Burnout: The Mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281

  Anders gazed at him, sober in the faint blue light. "Several layers of surveillance sensor fences; an outpost base; a fleet of fighter spacecraft. All on a timetable. You're the ex-soldier, Crash. What the hell does it sound like they're getting ready for?"

  "Oh, shit," was all Murphy could get out.

  * * * *

  "Damn, they got a lotta people here," Anders breathed in amazement, as they crept past each vent louver. Outside the grilles, row upon row of partitioned offices stood, in a huge cubicle farm that the pair literally could not see across.

  "No shit," Crash agreed, crawling behind him. "Prairie dog town. I'm guessing Wing Charlie is the admin section. Tons of bean counters and conference rooms."

  "Looks like it," Anders confirmed. "I'd be glad to finally find something we're actually looking for…"

  "Be patient," Crash told him. "We'll get there."

  "Wish I had knee pads," Anders added, apropos of nothing in particular, and they moved on.

  * * * *

  The vent opened up into a large junction. In the center was a big lumbering fan, churning air.

  "Oh, boy," Anders said, staring in dismay into the open area. "Now what? Go back and find a way around?"

  "Hm…" Murphy said, studying the fan from his vantage inside the vent. "No, let's just sit here and rest a bit."

  "Huh?"

  "I think this is set on a duty cycle," Crash noted. "Before I got heavily into the space stuff, I spent a year or so working on industrial A/C systems. This looks like one of the models that runs for awhile, then shuts down, then runs again, rather than staying on all the time. It's an energy saver thing. If we wait, it might stop for a bit. In which case, it's big enough for us to squeeze between the fan blades."

  "It slices, it dices, it makes mounds of delicious coleslaw," Anders muttered whimsically to himself. "It even makes julienne fries. Okay. Wake me when it stops. I'm gonna take a nap."

  "Roger that. Sounds like you need it."

  Anders retreated farther back into the smaller duct and got in about a twenty minute catnap before Crash shook his shoulder and put a light hand over his mouth. "Time to go, Sleeping Beauty. Fan's stopped."

  "Okey doke."

  Anders slipped through with relative ease, but Crash's shoulders were almost too wide to fit, and the sleeve of his coveralls caught on one of the fan blades. It sprang away with a loud "whang!" and the pair froze. "Shit shit shit," Anders breathed.

  Crash glanced around. "Move! Move!" he hissed. "Camera on this side!"

  The two men scuttled like crabs through the fan housing and into the ductwork on the far side, then huddled about ten feet down the shaft, waiting tensely.

  * * * *

  In the closest facility security station, a lone guard sat in front of a large bank of video monitors. Most were of various checkpoints throughout the installation, but a not insignificant number showed service areas. As usual, all indicated nominal activity. The guard yawned, bored into a stupor, and eyed his lunch box. Finally he gave in to temptation, opening the box and extracting a candy bar. He started to unwrap it, but the paper tore all at once, sending it tumbling to the floor. The guard dove after it.

  Above him, one of the monitors showed a pair of men, on hands and knees, scuttling through the service access of a circulation fan, disappearing into one of the air ducts beneath the camera.

  The guard retrieved his chocolate bar and sat up, blowing the dust off the candy with a satisfied grin, before taking a large bite and settling back into his chair with a sigh.

  * * * *

  "Time to check location again," Crash decided, as they approached another louver.

  "Okay. Think we're outta Wing Charlie, after that little scare?"

  "Maybe. Your turn to look."

  "Okay."

  Anders sidled up to the vent louver, listening, then looking out at an angle. Deciding it was clear, he stuck his head full in front of the louver and peered out. "Shit. No doors close."

  They crawled down to the next air outlet. "Here we go," Anders murmured with satisfaction. "Okay, room number is A-438. We're in Wing Alpha."

  "Looks like," Crash agreed. "Say what kinda room it is?"

  "Umm… yeah. It says, ‘Electromagnetics Lab.'"

  "Ah. We're into the good stuff. Keep your eyes open."

