I get the feeling that you've been waiting a long time to use this phrase.
Ocean of Storms: A Timeline of A Scientific America
- Thread starter BowOfOrion
- Start date
XXXIII: Alarms
Alarms
8 July 1982
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
29° 33’ 47” N 95° 05’ 28” W
“Okay, people. We are go for test three. Veridian Flight, be on your toes. We are live and recording,” Charles announced, then nodded to Kathryn at the CAPCOM station.
She turned back to her console and her voice came over the headsets, “Bug, this is Houston. You are go for test three.”
“Roger that, Houston. Bug ME is throttling to ten percent,” came the reply from Fred.
“How’s she handling, Fred?”
The reply took a few seconds to get back to her. Communicating with a ship in lunar orbit was a constant reminder of the limitations of the speed of light.
“Good shape, so far,” was the answer.
Kathryn looked to her right and got a nod from a woman at another console, “We’re getting good telemetry from the engine. So far, so good.”
“Roger that, Houston,” Fred replied four seconds later. “We’ve got a beautiful gray vista out here today. The Moon looks beautiful from fifty miles up.”
“You lucky ducks,” Kathryn said. “The flight director would like to remind you that you do not have clearance to land. This is not that kind of test.”
“Hey, not our fault they filled the fuel tanks. No promises. Horizon, take it easy. We’ll see you on the farside.”
“You’d better,” said Hoot.
Bug’s retrofire took her away from Horizon in a hurry. The Clipper continued on in its polar orbit. Aboard Bug, Fred and Norman monitored the engine burn as the new lander slowly sank towards the lunar surface.
For the first time since Constellation One, a mission crew was composed entirely of former military pilots. This was a pure test drive, no need for pesky scientists on this trip.
Kathryn was thankful that the smoke-filled days of MOCR were over. She took a beat to listen to the controllers on the loop. For the moment, there was little to do but watch the instruments.
She pulled out her copy of the flight plan, trying to plan ahead for the next hour. She had just found the right page when the sirens went off.
A thunderous blare announced danger in the Mission Operations Control Room.
“Uh…” she said, not quite sure of what was happening. An odd feeling hit the pit of her stomach. She pulled her headset off of one ear. Sure enough, the alarm got louder.
“What the…”
“Everything okay there, Houston?” Norm called from the lander.
“We’re, uh…”
“It’s a fire alarm,” said the new guy over on EECOM.
“It’s here. The fire is here,” said Janet, from the surgeon’s station.
“Charles, we’ve got a fire alarm here,” said John from the trench.
Charles nodded and waved everyone down, “SimSup, can you confirm a fire alarm? Is this part of the program?”
There was a long beat. Nothing was heard from the Simulator office. Ordinarily they would never talk to MOCR during a simulation, but this wasn’t a typical problem to simulate.
“SimSup? SimSup, are you there?” Charles repeated.
“Charles, we need…”
“Continue the burn. We are in the middle of an engine test people. Man your stations. I don’t smell smoke,” Charles said.
“Is this part of the sim?” Kathryn asked.
“It is now. Everyone man your posts. We’re in this. GNC, how are you looking?”
“We’re still in the green, Flight,” came the reply from the second row. Eyes were darting around everywhere.
Kathryn pulled her microphone down and said to Janet, “Is there actually a fire here or are they just having a good time in SimOps?”
All she got back was a shrug.
Behind her, Charles turned to his assistant flight director, “Jim, go find out what the hell is going on.”
Assistant flight directors had one job: to do whatever the flight director said. Jim rose from his chair like it was spring loaded. He made his way out of the back and headed for the simulator room, sniffing for smoke the whole way.
“Houston, Horizon. Is everything okay? We’re hearing alarms over the headset, but not on the flight deck. Can you confirm?” Hoot said.
“Horizon, we’ve had a problem here. Stand by,” Kathryn said.
“Do we need to end this sim? Are we aborting?” Hoot said.
“We are not aborting,” said Charles from the director’s chair. “We’ve got two spacecraft up there. Continue the damn burn.”
“He knows this is a sim, right?” Kathryn said to Janet.
“Let’s hope,” she replied.
Between the long military traditions that underlay most NASA procedures, and the general nature of the business that was conducted in this room, there was an unspoken rule that a ship was a ship, simulated or not.
She looked at the big board up front and saw the ground-track monitor for the two ships. The cold gray lunar surface was etched in four different shades, with two dots with a series of trailing dashes marking great circle paths over the Moon.
“At what point do we…” Janet said, and then paused. She rose from her chair slowly. She was sniffing the air. Kathryn joined her in the investigation.
There was a vague acrid scent. This had gone from funny to not in a very short length of time.
The rest of the room was picking up on the same thing. A survival instinct was hard to overcome.
The backup man on the FIDO station, who was only working on the console because George Green was at home with his newborn daughter, he was the first to choose preservation over valor. He moved for the door too fast and was snagged by his headset. It grabbed him like a fly fisherman catching a bass. The maneuver was enough to draw the notice of the room.
“FIDO, get your ass back in that seat!” Charles’s voice boomed through the room and through the radio link.
The new man froze. This was the worst room in the world to deal with indecision and she had nothing but sympathy for this kid. Given the choice, she’d rather confront a fire than an angry flight director.
The young engineer did the math and made the same choice. He took a deep breath and sat back down. So did Charles.
“Flight, FIDO. Burn parameters are still in the green at one-minute thirty. FIDO is go for throttle up.”
Charles wasn’t out to shame the kid. The moment had passed. “Copy that, FIDO. EECOM, how’s she looking?”
“Running a little hot on the helium sensor, but we’re still…”
He was interrupted by the small boom of the double doors opening at the rear of the room. Jim was back. The alarms were still sounding.
Jim was out of breath. He leaned on a console and took a breath, “It’s the commissary. There was a fire in the kitchen. They’re already working on it. Should be out in a minute or two.”
Charles might have been listening to a TV commercial for all it moved him. “Copy that.”
The building was still technically on fire.
3 August 1982
Skydock Space Station
Orbital Inclination: 29°
Altitude: 250 mi
His hands were cold. There was just no way around it. He’d tried flexing the fingers to get the blood going, but it wasn’t helping much. He fought to keep the feeling in his fingers. If he reported the issue, they’d scrub the EVA and he was determined not to let that happen.
Guy checked his connections one more time. He had a few minutes between each experiment while Norm brought the beams around on the arms. He spared a moment to look down.
This was a hell of a view.
At the moment, he was over the Atlantic, he could see the perfect blue and white of Earth below his feet. That in and of itself gave him a moment’s pause. The sky was below him.
His legs and feet were locked into a frame on the front end of Skydock. The forward airlock was right beside him and he could be back inside in under two minutes if a problem developed. It was a bit disconcerting to be attached to the front of the space station, with no visual reference in front of you. When his outlook was cheery, it felt akin to flying like an angel. When he felt his stomach turn at the sight, he wondered if this was how it felt at the start of a keelhauling.
