Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (49 page)

           
“Roger.”

           
A few
moments later Marty was in the commander’s seat and surveying the instruments.
“It looks good,
America
.
Still have battery power on. I’m going to try to repower the fuel
cells.”

           
He examined
the electrical distribution panel on the pilot’s side of the cockpit. The
switches were arranged on the panel with lines and arrows to show the
relationship between the various circuits and power controls, but he knew them
all by heart. As long as the cells weren’t damaged, Marty told himself, they
should be working....

           
“Oxygen and
hydrogen manifolds one, two and three open,” he recited as he flipped switches.
“DC battery power tied to essential bus. Tank heaters on....”

           
He
continued his litany of system checks, identifying faulty connections and
making the necessary repairs. Finally the main instrument panel lights came on.

           
“We’ve got
it,
America
”
Marty said excitedly.
“
Enterprise
is
alive.” His enthusiasm peaking, he finished reactivating
Enterprise
's
fuel cells,
then
moved back to the left-side commander’s seat.

           
“C’mon,
lady,” Marty said, patting the digital autopilot panel. “I know you’re alive.
Now we need to get back into the game.”

           
The
computer-monitor in front of him was blank except for a tiny blinking rectangle
no bigger than the size of a kernel of com—but that tiny dot was the ballgame.
Enterprise
's
brain, the GPC, was alive and
awake—the problem was it had forgotten it was a General Purpose Computer. He
had to perform an IPL, an initial program load, the series of commands that
would tell the computer that it
was
a
computer.

           
He did it
quickly, entering a series of digital commands that told the computer where in
its permanent memory it could find a program that would initiate the computer’s
speedy education. After each lesson the computer would perform a final exam,
writing another program for itself in volatile memory that it would use to move
to the next lesson. Marty coaxed each step into the process with commands that would
periodically quiz the GPC on its progress. On the ground prior to launch these
complicated steps were usually performed by ground personnel so that when the
crew arrived on the shuttle they found a perfectly running fully educated GPC.
Marty was one of the few who had taken the time to watch this procedure from
the beginning.

           
“How’s it
going, Marty?”

           
“We’re up
to high school.”

           
“Say again
... ?”

           
“We’re
doing fine, just fine.”

           
Thirty long
minutes later the computer screen was filled with messages telling of
malfunctions, environmental problems, shortages of supplies. But to Marty it
all meant
Enterprise
was thinking once again. He entered one final code into the GPC and grabbed the
flight- control stick.

           
“
America
.
Enterprise
is ready to maneuver.”

           
“Roger.
Moving clear.”
Hampton
commanded
America
's
computer to move away from
Enterprise
on a
heading back toward the station. “Well clear.”

           
“Here we
go.” Marty double-checked his switch positions and nudged the stick forward.

           
Nothing.

           
“C’mon,
baby.” He nudged the stick a bit
more. Still no reaction.

           
“
Enterprise
, any
luck?”

           
“Stand by.”
Marty cleared the in-flight maneuvering code from the GPC and reentered it.
This time the GPC refused to accept the code. He sat back in his seat, scanned
the panel.

           
“Last
chance,” he said to the instrument panel. He checked the RCS fuel-pressure
gauges, power supplies, circuit breakers, bypass circuits—all nominal.

           
“We don’t
have much time,
Enterprise
.
Get her started or abandon her.”

           
“One
more minute
.” He cleared the GPC flight code once again.
“This is it, you contrary s.o.b. If you don’t go, I leave you to fry on your
way down.” He reentered flight code two-oh-two and the computer screen blanked.

           
“The GPC’s
not accepting the maneuvering code,” Marty radioed to
Hampton
.

           
“Then let’s
get the hell out of here.
Hull
temperatures are increasing. If you wait much longer...”

           
“On my
way,” Marty said. He was about to leave the commander’s seat when a sudden
thought stopped him. He sat down and cleared the in-flight maneuvering code,
punched in the code to erase the IPL and the mass memory areas. He was
eliminating all the shuttle’s schooling.

           
Suddenly
the code came back as “202,” the in-flight maneuvering code.

           
“A perverse
lady.... Reverse psychology, works every time—”

           
“Say again,
Enterprise
?”

           
Marty sat
back in the commander’s seat and took a firm grip on the control stick.

           
“I say,
lead on,
America
.
Enterprise
is
right and ready to go.”

           
Marty Schultz,
along with Ken Horvath, hovered over yet another piece of free-floating SBR
console, grabbed it and secured it back in place with another piece of tape.

           
“Attention
on the station,” Saint-Michael announced over interphone. “Target-area horizon
crossing in one minute. Stand by. This station is on red alert.”

