Her eyes rested briefly on the water and meal pouches that she’d kept in the JPM for when she was too involved running experiments to go out and eat with the rest of the crew. I’m set for food, she told herself. And she’d be able to use nearly any of the sealable experiment containers to hold her bodily wastes when she had to relieve herself.
In a perfect world she’d be able to think of some way to overpower the two intruders, but she realized that in reality she might be in this situation for the long haul—maybe even as long as it took for the next mission to reach the ISS. Or sooner, she mused, if the people on the ground were considering a rescue flight.
Which reminded her that now that she had the basics to survive, her top priority was to communicate with NASA.
She floated over to the American laptop and tried to access the comm link.
Nothing.
She tried various options, individually accessing each of the four downlinks, but couldn’t get a response from any of them. She tried to connect with the satellite cross-link. Still nothing.
Kimberly drew in a breath. Farid must have already disabled the system. Probably his first priority, after murdering the crew. So does that mean that NASA doesn’t even know I’m still alive? They probably don’t even know that the rest of the crew’s been murdered.
So what are Farid and his fake tourist cohort, Bakhet, trying to do? she wondered. None of this made any sense. She’d understood that Farid had been a valuable member of the crew on his last mission three years ago: quiet, bright, quick to learn. He must know every system and computer network on board. Kimberly understood that she was facing a true insider, one who knew the ISS as well as she did. Maybe better.
Three years ago Farid must have suspected that his stint on the ISS would probably be the last time he’d be in space. The missions didn’t come cheap, and if it hadn’t been for the Russians throwing the Kazakhstanis a token bone of allowing them a flight every so often, Kazakhstan would never have had a man in space.
So why would the Kazakhstani cosmonaut turn on them? Neither Farid nor his comrade Bakhet had spewed any religious ranting. Had he been radicalized in the past three years? Was that why he’d turned into a cold-blooded killer?
And who was this supposed billionaire Qatari tourist, Bakhet? He and Farid are obviously in cahoots, but what are they up to? What are they trying to do?
And what can I do to stop them?
They’d physically dominated all the Russians and Americans aboard the ISS, so she knew she’d have to use her brains to defeat them rather than brawn. She had to come up with a plan to either best them, or give herself enough time to make it to the newly docked Soyuz—or perhaps even their escape vehicle, the extra Soyuz—to get back to Earth.
But whatever their motivation, whatever their purpose, Kimberly knew there would be no reasoning with them. She’d seen what they could do and knew full well that no amount of logic was going to change their minds. She mentally raced through the probabilities and kept getting the same, inevitable answer:
It was either her or them.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, ISS CONTROL CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Low, urgent voices swirled all around Scott Robinson as he sat at the ISS CAPCOM console. He’d just been patched through to the President’s cabinet meeting.
Spread around him, the ISS control center looked like a barely controlled bedlam. Next to Scott a hundred men and women were busily, frantically working their consoles, each person desperately focused on understanding what had happened aboard the space station and what was currently going on.
Scott tuned out all that commotion and focused his attention on the phone, unconsciously tightening his earphones as he spoke into his throat microphone. “Mr. President, this is Lieutenant Colonel Scott Robinson, today’s CAPCOM—NASA’s astronaut liaison to the ISS.”
The President’s voice came through Scott’s headphones, sounding rushed, impatient, not at all like what Scott had previously heard at the State of the Union or other speeches.
“Colonel, Administrator Patricia Simone tells me you can bring us up to speed on exactly what happened on the International Space Station.”
“Yes, sir,” said Scott. “I can relate the activities up to the moment that communications were cut.” He quickly summarized the events that he remembered, drawing out the details of cosmonaut Ivan Vasilev’s brutal murder, as well as his decision to cut the public feed to NASA TV.
The President asked, “Has anyone else died?”
“We’re working on that, Mr. President. All four comm links and the satellite relay have been cut, but we’re still receiving information over the data links used for onboard science experiments.”
“Do you know if there are any survivors?”
“Not yet. We’re trying to patch into the ISS systems through the data links—basically hack into the sensors that are located throughout the station to find the location of any astronauts or cosmonauts. These are sensors such as temperature—”
“Will you be able to distinguish between the astronauts,” the President interrupted, “and these … terrorists?”
Scott shook his head. “No, sir; that’s highly unlikely. But we may be able to tell how many people are on board and where they’re located. We may even be able to tell from the amount of carbon dioxide present if the individual is large or small, depending on the amount and rate that CO2 is being generated—but those readings may also be an indication of a high level of exertion.”
The President didn’t respond, although Scott heard a muttered discussion on the other end of the line; low murmurings in measured voices.
A familiar voice came over his headphones. “Scott, Patricia Simone here. Were you able to identify if both Farid and the tourist, Adama Bakhet, were responsible for the murders over the video link, or was it just Farid?”
Straightening, Scott replied, “We’re not sure, ma’am. We didn’t get too much footage before the link was severed, but we’ve already sent what we have to NASA Headquarters. And our folks in the image analysis group in Building A here at JSC are poring over what didn’t appear on NASA TV’s public feed; we’ll shoot HQ a copy of the details as they come up.”
The President came back on the line. “And I assume that Johnson Space Center knows of no motivation for this attack.”
“That’s correct, sir. We were caught just as flatfooted as everyone else. We’re sending all the psychological data we have on the two to Headquarters, as well as working with our colleagues in Russia.”
“So we don’t know why this happened, how they pulled it off, or even if there is anyone still alive on board the ISS.”
“That’s correct, Mr. President. But again, we’re working on it.”
The line was muffled as another discussion appeared to take place among the cabinet members. Then the President resumed, “I’m ordering other agencies to work with NASA, to determine what happened, to recommend possible options for bringing communications back to the ISS, and to recommend any other action. The NSA and DoD will be contacting your center shortly for the latter two, and the CIA about the former. I’ve directed that all their tools be placed at NASA’s disposal. In the meantime, you are to keep Patricia informed of any changes on the ISS, or if you discover any motivation for this heinous crime. My top priority now is to find out if there are any astronauts or cosmonauts still alive on the ISS and what it will take to help them. Understand, Colonel?”