Alpha Rising (3 page)

“
NASA doesn’t have a
spacecraft suited for a rescue where we are beyond our solar
system. You know that,” Lynch almost yelled. “But the space
station’s nuclear powered heat ’n’ communications relay systems
should be functional. We’re two weeks down without power and we
only got a week’s worth of food, at best. I
will
get us home.”

G.R. headed to the cockpit and confronted
Lynch. “They abandoned that depleted relic three years ago for good
reason. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard the whispered rumors among
the astronaut community of unethical experiments by foreign
countries using that space station.”

Lynch looked at his crew, yelled, and shook
his finger at the same time. “Don’t give me any more crap!” A
cord-like vein divided his forehead and his voice intensified.
“I’ve ridden more flights than all of you combined; lived through
emergencies, oxygen cutoffs, power malfunctions, unexplained
phenomena, and g-pukin’ rookies who thought they had all the
answers, but the fact remains I’m the commander of this ship, and
we’re goin’ to the old space station.”

A three-foot-long feasibility report spewed
from Kaz’s data center. She tore it off and shoved it at Lynch.
“Here’s your sim, Commander, you figure it out.” She stormed to aft
cabin choking back tears and looked through a viewport into total
darkness. “What if we don’t make it? I’ll never see Bach again … or
my parents … or my cats.”

On her heels with the printout gripped in
one hand, Lynch roared, “Cats? Kaz, cats?” The vein on his forehead
bulged again. “We’re in a life or death situation and you’re
worried about cats?”

Her brown eyes locked on his face. “You just
made me more determined not to spend my last days here with
you.”

The commander clamped his hand over Kaz’s
arm and shoved the papers under her nose. “Didn’t you absorb the
data you referenced? We can reach the space station. Look at the
stats.”

The young rookie’s hands shook so hard she
couldn’t read the printout. “I can’t function under this
microcontrol.”

G.R. pressed to her side to study the
simulation for linkup under one of the overhanging gull-wing-shaped
docking ports on opposite sides of the wheel-like space station. He
shook his head. “In my opinion, we should stay put.” His big brows
furrowed. “What worries me most is potential for biohazards left
over from old medical research. I got a wife and three kids.”

Lynch took the printout
from G.R. “They also grew hydroponic food. There’s a chance we can
regenerate those projects. And there should be oxygen canisters
aboard.” His drawl turned hot, “I ain’t wastin’ any more time.
Return to your workstations.” He pointed at Kaz. “Run a sim usin’
the jetpack’s fuel canisters. Get it done. One way or another,
we
will
dock with
the old space station.” He spoke to Deni in the cockpit without
looking at her. “Get your controls reset as soon as Kaz gives you
the specs. We’ll try a manual fire of fuel canisters for
propulsion.”

Deni leaned back and folded her arms across
her chest. Her angry black eyes almost shot sparks. “The space
station’s too far away. This isn’t a one-man show, Lynch. I don’t
like the risks and neither do the others. You’re gambling with our
lives. You know we’ll have just one go at docking. If we screw up,
we’ll be so far off course that NASA will never find us.”

Lynch leaned to within inches of her face.
“I’m the commander and you’re the coxswain, and this is a command.
You sit ’n’ do what you were trained to do.”

“
I wasn’t trained to take
your foolish risks.”

“
Feel free to leave at any
time. But until then, you’re hereby
ordered
to orchestrate the
rendezvous.”

*****

CHAPTER FIVE

Bach and Faith were five days into their
mission, with no sign of the AstroLab, when he asked for NASA’s
approval to search beyond the target area. Waiting for the reply,
he focused on surveillance systems while Faith monitored heat,
motion, and energy sensing devices. In the last two hours they’d
detected three objects in deep space, but none met the Lab’s
profile.

Faith fired off rounds of communications
signals and listened for a response through her headset.
“Nothing.”

Bach stared into the star-studded blackness
beyond the porthole. “They’re out there somewhere. Why haven’t we
found them? This equipment can detect a fly on Mars.”

Faith fiddled with the cross on her
neckchain. “What if we don’t?”