Inside Skydock, Norm Thagard and the rest of Constellation’s crew monitored his progress. Well, everyone except John, who was floating on a tether above him, ready to haul him back inside if anything went pear-shaped during these little experiments.
“Guy, how does it feel? Let’s hear a little bit about the experience. They want you to talk about how the process is.”
“Feels fine so far. I’ve got no complaints,” he lied. He could tell them all about the trouble with his hands at the debriefing back in Houston.
“They’d like you to say a little more,” Sally said, prompting him from Houston.
“Sure. The electron beam I’d say has worked the best so far. That was pretty easy to keep the weld going and it looked the most solid to me. I think we’ll be in good shape with that, but we’ll have to see how the tests go back on the ground.”
“So, you liked that more than the furnace box?”
“Yeah, the box didn’t feel right. I couldn’t really see what I was doing. Not sure if you’re gonna like the quality either. What I could see looked a little gnarly.”
“Gnarly?” Ride asked from down below.
“You know, bumpy, gritty, messed up,” he offered.
“You sound like a surfer out of Long Beach,” she said, stifling a laugh.
“Just don’t tell my kids. Don’t want them thinking the old man is actually cool and hip,” he replied.
“Roger that,” she said.
“Okay, Sally, Guy, I’m bringing down the beams for the last electron gun test,” Norm said.
Guion Bluford looked over to his right and saw the beams being brought around on Skydock’s mechanical arms. They slowly maneuvered until the ends of each beam were within reach of his outstretched hands.
“John, let me get the shield again,” Bluford said, craning his neck to look “up” at his EVA partner.
John passed down the clear plastic panel that allowed Bluford to see the welding process, but would avert any flaming debris that wanted to make a hole in his space suit.
The beams were in position by the time that he’d finished arranging the shield. He checked the electron gun for any issues. It had done well on the first test. The power connectors were solid.
“Okay, I’m starting test five, Houston,” Guy said.
He didn’t wait for confirmation, just set the gun to work and monitored the progress as he fused the beams together. Over the course of a few minutes, Houston and his crewmates left him to his work and he was able to connect the components as they were held steady. The work was exacting, but not difficult.
He was on the final movement when he heard a buzzing through his headset.
“Kill that alarm,” Norm said, in his best commanding tone.
“Problem, Skydock?” Guy asked, curious, but not ready to abort.
“You’re pulling a little more power than we were expecting, Guy. Nothing to worry about. The system is compensating, but it’s not happy about it,” Norm answered.
“Roger that. Almost done,” Guy said.
He finished the last bit and reported as much to Houston and the station. A moment later, the starboard side robotic arm swung the newly welded components away, stored for transport back down to Earth.
“Now comes the fun one,” Sally said.
“Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to this,” Guy said.
The last test was to study the viability of cold welding in a zero gravity vacuum. The principle was simplicity itself. If you brought together two masses composed of the same material in a pure vacuum (low Earth orbit would have to suffice) then, the molecules in mass A would have no particular distinction from those in mass B, and so would quickly form the same level of bonded connection to the new part with little or no outside influence.
The process was discovered (developed seemed like a gross overstatement) over thirty years previously. At first it was thought of as a phenomenon of low-temperature metals in a vacuum, but the nature of the inner workings was quickly sorted out.
“We’ve got a couple of aluminum pieces for you to try now, Guy. Try to line up the clean squares and we’ll see how we do,” Sally said.
Guy took the proffered metals from the grasping claws of the Canadarms and gave each a survey in separate hands. They could have been found in almost any metal shop in America. He found a particularly bright patch on one, and then flipped the other over and found another spot that had clearly been prepared for this type of work.
He brought the pieces together to form a right-angle and held them in place for a beat. He felt a little silly, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
“Sally, how long does it say for me to…” he started, then stopped. In keying his microphone, he had inadvertently let go of one of the pieces, and now he found that, quite absent any real effort on his part, it was now solidly bonded to the other piece.
“Well, how about that?” he amended. Holding the new aluminum angle up so that John and the cameras could see what he had wrought.
8 September 1982
Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, AL
34° 37′ 58″ N 86° 39′ 58″ W
Larry Reid pinched the bridge of his nose. A few hundred yards away, the sirens blared, announcing the commencement of the firing of the engine. The warning wailing did nothing to alleviate his headache.
The tests had not been going well. In retrospect, Tom Kelly and Grumman had had it easy. Their LEMs only had to work once. Reid and his team had triple the challenge.
The “Lunar Shuttle”- they were still working on the name- was required to transport a crew of six astronauts, not two. It was also expected to be able to make three round trips from lunar orbit, to the surface and back again. NASA had graciously allowed for refueling to be completed on the lunar surface (assuming that they could get that to work) which cut down on weight and the size of the fuel tanks. Still, despite a wealth of knowledge accrued by the Apollo missions, Reid and the rest of Hadden’s team were struggling to get the design finalized. It had been four years of wandering in the labyrinth, but they finally smelled the exit.
The superstructure was basically set. The computers nowadays were so much smaller than the jumbled nightmares of wire that Grumman had sent up. There had been advances in materials and thermal shielding and so many other areas, but one thing that was always a real pain in the ass was a reusable rocket motor.
He had traded an air-conditioned office in Santa Clara for a muddy backwoods test stand in Alabama. What was supposed to be a two-week trip was nearing the end of its second month. The guys with wives and kids had settled into a rotation a while back, but he was single and childless. He wouldn’t be seeing California until the job was done.
The first time seeing the engine fire had been exciting and joyful, even when it had shut down after twenty seconds. Seeing it for the eighty-ninth time wasn’t enough incentive to even go outside and look at the thing. He was sure this test would end like all the others had: prematurely.
The roar of hypergolic fuels erupting in a symphony of chemistry did nothing but annoy him as he studied a wiring diagram for one of the fuel pumps. There simply had to be an explanation for the recurring failures and more and more he was convinced the fault was in the electrical systems. Part of why he was convinced was that it was the area he had been assigned to investigate and none of his colleagues had come up with anything in their investigations.
The screams from the engine bell didn’t die down slowly. They came to an abrupt halt. He checked the red clock on the trailer wall that counted the test out. They were eighty-six seconds short.
For the ninetieth time, he was grateful this was a government contract.
2 November 1982
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX
29° 33’ 46” N 95° 05’ 29” W
“Swing it around, Jack,” the foreman said.
Carefully, he moved the lever and watched the basket swing over the foundation. When he felt like he’d moved it far enough, he looked to the foreman who nodded. Only then did he tip the load out and watch the dirt scatter to the ground below.
It was strange to find an astronaut at the controls of a backhoe, working a relatively normal blue-collar job but building new worlds required skills from almost every part of life.
NASA figured it was safer letting an astronaut learn on a backhoe that cost tens of thousands, rather than the prototype rover that had been developed for a few million dollars. If Jack Townsend was going to wreck something, it was better to have it be the foundation of a new employee parking garage, rather than an equipment module at the lunar south pole.
