SSE
Copyright© 2013 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 5: Launch
At T-minus ten minutes, Jake got the email delivery confirmations of the three he’d sent from a remote server. One each to Tom, Mike, and Sondie, telling them to watch the TV now. It was 8 p.m. Eastern time, with a NASA news conference scheduled for shortly after the launch.
He smiled to himself and waited until his own timer reached the critical time. He hadn’t wanted to deal with things live, so he’d recorded everything earlier.
“Sequence hold,” his recorded voice announced.
“Celebratory champagne is overridden.”
One by one, he overrode the other bombs and takeover systems, while maintaining his own watch on incoming transmissions.
“Flight control systems to internal.”
“Autosequence start to internal. Now at three minutes and counting to SRB engines start.”
Thirty-two seconds, that’s all the verbal spew lasted. In reality, the commands had been executed in parallel a half second before he had interrupted the countdown. The longest to execute were a couple of relays that opened, taking perhaps a thousandth of a second.
“Jake! Jake! Abort! Abort! What’s going on?” the NASA flight controller alternated demanding and asking.
“I find it truly remarkable that you can’t figure that out for yourself. I’m tempted to send you my celebratory champagne.” He paused and added without inflection, “Now two minutes thirty to engine start.”
There was a welter of traffic as the ground tried to regain control. It had been too good to resist; he had one more pre-recorded message for ground control. “Jake, please!” someone said. “What’s going on?”
The tape rolled. “Avast mateys!” his voice said, then he added a heavily enhanced “Arrgh, mateys! There be pirates here! Hoist the Jolly Roger lads! We’re off a-pirating!” Six seconds! Wonderful! They didn’t know it yet, but they could no longer cut the feed to the TV and cable networks.
“Jake! Jake! Are you crazy? What are you doing?”
He spoke this time personally, intoning in his most serious voice. “This is Jacob Primare, Command pilot of the Solar System Explorer mission. I have discovered a number of explosive devices aboard, which, if detonated in proximity to the ISS, would compromise the safety of not only this vessel, but the ISS and the fourteen crew members currently aboard.
“As crew safety, according to NASA protocols, overrides all other mission objectives, I have elected to move so the ISS is a safe distance from this vehicle. Now one minute thirty seconds to engine start.”
“Jake, please! Abort! We can work this out!”
Jake smiled to himself. “Captain Ridge! I have found sixteen explosive devices aboard this craft. Six have the capacity to affect the structural integrity of the hull, and two would almost certainly cause the disruption of the entire vehicle, as they would detonate the main fuel tanks.
“It is my considered opinion, sir, that I should move the SSE so that the ISS is a safe distance and take my time making sure these devices have been disabled. With your permission, sir, I request permission to perform an emergency orbital maneuver in the vicinity of the ISS.”
“Do you have my video feed, Mr. Primare?” the ISS commander asked.
“Roger that, Captain.”
“Then,” he said, saluting, “you go with God, Mr. Primare. Good luck and God speed to you! You have my permission to maneuver well clear, Mr. Primare.”
Jake wished he could have saluted back. “SRB and Main Engines start, Captain. Beginning maneuver. I believe I’ll be able to move the vehicle a safe distance.”
He could see Captain Ridge was laughing.
The NASA Administrator was having kittens; Jake took the least amount of pity on her.
“What is it you are going, Mr. Primare?”
“Madame Administrator, the link I had to Mission Control and the ISS was private to us. Until now, no one has uttered my name on a public channel. You just did, coming out of DC. Alas, you’ve spilled the beans.”
“This is a secure feed to the mission!”
“A lot of things you once believed true, Madame Administrator, no longer hold true. For one thing, you just broke your own security regulations. Not me, you.”
She sputtered in anger, not knowing what to do. Jake’s pity didn’t extend to telling her why he’d never let her use his first name with him.
“Return at once!” she demanded.
“Well, it’s certainly my intention to return, Madam Administrator. Alas, the SRBs cannot be shut down until they burn out, and as long as they’re burning, I might as well keep the main engines going. I wouldn’t want to be too close to the ISS if I missed one of your infernal devices. There are fourteen men and women aboard the ISS. Their safety has to override my slight detour.”
“Those were flight safety devices! Even the space shuttle has them!”
“Bombs marked, ‘Celebratory champagne for mission completion?’” I asked. “I expect not.”
“You said something about piracy.”
“I think there was a comm glitch, Madam Administrator: I was role-playing with some friends on Second Life. I’m afraid I have no eye-patch, nor a peg-leg or even a parrot ... or for that matter, I don’t have a shoulder for it to ride on.”
Jake saw NASA’s Tidris system drop the feed and laughed. “Madam Administrator — surely you had to know my history? I am one of the foremost programmers of the day. Did I mention that I’m a billionaire, even still? A billion seven buys you an amazing amount of access. This feed is going to a number of comsats, and those feed each other and the ground. The only way to shut me up is to turn off every comsat in geosynchronous orbit. I do believe a number of people would complain. I realize you wouldn’t care, but I assure you, the companies affected would be on the phone to everyone in the current administration a second after you shut them off.”
