Executive Intent (22 page)

There was nothing left to do but float. “Hey, Jeff,” he radioed over to McCallum, hoping he was listening while still unconscious, “I'm surprised that I'm so damned calm. Here we are, adrift orbiting around planet Earth and, if not rescued in time, our lifeless bodies will eventually become meteorites. I'm not scared. In fact, I'm relaxed and kind of enjoying the view. I know help is on the way, and our equipment is actually working as advertised. We're good for now.”

He kept on talking, telling stories, doing imaginary interviews about this experience with beautiful and adoring news anchors, telling Jeff which landmarks he was able to see on Earth, and even remarking that he thought he saw Armstrong Space Station whiz by. “I waved my arms, but I guess they couldn't see me,” Boomer deadpanned.

Sometime later, he began wondering if he had made the right decision by abandoning the Black Stallion—but at that instant he noticed a bright flash of light off in the distance. “That blast surely did her in,” he radioed. “You did good protecting us, old girl. Hope to see you when you reenter.”

“Are you talking to me, Boomer?” he heard a voice ask.

“Jeff!”
Boomer raised the dark visor on McCallum's helmet and was relieved beyond words to see his eyes open. “You're awake! How do you feel?”

“Like my head's ready to explode,” McCallum said weakly. He looked around. “Where are we?”

“Adrift,” Boomer replied.

“What?”

“Easy, Jeff, easy,” Boomer said. “We abandoned the Stud a little more than an hour ago. Kingfisher-Eight exploded and creamed the ship. I think the Stud just blew.”

“My God,” McCallum breathed. Boomer didn't need to check his respiration blinker to know McCallum was on the verge of panicking. “Are we going to die out here? Are we going to freeze to death?”

“Relax, bro,” Boomer said. “We're more likely to overheat. In space, there's no air to radiate heat away from our bodies, so it all gets trapped inside our suits. Relax. They're on their way to get us.”

“We have no air?”

“Just what was in our suits when I disconnected us from the ship,” Boomer said. “The survival kits have emergency bottles, and if you need it I can hook you up. But the C-oh-two scrubbers will remove the carbon dioxide for hours.”

“Then what?”

“We'll be rescued before then, Jeff, don't worry,” Boomer said, hoping he sounded convincing enough. “The general launched Stud Two after us, and we have a locator beacon going. Another hour or two and we should be headed back to the station.”

“This is insane. We're going to die out here!” McCallum cried. Just as Boomer heard him beginning to hyperventilate, McCallum reached up to the locking mechanism of his helmet. “I can't breathe, man, help me get this damned thing off!”

“Jeff,
no
!” Boomer shouted, pulling McCallum's hands away from his helmet latches—watching carefully to be sure McCallum didn't reach for
his
gear, like a panicked swimmer pulling a lifeguard under. “Jeff, listen to me,
listen
! We're going to be okay. We're safe inside our suits, we're not going to freeze to death, and we have plenty of air. You've got to relax! We're going to make it!”

“Why did you do this to me, Noble?” McCallum screamed. “Why did you push me out of the ship?”

“It was going to explode. I had to—”

“Things don't explode in outer space, you idiot!” McCallum shouted. “How can something explode without air? You killed me, you stupid jerk!”

“Relax, McCallum,
relax
!” Boomer said in as calm a voice as he could muster. “We're going to be okay—”

“I can't breathe, I can't breathe!” McCallum gasped. Boomer was having a tough time keeping his hands away from his helmet lock—fortunately, the lock was very hard to remove with gloves on. “Help me, Boomer, help me, I'm dying…!”

“No, you're not, Jeff, you're okay, just hang on!” Boomer shouted. “Calm down! We've practiced this a hundred times. Stay calm and we'll wait for rescue together.”

“That's with a full EMU setup, Boomer, not a simple suit without an air supply!” McCallum shouted. “I've got no air! I've got to get out of this thing! I can't breathe!”

