“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Janie Baldwin reporting live from outside Kennedy Space Center. This morning’s stunning release of footage by the Clay Center for Science and Technology has electrified the world. It shows in remarkable detail the International Space Station’s robotic arm extending out, but failing to latch on to a co-orbiting SpaceX Dragon resupply capsule. NASA has refused to make a statement other than that the supply ship has failed to berth with the space station.”
Turning toward the man beside her, Janie Baldwin continued, “I have with me Lawrence Torres from the online publication Space.com with some breaking news.” Raising her microphone to Torres’s chin, she said, “Mr. Torres, tell us what happened in this latest footage.”
“Thank you, Janie,” Torres said, in a slightly rasping voice. “First, NASA refused to confirm or deny that there were any astronauts aboard the Dragon—but I can tell you for a fact that it’s impossible for anyone to be on board that space capsule, because that version of the capsule is used only for unmanned resupply missions. It simply can’t carry humans. And since the unmanned capsule can only berth when pulled in, someone was inside the ISS, controlling the robot arm.”
“NASA couldn’t control the arm from the ground?”
“Yes, they can—but not for cargo vehicles. It takes too long for their commands to reach the station. The time lag between what they’re seeing and their remote controls is too large.”
“So that proves there are survivors aboard the space station?”
“Yes, it does.” Torres cleared his throat, then went on, “In fact, Space.com has sources in the NASA contractor community that have confirmed that there are three people still alive on board the ISS—”
“Three people!” The reporter shoved her microphone even closer to Torres’s lips.
“That’s correct. The American astronaut Kimberly Hadid-Robinson, and the two cosmonauts who flew up on the last Soyuz, Farid Hazood and Adama Bakhet, who tried to take over the station. Our source has been helping NASA communicate with Kimberly through her ex-husband, astronaut Lieutenant Colonel Scott Robinson.”
Her eyes widening, Janie asked, “Why hasn’t NASA released this information?”
“You’ll have to ask the government about that. But our source tells us that the cosmonauts are trying to deorbit the space station and cause it to crash down to Earth. Their target is New York City, where the impact could cause an explosion more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Even worse, the station has over three hundred and sixty pounds of deadly plutonium stored in RTGs, compact nuclear power sources carried up by the Russians, making the ISS the world’s largest radioactive dirty bomb. A highly radioactive cloud will be released as the space station burns up in the atmosphere, contaminating thousands of square miles along its trajectory. And with the uncertainty of the point of impact, everyone on the east coast from Miami to Boston is at risk.”
“I … I…” Janie swallowed visibly and pulled herself together. “And Kimberly? How is she? Is she all right?”
Grimly, Torres replied, “Our sources say that astronaut Kimberly Hadid-Robinson is doing everything possible to stay alive. As I understand it, she is the only thing standing between the space station remaining in orbit and a catastrophic crash that will cause perhaps millions of American deaths.”
JAPANESE MODULE (JPM)
Her hands shaking slightly, Kimberly pulled up the last zipper and folded over the seal, enclosing herself in the second-generation spacesuit. She pushed away from the stabilizing stand and secured the oxygen bottle to the front of her suit by twisting the bottle’s open flange onto the helical nipple, which had been originally designed to clamp the long oxygen-supplying umbilical cord. She pulled on the helmet, locked it to the neck ring, and started the oxygen. After filling the suit she planned to quickly substitute another bottle to give her the maximum time to work outside the station.
She drew in deep breaths of pure O2 while vigorously moving her shoulders and arms, trying to increase her heart rate to 80 percent max; there’d be no time to pre-breathe, but she needed to flush as much nitrogen as possible from her bloodstream, giving her as much time outside as she could. EVAs were rarely routine, and she knew from experience that if anything could go wrong, it would. Best to be prepared for almost anything out there—especially with no one around to back her up.
The suit slowly ballooned out, filling with life-giving oxygen. She started to reach for the extra bottle when she noticed movement on the other side of the vestibule hatch window leading from the JPM to Node 2. It looked as though one, or maybe even both, of the terrorists were trying to peer into her module.
Were they trying to see if she was still alive? Why would they care? They knew they could keep her trapped inside the module until the station deorbited. Perhaps they thought that with the resiliency she’d already shown she might very well be hacking into the station’s controls, trying to set up a digital roadblock to prevent them from engaging the main thrusters.
As far as Kimberly could tell, they didn’t know that she’d been clandestinely communicating with the ground, or that it had been the NSA’s software, not hers, that had allowed her to temporarily regain control of the ISS. So maybe they wanted to ensure that she wouldn’t be able to throw a software wrench into their plans once again.
Grinning to herself from inside the spacesuit helmet, Kimberly thought that they were going to get the surprise of their lives once she stopped the flow of the thrusters’ propellants. She hoped they’d never suspect that she was going to do that from outside the ISS. So let them try to guess what she was up to. They couldn’t see much inside the JPM because they’d shut off the power; at least that would work in her favor.
And if they camped outside the JPM, instead of staying at the far end near Central Post where the Russian ПρК transfer chamber was located, then they wouldn’t be able to get to her when she reentered the ISS—if she could reenter. She needed the ПρК’s inner hatch to be closed so she could open the transfer chamber’s outer hatch. But she’d worry about that later, since there was nothing she could do about it now.
She groped a gloved hand inside the equipment pouch on her suit’s leg, to make sure the compound pliers was there: the EVA-modified vice grip that she would use to crimp the fuel line. There it was, along with Shep’s knife. Okay, she thought. All set.
Suddenly the module shuddered. Looking back at the vestibule hatch window, she saw one of the terrorists swing something at the Node 2 window. She couldn’t hear anything through her helmet and the vacuum outside the vestibule, but the module shook again. They were swinging the titanium prybar at the window! The fools were trying to smash their way into the JPM!
She felt a chill run down her back. If they somehow managed to break the Node 2 window, it was possible that they’d quickly transit the depressurized vestibule. But they’d also lose all the air in the ISS, killing themselves as well as her. She had to hurry and quickly modify the experimental airlock so she could get outside the station. The controls were on the outside of the airlock, so she’d have to work fast.
Flying through the darkened module, she pulled Shep’s knife from her equipment pouch as she dashed toward the experimental lock. She opened the inner hatch, reached in and cut the cable mechanism that controlled the outer hatch. She took a deep breath and steeled herself, knowing that as soon as she took the next step, all the module’s air would rush out through the airlock like a miniature hurricane.