“
We’re gonna find ’em,” he
said firmly. “But it makes me sick to think that if we fail,
millions of dollars will be made by people on Earth turning our
crewmates’ disappearance into extraterrestrial madness.”

She looked at him with an odd expression.
“Do you believe aliens exist?”

“
Didn’t in the past. But to
have lost the AstroLab without a trace in uncharted territory …
maybe there are little green men on Urusa who didn’t want
company.”

Faith tucked the cross inside her jumpsuit
and pondered Bach’s comment.

“
But I’m betting the crew’s
okay,” he added. “Their combination of raw talent, experience, and
guts will prevail.”

“
What if they’re on Urusa?
They were just a day away when they lost communications. It’s a
safe risk. Where else would they go?”

Bach shrugged. “Maybe there’s something
hiding out here that astronomers haven’t discovered.”

“
Like what?”

“
A peculiar warp in the
space-time continuum just beyond our solar system that sends
unsuspecting travelers into a domain where neither light nor radio
waves can propagate. A space inversion where other worlds, other
universes, exist.”

A weak whistle slipped from Faith’s lips.
“Other universes? I’ve read about stuff like that. It would be
awesome, but so far I don’t buy it.” To change the subject she
focused on the latest data from Mission Control. “I wish NASA would
hurry up with that go-ahead, Urusa in particular. If our guys are
there, we’ll just make it in time.”

“
Yep. Pressure’s on.” Bach
said. Then, like all astronauts, he talked to himself. “Adrenaline
rush’s what I love most about this job.”

With screens flickering, lights blinking,
fans and motors droning, the two huddled at the sensor panel and
processed incoming data. When a doorbell-like chime went off at mid
ship, Faith drifted through the cabin to silence the noisy tracking
device. The display screen showed a large mass surrounded by an
energy field in Earth’s solar system, but far from both the
Wizard’s search area and the AstroLab’s last known whereabouts.

A half-hour later, an affirmative communiqué
from NASA reached the Wizard. Bach printed a copy and read aloud.
“‘AstroLab’s crew in contact. Docked with space station.’”

Faith pointed over his shoulder to something
on the page. “Look! A warning! The ship didn’t get there under the
crew’s control.”

“
Whew.” Bach read
more
.
“‘Powerful,
unexplained forcefield catapulted Lab through space like a rock
from a slingshot. Released ship at space station. Lab’s
communications systems inexplicably regenerated on backup power one
hour later. Unhurt crew awaiting arrival of Wizard and
crew.’”

Energized at learning their fellow
astronauts were alive and in Earth’s solar system, Bach and Faith
readied for the rescue. “We’ll dock the Wizard beneath the space
station’s other gull-wing,” Bach said. “Then the Lab’s crew can
jetpack-ferry two over, one back, until we have ’em all aboard.” He
took a deep breath. “Hopefully, we’ll be on the sunny side of the
space station.”

Faith nodded, then read the last line on the
communiqué. “‘Anticipate possible dangers from the forcefield en
route to the space station.’”

*****

CHAPTER SIX

Bach and Faith piloted the Wizard through
deep space without incident. As Bach had hoped, they arrived at the
space station on its sunny side. They welcomed the sights of the
AstroLab safely docked and a view of planet Earth in the distance.
Anxious to reunite with their fellow astronauts, they successfully
linked up under the second gull-wing docking port.

But when Faith tried to report to NASA,
alarms screeched, gongs clanged, and the cabin plunged into
darkness.

Bach shouted, “Total power failure!” His
voice coarsened, “No oxygen regeneration system; no heat.”

With only faint light coming through the
portholes to work by, Faith tried to initialize an emergency
communications link. “Everything’s dead!” she yelled to Bach.

Cabin temperature dropping at five degrees a
minute, Bach called out, “Hurry, pack up what you can. We’ll cut
through the space station to the AstroLab.”

The Wizard’s cabin temperature was now at
fifty degrees.