“They're on their way, Jeff, just stay calm and relax! Stop struggling! Breathe steady, man, you're hyperventilating! Stay—”

McCallum's hands suddenly left his helmet collar lock and pushed right at Boomer's helmet, sending him spinning away head over heels…and it was only then that, because he was unconscious until just a few moments ago, he realized that in the emergency evacuation of the Black Stallion he had broken the first and most important rule of extravehicular activities: “Make Before Break,” or always attach a tether to something before releasing it…

…he had never secured McCallum to himself.

“Jeff!”
he shouted. “Hold on! I'll be right back to you!” He fumbled around, finally retrieved the Handheld Maneuvering Unit, and used short spurts of nitrogen to stop his tumbling. It took him several long moments to get his bearings. He remembered Earth was “underneath” him, not above him, so he reoriented himself, then used more short bursts to look around for McCallum.

“Jeff, can you see me? Use your strobe or your helmet lights to help me find you!” He heard heavy, rapid breathing sounds, and he prayed McCallum might pass out from hyperventilating. Just
then, he saw him, only ten yards away. His hands were no longer trying to work the helmet lock—it appeared as if he was checking his suit's monitor on his left wrist. “I see you, Jeff!” he radioed, raising the HMU to start his way over to him. “Hang—”

But then he realized what McCallum was doing…because moments later McCallum had stripped off his left protective outer glove and was now working the ring latch on his left suit glove! “Jeff,
stop what you're doing
!
Stop!
Hold on, Jeff, I'll be right over!”

“I can't get my helmet off, Boomer!” McCallum shouted. “It won't come off! I can't breathe! If I get this damned glove off, it'll be easier to take the helmet off!”

“Hold on, Jeff! I'm almost there!” Boomer hit the HMU thruster. If he hit him, he might be able to distract him enough. He had to be perfect, but there was no time to aim…

“I'll get it,” McCallum said in a high, squeaky, strained voice, almost like a child's. “If I can take these damned gloves off, I can get it.” The helmet ring latch was really designed to be operated by a helper, although the wearer himself could do it with a little patience and practice, but the glove's ring latch was designed to be operated inside of an air lock by the wearer, and was therefore easier to operate with space-suit gloves on. Before Boomer could reach him, McCallum had opened the locking mechanism and…

…at that moment Boomer rammed into him. In his EEAS it was easier for Boomer to grasp and hold something, and he grasped at anything he could—McCallum's head, his space-suit material, anything to keep from rebounding back into space. He had flipped right over McCallum, but he held on. They were both twisting around after the impact, but they were together once more. “I got you, Jeff!” he shouted. “Hold on to me, Jeff, and I'll get us secured. Hold on, man, we're gonna make it…”

But just as Boomer began pulling his partner around to face him, McCallum twisted the ring latch another half inch, and with a puff of moisture-laden oxygen, the air began leaking out of his suit.

“No!”
Boomer cried out. He fumbled for the left wrist. McCallum made a loud animal-like bark as oxygen forced itself out of his lungs. Boomer reached the ring latch, but he couldn't force McCallum's hand away in time before all of the air in the space suit evacuated. Boomer watched as McCallum started gasping for air for a few seconds, his eyes bulging in terror, and then he closed his eyes and mercifully fell asleep from hypoxia.

Boomer managed to snap the ring latch closed. He then retrieved his seat-back survival kit, found the small bottle of emergency oxygen, removed the mask, plugged it into the port on McCallum's suit, and pulled the activation ring. It was empty almost instantly. Boomer opened McCallum's survival kit, found the oxygen bottle, and drained it into the suit as fast as he could. No reaction.

Boomer checked the wrist monitor and found less than one-fourth of an atmosphere of oxygen in the suit. McCallum's pulse and respiration were almost nonexistent. His friend would be dead within a couple minutes after all the oxygen in his brain had bubbled out. It was not a horrible way to die—the body didn't explode or freeze, the blood didn't boil—and he was free of the horror of loneliness and certain death that his mind had created.

Now it was Boomer's turn to feel alone as he grasped his friend tightly, refusing to let him go again. But after a few minutes, his mind returned to the here and now. He used the last of the gas in the HMU to turn them around until they were facing Earth's horizon, where they could see both Earth and stars. He had survived a disaster and witnessed his friend's death…but he was alive and well, and he had an unparalleled view of his universe from which not even death itself could distract him.

