Burnout: The Mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281

* * * *

  The two men moved down the corridor with as much stealth as they possessed. In Crash's case, this was considerable, as old military training kicked in. Anders was somewhat less successful. Nevertheless, the two remained unchallenged as they approached an open doorway on the right. Crash moved to the right wall of the hallway, motioning Anders to fall in behind him, and they eased up to the edge of the opening. Crash slipped a hand into one pocket, then eased forward and peered into the room. Sliding around the doorframe, he paused a moment, staring hard at the darkness, then motioned Anders into the room.

  "Break room," he breathed in Anders' ear, as Anders took in the cabinets, sink, and two dusty, broken wooden chairs. They scanned the room for a few more minutes, then Crash added in a normal tone, "This place is deserted."

  Chapter 16

  "Dammit, Crash, keep your voice down!" Anders hissed, voice urgent. "Maybe this is all just a trap, stuff intended to throw us off guard."

  "No," Crash insisted. "It's all been heavily used, but most of the stuff is outdated or broken. If they were trying to throw us off, it'd be recent. This crap is all at least twenty years old."

  "So you're saying…"

  "I'm not sure yet," Crash admitted, "but for sure there's nobody home, and doesn't appear to have been, for quite awhile. Guess I won't be needing this after all." He pulled a 9mm Ruger from the pocket of his coveralls, and engaged the safety before slipping it back into his pocket.

  "Wha--? Where the hell did that come from?!" Anders exclaimed.

  "When we got ready to tow John's ol' pickup, I cleaned it out," Crash explained, "and found this hidden under the seat, with a spare magazine and a box of cartridges. Figured it might come in handy." He patted a pocket of his coveralls.

  "Damn. Should have thought about that," Anders mused, remembering the sound of a safety being removed when Phillips had showed up at the RV. "Used ta be pretty handy with the things myself."

  "Zat so?" Crash queried. "I thought there were some strict gun laws Down Under." They crept across the dim room.

  "Yeah, but only since 1996. Besides, country boy, me. Some places in the Outback, well, they don't worry too much about…" Anders jabbed a finger in the general direction of the pistol hidden in Crash's pocket.

  "Oh."

  "Hey, Crash, you don't happen to have a flashlight in one ‘a those pockets, do ya, mate…?"

  "No joy. Sorry."

  "Yeah. S'pose there's anything in the cabinets?"

  Crash shrugged. "We can take a look."

  Nothing came to light, however, except a few pieces of bent cutlery, a stack of ancient C-rations, and some old wooden swizzle sticks.

  "Shit," Anders said. "Literally and figuratively." His stomach rumbled.

  "Let's keep going," Crash said.

  * * * *

  "Damnation," Anders sighed, hours later. "Nothing but moldy old offices and busted furniture. Even the computers are Stone Age."

  "And wiped clean," Crash pondered. "Appears like Dreamland has been sleeping for a looooong time."

  "Yeah. But I haven't," Anders complained. "Listen, Crash. I know this is important, and all that. But we've been going for nineteen hours straight, since we left the RV. No food since then. And last night was a damned short night. I. Am. Wiped."

  "Me, too," Crash admitted. "Pick an empty office, and we'll lock ourselves in for the night."

  "I gotta pee first."

  "Okay. Um…" Crash headed down the hall and found a restroom. "Here we go."

  They both entered and relieved themselves, then exited in a hurry.

  "Whew," Anders said. "With no running water, THAT was unpleasant."

  "Yeah. You know when I said pick an empty office?"

  "Uh-huh?"

  "Pick one a looooong way from there."

  "Got that one."

  They marched a considerable distance from the bathroom, around several corners, then Anders selected a door at random. "Think we should keep watch?"

  "Probably. I'll take first guard," Crash offered, as they entered a room. He locked the door as Anders curled up in a corner. Crash turned and saw his friend.

  "Not on the floor, Mike. Get up on that old table." He gestured at the tiny wooden conference table in the middle of the small room.

  "Why?"

  "Rats and stuff. Haven't seen any signs, but you can't be too careful."

  Before Crash could even finish speaking, Anders was on the table, heedless as he tossed a battered old knapsack to the side, onto the floor. He stretched out and settled in, as Crash picked up an old phone directory listing to balance a broken office chair. Crash had a sudden thought: He stepped under the emergency light and leafed through the directory. A soft snore came from Anders, and he glanced up momentarily, smiling with male affection, before returning his attention to the phone book.

