Executive Intent (21 page)

“Negative, sir, not for another four hours,” Seeker replied after a short search.

“As soon as Thule reports something, I want—”

“Sir, terrestrial radar contact from Kingfisher-Five,” one of the other sensor technicians interjected. “A flight of heavy aircraft, westbound, five hundred miles east of the Chinese convoy. Radar reports at least five formations, speed five hundred knots, altitude thirty-four thousand feet.”

“Identification?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“General, Midnight One is completing phase maintenance in
Palmdale, but they report they can have it buttoned up and ready to launch in four hours,” Seeker said. “They'll miss the next launch window unless they can launch in two hours.”

“Tell them to hurry, but I don't want another accident,” Kai said. “Follow the book, but follow it
quickly
. Anyone else?”

“Still checking on Stud Two and Three. Four is deep in depot maintenance and won't be available for four weeks.”

“Anyone else on a launchpad somewhere?”

“Still checking, sir.”

“I want a continuously updated status board of all manned or unmanned Orbital Maneuvering Vehicles on my monitors as soon as this incident is over,” Kai said. “I want to know every moment of every day where they are and what they're doing.”

“Yes, sir…sir, Stud Two is loading up at Elliott Air Force Base. Weather is marginal, but they may be able to launch within the hour, and they can be in the launch window to rendezvous at the approximate orbital position of Stud One.”

“If they can get a passenger module installed in time, tell them to do it, but if the weather allows, I want them airborne with whatever they have,” Kai said. “Any visual ID on those bogeys?”

“Negative, sir. Now reporting six formations, with one of the formations containing four aircraft in trail formation.”

“Report them to Central Command and Combined Task Force–Horn of Africa—I've got a bad feeling about them,” Kai said. “What about Stud Two?”

“They don't have a passenger module available, but they're dropping their payload as fast as they can to make room in the cargo bay,” Seeker said. “Battle Mountain can launch a tanker in twenty minutes. That's the only one available so far.”

“It'll have to do. Let me know when the planners have a rendezvous schedule set up.”

“Yes, sir…our sensors are out of range of that formation of planes, but the CTF-HOA AWACS plane should pick them up in an hour or so.”

“I hope those guys are ready. How's the weather at Dreamland?”

“Reporting marginal VFR, light snow showers, forecast to remain the same for the next—”

Just then they heard, “Armstrong, this is Stud One.”

Kai's eyes bulged as his finger jabbed the “TRANSMIT” button: “Stud One, this is Armstrong. What's your status?”

Hunter Noble's voice was low and strained. “No lights on in the cockpit, leopards are out, no power, no cockpit instruments, and I can't raise McCallum,” he said. “I think Kingfisher-Eight blew up.”

“Are you hurt, Noble?”

“I don't know,” Boomer replied, sounding as if he was drowsy. “I think I'm okay. My head must've cushioned the impact.”

“Sounds like he's got a concussion, sir,” Seeker said.

“Then we're going to have to keep him awake until Stud Two can get to him,” Kai said. On the radio he said, “We've got Stud Two and a tanker getting ready to launch within the hour, Boomer. If nothing vital got hit, you have enough air for a while. Hang on. We're sending everything we have up there to get you.”

“I can't get to Jeff,” Boomer said. “My canopy won't open.”

“You stay in your seat and stay strapped in, Boomer, and this time it's a damned order,” Kai said. “Save your strength and your air—you're going to need every bit of both to assist rescuers. We're going to bring Stud Two up and transfer you and McCallum to their cargo bay and then back here. You think of anything to help that process and let us know—otherwise, stay put.”

“Yes, sir,” Boomer said. A few moments later, he added, “I screwed up, didn't I, General?”

“You did your job, Boomer. Your job is to fly the spaceplane, and you did it.” He took a deep breath, then said, “I pulled the umbilicals and authorized you to push. After Jeff was done, I should've had you return to the station, or at least go into another transfer orbit—if Jeff's fix didn't work, you would've had to come
back anyway. There was no reason to power up Eight with you guys just a mile away. It's my fault and my responsibility, Boomer, got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now let's stop thinking about the accident and start thinking about survival and rescue,” Kai said resolutely, as much to himself as to Hunter Noble. “You've got at least a couple hours before Stud Two can get to you. What we're going to do is start evaluating your condition, and then the condition of your ship, because we need to pass as much information to Stud Two as we can before he launches. You've got battery-powered lights on your helmet and suit, so let's get them on and take a look around.”