He’d been working with various construction crews for the past few months, here and there between meetings about Clipper’s latest upgrades and the geology field trips. When he joined up, he’d expected astronaut training to be a lot more tedious than it had been. The Air Force had sent him to survival school and he’d spent thousands of hours learning how to fly fighters and then countless more learning about liquid-fueled rocket engines and the principles of orbital mechanics. Now he found himself working on construction equipment in the Texas heat, preparing to build the first outpost for humanity on another world.
He scooped a fresh load of slurry from the pit that he’d been digging since this morning. The hardhat on his head dug in around his temples and he smelled like exhaust and grime.
He couldn’t wait to try out his new skills on the Moon.
15 December 1982
Skydock Space Station
Orbital Inclination: 29°
Altitude: 250 mi
I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me…
The dulcet tones of Bing Crosby were no less soothing through a radio headset. With the spacewalk entering its third (and most boring) hour, Mission Control saw no problem with letting the crew take a five-minute breather. Instrumentation would warn of any problems and, even with the thrill of a spacewalk, the whole day had begun to feel anti-climactic.
Kathryn Sullivan thought of home as she looked down on the Earth. Their current orbit wouldn’t pass over Patterson or Houston, but she could go back in her mind just as easily with the red-brown of the Sahara passing by underneath her.
She didn’t look away as they passed over the Indian Ocean. She could spot the lights of ships that were still in darkness.
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.
She took a long breath and let it out. The moment had passed. Back to business.
“How’s it looking, David?” she asked, somewhat absent-mindedly, still vaguely entranced by the beauty underneath her.
“Seventy-five percent. Steady flow,” he replied.
“That tracks with our data here, Kathryn,” said Story, down in Houston.
“Five minutes to go,” David announced.
She pulled her eyes away from Earth to take another look at the linkage from Patriot to Zeus II. The ships were in an awkward embrace in their nose-to-nose configuration. The young, grey space liner had generously brought up fuel for the atomic motor along with a couple of smaller solar observation satellites. A scaled-down version of the Skydock’s manipulator arms now angled over Patriot’s cold grey nose and found the tank just behind Zeus’s control module. The Orbital Refueling Arm, or ORA, would remain attached to Skydock’s trusses after Patriot and Zeus departed, ready to supply thirsty ships for the next five years.
The new year would bring new objectives for Zeus II and the agency wanted to test the refueling abilities of Skydock before moving to the heavier freight that she would eventually have to deal with.
So far, so good as the pumps and seals did their job, transferring the gases that drove and cooled the nuclear beast around the Earth-Moon system.
On board Skydock, Bob called down to ask about Friday.
“How’s the forecast for Friday, Story?”
“Skies are looking clear, Skydock. They’re projecting good weather at Edwards too, just in case.”
“Copy that. Did Jon say anything in the debrief from yesterday?” he asked.
“That’s a negative, Skydock. McBride reported no trouble bringing Constellation in. He did seem very happy to be off of Skylab and away from all the science projects.”
“A test pilot babysitting a pack of scientists,” Crippen said, “I think that was one of Dante’s levels of hell.”
“What do you think the plan is when we get to the Moon, Bob?” Kathryn asked over the comm channel.
“I was kidding. You hear that, NASA brass? Just joking,” Crippen said.
“We’re topped off, here, Houston,” David reported.
“Roger that, David, we show the same,” Story said.
“We’d like to thank everyone on the Big Gulp team. Smooth and steady flow all the way,” David said.
“Roger that, David,” Story said.
UBS Evening News
Welcome back folks. Just a few quick stories before we wrap up tonight’s broadcast.
The United States Football League had its first games yesterday. In the opening match the Chicago Blitz beat the Michigan Panthers 29-28 with a 2-point conversion in the game’s final minute. The 2-point conversion being one of the league’s special rules, and not a play that is allowed in NFL football. Later in the day, the Birmingham Stallions lost to the Tampa Bay Bandits in overtime.
Our friends at NASA have provided us with some excellent footage of exciting operations in outer space. First, we take you to the space station Skydock, in low Earth orbit. You can see here the construction of the first of the lunar freighters. These rectangular frames will eventually be outfitted with engines, fuel tanks and landing legs. The whole assembly will then be ready to bring heavy loads to the lunar surface. Construction of this freighter will take place over the next 6 months, with more than a dozen spacewalks by astronauts, supplied by flights of the Cargo Clipper space fleet.
And from the Moon we have these incredible images to show you now. These are pictures from the Galileo Observatory on the far side of the Moon, beamed back from the Olympus station in lunar orbit. Astronauts David Walker and Donald Williams have been on board Olympus for the past week and have been remotely operating the observatory, which allows for much faster response times from the instruments and telescopes on the ground there. Just look at those pictures, wow. We are told this is an image of the Eagle Nebula, which is over seven thousand light years from Earth.
NASA has announced plans to deploy a large telescope in Earth orbit sometime before the end of this decade.
We leave you with these images of the Eagle Nebula, as it appeared over five thousand years before the birth of Christ.
I’m Emmett Seaborne. From all of us at UBS, have a good night, and good news.
4 June 1983
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
Colorado Springs, CO
38° 44′ 33″ N 104° 50′ 54″ W
Even just the thought of being inside a building that needed protection from a nuclear attack was a challenge for his claustrophobia.
Lt. Paul Chase was now entering his third day on the job at Cheyenne Mountain. He’d gone through orientation and met his CO. Now he was finally going in to the main control room and trying to forget about the millions of tons of rock above his head.
“Lieutenant Chase? John Halloway, nice to meet you. Let me help you set up here,” said a friendly staff sergeant who began to escort Paul to his station.
“We’ve got you down here on the Eastern Pacific desk. You’ll be monitoring the two-hundred to three-hundred block. Your monitor is all set up. You know what to do, right?”
Chase nodded as he sat, getting used to the station. The chair was comfortable enough. His voice cracked a bit as he spoke, “Log any new bogeys in orbit, report any changes in vector, route the incoming data from our birds.”
“Don’t forget the most important part…” the sergeant said.
Chase just looked at him.
“Sound the alarm if we have anything incoming,” he said, giving a friendly laugh.
Chase smiled, feeling a little more at ease, “Well, let’s hope there’s no need,” he said, glancing around the room and eyeing the huge monitors up front.
“Roger that, Lieutenant,” Halloway said. He pressed a button on the desk and Chase’s monitor changed to show a series of white dotted lines on a black screen. Overlaid on that were outlines of what he recognized as the Sea of Japan and he could see the dots steadily tracing West, at various angles to the equator.
“Your sector is pretty quiet, at the moment,” Halloway said, “The Cargo Clipper Liberty was in that orbit yesterday, but she landed last night,” he paused to look up at the map of the world screen in the center of the front wall. “Here, let me show you something you don’t get to see too often,” he said.
