The Last Shuttle



  The Last Shuttle

  By

  Tom Glover

  Copyright© 2011 Tom Glover

  SECOND EDITION: April 2014

  ISBN: 978-1465911759 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1466467286 (print)

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  With special thanks to Kim,

  for unwavering support and invaluable assistance.

  Author’s Note

  This story is dedicated to all who contributed to NASA’s Space Transportation System: the scientists and engineers who conceived it, the technicians who executed it, the administrators who managed it, the contractors who supported it, the brave astronauts who risked, and even gave, their lives for it. Your innovative spirit and passion for exploring the unknown represent the best of mankind. Each Space Shuttle flight advanced our understanding of the universe. Inspired, I look to the future with anticipation as the adventure continues….

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Sneak Preview of Sentinel

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Winter, 2011

  For nearly two decades, the space-borne telescope kept a vigilant eye on the Solar System’s closest neighbor, star system Alpha Centauri, a mere 4.4 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. Now, after twenty years of steadfast duty—barely halfway into its designed service life—NASA’s top secret Extra-solar Search Satellite and Emission system, E.S.S.E., was in trouble. Inexplicably, the satellite’s orbit was decaying. Affectionately nicknamed “Essie” by the small group of scientists that designed her, the satellite had only weeks to live.

  Maintaining a geosynchronous orbit 1,000 miles above Earth’s surface, Essie’s mission was to focus her ten-meter radio telescope on the binary stars in the Alpha Centauri system in the hopes of detecting life-sustaining planets. That mission was about to come to an abrupt end, as Essie would soon enter Earth’s upper atmosphere and vaporize. She was destined for a lonely death.

  There was one man alive who could save her. Unfortunately for Essie, he thought she was better off dead.

  Chapter 1

  Spring, 2012

  E.S.S.E. Status: 28 Days to Atmosphere Re-Entry

  “We need Frank Carver. He designed the damn thing.” The President’s Science Advisor, a tall, thin, crabby man named Jenkins, was growing impatient with all of the unknowns in what was becoming an alarming situation. Typical of NASA, this mission briefing offered more questions than answers.

  NASA’s second in command, a hawkish, chain-smoking Deputy Administrator named Benson Davis, sat behind a modest mahogany desk in his Johnson Space Center office and shrugged defensively. “Six months ago he took early retirement and went off-the-grid. We’ve been looking for him for three days; we don’t know where he is.” Ignoring the local ordinance banning workplace smoking, he took one last drag from his cigarette before using the lit end to start another.

  “Well, Ben, I guess you had better find him, fast. I’ll be damned if I’m going to recommend to the Vice President that he authorize some half-assed rescue mission for a satellite no one knows or cares about if you can’t guarantee you can fix the damn thing. And since you don’t even know what the problem is, I assume you need Carver to explain it to you.”

  Davis was silent. He knew his team needed much more than just an explanation. Engineers at NASA did not know enough about Essie’s archaic power system to diagnose the problem or devise a solution. With no other options remaining, Davis reluctantly admitted he needed Dr. Franklin Carver’s engineering genius once again, and had no choice but to find and somehow convince him to help save Essie. Unfortunately, given their personal history, he expected his former colleague to be uncooperative at best.

  Perhaps his luck had finally run out. If the satellite could not be fixed, she would go down in flames, bringing his remarkable career down with her.

  After a few tense moments of silence with the President’s Science Advisor staring him down, Davis collected himself and made a promise he doubted he could keep. “Rest assured we’ll find Carver and come up with a solution before the end of the week. In the meantime, I need you to get me a space shuttle.” He smiled thinly as he nervously stubbed out his cigarette.

  Chapter 2

  E.S.S.E. Status: 22 Days to Atmosphere Re-Entry

  “Get out!”

  Dr. Franklin Carver was furious. He had booked this Rocky Mountain retreat almost a year ago, with plans to get away from it all after cashing out of his job as head of R&D with Lockheed Martin. And now some jarhead MPs were standing in the doorway asking him to climb aboard their Twin Huey helicopter and leave behind his week of fresh mountain air and rainbow trout fishing. He hadn’t even unpacked the jeep yet.

  “Dr. Carver, we are here on an urgent matter of national security. Our orders are to escort you to Denver, where a seat aboard a C-130 has been reserved for you. You must accompany us ASAP.”

  “Screw you, I’m not leaving. Who the hell sent you, anyway?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, sir. My orders were conveyed to me by my commanding officer, Colonel Harper, Commander, Peterson Air Force Base.”

  “Never heard of him. Now, get out.” Carver had no illusions that the young officer before him, half his age and sporting a rock-hard physique, would have the slightest difficulty picking him up and throwing him over his shoulder if he so decided. To his credit, the lieutenant remained dispassionate and professional as he retreated outside to the Huey to use the radio. His bull-terrier Staff Sergeant remained inside the small log cabin, hands clasped behind his back, blocking the doorway and Carver’s only escape route. Resigned, he slumped into a wicker chair, wondering how far the lieutenant would allow this little standoff to go.

