Andrew Mayne
Station Breaker
Thank you to everyone who provided me with notes, corrections and input on this book.
Preface
All of the technology described in this book is either currently being tested on the launch pad or in advance stages of development.
This is a story of the very near future.
[Cosmodrome]
Drops of blood trickled through Natalie Kharitonova’s fingertips and splattered into the puddle below. She caught her distraught reflection in the pool of water and the glow on the horizon as a RD-300 rocket engine fired on its test stand, lighting up the night sky over Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Bracing herself against a silver sedan, smearing blood across the door, the roar was a distant hum under the sound of her own difficult breathing.
"Don't run," said the thick-jawed man from the window of the black Mercedes as he rolled up.
Natalie pushed away from her resting spot and stumbled further into the parking lot, trying to find someone to help her.
A minute ago she was reaching for her keys when the two men came to a stop.
"Natalie," the driver had shouted, feigning familiarity.
When she turned to look at who was calling to her, he fired his pistol.
The noise startled her more than the wound. She thought a rock or something sharp had flicked her. It was the growing numbness and the sight of blood on her palms that told her what just happened.
In an instant she knew this was about what she had seen a few hours ago.
It had been a clerical error. As a payload supervisor, normally it was her job to inspect all cargo before being loaded onto the Baikal rocket — except for military cargo.
But this wasn't a military payload, or at least she hadn't thought so. There was no certificate from the Army, much less a liaison officer from Roscosmos.
Clipboard in hand, Natalie had donned her clean room scrubs and entered the sterile chamber just like she did for every other launch. When she saw the plastic case sitting on the table, there was nothing indicating it was military. But when she cracked the seal and looked inside, she realized immediately there must have been some mistake.
She quickly closed the case, but it was too late. The escort assigned to the cargo had re-entered the room, having momentarily abandoned his post.
There were no words exchanged between them. Natalie made a quick exit, not even bothering to throw her garments into the bin.
She headed straight for Supervisor Volodin's office, Roscosmos Chief Zhirov's right-hand man, and told him what she had seen.
He listened carefully, made a call, then gave her a warm smile and told her it was just a mistake. Everything was fine. There had been a mixup with some sensing equipment.
Natalie thanked him, laughed it off, pretending the best she could. She knew he was lying. Having an engineering background, there was no mistaking what was in the case.
She wasn't sure what she was going to do about it, if anything. Then the Mercedes pulled up and the man shot her.
Natalie managed to weave through another row of cars, but her legs were betraying her. Darkness began to encroach her peripheral vision as she continued to bleed out.
She made one more stride, then collapsed on the wet pavement. Unable to move, yet still somewhat alert, she heard the footsteps of the approaching men.
"Get her into the bag, then place her into the trunk," one said to the other.
Natalie felt their rough hands as they picked her up and laid her inside a plastic pouch — the kind they keep onboard a spacecraft in case of a fatality.
The scent of the material reminded her of a spacesuit, which set off a mental trigger in her mind. She remembered where she'd seen these men before…
Their names were Yablokov and Domnin. They were cosmonauts. They weren't supposed to be here. They were supposed to be getting ready to launch in just a few hours.
That thought faded as quickly as it came. When they zipped the bag over her head, she worried about her daughter, Elena. If Natalie didn't call and remind her, she would forget to start the oven and dinner would be cold.
1
Space Gun
T-minus 4 hours:
I think my Commander is insane.
Not the kind of insanity natural to anybody willing to sit on top of a million gallons of explosive fuel — but the workplace shooting kind of nuts.
I tell myself I'm the crazy one. This is Commander Halston Bennet we're talking about. I've known him for years. Yet, a second ago I saw him in the prep room mirror slipping a gun into the side pocket of his spacesuit when he didn't think anyone was looking.
At first I don't think anything of it. Bennet, after all, is the manliest man you'll ever meet; a former Navy pilot, SEAL instructor, and a NASA astronaut before coming to work for iCosmos. Of course a guy like him would carry a gun into space. Military pilots are taught hand-to-hand combat in case they come down in hostile territory. Russians keep pistols on their Soyuz craft in case they land somewhere with wolves — which is just about everywhere there. Maybe Bennet is just planning for any contingency?
Hell, maybe he wants to shoot Martians.
I try to put it out of my mind, but I can't. I should say something.
Maybe it's just a standard operating procedure I don't know about? In that case, telling Renata, our launch manager, that he has a gun won't be a big deal.
But what if it's Bennet's little secret? Maybe he's not supposed to do this, but the piece is his good luck charm?
If I rat him out, he could be out of the company and I'll probably catch shit for being the one that finked on an American hero.
An American hero.
Halston Bennet is the kind of man that made me want to become an astronaut. He's the man I want to be when I grow up. He's also the one that trained me to go into space.
Space.
Holy shit.
Of course this would happen on my first mission.
Hell, I didn't even know I was going until twelve hours ago. I was an alternate for Robbie Carlyle. I got a phone call at 3 AM telling me I needed to get my ass to Canaveral in the next hour.
The official story is Carlyle suffered a sprain while working out.
The real story is that he slipped in the shower getting busy with some girl other than his regular girlfriend.
I've been listed as an alternate six times. After the fifth time the astronaut I was alternating for defiantly refused to show up with the flu, a broken leg or visible cold sores, I kind of gave up and decided I'd be going into space after about the 10,000th rich jerk-off tourist flew out of Mojave in one of those suborbital tin cans they call a spaceship.
Then I got the call.
I'd been waiting for that call ever since I decided I wanted to be an astronaut.
Not because I wanted to set foot on Mars or perform earth-shattering experiments in micro-gravity. But because I wanted to fly things. The faster the better.
My heroes have always been pilots. From Chuck Yeager to Han Solo, I wanted to be the guy at the controls — a guy like Bennet.
Bennet. Damn it. In some alternate universe I was going to be a military guy turned NASA astronaut like him.
Imagine my disappointment when I was seventeen years old and walked into an Air Force recruitment center wearing my Coke-bottle glasses and was told in no uncertain terms the only way I'd see the inside of a fighter cockpit was if there were paper towels and a bottle of Windex in my hand so I could clean it for the guys with perfect eyesight.
Pissed, I worked two jobs that summer; getting up hours before dawn to fold newspapers and deliver them. I can still smell the wet ink and feel the warm newsprint in my hands as it sucked all the moisture from my fingers. After that, I worked at Burger King during the day, getting laughed at by my friends as they came into the place imagining new and ridiculous ways to "Have it their way." Har har, guys.