A thousand things—no, a
million
things—could kill him at any moment, he knew—micrometeorites, radiation, electrical failure, or just plain fear, which did in his friend and fellow astronaut. But for now, he was just going to fall around planet Earth, enjoy the view, and wait for a ride home.

O
FF THE
C
OAST OF
M
OGADISHU
, S
OMALIA

A
N HOUR LATER

The attack began precisely at six
A.M.
local time, just as day-shift workers were arriving at their posts, the markets and surrounding streets were jammed with shoppers and commuters, and weary graveyard-shift workers were heading home:

The destroyers and frigates of the People's Liberation Army Navy began by firing a dozen Hai Ying-4 cruise missiles from fifty miles out. The subsonic cruise missiles took just four minutes to hit their targets around Mogadishu Airport, the Old Port, and the New Port areas, destroying known gang meeting places, arms storage areas, communications centers, power substations, and security checkpoints. At the same time, the first squadron of People's Liberation Army Air Force Hongzhaji-6 bombers launched thirty-six of their own version of the HY-4 cruise missiles. The missiles had only two-hundred-pound incendiary and high-explosive warheads, but they had better than fifty-foot precision and devastated the south part of the city.

The second and third wave of H-6 bombers roared over the city at two thousand feet above the tallest buildings, dropping one-thousand-pound high-explosive and incendiary gravity bombs on main roads, highways, and intersections, including Maka al-Mukarama Road, the main highway between the capital and the airport. The strikes were organized quickly and not well planned, and several bombs hit apartment buildings, shopping centers, markets, and other businesses, but precision was not a top priority. Every building at the airport was attacked and destroyed except for the fuel storage area—the Chinese hoped it would be taken intact. The piers at both ports were left standing, although the warehouses, dry docks, and other buildings adjacent to the port that
might shelter Somali fighters were flattened. Clouds of dense smoke all around the city blotted out the sun, making large parts of the city appear as twilight.

Next, three hundred Chinese marines from the naval vessels landed at Mogadishu Airport by helicopter and crew shuttle boats. Lightly armed four-man patrol squads fanned out along the perimeter of the airport. Their job was not to attack but to call in naval artillery barrages and air strikes. If even one shot was spotted coming from a nearby building, that building was quickly identified, targeted, and completely destroyed by air or naval bombardment. The bomber attacks were timed so that the destroyers and frigates were all within range of their five-inch guns by the time the bombers released all of their weapons and had to withdraw.

The combination of the devastating bombardments and the marines on the perimeter calling in more and more accurate strikes meant that the six unarmed cargo ships could safely move closer to shore, and with the help of commandeered tugboats, they quickly berthed and began to unload cargo and personnel. The original loads of humanitarian supplies and support equipment destined for Tanzania had been partially off-loaded in Karachi, Pakistan, and quickly replaced with warehoused military hardware—rifles, heavy machine guns, mortars, ammunition, communications equipment, protective devices, mines, tactical vehicles, and food and water for a battalion of Chinese soldiers for a week.

By twilight, three thousand People's Liberation Army troops aboard the six cargo ships had surrounded and reinforced defensive positions at Mogadishu Airport and the New Port districts, and scouts had directed intense naval bombardment of the Old Port district designed to suppress any counterattack attempts. Chinese hunter-killer squads began to fan out into the outskirts of the city north and west of the airport, armed with snipers, wire-guided antivehicle missiles, security troops with automatic rifles, and night-vision equipment. Any locals who congregated in any fash
ion and for any reason were ruthlessly attacked, even if the purpose was to collect the dead or injured. The area within a mile of the airport boundary became an instant shoot-to-kill zone, and no buildings stood within two miles of the airport.

That evening, several large transport planes began arriving, one every hour on a varying time schedule, taking extreme defensive measures to avoid being targeted by Somali rocket-propelled grenades or shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles. Each plane carried more troops and supplies, some carrying armored vehicles or artillery pieces. The arrivals were timed with more naval artillery barrages to keep Somali heads down until right before the transports arrived on final approach, when they were the most vulnerable.