Back to the Moon (8 page)

“Why do you have a gun?”
she heard Cassidy say.

“Are you nuts?” Penny demanded, twisting around again to see the two men. “This bucket is about to blast off and somebody's got a gun?”

SMC, JSC

Sam Tate vultured his control room. Everyone on console had his head down, talking over the loops or scribbling notes. Sam sat down, keeping his eye on the clock, and then stood up and sat back down again. He couldn't keep still. He and his people were ready to take over the moment
Columbia
lifted a millimeter off the Cape Canaveral pad. That was the jealous responsibility of Houston. Everything seemed to be nominal, but there was something about this flight that still bothered him. He'd called the IG office but the woman who'd answered the telephone claimed she didn't know anything about an inspection team at the Cape. She was going to check on it, get back to him. That had been over an hour ago. At the Cape,
Columbia
's automatic internal sequence had begun. Sam resisted calling Bilstein. What did he expect Bilstein to do, challenge NASA headquarters a few minutes before launch? Sam stood and started vulturing again. Glaring at his controllers made him feel better, anyway. Tate's Turds, as they called themselves, kept their heads down. A murmur filled the room behind Sam and he turned and saw Center Director Frank Bonner settle into a chair in the glassed-in VIP room. Sam had known Bonner for over twenty years. Bonner had come down as a young fireball from headquarters and was placed immediately into positions of authority. He had even been the chief of flight operations for a year. Bonner was a good manager. He knew every NASA directive by heart. But he was tricky, too, a backstabber. He would attend meetings and just sit in the back, say nothing, and then later one of the participants would be out of a job. Sam wasn't afraid of Bonner but he kept his distance from him too.

Someone tapped Sam on the shoulder. Sam recognized him as Hank Garcia, Bonner's assistant. “Frank would like to see you, Sam,” Garcia said. The thin, balding man wore a sorrowful expression, as if he were summoning someone to an execution.

“I'm busy,” Sam retorted, turning away and pressing his hand against his headset as if he'd just received an urgent communication.

“He really wants to see you,” Garcia said, undaunted.

Sam eyed Garcia. The man looked pitiful.
Might as well get it over with.
Sam took off his headset, marched into the VIP room. “Dammit, Frank, I've got a shuttle about to launch.”

Bonner smiled as Sam came in the room, reached out his hand. “Sam. Been a long time. You used to come by the office, play cards at lunch. You never do that anymore.”

Sam shook Bonner's hand while straining to remember the occasion Bonner was talking about. It had to have been at least fifteen years ago. “Been busy, Frank.” He shrugged. Like most engineers he wasn't comfortable with small talk.

“Sam,” he said, “is your team ready?”

“I guess you know that they are. You approved our training budget. We've drilled this team with a dozen full-scale sims, thrown every mal at them known to God and man. They're a good bunch. Hell yes, we're ready.”

“Good,” Bonner said, and then was quiet for a moment. “It isn't my fault
Columbia
's being retired, Sam. I fought against it. The vice president had his mind made up.”

“I never said it was your fault, Frank,” Sam said truthfully.

Bonner nodded. “Have a good flight, Sam.”

Sam left the viewing pit, went to his console, put on his headset. “What did Bonner want, Sam?” Crowder, his assistant Flight, asked.

Sam shook his head. “Nothing. He's just the loneliest man I've ever known.”

Launch Complex 39-B

With a groan the crew access arm began its automatic retraction. The ingress team, hunkered sullenly in the baskets, stood up, eyes wide. “Automatic launch sequence! We got to go!” Guardino screeched.

“Yes,” Jack replied calmly. “You do.”

Firing Room, Launch Control Center, KSC

Aaron Bilstein stood at his console, his plump body swaying as he looked over his team camped out in front of their blinking consoles. This countdown was as smooth as any he had ever run. The only glitch he could name offhand was that the television camera in the white room had kept frying itself until it had gone off completely. No problem. C-SPAN, the only network carrying the launch, didn't come on board until seconds before launch, anyway. It was all going like a precision watch.

“Launch control, this is security.”

Bilstein squeezed the transmission button on the comm unit attached to his belt. “Go ahead, Ty.” Ty Bledsoe was the chief of the security guards at the pads.

“Aaron, UAC says the ingress team never showed up at the fallback. I checked with the gate. They don't have a record of them leaving the pad.”

