Offworld (4 page)

"What was that?!" Trisha screamed.

"Felt like we lost an engine bell," he shouted.

"Correction!" Owen called out behind them, and there was no
mistaking the sharp tone of alarm in his voice, because neither of
them had heard it before. "Commander, I think the entire rear half
of the ship just came apart!"

"Say again?"

"I'm reading no oxygen, no power, life support, or anything else
past the lavatory! I think everything on the other side of the bathroom is just gone!"

Chris didn't have time to absorb this, to think through options.
He just acted. "Prepare to undock the command module! Let's jettison
whatever's left back there before power goes out again!"

At that moment, they were plunged into deep blackness once
more. Each of them knew without needing confirmation that it would
be the last time the ship's interior would ever see light. The Ares continued to spin, faster and faster, rotating like a rotisserie chicken. Chris
swallowed repeatedly to avoid vomiting in his helmet -a dangerous
proposition since his helmet was sealed. He could feel blood rushing
to his head, and he hoped the others were faring better.

But then, it didn't really matter at this point.

It was over. The mission. The ship. Their lives. All of it was dying, reaching the ultimate ending, and nothing would stop it. All they
could do was try to hold on as long as possible.

The g-forces grew more powerful than ever, pressing Chris into
his seat back, and threatening to thrust all three of them into unconsciousness. Chris felt a wave of weariness wash across him. It was
a very inviting exhaustion, but he was too well trained to embrace
it so easily.

He blinked the sweat back, holding tight to his armrests even as
he realized the bolts and welds of his seat were slowly being shaken
loose by the ship's catastrophic bucking, spinning, and trembling.

With the sound of the ship roaring around him, consoles about
to melt, and his seat ready to rip free and send him flying, he called
out, `Anybody still conscious?"

"Still with you" came Trisha's voice, though it was faint. He tried
to look at her but couldn't escape the gravity enough to swivel his
head. All he could do was stare forward into the blackness that still
surrounded the ship.

Are we headed for home? Are we someplace else? Did something
swallow its whole and that's why we can't see anything?

What is out there?

He felt heat radiating through the hands of his suit from where
they touched the arms of his metal chair. He closed his eyes; the heat
was making it hard to keep them open anyway.

Chris thought he should say something to his crew, but he didn't
know what. Offer them some last gasp about "going down with the
ship," or tell them what an honor it had been to serve with them? It
had been an honor, but the words felt inadequate in his head.

And impossibly, even though he felt foolish for it, his thoughts were
jumping so fast from thought to thought that he couldn't help arriving
at how this disaster would forever tarnish the historic Mars mission,
and NASA's reputation. He could hear the newscasters in his head: "The
first manned mission to Mars ended in a horrific tragedy today, which
throws into doubt the entire future of manned spaceflight. ..

There wasn't time to waste on such thoughts. These were about
to become the last minutes or seconds of his life. He should use them
for something more important, more personal. Something for his crew.
Above all others, he felt he should at least say something to Trisha. But
he couldn't conjure up any words, with the ship spiraling so violently
around him, the noise, the heat, the pressure, the pain of being pressed
deep enough into his seat to feel the metal framework inside.

The high-pitched whine of the ship turned to a series of creaks
and groans, and Chris knew that this was it. What was left of the Ares
was ripping itself apart out from under them, from the tremendous
stresses being placed upon it. The spiraling was so fast that consoles,
tools, dials, and screws were shaken loose and went flying through
the compartment in a mad cyclone. Any second a ferocious final
surge would separate the command module around them, and they
would be sucked out by the explosive oxygen decompression into
space. Their bodies would be lost forever, unrecoverable by NASA,
drifting forever out in the depths of the universe.

That is, if that really was space as he knew it out there in the
black.

Either way, they would be dead in moments. Seconds. Maybe
less.

So ends the noble Ares and her crew ...

The window suddenly cleared, and he saw that something was
rushing straight at them. Or maybe they were rushing at it, faster
than a bullet.

Chris opened his mouth and shouted at the top of his lungs,
"Brace yourselves!"

The words had just left his mouth, seeming to hang with a hollowness in the air, when everything went black.

Chris coughed himself awake. He was sopping wet.

Smoke filled the cockpit, but the emergency floodlights had kicked in, warning alarms flashing, bathing everything in red. The windows
were still completely blacked out.

The ship was no longer moving.

Trisha sat beside him, still buckled into her seat but unconscious,
a trickle of blood evident near her left temple.

Behind them, Owen wheezed, a bubble pulsing in his nostril.

The heat inside the cockpit was almost unbearable. Chris felt as
though he was being smothered by his heavy space suit.

"Terry .. " he whispered, trying to see the back of the cockpit
through the haze and smoke and dim lights. He unstrapped himself
from his seat and pulled off his helmet as Trisha and Owen slowly
began to regain consciousness.

When he stood, a rush of vertigo overwhelmed him and he
teetered but didn't fall. Chris wondered how much time had passed
since the ship came to a stop. He was forced to move slowly, feeling
his way through the command module in the relative darkness and
smoke.

He almost stumbled over Terry, who was in a crumpled heap
near the main hatch.

"How is he?" asked Owen.