The two struggled into their spacesuits in
zero gravity and bounced around the cabin gathering breathing
devices, medical supplies, personal effects, a flashlight, and all
the dehydrated food they could fit into two duffel bags. Bach
grabbed the ship’s huge log containing paper copies of processing
equipment data, mission details, codes, and ship schematics. In
addition to records stored in computers, crews documented details
of every mission in journals as an emergency reference.

Wearing air packs and carrying all they
could, Bach and Faith crawled through the Wizard’s docking port to
the space station’s hatch. Bach opened it, then, as if swimming,
the two propelled themselves through the airlock by flashlight,
surfacing near the flight deck. The station’s nuclear powered,
temperature-controlled interior fascinated Bach, and he took in as
much as he could in a cursory glance while drifting by. Seconds
later they reached the airlock on the space station’s far side and
hastened through to the docked AstroLab. Bach opened the Lab’s
exterior hatch and entered the ship with Faith.

The four aboard the AstroLab had watched
Bach and Faith dock with the space station and wondered why they
hadn’t made contact. When they heard noises coming from the airlock
they realized who it was, and as soon as their comrades entered,
Kaz, Deni, and G.R. welcomed them. Lynch stood aside with arms
folded across his chest, impatiently tapping his foot.

Artificial gravity brought Bach and Faith to
a dizzying halt after days in weightlessness. Feeling disoriented,
their bodies as heavy as lead, both braced themselves against the
ship’s walls as they pulled off their helmets and slid the airpacks
from their shoulders.

Holding in excitement at reuniting with her
fiancé, Kaz helped Deni move helmets, airpacks and supplies from
the aisle.

Lynch stepped in front of Bach. “What are
you doing over here? We were supposed to board the Wizard. And how
did you get our hatch open?”

“
Hold it a minute while I
adjust to gravity.” Bach leaned over with hands on bent knees to
ease his light-headedness.

Kaz glared at Lynch and helped Bach to a
seat at mid ship. Deni led Faith to a jumpseat in the galley.

Lynch moved to mid ship and hovered over
Bach. “Bach, what’s going on?”

“
Fill you in … in a
minute,” he said weakly.

“
You’re on my ship now.
You’ll defer to me as commander.”

Bach took a deep breath. “Okay, Commander.
As soon as we docked … we lost all power. No backup, no emergency
systems. Had five minutes to get out alive.”

“
How’d you get our hatch
open?”

“
What do you mean? I just
unlatched it.”

Lynch’s jaw clenched. “I tried to open it
from inside when our communications links were dead. I was gonna
enter the space station to use that equipment. But our hatch was
stuck. I tried everything and couldn’t release it.”

“
Opened right up for me,”
Bach said with a shrug.

“
Yeah. It opened easier
from the outside.” Lynch walked back to the cockpit mumbling, “Now
we gotta get this ship operational.” He reported to NASA that all
had reunited on the AstroLab which was still running on backup
power. During transmission delay, he poked buttons on a hand-held
data processor, then looked back through the cabin and yelled to
the mingling crew. “Get busy.”

Kaz made a face in Lynch’s direction and
whispered like a robot to Bach,
“Avoid-human-contact-at-all-costs.”

Still trying to get his bearings, Bach
closed his eyes.

Ground Control reported that with the Wizard
inoperable, NASA’s communiqué would follow with procedures for Bach
to troubleshoot the AstroLab’s main powerplant. Then the six
crewmates would leave the Wizard at the space station for retrieval
later and would return home together in the Lab.

G.R. wasted no time readying his medical
supplies to check Bach’s and Faith’s vital signs. He pointed behind
the galley area and announced, “I’ve got a closet-sized emergency
room right over there. Go ahead and store your space suits in the
storage holds, then each of you can have a turn on my padded
recliner.” A little laugh-snort followed.

The two struggled to remove their flight
suits. “Where’s the storage hold?” Bach asked. G.R. pointed aft.
Bach stored the gear while Faith sat in the chair.

G.R. lowered the recliner to almost flat,
then hovered over Faith. “I remember you.” He looked down at her
face nodding his Neanderthal-looking head. “You were the top
student in my medical emergency class last year at NASA.”