THOSE WHO VENTURE
INTO SPACE...
By: Suisan "Sue" R.
Previously appeared in "High Flight" a 'zine by AllGen Press
Debuted: June 2003 @ MediaWest Con
Almighty Ruler of the
All,
Whose power extends to great
and small,
Who guides the stars with
steadfast law,
Whose least creation fills
with awe;
Oh, grant Thy mercy and Thy
grace,
To those who venture into
space.
The
Colonel, even the General, is glaring at me from across the briefing room table,
probably because I’m fidgeting. I
never
fidget. I take detailed notes,
start roughing out my written reports, work on complex theories in my head but I
don’t fidget. Normally. That’s Danny’s department. He’s usually so wound up after a mission
that he’s a restless bundle of energy during our debriefings. I send an apologetic half smile toward
my commanders, even one toward Teal’c who is watching me like I’m not who he
thinks I am, but I can’t stop the actions of my leg under the table.
Nervous
Knee Syndrome, that’s what Janet called it one day when I asked her about this
little quirk of mine, an edgy uncontrolled response of my body when my hands are
occupied but my mind is racing at mach 1.
Nothing to worry about, medically speaking, as several hundred people in
the Colorado Springs area have this problem, but that doesn’t stop it from being
a trifle annoying to those around me.
Especially when my bouncing knee is actually causing the table to quiver
a bit.
Listening
to the Colonel give his rough estimate of the world we’d just returned from, I
glance at my watch and my knee actually starts bouncing
faster.
“Excuse
me, Colonel.” General Hammond’s
voice cuts through the room with a soft south Texas drawl. “Major, are we keeping you from
something?”
I
jump in my chair, my knees hitting the underside of the table, causing the darn
thing to rise off the floor and cups of coffee and water nearly spill. “What?” Oh, that was brilliant,
Sammie.
“Carter,
you’re as nervous as a raw recruit … what’s up?” Trust Jack O’Neill to cut to the
chase.
“Sorry,
sirs… it’s just that…” I shrug, wondering how to word what I need to say, then
give up and just say it. “The
Columbia is due to return to the Cape this morning and I was hoping to try out
my new telemetry equipment by watching their re-entry glide
path.”
General
Hammond doesn’t, quite, laugh out loud at my statement, but an amused smile does
cross his face. Colonel O’Neill
isn’t quite as subtle. He does
laugh, and shake his head and then brings a hand up to cover his mouth in an
attempt to stifle his entertainment at my expense. Teal’c looks slightly … puzzled … by my
statement’s affect on our team leader and commanding officer whereas Daniel
actually looks excited about my desire to watch the shuttle landing. I wonder about that, until I recall that
he told me, just over two weeks ago after returning from a fact-finding mission
in Florida, that he’d had the opportunity to watch the Columbia’s launch.
Having
been in the Air Force so long, and having given up on joining the Shuttle
Program back in ’86, it never occurred to me that there were actually people who
had never seen a live launch of our shuttles but there were. I’d watched several while stationed at
McDill Air Force Base, but that launch was Daniel’s first.
“Major,
when is the shuttle due to hit their re-entry window?”
This
time I don’t try to hide it when I look at my watch before answering the
General’s question. “In about 84
minutes, sir.”
“Colonel,
do we need anything more from the Major or would it be safe to let her, hmmm,
attend to her upcoming equipment test?”
The
Colonel looks across the polished oak surface, his eyes meeting mine and
twinkling with barely concealed amused indulgence. “Oh, I dunno…” What ever he was going to
say was quickly stifled as two glares reach crossways over the table. “Oh, hell. Go, Carter, and take Daniel with
you.” I leap to my feet, gathering
my notes hastily and stuffing them into a pocket binder even as Danny rises and
copies my actions. “And
Daniel? Make yourself useful to
Sam.”
“Jack?”
“Take
notes or something.”
I
smile at Danny as he nods in wry acknowledgement of Jack’s ‘order’ and then we
skip out of the briefing room, pausing outside I wait for the door to close
before saying anything to him.