He pointed at a white dot marked with a serial number that began with “USSR” and ended with a string of six digits.
“This is a Russian MiG-105 that was sent up to track Liberty while she flew her mission. Poor bastard on board has been crammed in that tiny cockpit for three days, just watching the ass-end of a Clipper from a hundred miles out. The Ruskies like to send up their little space fighter when we fly a military mission.”
“He’s still up there?” Chase asked, already understanding the basics of the situation.
“There’s been bad weather over Baikonur for the last day. They aren’t wild about bringing them down away from their cosmodromes. Apparently it raises hell with the Soviet Air Force to have planes coming in from space.”
“Understandable,” Chase replied.
“Anyway, this’ll probably be his last pass over the Pacific. It’s morning there now and they’ve got no reason to leave him up there anymore. Hope the guy can get a hot shower at least. It’s gotta smell bad in that cockpit by now, don’t you think?” Halloway grinned.
Chase wasn’t comfortable enough to be jocular, but he nodded and smiled as convention demanded.
“You’ll be fine from here. If you need anything, use the black phone at the end of the console.”
“Roger that,” Chase said.
Halloway started to leave and Chase waved a hand for him to pause.
“Staff Sergeant, just out of curiosity, what do I do if I see an incoming Russian missile, or a sub launch or something?”
Halloway stifled a chuckle. He pointed to the phones. Next to the black one was a red one. The red phone was protected by a glass box.
“The red phone is for if you have incoming that’s enemy or unidentified. As soon as you pick it up, you’d better be ready because you’re going to have a pissed off General wondering what the hell is going on and you’d better be able to tell him, and I mean fast.”
“Good to know,” Chase said.
“We had a guy who picked up the red phone by mistake a couple of weeks ago. Thought he was calling downstairs but he was talking to the crow’s nest up top,” Halloway said.
Chase winced, “I’m betting that didn’t end well for him.”
“Nope. Last I heard he was manning a radar tower in Alaska. He got lucky. Could have been Greenland,” Halloway said.
“Don’t touch the red phone. Got it,” Chase said.
“Well, not unless you see a Commie missile coming out of the sky,” Halloway laughed, “Have a good shift, Lieutenant.”
Chase dismissed him and started to monitor his little patch of sky. He watched the Russian spacecraft move from Japan to Hawaii and then it passed off his screen, presumably to be monitored by whoever was tracking movement over the Western Pacific.
There were a few incoming radio transmissions that he sorted. A couple from older, now obsolete spy satellites that were still doing their job, despite the Air Force getting better equipment. He also was able to see Skylab pass through his area of space, which gave him a quiver of excitement.
After a little more than an hour in his new chair, he found himself with a powerful thirst and moved to the end of the row to pour a cup of standard-issue coffee. He was pleased to find that it was as hot, black and strong as could be found at any military facility in NATO. He returned to his station and saw that nothing had changed in the thirty seconds he had gone.
On the edge of his monitor, a new blip came in to view. The readout showed that same number from before, the one that began with USSR. He checked his notes and confirmed that it was the same log entry that the staff sergeant had pointed out. The Russian MiG-105 was still up there.
“Something must have gone wrong at Baikonur,” he said aloud, curious about this unexpected bogey.
He took down the time in his logbook, figuring that whoever was monitoring West Asia had already reported the lingering MiG to the higher-ups.
As he put down his pen, the blip started to flash. The tracking line that marked its progress began to slow in its journey across the ocean. The gigantic computers one floor down took a moment to deduce what was happening. In ten seconds, they had an answer for the young lieutenant.
On the right side of his screen, under the MiG’s identifier, there was a flashing phrase in capital letters, “ENTRY MANEUVER DETECTED.”
He typed in the command to display a new projected path and waited an agonizing thirty-five seconds for the mountain of motherboards to perform its mathematic mysticism.
The screen changed suddenly. There was a clean Mercator projection of the world. At the far right, he saw a circle that represented the MiG. The dotted line was now in front of it, rather than behind, showing its projected course.
The dotted lines swept from the MiG to the edge of the map at the International Date Line. He moved his eyes to the other side of the screen and picked them up again on the left side. The dashes came over the northern coast of California and moved inland. Only two dashes appeared over the continental US before the projection abruptly stopped.
“It’s coming here?” he said, his voice an octave higher than it ought to have been.
He cleared the screen and asked the computer to replot the track, figuring there may have been an error.
A long moment passed before he saw the same map appear on the screen. The dashes pointed very clearly to Colorado.
His blood ran cold and his legs tensed. The Russians were up to something and this couldn’t be good.
He turned to look at the red phone, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
For a moment he wondered if this was a prank, or a training exercise. A drill to mess with the rookie on his first day. But if it was, it was exceptionally convincing.
One of his favorite parts of service was the rigid procedures that were in place for almost any situation. The Air Force had a manual or a set of instructions for everything. There was a procedure for driving a truck and for nuking Russia. And, as he unclenched his muscles, he remembered the procedure for this.
With trembling fingers, he flipped open the clear case and picked up the crimson receiver. He bit his lip before speaking the words that were never supposed to come.
“Crow’s Nest, this is East Pacific. We have incoming. Repeat. We have incoming.”
A moment later he tensed all over again at the sound of the alarms going off in the most secure room in the world.
Also my thought. But looking for a long-enough runway would have given him a better option at Edwards.Excellent as usual. And WTF, is a MiG-105 pilot pulling a Belenko ?
Maybe. Maybe also the pilot its paranoid enough to KNOW that if he tries it in any way than that one, he runs the risk of being targeted for whatever the Russians have been cooking to this date as ASAT Weapons.
Given that in OTL they DID cook some decent stuff, the ONLY sane option to not get an "emergency Interception" with an ASAT/Missile or whatever the Russians have, was to desert to the ONLY area in space where firing said ASATs would be a virtual War declaration.
Even if someone figures this is an aircraft in distress making an emergency landing...
Just as a precaution you must prepare for the worst case.
That means probably DefCon 3, scramble all alert SAC bombers, all US forces on high alert, secure facilities go on lock down, bunkers seal the blast doors, President moved to secure location and continuity of operations/continuity of government go into a low level operational/high level alert mode. It isn't quite the full version that happens at DefCon 2 (war will begin imminently), to say nothing of the worst case DefCon 1 (war has begun).
Rough day for a lot of people even if it just ends up as another Cold War near miss.
Just as a precaution you must prepare for the worst case.
That means probably DefCon 3, scramble all alert SAC bombers, all US forces on high alert, secure facilities go on lock down, bunkers seal the blast doors, President moved to secure location and continuity of operations/continuity of government go into a low level operational/high level alert mode. It isn't quite the full version that happens at DefCon 2 (war will begin imminently), to say nothing of the worst case DefCon 1 (war has begun).
Rough day for a lot of people even if it just ends up as another Cold War near miss.
mustangforever
Banned
the thing is heading toward Colorado... maybe the pilot wants to gets the ride of a lifetime ? a Star Wars like glide across the Grand Canyon before landing at Denver airport ?
