Red Horizon: The Truth of Discovery (Discovery Series Book 2)
Red
Horizon
Salvador
Mercer
Dedication
P.P.
Red Horizon Copyright © 2016 by Salvador Mercer.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact; Salvador@salvadormercer.com
www.salvadormercer.com
Edited by: Courtney Umphress
http://courtneyumphress.com/
Book and Cover design by Christine Savoie aka ‘Cagnes’ c2016
ASIN: B01GQTBNX6
Second Edition: September 2016
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Chapter 1
Courage
Chapter 2
Soviet Union
Chapter 3
People’s Republic of China
Chapter 4
Ceremony
Chapter 5
Russian Roulette
Chapter 6
Seals
Chapter 7
Red Horizon
Chapter 8
Genetics
Chapter 9
Siberia
Chapter 10
Shuffle
Chapter 11
Crew
Chapter 12
Combat
Chapter 13
Mission Commander
Chapter 14
Contemplate
Chapter 15
Good to Go
Chapter 16
Vacation
Chapter 17
Trigger
Chapter 18
Dreams
Chapter 19
Gambit
Chapter 20
Space
Chapter 21
History
Chapter 22
Deja Vu
Chapter 23
Intervention
Chapter 24
Construct
Chapter 25
War
Epilogue
Contact the Author
About the Author
Chapter 1
Courage
USS Space Shuttle, Polo One
On approach, Earth space
In the near future, Year 4, Day 1
“I don’t want to die.”
Julie Monroe flipped the radio communication channel to internal so that only her copilot and crew could hear her. “That makes two of us. Now clear the channel and suit up.”
It sounded rather harsh, even to her own ears, but the IT technical crew in the main cabin behind her wasn’t trained for intense space conditions, or emergencies such as the one that she was now facing. For all intents and purposes, they were cargo at the moment, and she didn’t need the distraction when their lives were on the line.
Julie’s headset came alive. “What is your status, Polo One?”
Houston skipped the positive identification in its haste to confirm the lone warning that was activated on the US space shuttle. Environment control was yellow, indicating a mild loss of pressure in their main cabin. Jules flipped her communication switch back to main. “We’re showing a single alarm, low pressure in the main cabin.”
Jules and her copilot watched on their internal monitor in the cockpit cabin as their four crewmembers finished attaching their gloves and locked their helmets into place.
“Polo One, this is Houston. We’re showing you at five psi now and dropping. Can you confirm a hull breach?”
Jules nodded, unsure if her reaction was being conveyed properly to Houston control via their video uplink. “Roger that, Houston. We have full pressure in the cockpit, and our crew in the main cabin has suited up. We’ll look for a visual now.”
“Want me to go?” Jose Sanchez, her copilot asked.
“No, we don’t have time to depressurize and then repressurize our cabin. Let one of our crewmembers do a visual for it,” Jules said.
“Roger that, Commander,” Jose said, smiling at her and clicking their communication switch to internal. “Hey, Dakos, can you pop a vapor canister and get us a sitrep back there?”
The vapor canister would eject a visible misty-type vapor that would flow toward any hull breach as it sought to exit the pressurized ship and escape into the vacuum of space. It was one of the first things an astronaut learned to do in training.
“Roger that, Jose. Let me pop some smoke back here and get back to you.”
It wouldn’t matter. Jose and Jules were watching on the internal monitors and would most likely see the same thing that crewmember Dakos would see as it happened.
*****
The small particles of rock, only a fraction the size of a BB, had been traveling the Earth’s solar system for billions of years unmolested . . . until now.
The lead microscopic rock had hit the space shuttle at a relative velocity of nearly thirty thousand miles per hour. It had breached the titanium-aluminum wall of the craft as if it wasn’t there, puncturing a tiny hole on either side of the ship, managing to miss the crew and all of the ship’s vital functions.
Several thousand pieces of rock flew by undetected, well offset from their leader, missing the craft. All but four missed, but those four also hit the shuttle craft at an ultra-fast velocity, this time slamming into several pieces of critical gear and components. Their four-billion-year journey finally culminated in an impact in space, a few thousand miles from Earth.
*****
“What the hell?” Jules said. The Earth spun around her ship, and only the centrifugal force against her body gave her any indication that her space shuttle was out of control. Instead, it felt more like a child had suddenly spun the entire universe around them as if it was a cool toy. She switched her coms back to external. “Houston, I’m showing four reds, two yellows, and six greens now.”
The discussion was only to confirm their status. Houston had every system monitored from Control Central. “We’ve lost telemetry data from life support, but we see that Vector, Engines, and Command are red at this time. Do you concur?”
“Affirmative,” Julie said, feeling her stick go dead as she tried to regain a modicum of control over the spinning craft. “Do you have status on the yellows?”