  "Why would they need electromagnets here, though?" Mike wondered.

  "Who knows?" Crash answered. "Maybe they're working on rail guns."

  "For lunar excavation, or for weapons?"

  "Either. Both. Dunno. Keep a watch, and maybe we can find out."

  * * * *

  At the next junction, they turned right, and hit the jackpot. "Inside the EM lab," Anders grinned. "Lookit. Cool."

  "Yeah," Crash agreed, peering out into the busy lab. "You know magnetics?"

  Anders gave him a "look," an expression combining irked, surprised, and reprimanding, then chuckled. "Think I could've gotten a Ph.D. in astrophysics without it?" he pointed out. "Hell, yeah. I can run Maxwell's equations in my sleep, mate."

  "What the heck have they got a pottery shop over there in the corner for, then?" Murphy queried, gesturing to the activity going on in the room.

  Anders stifled a laugh. "Ceramic magnets, hotshot," he explained, sotto voce. "Looks like anisotropic, too, judging by the setup. They're cheap, lightweight, relatively easy to make, pretty strong, and don't demagnetize easily. Hm," he said, staring out at the work in progress.

  "‘Hm' what?"

  "That's interesting. A ceramic magnet should be permanent," Anders noted, watching the technicians work. "But the one they've got over there," he pointed at the worktable in the pottery shop area, "they're switching that one on and off."

  "Weird," Murphy murmured, staring into the room through the louver.

  "That's not all," Anders continued, watching with an educated eye. "Normally the things are doped with iron oxide, barium and strontium, but they're using something else, in addition to. Can't tell what it is from here. Neodymium, maybe?"

  "Rare earths?" Crash asked.

  "That'd be my guess," Anders remarked, watching one of the technicians carry a ceramic doughnut past, "but I'd love to be able to ask. I--"

  He glanced down in response to an odd sensation at his breast, to see his mechanical pencil gyrating and trying to work its way out of his chest pocket on its own. He grabbed it before it could get loose and clatter through the ductwork, and shoved it deeper into his pocket, clipping it firmly. "Shit! Get back down the vent shaft!" he hissed.

  "What?"

  "Go! GO! I'll explain in a minute!"

  When they were once again well back in the vent, the pair paused. "Okay, what was that all about?" Crash asked.

  Anders shook his head, irked at himself. "Check your watch. Still working?"

  "Yeah."

  "So's mine, for a wonder. Must have had my hand up against the sheet metal."

  "Mike, explain!"

  "Whatever the hell they're using to make the damn things, they're on the right track," Anders emphasized. "Those magnets are strong. Must have been several thousand Gauss, easy. I'm guessing the vent screen was plastic, or maybe it was just too open to provide a proper Faraday cage, in so strong a field."

  "What the hell is a Faraday cage?"

  "Remember what I taught you, Crash. Metal box--blocks magnetic fields."

  "Oh. Oh, yeah."

  "So," Anders continued, "everything metal was being sucked off us, and would've gone clattering around the inside of the vent, making a helluva racket."

  "Oooooh, shit."

  "Egg-zackly."

  "Wonder what they're for?" Murphy pondered.

  "Dunno, but the only time I've seen stronger magnets," Anders observed, "was in a particle accelerator."

  Chapter 20

  "Hm," Crash noted, looking through a louver, "electronics."

  "But is it a lab, or a manufacturing facility?" Anders wondered, peering out beside him.

  "Little of
both, I'd say."

  "What're they putting together, you think?"

  "Judging by the housings, I'd say this was instrument panels," Crash surmised judiciously. "Look, they're installing a toggle switch there." He pointed at a worker wielding a soldering iron over a half-constructed panel.

  "Yup, I think you're right, mate," Anders decided, watching. "Wonder which one."

  "Without a close look, couldn't say," Murphy said, losing interest. "C'mon. Nothing we can get to, to grab for evidence, and we still gotta find Wing Bravo and get the crew loose. This is taking way the hell too long!"

  They crawled on.