  Crash stopped, ran a questing finger down the listing, and stared at the name on the page. An image formed in his mind's eye, of a stocky, sandy-haired pilot, so left-handed his jacket sleeve was always worn threadbare, arrogant to a fault. "Lieutenant Colonel Roger J. Wilson, Jr.," he murmured, reading from the phone directory. "Pogo Wilson. It is him. Dammit." He ripped out the page and crammed it into a pocket, slammed the book closed, rammed it under the chair wheel, and sat.

  Crash stared into the twilight for a long time, remembering.

  * * * *

  The Air Force flight headed over the DMZ, into Viet Cong airspace. Jet, Hotshot, Crash, and Pogo flew formation toward their target, a village taken over by the Viet Cong and used as a local base of operations. Their intent was to strafe the village and send enough missiles into the central compound to take out the operations.

  "Damn," Hotshot grumbled, "this is a job for a B-52, not an F-4."

  "You know the B-52's are occupied over near Hanoi, Hotshot," Jet sighed. "Like it or not, we're stuck with it. Command wants this installation down by sunset."

  "We'll get ‘em." Pogo was confident.

  "Coming up on coordinates," Crash murmured into the mike.

  "Roger that, Crash," Jet answered. "From here on in, keep the chatter down, guys."

  "Copy," Hotshot answered.

  "There she is," Pogo noted, as the village came into view. "Starting approach run now. You girls can follow behind me."

  Suddenly the incoming comm activated. "Flight Bravo, this is Triple Nickel Base."

  "Base, this is Bravo-One," Jet responded.

  "Bravo, abort mission. Repeat, abort mission. Intel indicates the Viet Cong evacuated Phan Lu five days ago. Village is civilian only. Repeat, village is civilian only. Decoy radio communication from Phan Lu has been maintained by a Vietnamese boy under duress. Abort mission. Confirm abort."

  "Bravo-One abort mission; wilco," Jet replied immediately, and peeled off.

  "Bravo-Two. Roger that, abort," Crash added, following his wing leader.

  "Bravo-Four, aborting," Hotshot agreed, also banking.

  They waited for Pogo to respond.

  He didn't.

  "Bravo-Three, respond," came the call from base. "Confirm abort."

  The three pilots stared out their windscreens at each other, shocked. "Crash, you see him on your radar?" Jet asked.

  "Yeah, I got ‘im," Eyeball, Crash's GIB, answered on comm after a few moments. "Shit! He's still on course for his strafing run! He hasn't aborted!"

  "Pogo! This is Jet! Abort! Abort!" Jet called into the mike. "Bravo-Three, respond!"

  "Oh, damn, he's started his strafing run," Eyeball groaned, horrified.

  Crash peeled off, returning to Phan Lu. "Jet, maybe his comm went down. I'm gonna try to wave him off."

  "On it right with ya, buddy. C'mon, Hotshot." Jet banked the aircraft hard.

  "Right behind ya," Hotshot answered, turning to follow.

  But by the time they'd returned to their previous coordinates, Bravo-Three's missiles had already leveled most of Phan Lu.

  * * * *

  The inquiry afterward had been… inter
esting, Crash decided, along the lines of the ancient Oriental curse: "May you live in interesting times and attract the attention of important and influential people." Pogo and Rawhide, his GIB, had both claimed that their comm had gone down, and it had turned out to be impossible to prove or disprove the claim. Pogo even seemed quite proud of the fact that he'd taken out an entire civilian village single-handed.

  "Shit, you gotta be kidding," he'd answered, when Crash had challenged him on it in private after the inquiry. "Don't matter if they're civvie or not. They're the enemy, dammit."

  In the end, the board of inquiry had had to rule it an accident, as it couldn't be proved that Pogo had deliberately disobeyed an order. He returned to flying soon thereafter, but the barracks gossip had been rife, and few of the Triple Nickel's pilots cared to fly with him.

  * * * *

  "How many floors, Crash?" Anders asked.

  They had been searching the abandoned base for two full days, according to their watches, and Anders had long since lost his sense of direction.

  "Mmm… five, I think," Crash pondered.