  The answer came quickly. Matters concluded on the radio, the lieutenant approached the cabin again, this time with his sidearm removed from its holster, pointed downward.

  Carver stood up as the officer squeezed through the doorway past the guard. “I see. No choice, eh?”

  “Sorry, sir. Please bring a coat and accompany us aboard the helicopter without further delay.” Despite the pleasantries, it was not a request. Carver sighed and did what he was told, cursing under his breath. The relieved lieutenant holstered his weapon.

  It didn’t take Carver long to figure out who was behind his abduction. He overheard radio chatter that they would be escorting him all the way to Houston, which undoubtedly meant Johnson Space Center. There was only one jerk at NASA that would be crass enough to pull such a stunt: Benson Davis.

  Carver smiled as he visualized taking a long-overdue swing at good ol’ Ben and knocking out a few of his front teeth.

  Chapter 3

  E.S.S.E. Status: 21 Days to Atmosphere Re-Entry

  “Hello, Frank. You’re looking well.” Davis wisely stayed behind his desk, seeing the fury in Carver’s eyes.
br />   “Bite me. What’s this all about, Davis? The goons you sent wouldn’t tell me a damn thing.” Carver looked over at the other man in the room, dressed in a dark grey suit and looking every bit the government official. “Who the hell are you?”

  Giving up his insincere attempt at civility, Davis glowered. “Calm down, Carver. This is Stan Jenkins, Science Advisor to the President.”

  Jenkins nodded and extended his hand, which Carver ignored. “Your reputation precedes you, Dr. Carver. Sorry about all the cloak and dagger, but we had no choice.”

  “Sure you did,” Carver retorted. “You could have picked up the phone, after I finished my vacation.”

  Davis snorted. “Vacation from what? You’re retired.”

  Jenkins broke in: “Let’s be civil. We don’t have much time, less than three weeks.”

  Carver’s eyes narrowed. “Less than three weeks for what?”

  Davis answered. “Essie. Her orbit’s decaying and she’s going to burn up on re-entry inside of twenty-one days.”

  “Good. Damn thing should have never been put up there in the first place.”

  “I don’t want to re-hash a twenty year-old argument. It’s done. This is what the President wanted.”

  “That doesn’t make it right. He was wrong then, and you still are now. What makes you think I have the slightest interest in helping you?”

  “For one thing, I can have Jenkins here dream up some reason to toss you behind bars for a few months. In the interest of national security, so on and so forth.” Davis let that sink in a moment while he lit a cigarette. Carver remained still, unflinching. “Frank, please sit down. What I’m about to tell you is secret. Top secret. You’re still bound by the oath you took when you joined NASA.”

  Davis sat down behind his desk as Jenkins offered Carver a chair, which he reluctantly accepted.

  Dirty trick using my sense of duty against me. The little bastard knows me too well. “I’m listening.”

  “Three months ago, Essie’s camera detected something.”

  “What?”

  Davis opened one of his desk drawers and extracted a large manila envelope, with “Top Secret” stamped in large red letters. He opened the envelope and handed Carver a stack of about twenty 8x10 photographs. The image on each was the same star field, under high resolution and long exposure. The photos were nearly Hubble quality.

  “We’ve programmed Essie to store a 60-second exposure in memory every five minutes. The data are downloaded every 24 hours for full-spectrum analyses to identify any possible anomalies in the Alpha Centauri region. These represent a continuous sequence over an hour. Compare the first dozen shots.”

  Carver leaned forward in his chair as he registered what Davis was indicating—a circular black area in the lower right of the frame, obscuring stars. The area grew larger in each subsequent photo. On the second to last, only a few stars around the periphery of the frame were visible; on the last, the black was gone and the original star pattern of Alpha Centauri, the object of Essie’s attention for so many years, reappeared.

  Carver ventured a guess. “Another satellite, disabled? Or perhaps some other space junk?”

  “We considered that,” Jenkins admitted. “But we are tracking every piece of metal bigger than a bread box up there, and there’s nothing else occupying the same orbital track.”

  Davis’ explanation was more ominous. “This, whatever it was, wasn’t orbiting Earth. We traced its trajectory backwards. Incredibly, it originates from outside our solar system, a bee line straight back to — ”

  “Alpha Centauri,” Carver interrupted matter-of-factly.

  “Precisely. Immediately after this black area vanished, Essie started losing power. Within hours she lost too much juice to fire her attitude thrusters, and the orbit began to decay. We can’t explain the power loss, or figure out what to do about it. Which brings us to why you’re here.”

  “We need you to fix her,” Jenkins said.

  Davis sensed that the photos had awakened Carver’s scientific curiosity. He attempted to reel him in. “We don’t want to lose Essie, but more importantly, we need to download the rest of her stored data for analysis before she burns up in the atmosphere. We need to figure out what the hell this black spot is; it could be what we’ve been searching for all along—possible contact from Alpha Centauri.”