“I’ve got to get these notes down to my lab, grab my laptop, get up to
Control so I can hook into NORAD’s tracking system…”
“Sam! Just do what you need to and I’ll meet
you in Control in thirty minutes.”
We
grin at each other in mutual enthusiasm for about two seconds, before we each
take off at a run to take care of our errands before indulging in our guilty
little pleasures.
~*~*~*~
I
couldn’t just plug into NORAD’s tracking system, even with my security
clearance, but when I asked the Duty Officer in Tracking Control if I could, he
granted my request without question.
So I figure one of two things could have happened; one, either the DO
knew of me or my reputation (unlikely as I didn’t recognize his name) or, two,
someone called upstairs ahead of me and arranged for cooperation between our two
commands. I’m pretty sure the
second option is more likely and my analytical mind supplies the General’s name
as the possible “someone” who smoothed my path.
I’ve
just finished connecting the tracking computer in SGC to its mate upstairs and
plugging in my untried telemetry soft and hardware when Danny comes into Control
at a fast walk. “Hey, Sam, what’s
the status?”
I
glance over at the main tracking screen before answering. “Shuttle should be
firing their breaking thrusters soon.
Their entry window is over the Pacific, just this side of
Hawaii.”
Danny
follows my gaze over to the tracking monitor, taking off his glasses, cleaning
them with a soft cloth before placing them back on his face. “Okay, call me stupid but exactly
when
will that happen?”
Rubbing
a hand across my forehead to relax the muscles there, I let out a quiet
chortle. There are times I forget
that astrophysics isn’t Danny’s area of specialty, probably because he tends to
pick up on things so fast. I look
up at the large clock on the wall above the window that looks out into the Gate
Room; it’s 0605hrs. “About ten
minutes from now.”
He
doesn’t seem to know what to do immediately, but eventually, after finding a cup
of coffee somewhere in the back of the room, Danny settles into a chair in front
of the tracking monitor, while I start collecting data on my laptop from the two
connected computers. I’ll be one of
the first people to admit that watching the drop path of a shuttle as it falls
through the atmosphere isn’t exactly exciting, but the data I’m gathering may
help upgrade the system at NASA or even upstairs. If it works.
The
Columbia is just about two minutes from passing over from the ocean to dry land
over California when my laptop starts to produce the image I’ve been waiting for
on the screen in front of me. I
just manage to capture the track on my hard drive when the shuttle crosses over
the west coast. Out of sheer
curiosity, and because I can, I tap into the communications net between the Cape
and the Johnson Space Center and STS-107, placing it on the speaker even as Sgt.
Davis comes into the room. It
doesn’t take long before Davis has tapped into another feed from JSC and I
figure he’s listening to the technicians monitoring the equipment on the
shuttle; after all, he’s done that before when we’ve watched shuttle landings
together.
I’m
listening with half an ear when something Davis says grabs my attention. “That can’t be good…”
“What?” Danny asks before I
can.
“I
just heard a couple of techs at JSC say something about a temperature spike that
seemed out of place.” Before either
of us can think of anything else to ask, Davis holds up his hand and presses in
to the earpiece he’s monitoring, his face going white. “Damn it…”
I
slide the laptop further onto the counter as I stand up and cross over to stand
next to Davis, but behind Daniel, my eyes glued to the larger monitor. “What’s going on,
Sergeant?”
“Report
of a higher temperature spike, left side of the ship, above the wing – cabin
temperature seems stable though.”
“Is
it an external reading?”
“They
don’t seem to be sure, Major.”
The
shuttle’s over Nevada, falling fast toward New Mexico and Texas in its normal
unpowered glide to land in Florida, when a tone sounds out from my laptop. Crossing back over to where I had been
sitting, wondering what triggered the alarm and if I had made sure to clear
enough space on my hard drive, I fall into my chair when I realize what I’m
seeing. “Oh
shit…”
“Sam?” Daniel’s behind me, concern coloring his
tone of voice.