  * * * *

  Blake got out several cans of Tooheys, putting them in easy reach of the bed, and turning on the television to a tennis match 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.

  * * * *

  "What the hell is this place?" Crash wondered, staring out of the louvers at the large room. Crates were stacked to the ceiling all along the walls and on pallets in the center. In strategic places, there were transparent containers with cipher locks; odd little pieces of equipment or artifacts seemed to be in them. One looked to contain a moon rock or something similar. Next to it was another rock, identical to the moon rock except it was a rust red.

  "Looks like that room at the end of Raiders," Anders noted, squishing in beside his friend to peer out. "You know, the one where they stashed the Ark?"

  "Oooo," Crash responded in recognition, then, "Oh, shit!"

  The pair jerked back, out of sight, as three clean-suited scientists entered, carrying something in gloved hands. Anders watched Crash's eyes go wide, then narrow, as he peeped around the corner at the activity in the room.

  The white-suited trio carried the small metallic object over to one of the transparent containers, an empty one, and punched in a code on the cipher lock. Anders noted Crash's intent expression for a moment before returning his own attention to the scientists, who placed the piece of equipment into the container, then sealed it.

  "Cool. Now let's go get some java," one remarked.

  "The stuff of life," another laughed. "Let's go."

  They exited the room. Crash thrust out a hand. "Multi-tool."

  "What?"

  "We gotta get in and get that."

  Anders fished the multi-tool out of his pocket, and Murphy went to work with a will on the nuts and bolts inside the louver. "And how do you propose to do that? And why is it important?"

  Within seconds, a frantic Anders was grabbing for the louver as it came loose. He eased it out, and laid it on a large, oblong crate nearby, marked in painted stencil, "Adult Grey--Male." By the time he could pull back, Crash was already on the floor and sprinting to the plexiglas container, hissing, "Stay there!" over his shoulder.

  To the astronomer's surprise, Crash covered his finger with a loose flap of his coveralls, then punched in the code on the cipher lock without hesitation. A slight sigh of air, and the lid of the container opened. He snatched out the object inside, stuffed it into the rucksack on his shoulder, closed the container with a cloth-covered hand, and sprinted back for the vent, hoisting himself inside with Anders' help. Then they set to work hastily replacing the grille.

  Once the grille was secure, they moved a few feet away and stopped for a rest. "How'd you get into the box?" Anders asked, bemused.

  "I watched while they punched in the code, and memorized it."

  "Mind telling me what that was about?"

  "It was about getting this," Murphy said, pulling out the piece of titanium hardware.

  "Looks like somebody cut one of the hinges off the doors around here," Anders observed as Crash studied the item.

  "Right part, wrong door," Crash remarked with satisfaction, fingering a serial number etched into the side. "This is the missing hunk of the airlock door hinge from Atlantis."

  "The one your friend in Huntsville got killed over?"

  "The same."

  "Damn. Guess we know who killed him now." Anders' voice was very quiet.

  "Surprise, surprise," Crash answered bitterly, placing the hinge in the small pack he had lugged all the way through both underground installations.

  "We should go back! There's gotta be more stuff in there, more evidence!" Anders realized, pressing his face against the grating and peering out.

  Crash held up the pack. It was bulging. "Not much more room."

  "Oh." Anders slumped.

  "Besides, we're running out of time," Crash noted, checking the date on his wristwatch. "We've been at this way the hell too long as it is. We have to find the crew, and soon. Dunno how much longer we--or they--have got."

  Anders nodded understanding. "Let's go."

  * * * *

  The Russian general stopped by Air Marshal Haig's office for a friendly chat, and to find out if there was any more information from Blake regarding the wormhole.

  "I wouldn't know," Haig remarked. "I told him to take a few days off and hole up in his quarters, get some rest, before going back at it. I guess he took me up on it. I haven't seen him since right after the briefing."

  "Hm," General Ivanovich chuckled. "I knew the supply of your good Australian beer had dropped off in the last few days."

  "I didn't know you were partial, General," Haig grinned. "I'll contact Procurement and see to it you get a special shipment."

