It’s a long shot but he thinks that if the hijackers see one of the windscreen’s glass panels is cracked they won’t launch. Unfortunately the first bullet he fired did nothing but leave a pockmark — a ‘bruise’ in NASA speak. The fused silica glass used in the panels is designed to take one hell of a beating, from birdstrikes at launch to micrometeor strikes during orbit so for anything to happen he’ll need to hit the same spot again and hope for the best. He aims the pistol at the left-side windscreen panel again and squeezes the trigger.
Rhonda appears behind the glass panel. He sees her too late. The bullet slams into her face — but the glass doesn’t implode or shatter or even crack. The bullet just leaves a second pockmark and drops away. The one thing he needs to fail on the shuttle works flawlessly.
Rhonda’s face is both impassive and grim, then Tango’s buddy, the French guy with the face Photoshop was invented for, appears beside her. He pushes a pistol against her temple then gestures to Judd with his free hand. The directive is condescending, dismissive and absolutely clear. He wants him to drop the pistol.
Judd has no choice. He releases the weapon and it falls to floor. The Frenchman smiles, shakes his head, and makes another gesture. Judd does as he’s told and kicks the gun over the edge of the White Room, watches it disappear into the fog of steam and exhaust that billows up from the sound suppression system. He looks back at the shuttle but it vanishes behind the rising cloud.
Judd is stricken. He has no idea of what to do next. He turns, sees a tall guy enter the far end of the White Room. The guy pulls off a black ski mask, helps the groggy German to his feet then passes him a pistol. Together they stride towards Judd.
‘Oh shit.’ Judd looks around. Directly behind him is a 60-metre drop to the howling engines below. He’s got nowhere to go and no time to get there.
Severson looks across at Mitson. The kid’s fingers move lightly across the keyboard, his eyes locked on the monitor before him. He shows no sign of stress. Severson, on the other hand, is a ball of nerves. ‘How long?’
Mitson pays Severson no mind, keeps working.
‘How long?’
Mitson lifts his hands from the keyboard, turns to Severson and grins.
Henri braces himself. Years of planning have come down to this moment. ‘Light the solid rockets.’
Nico hits enter on the MacBook’s keyboard.
Nothing happens.
Baffled, Nico studies the MacBook’s screen. ‘I can’t.’
‘What?’
Nico turns to the Frenchman. ‘The hold-down posts will not release.’
Henri speaks into his headset: ‘Mr Burke, release the solid rockets’ hold-down posts now.’
‘Or what?’ Henri can hear the smug tone in Severson’s voice.
‘Or I will destroy this ship.’ Henri nods to Nico. ‘Throttle up.’
Dirk and Cobbin stride towards Judd Bell. The astronaut stands at the end of the White Room, enveloped by clouds of steam and exhaust.
Cobbin shouts at the German over the shuttle’s roaring engines. ‘Get on with it. I don’t want to be anywhere near this thing when it flies.’ Dirk doesn’t care what Cobbin wants. What Dirk wants is to make sure this astronaut dies.
They walk on, just three metres away now. ‘Come on, shoot the prick.’ Cobbin’s really starting to get on Dirk’s nerves. The German ignores him, raises his pistol and aims it at the astronaut’s chest.
The astronaut steps backwards and drops over the edge.
Dirk runs forward, looks over. The guy is gone, lost in the steam and exhaust. The German’s surprised and disappointed. Surprised the astronaut took the easy way out after putting up such a valiant fight earlier, disappointed he couldn’t finish the job personally.
Dirk nods to Cobbin. ‘Okay, let’s take cover.’
‘I’m waiting, Mr Burke.’
Let it fly or watch ‘em die.
Severson stares out the window, the only light on the horizon the glare of the shuttle’s engines, reflected and magnified by billowing clouds of exhaust and steam.
Wexford turns to Severson. ‘He’s throttling the main engines. One hundred and two per cent of rated thrust, 103. We have no way to circumvent it. If it passes 109 we’re —’
‘Screwed.’ Royally. The shuttle has three main engines. Each has three turbopumps which are the heart of the machine. If the engines are throttled past 109 per cent, chances are at least one of the turbopumps will fail. They weren’t designed to work beyond that speed. Once a turbopump fails it will start a chain reaction that will destroy the engine. That will in turn trigger an explosion that will ignite the fuel in the external tank and the solid rockets, which will cause a Challenger-esque detonation that will atomise the ship and the pad and leave a crater twenty times the size of Ground Zero. The shuttle’s on-board computers would usually shut down the engines long before they reached that point of self-destruction but the Frenchman had bypassed that safety net.
‘One hundred and five per cent of rated thrust.’ Wexford again.
‘Mr Burke, you’re about to destroy this ship and kill the hostages on board.’
‘One hundred and seven per cent.’
Judd holds onto a thin orange service truss on the underside of the White Room. His biceps burn with the effort. Stepping off the edge of the White Room, dropping out of Tango’s view and catching hold of the truss had seemed like a good idea at the time but now he’s not so sure. He doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on.
The sound of the shuttle’s main engines transforms, hardens. They’re throttling up. It can only mean one of two things and neither is good. The shuttle’s going to launch or explode. Very soon.
‘We’re at 108 per cent of rated power, Commander.’
Henri nods to Nico. ‘Throttle up.’
Nico works the MacBook as Henri speaks into his headset’s microphone: ‘Mr Burke, this is it.’
Severson stares out the window at the shuttle. Will the Frenchman do it? Did he really go to all this trouble to be a suicide bomber?
Wexford turns to him. ‘What do we do?’
Severson doesn’t know. He hoped Mitson’s fix would do the trick. Quite clearly he had underestimated the Frenchman.
‘One hundred and nine per cent of rated power.’ Wexford’s voice trembles.
If Severson lets Atlantis explode there’s no way to walk it back, career-wise. He’ll always be the guy who destroyed a shuttle and killed two hostages in the process, no matter what the official findings. He can kiss his bright future goodbye. He turns to Wexford and nods.
The solid rocket boosters ignite and now this really is a going concern.
‘Christalmighty!’ The blast of hot air hits Judd like a sledgehammer. He just manages to hold on to the service truss as the air pressure swings him up and pins him against the underside of the White Room, face first.
He knows there’s no way to switch the solid rockets off, or throttle them back or turn them down. They will both burn their 450 000 kilograms of ammonium perchlorate fuel until it is all gone.
Atlantis lifts off.
13
Rhonda closes her eyes and realises there’s no way for her to enjoy this moment. As much as she loves the launch phase, there’s nothing to feel good about tonight. She can only think this means the end of the shuttle program, or worse, the end of NASA.