“They’re
drifting off course, pulling to the right.”
“JSC
reports the autopilot is striving to make course corrections.” Davis’ voice sounds confident, like he’s
sure the computer on board the shuttle can do its job.
I
shake my head, “Too extreme, they’re already off course by nearly 15 degrees,
I’m not sure the autopilot can compensate.” The shuttle is passing over west
Texas. If the correction can’t be
made before they get into airspace over Louisiana, we may be about to watch the
first attempt to ditch a shuttle in the ocean.
Danny’s
hand crosses into my peripheral vision as he points up at a different monitor
screen. “What the hell is
that?”
The
screen he’s pointing at is a high-end Doppler radar, which had been showing a
perfectly clear day across most of the southern United States but is now showing
a very odd track of reds and yellows across west Texas and into Louisiana. “Oh my god…” My hand slaps over my mouth
as I suddenly realize what I have to be seeing and trying to deny it.
“JSC,
NASA and the Cape have just reported losing all contact with the Columbia.”
Silence
falls into the room like a super silent explosion going off as I watch those
damning streaks of fire trace across the Doppler monitor and a lone voice starts
calling out over the speakers.
“Columbia, Houston, do you
read? Come in
Columbia.”
“Columbia, Houston, do you
read? Come in Columbia.”
They
have to have the same information on their monitors, they have to know, so why
are they allowing the communications officer to keep calling for the
Columbia? My hand is shaking as I
reach over to turn off the speakers, I can’t listen anymore, but I miss the
switch as Danny’s hand closes over mine and Davis turns off the speakers from
his station. “Columbia, Houston, do
you…”
~*~*~*~
By
0720hrs, I’ve sent my data to NASA using a secure courier. The Columbia was a no-show at the Cape
four minutes prior to my dispatching a Security Officer with my data packet with
strict instructions as to whom he’s allowed to turn the information over to once
he gets to the Johnson Space Center.
I waited in the Control room until I heard NASA had finally declared an
emergency and I sent up a prayer that somehow, someway, the information I had
gathered in a flurry of activity would help the space agency figure out what had
happened. I have no prayers
for possible survivors from the accident, just ones that the crew didn’t suffer
in their deaths, and then I just have to get out of the room.
I’m
back in my lab, going over my personal copy of the tracking data, hoping against
all hope to see a missile trace or something that will explain to me what the
hell happened to the Columbia besides what’s going through my mind. Listening to a radio is damn near
impossible when your office is buried far below a mountain, so I’m listening to
my favorite classical music station via a computer link as I study the
information over and over and over again.
If
everything I’d planned for in my Air Force career had gone the way I wanted it
to, I wouldn’t be here at SGC, I’d be a part of the Shuttle Program. There’s even a chance I would’ve been on
the Columbia. But another shuttle
disaster, the Challenger explosion, had halted the program for two years and I
was pretty much forced to take a different career path. I don’t regret my choice. I’ve had far more adventures here with
the SGC than I could have had with NASA, and I’ve been able to actually use my
astrophysics skills better here than I could’ve with the program.
The
soothing sounds of a Lou Harrison composition end abruptly, drawing my attention
away from the stream of information scrolling up the screen in front of
me.
“We apologize for this break in programming, but we have an update on the incident involving the space Shuttle Columbia this morning that took place over east Texas … Several eyewitnesses from Texas, Louisiana and parts of southern Arkansas report hearing several large explosive-like sounds and seeing what appeared to be multiple streaks of fire in the early morning skies. The timing of these reports seem to match the time that NASA admits to losing contact with the shuttle. We’ve just learned that the flags at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, the Johnson Space Center, and NASA headquarters just outside of Houston have been lowered to half-mast. This seems to be an indication that they no longer have any hopes of finding survivors from the shuttle. We’re hoping for a more formal statement from NASA and will bring further updates at that time.”