"He's breathing, but he's pretty banged up," answered Chris.

"We have cabin pressure," Trisha said, springing to life, her gloved
fingers sliding across her damaged console with practiced precision.
"Backup power is up and running."

Chris turned Terry over and pulled the young pilot's helmet off.
"Did the command module ever detach?"

"I can't tell," replied Owen.

Trisha spoke up again. "I think-I think we landed. I have a
GLS light"

GLS stood for Ground Landing System, an automated program
designed to take over the landing procedures for the crew should
they be rendered incapacitated. It was housed and operated entirely from the ground, close to the runway at Kennedy Space Center in
Florida.

"Hey," moaned Terry. "What ... ?"

"Take it easy," said Chris. Owen joined them and helped Terry
up to a sitting position. Chris returned to the front.

"You're hurt," he said, unlatching Trisha's helmet as she continued to work. He dabbed at the gash on the side of her head with
his fingers. It wasn't bad, although he could feel a sizable egg rising
under the skin.

"Minor concussion at worst," he said. She didn't respond, focusing
instead on her work.

"We have gravity," Terry offered, sounding a little more awake. "If
the GLS kicked in ... then we're on the ground at Kennedy, right?"

Owen looked up. "If we're on the ground," he said, his brown
eyes scanning the windows, "why is it still dark outside?"

`And why haven't they come for us?" asked Trisha. It was standard
procedure after a space landing for the ship to be surrounded by
rescue and cleanup personnel. Even though they couldn't see out, or
communicate with anything beyond the ship, they should at least be
able to hear something from outside. If nothing else, a NASA worker
should have knocked on the hatch by now just to see if they could
get a reply from the crew.

"If we're not on the ground ... we're on something," Chris concluded. He worked his way back to the hatch again, and despite
Owen's protests, Terry pulled himself up to stand.

Trisha stood, satisfied that everything that could be done to secure
the ship had been done. She quickly moved to a first-aid locker and
retrieved a few supplies.

"The flight surgeon can patch us up," Terry said, refusing Trisha's
help.

Chris squinted, trying to see through the tiny window in the
hatch, though it was dark.

"What do you see?" Terry asked, massaging a bruise on his
wrist.

Chris shook his head. "It's just dark." He turned. "Beech?"

Owen stepped over to his console and examined it. "I'm reading oxygen outside," he said with a heaviness in his voice as Trisha
poured something onto a cut on the back of his neck. "Atmosphere
is clear of chemical toxins."

Chris looked around, doubt coloring his features. Landing spacecraft were known to give off various dangerous chemicals immediately
upon landing that couldn't be safely breathed. If the air was already
clear of those contaminants, then the four of them had been unconscious for a few hours, at least. He waited until Trisha met his gaze,
his unspoken question answered with a nod.

"We can't stay here," he concluded. "The ship is too hot, and this
smoke isn't good for our lungs. I don't think we have anything to lose
by opening the hatch. Agreed?"

There were nods all around.

Chris clutched the mechanism that released the hatch. A loud
hiss pierced the air as the cabin depressurized to match the outside
atmosphere, and he felt his ears pop. Just ahead was a second door,
the outer door. He moved to it, unlatched and pushed the door
downward until it opened....

He was immediately bathed in intensely bright light.

It was so bright that Terry, Trisha, and Owen put their hands up
to block the light from their eyes.

Without a word, Chris stepped from the ship onto the outer hatch,
which had folded down into a stepladder. The others soon joined
him, standing on the steps just outside the ship.

They scanned the horizon in all directions.

The ship had come to rest on the long runway at Kennedy Space
Center. But their arrival couldn't be called a landing.

Trisha was the first to turn back and examine the craft. The others followed her, and Chris' blood turned to ice. The Ares' command module was unrecognizable-charred and disfigured, her ceramic
outer tiles and windows burned completely black, her two wings
withered and torn. The tail fin was gone. All that was left of the
mighty rocket ship that carried them to another planet was a tragic
heap, an utterly ruined mass of black, burning metal.

Chris shook his head. "We shouldn't have survived that."

"We're alive, man," said Terry. `And we're home. That's enough
for me."

Owen's eyebrows were furrowed as he scanned their surroundings. "Has anyone else noticed that `home' is ... awfully quiet?"

The others examined the landscape. It was true. There was nothing moving, no people or rescue vehicles. In the distance, there were
no cars driving along the roads of Kennedy Space Center. From the
sun's position overhead, it was late morning, but it was as if no one on
the planet had noticed a flaming rocket ship falling out of the sky.

Chris stood up straighter, blocking out the bright sunlight with
his hand and squinting into the distance. "They should have sent the
ferry to retrieve the ship," he said. "You think we're giving off too
much radiation?"

"Maybe they didn't think there was anything left of the ship to
retrieve," suggested Terry.

Trisha stopped winding a bandage around Chris' forearm, and
looked up. "There's us," she said.

A long moment passed in silence as all eyes scanned the NASA
complex surrounding them. For the first time in his life, Chris felt
weak in the knees.

"Nothing," said Owen slowly, "is moving. At all."

Terry spun, looking in all directions. "Where is everybody?"