Yay, RFK survives!
I’ve only read the first two posts so far, but I’m interested to see where this goes.
Have a handy link to the threadmarks,my good man:Yay, RFK survives!
I’ve only read the first two posts so far, but I’m interested to see where this goes.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ific-america.418531/threadmarks?category_id=1
Have any other Clipper variations been considered, beyond the Cargo-Clipper?
I was prompted to ask after finding this review - Shuttle Variations And Derivatives That Never Happened.
The review features a load of weird shuttle derivatives, ranging from stretched boosters and orbiter, to a 20m wide disk-shaped fairing attached like the Russian Polyus, or a passenger compartment in the payload bay with space for 74 passengers!
I was prompted to ask after finding this review - Shuttle Variations And Derivatives That Never Happened.
The review features a load of weird shuttle derivatives, ranging from stretched boosters and orbiter, to a 20m wide disk-shaped fairing attached like the Russian Polyus, or a passenger compartment in the payload bay with space for 74 passengers!
I hadn't really considered other variants until now. (I do have plans for what comes after Clipper and then some concepts to get into the 2020's.
This does present an interesting idea (or rather, a few of them). I may take some time over the holiday next week and put down a few random thoughts for a mini-chapter at some later date. Our next chapter will focus on the interesting case of Ivan Kuchenko. Once I have that story in the tank, I may swing back to this concept.
I've noticed an interesting pattern to the comments that follow my chapters.
It's always my goal to finish strong with a chapter. To have the last scene (or sometimes next-to-last, if I have a capper) be the most interesting. What I've noticed though is that the last scene invariably sparks more interest and comments than any other. I'm choosing to think of this as an inherent compliment to my organization of scenes, but I'm just curious if there were any thoughts or discussions regarding some of the earlier ideas.
I was rather proud of my simulation run which was interrupted by a real fire alarm. I wonder if such a thing ever occurred, but I know of no reference that could give me a definitive answer.
It's always my goal to finish strong with a chapter. To have the last scene (or sometimes next-to-last, if I have a capper) be the most interesting. What I've noticed though is that the last scene invariably sparks more interest and comments than any other. I'm choosing to think of this as an inherent compliment to my organization of scenes, but I'm just curious if there were any thoughts or discussions regarding some of the earlier ideas.
I was rather proud of my simulation run which was interrupted by a real fire alarm. I wonder if such a thing ever occurred, but I know of no reference that could give me a definitive answer.
I think that this point here is the main answer to the question you're not quite asking.
In your success making the later scenes the most interesting part of each chapter, you have also made them the more memorable part of that chapter and thus the most likely to generate comments.
The fire during the simulation run was very interesting and I wouldn't be surprised to learn if such an incident actually occurred in OTL, but its interesting-ness was very much overshadowed by the prospect of a Soviet cosmonaut pulling a Belenko.
http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya3.htm
Specs on the OTL boosters are about a third of the way down the page on the right.
XXXIV: The Case of Ivan Kuchenko
The Case of Ivan Kuchenko
5 June 1983 – 1138 Local Time
White House Situation Room
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 52″ N 77° 02′ 11″ W
“Okay, I want to go through it one more time before he comes in.”
“Sure.”
“Start at the beginning.”
“Liberty launched out of Kennedy on Wednesday morning at 0300 local.”
“What was its payload?”
“Classified.”
“So, what was the payload?”
“A replacement Keyhole sat.”
“And the Russians sent up a shadow?”
“Yeah, fairly standard procedure. Launched one of their little 105’s out of Baikonur. These days, almost anytime we don’t say what we’re launching, they like to send something up to find out what it is.”
“Paranoid, aren’t they?”
“You know it.”
“How’d they know we were launching on Wednesday?”
“I assume they read about it two months ago in Aviation Weekly. That’s how I knew.”
“Military launches aren’t classified?”
“People usually get tipped off by the giant pillar of flame that’s shooting into the sky.”
“Okay.”
“Anyways, Liberty did its job with no problems. Keyhole is up and in place. Already getting back good data. No interference or any sign of tampering.”
“Would we know?”
“We would know.”
“Liberty put down yesterday morning at Kennedy. Again, no trouble.”
“And that’s when all hell broke loose?”
“Ohh yeah. A few hours later, NORAD picks up the 105 coming in. She maneuvered over Asia, which meant she was heading here. At first NORAD thought it might be some kind of surprise direct strike. They hit every panic button.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“That’s when they got the old man?”
“Reagan got pulled out of a meeting with some Afghan resistance fighters. Mujahideen, I think they call themselves. Secret Service crashed the White House. Got all the tourists out. Had to lock the basketball team from NC State in the Blue Room. They were taking him down to the bunker when the word got back that there wasn’t a nuke or anything.”
“Yikes.”
“It scared the shit out of everyone. Reagan, the Pentagon. I hear Bush turned white as a sheet.”
“Not that hard for him to do.”
“Anyways, the 105 made turns on his way in, so he never got to Colorado. He came down on the Bonneville flats. Utah Highway Patrol was there about thirty minutes later.”
“Who called the cops?”
“About eighty people who heard sonic booms and saw a UFO.”
“Damn, so, no matter what, this can’t be kept under wraps.”
“No way. There was already a team of engineering students from Michigan who were there testing some high speed car. By the time the deputies got there, the college kids had already given him a cup of coffee and were taking pictures of the 105.”
“Oh, man. Do we have the photos?”
“Central Intelligence is coordinating with Utah people and the NRO to get all the film. That’s a different issue.”
“What are the students saying?”
“’Give us our film back.’ For the most part. They also reported that when they got over to him, he was doing something to the 105.”
“Sanitizing?”
“We think he was trying to rig the 105 to look like a mechanical issue forced him down.”
“For us or for the Reds?”
“Hard to say.”
“So, what’s this meeting about?”
“The pilot wants asylum.”
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“That’s what he said. Told the Utah Highway Patrol. Told FBI, CIA. Anyone who he talks to. It’s the first thing he says.”
“Utah Highway Patrol had a Russian translator?”
“He speaks English. Not great, but better than my Great Aunt Margaret. She’s lived in Queens since 1947.”
The staffers’ conversation was cut short by the arrival of the joint chiefs. Fifteen minutes later, Ronald Reagan, the leader of the free world, sat at the end of the Situation Room’s long table. He waved his wrinkled hands and put the room at ease.
With that familiar voice that had captivated a generation, he called on his advisors for counsel with yet another delicate international situation.
“What’s his name?” Reagan asked, looking around the room as everyone got settled.
“Major Ivan Kuchenko, sir,” said the William Casey, the CIA director. He slid a black and white photo across the table which showed Kuchenko’s face and profile.
“Certainly sounds Russian enough for me. Where is he being held now?” Reagan asked.
“U.S. Marshalls are guarding him at a hotel near Hill Air Force Base, sir.”