Tears
blinding my eyes, I reach over and turn off the sound to the computer, knowing I
can’t listen to any more news like that.
Not yet. It’s only been 160
minutes since I watched something that will probably linger in my brain for life
and give me nightmares even longer.
All
activity in the base pretty much came to a halt once word got out that we’d lost
the shuttle and seven members of the space exploration community and, while I
won’t admit to running away, the fact that there isn’t a TV in the base that
isn’t broadcasting (over and over in ad nauseum) shaky videos of the Columbia’s
breakup is the reason I’m hiding in my lab and office. No, that’s not what I told the General
or even Colonel O’Neill when they asked.
I told them I was going to go over the data my experimental equipment had
gathered on the … damn, incident
just doesn’t cover it but I don’t want to call it a disaster either. Disasters have a nasty tendency to shut
down exploration programs for years, whereas if I call it an incident, maybe the
remaining three shuttles will resume normal operations by June. And maybe, just maybe, this incident
will get NASA to look at other reusable spacecraft designs like the Delta
Clipper.
Trying
to focus once more on the data, I wipe the moisture left behind by tears I
didn’t realize had fallen just as a soft knock taps on the door of my
sanctuary. Combing my fingers
through my hair, trying to settle the unruly strands, I pause to dab at my face
once more to hopefully erase any trace of the tears I’ve shed before I cross the
floor and open the steel portal.
“Carter?” He’s standing there, with an expression
on his face that tells me he’s hurting as much inside as I am and there’s a damn
good chance he knows what I’m going through. “You all right?” I shake my head even as I step back and
wave him into my private sanctum within the burrows of Star Gate Command. He glances over at the computer, which
is running the glide path of the ill-fated orbiter again, before turning to face
me again as his hands flutter uselessly at his side. “Find anything
yet?”
“No.” I bitterly admit, “I don’t think there
is anything for me to find, beyond what I already told mission control…”
He
nods, “I heard they ruled out a terrorist attack PDQ – your doing?” I just shrug. “You did right, Sam. They needed to know that information
ASAP and Hammond agreed that you had an obligation to tell the people at NASA
what you discovered.”
“I
just couldn’t stand hearing the speculations, which Davis relayed from the Space
Command technicians, that the orbiter may have been taken out by some sort of
missile.” I move to squeeze past
him, to gain access to my information again, and start the radar loop
again. “If you watch, you can tell
nothing came at
the shuttle, but you can see the exact time when it started to fall apart…” I
break off as he reaches out and, with a few keystrokes, stops the playback and
shuts down the computer.
“Enough
of this, Carter.” I stare at him,
wanting to yell he has no right to stop my research, my quest to see what
happened to the crew of Columbia … but he does. “When did you last
eat?”
“What?” Where did that question come
from?
He
doesn’t answer right away, just reaches out and picks up the cup of coffee I had
near my workstation and sticks his finger in it. “Thought so. Any colder and there’d be ice forming in
this.” Walking over to the small
sink in the corner of my lab, he pours the whole cup down the drain, rinses it
out and places the container upside down on the edge so it can dry out. “You’ve been down here too long by
yourself. Let’s get you out of
here, get something for you to eat, and maybe grab some fresh air.”
I
shake my head, not wanting to eat and not wanting to stop what I’m doing, but he
doesn’t take no for an answer. Just
carefully grabs me by the elbow and gently leads me out of my cubbyhole to face
the rest of the SGC. I should
resent this, and I probably would if it was anyone else but him taking command
of the situation and making sure I don’t neglect my own well-being. Even in my off-duty hours, Colonel Jack
O’Neill could give me a command and I’d follow it to the best of my
ability. If he was charging the
gates of hell, he wouldn’t have to order me to follow for I’d be right on his
heels. I trust him more than I
trust myself … and that’s kinda scary.
