Gravity. Part 18

She felt her ears pop. Evacuate now!

She and Diana dove into the hab, flying through gloom lit only by the bright red flashes of the warning panels. The siren was so loud everyone had to yell to hear each other. In her panic, Emma bounced into Luther, who grabbed her before she could ricochet off in a new direction.

"Nicolai's already in the CRV. You and Diana next!" he shouted.

"Wait. Where's Griggs?" said Diana.

"Just get in!" Emma turned. In the psychedelic flash of red warning lights, she saw no one else in the hab. Griggs had not followed them. A strange, fine mist seemed to hang in the gloom, but there was no hurricane whoosh of air sucking them toward the breach.

And no pain, she suddenly realized. She'd felt her ears pop, but there was no chest pain, no symptoms of explosive decompression.

We can save this station. We have time to isolate the leak.

She did a quick swimmer's turn, kicked off the wall, and went flying back toward the node.

"Hey! What the f.u.c.k, Watson?" yelled Luther.

"Don't give up the ship!" She was moving so fast she slammed against the edge of the hatchway, bashing her elbow. Here was the pain now, not from decompression but from her own stupid clumsiness. Her arm was throbbing as she kicked off again, into the node.

Griggs wasn't there, but she saw his Thinkpad, drifting at the end of its data cord. The screen flashed a bright red "Decompression" warning.

The air pressure was down to six hundred fifty and dropping. They had only minutes to work, minutes before their brains would not function.

He must have gone in search of the leak, she thought. He's going to close off the damaged module.

She dove into the U.S. Lab, through that thickening white mist.

Was it mist or was it her vision fogging over from hypoxia? A warning that unconsciousness was closing in? She shot through the darkness and felt disoriented by the warning lights continuing to flash like a strobe. She banged into the far hatchway. Her coordination was off, and her clumsiness getting worse. She through the hatch opening, into Node 2.

Griggs was there. He was struggling to disconnect a tangle of cables strung between the NASDA and European modules.

"The leak's in NASDA!" he yelled over the screaming sirens. "If we can clear the cables from this hatchway and close it off, we isolate the module." She dove forward to help him yank the cables apart. Then she found one that could not be disconnected. "What the h.e.l.l's this? she said. All cables leading through hatchways were supposed to be easy to pull apart in case of an emergency. This one was continuousa"a violation of safety rules. "It doesn't have a quick release!" she yelled.

"Get me a knife and I'll cut it!" She spun around, dove back into the U.S. Lab. A knife. Where the h.e.l.l is a knife? Through the red flashes of light, she saw medical locker. A scalpel. She yanked open the drawer, reached into the instrument tray, and went flying back into Node 2.

Griggs took the scalpel and began to sever the cable.

"What can we do to help?" came Luther's shout.

Emma turned and saw him, along with Nicolai and Diana, hovering anxiously in the hatchway.

"The breach is in NASDA! -" she said. "We're gonna close off the module!" Sparks suddenly shot out like fireworks. Griggs yelped and jerked away from the cable. "s.h.i.t! It's a live wire!"

"We've got to cut it!" said Emma.

"And get fried to a crisp? I don't think so."

"Then how do we seal the hatch?" Luther said, "Pull back! Pull back into the lab! We'll close off the whole node. Isolate this end of the station." Griggs looked at the sparking wire. He didn't want to close off Node 2, because it meant sacrificing both the NASDA and European modules, which would be completely depressurized and unreachable. And it meant sacrificing the shuttle docking port, which also led off Node 2.

"Pressure's dropping, folks!" called Diana, reading a handheld pressure gauge. "We're down to six hundred twenty-five millimeters! Just pull the f.u.c.k back, and let's close off the node!" Emma could already feel herself breathing faster, trying to catch her breath. Hypoxia. They were all going to black out if she didn't do something soon.

She tugged Griggs's arm. "Pull back! It's the only way to save the station!" He gave a stunned nod and retreated with Emma into the U.S. Lab.

Luther tried to tug the hatch shut, but he couldn't get it to budge. Now that they were outside Node 2, they had to pull, not push the hatch shut. And they were working against the rush of escaping air, in a rapidly depressurizing atmosphere.

"We'll have to abandon this module too!" yelled Luther. "Retreat to Node 1 and close off the next hatch!"

"h.e.l.l no!" Griggs said. "I'm not giving up this module as well!"

"Griggs, we've got no choice. I can't pull this hatch shut!"

"Then let me do it!" Griggs grabbed the handle and strained to pull it shut, but the hatch moved only a few inches before he had to let go in exhaustion.

"You're gonna kill us all just to save this f.u.c.king module!" shouted Luther.

It was Nicolai who suddenly yelled out the solution. "Mir! Feed the leak! Feed the leak!" He shot out of the lab, headed toward the Russian end of the station.

Mir. Every one immediately knew what he was talking about. 1997. The collision with Mir's Spektra module. There had been a breach in the hull, and Mir had begun to leak its precious air into s.p.a.ce. The Russians, with years more experience in manned s.p.a.ce stations, were ready with their emergency response, feeding the leak. Pour extra oxygen into the module to raise the pressure.