“Hill?” said the President.
“It was the closest facility that could house the spacecraft without a risk of public exposure.”
“And when we say ‘guarded’?” Reagan asked.
“He’s got a suite and all the room service he could want. The two Marshalls are there to make sure no one goes in or out.”
Secretary of State Schultz spoke up, “Sir, the Russians aren’t going to let that go on for much longer.”
“What do you mean, George?” Reagan asked.
“They’re already calling for him to be returned as soon as possible. I think it would be wise to let them send someone to talk to him. Right now, no matter what he’s saying, he’s still a Soviet national and they have certain expectations.”
“Make the arrangements, but make sure there’s delays. As soon as we put two Russians in a room together, we’ll begin to lose control of this situation,” Reagan said.
“Yes, sir,” Schultz said.
“And this man wants asylum?” Reagan said, in a tone that bordered between question and statement. The thought hung in the smoke-filled air for a long beat.
Schultz was the first to break the silence, “Sir, I don’t think we can do that.”
Vice President Bush jumped on the comment. ”We have to. He’s requesting asylum. We can’t very well turn him back. He’s also a huge potential intelligence asset.”
“I think we have to,” Schultz said.
“What makes you say that, George?” Reagan asked.
Schultz continued, “We signed the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. By law, any spacecraft that lands here, we are obligated to return the ship and its crew to its country of origin. If one of our Clippers had come down over Vladivostok, it’d be the same rule. Astronauts are considered ‘envoys of mankind’ and are to be returned to their home country. We are obligated to render all possible assistance in the event of accident, distress or emergency landing.”
Bush countered, “This was none of those. This wasn’t an emergency landing. It was an intentional defection.”
“It won’t be, according to the Russians. If we keep this man, they’ll claim we coerced him or threatened him or worse, and every astronaut we ever launch from now on will be under threat of kidnapping if they have a problem and have to come down somewhere else.
“We’ve taken in pilots before, George,” Reagan said.
“And their planes,” Bush chimed in.
Schultz placed a hand flat on the mahogany table, “Yes, sir, we have. But those were fighter pilots with MiGs. In this case, we’re talking about a major Soviet asset. There’s millions of dollars in value in that ship. To say nothing of how much time and effort they put in to training this Kuchenko in the first place. I mean, can you imagine what we’d have done if they’d fished one of our Apollo crews out of the ocean and then told us the boys were defecting? Can you imagine what we’d have done to get them back?”
Reagan tilted his head and exhaled.
Bush seized the unmoving air, “Sir, this is an intelligence coup. It’s Belenko all over again. That was huge. We gain a huge insight into Soviet space operations, their readiness. How fast they can get a bird up, which tells us a lot about their capabilities in other areas. To say nothing of the fact that they will be losing an astronaut and we’ll be gaining one.”
Schultz blurted out, “Gaining one?! It’s not like NASA will let him fly. Really, Mr. Vice President. We take this guy in, the best-case scenario is that he spends the rest of his life as an advisor to Lockheed or Boeing and maybe, just maybe, he tells us something we don’t already know about a program we’re already five years ahead of. This guy isn’t an asset, at least not much of one. This is high-risk, low-reward. No two ways about it.”
“Did he say why?” Reagan asked, cutting off Bush’s response before it could leave his lips.
“Sir?” asked William Webster.
“Did he say why he was defecting? Why go through all that?”
The FBI director answered, “Uh, well, sir. He had several reasons. One of which was that he wasn’t happy with the treatment he was getting as a cosmonaut.”
“Not happy?” Reagan asked.
Casey joined in at this point, “The Russian space program has been more or less stalled since their Venus disaster a few years ago. They’ve launched one more Salyut station, but they’ve only had the resources to visit it twice in the past three years. There are also rumors of lost missions that never came home.”
Schultz spoke up, “That’s unlikely. More like cosmonauts that got busted out of the program for drunk and disorderly.”
“At any rate, we’ve had intelligence that’s said that some cosmonauts have been pulled out of the space program and returned to their former positions within the Soviet Air Force,” said the director.
“Afghanistan,” Schultz said.
There was a collective nod that passed through the room. In the space, a collective exhale passed through the group.
“My God,” said Bush. “He’s come here because he didn’t want to go fight?”
“Or because he didn’t want to trade the comfort of the cosmonaut life for Army rations and the chance at getting his ass shot off by a Stinger missile,” Schultz said.
“Either way…” Bush said.
“Either way, our path is clear. We send him back. We send the spacecraft back,” Schultz pointed a finger at the representative from the National Reconnaissance Office, “There’s nothing on that ship we need, right?”
The NRO man looked like he’d just been tied to railroad tracks, “Uh, there’s not much that we can gain at this point. We’ve already known the ship’s capabilities for some time. There’s a team at Hill doing a passive inspection now, which should confirm what we’ve already suspected. It’s ah… not a very big spacecraft. We’ve gotten a lot of what we can get just from the inspections we’ve already done.”
Schultz nodded. Bush came back to the conversation, “If we send him back, they’ll kill him. I mean, you just know it. He’ll step off the plane. He’ll wave, they’ll put him in a limo and no one will ever hear from him again.”
“Not if he explains that it was an accident,” Schultz said.
Now it was Bush’s turn, “Mr. Secretary, please. It’s very likely that he’ll be summarily shot. Even if he manages to convince them it was a mechanical failure, why would they take the risk? There’s no reason for them to not put a bullet in him as a signal to everyone behind the Iron Curtain. This is what happens when you fail.”
“Well, what about the signal we’d be sending?” Schultz asked.
“How do you mean?” Bush asked in reply.
“When Belenko came over, he flew to Japan. That other fella flew in to Turkey. West Germany has seen a couple. There was that one that got to Austria that we never acknowledged. When a pilot defects, they usually have the good sense not to come in at Mach 29 over Los Angeles. If we let this man stay, we’re saying that you can scare the hell out of the Strategic Air Command and wind up with a nice little house in Kansas as long as you say you’re on our side after you land.”
“If they’re going to bring in a Russian space fighter, I think it’s worth Space Command getting its dander up,” Bush replied.
“For God’s sake. We scrambled three squadrons of F-15 Eagles, the Nimitz went on full alert and NORAD went to DEFCON 3. This is not the kind of behavior we need to reward,” Schultz said.
“You think just because he came in a way that was inconvenient, it means he shouldn’t get to stay?” Bush asked.
“We usually ask more of people who want to come to this country,” Schultz replied.
“They’re usually not cosmonauts,” Bush replied.
“Stop. Just stop it,” Reagan said. He rubbed his forehead. The room took a breath.
“Director Casey, what was the pilot’s name?” Reagan asked.
The director had a mild shake of his head and stammered a bit before answering, “Major Ivan Kuchenko, Mr. President.”
“Okay,” Reagan said.
“Sir?” Schultz asked.