UAC was the United Aerospace Contractors, the ingress team's employer. “You think they're still at the pad?”

“Not really. The team got permission some time ago to go over to the slide-wire landing-area blockhouse and watch the launch from there. They were only supposed to do it for one launch, but you know Shorty Guardino and his guys.”

Bilstein's eye fell on the countdown clock, a huge digital timer above the launch control room. T minus one minute, twenty-four seconds. The ET was pressurized, the nozzles on the main engines were aligned. A hell of a time for a glitch like this. He was going to raise hell with UAC during the debrief. “Get some eyes on the tower, Ty,” he growled. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Anytime, Aaron.”

Fifth Level, FSS, LC 39-B

Barnes reached what she hoped was the crew accommodations level after climbing up the inside ladder. One of the lifts was there, blocking her. The door of the shaft of the stuck lift was closed. She hung on with one hand, stretched her body as far as it would go, and pushed her fingers inside the crack between the doors. She got a grip through the rubber bumpers and pulled with all her might. She worked out at the gym constantly. Her strength training paid off. When she got the door pulled back a few millimeters, it automatically opened.

Slide Cage Area, LC 39-B

Jack handed Guardino an envelope. Puzzled, Guardino turned it over. “What the hell is this? What are you trying to pull?”

“Give it to NASA,” he said, and slammed the release levers forward. The baskets fell until the cables took up the slack, then the overhead pulleys began to screech. Guardino opened his mouth but Jack couldn't hear what he was yelling. Then he was gone. The two baskets raced down the cables. Jack watched until they slammed into the restraint net at the bottom and then, to his relief, saw the ingress team get out and run like rabbits for the bunker. Jack moved quickly to the mini—control room behind the IG curtain and threw the switch that sent a signal to the connection terminal room located below the pad's elevated hardstand. A series of ten blasting caps on the main line were actuated, any one of them enough to blow the three-inch-diameter cable apart. The Launch Control Center no longer communicated with
Columbia.

Firing Room, LCC, KSC

The voice level suddenly rose, calls coming over the loops. Ground Control got to Bilstein first. “Launch, we've lost service to the stack. Looks like a break in the main line.”

Bilstein responded. “All positions, this is Launch. This is a hold! Stop all launch proceedings immediately!”

The GC immediately came back. Commands were not getting through to
Columbia.

“What the hell do you mean. . . ?”

“The line's dead, Aaron.”

Bilstein looked at the countdown clock. It was stopped at T minus thirty seconds. But what was going on at the pad? The answer came quickly in a call from Ty Bledsoe. “Launch, this is Security. We got people coming down the wire. I say again, people in the cages coming down the wire!”

“What the hell, Ty. . . ?”

“I know, Aaron. I got a team going out there now to pick them up.”

“No, wait!” Bilstein cried. “We don't know if
Columbia
's on hold or not. Just wait....”

“Jesus, Aaron!”

SMC

Sam couldn't believe what he was hearing, but still he resisted the urge to get on the JSC/KSC push and yell at Bilstein. He knew the man had his hands full. From the excited chatter on the KSC loops it sounded, in fact, as if a full-blown disaster was in the making. In frustration Sam pounded both his fists on the console table. Tate's Turds ducked their heads. He turned to look over his shoulder. Bonner just sat, staring, disbelief written all over his face.

FSS, LC 39-B

Jack ran into Barnes just as she emerged from the elevator shaft. He tripped over her, both of them sprawling on the deck. He stared incredulously at the tiny astronaut. She was looking back and Jack realized his blue suit made her think he was also an astronaut. He took advantage of that. “There's a fire in the shuttle,” he said, helping her up. He pushed her inside the open elevator. “Go down to the ground level and stay inside and you'll be safe.”

“The rest of my crew are trapped in the other elevator,” Barnes said.

“I know. A glitch. But we think they're safe there.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Why don't I know you?”

Jack looked over his shoulder, anxious to be on his way. “I'm an ex-astronaut, never flew. They let me wear the blue suit anyway. I'm here with the, uh, fire team—contract outfit.”

Barnes stared at him but didn't move, so he reached past her and pushed the ground-floor button. “Don't come back up,” he warned as the doors closed on her.