 

“Roger,” Boomer said. He felt as if he was underwater, perhaps in the big NASA EVA training tank in Houston—everything was moving in slow motion. But he touched the control on the side of his helmet on the first try, which illuminated two LED lamps on either side of his helmet.

“I've got a hole in my forward windscreen on the upper right side,” Boomer radioed. “That's probably jammed the canopy closed. We'll probably need the ‘Jaws of Life' to pry us out of here.” He turned to his right and felt a stab of pain run through his neck. “Wrenched my neck, but I can move it.” He let the LED light play outside the Black Stallion. “I see a white cloud surrounding the ship, so I'm probably leaking something. Not sure if it's jet fuel or oxidizer—might be both.” He then noticed the Earth—it was traveling overhead from left to right. “Looks like we're slowly spinning, x-axis, counterclockwise, not real fast, maybe two revs a minute—just enough to be annoying.”

“Good info, Boomer,” Kai said. “Keep it coming.”

“Roger.” His fingers began finding their way across the forward and side instrument panels—he was familiar enough with the
cockpit layout that he didn't need lights to find them. “I'm shutting off any switches that are still on, but I'll leave the battery switch on for now so we can communicate.” After he made sure all switches were off, he continued his scan. “Looks like whatever came through the windscreen exited through the left side of the canopy—probably missed me by just inches.”

“Lucky at cards, lucky with flying debris.”

“Unlucky at love, right?”

“We haven't finished writing that chapter yet, have we?” Kai asked.

“No, we haven't, sir. What's going on with the Chinese?”

“They're still heading for Mogadishu, and now we're tracking a large formation of high-subsonic aircraft heading that way, too.”

“Looks like someone's going to get clobbered down there.”

“One crisis at a time, Boomer. Check your oxygen lines and fittings.”

“Roger.” He let his fingers travel along the oxygen lines. He felt some pain when moving his right shoulder, but it wasn't as bad as his neck. “Can't feel any breaks in the oh-two line.”

“Roger that. Stud Two is taxiing for takeoff, Boomer. The tanker is airborne. They'll be with you in about two and a half to three hours. Intermediate orbit, transfer orbit, rendezvous.”

“Not bad. Lucky again.”

“How's your suit?”

“Stand by.” Boomer raised his left arm, then winced as he reached up with his right hand to turn on the suit control panel. “EEAS is on ship's power,” he said. “Battery status is one hundred percent and still being charged with ship's power. Everything else looks like it's in—”

Just then, he noticed a flicker of light off his right side—a reflection in the white cloud of gas surrounding the ship. “Hey, I see a light off to the right,” he radioed. Through the stabs of pain, he craned his neck as far as he could over his right shoulder to see
what it was. “Can't see any…wait, there it is again. It comes and goes. It's reflecting off the vapor cloud around the Stud.”

“Still no cockpit indications?”

“No. I'd have to reset the master switch. Think I ought to give that a try?”

“I don't know, Boomer. If you have a fuel-or oxidizer-tank breach, powering up the ship could set something off.”

“Something might already be getting ready to set off, General,” Boomer said. “I can reset the master switch, check for any sign of trouble, and then shut it off again real quick.”

“And if that starts a fire? What then?”

“Only one option,” Boomer said. He didn't say what it was—that would've been too horrible to think about.

“If you think the risk is worth it, Boomer, do it,” Kai said. “Your help won't arrive for a few hours.”

He saw the flicker of light again—that decided it.
Something
was going on back there. “I'm resetting the master switch…now.” He felt for the switch, clicked it down from the center “OFF” position, then up to “ON.” The cockpit lights turned on immediately…

…and brighter than all of them were the two red-colored illuminated handles on the eyebrow panel marked
FIRE NO.
3 and
FIRE NO.
4.

