Offworld (5 page)

Chris opened his eyes and stared straight up into the colossal F1
engine bell of a very real Saturn V rocket. The mammoth machine
was suspended in the air but horizontal, extending almost four hundred feet in length. The rocket was broken apart and on display in its
multiple stages, enclosed inside a custom-made building lined with
brightly colored gift shops and attractions. Hanging from the ceiling
on one side of the rocket was a row of enormous re-creations of the
Apollo mission crew patches, laid out in chronological order. The
dark building's interior was lit by colorful signs and neon lights, all
designed to appeal to tourists.

Chris knew there were five engine bells attached to the bottom
of the Saturn V rocket, and he lay directly under one of them, off to
one side of the massive ship. He sat up. Before him was a wall of
plate-glass windows looking out onto a line of palm trees, an overgrown patch of grass, and a series of grandstands for VIPs to get the best possible view of launch pads 39A and 39B-from which every
manned mission into space was launched.

He looked around, his mind slow to process. He knew this place.
It was the Apollo/Saturn V Center at Kennedy Space Center. A major
stop on the public tour and not far from the runway on which the
Ares had crash-landed. He'd been in this building many times-he'd
even spoken here before. NASA's golden boy. A career Air Force pilot
who'd been given the opportunity of a lifetime. One he'd promised
he wouldn't fail, though at the time he wondered if the press wasn't
right, that he'd been given the role because of his looks more than
his ability. Being back here returned his perspective. Something
about sitting right underneath the three thousand ton vehicle-the
most complex piece of machinery ever constructed by man, until
the Ares and the powerful booster rockets that shot it into space
came along-always made him feel like a gnat. No single person
could live up to the expectations of the position, so why shouldn't
it have been him?

The Apollo/Saturn building had power, but it was deserted. That
thought helped him remember that he was back home, that the Ares
had crashed violently, but they were alive. Alive, and ... alone? Had
he passed out on the runway? He remembered the world seeming
to spin beneath his feet, and then ...

He'd woken up here.

His pulse quickened, his breaths coming faster, more shallow.

"You're awake."

Chris looked behind to see Owen half walking, half jogging in
his direction from somewhere deeper within the building, carrying
several small items in his arms. He still wore his flight suit, minus
the helmet, and it was then that Chris realized he was still wearing
his own flight suit as well.

"Here, eat something," Owen said as he came closer, maintaining
his logical, businesslike tone, even now. He opened his arms and
Burke saw a selection of snack bags containing chips and cookies, no doubt requisitioned from the building's gift shop or deli. He shrugged
as Chris examined the junk food. `All I could find."

Owen Beechum was the crew's mission specialist, a genius-level
intellect, and the one member of the crew without a background
in aviation. He was an expert in many fields of academia, making
him an invaluable addition to the team. But Owen's appointment
to the crew hadn't come without controversy; he was a late addition, brought on just over a year before the mission was scheduled
to depart. The previous astronaut assigned to his job-a longtime
NASA scientist named Mitchell Dodd-shocked the world with an
announcement that he'd been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. So Owen joined the team. The oldest member of the crew at
forty-three, though he was in the most enviable physical shape of
any of them.

He was also the only member of the crew to have left behind
an immediate family on Earth. On a long-term mission where the
crewmemhers were largely chosen based on their marital and social
status-or rather, their lack thereof-a team member with a wife and
young son who would have to live without him for two and a half
years for the sake of a mission was a hard sell to the public. NASA
argued that Owen's value to the team overrode all other concerns,
but that hadn't stopped the press from being particularly hard on
Owen and his family leading up to the mission's launch, invading
their privacy and labeling Owen as "the ultimate workaholic" and
"NASA's deadbeat dad."

And those were the nicer headlines.

Chris, who had personally chosen Owen's predecessor Mitchell
Dodd as his mission specialist, had been strongly opposed to Owen's
appointment at first, since NASA had overridden his authority and
insisted that Owen be added to the crew. Apparently they'd discovered him teaching at a small university, and his extraordinary mind
made him their new golden boy, an overnight sensation. But despite
the crew's early misgivings, Owen quickly earned their respect and trust by training alongside them day and night, putting in extra hours
to catch up to their levels of aptitude, giving one hundred and ten
percent during the mission, and never once complaining about the
realities of space travel.

Chris noticed that Owen had sweat beads on his bald head, even
though his brawny frame was in optimum physical shape. It would
have taken more than the bulk of Owen's space suit to cause him to
perspire this much.

"You-you carried me here from the runway? All by yourself?"
Chris said.

"It was the closest shelter. That I could easily break into, anyway."
Owen nodded at the wall of glass windows and Chris noticed that
at the bottom right corner, a single pane had been shattered, tiny
pieces all over the floor.

Chris nodded, then tore into one of the bags of cookies. A small
part of him didn't care if they turned out to be stale or not; it would
he the first time he'd had real cookies in more than two and a half
years. Much longer than that, in fact the crew's preflight training
had lasted more than two years itself, and his diet had been strictly
monitored in all that time.

"Where are the others?" he asked with a mouthful of cookie,
looking around.

"Firing Room. We'll meet them there once you've had a chance
to get your footing. I found a tour bus outside that has enough juice
to get us there. Trisha wants to get on the radio and see if she can
reach anyone. She also said something about reviewing whatever
video we can find, to see if we can turn up some clues about ...
what's happened."

