Page 129 of Stars

Dead station. Dead crew.

No one wanted to say it.

Not until I see the black wreckage fall from the sky and your ashes are delivered to my hands. And when I am dead, my own ashes will merge with yours and we will be together again.

I will never give up on you.

“The Americans launched a missile across the ISS and destroyed one of their capsules. Could that have damaged the radios? Could the blast have knocked their systems offline?”

“It’s possible,” Dan said. “But how can we know the damage if we can’t speak to them?”

“Don’t forget the GLONASS satellite that Zeytsev slammed into them.” Erica Hargrave said, sitting with Chris Slattery and two Russian flight engineers at the EECOM and ECLS stations.

“Her spin could be throwing comms off, too,” Roxanne said. “Her orbit is tumbling, and that roll is only speeding up. In days, if we don’t fix this, she’ll be in a death spiral.”

Anatoly Mateev, at guidance, shook his head. “I have no downlink from the station. The last transmission I received was just before the GLONASS impact.”

“So we cannot fix their orbit from here?” Jack, at Sergey’s side, asked.

Eight heads shook silently.

Jack said what no one else had, not yet. “Then that station is coming down.”

“In a week. Maybe sooner,” Erica said. “Depends on how the station tumbles and what parts are dragged into the atmosphere first. Where she is when she’s shorn apart. We worked up a few models on the flight. Right now, the models have her breaking apart on a south-to-north trajectory. She’ll enter over the Antarctic and begin to break apart over the Med and southern Europe. Her debris field will stretch from Ukraine and the south of Russia across Moscow and continue northeast, all the way to the East Siberian and Laptev Seas.”

The United States will not allow the ISS or her crew to reenter the earth’s atmosphere.

“We have to get them off that station,” Sergey growled. “Before the Americans shoot them down. Wehaveto find a way to contact them.”

“The station’s communications are dead,” Zlata said. She was the one he had noticed before, with the Asian-style buns on the top of her head, meatballs held in place with Chinese hair sticks. She was more tired than the last time he’d seen her, her expression haggard. “We can’t reach them that way. I can’t even raise anyone on the Russian band, onZvezda, or even the Soyuz. It’s like they’re not there.”

“What haven’t we tried?” Roxanne asked. “We’ve tried a hundred things. Whathaven’twe done yet?”

“The suits.” Dan shot up, electrified. “The fucking suits! They have their own radios for emergencies if they’re ever separated from the station. God damn it, try and raise the suits! Maybe they’re inside their EMUs, or maybe we can jack the signal high enough they can hear us calling. Those suits are hanging all over the station.”

“Govno,” Zlata breathed. She beamed at Dan and spun back to her terminal. “I need the frequencies for the American space suits. There’s a GLONASS satellite coming over the horizon in forty minutes. I can bounce a signal off it and try to connect to the ISS while they’re in range of the satellite’s orbit.”

Roxanne nodded to Dan. “Brilliant. Work together, and let’s get them on that radio.”

Sergey watched them jump into gear, suddenly energized, suddenly full of hope. Jack smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder, trying to give him strength.

Her debris field will stretch across Moscow and continue northeast, all the way to the East Siberian and Laptev Seas.

Debris. Fire raining to the ground, a thousand parts and pieces falling from the heavens. A thousand pieces of Sasha, a thousand pieces of his heart, nothing more than ash. He fell to his knees and screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

He turned away, pinching his nose as his prelaunch nightmare returned.

Come back to me, Sasha. Answer the radio. Let me hear your voice.

Come back to me.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, the buzz of an incoming call. He checked the display and frowned. Why did Oleg want to talk to him now?

“What is it, Oleg?”

“I need to see you, Seryozha.Now.”

“It’s not a good time—”