DESCENDING STAR
When pioneering astronaut Sandy Rothenberg returns to America, she encounters all the tragedy she'd predicted a dozen years earlier. Her unexpected arrival bring hope to many. It also sets off a chain reaction that imperils her life, and threatens to ignite open civil war.
This novel is complete at about 150,000 words. Ongoing revisions will shorten it somewhat.
Sandy hovered a handbreadth above her pilot's seat, weightless during final approach. She had not moved from the controls in many tedious hours.
Finally she could hold back no longer. She moved gently upward and peered out the
tiny ceramic window. There it was, at long last, in plain sight. In twelve incredible
years she hadn't seen her home world. Now the Earth's brilliant blues and browns
and swirling whites spread before her in all their splendor.
Though undoubtedly an illusion, the planet appeared to swell as she watched.
Just got to make this last descent.
Hours before, she'd been approaching at a cometary speed of three hundred kilometers
per second. With a final maneuver she'd slowed to fifteen, but it had devoured most
of the remaining hypercaloric fuel, and she still had no landing course.
Sandy strapped herself into the padded seat for the last time. Whatever happened,
it would all be over in the next few hours. She would face it, alone, at the little
spacecraft's controls. Her face hardened with determination.
With long, unadorned fingers she turned off the viewscreen's forward view and called
up a radio contact list. The moon, her original destination, had fallen nearly silent,
transmitting only automated signals her onboard computers didn't recognize. Apparently
the space stations, and Lunar South Pole Base she'd launched from, had been abandoned.
Switching on the microphone, she selected an old NASA frequency. Trembling fingers
struck the wrong touchpad button, and an error message popped up. She forced herself
to relax.
Resetting the screen, she coughed hard and tried again. "This is Sandy Rothenberg
of the spaceship Star Pathfinder, on emergency approach. Can anyone read me?
Over/" No reply.
She hoped, had to believe, that someone down there would pick up her transmissions.
Her backup radio wasn't nearly powerful enough. Working methodically, she tried
a Military Air Traffic channel.
"Who is this?" came a youthful voice, unnaturally loud in the confines of the cabin. "You can't use this frequency."
Sandy related her name and situation.
The contact replied, "I ain't never heard of no Star Pathfinder. I'm sick
of you stupid hackers. Get off the air!"
She tried to reply, but the decidedly unmilitary radioman had cut her off. Frustration
bloomed, and beneath it, anger that warred with growing panic. The spacecraft's air
was growing thicker as its damaged chemical recyclers failed, and bypassing Earth would send her back into the outer cold.
Sandy checked the internal sensors for the tenth time in as many minutes. Virtually
no life support remained. To minimize mass she'd figured this final dash precisely.
Pared to the bone. My bones, maybe.
Her onboard computers kept trying to plot a course though the GPS system, but they weren't receiving any information. At this rate she'd fry in the upper atmosphere, or crash
in some remote area. Somebody might report a UFO, and that would be the last of
me.
She keyed the microphone and repeated her situation once more, using all her will
to speak calmly.
An older voice replied, "This is Sergeant Major Mahoney of the SecuriTeam Air Services.
We have you on radar now. Did you say you're Rothenberg from the Star Pathfinder?
You guys were supposed to be lost out there. Please say your situation again."
"This is Cassandra Rothenberg," Sandy replied. "Thanks so much
for catching my signal." She had to stop herself from saying: Don't go! She clung
to Mahoney's voice as if she could see it. "I need to ask you guys for assistance."
Mahoney said, "I'm checking the readouts now. You're coming in awful fast. Our
tracking system thinks you're a small asteroid."
"I left the main ship in solar orbit," she explained. "I'm in the escape craft, but I've used up most of my fuel. Barely managed a transfer orbit."
"You'll have to slow down by aerobraking. You can land here, at Edwards Base in the North American Mojave Desert. I believe you know the place."
"I've landed there before. Are you equipped to receive me?"
"The big paved runways still have cracks from that quake in . . . a while back, but we've got a marked dirt strip available for your rollout. How's your crew?"
"They're not with me. I can't get any GPS data and I need to plot a course."
"Lock on to my radio beacon and we'll transmit your guidance data in a few minutes. I'll get you down real easy, don't you worry."
A radio beacon sounded rather primitive, yet it was now her one hope of survival.
There was a long silence as the modem absorbed data coming up from Edwards. Now
this guy can plot courses with a whole new planet in mind, she realized. New
continents, new cities someday.
By the time the data was loaded Sandy's curiosity had gotten the best of her. She
called Mahoney again. "Data received and course programmed. Can I ask you something?"
"Certainly, ma'am."
"I guess you know I've been out of touch for a while. It may be because I'm a civilian, but I'm not familiar with your branch of the service."
"Things have, uh, changed around here," the Sergeant replied. "Right now the important thing is to get you down safely."
© 2008 by Paul Carlson