"Ann…"
His call was drowned out by another explosion. His grip instinctively tightened on the ceiling handhold. But it was not another explosion on the keel. It was a loud, rhythmic drumming sound, reverberating through the entire station…
The laser designator refused to lock onto the large round bull's-eye itself — some sort of mirror inside reflected the laser energy away instead of back to the spaceplane — so Voloshin had to target the housing of the bull's-eye instead. No problem there. The station was revolving at a perfect rate, not too fast, not too slow. In seconds the strange housing would be in range and he would send a Scimitar missile straight through-
Colonel Ivan Voloshin saw a flash of red light and felt suddenly hot, as though he'd been dunked in a tub of hot water. The feeling was so pleasant that he let the warmth wash over him like a gentle wave. He even had time to worry about — something silly — that he had to urinate badly. Was it happened because he felt as if it had been stuck in a bucket of warm water? That was a favorite technique of his mother's, he remembered: before going to the store with him, she would always ask if he had to go to the bathroom, and he of course would always say no. Then she would tell him to wash his hands and make sure to use hot water, and all of sudden he had to go…
Colonel Voloshin carried that pleasant childhood memory with him into oblivion as his Elektron spaceplane exploded into uncountable fiery pieces.
"Elektron Two. Report on that flash of light on your side." Nothing, not even a hiss of static. "Voloshin. Report." Govorov had to jerk his lateral thrusters quickly to avoid a large piece of debris, probably from the crippled American space station, that had appeared out of nowhere.
He glanced at his spaceplane's fuel gauges. His wild escape maneuver and his present station-keeping pulses to maintain his position on the revolving space station were seriously depleting his supply. Wasting more precious fuel searching for Voloshin would probably push him right to the time-line. He no longer had the time to spend locating, identifying, targeting and shooting at individual station subsystems. "Voloshin, fuel status." No reply. "Elektron Two, this is Elektron One. If you can hear me, break off your attack and join me one thousand meters above the station axis. Acknowledge."
Still no reply. Things had just darkened for Govorov: low on fuel, lost wingman, only five Scimitar missiles remaining and their target not yet destroyed. He discontinued his station-keeping position and circled the wobbling space station. No sign of Voloshin. Instead of expending the energy to station-keep around Armstrong, Voloshin had probably stayed above the wreck and… been struck by a piece of debris…
Now only a few more minutes until the deorbit time-line limit. Govorov could not spend time targeting the stations' subsystems. He maneuvered to face the revolving station, activated his laser designator, and took aim on the station's pressurized modules…
CHAPTER 27
"Ann? Can you hear me?"
The intercom had gone dead. The lights were completely out now except for one or two remaining emergency lights. He had no way of knowing if the SBR or Skybolt had worked. He didn't even know if she was still alive.
Suddenly Saint-Michael's huge sophisticated space station seemed like an orbiting mausoleum, and all he could think of was finding her and getting out of this dark, entombing crypt.
Ever since the command-module crewmembers had evacuated the station, Saint-Michael had been wearing the bottoms of his spacesuit. He now made his way over to where the upper half of his suit was floating, slipped into it and joined up the two halves. While breathing oxygen from his POS he connected his gloves, communications headset and helmet in place and activated his life-support backpack. He then moved toward the hatch leading to the connecting tunnel.
He passed through the connecting tunnel and had just entered the engineering module when the entire ceiling seemed to explode on top of him. He caught a glimpse of a projectile shooting straight through the module and crashing through the deck. The Velcro-covered floor seemed to erupt and buckle like hot tar. Sparks filled the cabin. A PRESS warning horn sounded, followed by a FIRE warning light that flickered on and off. In a few moments the only lights on in the module were the two warning lights, creating an eerie strobe-light effect. Saint-Michael had to overcome the sudden disorientation and will his legs to move. Carefully he climbed through the shards of metal, plastic, wiring and other debris now floating throughout the galley module and made his way to the hatch to the Skybolt module. Smoke began to billow through the galley as he peered through the thick Plexiglas window into the module…
Ann was suspended about a foot from the ceiling, her arms and legs dangling like a puppet's, her POS system hovering near her neck; Saint-Michael noted with relief that her mask was on. She was not moving. A few blobs of blood encircled her forehead.
He opened the hatch, closed it behind him and made sure the Skybolt module began to repressurize itself. When the pressure was nearly normal he slid down the narrow aisle between the massive electronics racks and pulled Ann to him. He quickly checked her POS connections and found them secure. Further examination revealed a large cut and a bump on her left temple.
He touched his helmet to her POS faceplate. "Ann, can you hear me?"
After a long, tense wait he noticed her neck and face muscles jerk, and then her eyes opened.
"You all right?"
"I… I hit the instrument panel… big explosion."
"We've got to get out of here. Can you move?" She nodded, reached out with a foot to find the floor was still several feet above the deck. "I can move you, want to get you into a rescue ball."
"Skybolt… it works, Jason. I fired… it fired."
"Easy. Never mind Skybolt. Those spaceplanes are shooting up the modules. This one could be next." He unstowed a rescue ball from a yellow-painted container mounted on the module ceiling. "Can you seal yourself up inside?"
She nodded weakly, her labored breathing fogging the POS face mask.
Another explosion rocked the station, and with it the station's spin seemed drastically to change direction. Saint-Michael had to hold himself steady until his body caught up with the new wobble in the station, then he opened the rescue ball.
"Curl yourself up around the POS pack." With his help she wrapped her arms and legs around the POS pack and lowered her chin on the top of it. "Don't forget-seal up the ball when I cover you with it, and keep checking the pressure gauges. Keep the ball at seven p.s.i. with your POS if you need to."
With Ann in a fetal curl a few feet from the deck, Saint-Michael enclosed her with the rescue ball and zipped it closed around her. He could feel her fumbling with the ziplock-style pressure seal inside as he steered her over to an oxygen panel in the Skybolt module, plugged an oxygen hose into a pressure fitting on the ball and began to inflate the rescue ball. He noted the ball's small pressure gauge steadily rise, pumped the ball up to one standard station atmosphere and checked the seal again. It looked like a big beach ball.
Leaving Ann connected to the oxygen fitting, he bypassed the safety interlocks and undogged the hatch leading to the engineering module. The galley had completely lost its pressurization, and judging from the occasional explosions he heard, the rest of the station was probably just as dead. Only one last possibility for survival. He disconnected Ann and her rescue ball from the oxygen supply and carried her through engineering and the connecting tunnel to the docking module.