  "And so far, nothing."

  "So far. Except for the C-4-rations." Crash pulled a face and shifted the decrepit pack on his back that he had appropriated from their first night's campsite. Anders wore another; between them, they were now fairly well supplied for food and drink.

  "Hey, it's food and water."

  "If you can call it that. Hell, MREs would be better than this shit."

  "Keeps us on our feet, mate," Anders pointed out. "After two and a half days, I am glad of it, too. I'm not quite as fit as you are. And between those two break rooms, we got a decent supply of it."

  "Yeah. Damn, I swore I'd never eat another one after I left Nam. Uiccch." Crash scowled in disgust, making a retching sound.

  "Okay, so it's not gourmet," Anders admitted, "but--"

  "That's a hell of an understatement," Crash interrupted.

  "But at least they're not spoiled, and they're calories."

  Crash shrugged, then nodded. "I guess. Beggars can't be choosers. Nor infiltrators, either, I suppose."

  "Down another floor?" Anders pushed open the stairwell door.

  "Might as well," Crash decided. "There's nothing here. Except another set of those hellacious big doors, welded shut."

  "Yup. We are way the hell below ground," Anders muttered to himself as they descended. "I feel like… like a, an echidna, or a… what're those things, prairie dogs, or something. I swear I'm starting to be able to see in the dark."

  "Yup," Crash agreed, succinct.

  "How are you managing to keep from getting us lost?" Anders wondered, mystified.

  Crash shrugged again. "I dunno. I was just always good at that."

  They reached the bottom of the stairwell. "That's interesting," Anders observed. "Looks like six, and no mo'?"

  "Maybe," Crash hedged. "Or maybe there's other, deeper stairs, and we just haven't found ‘em yet."

  "Could be, I suppose," Anders agreed easily enough. "I have no idea where the hell they'd be, given we've gone through every door available, but maybe so."

  They fell silent as Anders gingerly opened the door and peeped out. "Shit," he muttered. "Same song, sixth verse."

  The corridor was dim, red-lit, and deserted, just like all the others. "Dammit," Crash swore. "If we can't find anybody, we can't figure out what happened to the shuttle crew. Jet, where the hell are ya, pal?" He sighed. "Well, let's start looking. Again."

  * * * *

  Blake got out several cans of Tooheys, putting them within easy reach of the bed, and turning on the television before going to the thermostat and switching off the surveillance system in his quarters. Then he went into his kitchenette, getting three one-liter bottles of water.

  He went to the maintenance panel, opened it, and disappeared into the tunnel with the water. He was gone some little time.

  When he returned, the water was gone.

  * * * *

  "Hey, Crash, come over here," Anders called from somewhere in the red twilight, and his friend hurried down the hall toward his voice. "Look at this."

  "This" was, by the look of it, an old staging room, complete with worn out conference table and chairs with torn upholstery. Along one wall sat a row of tall file cabinet safes, locks removed.

  "Hm," Crash remarked, thoughtful as he surveyed the room.

  "Any luck finding another set of stairs?" Anders asked.

  "Not yet. Let's look through this." Crash moved to the cabinets and began pulling drawers. Anders followed suit. They started at opposite ends, working inward and downward.

  "Empty."

  "Same here."

  "Ditto…"

  "Nada."

  "Crap."

  Crash glanced up at Anders' comment; Anders shook his head. "No, I mean literally, mouse turds."

  "Shit."

  "Egg-zackly."

  On the second file cabinet, Crash pulled out some old headsets. "Huh."

  "What?"

  "Same ones we used at the old MCC."

  "Old MCC?"

  "Yeah, the Mission Control that dated to Apollo days. These are the exact same kinds of headsets."

  "Really? Interesting." Anders stared at him, considering the implications.

  "Isn't it, though?" Crash agreed, and resumed rummaging.

  "Hey, Crash, I found something. Take a look at this…" Anders pulled out a folder from where it had wedged behind a drawer, disclosing an Earth map with a superimposed ground track. The paper was yellowed, crinkled, and brittle.

  "Hel-lo," Crash remarked with surprise, after a moment. "That's different."

  "What is?"

  "That ground track couldn't have been launched from Florida," Crash explained.

  "Why not?"

  "It's almost polar. Inclination's way too high." The former flight director studied the chart with a practiced eye. "Looks like the kind of orbits we'd planned for the second space port."