Chris nodded that this was a good idea, though he wondered
just how long he'd been unconscious, if this many things had been
decided without him. But then his thoughts returned to the crash and
how they'd emerged from it to find Kennedy Space Center completely
deserted. What was going on here? Was it just Kennedy, or ... ?

No, he had to push all such fears aside. There was still a chain
of command, even when nothing made any sense, and he was still
at the top of it.

"I don't need to wait. I'm fine," Chris said, already getting up.
"Never better."

Owen rose beside him. "No one suspected otherwise, Commander," he assured him with sincerity.

Trisha and Terry rounded a corner and opened the double doors
to Firing Room #2. It was one of two such control chambers located
inside the Launch Control Center, a long, narrow edifice adjacent
to the colossal Vehicle Assembly Building. Like most structures at
Kennedy, the LCC had lots of straight, clean lines and retro white
elegance. Its entire back side was covered with slanted windows that
faced the two main launch complexes, though the Firing Room itself
faced away from these windows.

Seeing the Firing Room empty was perhaps a greater shock to
their systems even than crashing. This room was the central hub at
Kennedy of all operations for their mission; anytime an American
was in space, the Firing Room was packed with hardworking men
and women doing everything they could to ensure the success of the
mission and the safe return of the crew.

The dozens of computer terminals still glowed with power, many
of them continuing to receive data from the downed Ares, even now.
The large main screen at the front of the room was flashing a hazard
warning due to the crash. But no one was there to see it, nor to turn
it off. Trisha located the appropriate console and switched off the
warning lights.

Trisha and Terry were both still covered with bruises and crusted
blood, dirt, and sweat, but they'd shed their hefty flight suits, keeping only their basic one-piece jumpsuits. They had little concern for
appearances; all either of them could think about was figuring out what was going on. There would be time for hygiene and mending
injuries later. Getting their "sea legs" back after years in reduced
gravity was a procedure that normally would have been allowed
significant time and medical assessment, but there was nothing normal about anything now, and they were forced to muddle through
physical oddities like balance issues and decreased muscle mass on
their own.

Trisha suffered the aftereffects worse than any of them. She would
never ordinarily let the others see her wincing or groaning at the
physical exertion each step required, but she couldn't stop herself
from it today.

Trisha Merriday was what NASA referred to as a "twofer" on the
Mars mission. NASA normally had two types of astronauts: pilots and
specialists. Her brief stint as a Marine pilot qualified her to pilot the
Ares when needed, while master's degrees in both astrophysics and
geology gave her mission specialist status.

Though much of her time on Mars was to be dedicated to scientific research duties, NASA made the unusual move of selecting the
twenty-eight-year-old as the mission's second in command. Efficient,
determined, and passionate about space exploration, Trisha was one
of NASAs stalwarts, a friendly, comfortable, and knowledgeable face
to the public, and she wore the fact that she was the first astronaut
assigned to the mission's crew-even before Chris-as a badge of
honor.

She only hoped Terry was too preoccupied with the larger situation to notice that she was operating far below peak efficiency.

So far he seemed to be. The youngest member of the crew at
twenty-four, Terry Kessler played the role of little brother. Diminutive
and squirrelly, with the build of a horse-racing jockey, he operated
almost entirely on instinct in the cockpit, and in life. Terry was a
gifted pilot and confident in his abilities.

His job among the crew had been to pilot the two specialized vehicles carried aboard the Ares that were intended for use on Mars-one being the Martian lander that detached from the Ares and carried all
of the materials that would be needed there, the other the six-wheeled
surface rover. He used the lander to make periodic supply runs back
up to the orbiting Ares so that the crew had all the food, water, fuel,
and other supplies they would need for an extended stay. He also
had a natural clumsiness on his feet and an unerring ability to say
the wrong thing at the worst time.

Trisha knew it was Terry who would be the least prepared to face
what seemed to he happening. If any of them were actually capable
of processing it.

"This isn't ..." Terry faltered. "I mean ... everybody's going
to jump out and yell `gotcha' or something, right? This is not really
happening. Is it?"

"I don't know" was the only real, only honest reply she could
offer.

"It's just .... Terry said, "this is so ... I mean, it's got to be some
kind of ..."

Trisha decided that all she could do was return to what she
knew.

Focus. just focus on the work. And get Terry focused on it too.

"Let's start simple," Trisha suggested. "We need to know how
widespread this is. Have they evacuated from this area alone? Is it
bigger? All of Florida? Even farther? I want you to see who you can
reach. Cast a wide net-try for military installations, weather stations,
police radio, truck drivers, HAM operators. Even foreign governments.
Just talk to somebody. I don't care who."

Terry nodded and made his way to the communications station.
Trisha watched him. He was extremely unnerved by the idea of coming home to the absence of a welcoming party, but she could see
him compartmentalizing it, just as she had. Just as all four of them
would have to.

Training always took over in high-stress situations. She wondered
how long those reflexes would last.

`Any particular frequency?" he asked.

She cast him a glance, dead serious. All of them."

When he turned to the radio without comment, she visited various
workstations around the room, doing routine checks on the status
of the complex, what was left of their ship, and Mission Control's
records. She stood and craned her neck to see out the big rear windows to Launch Pads 39A and 39B three miles in the distance. Launch
Pad 39B was currently home to Athena, Ares' sister ship, which was
scheduled to launch the second manned mission to Mars just days
after the Ares returned. They would pick up where the Ares crew
had left off, using the same ground habitat as core components that
they would add to. The large ship and its booster rockets appeared
more or less ready for launch, but where were her ground engineers
and crew?