Page 117 of Stars

Mark let go.

Michaela disappeared, flying out of the broken ISS and into space, swallowed by the darkness.

Roaring, Mark grabbed the airlock and pushed, moving it millimeter by millimeter. Sasha helped, bellowing alongside Mark as they muscled the airlock past the point where it would seal on its own. Finally, it slammed into place, the heavy clang tearing through the ISS.

At once it was still, and Mark sagged, boneless and floating acrossDestiny. The ISS was a tomb, powerless and nearly lifeless, drifting, her back broken, venting her air to the beyond.

In the silence there was nothing to cover Mark’s weeping, the sound of his heart breaking.

With the last of his strength, Sasha pushed off the hatch and floated to Mark. He wrapped his arms around his friend. Once, Sergey had done the same for him. He tucked his face against Mark’s neck and held him tight.

Mark’s sobs tapered away as they drifted through the module, suspended like dreamers in an eternal ocean. He gripped Sasha’s elbows, shuddering, and wiped his snot- and tearstained face on his forearm.

“We have got to talk to fucking Houston,” he spat.

“No. Not Houston. Moscow. We have to talk to Sergey.”

* * *

35

Over the Atlantic

He was racing time,always racing time. Jack gripped the armrests on Sergey’s jet as takeoff pushed him back in his seat. He closed his eyes, holding his breath as the jet ascended through DC’s clouds and vaulted into the dark Atlantic night.

This time, Sergey’s jet was full.

While Jack met with Elizabeth, Sergey smuggled six people out of Houston, flying them to DC on the Russian consulate’s jet. Roxanne Villanueva, Erica Hargrave, Dan Hillerman, Dr. Sam Worrell, and Chris Slattery were all on board, escaping NASA—or, more accurately, Space Command and President Wall.So was Lindsey Keating.

They were committing mutiny, possibly edging toward treason. Everyone at Johnson Space Center had been sent home under strict noninterference orders. Air force officers had gone through each of their homes and seized their computers, shut down their remote access. JSC was locked down, a black hole totally controlled by the military.

After being thrown out of JSC, Roxanne had rallied a small crew at the Keatings’ house. And Lindsey, who had befriended Sergey on his secret trip to Houston, had Sergey’s personal cell number.

Lindsey huddled at the back of the jet, her gaze waterlogged and eyes ringed in red. She stared out the window, balling up and smoothing out a single tissue a hundred times.

Neither she nor the team from NASA had slept since the takeover, it seemed. They were a ragtag group of rebels, and now Jack had joined them in directly undermining the US government.

Before takeoff, Jack had given Dr. Worrell a brain dump of everything he and Elizabeth had discussed.

It was a good thing he was flying out of the country.Top Secret Presidential Eyes Onlydidn’t mean he could just tell anyone he wanted. Not even if who he wanted to tell was a doctor who might have a chance at figuring out how to save his astronauts.

Thirty-six thousand feet high, Jack unbuckled from his seat and headed for the communications hub. The controls were in Russian, but he managed to bring up the video call system and dial Sergey’s direct line. Everyone but Lindsey joined him. She stayed back, eyes closed, spine stiff.

When the video snapped open, Sergey looked even more haggard and frantic than before. “Jack,” he said, his voice trembling, about to shatter. “They’ve made contact. Sashunyaand Mark. He bounced their emergency radio off Russian satellites and made contact on the Kremlin’s secured channel. Yuri recognized what it was.” He spoke fast, almost too fast. “We could only speak for minutes before the signal faded. Jack, what they described. What’s happening up there—”

“Sergey, I’ve got the NASA team with me, the ones you flew from Houston.” Roxanne stood by his side, staring at Sergey. “Can you tell them what you discussed?”

“I can do better than that. Yuri recorded it. Let me play everything back.” Sergey fumbled with his phone, blinking fast as he sniffed. “Do you have a doctor with you?”

“Yes, I’m here.” Jack let Dr. Worrell through and moved behind the group, leaning against the plane’s bulkhead.

Sergey began the playback, and a thunderstorm of static broke over the channel, followed by Sasha’s rough voice, accented English, and deep baritone. Sergey’s anguish followed, and then another voice: Mark, Sasha’s NASA commander. Exhaustion laced Mark’s tone, seemed to swell in how he spoke, elongated the spaces between words. He was a man on the edge, stranded above the world, abandoned.

They listened as Sasha and Mark described their crewmates’ descent into madness. Michaela and Rafael’s blood lust and cannibalism, the attacks on their fellow crewmates. The NASA staff gasped as Sasha described shooting Rafael, blowing a hole in the station, and decompressing the modules. Mark’s voice quaked as he described Michaela’s death, and then he fell silent.

“We only have a few days of oxygen left,” Sasha said. “All power is offline. We’re on emergency backups, and even those are failing. Sarah is badly injured. Phillipa is unconscious. Both are onIndependence. We can’t go back out to do repairs, and even if we could, they would only be bandages. The station is a total loss.”

“Never mind about the station,” Sergey growled over the recording. “The only thing that matters is getting you home.”