Jack Du Brul - The Medusa Stone

“ Atlantis , this is Vandenberg. Targets now four miles distant, closing at eight miles per minute. They are two thousand feet above your orbit.”

“Roger, Ground. Fifteen seconds.” Colonel Wayne’s eyes locked on the digital counter, his finger poised on the release trigger.

Because of the shuttle’s attitude, the four receiver satellites were approaching Atlantis’ belly, sliding by at a slightly quicker relative speed. The crew would not be able to see them until they had passed, appearing above the shuttle’s tail on their silent journey.

“ Atlantis , stand by for payload separation in… three… two… one. Mark.”

Wayne jerked the trigger on the control stick at the same time Nick Fielding activated the maneuvering thrusters to ease the shuttle lower in orbit to avoid colliding with the satellite.

Even as Wayne was stowing the manipulator arm, the computers on board the Medusa woke to the commands of Ground Control. Like an umbrella, the satellite began to open, solar-collection panels extending that would charge the craft’s internal systems and help in its attitude and orbital changes. The energy output of the plutonium reactor only powered the positron wave gun. Moving the satellite around the planet was accomplished with a solar/chemical rocket that would need fuel replenishment every one to three years.

Watching through a video screen, Wayne and Fielding stared in awe as the Medusa grew in size, panels built to exacting tolerances telescoping and unfolding like Japanese origami. In moments, the ice cream cone shape had transformed into a cruel phantom that was stooped over the earth like vengeful gargoyle. Medusa looked like Death, if Armageddon’s messenger had been fashioned by man.

“Here come the Four Horsemen,” Fielding muttered.

The four receiver satellites appeared over the shuttle’s tail, faint glimmers against the star field. Just as they came into view, the Medusa received a command from Vandenberg, and a thin wisp of expended fuel pulsed from one of its jets. It accelerated away to join the others.

Len Cullins had come to the aft flight deck and looked over Fielding’s shoulder. “Makes you wonder what we could accomplish if we spent our time creating rather than destroying, huh?”

Wayne looked at him sharply. “You even think that way again, I’ll have you court-martialed.”

“What the hell was that?” Alarm piqued Nick Fielding’s voice. He was staring out the window, angling his body so he could track the hurtling satellites.

“What?” Wayne asked, turning away from Cullins.

“I saw a flash right behind the receiver birds, like the sun reflecting off something metallic.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, sir. It was only for a second, and they’re getting too far away to see clearly, but I definitely saw something.”

Wayne opened a channel to Vandenberg. “Ground Control this is Atlantis . We have a visual of debris behind Medusa. Can you confirm? It appeared to be in dangerous proximity.”

“Roger that, Atlantis .” The ground controller could not mask the anxiety in his voice. “We just got a flash warning from U.S. Space Command at Colorado Springs. They’re bumping up the power to their radar station at Cavalier Air Station in North Dakota, but preliminary telemetry puts it on a collision course. Stand by.”

“What was it, Nick?” Cullins asked.

“I don’t know. It didn’t look big, but there’s no way to really tell.”

“ Atlantis standing by,” Wayne said to Vandenberg Control.

Several seconds ticked by. Only the sound of the shuttle’s machinery and the low moans from Dale Markham punctuated the silence.

“Vandenberg Control to Atlantis . Duke, this is General Kolwicki. We want you to change attitude and increase the speed of your orbit to give us a visual assessment of what’s happening. Whatever’s behind the Medusa is so small we can’t get an accurate fix.”

“Yes, General. Changing attitude now.” Wayne nodded to Fielding, who had moved back to his station at the reaction control system. Using small bursts of gas, the shuttle swung 90 degrees until it was in a head-down position facing the fleeing Medusa.

“ Atlantis , ground track shows you gaining on Medusa at fifty feet per minute. Please increase orbital speed. Distance to Medusa, one thousand yards.”

“Roger, Ground.”

While Wayne and Fielding remained at the aft crew station, Len Cullins ducked back to the cockpit to look through the main view windows as they hunted down the unidentified object dogging their five birds. He slid into his molded seat and stared into the emptiness, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever Fielding had seen. He could hear Wayne speaking with General Kolwicki, the head of America’s space command, through the communications net.

“Range, five hundred yards. Whatever’s chasing our birds will overtake in fifteen seconds.”

Cullins began counting backward in his mind. At eight seconds he could see the five satellites glimmering just above earth’s hazy blue horizon. They looked like golden fireflies at this distance, their details lost in the planet’s reflective glow. At four seconds, he could see them more clearly; the central bodies of the receiver platforms with their spiderweb collection dishes spread wide. At two seconds, he saw a dull silver flash behind one of the receiver satellites, so brief that had he not anticipated it, he would have thought it a chimera.

Ground control called out “Now,” and a magnetic torque wrench lost during a Gemini space walk twenty-five years earlier, one of a hundred thousand pieces of space junk, passed through the collection dish of one of the satellites, latched on to a steel casing panel, and unbalanced the entire unit. The violence of the impact was lost in the void because there was no sound, but it hit with the force of a bullet and the receiver satellite began to tumble. As a horrified Cullins watched, it flipped three times before slamming into the main satellite.

“Oh shit, we’re going to lose it.” Cullins heard the unperterbable General Kolwicki shout.

“That’s affirmative, General,” Cullins said as he watched Medusa start falling toward earth.

Two hundred and sixty miles below the Atlantis , General Reginald Kolwicki watched America’s most expensive military accident unfold. In just three and a half minutes, Medusa went from crowning achievement to unrecoverable debacle. Telemetry from the positron gun platform confirmed that the satellite was in a degrading orbit and that it would not respond to ground commands to fire its maneuvering rockets. It was falling, and there was nothing the forty assembled men and women in the control room could do to prevent it.

“Try the autonomous flight program,” Kolwicki said to a computer technician who’d been typing furiously, trying to regain control of Medusa.

“No response, sir. The central processor is off-line.”

“Are you getting anything from the damned thing?”

“Positron gun is on stand-by, and all encryption routines are nominal.”

“Great. Medusa is about to burn up in the atmosphere, but it wants to still take pictures and keep the data a secret.” Kolwicki growled at the irony. “How much longer?”

“Medusa will enter the atmosphere in twenty-five seconds. Total loss in thirty seconds at the most.”

“Shit.” A career military man who saw his career burning up in outer space, Kolwicki had no options. “What’s the bird’s position?”

“Over North Africa, tracking southeast. It’ll burn up above the Indian Ocean.”

“Might as well turn on the positron gun as she goes down. Maybe we’ll gain something from this snafu.” Kolwicki felt like a ship’s captain knowing his command was going under and still ordering full steam ahead.