There was a blink, and then Captain Ridge was sharing the channel. “Madam Administrator, I have just received a crew delegation. They demand to know if it’s true that you had explosive devices aboard the SSE intended to destroy it by exploding the vehicle’s main fuel tanks?”
“You’re twenty-seven miles away. The risk is trivial!”
I had never seen a living person turn that shade of reddish-puce before. “Madam Administrator, an object ejected from such an explosion, the size of a soup can, could instantly kill everyone aboard the ISS. Are you aware that an object the size of a fingernail clipping could cripple the station and doom us to a slow death?”
She remembered that this was live and she was admitting felonies. “I don’t remember.”
“Surely you remember that one of the terms of my contract was a signed resignation given to you, and another given to the president. Madam Administrator, I’m invoking that resignation. I quit. Now, Gillian Russell has a few words for you. In case you don’t remember,” he said with vitriolic sarcasm, “she’s my second in command.”
“Madam Administrator, I resign.” Well, she hadn’t wasted any words!
In the next minute, everyone on the ISS had resigned and Captain Ridge came back. “Since our resignations are effective immediately, we will do only such tasks as are required to maintain the station and life support. You will want to replace us as soon as possible, as we will do nothing beyond that.”
The link to the ISS broke then; Jake had no idea what the problem was — except that it wasn’t on his end. He kept on with velocity and distance readings from the ISS until SRB separation and then a few moments later when he shut the main engines down.
A picture came back up from mission control; Jake didn’t recognize the individual. “Mr. Primare, I’m Jason Korby. Until a few minutes ago, I was the liaison between the DOD and NASA, from the DOD side. I have no idea how long I will hold this job, but for now, I’ll liaise with you as well. The few remaining engineers tell me that your main engine burn and the SRB separations weren’t according to the flight plan.”
“Mr. Korby, I felt it incumbent upon me as command pilot of the SSE to remove the imminent danger to the ISS from a number of unauthorized explosive devices that had been placed aboard the SSE by a person or persons unknown. At any time, there is a family of orbits possible, even if one is not launching at a predetermined time.
“In this case, I realized I had an opportunity to circumnavigate the Moon, while still being able to achieve the Mars objectives of my mission. I’m curious about what the Chinese and Indians are so busy doing back there.”
“The most advantageous orbit for me, however, is counter to the lunar spin, and then when I loop back down to Earth, I’ll be going against the grain as well. In about a week, I’ll be close to a Near Earth asteroid. Its orbit ranges just beyond Earth’s to just inside the orbit of Mars.
“I’ll place the vehicle in orbit around the asteroid, and then perform a number of investigatory tasks. If, as I suspect from previous explorations, there is a layer of regolith — rock dust produced by millennia of impacts — I’ll scoop up as much as I can, filter it, and add it to my ionic engine fuel supply. It is quite likely, I feel, that I will be more than able to fill my tanks.
“I should be done about halfway to Mars when I complete the fueling. I’ll detach from the asteroid and fire the ionic engine at that point. I’ll be able to easily achieve Mars orbit two months later. With less than a tenth of the ionic fuel used, I’ll be able to rendezvous with Deimos and Phobos, the Martian moons. They too almost certainly have layers of regolith that I can use for fuel.
“I expect to spend a couple of years in Mars orbit. I have the ability to drop an EV with a rover to the Martian surface. While we’ve orbited some mighty fine cameras around Mars, I personally think that the Mark I eyeball is the best camera there is; I just wish I had one along. I’m going to check and see how my Mark VIs stand up to the cameras that have been there before.”
The man didn’t smile, but he did bob his head. That meant he had to know about the modifications Jake had had done to him.
“Even with full ionic tanks, it would take about three years to return to Earth ... I find that I could hitch another ride on an asteroid that crosses Mars’ orbit heading into the inner asteroid belt, putting me not too far from Ceres after roughly six or eight months. That’s a rock I’d like to check out.
“From Ceres it would be a matter of a few dozen weeks to reach an outer belt asteroid. If I were to locate even one asteroid covered with hydrocarbons and ices, humanity would have an easy way to expand into space. Not to mention, with a little water and carbon, I can refuel the main engines.
“Once in the outer belt ... I’d be five-sixths of the way to Jupiter. I’ll at least swing by and check out the big guy. My main goal would be Europa. I can run some tests, and enter a Europa-synchronous orbit, staying perpetually behind the moon, protecting myself from Jupiter’s radiation belts. I could either stop at one of Jupiter’s outer moons, or go on to Saturn then. I have to admit, every time I see a picture of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, I keep thinking how much it looks like a spaceship under thrust ... from an ionic drive like the SSE.
