The Void

CHAPTER 4

“Crossing into friendly airspace in three, two, one… now.”

Scott McIntyre, senior NASA technician, continued to watch the screen before him as the blip passed over a red line indicating the Orlando space shuttle had moved out of Russian astro-territory.

“We’re now over the Chukchee Sea, crossing the Bering Strait and coming up on Point Hope, Alaska. Co-ords are: 68°20′49″N, 166°45′47″W. We are looking good, people.”

“Thank god. How long until reboot complete?” Russell Burrows paced, chewing his nails, sipping coffee and generally feeling like the last few hairs on his head were raining down around him like a cat shedding on furniture.

Scott bobbed his head. “Well, if boot-up started when we suspected, then we’ve only got… fifty-eight seconds remaining, and counting down.”

“Under a minute, Jezuz.” Russ clenched his fists and stopped before the largest of the wall data screens that was still dark. He felt it was now like a window onto the vacuum of space giving him back an empty nothingness. He unclenched his sweaty hands but then folded them under his arms, tight, and watched from under lowered brows.

Russ glanced at Anne Peterson, who stood a dozen feet away, her hands clasped before her, and he swore he could see her lips moving in silent prayer as she, too, watched and waited.

Though Russ wasn’t much of a believer in the big head honcho in the sky, he decided, what the hell, he’d say a few words for luck as well.

“Ten seconds,” Scott yelled without turning from his screen.

Come on, Orlando, give me something. Russ used his teeth to nip off another corner of thumbnail.

The room fell to tomb silence as every one of the people in the room stopped what they were doing and stared up at the large screen.

“Three, two, one…” Scott took his hands off his keyboard and sat back. His eyes were wide as he stared.

The panel fizzed for a few seconds, and then began to stabilize.

“Yes! Ladies and gentlemen, we are back online.” Scott raised both fists, but then froze, his mouth hanging open.

It was like a portal to hell — screaming, darting movement as if bodies were running blindly, knocking into things, jerking away and running again. The vision was blurred, or rather greasy, as if the camera lens was coated in something glutinous.

Sticky string-like fibers seemed to reach for them, and were followed by more panicked screams — not just those of men and woman in fear or confusion, but rather like that of tortured souls, yelling in pain and horror from the pits of Hades itself.

“Oh god.” Russ gulped; he couldn’t tell which of his astronauts was screaming, or even if it was a man or woman. He spun to look at Anne who went to her knees, mouth working and eyes wide and wet. He spun back to Scott.

“Turn that down. Non-essential personnel clear the room, now.” He waved to his security detail, and then pointed back at Anne. “Help her out.”

Russ then sprinted to the console next to Scott, as Anne straightened and brushed off any help. Anne glared, first at him, and then back at the wall screen. Tough woman, he thought as he sat down and opened communications with the Orlando.

“Commander Mitch Granger, do you read?” Russ waited for a few more seconds, trying to hear through the hellish sounds on the shuttle cockpit. “Commander Mitch Granger, do you read me, over?”

Russ waited a few more seconds. “Commander Mitch Granger, flight engineer Gerry Fifield, mission specialist Beth Power, do — you — read me, over?”

The screaming continued for several more seconds before it lapsed into sobbing, then moaning, and then nothing.

“Have we lost them?” Russ turned to Scott.

Scott shook his head. “Comm link is strong and holding.” He eased back in his chair, and half turned to the room full of technicians. “Larry, what have you got on their PLSs?”

Russ lifted — their Personal Life Sign should tell them something about their underlying physical state. From across the room, a brush-cut young man named Larry cleared his throat.

“Well, we’ve still got all their signatures, but they’re…” The man looked pained. “…I dunno, different.”

Scott’s forehead creased, and then both he and Russ turned to the technician. “What do you mean, different?”

Larry shook his head. “Looks like they’re unconscious or maybe something even deeper; like a comatose state. Fading in and out. Doesn’t look huma—”

“All of them?” Russ asked, feeling a knot tighten in his gut. “Have they still got atmospheric integrity?”

“Yep, all good there.” Larry looked confused. “Even though their life signs are weak, Ripley says there’s still movement onboard.”

