Kimberly drew in a still-painful breath. She knew there was a small time lag between ADCO—the mission control desk responsible for tracking the ISS’s attitude—and NASA’s ground radar. She brought them up to speed, giving only scant details about Bakhet’s and Farid’s gruesome deaths, but professionally running through what she’d done to stop the station’s descent and begin the re-boosting process.
Pulling over to another laptop, she ran through the ISS systems, squinting blearily at the screen as she reviewed the station’s critical parameters. “Be advised, CAPCOM, that I’m close to bingo fuel. I’m going to need that Starliner here sooner rather than later to transfer fuel, so I can keep gaining altitude.”
Tarantino muttered, “Hold one,” then turned and had a quick, whispered discussion with several of the NASA team clustered about him. Two people rushed away from the crowd, obviously in a hurry to do something off-screen. Then someone put a hand over Tarantino’s camera.
“Hey!” Kimberly yelled. “What’s going on?”
Her joints ached and it was difficult to concentrate. She certainly didn’t have any time for games. She thought that she could easily return to the Joint Airlock, turn up the air pressure, and be healing much more quickly rather than put up with this crazy ground activity.
“Kimberly!”
Rubbing her forehead, she saw that whoever had blocked off the camera had removed his hand. Tarantino sat there, looking somber, worried … frightened?
“What?” she snapped.
“You’re sure the terrorists are disposed?”
“Of course I’m sure!”
“And there’s no way they could escape, get free, somehow retake control of the station?”
Anger simmering inside her, Kimberly answered, “Absolutely. One of them is floating in the MRM-2 with a hole in his chest and the other is sucking vacuum in the Bigelow. Now what the hell is going on?”
CENTRAL POST, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
Tarantino moved closer to the monitor, masking out the others crowded around him.
“Kimberly,” he said, his voice lowered. “You don’t have much time. ADCO hasn’t yet confirmed that you’re gaining altitude, as the change is much slower than you should be rising. In fact, we can barely detect any change at all. But we’ve passed your information on to Washington.”
Frowning, Kimberly glanced at the ISS readout. Everything appeared to be working. As they used to say in the old days, all systems were go. She pulled up the Motion Control Group interface, which displayed the station’s altitude to a resolution of about five meters. That’s strange, she thought. CAPCOM is right, the increase in altitude is far below what she had expected, as though something was still obstructing the flow of fuel to the thrusters.
She said slowly, “Maybe I didn’t fully de-crimp the line? That would explain the low rate of increase. I may not have returned the line to its original, fully open diameter.” Setting her jaw, she continued, “I’ll do another EVA, take more time to make sure there’s no indentations in the line.”
Tarantino shook his head. “No. No EVA. You don’t have time.”
“You mean because I’m approaching bingo fuel.” Leaning closer to the laptop’s screen, Kimberly said, “I’m going to need a fully functional fuel line when the Starliner arrives with its load. Once we transfer the fuel he’s bringing we’ll be able to boost up to altitude, but only if that fuel line is completely unobstructed.”
She started to turn back toward the airlock. She certainly didn’t relish the idea of going EVA again, especially without having recovered fully from her last one.
“Kimberly!” Tarantino’s voice had a shrill urgency to it. “Scott’s Starliner is due in less than an hour. But by that time … it … it’ll be too late.”
“What’re you talking about? This re-boost is already giving us plenty of time. Sure, it’s slow and I’m close to bingo fuel, but the altitude change has already given us another few hours at the very least—”
“You don’t have time because the military’s been ordered to shoot down the ISS.”
“WHAT?”
Looking utterly miserable, Tarantino said in a rush, “We’re passing the information you gave us about the terrorists to the NSC, and Headquarters is using all their channels as well. Patricia has just arrived at the White House and will be briefing the President with this new information. Plus, as we speak, Mini Mott is talking with the Joint Chiefs, trying to stop the shoot-down. But it doesn’t look good. The military’s targeted the ISS to bring it down on this orbit, and since the order’s already been given they may have launched.”
“But…” Kimberly spluttered, “but I’m alive! The terrorists are dead! ADCO’s confirmed that the station’s increasing in altitude—”
“I know. I know. But there’s no possible way to stop the ASATs if they’ve already been launched. No one can stop the missiles once they’re in flight.”
“But why did they give the order? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“I don’t know if there’s any good way to say this,” Tarantino replied, anguished, “but if there was any chance at all that the station continued to deorbit and contaminate American soil, the President was forced to put the safety of the people over saving the ISS. There’s rioting and mass evacuations down here, Kimberly. It’s complete mayhem and he had to stop it.”
“I … I…”
“It’s exactly the same reason why the military shot down USA-193, our own National Reconnaissance satellite back in 2008,” Tarantino said, almost whining. “But this is a hundred times worse. The mere chance that the million-pound ISS carrying plutonium might impact a populated area is causing mass hysteria. People have already died! The President is determined not to allow any more deaths or injuries because of public panic.”
Kimberly couldn’t believe it was true. “But … it’s all perception! No way is the station going to deorbit if I can refuel it. And the probability of it contaminating a populated area is damned near zero.”
“Perception is reality, Kimberly,” Tarantino said. “That’s what the President is struggling with. That’s what’s forced him to make this decision. We don’t agree with it; no one in NASA does. But that’s not the point. The simple fact is that the military has been ordered to shoot down the station to make sure it impacts over the ocean, and this is one of their last windows to guarantee success. After your next orbit the ISS will be out of range, so they have to act now.”
Through the fog of pain that still shrouded her, Kimberly shifted her attention away from their reasons why her own country might shoot her down, to finding a way of ensuring that the ISS would survive.
And keeping herself alive.
“Copy. Now tell me everything you know about this shoot-down.”
Tarantino’s face relaxed minutely, as though he was glad that he’d finally gotten past this seemingly insane shoot-down rationale, and they could go on to the next steps.
He looked down and read from a sheet of paper, “They’ve targeted you on the upcoming pass, a southern Pacific ascent, so you’ve got less than twenty minutes. The ASATs might already be on the way, for a counter-orbital interception.”