  “That conclusion is a bit premature, don’t you think?” Carver asked.

  “Of course. Which is why we need Essie to help answer all these questions.” Davis leaned forward in his chair and spoke sincerely. “Frank, I know we have our differences, but those are decades-old ideological matters. That debate has been rendered academic. This is real. There’s something going on up there and we need answers. You’re the only one that can help us.”

  Carver decided to set aside his personal animosity. He was forced to admit that he was just as curious as they were. Was this really first contact with an alien intelligence?

  “Alright, I’ll do what I can. I need full access to all of Essie’s telemetry and operations data for the last three months.”

  “Oh, you’re going to have access to more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Davis shot a glance toward Jenkins before he smiled tightly at Carver. “You’re going up there.”

  * * *

  After an hour of protestations and refusals, Carver conceded he was going for a ride in a space shuttle whether he wanted to or not. His meeting with Davis and Jenkins finally concluded as two more burly Air Force MPs whisked him away to JSC’s astronaut training center, whereupon he began a physical and technical training regimen that would have done in most men half his age.

  Chapter 4

  E.S.S.E. Status: 18 Days to Atmosphere Re-Entry

  During the last three days, Carver had averaged less than four hours of sleep each night. Days and nights blurred together as he endured countless physical and mental tests, space suit and Extra-Vehicular Activity practice sessions in the big pool, and technical sessions with NASA engineers scouring operational data from Essie, searching for clues as to what was wrong with her power system.

  Davis kept a watchful eye on Carver, amused by the rigor of his training. He had to admit that the good doctor, having stayed sharp both in mind and body over the years, was doing better than he expected.

  As much as he despised the man, Carver was impressed by Davis as well as he skillfully maneuvered government officials into pulling one of the space shuttles out of retirement and approving one more mission. Davis was at his best when scheming. Of course, he had to get The White House on his side first. Once the President was briefed on Essie’s status, including the black-disc photos, Davis got everything he asked for, most notably his own hand-picked crew, including the irascible fifty-two year old ex-NASA engineer who had abruptly left the space program two decades ago.

  * * *

  Space Transportation System mission preparations were extremely well-coordinated and efficiently run, despite public skepticism of NASA competence fueled by the Columbia and Challenger accidents. Launch preparations, complicated affairs involving hundreds of NASA personnel and contractors, would not go unnoticed. Davis concocted a clever cover story to explain the mission: Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft supporting the International Space Station—the only space transport vehicle remaining upon the shuttle’s retirement—was experiencing technical problems. To save the day, Space Shuttle Discovery would be put into service one more time to deliver critical parts and supplies to I.S.S. The American press ate it up. The Russian government, on the other hand, had to be bought off before agreeing to go along with the bogus story.

  Thus STS-136 would now be the final flight of the vaunted space shuttle. The real mission, Essie’s rescue, in fact her very existence, was deemed Top Secret in the interests of national security and kept under a veil of secrecy.

  * * *

  NASA’s public relations people were ecstatic. Disappointed by the subdued celebrati
on at the conclusion of Atlantis’ final flight in July 2011, they now had a second chance to trumpet the Space Shuttle’s three decades of service, with proper respect this time. They hastily orchestrated robust fanfare for the heroic final mission—media events, black tie soirees and other festivities, building to a rousing crescendo with a big party at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the night before Discovery’s launch.

  Meanwhile, the STS-136 crew, Commander Mark Reynolds, Pilot Diego Ramirez and Mission Specialist Michele Ikiro, trained together with an air of skepticism and mild distrust of their newest crewman, Mission Specialist Dr. Franklin Carver. “Who is this washed-up old geezer? Why is a civilian going up with us?” Ramirez and Ikiro whispered, unabashedly expressing concern to their commander.

  Unknown to them, Reynolds had been briefed on STS-136’s secret mission, and had been ordered in very unambiguous terms not to reveal this aspect to the rest of his crew. They were not to be told about Essie until after the shuttle launched and they were in orbit. The commander didn’t like keeping secrets from his colleagues, and shared his crew’s reticence about Carver, but as a career officer achieving the Air Force rank of bird Colonel, one promotion from Brigadier General, he was accustomed to following orders without question. He ordered his crew to table any further questions and stay focused on their own jobs within the mission.

  So the four-person crew of STS-136 crammed months of training into a handful of days and, like most comrades enduring hardships together in the fields of battle or sport, the other three began to accept Carver as an important member of their team.

  Chapter 5

  E.S.S.E. Status: 4 Days to Atmosphere Re-Entry

  Discovery and her crew were ready. The launch was scheduled for 0700 the following morning. The orbiter was sitting proudly at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A, connected to the massive rust-colored external tank straddled by two smaller white-painted solid rocket boosters, pointing straight up, patiently waiting to break free from Earth’s grasp one last time to carry precious cargo to the stars.