Jack turned, saw to his astonishment that Cassidy was coming down the passageway carrying a pistol. It was a big, blunt, and ugly instrument, a .45 automatic. “What the hell, Hoppy?” Jack demanded.

“I took it off Virgil,” Cassidy said, disgustedly brandishing the weapon. “I guess he was afraid we'd have to fight our way off the pad. I came out to pitch it and find you. We've got trouble. Dr. Penny High Eagle is strapped in—”

The sudden groan of the last flush of the propellants washing through the cryo pipes drowned out the rest of what Cassidy was trying to say. “Let's go!” Jack yelled. Whatever it was, they'd have to sort it out later.

The elevator door suddenly opened. Barnes was standing there. “Listen—” she started to say, then stopped, her mouth agape at the sight of the two men and the pistol.

Instinctively, Cassidy raised the .45 toward the astronaut. Barnes ducked and threw herself forward, hitting Cassidy's arm. He dropped the pistol and it hit the steel deck, punched out a round, and slid over by Jack's feet. Cassidy lurched forward and fell onto the deck, taking Barnes down with him. “Jesus.” Cassidy gasped, his face contorted in pain.

Barnes quickly got to her feet while Jack snatched up the pistol. “Holy shit,” she breathed when she saw him point it at her.

“The shuttle's going!” he bellowed. “Get in the elevator now!”

Barnes's eyes rolled at the grumble of the cryos, the flexing of the ET with the super-cold liquids. She didn't move. “You're sure I'll be all right in there?” she asked plaintively.

Jack kept his finger outside the trigger guard. He was taking no chances on another misfire. “Yes. We've tested it,” he screamed. “Now, go!
Go!”

Columbia

Penny struggled to see what was going on behind her. The roar of the propellants flushing through the external tank was like a locomotive. “For God's sake, close the hatch!” she screamed when she saw it was still open. “We're about to lift off!”

“Come on!” the big technician was yelling at the opening. “Come on!”

“Are you crazy?” Penny yelled. “Close the hatch or we're dead!”

FSS, LC 39-B

Jack tucked the pistol in his belt and made for the crew access arm, hauling Cassidy with him. He'd lost all track of time. It might already be too late. He pressed the hydraulic actuator, and stumbled down the catwalk, Cassidy leaning heavily against him. The swinging, swaying arm, 150 feet off the ground, started to move.
Columbia
came into view at the end of the arm and Jack saw the open hatch, Virgil inside urging him on.

Then something happened. Not used to being slammed wide open, the hydraulics jammed and the arm stopped, frozen in place. There was a yard of empty space between the catwalk and the hatch.

Cassidy was coughing. “Jack?” He looked up into Jack's face. “I'm sorry, Jack.”

“Not your fault, Hoppy.” He looked up, saw Virgil at the hatch. “Help me with him, Virgil!”

Virgil reached out, grasped Cassidy beneath his arms, and dragged the pilot aboard. Cassidy screwed up his face in pain. A little blood was staining the right thigh of his coveralls. It had to be a flesh wound, Jack thought. It was only a ricochet. There was a medical kit aboard—antibiotics, sutures, everything. He could fix his pilot, he was certain of it. He also had no choice. There was no time to get Cassidy off the pad.
Columbia
was the only refuge left.

LCC

Incredulous, still not quite grasping the enormity of what might be happening, Bilstein turned to look out the viewing windows at pad 39-B. He knew that if
Columbia
was continuing her automatic internal countdown, the solid rocket motors were already punched up, their control systems fully activated. The solids were unstoppable once lit. But the solids wouldn't go until the main engines were turned on and no matter what the shuttle's internal computers were doing, the mains could not ignite without a command from the LCC. That was Bilstein's ace in the hole. No matter what happened out there, without an order from the LCC,
Columbia
was going nowhere.

Cedar Key, Northwest Florida

No one on the little island in the Gulf of Mexico took note of the eighteen-wheeler pulling out of the otherwise empty parking lot at the MEC facility at the airport. Inside the truck packed with electronics, Sally Littleton pressed the return button on a desktop computer and the disk inside started its program. “Godspeed, you guys,” she mumbled. “Amen,” someone else in the trailer automatically added. A red light on the console confirmed the connection with
Columbia.
The screen blurred with a column of numbers and then stopped. GO FOR SSME START, the screen blinked. GO FOR SSME START. A wild cheer erupted inside the trailer.