Not only would it buy them time to work, it might narrow the pressure gradient enough so they could pull the hatch shut.

Nicolai came flying back into the lab with two oxygen tanks.

Frantically he opened the valves all the way. Even over the screaming sirens, they could hear the screech of air escaping from tanks. Nicolai tossed both tanks into Node 2. Feeding the leak. They were building air pressure on the other side of the hatch.

They were also pouring oxygen into a module with a live wire, thought Emma, remembering the sparks. It could trigger an explosion.

"Now!" Nicolai shouted. "Try to close the hatch!" Luther and Griggs both grabbed the handle and pulled. They would never know if it was due to their combined desperation or if the oxygen tanks had succeeded in dropping the pressure gradient across that hatchway, but the hatch slowly began to swing shut.

Griggs locked it in place.

For a moment he and Luther simply hung limp in midair, both of them too exhausted to say a word. Then Griggs turned, his face bright with sweat in the flashing lights.

"Now let's shut off that f.u.c.king racket," he said.

The Thinkpad was still floating where he'd left it in Node 1. Peering at the glowing screen, he rapidly tapped in a series of commands. To everyone's relief, the sirens stopped screaming. flashing red lights also stopped, leaving only a constant yellow glow on the caution-and-warning panels. At last they could communicate without shouting.

"Air pressure is back up to six hundred ninety and rising," he said, and gave a laugh of relief. "Looks like we're home free."

"Why are we still at Cla.s.s 3 caution?" asked Emma, pointing to the yellow light on the screen. A Cla.s.s 3 caution meant one of three possibilities. Their backup guidance computer was down, one of their control motion gyros was inoperative, or they'd lost their S-band radio link to Mission Control.

Griggs tapped a few more keys. "It's the S-band. We've lost it. Discovery must have hit our P-1 truss and taken out the radio. Looks like they also hit our port solar arrays. We've lost a photovoltaic module. That's why we're still in power down."

"Houston must be going bonkers, wondering what's happening," said Emma.

"And now they can't reach us. What about Discovery? What's happened to them?" Diana, already working the s.p.a.ce-to-s.p.a.ce radio, said, "Discovery isn't responding. They may be out of UHF range." Or they were all dead and couldn't respond.

"Can we get these lights back?" said Luther. "Cross-strap primary power?" Griggs began to tap on the keyboard again. Part of the beauty of ISS's design lay in its redundancy. Each of its power channels were configured to supply electricity for specific loads, but channels could be rerouteda""cross-strapped"a"as needed.

Though they'd lost one photovoltaic module, they had three others to tap into.

Griggs said, "I know this is a cliche, but let there be light." He hit a computer key, and the module lights barely brightened. But was enough to navigate through hatchways. "I've rerouted power. Nonessential payload functions are now off the grid." He released a deep breath and looked at Nicolai. "We need to contact Houston. It's your show, Nicolai."

The Russian understood at once what he had to do. Moscow's Mission Control maintained its own separate communications link with the station. The collision should not have affected the end of ISS. Nicolai gave a terse nod. "Let us hope Moscow has paid its electric bill."

Jill Hewitt was gasping in pain, short little whimpers that punctuated every push of a new b.u.t.ton on the control panel. Her head felt like a melon ripe to explode. Her field of vision had so narrowed that it seemed as if she were peering down a long black tunnel and the controls had receded almost beyond her reach. It took every ounce of concentration for her to focus on each switch she had to flip, on each b.u.t.ton wavering beyond her finger. Now she struggled to make out the att.i.tude-direction indicator, her vision blurring as the eight-ball display seemed to spin wildly in its casing.

I can't see it. I can't read pitch or yaw a "Discovery, you are at entry interface," said Capcom. "Body flap on auto." Jill squinted at the panel and reached for the switch, but it seemed so far awaya "Discovery?" Her trembling finger made contact. She switched to "auto."

"Confirm," she whispered, and let her shoulders go slack. The computers were now in control, flying the ship. She did not trust herself on the stick. She did not even know how long she could remain conscious. Already the black tunnels were closing over her vision, swallowing the light. For the first time she could hear the sound rushing air across the hull, could feel her body being shoved back against her seat.

Capcom had gone silent. She was in communications blackout, the s.p.a.cecraft hurtling against the atmosphere with such force it stripped the electrons from air molecules. That electromagnetic storm interrupted all radio waves, cut off all communication. For the next twelve minutes it was only her, and the ship, and the roaring air.

She had never felt so alone.

She felt the autopilot begin to steer into the first high bank, rolling the s.p.a.cecraft on its side, slowing it down. She imagined glow of heat on the c.o.c.kpit windows, could feel its warmth, like the sun radiating on her face.

She opened her eyes. And saw only darkness.

Where are the lights? she thought. Where is the glow on the window?

She blinked, again and again. Rubbed her eyes, as though to force them to see, to force her retinas to draw in light. She reached out toward the control panel. Unless she flipped the right switches, unless she deployed the air-data probes and lowered the landing gear, Houston could not land the ship. They could not get her alive. Her fingers brushed against a mind-numbing array of dials and b.u.t.tons, and she gave a howl of despair.