“I’ve gotten tired of this. I’m going to go upstairs and have lunch and maybe a nap,” Reagan picked up the black phone that was in front of him. “Scott, will you have them make me a fish sandwich for lunch, please?” He didn’t bother to listen to the response. He just put the phone back on the cradle.
“Sir, the Soviet embassy has already begun making inquiries. We will need a position very soon or the situation may worsen,” Bush said.
Reagan gave the barest of nods as he rose from the seat. Automatically, the other men in the room rose in response.
Light poured in from the outer corridor. Before anyone really had time to process what had happened, the President had left the Situation Room.
5 June 1983 – 1657 Local Time
Oval Office – The White House
Washington, DC
38° 53′ 50″ N 77° 02′ 14″ W
It was not the first time he had had to do this, but that did not make it easier. George Herbert Walker Bush stood in the outer office and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. June wasn’t known for being oppressive in DC, but there had been a heat wave this week and it seemed like it made the already long days last even longer.
One of the staff secretaries politely reminded him that he could proceed into the Oval Office. He acknowledged her, but still stood solid, facing the white door in front of him. He’d gone over what he wanted to say, but saying it was another matter.
Is it worse than jumping out of a plane over the Pacific?
He stifled a chuckle at the thought. True, whatever he faced here would not compare to his early adventures. Still, the situation was grave.
Entering the office never failed to give him a moment of pause. His feelings ranged from reverence to jealousy. The room itself called to him in ways that he would never be able to put into words.
“Sir,” Bush said, hoping not to startle the President.
Reagan stood behind the Resolute Desk. He faced the window and made no move at the sound of Bush’s entrance. It was unusual to meet with a President alone, but this had been an unusual presidency.
The padded carpet offered no sound as the Vice President crossed the room. Gingerly, he approached the desk. Again, the President made no move to acknowledge him. Bush wondered if Reagan knew he was here, or had somehow fallen asleep while standing up.
Finally, Bush came to a position no more than five feet from the leader of the free world. He gave his clipped, “Sir?” once more and Reagan jumped an inch, clearly startled. Bush winced, but the wheels of the world would wait no longer.
“Yes, George. How are you? What’s happened?” Reagan said. He flashed that warm, perfect smile that had quickly knocked George out after the New Hampshire primary.
“We’ve got a move on Kuchenko, sir.” Bush said.
Reagan paused, “Kuchenko,” he stated, letting the word hang.
“Yes, sir, the cosmonaut, sir,” Bush said.
“Yes, George, right. What, uh.. what have you come up with?” Reagan asked.
“Well, I must admit, Secretary Schultz made some excellent points earlier. I’ve been in consultation with director Casey and some others. It boils down to this…”
The two men made their way to the white couches in the center of the room and sat across from each other.
Bush spoke as plainly as he could, “We don’t want to provoke the Soviets any further than we have to at this point. Between SDI and the summits coming up, things are already about as tense as we like them. But we can’t just send him back. They’ll shoot him and I just can’t accept that.”
“Agreed,” Reagan said.
“So, we make a public announcement. This has happened. We’ve monitored and assisted in the emergency landing of a Soviet spacecraft. No need to get into details about what it was doing up there. Those questions can be referred to Moscow. All this is is a wayward traveller who got lost and needed rescue.”
“That’s not bad right there,” Reagan said.
“The Russians will take custody of him. We say, that’s fine, but we’d like to escort him out of our home country ourselves. They’ll understand that. He’s still a colonel in their Air Force.”
“What does that buy us?”
“Well, if you think about it sir, it’s an awfully long way from Washington to Moscow…”
7 June 1983
NASA/DOD Special Flight 86
Learjet 28 – Callsign: N2666L
Somewhere over the North Atlantic
The mid-air refueling was a bit excessive. They could have just taken a larger plane. Some psychoanalyst at Langley had recommended a small plane and a long flight. There would be fewer objections from the Soviet passengers and it would be more comfortable for everyone.
Five passengers. The cosmonaut, the cultural attaché, two security guards and the rep from the State Department, who had been asleep ever since they’d cleared Canadian air space. They’d begun the slow turn south and were on a heading that would take them to Paris.
Captain Dupree was enjoying the open transatlantic flight. There was no such thing as a bad day in a Learjet cockpit. The agency had already told him the score. He was looking forward to a free night’s stay in a European capital.
“Kerry Airport, this is November-two-six-six-six-Lima. NASA 86, entering your airspace. Requesting confirmation of vector to Le Bourget.”
Kerry’s Tower replied quickly. “Roger NASA 86. We have radar contact. Confirming your vector in just a moment. Keep true and maintain altitude.”
Half an hour later Dupree quietly signaled his copilot, another agency man, “I think we’re about ready to start the surprise party.”
He got a quick thumbs up and a moment later an awful scraping noise rumbled through the cabin.
He heard Russian mumbling and a few tones that bordered between curiosity and panic. A moment later, the State Department’s man came to the cockpit.
The besuited young diplomat looked stricken, “Captain, is there a problem?”
Dupree should have looked alarmed, but he felt he was better maintaining an air of quiet professionalism, “We seem to have lost our port side engine. We’re compensating with rudder control, but I think it best if we alter course.”
“Alter to where?”
Dupree answered by keying his radio, “Cork center, this is NASA 86. We’ve had an engine failure up here. So far we are able to maintain course. We’d like to declare an emergency. Requesting a new vector for Heathrow.”
“NASA 86, understand you are declaring an emergency. Your vector to Heathrow is…”
Dupree put a hand over his microphone and turned to the diplomat, “You might want to tell them we’re rerouting to London.”
“You don’t seem that concerned, Captain.”
“I’m not.”
“Uh… okay,” said the diplomat, as he turned to inform the Russians of the change in plans.
Dupree adjusted the throttle and rudder as he made the turn for London.
Right on schedule.
7 June 1983
Diplomatic Tarmac 187
Heathrow Airport
London, England
The Russians were in scramble mode. They had expected to land in Paris. The engine failure had thrown all their well-laid plans awry. As the jet was finally wheeling to a stop, Captain Dupree could see a pair of limousines with faded Soviet flags racing to meet the plane. Somewhere at Le Bourget, there was probably a pissed off diplomat, wondering where the hell they were.
The leader of the Russian delegation was clearly annoyed, but had no recourse for admonishment. Likely he was trying to think of a way of commenting on the engine flameout as a sign of American incompetence, but if he wanted to go that route, he never got there. With a few handshakes, the Russians hustled their man into one of the vehicles and departed.
They would certainly have to try to get Kuchenko a flight back to Moscow as soon as possible, but such a thing couldn’t be arranged on a moment’s notice.
As soon as the cars rounded the corner and were out of sight, Captain Dupree entered the hangar and found the nearest phone. He dialed the memorized number and spoke only one sentence.
“White Bishop to White Rook. Black Knight is on the board.”