“Environment and Fuel are both in warning states,” Houston responded.
“Confirm that here too, Houston,” Julie said, trying to focus on her primary system indicators and ignore the swirling star field in front of her.
The mike clicked off, and Jose spoke to her. “This looks bad, Jules. Can we at least stop the rolling on one of our axes?”
Julie looked at him and then nodded. She didn’t need to put her helmet on, as their cabin pressurization was showing seven point five psi, something equivalent to a midlevel altitude on Earth. The main cabin indicator was flashing yellow, indicating an atmosphere leak of some kind, and the digital gauge was already down to four psi and dropping quickly. The internal alarm in the crew cabin was both audible and visual, a flashing red strobe that mandated the crew go to full-suit status, attaching helmets and gloves to survive the loss of atmosphere, which they had already done after the first impact.
“Running Super Max now,” Julie said, hitting the command on her console
with the associated RPY button, roll, yaw, and pitch. The quantum computer kicked the associated data into its algorithm matrix in order to calculate the precise amount of thrust needed to counter all three forces in play on their shuttle. The supercomputer displayed two green icons with associated numbers on her main data screen, and one red. “Well, that’s just great, Max.”
“Crap,” Jose said, looking at the main monitor they shared between them. “Execute the stabilization vectors now?”
“Hang on a second,” Julie said, mentally taking a moment to assess their situation. “We need to be careful what we spend our vector allowance on. It appears to be limited.”
Jose nodded. “I think you’re right. What hit us?”
“I don’t know,” Jules said, “but whatever it was, it sounded like BBs being shot at us.”
“What the hell happened to our nitrogen?” Jose asked, tapping the digital readout for their store of vectoring propellant. It was a useless gesture—the gauge wasn’t mechanical—but human habit was a strong force to overcome.
“I’d say whatever hit us took out two of our three tanks,” Jules speculated, reaching for the external mike switch again. “Houston, do you have the sitrep from Max?”
The familiar voice of Doctor Marjorie Jones came over their headsets instead of the usual flight controller. “We have Max’s data, and we’re analyzing it now. Standby while we assess.”
“Roger, Houston,” Julie said, flipping her mike back to internal. She looked at one of the small monitors showing her four crew members who were now fully suited in the secondary cabin behind her. “You guys all right back there?”
Again, another redundant question, as the small bank of life support indicators all showed green on her display. The crew was alive and well, at least by the computer’s standards.
“Hey, I think the ship has a hole back here,” David Dakos said over the coms.
Jules watched as David leaned in his seat in a two-by-two configuration and tried to touch the side wall of the craft with one hand while holding a vapor canister in his other. He was obviously looking at something to his side and slightly down. “What are you seeing?” Jules asked him.
“Air is evacing here,” he said. “I don’t need the vapor can either to see that.”
“I don’t want to die,” Renee said, her voice starting to break with stress and emotion.
“I think I’m going to puke,” Jake Kuemeyer said, adding to their conversation.
Jules looked at Jose, who could only shrug. “David, see if you can calm Renee down a bit. Tell her she’ll be just fine.”
David didn’t hesitate in answering. “Ah, Commander Monroe, this is an open mike system. She can hear you.”
Jules rolled her eyes, thankful that the crew couldn’t see her. Of course it was an open mike, but Jules simply wasn’t cut out for this human comforting thing, despite being a female. Too many men thought that a woman had a greater calming influence on another woman simply due to their gender. In Jules’ case, nothing could be further from the truth. “I know that, Dakos. Just do what I asked you to.”
“Can you stop the spinning?” Jake asked.
“We’ll try,” Jules shot back, and then she quickly muted her mike. “It’s only inertia, for Christ’s sake. Get a grip.”
“Damn, Jules, you’re hardcore,” Jose said, smiling at her.
“You’re forgetting our situation, Jose. I think Renee’s concerns may be more viable than we’re accepting.”
“Authorization to patch the breach,” Vickie Anderson said from her seat next to Jake.
“Wait a second,” Jules ordered. “We’re going to stabilize first so you don’t bump your heads too hard back there. Besides, now that you’re suited up, I’ve got the vac on to equalize pressure. Give it a minute.”
Jose’s smile quickly faded, and he turned to monitor his side of the command console. “We have thirty-eight pounds of nitrogen. Enough to stabilize yaw and pitch, but our roll is out of parameter. How in the hell did we lose that much thruster propellant?”
“I don’t know, but we should have well over two hundred pounds of it in order to maneuver. This doesn’t look good.”
“Polo One, this is Houston. Do you copy?” Marge’s voice sounded calm as usual.
“Go ahead, Houston.” Jules keyed her mike.