“Least that’s something.” Russ got to his feet. He paced one way for a few steps and then the other. “What the hell is going on up there?” He walked closer to the large central screen, and put his hand to the microphone at his mouth. He swallowed dryly.

“To all and any member of the Orlando crew, please come in. Over.” Russ licked his lips. “Please send a sign that you can read us, urgent. Over.” Russ knew there was a dozen ways they could communicate. Even if all the standard comms went down, they could use the cabin lights to blink out a Morse code message. He stared at the empty screen as the seconds stretched.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Russ paced again for a few moments. “We can’t wait.” He spun. “Bring them down, bring them down, right now.”

“You got it, boss.” Scott started to type furiously, and yelled commands over one shoulder then the other. “All right people, by the books, we are going to initiate auto control.” He turned to a line of technicians behind him. “What are we over now?”

“Nothing good right now, but we’ve got a couple of emergency drop sites in Canada, nearest being CFB Edmonton coming up — it’s a Canadian military forces base located in Sturgeon County.”

“I know it, in Alberta,” Russ said. “I’ll alert them, and we can start a long reentry to glide on in to it.” He clapped his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s bring our astronauts home.”

The babble of voices rose in the command center as every scientist, technician, and administrator worked rapidly at their controls. They quickly overrode Orlando’s cockpit control system and then began working directly with Ripley to initiate several gentle burns to angle the shuttle orbiter’s nose down toward the Canadian base at CFB Edmonton.

On the large screen, there was an inbound trajectory plotted as a solid black line. The angle of descent meant that the shuttle would glide for thousands of miles, reaching speeds of Mach 2.5 on its way to the Edmonton emergency runway. It would still take hours to finally make touchdown, but Russ felt his confidence build as they had the shuttle in their control and his team had trained for this so many times he bet they could do it in their sleep.

“Walk in the park,” Scott said.

Russ straightened, feeling better… until the alarms started blaring.

“What the hell, now?” Russ sprinted to Scott’s terminal.

Scott was shaking his head. “Something’s gone wrong.”

“You think?” Russ leaned over him, and briefly looked up at the large screen. “Hey…”

“I know, I know, they’re way off course.” Scott grimaced. “I don’t know how, but Ripley is being overridden. Orlando has put herself into a dive — she’s going down, I mean, straight down.”

“No, no, no, at that speed she’ll end up bug shit on a windscreen.” Russ wiped his mouth with a hand and felt nauseous.

“Hooold it… she’s slowing.” Scott’s brow was now permanently furrowed.

“Slowing?” Russ straightened. “Jesus Christ, there’s someone still alive in there.” Russ couldn’t think straight as the floor of the control room exploded into a chaotic melee of shouted voices and rushing people as information was sought, used, and sent. He pulled the headset back over his head, and switched it on, blanking everything else out.

“Commander, Mitch, I don’t know if you can hear me, but you’ve got to relinquish manual control. Mitch, anyone, please, if you can hear me but can’t respond, just switch the orbiter back to auto-pilot, so we and Ripley can bring you in safely… please.”

What the fuck is going on up there? Russ felt panic rising in his chest again. He looked back up at the screen. There was another directional line now branching away from the trajectory they had plotted into the Edmonton runway. They were pulling out of their death dive, but they were still far too steep on reentry.

It was weird; if he had to guess, he’d say it looked like someone had detected NASA’s intrusion, and decided to break its control, and then, what? First, put the Orlando into a nosedive and destroy it and themselves? Russ wiped his brow with a sleeve, and tried to make sense of it.

It was if they’d changed their minds and were now trying to glide the shuttle in. It didn’t make sense — it was like there was a war going on up there. He watched as the Orlando leveled out a little more.

“Jesus.” Russ spun. “Scott, give me a destination, ASAP. Put it up on screen.”

His friend’s hands flew, and then up went an extrapolated vector represented as a dotted line. It ended at a point on the map way up in Alaska.

“Hooooly shit.” Russ put a hand to his forehead and blinked for a few moments allowing his mind to catch up. “We, we need to be there.” Russ snatched up a phone, and held it away from his mouth for a moment. “I’m taking charge of this personally. “

Scott stood. “Count me in.”

Russ nodded. “We need a rescue and recovery plan. And we need to leave, like, now.”