Legacy (27 page)

Collins lowered his head and laid down his bag. “I kind of went overboard there, huh?”

Sarah placed her own bag next to Jack’s and smiled.

“Well, you weren’t shy about saying what was on your mind. You’ve come a long way, Jack. You didn’t use to say that many words in a week.”

Collins finally smiled and put his hand on the side of Sarah’s face.

“Look, short stuff, use your own common sense with this thing. Personally, I think our director could have chosen any number of geologists for this screwed-up plan of his.”

“He needs people he can trust up there, Jack. Besides, it looks like we’re the backup plan here. NASA and JPL threw a fit about axing their more experienced teams. They go first on Ares, at least that’s the word we’re getting.”

“Wait,” Everett said, looking down at the diminutive McIntire. “They get the new system and you’re going on that old relic, Atlas?”

“It probably won’t even work,” Sarah said with a smile, just as Mendenhall and Ryan walked up with their flight bags slung over their shoulders.

“That’s my damn point, the Atlas V is ancient,” Everett argued, angrier than even Jack had been a moment before. He looked at Jason Ryan and fixed him with a look that could kill. “And I don’t think Mr. Ryan can fly this one. It’s not a helicopter or a fighter jet but a million pounds of liquid explosive sitting under his ass. And where in the hell were you, Lieutenant McIntire, when the plane carrying you, Virginia, and the director took off without a preflight check? Were you in a hurry? Oh, by the way, you left Houston with a bomb attached.” Carl was actually leaning toward Sarah. “Everyone here is failing to take the right precautions on this thing, and for a bunch of brilliant people, that’s just damned stupid!”

Sarah seemed to wilt from his accusation, and the way Everett accused her of negligence made Jason and Mendenhall just as angry.

“We’re following orders, just like everyone else,” Mendenhall started to say, but he stopped when an angry Collins stared him down.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” Collins hissed.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Sarah said. “Why are we being attacked? We’re only—”

“Following orders, we know,” Everett answered for Jack. “But last I heard you can only volunteer for the astronaut corps. And one more thing: There are people out there who would like to blow up every attempt at getting up there, in case you haven’t been following the news.”

“Oh, you two are ones for the books,” Sarah answered with a set jaw and firm stance, taking up the challenge of both Jack and Carl. “Like you don’t do crazy stupid stuff all the time!”

“Yeah, and Jason and I always get left behind,” Mendenhall said, becoming angry for the first time he could remember where the colonel was concerned. All of the past came flooding back to him, all the times he and Ryan were left on the sidelines as Everett and Collins took all the risks. The funny thing was, this time Mendenhall knew the best bet was to back out of this crazy thing. Being bullied into it was something altogether unacceptable, especially from Colonel Collins.

The small group was being watched and avoided by many men and women in the hallway. The group looked as if it were about to come to blows. Sarah stepped forward, close to Collins’s chest with Mendenhall right beside her. Ryan dropped his bag and took an angry step toward Everett, who smiled and waited.

“That’s enough!” The voice echoed off the plastic walls from down the hallway.

Everyone stopped talking when the voice sounded. Standing in the carpeted hallway was Niles Compton. He had a look on his face that no one had ever seen before. His clipboard and files were tucked under one arm and his glasses perched on his forehead.

“What in the hell is wrong with you people?” he asked as he approached. “Angry at each other because one group perceives the other is taking the biggest risk? Colonel, what these three are doing is dangerous. I know because I’m in charge of the attempt to get this madness under control. You’re right, Mr. Everett. Space is a voluntary act. I have ordered no one to do anything. Are we clear on that?”

Both Everett and Jack looked away, still angry, but far more embarrassed than they had ever been.

“Now, I think you two have a long-range aircraft waiting for you at Nellis. I’d suggest you get on it and try to find something that will make going to the Moon a moot point.” Niles started to walk past the stunned group of five but stopped when he saw that no one was moving. “I said, now!”

Sarah swallowed and reached for her bag, as did Mendenhall and Ryan. Jack stayed her hand and tried to smile. Everett just held out his hand to Ryan and looked him in the eye.

“Good luck, flyboy,” he said, shaking Jason’s hand. Everett then held out his hand for Mendenhall. “And watch after Will. He doesn’t do too well flying.”

Collins pulled Sarah off to the side.

“I don’t know what the hell is running through my head anymore, so all I’ll say is go and do your geology thing, short stuff. I’ll be here waiting for you. Good luck.”

Sarah smiled and looked around. Then she went to her tiptoes and kissed Jack.

“You too, jackass.” She gave him a small smile.

Jack looked at Will and Jason. He shook his head. He knew they were only doing what he had trained them to do and no one could be more proud of two young men. He shook each of their hands, and then the two groups separated after having gone through the first harsh words exchanged between any of them. Jack and Everett entered the elevator and watched as Ryan, Mendenhall, and Sarah turned and smiled. The doors closed and that was when Jack looked at Everett.

“That, Mr. Everett, could have been handled a little better.”

“We are a couple of asses, aren’t we?” Everett said, smiling at the closed elevator doors.

“And the fact that we’re asses amuses you?” Collins asked.

Everett set his bag down, then turned and looked at Jack, the smile still on his face.

“I really thought Ryan was going to kick my ass there for a minute.”

They both laughed as the elevator took them up to Level 1. The smiles didn’t last long as each of them thought about their friends and the mission they had been chosen for.

The two officers knew that the fates of Will, Jason, and Sarah, along with many others, could very well be in their hands, and at the moment they didn’t know if they could help them at all.

