“Shit.” Mitch unbuckled and pushed from his chair, heading fast for the rear door.
“What the hell?”
Russell’s mouth dropped open as the feed from the orbiter whited out. “What just happened, people?” He swung one way then the other.
“Lost comms, sir.” Scotty McIntyre was his right-hand man and one of his most senior ground technicians, and he, like the rest of his team, were already working furiously on communication diagnostics.
“I can see that!” Russ backed up, looking over the banks of engineers, technicians, and programmers — all the computer screens were up, but there was no data. None at all. One after another his people sounded off — no communications — no telemetry — no topography, and then, exactly what he didn’t want to hear — Ripley’s gone dark. He ground his teeth; Ripley never went dark as she had her own isolated power source to protect against exactly this sort of thing.
“Goddamn, talk to me people.”
A hand gripped his forearm, and he looked down to see Anne’s ashen face. He had no answers for her.
“Orlando’s still there.” Scott had brought up the radar image, and sure enough, it showed the elliptical lines of the shuttle still in its orbit. Russ breathed a sigh of relief. At least the orbiter was still in one piece.
He finally breathed. “What happened, Scotty?” He looked back at the screen. “Did that damn thing we picked up just EMP us?”
“High probability, boss.” Scotty McIntyre was running simulations, and then shook his head. “But we won’t know until the crew or Ripley tells us.” He turned in his chair. “They’ll need to reboot to bring everything back online.”
Russ groaned. He knew even an automatic rapid reboot still took thirty minutes. We’ve just been struck deaf, dumb and blind, he thought, as he felt his stomach start to cramp. He looked at his watch — and there’s still twenty-eight minutes to go.
CHAPTER 3
The images were reflected back hundreds of times in the multi-faceted compound eyes of the ant as it stared into the bay area through the door’s porthole-like window. It was the highest insect of the pyramid of tiny bodies, and its antenna twitched as it sensed for vibrations.
Though no sound emanated through the hermetically sealed door, it could see the mouths of all three beings were open, and the tiny insect felt the vibrations from the screams right throughout the craft.
The Orlando went dark then, and cold. The ant pyramid collapsed, and the tangled mass of bodies froze, waiting, as they drifted in space.
CHAPTER 4
“Crossing into friendly airspace in three, two, one… now.”
Scott McIntyre, senior NASA technician, continued to watch the screen before him as the blip passed over a red line indicating the Orlando space shuttle had moved out of Russian astro-territory.
“We’re now over the Chukchee Sea, crossing the Bering Strait and coming up on Point Hope, Alaska. Co-ords are: 68°20′49″N, 166°45′47″W. We are looking good, people.”
“Thank god. How long until reboot complete?” Russell Burrows paced, chewing his nails, sipping coffee and generally feeling like the last few hairs on his head were raining down around him like a cat shedding on furniture.
Scott bobbed his head. “Well, if boot-up started when we suspected, then we’ve only got… fifty-eight seconds remaining, and counting down.”
“Under a minute, Jezuz.” Russ clenched his fists and stopped before the largest of the wall data screens that was still dark. He felt it was now like a window onto the vacuum of space giving him back an empty nothingness. He unclenched his sweaty hands but then folded them under his arms, tight, and watched from under lowered brows.
Russ glanced at Anne Peterson, who stood a dozen feet away, her hands clasped before her, and he swore he could see her lips moving in silent prayer as she, too, watched and waited.
Though Russ wasn’t much of a believer in the big head honcho in the sky, he decided, what the hell, he’d say a few words for luck as well.
“Ten seconds,” Scott yelled without turning from his screen.
Come on, Orlando, give me something. Russ used his teeth to nip off another corner of thumbnail.
The room fell to tomb silence as every one of the people in the room stopped what they were doing and stared up at the large screen.
“Three, two, one…” Scott took his hands off his keyboard and sat back. His eyes were wide as he stared.
The panel fizzed for a few seconds, and then began to stabilize.
“Yes! Ladies and gentlemen, we are back online.” Scott raised both fists, but then froze, his mouth hanging open.
It was like a portal to hell — screaming, darting movement as if bodies were running blindly, knocking into things, jerking away and running again. The vision was blurred, or rather greasy, as if the camera lens was coated in something glutinous.
Sticky string-like fibers seemed to reach for them, and were followed by more panicked screams — not just those of men and woman in fear or confusion, but rather like that of tortured souls, yelling in pain and horror from the pits of Hades itself.
“Oh god.” Russ gulped; he couldn’t tell which of his astronauts was screaming, or even if it was a man or woman. He spun to look at Anne who went to her knees, mouth working and eyes wide and wet. He spun back to Scott.
“Turn that down. Non-essential personnel clear the room, now.” He waved to his security detail, and then pointed back at Anne. “Help her out.”
Russ then sprinted to the console next to Scott, as Anne straightened and brushed off any help. Anne glared, first at him, and then back at the wall screen. Tough woman, he thought as he sat down and opened communications with the Orlando.
“Commander Mitch Granger, do you read?” Russ waited for a few more seconds, trying to hear through the hellish sounds on the shuttle cockpit. “Commander Mitch Granger, do you read me, over?”
Russ waited a few more seconds. “Commander Mitch Granger, flight engineer Gerry Fifield, mission specialist Beth Power, do — you — read me, over?”
The screaming continued for several more seconds before it lapsed into sobbing, then moaning, and then nothing.
“Have we lost them?” Russ turned to Scott.
Scott shook his head. “Comm link is strong and holding.” He eased back in his chair, and half turned to the room full of technicians. “Larry, what have you got on their PLSs?”
Russ lifted — their Personal Life Sign should tell them something about their underlying physical state. From across the room, a brush-cut young man named Larry cleared his throat.
“Well, we’ve still got all their signatures, but they’re…” The man looked pained. “…I dunno, different.”
Scott’s forehead creased, and then both he and Russ turned to the technician. “What do you mean, different?”
Larry shook his head. “Looks like they’re unconscious or maybe something even deeper; like a comatose state. Fading in and out. Doesn’t look huma—”
“All of them?” Russ asked, feeling a knot tighten in his gut. “Have they still got atmospheric integrity?”