They murmured and started to file out of the overlook, not making eye contact with her.
The man who had called 911 said, “They’re on their way.” He hesitated, and then started to join the people filing out.
“Wait,” Sophia said, nodding for him to join her. “Stay here. I’m going to need some help.”
“Right.”
Sophia directed her full attention to pushing against the senior PAO’s chest. She hoped that nothing else bad would happen today, but she had a dreadful feeling that events would only cascade and become worse … much worse.
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, ISS CONTROL CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS
Scott glanced at the clock. Only four minutes had passed since he’d cut the live feed from the ISS to the public media. They’re probably screaming bloody murder right now, and wondering if they’d really seen that on the ISS, some 250 miles above the Earth. Scott bet that some TV execs might think the NASA feed had been hacked by jokers.
He ran his fingers over the touchscreen and set up a link with the Administrator’s office at NASA Headquarters back in Washington, D.C. The phone was picked up on the first ring.
“Mike Mott.”
“Mini, Basher,” Scott said, using their old fighter pilot handles. His nickname had stuck with him, as had Mini’s. An ex-Marine Corps pilot, Mini Mott was just barely tall enough to qualify for flight training. And even though he had failed to enter the astronaut corps, he had been picked by Patricia Simone to be her executive officer at NASA Headquarters. His buzz-cut thatch of light brown hair was well-known throughout the agency. Small but deadly was the word about Mini Mott.
“We just heard,” said Mini. “Trying to get ahold of the Administrator now. How about you? Do you have contact with the station? How are our folks?”
“Don’t know. We’re out of communication. All links and relays to the ISS are down.”
“What about NASA TV?”
“I severed the live feed to the public right after Vasilev’s murder.”
“Good call.”
“Someone on the ISS took down everything else; probably Farid.”
“So we don’t know if anyone else was killed, right?”
“Roger that.” Scott pulled in a deep breath, trying to calm down. “Where’s the Administrator?”
“Scheduled to be in a cabinet meeting, briefing the cabinet on the implications of the cut in our budget.”
“Crappy timing.”
“Deaths are crappy timing. We’re trying to pull her out now and get the word to her, but the White House staffers are being their usual pricks.”
Scott’s mind raced. “I’ll stay on the line if you need me. We’re doing everything we can to get back in contact with the station.”
“Well tell everyone to try harder—” Suddenly it sounded as if Mini was holding a hand over the speaker, muffling it. Seconds passed, then, “Basher, we’re patching you in to the cabinet meeting. One of the President’s aides just whispered the news to him and all hell’s breaking loose. You’ll be going over the speakers to the President’s cabinet. Tell them what you saw, what the status is, and what you’re doing to help. Can you handle it?”
“Copy that,” Scott said, leaning back in his chair. He kept his eyes glued to the monitors at the front of the room displaying the status of the ISS’s systems. He may not be able to communicate with the ISS, but from here he’d be instantly able to relay any changes in the ISS, from the onboard sensors to even a change in altitude.
He blinked. Change in altitude. Now why did that cross his mind?
“Basher, Mini. Stand by one. We’re patching you through to the White House communications agency.”
The line chirped and suddenly sounded tinny, as though its digital signal was somehow being analyzed and encrypted.
“Lieutenant Colonel Robinson?”
Scott straightened in his chair. “Speaking.”
“Sir, the President of the United States.”
JAPANESE MODULE (JPM)
Carefully grasping the wrenches and screwdriver, Kimberly flew out of the JPM. Once in Node 2, she took a hard right and headed for the opposite end of the station by grabbing the hatchway’s inner handrail, changing her linear momentum to angular. The Klaxon still wailed throughout the ISS, and as she rounded the corner she didn’t see anything at the far Russian end. Her field of view to the Russian SM module, roughly a hundred yards away, was constricted by both the size of each successive module’s hatch, as well as her path as she propelled herself to the aft side of the ISS.
She soared into the U.S. lab, taking care not to hit the metal vestibule opening. Holding the makeshift weapons in front of her, she exited the aft end of the lab within seconds and thrust her hands down, causing her legs to rotate in the opposite direction. As she passed into Node 1 she kicked out, hitting the vestibule, which shot her toward the Joint Airlock entrance, like banking a pool ball off the side of the table.
She flew into the airlock, where Alexi Lashin and Viktor Oloff, the two remaining Russian cosmonauts, and Robert Stafford, her American colleague, had been preparing the EVA suits. They quickly grabbed handholds and pulled themselves out of her way as she zoomed in. Careful not to hit her wrenches or screwdriver, Stafford reached out and clutched her by the arm as she shot by, twirling her around and stopping her in the middle of the module instead of allowing her to whiz past and crash into the hatch.
One of the bulky EVA suits was rocking in its cradle, looking as though someone had been in the process of donning it. Four of the three dozen RTGs stored in MRM-1 were lashed together, floating near the outside hatch. Oloff swam to the vestibule and poked his head out, looking down the long series of interconnecting modules.
“Get back in here,” Kimberly snapped. “Now.”
Viktor jerked his head back inside the Joint Airlock. Pushing against the metal vestibule edge, he slowly floated back into the module and twisted around to look at her, his darkly stubbled face looking puzzled.
Robert’s pale blue eyes were also perplexed as he steadied her. “What’s going on? We heard the alarm—”
“You weren’t watching the docking?”
Hanging upside down relative to Kimberly, Alexi shook his shaved head. “Nyet. We were helping Robert into his suit. We’re moving the RTGs outside the station.”
“Here.” Kimberly shoved the tools at the three men. With quizzical looks on their faces they took the makeshift weapons, but instead of peppering her with questions, their cosmonaut and astronaut training kicked into high gear and they waited for Kimberly to explain, understanding that instead of wasting time asking questions, Kimberly would quickly bring them up to speed.
She glided to the module’s vestibule, which opened to Node 1, and peeked outside. Quickly pulling back, she spoke in a hurried half whisper, briefing them on what had happened.
“They killed Colonel Zel’dovich?” Alexi asked, his voice half an octave higher than normal.
Kimberly nodded. “And Al. And Ivan.” Something inside her wanted to break down and cry, but Kimberly pushed the possibility aside. Not now. Not ever. At least not ’til we get the bastards.