“It is virtually certain that I could fully refuel the main engines at Saturn. The rings appear to be pure water ice. I can melt the ice and tank the water, and then do a long ionic burn and head back home ... something the administrator neglected in my contract of employment. Round trip time will be a little on the long side, about thirty-five years, but I’ll see a lot of new scenery.”
“Assuming you live thirty-five more years,” Mr. Korda said, his voice emotionless.
“Well, obviously we all wear out at some point. I could expire tomorrow and no one would be surprised. If I live another thirty-five years it would cause some consternation among the scientists on my medical team — although I’m sure you could find one or two who predicted it all along.”
Jake spoke slowly and as emphatically as he could. “However long I have, I’ll be doing something that I actually want to do, something that, once prejudices are put aside, is very much worth doing. No matter what subsequent events have occurred, I have been faithful to my promises made in the contract I signed. I’m here, I’m going where I was told to go, if perhaps not as fast, and certainly with a different final destination. I wouldn’t want people to think this was a one-way trip.”
Either someone had briefed him, or he was smarter than the average bureaucrat Jake had had to deal with up to that point. “No, Mr. Primare, your mission isn’t a one-way trip. I’m sorry you might have gotten that impression.”
“Probably the contract,” Jake said, cutting him to the quick. “It kind of left that out — everything after reaching Saturn.”
“Draft in haste, repent later,” he told Jake. “I learned that in law school.”
“I’m glad someone learned something in school,” Jake shot back.
“Sir, I’m not here to bandy words with you. I’m here to find out your intentions; both in regard to the mission and towards those people who have wronged you.”
“You acknowledge that? That they didn’t have my best interests at heart?” Jake asked softly.
“There aren’t many other ways to read what’s happened,” the flack said. “On behalf of the president, you have his personal apology. He is going to personally head up the commission that investigates this — serious — infringement of someone’s rights.”
“I’ll repeat myself, since evidently I wasn’t clear before. The ‘infringement’ consisted of planning on killing me once they thought I’d done enough of whatever it is they wanted done. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree in principle and concept of the mission. There are a great many people at NASA, I suspect, who figured out what was going on and said nothing because I assured them I was doing only what they’d do, if they had the misfortune to have the chance.”
“The matter will be investigated, Mr. Primare. We aren’t prepared to rush to judgment.”
Just then, Jake’s day was interrupted by a call from Sondie. “Uncle Jake, help!”
“What?” he asked back.
“They aren’t here yet, but I can hear my father yelling at them in the living room. FBI agents are here to ‘talk’ to me. I assume that means arrest. They’re banging on my bedroom door...” Her voice stopped.
There was no way his withered emotions should have been capable of it. Certainly, he no longer had the sensory equipment.
He saw red.
“Mr. Korda, I beg to differ with you.”
“Pardon?”
“Agents, saying they are FBI, are at this instant pounding on my sixteen-year-old, paraplegic goddaughter’s bedroom door. From what she could hear of the discussion with her father, they are intent on taking her into custody.
“Mr. Korda, if anything happens to my goddaughter, I promise you I will use every resource in my power to see that you and the administration of your boss and all of the other bosses suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ... not to mention eternal damnation. Do I make myself very clear?”
“She’s a paraplegic?”
For a second time, Jake nearly lost it.
“Mr. Korda, intervene at once, or I’ll make you and your bosses wish you’d never lived. You are fools, living in your little fantasy bubble in DC where you have no idea what the people really think. You haven’t got a clue what the average person thinks. The NASA Administrator attempted this foolish stunt in the firm belief I’d never notice. As near as I can tell, there was little or no supervision of me. I laid my plans free of interference. I suspect the administrator will tell you she had no idea that I might object to her plans for me.
“Mr. Korda, you need to get on the phone right this instant.” Jake paused for a few seconds. “Imagine that! You’re in Houston, in Mission Control ... I can drop my champagne bottle in two days, six hours, and fourteen minutes, and it will arrive at your current location exactly two days and twelve hours later. I realize you’ll probably move before it arrives, but it will be coming on at eleven miles a second — it will do a bit of damage, not to mention sending a message. Stop this foolishness!”
“I assure you, Mr. Primare, I have nothing to do with this.”
“Look, in a couple of days, I can alter my trajectory so that I can release the celebratory champagne then. I’m going to send a little something more your way, to show my pique. You told me the first time you spoke you knew about this, and you cleverly evaded responsibility just now. That doesn’t work with me.
“I realize you and the people who employ you are abject idiots, but surely you have to know what will happen if FBI agents injure a paraplegic teenager in a no-knock raid that goes bad?
“I can’t reach either Sondra or her father. You don’t want to contemplate life for the next forty or fifty years, when you will never know when a champagne bottle will come flying through the window — or a piece of space rock. There are a lot of rocks out here, Mr. Korda. Do something.”
“I will not respond to threats.”
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