~*~*~*~
The
mess hall isn’t quiet, but it’s damn close. There are three televisions spaced
around the room and most of the base personnel present in the mess are clustered
around them, watching and listening to the newscasts as they play, again and
again, the films showing the apparent break up of the Columbia over east
Texas. I’m trying to block out the
sounds and concentrate on anything but what I’m hearing, and studying chow hall
food only lasts so long before you realize you shouldn’t study it too
closely.
Jack
had stood behind me in the chow line, ‘suggesting’ certain hot, cold and sweet
items I should eat – reminding me of my Training Instructor who used to stand
behind the officer candidates who needed to either drop or gain weight – as I
picked a few items out and then looked for a table as far from the televisions
as I could find.
We
sat in silence for a while, both of us just picking at our meals, neither of us
seemed to be interested in eating.
Just when I thought I could make my excuses and get back to my hiding,
uh, research, we’re joined by Daniel and Teal’c, who have apparently stopped by
for lunch themselves.
No
words are spoken, no inquiries to sit or invites. They’re not needed. We four have worked as a team too long
not to be 100% comfortable with each other and welcome each other’s company,
even in times like today.
“Major
Carter, I trust the investigation into the mishap is going well?” Teal’c asked after clearly paying
attention to the news broadcasts.
I
shrug before answering. “As well as
it can at this time, Teal’c.”
“I
do not understand. Have they not
figured out what happened?”
Danny
shakes his head and looks like he wants to answer the question, but Jack beats
him to the punch. “Teal’c, it’s not
that simple. They have a lot of
information to go through, they have a debris field they have to organize a
search of, and once NASA finds all the pieces their investigators will have to
try to reconstruct what actually may have happened.”
“And
this cannot be done quickly?”
“It’s
going to take quite a bit of time, Teal’c,” I answer.
“We
will know the answer in a week?”
“No,
Teal’c.” Daniel jumps in, “It’s
going to be a long time, maybe a year.”
“That
does not make sense. When something
like this happened while I was in Apophis’ service, our investigators had
answers within hours and had corrected the problem on other gliders within a few
days.”
“We
don’t have the same resources as the Gou’ald System Lords.” But that doesn’t stop me from wishing we
did. “The first priority will be to
recover the crew, then they have to find the shuttle parts…” The sheer size of
the recovery effort hits me and I clam up, but Danny’s there to step into the
sudden silence.
“Think
of it as a large archaeology effort, Teal’c.”
“I
understand now. Thank you, Daniel
Jackson.”
~*~*~*~
After a few minutes of silence had passed, I get up from the table, make my excuses to my teammates, slowly make my way out of the mess hall and eventually find myself standing just inside the entrance of the Cheyenne Mountain complex. I’m not even aware how I got here, I must have wandered the halls in the bowel of the installation, taking turn after turn until I somehow, someway, ended up here.
The air coming in through
the large tunnel is chilly, but not unbearably so, and I will my body to ignore
the cold breeze as I walk out the entrance, barely acknowledging the salute
tossed my direction by the security policemen manning the gate.
I need this. To be outside, chilling my body so badly
I no longer realize where the chill in my soul starts and the nippiness on my
skin begins. I want to be
numb. I don’t want to feel the
emotions, the heartache and the rage building within me. I need to be detached. Clinical. Scientific. Dispassionate. Or I won’t be able to return to my lab
and get back to work on the project sitting idle on my computers. A project that I suddenly find
myself not wanting to return to anymore, not when it seems all so hopeless.
Wandering around the outer
perimeter of the complex, staying just inside the fence line, I realize I’m
looking for a path, which should lead up the outside of the mountain looming
above me. Once I find it, I begin
to climb upwards, the trail easy at first, becoming more and more difficult as I
near the summit. Reaching my
destination, I stand in the clearing and wonder who from the base below had
placed a large and pretty powerful telescope up here.
