“… and three, two, one.” The floor manager pointed to him and mouthed, You’re on.
The President looked straight into the camera. Its red light burned steadily just above the lens.
“My fellow Americans. Today I come to you with a heavy heart.” He swallowed. “In ten minutes the International Space Station will be in an optimum position over the open ocean of the South Pacific for pre-positioned United States cruisers carrying state-of-the-art antisatellite weapons to end this grave threat to our nation…”
PENTAGON
There were more stars attending the meeting than were visible on a good night’s viewing: It seemed as if every three-and four-star general and flag officer in the U.S. armed forces was present. It was standing room only in the relatively small room.
The U.S. military Joint Chiefs and their associated staff were assembled deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, in a highly classified vault known as the “Tank.” The officers were in direct contact with Strategic Command HQ in Nebraska, and the eight other U.S.-war-fighting combatant commanders—Africa, Central, Cyber, European, Indo-Pacific, Northern, Southern, and Special Operations—were following the briefing in the background. A secure link to the National Security Council was being relayed directly to the White House Situation Room.
The NSA Director, an up-and-coming Vice Admiral, started speaking without being introduced. “Ladies and gentlemen, two days ago the USS Jimmy Carter had intercepted intelligence from the Chinese that reveals they are not going to stop their ASAT launches, despite their secret agreement with the State Department. No matter what happens—”
Someone interrupted over the secure link. “What the hell does that mean?” The link to STRATCOM blinked and refocused on the National Security Advisor, standing in the White House Situation Room. “The President’s announcing as we speak that he’s ordering the station shot down—but he also has the capability to stop those launches within seconds if Kimberly regains control! Why would the Chinese launch their ASATs if the station’s no longer a threat?”
The NSA Director continued, unphased by the interruption. “Even if Dr. Hadid-Robinson regains control, there is a finite probability that the ISS will impact China if it continues to descend at the same rate—there’s no guarantee she can stop it from coming in. As such, the Chinese have decided to cut their losses by preemptively shooting down the ISS so that it falls in the Pacific, even if the U.S. calls off its launch. And a second, perhaps more important reason is that by destroying the ISS, the Chinese will then have the world’s only active space station, the new Tiangong. A political coup in their eyes.”
The Tank was quiet as the Vice Admiral pulled in a breath. “And in case Dr. Hadid-Robinson somehow does gain control, they plan to explain that their military was not informed that the terrorists on the ISS were neutralized.”
A moment passed before the National Security Advisor said bitterly, “A breakdown in communications.”
“Yes, sir. It happens all the time.”
The National Security Advisor turned to someone off camera. “Get me my Chinese counterpart on our hotline. I’m going to let that bastard know what you just told me. That will stop their ASAT—”
“But, sir, in addition to revealing our capability to tap into their comm, your counterpart can still say there was a communications breakdown—and their Spratly launch site never received the order to stand down.”
“Then what the hell else can I do?” He glared through the link.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs leaned forward. “I don’t know, sir—but at least you can go ahead and try, just in case Kimberly pulls off a miracle.”
JOINT AIRLOCK
Exhausted and nearly fainting, Kimberly closed the outer hatch and opened the re-pressurization valve to its EMERGENCY position. Immediately, air started flowing into the evacuated airlock so fast that she was lucky her eardrums hadn’t blown out, which had happened to one of her fellow astronauts. Barely lucid, she still managed to hang near the controls as the stiffness of her suit began to subside.
She felt a sense of overwhelming relief as the air density in the lock rose past the density inside her suit, which meant that she’d soon be able to take off her helmet and allow the greater pressure to start healing the effects of the bends.
Her heart still thumped heavily and her skin still crawled; she felt like curling up into a fetal ball from the fatigue and soreness. But she still had to make sure that the station was rising, gaining altitude. She tried to focus on the panel readout by the inner hatch. Red digital numbers scrolled almost too fast for her to register. Suddenly the readout stopped at 14.7 psi.
Normal air pressure. She could take off her helmet.
It hurt like crazy to lift her gloved hands and flip the latch. Every joint in her body ached terribly. But once she lifted the helmet off it seemed as though the pain wasn’t as bad. Probably a psychological reaction, she knew, but real or not the result felt wonderful.
Kimberly knew she could stay in the airlock and increase the pressure to more than one atmosphere, to accelerate the healing. But she had too many things to do. Despite the stress and even the effects of the bends, she still couldn’t quite believe that she was all finished and the crisis that had started nearly a week earlier was finally over.
She punched at the controls and the inner airlock hatch popped open. It was quiet inside the station: no terrorists were lurking out there. Fumbling tiredly with her suit, she shucked the upper and lower torso units but kept the cooling and ventilation garment, as she’d soon be going EVA again to transfer fuel from Scott’s Starliner.
She swam through the empty station, feeling a weird sense of uneasiness. She’d shoved Bakhet’s dead impaled body into the Russian MRM-2 airlock, and she’d been only inches away when she saw Farid’s lifeless face pushing against the hole she’d ripped in the Bigelow inflatable. But still she felt on edge.
Once in the Central Post, Kimberly grimaced as she brought up the comm link with NASA. She knew she’d still be feeling the effects of the decompression sickness for some time, but she couldn’t allow that to keep NASA out of the loop. She needed their help to extend the station’s lifetime.
At the very least she needed to learn the status of the Boeing Starliner resupply capsule that was on its way to the station. Although the terrorists were out of the way and the ISS was slowly regaining altitude, she couldn’t allow the same fate to happen to the station that had occurred to the Tiangong-1, the old Chinese space station, several years earlier when it had deorbited and broken up into a swarm of tumbling, fiery meteors in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Her legs extended weightlessly as she floated in front of the laptop and established communications with Johnson Space Center.
The laptop’s screen blinked and then showed Chief Astronaut Tarantino. He jerked with surprise, his eyes goggling.
“Kimberly?”
“Present and accounted for,” she said, forcing a smile and trying to keep from grimacing with the pain.
Tarantino turned and waved excitedly to someone behind him. Within seconds Kimberly saw a mob of faces crowding around the CAPCOM station.
“Kimberly, thank God you’re alive!” Tarantino fairly shouted, gaping at her. “Are you all right? ADCO hasn’t shown us the latest parameters. What’s your status?”