For one of the first times in Collins’s memory, things were happening faster than he had the ability to keep up with and that was what he hated above all else.

“Jack?”

“Yeah,” he said, as the doors opened.

“You know the main reason we were so angry back there?”

Jack threw his duffel bag over his shoulder and stepped out of the elevator.

“Yeah, I know. It’s because we’re too damn old to do what they’re doing.”

The New York Times

It has been widely reported that Russian commandos stormed several locations today in the Republic of Georgia, seeking out extremists in connection with the devastating attack in Kazakhstan at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The terrorist cells that were attacked had long been known for their ties to Muslim extremist groups, including al Qaeda, where Russian authorities claim the plan had originated.

Russian officials have not commented as of today about the link between Georgia and the Middle Eastern terrorist cells they claim to be responsible for the attack. There was no word on casualties in the seven separate military raids.

In a related story, Chinese officials have been silent about the reports coming out of Beijing regarding large-scale protests by Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists in the wake of the Russian attack. It has been confirmed, however, that more than a thousand people have been detained by the state for illegal assembly and seven have been arrested for unspecified crimes against the state. Many slogans have begun to appear in graffiti across this city, some about the corrupt attempt to reach the Moon by this government. The fervor of these protests has not been seen in China since the Tiananmen Square incident two decades ago. Thus far, the People’s Republic has had no official comment about breakaway religion and their concerns about Chinese missions to the Moon and their true intent. Other nations are starting to report large protest demonstrations concerning the expenditure of massive amounts of money and religious ignorance of the space programs involved. Many private think tanks wonder about the cost and the danger involved in such a venture.

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA, 4 HOURS LATER

The conference room was full.

The hookup was a five-way link among the Event Group at Nellis, the White House Situation Room, the Pentagon Space Command, NASA, and the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who have never met him, this is Dr. Niles Compton,” said the president. “He heads a private concern here in Washington that deals with event planning and execution. I have given him the difficult task of analyzing and planning for our response to the events that have occurred on the Moon. I believe he and his team are prepared to outline what our response should be. Dr. Compton, you may begin.”

“The mission is called Operation Dark Star,” Niles told the group “It is a multilevel plan for getting not one, but two complete teams to the surface of the Moon within two weeks, with one emergency crew and their launch platform as a backup.”

Niles saw that the in-house camera systems were registering the shock on the faces of everyone who heard the launch goals. He kept speaking.

“An Ares I and an Ares V, experimental first-stage systems intended for use in the now canceled Constellation Moon program, have already been shipped in sections from their Minnesota facility. Since the emergency on the lunar surface, over two hundred thousand employees from various companies, such as Alliant Techsystems Inc., manufacturer of the Ares system, and Boeing, the contractor selected for the crew module and all upper stage systems for the Ares, have been at work since the systems were chosen. The third and final system, used as an emergency backup, is the Atlas V platform. It has been warehoused in Florida since the Apollo program cancellation in the seventies. All of these systems are viable and on their way to assembly points at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. We
will
launch in two weeks.”

The various rooms exploded with naysayers protesting that the goal was impossible. Again Niles took a deep breath and waited. Not until the president asked for calm did the commotion finally cease.

“In the matter of the crew capsules, we are axing them from the systems. We will shuttle the crews to the International Space Station via three separate shuttle launches from the Cape and from Vandenberg. This action will save payload weight and expedite the systems for readiness.”

“NASA here, Doctor. I know you’ve been working with many of my younger, far more dream-oriented quality and design engineers, but may I ask, since most of us have not been informed, just what are you using the saved payload weight for?” The director of NASA was clearly irked beyond measure that he had been cut out of the loop as far as planning went.

“First off, let me apologize to each and every person hearing of this for the first time, but the president and I felt that we needed new thinking here. That’s why we asked some of the younger engineers to assist. I must also add that they came through with flying colors and devised a viable plan in a difficult area of engineering. As for your question, we are saving the weight because of the larger lander we are using on all three of the systems. We had to cut the crew module and expand a new version of the Orion crew capsule to accommodate five astronauts and seven United States Army Special Forces personnel for each platform within Dark Star. That’s a total of thirty-six crewmen if all three sections of Dark Star are needed.”

Again, the anticipated eruption, this time over the prospect of militarizing outer space by sending armed troops to Moon.

Niles and a few of his assistants began showing the systems that they had developed with the assistance of over a thousand companies. The 3-D renderings of the Orion crew module made it look like a five-deck version of the Apollo crew system. The Altair lunar lander, the new version of the Lunar Excursion Module, was equipped to carry as many as twelve astronauts to the surface of the Moon and return them all safely to the orbiting Orion. The Altair was significantly different from the originally planned module. That one had only carried four astronauts. The new version had been expanded to a multi-deck system capable of sustaining its crew for a full week in the harsh lunar environment.

The workers at Boeing and other specialty plants across the nation had started construction and expansion on the mock-up versions of all three systems the first day that Niles had come up with the plan, and he found himself responsible for the expenditure of over $93.5 billion that the president would never be able to hide from Congress. That number would surely double as it grew closer to go time.

The president waited for calm and then he forced the issue.

“This meeting was not called to argue the validity of the plan, ladies and gentlemen. It was called to consult and advise only. We are returning to the Moon. The individual space programs will have to meet and face a new era of cooperation due to information I cannot share with you here today.” He nodded. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen. We are going back to the Moon!”