  "The one that never got built?" Anders verified.

  "That's the one."

  "Lessee, that was supposed to be…" Anders mulled, trying to drag the memory to the fore.

  "Edwards, or near vicinity," Crash filled in.

  "Oh, yeah." Anders paused, remembering. "You know… they were going to build one in the Outback or some such, too… now where was that supposed to be… uhh, oh yeah, it was gonna be in the Top End. They wanted to be able to achieve both polar and standard orbits from it. Wonder what ever became of that project…"

  "Hm." Crash continued to stare down at the ground track, studying it in detail.

  "‘Hm' what?"

  "Edwards is something like two hundred miles southwest of here," Crash pondered. "At least, I think it is…"

  "Aw, shit," Anders exclaimed, seeing his point. "They must've been launching something outta the same vicinity."

  "Or planning to," Crash agreed. "Let's see what else we can dig up. Hang on to that."

  After a few more moments, Anders pulled an old accordion document folder from behind another drawer. "Empty. Here. Something we can stash our clues in. When we're done collecting, it can go into your pack, along with the food."

  Into the folder went the ground track, a headset, and the page Crash had torn from the phonebook. "What's that?" Anders wondered, spotting Crash's phonebook page as the former flight controller continued to rummage in drawers.

  "Proof that someone was here." Crash's reply was cryptic.

  "Ooo-kay…" The astronomer accepted the statement as delivered, and dived back into the drawers, fishing around. "Wait a minute. What's this?" Anders pulled out an old, cracked coffee mug. It read, "Greenbriar Hotel."

  "Aw, dammit. So D.C. had full knowledge, huh?" Crash slammed his hand against a cabinet in frustrated outrage.

  "How you figure?" Anders asked, mystified by Crash's strong response. "Oh, hold it, I remember. That's where the big bomb shelter for your govvies was built, wasn't it? Under the hotel?"

  "Yeah.
"

  "So this facility was top level."

  "Looks that way." Crash paused. "Explains the top level cover-up on this job, too. I wonder if Jim knows. I hope to hell not. I'd hate to think he did…"

  "Jim? Who's Jim?"

  "President Munroe," Crash answered. "He and I served together."

  "Oh. Yeah. We've got our work cut out for us, I'd say."

  "I owe you an apology," Crash repented, turning and meeting his friend's eyes. "You were right."

  "‘Bout…?" Mike wondered, surprised.

  "The government's involvement."

  "Eh. Stands to reason," Anders shrugged, waving off the apology. "They've got a vested interest in keeping it hush-hush. If we really are on the brink of a space war, there'd be panic and rioting in the streets."

  "Yeah." Crash opened another drawer. "Empty. That's the last of it." He crammed the packet of clues into his backpack.

  Anders stepped back, and gazed at the wall in the dim light. "Maybe not. Look at the wall."

  Crash looked. "It's a wall. So?"

  "It's a wall with a very big, rectangular dark patch on it," Anders pointed out, using his index finger to describe the outline, "like something big hung there for a long time…"

  "And the wall faded around it," Crash caught on, staring at the dim expanse of painted sheet rock in question. "You don't s'pose…?"

  The two men moved to the wall behind the cabinets. "Yep," Anders said in satisfaction, pressing his face against the wall and peering behind the cabinets, "looks like a bulletin board."

  "Musta slipped behind ‘em during the move, and nobody realized it," Crash added. "Now--how do we fish it out?"

  "Gimme a boost," Anders suggested, "and I'll see if I can reach it from the top side."

  With several grunts and significant effort, Anders scrambled on top of the tall file cabinets, Crash assisting. He knelt on top, leaned his head against the wall, and stared downward in consideration. "Mm, yeah, I think I can get hold of it."

  Anders mashed his cheek against the wall and slipped his hands down, behind the row of cabinets, until he could feel the top of the board's frame. "Okay. There it is."

  "Can you get a grip on it?"

  "I'm gonna give it a burl, at least. Here goes." Anders clamped the edge of the frame between his long, surprisingly strong fingers, and began easing the board upward. "Damn, this thing is heavy." All at once his grip gave way, and the bulletin board crashed back down with a racket. "Shit!" He sucked his sore fingertips for a moment.