Stephen Baxter - Moonseed

Kerosene ignited in the engine, and a huge flame shot from the jet efflux. But the engine didn’t restart.

The silence was eerie. Jane could hear the crew’s scratchy breathing.

The captain was using her autopilot, Jane saw. Five hundred feet per minute descent. She picked up a little of what was happening from the crew’s terse conversation. They were trading height for speed; their airspeed was two hundred and seventy knots, somewhere near the speed for minimum drag for the present all-up weight. And the pilot was turning back towards Prestwick. Good, Jane thought, somebody who knows what she is doing. Even after total engine failure, the aircraft was still under control. In fact it could glide for another twenty minutes or more from this height, and surely the engines would restart at a lower altitude.

But still, a dead stick unpowered landing back at Prestwick — or worse, a ditching — would be no fun.

A warning horn sounded in the cockpit. Cabin pressure was dropping. No air was being pumped into the aircraft.

Oxygen masks dropped before the crew, and they fitted them to their faces. There was none for Jane and Jack, where they stood at the back of the cabin. The flight engineer’s mask didn’t fall properly; he had to get out of his seat and pull it down, but when he did so the supply hose just fell to pieces.

“Shoot,” the captain said softly. She disconnected the autopilot, dropped the aircraft’s nose and pulled on the speed brake lever. There was a rumble, and Jane braced herself. The captain was throwing away her precious height, the height which could be traded for speed and distance, which might save all of their lives. But now she had no choice.

The altimeter dropped steadily. But Jane could see that the electrical garbage in the atmosphere outside was playing hell with the instruments. The inertial navigation systems showed random digits and patterns, and the distance measuring equipment was blank altogether. Even communication with Prestwick was disrupted by bursts of static.

The SFO said, “We might have water contamination in the fuel tanks. And in that case—”

“There’s no way the engines will start again. Oh, shoot.” The captain looked ahead steadily. “All right. We’ll head towards Prestwick, and then turn westbound to ditch. You know the drill. Land along the line of the primary or predominant swell, and upwind into the secondary swell, or downwind into the secondary swell…”

“My God,” Jane whispered.

She felt a stab of anger. To have come so close, to have survived so much. And now, even as they were escaping from the blighted country, this.

The wounded plane flew on as the crew worked steadily.

“Five minutes,” Geena told Henry. “Close your helmet.”

Henry pulled down his visor. His breathing was loud.

Geena reported, “We are in the preparation regime. Everything on board is correct. And everything is correct in the control bunker.”

A reply, in Russian and English.

“Shit hot,” Henry said quietly.

“Two minutes,” Geena said evenly.

He looked across at her. “This is one hell of a strange divorce we’re having, Geena,” he said.

She ignored him.

Still there was no countdown.

And a little after that —

There was a rumbling, deep below, beneath his back. It was like an explosion in some remote furnace room.

An analogue clock started ticking on the control panel. It was the mission clock.

Oh Christ, oh Christ. They were serious, after all. They really had fired this thing, with Henry and his ex-wife stuffed in the nose. And now —

“One minute before the turn,” the SFO said.

The aircraft had been without engines for twelve, thirteen minutes, Jane estimated. She had lost count of the number of restart attempts while she’d been up here, and there surely wouldn’t be time to restart now. There were maybe five minutes left before the ditching.

Jane listened to the crew’s diagnosis and projection. With only battery power, there would be no radio altimeter for precise height indication. Not even any landing lights. The captain wouldn’t be able to lower her flaps, so the ditching would be fast — faster than the stall speed of a hundred and seventy knots — the engines would surely break off on impact; the wings and structure would be damaged…

The cloud cleared; low sunlight poked into the cabin, briefly dazzling Jane. The play of electrical light over the windscreen dissipated.

The flight engineer cried out. “Number four has restarted!”

Now Jane felt the roar of the engine; she could see the engine gauges rising, the power settling. Gingerly the captain advanced the thrust lever, and the engine was running at normal power.

They had ducked under the ash cloud, she realized; that was what had enabled the engines to start.

“Here comes number two,” the captain said.

“Prestwick,” the SFO said, “we seem to be back in business. We have diverted back to Prestwick and will land in fifteen minutes.”

“Number one. Number three.”

The captain pulled the plane into a shallow climb. Immediately the cabin was swamped by the dark, smoky cloud once more, St Elmo’s Fire dancing on the windscreen.

“Good God,” the captain said. “Bugger this for a game of soldiers.”

She dropped the nose, and the plane dipped beneath the volcanic cloud and into the light once more.

An engine surged violently, recovered and surged again. The bangs were audible on the flight deck, and the aircraft shook.

“We’re going to have to nurse this poor old girl home,” the captain said. “Shut down drill, number two engine.”

Jane peered through the windscreen. There seemed to be mist lingering there, or perhaps spilled oil, but the busy wipers were having no effect. It was sandblasting, she realized, scarring by particles of volcanic ash.

Even inside the cabin there was black dust on every surface. Jane picked it up between thumb and forefinger. It was gritty, with a sulphurous smell.

When she looked out, through the murky windows, she could see a new ash cloud, miles wide, still higher, black as coal, reaching into the air from some new geological horror.

If that cloud had been a little lower, if the base of the ash had dropped to ground level, the plane wouldn’t have got out.

Cautiously, leaning to see through the remaining clear patches of windscreen, the captain nursed her craft to the ground.

…And now, three seconds in, the rumbling got louder, and the cabin started to shake. Henry knew he must already be off the ground, but the booster was poised there, burning up its fuel just to raise its mass through these first few yards.

So here he was, locked into a cabin on top of a Soviet-era ICBM, which was balanced on the rocket flames jetting from its tail.

But the roar built up, and so did the vibration — every loose fitting seemed to be clattering around him — and now came the sense of acceleration he’d expected, almost comforting, pushing him hard into his couch.

The bunker spoke to Geena, and she responded, her voice deep and shaking with the vibration.

Henry wished he had a window, or a periscope. He wished he could see Kazakhstan falling away as if he was in some immense elevator; he wished he could see the great plains of central Asia opening up beneath him.

The acceleration continued to mount. He closed his eyes. Simple physics, Henry told himself. Acceleration equals force over mass. As the fuel load decreased, the mass went down, the acceleration had to grow… But knowing what was going on didn’t help relieve the pain in his chest, the heaviness of his limbs.

When he opened his eyes again he could hardly make out the instruments, so severe was the vibration.