She was blind.

At 4,093 feet above sea level, the air at White Sands Missile Proving Grounds was dry and thin. The landing strip traced across ancient dried-out seabed located in a desert valley formed between the Sacramento and Guadalupe mountain ranges to the east, and the San Andres Mountains to the west. The closest town was Alamogordo, New Mexico. The terrain was stark and arid, and only the hardiest of desert vegetation could survive.

The area had long served as a training base for fighter pilots. It had also seen other uses through the decades. During World War II, it was the site of a German prisoner of war camp. It was also location of the Trinity site, where the U.S. exploded its first bomb, a.s.sembled not far away in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Barbed wire and unmarked government buildings had sprouted up in this desert valley, their functions a mystery even to the base of nearby Alamogordo.

Through binoculars, Jack could see the landing strip shimmering with heat in the distance. Runway 16/34 was oriented just slightly off due north-south. It was fifteen thousand feet long three hundred feet widea"large enough to accept the heaviest of jets, even in that rarefied air, which forces long landing and rolls.

Just west of the touchdown point, Jack and the medical team waited, along with a small convoy of NASA and United s.p.a.ce Alliance vehicles, for Discovery's arrival. They had stretchers, oxygen, defibrillators, and ACLS kitsa"everything one could find in a modern ambulance, and more. For landings at Kennedy, there would be over one hundred fifty ground team members prepared to meet the orbiter. Here, on this desert strip, they had barely dozen, and eight of them were medical personnel.

Some of the ground crew were wearing self-contained atmospheric protective suits, to insulate them from any propellant leaks. They would be the first to meet the orbiter and, with atmospheric sensors, quickly a.s.sess the potential for explosions before allowing doctors and nurses to approach.

A distant rumble made Jack lower his binoculars and glance due east.

Choppers were approaching, so many of them they looked like an ominous swarm of black wasps.

"What's this?" said Bloomfeld, also noticing the choppers. Now the rest of the ground crew was staring at the sky, many of them murmuring in bewilderment.

"Could be backup," said Jack.

The convoy leader, listening on his comm unit, shook his head.

"Mission Control says they're not ours."

"This airs.p.a.ce should be clear," said Bloomfeld.

"We're trying to hail the choppers, but they're not responding." The rumble had crescendoed, and Jack could feel it in his bones now, a deep and constant thrum in his sternum. They were going to invade the orbiter's airs.p.a.ce. In fifteen minutes, Discovery would drop out of the sky and find those choppers in her flight path. He could hear the convoy leader talking urgently into his headset, could feel panic begin to ripple through the ground crew.

"They're holding position," said Bloomfeld.

Jack raised his binoculars. He counted almost a dozen choppers.

They had indeed halted their approach and were now landing like a flock of vultures, due east of the orbiter's touchdown point.

"What do you suppose that's all about?" said Bloomfeld.

Two minutes left of communications blackout. Fifteen minutes till touchdown.

Randy Carpenter was feeling the first flush of optimism. He knew they could bring Discovery down safely. Barring a catastrophic computer failure, they could fly that bird from the ground.

The key was Hewitt. She had to stay conscious, had to be able to flip two switches at the right times. Minimal tasks, but crucial. their last radio contact, ten minutes before, Hewitt had sounded alert, but in pain. She was a good pilot, a woman with a steel backbone tempered by the refiner's fire of the U.S. Navy. All she had to do was stay conscious.

"Flight, we have good news from NASCOM," said Ground Control. "Mission Control Moscow has made radio contact with ISS on Regul S-Band." Regul was the Russian S-band radio system aboard ISS. It was completely separate and independent of the U.S. system, and it operated via Russian ground stations and their LUCH satellite.

"Contact was brief. They were on the tail end of LUCH satellite comm pa.s.s," said Ground Control. "But the crew is all alive and well." Carpenter's optimism flared even brighter, and he tightened his plump fingers in a triumphant fist. "Damage report?"

"They had a breach of the NASDA module and had to close off Node Two and everything forward of that. They've also lost two solar arrays and several truss segments. But no one's hurt."

"Flight, we should be coming out of comm blackout," said Capcom.

At once Carpenter's attention snapped back to Discovery. He was happy about the news from ISS, but his first responsibility to the shuttle.

"Discovery, do you copy?" said Capcom. "Discovery?"

The minutes went by. Too many. Suddenly Carpenter was back dancing on the brink of panic.

Guidance said, "Second S-turn completed. All systems look good." Then why wasn't Hewitt responding?

"Discovery," repeated Capcom, his voice now urgent. "Do you copy?"

"Going into third S-turn," said Guidance.

We've lost her, thought Carpenter.

Then they heard her voice. Soft and unsteady. "This is Discovery.

Capcom's sigh of relief huffed loudly over the loop. "Discovery, welcome back! It's good to hear your voice! Now you need to deploy your air-data probes."

"Ia"I'm trying to find the switches."

"Your air-data probes," Capcom repeated.

"I know, I know! I can't see the panel!" Carpenter felt as if his blood had just frozen in his veins. Dear G.o.d, she's blind. And she's seated in the commander's seat. Not her own.