           
Horvath
nudged Schultz, looking around the command module. Almost every panel and
console in the entire module—ceiling as well as wall mounted—had been removed
during the past five days and only about half of them had been put back in
their original places. The rest were either floating, attached or semiattached
to some other piece of equipment somewhere else in the module. Bundles of
wiring of all descriptions crisscrossed the module in all directions: it was
easier for the crewmembers to float around the wires than to try to route the
wiring behind the ever-changing landscape of electronic components. Pieces of
equipment borrowed from other modules— computers and monitors from the recreation
module, wiring from
Enterprise
,
tubing and insulation from the cargo module, test components and, in many
spots, entire console sections from the scientific module—added to the
seemingly random piles of equipment scattered throughout the command module. But
the mountains of gadgets only partially concealed the huge silicone patches on
the module walls, the areas of scorching where fires had broken out, and the
occasionally flashing environmental warning lights (the warning horns had been
deactivated long ago; they went off all the time but everyone watched the
warning lights anyway).

           
One of the
silicone patches had recently been removed, and a large data-transmission cable
had been strung through the hole before a new silicone patch was applied. The
cable ran from the command module out across space and connected to a port in
America
's
cargo bay; the spaceplane had been
secured beside
Silver
Tower
by having
America
's
manipulator arm grasp and hold the
station’s central keel. A few consoles had been removed on
America
's
flight deck and a hasty rewiring job
had also been managed there.

           
“Jon, we’ll
be ready to transmit in a few minutes,” Saint-Michael radioed to
Hampton
aboard
America
.

           
“Roger,”
Hampton
replied. “TDRS set to fleet
tactical,
and TDRS link
for
America
to Armstrong shows active and ready.
Standing by.”

           
Saint-Michael
turned back to the master space-based radar console —actually, the one that was
acting as the master display. Parts of the master console were spread
throughout the module, but they had managed to cluster most of the important
controls together to make it easier for one person to operate it. Ken Horvath
took his place beside Saint-Michael and studied the displays, shaking his head.

           
“I’m having
trouble deciphering all this.”

           
“I’ll
explain,” Saint-Michael told him. “You may have to relay this information to
Nimitz
or
Ticonderoga
like an air
traffic controller if the TDRS relay doesn’t work. Okay, our SBR display
computer is all gone, so it can’t draw the informational maps and target
symbols for us. But we still get the raw data that would have been fed into the
SBR display computer—range, bearing, altitude, heading and velocity of the
object being tracked. All of that is displayed on these two screens. The SBR
can also analyze the target—tell us if it’s an aircraft, a ship, its origin and
even possible destinations—and that’s displayed on the left screen. You match
up target designation codes to find which is which.”

           
Horvath was
feeling more confident. “Sounds easy enough.”

           
“It isn’t.
The SBR can pick up objects weighing as little as a few hundred pounds, so
we’ll be getting a flood of information. We’ll probably need to squelch some of
the SBR data—delete the stuff we don’t want to look at. We have a monitor that
records what’s being squelched but we can’t see it from here. So be careful....
If we link up with the
Nimitz
via
TDRS, the third minitor here will show his position as well. I’m hoping that
Ticonderoga
'
s computers can digest these raw data
into their information-center’s digital display.”

           
Saint-Michael
checked the right-hand display. “Attention on the station. Target-area
crossing.” Then to
Hampton
aboard
America
,
“Activate the TDRS link, Jon.”

 
 
         
USS
NIMITZ

 
          
“Admiral, urgent
message from the
Ticonderoga
.”

           
Edge water
quickly read the message form. “Admiral, it’s from Armstrong Space Station.
They’re back transmitting
....”

           
Clancy was
already staring in surprise at the liquid-crystal repeater display. It began to
shimmer and undulate as if streams of phosphorescent water were pouring down
its face. The numbers and scales of the display itself began to change at
first, then the symbols of the ships belonging to the
Nimitz
carrier group. After a few moments land and political
boundaries were drawing themselves at the upper edge of the screen.

           
And at the
right-hand side of the screen was the
Arkhangel
carrier group, its escorts spread out into the “Russian star” formation. Soon
even finer elements were being added: the display identified aircraft,
helicopters, even types of radar emissions from each vessel. The side of the
display showed codes belonging to each ship and its course and speed.

           
Clancy
hurried over to the master CIC console and picked up a headset. “Patch me into
Ticonderoga
.
I want to talk with the space
station.”

           
The relay
took a few minutes, but Clancy soon heard the familiar crackle of the scrambled
satellite transmission and another familiar sound
..
..
“
Nimitz,
this is Armstrong Station.
How copy? Over.”

           
“Jason, I’m
damned. I heard someone in space command might get off their duffs and fix that
station but I didn’t dare believe it. Very glad to hear your voice.”

           
“Likewise,
Admiral,” Saint-Michael said. “We don’t have much time. I’ve passed the
essentials to
Ticonderoga
but here’s our situation: we’re on an equatorial orbit this time. That means we
have coverage of you for only twenty minutes every ninety minutes. That’s
twenty on, seventy off, twenty on, seventy off. Best we can do.”