Boomer's reaction was immediate. He pulled both illuminated handles and waited a few seconds…but the lights didn't go out. He spoke as calmly as he could,
“Fire in leopards three and four
,
evacuating!”
He then immediately shut off the master and battery switches, cutting off communications. His right hand went immediately to a selector switch under the right forward instrument panel and verified it was in the “BOTH” position, then opened a red-colored guard next to it and flipped the switch inside up…

…which blew off McCallum's cockpit canopy using cannons of nitrogen gas, followed two seconds later by Boomer's canopy.

He quickly unstrapped and floated free of his seat. He pulled the headrest off his seat, which was a small survival kit, and clipped it onto his flight suit, then retrieved his HMU and clipped it on his suit as well. Unreeling his umbilical lines behind him, he pulled himself to the aft cockpit, unfastened McCallum's seat straps, and pulled him free of the ship as carefully but as quickly as he could.

Now that he was above the Black Stallion, he could see what was going on: Debris from Kingfisher-8 had hit the two right engines and right wing, creating clouds of leaking fuel. Something inside one of the engines was creating a spark when the oxidizer made an electric arc ignite, but when the oxidizer dissipated, the spark went away. They were extremely lucky that one of those sparks hadn't encountered a cloud of leaking jet fuel and exploded. Chemical explosions in space were extremely rare, but with this much oxidizer floating around, it was certainly possible.

Making sure his umbilicals and tether were connected, he grabbed McCallum's survival kit and HMU, fastened them to his flight suit, then grasped McCallum as tightly as he could and kicked himself away from the Black Stallion. The umbilicals were several yards long, and Boomer thought he would go out to their full length, stay connected to the ship's oxygen as long as possible, use the hand jets to stay clear of the stricken ship as it continued its lazy spinning, and detach as soon as he saw any sign of…

…and at that moment he saw a bright flash of light that obscured half the ship, and a massive tongue of flame curled around underneath the right wing inside the cloud of oxidizer and jet fuel for a fraction of a second before disappearing. Boomer didn't hesitate—he unlocked and released the umbilicals from his and McCallum's suits; then, with a momentary hesitation, unclipped the safety tethers. He then used the hand maneuvering jet to propel them away from the Black Stallion.

He and McCallum were now part of the thousands of pieces of space debris orbiting Earth.

Boomer used his HMU to push them away from the ship, discarded it when it was empty, then used McCallum's HMU to push out farther and to stabilize them both until it was almost exhausted, then reattached it back to his flight suit. He and McCallum were perhaps a quarter mile away from the Stud and slowly drifting farther—that was the best he could do. They were probably safe from all but the “golden BB” piece of space debris. The Black Stallion continued to flash and flare as fuel caught fire for the briefest of moments—it looked like a shiny speckled trout washed up on shore, sparkling brightly in the sun even while it was dying.

Next order of business was to make sure the suits were plugged in, turned on, and functioning. The suits had valves to close off the umbilical lines once disconnected, so Boomer and McCallum had a good supply of breathing air. Each suit had a backup battery to power lights and a short-range single-frequency radio, and he turned that on as well. Both suits had carbon-dioxide scrubbers that should keep CO
₂
levels at survivable levels for several hours—a simple pull of a tab activated the first of two canisters in each suit. That gave Boomer a chance to look at McCallum's suit control panel, and he was pleased to see his pulse light blinking—weak, but it
was
a pulse—and good oxygen-saturation levels.

“Thank God,” he said aloud. “Hang in there, Jeff. If we're still alive, we've still got work to do.”

Boomer thought of waiting to activate the distress beacon until Stud Two was on its way to this orbit, but just in case the CO
₂
scrubbers didn't work and he was rendered unconscious, he decided to activate his beacon and use Jeff's as a backup. Another quick pull of a tab, and the beacon was on. It was meant for use after ejection when on the ground, but supposedly it would work just as well in space. He made sure his Electronic Elastomeric Activity Suit was on battery power—that was one thing McCallum didn't have to worry about; Jeff's suit was fully inflated. The sur
vival kits had emergency oxygen bottles that would refresh the air in the suits for a few hours after the CO
₂
scrubbers were saturated—rescue was imperative after that.