Simone seemed to be gazing beyond him, staring into space. Scott imagined her mind whirling through all the pros and cons of approving another launch, to resupply the ISS with propellants. And rescue the station by boosting it back up to a stable orbit.
More softly, Scott added, “If you’re going to give Kimberly a pep talk, then speak to her about your confidence in the rescue mission succeeding. And tell her that NASA is launching the CST-100 to ensure that the station has enough propellant to goose it up to a stable orbit and keep it there for months to come. That’s the right talk to have with her. Give her hope that the Dragon mission will succeed and you’re already looking past that to stabilize the ISS in orbit. Not remind her that her President is planning to shoot her down.”
Patricia Simone refocused her gaze on Scott, but spoke to her Chief of Staff, Mini Mott. “Do it.”
JAPANESE MODULE (JPM)
Still clutching Shep’s knife, Kimberly pushed away from the hatch and floated to the PCS laptop. She felt her heart thumping beneath her ribs as she once again ran through the graphical interface and prepared to close the valve to the vacuum access port.
She’d run through her plan of action so many times that she thought she could do it in her sleep. Once she’d filled the vestibule connecting the JPM to Node 2 with air she’d quickly open the two hatches, then race through the U.S. lab and Node 1 into Node 3. Once there, she’d perform a feint by screaming like a banshee, then ducking into the PMM module. After the terrorists passed, she’d surprise them from the rear by quickly taking out Bakhet, who would most likely be lagging behind, and then disabling Farid.
Good plan, she thought. But will it work? It’s easy to imagine disabling Farid, but can I actually nail the bastard?
She sucked in several deep breaths, preparing for battle.
A faint ding rang from the data acquisition hardware, just as a voice came over the Ka-band link. “Kimberly, we’re ready with the patch. You need to move fast. We’ve got people here who will walk you through the upload. And the Administrator needs to talk to you after you’re finished.”
She stopped in midair, her heart pounding wildly as she tried to bring herself down from the adrenaline high of anticipating going after the terrorists. She glanced back at the hatch. It would be easy to continue, surprise them when they least expected her to leave the safety of the JPM. Then she’d be able to engage the thrusters and be rid of all her problems.
Again she pulled in deep breaths and tried to refocus. She knew that eventually she’d have to confront the two when the Dragon capsule arrived, but compared to the urgency of stopping the ISS from deorbiting, that task was now an infinite time in the future. She first had to take back control of the station.
Her heart rate started to slow as she pushed away from the laptop and floated to the data storage connected to the Ka-link. Her priorities now pivoted from exiting the JPM and engaging the two terrorists to making sure that the software patch was successfully installed. Her hands felt clammy as she slid Shep’s knife into a trousers pocket.
After connecting the solid-state disc to the laptop, the MCC experts first verified that the patch had arrived uncorrupted, and that no bits had somehow changed while being transmitted to the ISS. Then they walked Kimberly through the installation procedure, carefully going over each control to gain access to the vehicle 1533 system.
Once she’d completed the final step Kimberly floated in front of the PCS laptop. “Nothing’s happened,” she said. “How do we know it worked?”
“Can you rotate the station to re-boost?” the disembodied voice from MCC came over the link. “The patch was inserted covertly below the Linux level. We needed the extra time getting the software to you to ensure that the ISS system wouldn’t reboot while installing and tip the bad guys off. You should now have regained control and have user authority, locking them out.”
Kimberly ran her fingers over the graphical interface. “I’m in!” She tuned out the muted sound of applause that came over the voice link. She pulled up the control functions. Good. It appeared that the terrorists hadn’t put in any physical roadblocks, such as disconnecting any data channels.
Working rapidly, she slowly yawed the ISS, causing it to rotate 180 degrees. She kept the aft thrusters going, turning the station so slowly that she couldn’t detect the motion. The acceleration from the thrusters was only 100 micro-gees; the only way the terrorists would be able to detect the motion would be if they were to look out a hatch and see the Earth moving. Within ten minutes Kimberly rotated the ISS and now, instead of losing altitude, the station was boosting up to a higher orbit.
A thrill ran through her. But she wasn’t finished yet.
Farid had used most of the station’s reserve propellants in his deorbit burn. Kimberly needed to ensure that she’d not only have enough fuel available to raise the ISS to a stable altitude, but have enough of the hypergolic propellants left over for station-keeping: to periodically re-boost the ISS to counter atmospheric drag.
Her time horizon instantly expanded, and now that the station was rising like a Phoenix, she started planning how to keep it alive and kicking for the long haul. Still at her laptop, her fingers flew through various options as she methodically opened a pathway from the docked Soyuz vehicles to the propellant tanks, diverting their propellants for later use by the station.
But although she’d won this match, Kimberly knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet.
She started to switch over to her “intelligence” schematic of nontraditional sensors in the ISS to see if Farid and Bakhet had moved since she’d started the forward thrusters. On a whim, she opened a window on the laptop and accessed the web cameras in Central Post, normally used for private conversations with families back on Earth. She also tied in their microphones.
Her laptop screen showed the ISS command center. The feed was from one of the first sensors that Farid had cut after they’d killed Ivan Vasilev and Al.…
In the webcast’s small window she saw the two terrorists storming around the module, frenziedly attempting to access several of the Russian and Ops laptops all at once. They must have detected the rotation, Kimberly guessed, and her actions had obviously infuriated the Kazakhstanis. It appeared that they were trying every conceivable countermove they could think of to take back control of the station.
His face radiating fury, Farid moved from keyboard to keyboard while Bakhet slammed a hand against the metal frame. The movement sent him flying upward and he twirled slowly to the center of the module, spittle oozing from his mouth.
Kimberly drew back from the laptop and felt a satisfied sense of calm roll over her. For the first time since the two intruders had come aboard, she felt she might finally have a chance to survive. She’d always known she wouldn’t give up without a fight, but there was always the inescapable fear in the back of her mind that things wouldn’t work out. It wasn’t that she doubted herself, but rather it was the knowledge that she knew her limits, and there were always the unknown unknowns that might somehow rear up and defeat her.
That still might happen, she knew, but seeing the two frustrated terrorists flailing helplessly around the Russian module at least gave her a renewed sense of hope.
“Kimberly, CAPCOM,” the voice came over the link. “ADCO reports your altitude has stopped decreasing. What’s your situation?”