Curiosity beckons me to
examine the telescope, even though at this time of day I have no chance of
seeing whatever the owner was studying in the heavens. Carefully, I remove the clear plastic
cover from the highly polished item, then the aperture cover on the gathering
end and, finally, the eyepiece cover and peer inside. Nothing but clear blue sky meets my
inquisitive eye but I start to wonder about the angle the telescope is
aimed. At night, even one that was
crystal clear, the viewer would be battling light pollution, for the aperture is
aimed a little too low on the horizon.
Anyone who could afford this powerful a telescope would know that and
probably wouldn’t waste their time trying to study the starry vault above
through light pollution. Bending
slightly to look through the device once more, I watch as a jet crosses my field
of vision and disappears. Very
strange. Using the same care I used
to uncover the telescope, I replace the protective covers, but not before I spot
something I didn’t notice before.
A small brass plate attached
to the long tube, probably with an adhesive as I don’t see any mounting rivets,
proudly tells all who might find it just who it belongs to. I should have known. I burnish the plate free of smudges with
the cuff of my BDU long-sleeved shirt, and then drape the plastic cover over the
telescope once more. Spying a
nearby fallen log, I walk over to sit on it and wonder about what the Colonel
could have been studying through his telescope. The sound of a twig snapping somewhere
behind me causes me to stand up and spin around, only to see him standing
there.
“Carter.” His greeting is succinct, and short, but
I’ve come to expect that from him.
“Colonel.” Why do I feel like I’m invading his
privacy just by being here, in this clearing?
“You, uh, like my
‘scope?” He waves his hand to
indicate the only mechanical item in this natural setting.
“It’s very impressive,
sir.” I bite my lower lip, trying
to stop the words threatening to spill from my mouth, but my curiosity will not
be squelched. “What star system are
you studying at such a low elevation, sir?”
“I’m not.” He paces over the leaf strewn ground,
missing the few spots that still have snow cover, with such predatory skill that
I know he purposely broke silence earlier to give me a warning of someone
approaching. With a grace which
belies the knee that occasionally gives him fits, he sits on the log near where
I’d been sitting and then gestures for me to sit down again. So I do, not sure if I’m about to get a
lecture about touching stuff that doesn’t belong to me or if he’s going to
explain why he set up such an expensive item in a lonely clearing. Silence stretches out between us, but
it’s a comfortable calm between friends so I start to relax, knowing, somehow,
that I’m not going to get a dreaded lecture.
“I was up here, watching
them, Sam. I watched as it all
started to go wrong. It was like
watching a car sliding on ice, knowing there was nothing I or anyone could do to
stop it but I couldn’t take my eye off them. I wanted to, I wanted to close my eyes
and beg for it to be a bad dream, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shut my eyes, or quit
watching as those brave men and women started to die in front of my horrified
gaze.”
Oh shit. Even as Danny, Davis and I watched the
orbiter break up on our monitors, the Colonel was up here, watching the whole
thing in living color. No wonder he
tracked me down in my lab and dragged me out of there to eat and be around
others. He needed a cover story and
I had unwittingly given him one. He
probably hadn’t eaten since watching the incident and, knowing he needed to and
that I probably hadn’t eaten either, he came and pulled me out of my sanctuary,
thus giving him an excuse to hover.
Standing behind me in the chow line, making sure I tried to eat by
tempting me with selections he thought I’d find interesting, all under the
mantle of command, taking care of one of his team members. Using me and my emotional plight to try
to resurrect his sense of control and I didn’t realize it at the time. How dense is that?
“Sir, if it’s any
consolation … I don’t think the crew suffered.”
“But we don’t know, do
we?”
“No, sir, we
don’t.”
“I hope they
didn’t.”
“Me too,
sir.”
We sit in silence
again. Just two lost souls on a
high mountain summit, suffering our separate emotions together but in a way that
we don’t intrude in each other’s grief.
I’m pretty sure we’re not alone in our misery, that there are scenes just
like this being played out all over the world, but for a little while I allow
myself to pretend it’s just me and Jack O’Neill mourning the passing of a
courageous crew. Seven men and
women from India, Israel and the United States who lost their lives doing
something they loved.
END