be unable to fire the weapon until the station came back around into the daylight portion of the ninety-minute orbit. That gave Diane roughly forty-five minutes to make her approach, take the laser hits, drop the UNSCF soldiers and their gear, and get out of Dodge.

“How much time will we have to clear Endeavour once we’re in position?” asked Ward.

“About ten minutes.”

Ward nodded before turning around and propelling himself down one of the interdeck hatches.

Diane thought of Ward’s secret cargo stored in the lockers below, hoping it wasn’t anything flammable. An explosion inside the crew module would be bad news for everyone aboard. But she didn’t realistically expect NASA to approve the storage of any dangerous substance inside the crew’s living quarters.

Diane reached for the intercom. “Colonel?”

“Yes, Commander?”

“Please secure your gear in the crew compartment. We have a twenty-five-minute window to start our approach to the ISS. OMS burn in fifteen minutes.”

“No problem.”

“Gary? You’re through?” Diane asked.

“I’m getting rid of the EMU.” McGregor responded from inside the airlock.

“Get up here now.”

McGregor floated into the flight deck a few minutes later.

“Diane … I think we have a little problem down there,” he whispered, pointing to one of the hatches leading to the crew compartment below.

“Yes?”

Swallowing hard, McGregor said, “I got a chance to take a good look at what Ward’s been guarding so carefully.”

“And?”

“While I was changing inside the airlock, I saw them through the hatch’s window.”

“What is it, Gary?”

“HEP.”

“Wh — what?”

“And from the looks of it, those guys down there were inserting fuses into the plastic. I guess they were waiting until after we reached orbit to arm the explosives to avoid the strong vibrations during ascent.”

Putting a hand to her forehead, Diane Williams struggled to calm down. She couldn’t believe that someone would be insane enough to bring high-explosive plastic on-board a shuttle. And armed?

She rushed past McGregor and dived through one of the interdeck openings.

“Colonel!” she screamed, reaching the crew compartment and startling the four UNSC soldiers, who were setting up the seats in preparation for the orbital maneuvers to chase the station. Each soldier had an oxygen mask over his face. A plastic tube ran from each clear mask to a pint-size tank strapped to the belt of each uniform. The soldiers were prebreathing pure oxygen in preparation for their space walk.

Ward pulled down the mask. “I’m right here, Commander. There’s no reason to scream.”

“Who gave you permission to bring explosives aboard this orbiter?”

Ward gave her an odd little glance. “I thought we had an understanding here about our respective roles.”

“Not when it involves bringing HEP inside my shuttle.”

Ward exhaled slowly, obviously not happy that she had found out about the HEP, but still trying to see if he could reason with her. He put his arms in front of him, palms facing Diane while the other soldiers looked on with curiosity. “Look, nothing’s going to happen. We are profession—”

“I want to jettison the explosives immediately,” she said.

The UNSC colonel simply crossed his arms. “Can’t do that, Commander. The HEP’s a critical element of our mission. If we can’t regain control of the station before the terrorist regains access to the launching software, then my orders are to blow up the module. Besides, HEP doesn’t just blow on accident because of vibrations or anything else. It need to be detonated.”

“It wasn’t a request, Colonel. It was an order.”

“Sorry, Commander. That’s an unreasonable request. Besides, I only take orders from the Secretary General of the United Nations. This is the way the UNSC has approved to carry out the mission, and the White House has bought into it.”

“Do you realize what can happen if any of those charges go off inside the crew module?”

“Won’t happen.” Ward was beginning to show an edge. “The only time we were at risk was during ascent, and during that time I had the detonators removed from the charges. Now I need to get the charges ready for my mission. You’ve just told me I would only have ten minutes to get ready after reaching the ISS. That’s barely enough time to—”

“We’re not going anywhere until you lose those,” Diane said, pointing a thumb toward the lockers. “And that’s final.”

“You’re compromising my mission, Commander. I have permission from the UNSC to neutralize anyone who jeopardizes my team’s ability to achieve our objective.” Ward placed a hand on the stun gun strapped to his belt.

Diane tightened her fists and said, “And who’s going to fly this shuttle?”

“Your Mission Pilot.”

“He’s not going to do it.”

“Let’s ask him.”

Diane didn’t like the way this was headed. She was losing control. “I’m calling Houston.”

“Be my guest. But do it quickly, or we’re going to miss our window.”

Fuming, Diane headed back up to the flight deck, where a stone-faced McGregor stood by one of the interdeck openings.

“Jesus Christ, Diane. Let’s just do it. Let’s drop them off by the ISS and get the hell away from there until it’s safe to return.”

Reaching her seat, Diane put on her headgear and contacted Houston using the S-band frequency.

“Houston, Endeavour.”

“Endeavour, Houston. Go ahead,” came the voice of Jake Cohen.

“Houston, I’m afraid we have a problem. Colonel Ward has stored HEP inside the crew compartment. I want to jettison it. We can’t afford to have an explosion in here.”

“Ah … that’s a negative, Endeavour. The explosives are secured, and are a vital component of this mission. HEP is very safe unless purposefully detonated.”

“Houston, we’re talking about high-explosive plastic that could kill us all and destroy the orbiter. This goes totally against NASA policy. Remember Apollo 7 ? We can’t allow anything that volatile on board.”

“Sorry , Endeavour. The soldiers must keep the HEP. We don’t have a choice on this one. Their orders are to blast the GPATS module if they can’t get inside the station. Besides, the Apollo 7 incident happened because the capsule had a 100 oxygen environment. You don’t.”

“But they already have the fuses in and connected to the detonators. All it takes is one electric charge, and they’ll blow!”

“This one comes straight from the top. The HEP stays. And you better get everything secured or you’ll miss the window to reach the ISS in time.”

Diane inhaled deeply. This was a mistake. A terrible mistake. Closing her eyes, she briefly prayed that nothing went wrong with the approach. Although HEP had a long safety record and was very unlikely to go off accidentally, Diane didn’t want to add more risk to their mission. A subsystem could explode if the laser hit the wrong spot on the orbiter. Having explosives on board could create secondary explosions if the initial blast happened to be close to the charges.