Scott stared at Sophia. She’s good. What was her name? Sophia Flowers … Flores?
The young woman reddened. “My father worked at Johnson all my life.”
“I couldn’t have explained it better myself.” Scott thought for a moment. “Kimberly does have access to one of the second-generation suits we squirreled away in the JPM, but it doesn’t have its own air supply, it needs a hose to provide oxygen, so that’s useless as well.”
“Thanks,” the PA man said. “I … I guess I suspected as much.”
Simone turned to the head of Public Affairs. “Okay. Now what about the news release? What do you have?”
Seemingly glad to have attention moved away from his EVA question, the man slid a paper from a stack in front of each person at the table. “Per your direction, we wrote a press statement, but we kept our communications link to the ISS secret, so the terrorists don’t discover it exists. In addition, we recommend not revealing that Astronaut Hadid-Robinson is still alive and has barricaded herself away from the terrorists—”
“Excuse me.” The Legislative Liaison man held up a finger. “You don’t think that news would rally people around the astronaut, and NASA, as well? This could really have a positive impact for the station if we played this well, especially now that it’s out that the station is descending.”
“And it would give the terrorists a heads-up that she’s in contact with us,” Mini countered. “They’d cut the Japanese Ka-band in a New York second and we’d be out of contact.”
“Yes, but—”
“Mini’s right,” Simone said flatly. “And we’d also be risking the only way of getting that software patch to her.” Turning to Public Affairs, she continued, “No mention of Kimberly. The release should be short and sweet: NASA doesn’t know what has happened, and we’re doing everything we can to raise the station to its proper altitude. That gives us, and the President, as much wiggle room as possible for keeping the rescue mission quiet, as well as ensuring that the link stays alive.” She nodded at Sophia. “Get back to Houston, as fast as you can.” She looked around the room. “And change of plans: All announcements will be done at JSC. They’ve got one hell of an acting PAO. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the PA man, a bit sullenly, as he gathered up the sheets of the draft news release.
Simone turned to Scott. “Next topic. How much time do we have before the President executes Burnt Haunt?”
“The Aegis cruisers need to be in position, and they’re under sail, top speed. They left Pearl Harbor twelve hours after the President authorized the Joint Chiefs to pre-position the ships. I checked with the JCS just before heading over here and they estimate the cruisers will be in optimum range in three days.”
Simone looked back at the TV screen. It showed a heavyset man shaking a fist at the camera as a young woman tried to cover a sign that read: KILL NASA NOT ASTRONAUTS! THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!
Shaking her head mournfully, Simone said, “We’re in a race against time. Burnt Haunt, the software patch for Kimberly to take back control of the ISS, and the rescue mission are all running on the same time scale. But which one gets in position first?” She turned back to the conference table, pulled in a breath, then went on, “Okay. Continue with the rescue mission until Burnt Haunt is executed. And in the meantime go ahead with that news release, generic as it is. At least the public should know that NASA is doing everything we can to reestablish communication with the station.”
“And hopefully keep them from panicking,” Scott said. “So we won’t force the President’s hand on Burnt Haunt.”
“Unless the press finds out that the station is descending and forces him to do it. He may decide to cut his losses and take out the ISS early, before the panic gets really out of hand. So we go on the assumption that once those Aegis cruisers are in place, the ISS is dead meat.”
“As well as Kimberly and the rest of the space program,” Scott muttered.
JAPANESE MODULE (JPM)
For what seemed like the hundredth time, Kimberly checked the solid-state data acquisition system, worrying that the mission control center had either forgotten to alert her that the software patch had come through, or that something had happened to the voice link and MCC couldn’t alert her that it had arrived.
The light on the solid-state hard drive gleamed a steady red, showing no activity. Frustrated, Kimberly once again pushed back to the middle of the JPM, trying to control her fear that the ISS was plunging to Earth.
Patience is a virtue, she told herself. And quickly added, Yeah, but I’m going to be tearing my hair out in another five minutes.
Get your mind off it, she thought. Focus on something else until the mother-loving patch comes through.
She looked over the bags stowed on the JPM walls in their various bungee-cord prisons, but nothing jumped out at her as a weapon she might use against the two terrorists. She mentally kicked herself for missing her chance when Farid had been using the toilet and Bakhet had been asleep.
By monitoring the electrical activity and nontraditional sensors located throughout the ISS she could tell that the two now seemed to be nearly inseparable, most likely having learned their lesson that if they were isolated she would pounce. So before she could engage them again, she had to figure out a way to separate them, move them apart so that she could take them out one by one.
So much for the Israeli Defense Force’s Krav Maga and the CIA’s assessment of how dangerous those guys were. The non-sport martial art was probably deadly enough in a normal Earth environment, but here on the ISS—where they had nowhere as much experience moving around in zero-gee as she did—their refined, lethal moves were of no use as long as she was barricaded safely inside the JPM, separated by the twelve tons of force tightly sealing her hatch.
But if the software patch didn’t arrive soon she knew she wouldn’t have the patience to stay holed up in the JPM while the station continued to descend in altitude. The sooner she could engage the forward thrusters to boost the ISS into a higher orbit, the better. She didn’t want to wait too much longer before she reacted.
She floated across to one of the bungee-cord prisons and started rummaging through the supplies cached inside it one more time. She’d already searched through everything in the module, but she had a nagging feeling that she might have overlooked something she could use to overpower the two.
MCC continued to offer suggestions over the voice link, and they certainly had some good ideas, but since they didn’t have real-time knowledge of exactly where everything was located in the ISS, their recommendations were useless. She would have been able to whip up three or four MacGyver-type devices to take out the terrorists if she only had access to the entire station. But for years the station’s astronauts and cosmonauts had been continuously moving supplies around and not relaying down to Earth what they’d done or where they’d stashed the equipment. Kimberly simply didn’t have access to the things she needed to construct a single, credible weapon. The bungee-corded bags and food pouches in the JPM were all that were available.
Be that as it may, she knew she still needed something to fight with. Even if the software patch came through right away, Kimberly knew she would eventually have to move out of the JPM. Even if NASA successfully launched the reconfigured Dragon with a few astronauts in it, when they got to the ISS she’d have to pull them in to a berthing port, using the robotic arm. She’d have to control it from the U.S. lab, since the cargo vessels couldn’t dock themselves automatically.