“No,” Yakov disagreed. “That would be the start of your vector. The zero point is The Mission.”
Duncan looked out the blast windows. The shuttle Endeavor and its launch pad dominated the view between his location and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
“NASA’s never done a dual launch.” Kopina had quietly appeared at her side. “Can they handle it?” Duncan asked.
Kopina nodded. “We prepared contingency plans for this exact occurrence.” “‘We’?”
“Space Command.” Kopina pointed at the shuttle. “Right now that’s the only way we can put people into space. At least in the States. And each shuttle can carry only eight personnel, ten if we disregard some safety requirements. Not exactly a large number. Of course, that’s considering only the crew compartment,” Kopina amended. “Rockwell has been working on a personnel payload pod to fit in the cargo bay, but it’s never been tested.
“Right now, the crew of each has ten people. Most from SEAL Team Six and two from NASA — pilot and copilot.”
“With those two shuttles launched, will we have any space capability?” Duncan asked, thinking about Turcotte’s theory that the shuttles had to be launched first, before the Black Death spread too far.
“There will be one remaining shuttle—Atlantis. It’s currently being refitted.”
Kopina had a model of the shuttle in her hand. “Just so you know a few basic terms that will help.” She tapped the shuttle on top of the large rockets. “This is the orbiter.” She touched the two rockets on the outside of the large center tank. “These are the two solid rocket boosters, which are called SRB. This big tank in the center is not a rocket, but rather carries fuel. Most people don’t know this, but each SRB is bolted to the launch platform by four bolts.
“At launch, the three space shuttle engines, these three nozzles here at the bottom, are ignited first. They’re fed fuel from the external tank so the orbiter can get into space with a full load. It’s a special liquid hydrogen fuel with liquid oxygen oxidizer. When feedback indicates all three are working properly — we’re talking the last six seconds in the countdown here — the SRBs are ignited.” She touched the bottom of the two rockets.
“But we still want to make sure everything’s working right. When it’s determined that there is sufficient thrust-to-weight ratio, initiators — small explosives — cut the eight hold-down bolts on the SRBs and the whole system is now free to go. That’s liftoff.
“Maximum dynamic pressure comes approximately sixty seconds after launch, but it never exceeds three g’s. Two minutes up, the SRBs are just about empty and they’re jettisoned from the external tank. They still have a little fuel left that keeps them going while a small side rocket pushes them away from the shuttle.”
Kopina pointed out to sea. “The SRBs are reusable and deploy a parachute. They come down over a hundred miles out to sea. By that time, the shuttle is moving pretty quickly. For the next six minutes, until eight minutes after launch, the orbiter engines fire. Then, just before reaching orbital velocity, the external tank is jettisoned. It is not reusable.”
“Where does it come down?” Duncan asked.
“Point of impact is the extreme South Pacific, but most of it breaks up coming back down. Two of the orbiter engines are then used to finalize thrust into orbit. Which can be anywhere from 115 to 250 miles up. The mothership and talon are at about 175 miles. Endeavor should be able to link up with the mothership without any problem. It’s not like they could fly by and not see it.”
“What’s in Endeavor’s cargo bay?” Duncan asked.
“Equipment to seal up the mothership and for beginning repairs on the talon.”
“The hole in the side of the mothership must be huge,” Duncan said. “How are they going to be able to seal it?”
“They’ve got high-tech material that can stretch and seal in the vacuum of space,” Osebold said. “The big advantage they have is they’ll be working off of a good base, the mothership itself. Plus they’re working in space. The key is to make the bay able to take an atmosphere.
“Columbia is also carrying material to help make the bay livable. That makes just about sixty tons of material,” Osebold said. “But Columbia is also carrying extra fuel, as we’re afraid it’s going to have a harder time linking up with the talon than Endeavor will have with the mothership. Also, Columbia, after it links up, is going to have to tow the talon to the mothership.”
“Do you guys think this is going to work?” Duncan asked.
“It’s a long shot,” Kopina said. “They’ll need a couple of breaks to succeed. First make both linkups before the shuttles run out of fuel. Then being able to repair the mothership. Then…” She paused. “Well, you get the idea.”
The speaker gave the latest orders. “T-minus one hour and thirty-five minutes. Verify all systems ready for crew module closeout. Perform air-to-ground voice checks.”
“Is that necessary?” Duncan asked.
Kopina smiled. “The speaker? No. Ops has several different channels to the shuttle and the ground crew that they do all the real work on. But it’s sort of a NASA tradition to do a speaker countdown. And, you never know, it’s a redundancy that just might be important.”
“Close crew compartment hatch.”
“That’s it. They’re in,” Kopina said.
Lexina blinked. The first thing she felt was the air in her lungs. It was stale and there was a foul edge to it, but it felt wonderful. She opened her eyes. She was lying on a black metal floor. She sat up and looked about. The room she was in was twenty feet wide and round. The top was the hatch that she had come in through. Light came from a series of blue, glowing tubes spaced vertically every five feet. To her left, she made out the outline of a door, with a hexagonal panel next to it.
As she stood to go to it, she noticed something. There was the faintest trace of a jagged line going around the entire circumference of the tube. It took her a second, but then she realized what she was looking at — the tube had gone farther, probably much farther, when the top of the mountain had been here. The line was what was left after this place had been blasted. Whoever had come later and added the air lock had put it right on the end.
She thought of the power that had been involved in taking off the top of the mountain. She shook that thought away and went to the panel. There was much to do. She went to the side door and entered a code into the panel.
In Vilhena, Norward tried to conquer his fear as he lit a cigarette. He was a doctor first and foremost, and he had seen much pain and suffering in his time, but nothing like this. And never before had he worked knowing he would be on the other end, a patient, very soon. He was taking a short break, sitting behind the infirmary.
He had used Sister Angelina as an interpreter and questioned the few patients who could still speak. He had a good idea now of the timeline of the disease.
Finishing the cigarette, he went back inside. A figure was shuffling down the hallway, a body in her arms.
“Sister Angelina!” Norward moved forward to help.
“I have been trying to move the dead to A wing,” Angelina said. Her white robe was caked with blood and other material that Norward didn’t want to identify. She lowered the body to the floor and pulled the dead nun’s habit over her face. She knelt and crossed herself, her lips moving in prayer.
Norward moved past her and looked into the main ward. There were bodies on all the beds, some on the floor where death spasms had thrown them. He could smell the odor of death. He forced himself to look. They were all bled out. Blood had exploded out of every orifice of the body, including their eyes and ears. That was the virus looking for a new host, having finished with this one. He forced himself to look more closely. The blisters in the black streaks had broken open on all of them. There was no one left alive other than he and the nun.