  "Ah, it is no bother," the general waved his hand. "I can do it just as well. Your man, Dr. Blake, is very good, and he deserves all the rest and beer he wants. Only see that he wakes up in a few days and keeps an eye on that wormhole. We need his help."

  "No problem there," Haig said with confidence. "Steve's already agreed."

  "Excellent," General Ivanovich smiled, and headed off for his own office.

  * * * *

  Crash was in the middle of the vent, Anders right behind, when the former flight controller sat down, sighing and covering his face with his hands.

  Anders stared, then took a seat beside his friend. "Crash? What's wrong?"

  Hands still over his face, Crash murmured, "What's the point?"

  "What?"

  "Mike, take a look at your watch. Do you have any idea how long we've been at this? And we haven't found them yet? It's too late, pal. Too damn late." Murphy's tone was quiet.

  Too quiet, Anders thought in uneasiness, realizing despair had festered, unseen, and now taken over his friend.

  "C'mon, Crash," Anders encouraged, feigning a confidence he didn't feel. "We know they're alive. Nobody else outside this place knows that."

  "Yeah, and what the hell good does that do us?" Crash demanded. "Our chances of getting out of Hell are better than getting out of here. Let alone if we actually managed to find Jet and the others. Let's face it, Mike. We're dead men."

  "You giving up on me, mate?"

  "What's the point of keeping on?"

  Anders stared at Murphy. "The point," he said, "is that what we're doing is right."

  "Is it?" Murphy asked, uncertain. "If the planet's under the gun, if we're really about to be involved in interstellar war, how is what we're doing right? Strikes me that we might even be doing irreparable harm to our planetary defense."

  "So anything goes, is that what you're saying?"

  "What do you mean?" Crash asked, confused.

  "What I mean," Anders pointed out, "is that, Machiavelli notwithstanding, the end does NOT always justify the means. This is what you blokes in the States call a ‘boondoggle,' Crash. Killing our own, in order to maintain secrecy over a matter that concerns everyone on this great big ball of dirt? How is that remotely right, mate? If we're facing a big huge interstellar war, we don't want to be killing off our best and brightest. We want to be letting them know what
's going on, preparing them to help us. We don't want to reduce the whole thing to some sort of grotesque political least common denominator, letting the more ruthless regimes, the fascists and communists, have as much say as the middle of the road blokes like you and me, and our countries. If we do that, how are we any different from conquering invaders?" Anders noted. "If this is really what's happening… if we're really about to go to war with another planet… this is going to force us to view ourselves as a planetary entity in the end, like it or bloody hell not. What we need to be thinking is, what sort of planetary entity do we want to be? How do we want the universe to see us? And is this…" he waved both hands around him, intending to encompass the entire facility in which they found themselves, "how we want to be known? I don't know about you, mate, but this is about as far from how I want to be remembered as anything I can think of."

  Crash listened to the astronomer, heard the passion in his low voice, and thought deeply on his words. "So you're saying…"

  "What I'm saying is… at what point are you willing to say that this is bigger than you or me, or a single Space Shuttle crew, or the bond between two men?" Anders said quietly, grabbing Crash's hand in a fist and squeezing it with unspoken meaning. "At what point are you willing to say that, no matter what happens, this is worth whatever it takes… even our own lives… to ensure not only that Earth survives, but that its legacy is befitting our loves and losses?"

  Crash stared in dumbfounded amazement at his companion. "Mike… I had no idea…"

  "Yeah, well," Anders flushed. "Some things I don't talk about so much. But sometimes… you gotta say what's in your heart, Crash. And you have to stand for what you believe. No matter what."

  Crash nodded thoughtfully. "So now we have something bigger to shoot for than just saving Jet and the guys."

  "Hell, yes."

  "But we still try to save them if we can, right?"

  "Of course," Anders said softly, almost tenderly. "That's what sets us apart from the likes of some of these blokes. Lives are more than just numbers to us. They're people. Individuals, with lives of their own. And that's what we're really fighting for, isn't it?" he encouraged.