7 June 1983
Towncar – License Plate 395X407
En route to the Embassy of the Soviet Union
London, England
Twilight was falling on London. The grey overcast skies of an evening storm had gathered over the crowded roadway as the embassy’s limousine entered heavy traffic.
Cosmonauts were, almost by definition, a patient breed of men and women. Dealing with Soviet doctors, procedures, training and bureaucracy would weed out any applicants who were not. This particular mission was proceeding more or less on schedule. Kuchenko noted the intersection they were passing and remembered its position relative to the rendezvous point.
Less than a kilometer to go.
He fingered the device in his pocket. He’d only seen it demonstrated once, but it was simple enough. The fountain pen was embossed with the seal of the United States. Secretary Schwartz had given it to him on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base this morning. Inside his pocket, he found the small clip on the pen that could hold it to a pocket. On any other pen, the feature was not noteworthy. But on this pen, that clasp held a much greater responsibility.
The two security men were not in military uniform, but he recognized the stance and demeanor of army training, even under a business suit. One sat on his right, the other directly in front of him. They were here to ensure the safety of the delegation certainly, but he also knew they were here to make sure his ass stayed in his seat. This limousine was a prison transport in the guise of a luxury vehicle.
The Americans hadn’t been able to show him any photos of the intersection. There hadn’t been the time. But he’d spent more than an hour with a map, memorizing the street corner and a square kilometer of other side streets and intersections around it. He’d never been to London before, but he knew this patch of ground as well as he knew his hometown.
It was time.
With as casual a motion as he could, he slid the pen out of his pocket and put it in his left hand, beside the door. With a twist of his fingers, he rotated the clasp and activated the magnetic mechanism.
Nothing happened.
No click, no snap, no movement or change of any kind. He glanced over at the door, trying to see if the gadget had worked all the same. No such luck. He could tell from the door handle that his cage was still effectively locked.
He winced. American engineering was good, but there was always room for improvement.
CIA engineers were no different than NASA engineers. They all loved a good backup plan.
The traffic light would change in less than a minute. It was now or never. He reached for the lapel pin that had been given to him. It was a beautiful piece that had the American and Soviet flags together, with a gold overlay. He was amazed at how small and innocent the device looked.
He took the pin off and pressed the flat of the circle to the car window. Before the security man could wonder what this odd movement was for, the window shattered, cracking into a thousand pieces.
He wasted no time.
Ivan Kuchenko bashed the shattered glass with his elbow, the padding of the suit giving little in the way of protection. As the crystallized remnants of the window tumbled to the London pavement, he dove through the empty hole.
The guard on his right was a little less stunned than the one who had been sitting in front of him. As Kuchenko slid his torso through the window, the security man managed to grab his leg. Kuchenko kicked hard to shake the man loose. He succeeded at freeing his leg, only to feel the tight grip of the man slip down to his right shoe.
Kuchenko had enough basic combat skills from the Air Force. He kicked again with his left foot and his right shoe came off in the man’s hands. With one shoe left, he fell over onto the pavement and landed on his shoulder. By this point, there was much in the way of shouting and angry curses being hurled at him. He rolled away from the towncar and picked himself up as best he could, running hard down the sidestreet, perpendicular to the direction of the limo.
He expected to be shot in the back. The Americans told him it wasn’t likely that they would shoot him on the street, but he had less doubt in their resolve to keep him. Whether through caution or incompetence, no bullet came to meet his spine, and no civilians were put into a crossfire, for which he was very thankful. He ran as hard as he could for the next corner. He had to make that corner and one more before he would reach a modicum of safety.
He didn’t look back to see the guards struggling to open the door that had been so securely locked. He never saw them stumble out of the car and begin a desperate pursuit. He was trained to endure and survive the harshest of situations. A footrace with a couple of heavyset, borscht-fed KGB rejects barely qualified.
He rounded the next corner and spotted the tube station. The entrance signs calling to him like a lighthouse in a storm.
He took the stairs two at a time, before thinking better of it. At this time of evening, the crowds were thick enough that he could blend in relatively well. He was, after all, just a man in a suit at this point. Embedded in a swarm of London commuters, he made his way to the platform. An American agent in a ludicrous fedora walked alongside him and paid the fare for both of them. Without a word of a sideways glance, they entered the train car together. The American took a seat and did an excellent job of looking disinterested. Kuchenko couldn’t resist the urge to look back through the door.
At the last moment, he wasn’t sure, but he might have seen one of his guards rudely pushing his way through the Brits, but it might have been someone else. And whoever it was, they never saw him.
He felt the jerk of the train departing the station. He kept the entrance in his sightline until the tunnel filled the window. Exhaling a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, he sank into the uncomfortable seat along the side of the car.
There were only a few stops on the line before he would reach the American embassy.
17 October 1983
Hadden Aerospace – Houston Division
League City, TX
29° 29′ 59″ N 95° 05′ 23″ W
They had wheeled in a television on a cart so that the staff could watch the launch. CNN was carrying the event live. It was still odd to see channels beyond the old original set.
“Should be quite a show,” Frank Hart said. His engineers were filtering in from the other offices. Everyone wanted to see this one. It was special.
He looked around, “Hey, where’s our new guy? Karellen? You in here?”
“I think he’s still at his desk, chief,” Bob said.
“Well, go get him. We should all be here for this.”
Bob hopped up from his chair and walked down the taupe corridor to the life support office. He found their newest employee hunched over a drafting table, with a magnifying glass, looking over some new drawings.
“Ivan, hey, it’s time. They’re getting ready to fly.”
The man spoke with an atrocious accent, but his English was understandable. He’d only been here for a couple of months, but they were getting used to him.
Bob led him back to the conference room. A public affairs officer from NASA was going through the order of events with one of the CNN hosts.
“…and after reaching orbit, the module will link up with Zeus III, the nuclear shuttle which will ferry much of the equipment from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit. After it is in orbit, Zeus will return to Earth alone. The module will then descend to the lunar south pole.”
“And the tank, or the module rather, will just wait there?” the CNN reporter asked.
“That’s correct. This flight is primarily to test out automated navigation and landing procedures. If all goes well, we will be able to develop reusable systems that will support the logistics of Moon base throughout its eventual construction.”
“And the payload today, it’s basically a big water tank, yes?”
“That’s correct. Water will serve as a good test of our ability to move heavy payloads to the surface, and the water itself will also be in great demand for Moonbase, once it is up and running.”
“Okay, we’re going to go live now to our shot of the launch pad as CNN continues our coverage of the first flight in the construction of the Moonbase on the Lunar South Pole.”
The Hadden team was silent through the final countdown and liftoff. After a few minutes, the cameras failed to show anything interesting and a series of commentators took over the screens again. The engineering team began to disperse.
Bob found himself walking back to the office with Ivan next to him.
“Quite a show, wasn’t it?” Bob said.
“It certainly was,” Ivan replied.
“Building a home on another world. Twenty years ago, we could barely stay in orbit. It’s amazing what we can do,” Bob said.
“It certainly is,” Ivan said.