Stephen Coonts - Combat

Jake glanced to his right at the Propulsion Systems Engineer. “Talk to me, PROP.”

The fifty-year-old PROP, a veteran astronaut himself, was responsible for monitoring and evaluating the Reaction Control and the Orbital Maneuvering System engines. He also managed propellants. PROP kept his eyes on the data displayed in his console. “Doesn’t look good. Major malfunctions on the OMS engines. Looks like the laser cracked the propellant tanks and they blew the moment Commander Williams fired them.”

Damn. I can’t believe this has actually happened. And Diane, the crew … God Almighty.

And that Russian bastard is still at large.

Closing his eyes, Jake Cohen removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and breathed deeply. He looked to his left. The Flight Director had already left the room to brief the NASA Administrator, who in turn would pass the information to the President and his staff.

“Wait … wait,” said the blond-headed EECOM. “The computers are showing nominal pressure inside the airlock. Oxygen content is at thirty-two percent. Pressure is 14.7 PSI.” Slowly, he turned to Jake. “Do you think that—”

Jake snapped forward. “Damned right I do! I say we got us some astronauts marooned inside that airlock! What’s the status of the pressure-control system and oxygen supply?”

The EECOM’s fingers worked on the keyboard as data flashed off and on the screen. After several seconds, he said, “We’re in luck. Pressure system is active and still trying to repressurize the crew compartment. My guess is that we got a serious opening to space inside that compartment and the system can’t pressurize it. I’m showing two fuel cells down and one still operational.”

Jake nodded. “Redirect the pressure-control system to support only the airlock, nothing else. Disconnect all other systems that might be draining the fuel cell. Let’s focus everything we have on keeping the atmosphere inside that airlock within the normal range. That will buy us some time.”

“Yes, sir.”

Since the pressure-control system didn’t have to operate at full power because all it was pressurizing was the volume of air inside the airlock, the single fuel cell could last much longer. This was a significant advantage because the oxygen used by Endeavour’ s life-support system was the same liquid oxygen used by the fuel cell, along with liquid hydrogen, in an electrochemical reaction to produce electricity. The longer the fuel cell lasted, the longer that airlock would be not only fully pressurized, but also filled with air.

“It’s done. At the current load, that fuel cell should last us about twenty-four hours, give or take a few, depending on how many astronauts are alive,” commented the EECOM.

Jake stared at the blank screen, where only a few minutes before he had seen the images captured by Endeavour’ s video cameras. Now he was blind, trying to help a dying orbiter while operating in the dark. Well, almost in the dark , he admitted. At least partial telemetry data continued to pour in, giving his support crew the information they might need in order to figure a way out of this mess.

Interlacing the fingers of his hands in front of his face, Jake closed his eyes, praying that at least somebody had made it to the airlock. Based on the conversation aboard Endeavour before the attack, Jake felt that Diane and McGregor were the two with the best chance of being inside that airlock because they should have been up in the flight deck controlling the orbiter and the RMS arm at the time of the HEP blast inside the crew compartment below.

I should have listened to you, Diane.

Jake Cohen forced the guilt out of his mind. He needed his logical side operating at full capacity in order to guide his staff through this one. Every piece of telemetry data arriving into the Flight Control Room would have to be scrutinized by itself and in combination with other information to try to piece together a possible salvage operation of an orbiter that already appeared beyond salvage.

Diane Williams pulled up so fast after releasing her Hornet’s ordnance that she thought the Gs would crush her. Her vision tunneled to the information projected on the F-18’s heads-up display. Diane kept the control column pulled back. The Hornet shot up into the overcast sky, its wings biting the air as it rolled above the clouds and the sun filled her cockpit, making her feel so detached from the world below. Flying gave her a sense of omnipotence she could get nowhere else. She belonged to a privileged class, an aviator of the United States Marines, pilot of one of the most coveted and feared war machines in the world: the Hornet. Her Hornet. And Diane pushed it, forced it to the outer limits of its design envelope, rammed it into the tightest turns that its titanium-layered honeycomb structure could take, shoved it across the sky in any imaginable way to accomplish the job. To fulfill her promise to America that she would put every single ounce of her life into doing what she had been trained to do.

But her engines suddenly flamed out. Lights filled her cockpit as her jet tumbled out of control, alarms blaring. But then the noise went away as fast as it had appeared, and Diane suddenly found herself lying in that hospital bed at El Toro Air Station. The room was dark, humid, quiet. The lamp on her nightstand filled the room with yellow light, but it was enough to illuminate the faces of the others present in that room. Diane saw Dr. Lisa Hottle’s face giving her a stern, yet compassionate look. Next to the doctor stood Gary McGregor in blue coveralls gazing at the floor, a large piece of glass embedded in his throat. Then Diane turned to the last person in the room, a large black man wearing a dark uniform. It was Colonel Frank Ward, his left hand holding an HEP charge. Then a blinding light filled the room, followed by a loud explosion and alarms, many alarms …

Another siren went off, but it didn’t belong inside the hospital room. Diane didn’t know where it had come from. The siren wasn’t part of the nightmare. The siren was here, inside the sealed airlock of the wounded orbiter. It was the alarm that NASA had installed in all shuttles to give crews a five minute warning before the oxygen supply would run out.

Dizzy and in severe pain, Diane kept her eyes closed. The throbbing on the back of her head challenged the piercing pain from her throat, where blood vessels had burst from the G-like pressure induced by the multiple explosions. The coppery taste of blood filled her senses with the same intensity as the general body soreness from bouncing around the flight deck like a rag doll.

Floating upside down, Diane opened her eyes, feeling what had to be the worst headache of her life. The relentless pounding of veins against her temples seemed amplified by the siren telling her she had less than five minutes’ worth of air inside that compartment, and from what she remembered she doubted Endeavour had any other pressurized compartment that could support life after the laser attack.

And McGregor, the UNSC soldiers …

Concentrate.

Turning off the alarm, she glanced through the four-inch-diameter observation window on the hatch leading to the payload bay, and visually checked the main cargo in Endeavour’ s payload bay: the new and still untested Astronaut Maneuvering Vehicle — a four-person unpressurized prototype module designed by Lockheed to provide teams of UNSC personnel the flexibility of moving in space quickly and efficiently. The first production AMV was not supposed to be ready for another year, but the problems aboard the ISS called for Lockheed to release its only prototype.