“We’ve got low variances to your yaw and pitch rates, so we’ll have Max execute thrusters to counter and stabilize. You’ll have to let go of the stick.” Marge said the last sentence with an unusual amount of caution.
Jules didn’t like having a computer do her work for her, but she recognized that her senses were not up to the speed, or task, of calculating minute and exact vectoring actions in order to stabilize their shuttle. She sighed, taking her other hand off the flight stick, and then replied, “Affirmative.”
“We’re also running a diagnostic on your nitrogen levels. We should have data confirmation shortly,” Marge said.
“Roger, Houston,” Jules said, keying open the cabin mike. “Get ready for maneuvering,” she said to them.
“About time,” Jake complained.
Jose shook his head and then braced himself. The vectoring would be sharp thrusts followed by releases as the rate of yaw and pitch were measured, and then repeated in millisecond fashion as Max calculated the effectiveness of each blast of compressed nitrogen sent from a half-dozen ejection ports. “This should be fun,” he said.
“Executing now,” the radio came across. Marge sounded calm and in control.
The ship shuddered as compressed nitrogen shot out from various vectoring nozzles, slowing the spin that the ship was experiencing along two of its three axes. The spurts were noticeable in the form of their stomachs protesting against the abrupt changes in motion. Despite the lack of gravity, inertia and thrust acted upon their bodies enough to press them into their seats.
“Finally,” Jake said, feeling only one sensation as the ship rolled over across only one of its three axes.
“That would have been bad for you, puking into your helmet,” Dave said, chuckling.
“You’re lucky we only used the thrusters and not the vector motors,” Sanchez said, adding his laughter to the mix.
Jules let them chatter, looking over her row of monitors and then keying her outer coms channel so that only Houston could hear her. “Houston, this is Polo One. I think we have a problem.”
*****
NASA Space Command
Houston, Texas
In the near future, Year 4, Day 1
“How bad are we talking here?” Rock turned to Marge, trying to assess her facial expressions, and they didn’t look good.
“We’ve got multiple systems down, several critical, though nothing fatal within the next couple of hours . . .”
Rock sighed, waiting for the hammer to drop. “But . . .”
Marge nodded. “But we have a new radar track, and it’s not good. In fact, it appears to be unrecoverable.”
Those were not the words Rock wanted to hear after two years of mundane, quiet, yet perfect missions flown by the several shuttles that were added and modified to their original low-orbit fleet. “Show me the flight profile.”
Marge already had her tablet at her side and punched up a new screen, handing it to Rock. Normally, she’d just send him the data on his monitor, but they were standing in between their workstations, speaking together in hushed tones off the record. Rock didn’t want to suggest anything until he first spoke with his second-in-command.
“Hmm, I see what you mean,” he said.
“Do you?” Marge said, raising an eyebrow at him and tilting her head slightly.
Rock nodded and spoke even lower. “Their intercept vector will be fatal if we don’t raise and change their trajectory.”
“Correct, and the longer we wait, the more thrust it will require to do so.” Marge looked at Rock for a reaction.
“We are running out of time, then,” Rock said.
“Exactly.�
��
“Does Commander Monroe know yet?” Rock asked.
“She will soon enough. The telemetry is still being fed to her navigation console. If she doesn’t notice it shortly, then we’ll have to tell her.”
“Tell her what?” Rock asked, looking around the room and noticing several heads bobbing back down at their work stations. It was obvious that everyone was waiting for a decision. “Tell her that they’re going to die in less than two hours?”
“Of course not,” Marge said.
It was custom to notify any craft in distress that Houston was working the problem, and they had done that. They had not, however, notified the crew of Polo One that their initial calculations basically plotted an intercept with Earth at an angle of entry that was too steep to survive. They would burn up when they hit the planet’s atmosphere.
“Who do we have in the sim?” Rock asked, already knowing the answer but asking the question for time, anyway.
“Craig is there with two trainees and an engineer.”
“Jeff is working in the mockup?”
“Yes, he has four engineers and an assistant now. No news from either group yet,” Marge said, looking around the room and allowing her eyes to reach the front where a large bank of monitors showed half of the screens with nothing but static on them. That was definitely not a normal operating condition.
Rock nodded. “We need to tell them something. Ah, do you . . . ?”
Marge returned the nod. “I’ll handle this.”
“Right. I’ll run some more numbers and see what options we can come up with. The current one is not acceptable.”
*****
“Houston, this is Polo One. We have trajectory data indicating immediate action necessary,” Jules said as politely as she could muster.
“You’re not kidding,” Jose whispered, covering his mike and looking at their updated flight path, taking them right into the South Pacific at an angle of entry that was fatal to any craft.