Page 57 of Stars
NASA’slive feed of the launch cut at nine minutes, a full minute after there was nothing but midnight sky on the cameras. The burn of the rocket engines had faded, and only wispy trails of smoke and vapor cluttered the screen.
Tears slipped down his cheeks as he braced his head in his hands. Sasha was one hundred miles above Earth and climbing, spinning faster and farther away from him. Mission Control’s chatter continued, technical garble about OMS burns and attitude adjustments and delta-v. All things that pulled Sasha farther away.
The screen switched to Russian news. Russian One, Oleg’s station.
Two political commentators on the nation’s number one news program battled back and forth, shouting at each other. “It’s outrageous!” one of the men roared. “How long has this satellite been in orbit? How long have we had this technology? These capabilities outpace anything else in the world. We should not allow the Americans to destroy what our forefathers created. We have been given a gift from history—”
“You would have us go to war over a satellite? A relic from the Soviet Union?”
“War? What war? If we took control ofoursatellite back from the thieving Americans, there would be no war. We would be in control. Who could stop us if we can simply dominate the heavens? Who could stand against us? No one. No one can stop the nation that possesses this technology. And we are allowing the Americans to take it from us?” Apoplectic, the man nearly jumped from his seat. “This is just one more in a long, long line of President Puchkov’s weak and despicable groveling to the Americans. He hasn’t been the president of Russia for years. He’s an American agent, working for the American president. For the White House He does not care about Russia, only about America.”
“You are out of your mind!”
“First he destroys our economy. Then he instigates a civil war that decimates our country and destroys our military. Now we are dependent on the West, onAmerica. And who enjoys the most success after all this? President Puchkov, our nationalhero. This is an American-orchestrated manipulation of disasters within Russia, designed to destroy her from within.”
“And now?”
“And now, President Puchkov is fulfilling his role as CIA puppet and handing the Americans hard-earned Russian technology. He is a traitor. He is betraying the Russian Federation—”
Sergey flung the remote at the screen. Glass shattered in a spiderweb, iceberg-like cracks spreading to every corner. Like the fractures in his heart and the crevasses forming beneath his presidency.
The screen froze, but the sound played on. “President Sergey Puchkov is destroying this country, and something has to be done before we’re nothing but another state subjugated by America and the West.”
Sergey’s cell rang as he stormed across his office and yanked the TV’s power cord from the wall. “What?” he snarled.
“Seryozha,” Ilya said, static clouding the connection. “I found a name. The officer who ordered the launch? His name was General Igor Sevastyanov.”
* * *
18
Sasha’sfirst view of the ISS stole his breath.
He and Mark had pilotedFreedomin a steadily climbing orbit, catching up with the ISS’s speed and altitude until they were matching her 17,500-mile-per-hour velocity 200 miles above Earth. Finally they rounded the globe on the last loop of their transfer orbit, coming up over the sun-drenched Pacific Ocean behind the ISS.
A fan built to catch sunbeams, her four golden solar arrays spread far and wide. Sixteen panels made microscopic adjustments, following the solar winds as the station swept through her orbits. Each panel was massive, over one hundred feet long, extending on either side of the station’s central truss.
Just gazing at the panels made Sasha feel small, even more than seeing the Earth outsideFreedom’scockpit window.
Pressurized modules the size of small buses formed the core of the station. The first module,Zarya, had been sent up by the newly formed Russian Federation on an unmanned rocket. The Americans followed with theirUnitymodule, permanently docking her toZaryaand leaving the unmanned modules in orbit. Two years later, Russia’sZvezdamodule docked withZarya-Unity, bringing life support and communications to the nascent station.
Every piece of the station, everything Sasha was looking at, had been brought from Earth and manually constructed in orbit on forty-five launches, with contributions from sixteen different countries. The vast solar arrays, the football-field-long support truss, the hamster habitat of modules plugged together like Lego blocks. In thirty years, the ISS had grown into a wonder, a marvel of human engineering and a monument to determination, endurance, and tenacity.
“That module there, sticking out front?” Mark said, pointing to the forward-facing and oldest-looking one. “That’sZvezda. You’ve been powering her back on.”
A swell of pride filled Sasha’s chest. There were his country’s footprints in space—still there, even after the collapse of the Russian space industry. But that was not all, not anymore.Hewas in space, after all.
“Freedom, this is Alpha.” Their radios crackled, the space-to-space UHF signal from ISS connecting to them directly now that they were close enough, instead of bouncing signals through Houston. A woman spoke, her voice warm over the line and softly accented. “We see you on approach. We’ve gotIndependencefrom the L-G docking atUnity, so we’re going to swing you beneath us to theHarmonymodule.”
Independence, the Orion module docked at the Lunar Gateway, had left lunar orbit with two of the four astronauts stationed there two days beforeFreedom’s launch and burned for the ISS. While Sasha and Mark were bringingFreedominto orbital alignment with the ISS,Independencehad refueled and undocked for a flyby and potential reconnaissance EVA of the rogue Soviet satellite.
“Roger that, Alpha,” Mark called. “Good to hear your voice again, Phillipa.”
“Likewise, Mark.”
“All right, we’re coming up on our approach.” Mark took over, both hands on the control stick that controlledFreedom. “Sasha, guide me under the station and around. We have to flip around and line up for a reverse docking.”
Sasha called up the orbital docking programs and punched in the course coordinates. Sarah read out their distance and heading as he fed Mark the approach vectors, dipping him beneath the ISS for three seconds of thruster fire before Mark gently sloped them up and around the P6 truss arm and curved past the Japanese laboratory module. Mark twirledFreedomas they passed beyond the station, staring upside down and backward through the cockpit windows at the ISS.
