Page 147 of Stars

Sasha’s breath trembled. He tried not to imagine the virus crawling through him, slithering up his veins and arteries and worming into his cells. Into his brain.

“The mission was a failure. Nothing worked. After a handful of orbits, he was ordered to return to Earth. His parachutes didn’t fire, and he crashed at full speed. His body fused with the molten wreckage of his capsule. He was buried in an open casket, man and machine, nothing but a piece of charred debris two feet long.”

“That’s fucked.They killed him.”

“Yes. But he died saving his best friend’s life. And because of that, he was happy.”

Mark’s breath hitched. He squeezed his eyes closed, but tears of blood leaked out, quivering on the ends of his eyelashes before soaring through his helmet and splashing against the glass. “Sasha…”

“I won’t give up until my body crashes into the earth. Or until I breathe out my last breath, until my eyes close and don’t open again.Nothingis certain. Not our next orbit, not our next breath. If I give up, that becomes theonlything that is certain.Thatis the end. In that moment I will have cut off all other possibilities, all hopes of getting home and seeing Sergey again. And I will not give up on him.”

You and your love were created in the same moment of the same atom, and then scattered for a billion years. You knew him once inside a star. You know him again now on Earth. And when you reach the end of time, your love will still be there with you. Because he is of you, and you are of him.

Mark said nothing, but he held Sasha’s stare as they passed from the dayside into the night, plunging back into the depths of time and gazing down the barrel of infinity.

* * *

45

Washington DC

“Madam President, we have a situation.”

Elizabeth turned to General Duncan, seated halfway down the Situation Room conference table. One of his aides was backing away and melting into the shadows after delivering him a tablet. “What is it?”

“There’s been an unscheduled launch out of the Chinese Jiuquan Space Center. They’re sending a manned capsule up on one of their Long March rockets, ma’am.”

“Do we have any idea what they’re doing?”

“The launch trajectory shows an inclination that will bring them into the ISS’s former position.”

“Are they hunting for wreckage or debris?”

“Possibly. We’re still tracking the two unknown objects that broke off of the ISS as it was moving out of low Earth orbit before detonation. There’s an eighty percent chance those objects are bodies, Madam President. We don’t know if they’re alive or dead. If they are alive, they won’t be much longer.”

Elizabeth leaned forward, her hands folded together, knuckles squeezed so hard they hurt. “What do you recommend?”

“If the Chinese are attempting to recover the virus from the ISS wreckage or from our deceased, we have an obligation to prevent that from happening, ma’am,” General Duncan said. “We drew a line in the sand for the world. We have to hold it.”

“You want to launch against the Chinese and take out their manned rocket.”

“Yes, Madam President. I do.”

The rest of the Situation Room was silent, watching their exchange. Elizabeth felt their eyes turn to her, felt their hot gazes burn her skin.

Someone had pulled up a computer display of the Chinese rocket ascending from the launch tower. A projected flight plan ran ahead of the digital display, dotted lines that took it around the earth three times before intersecting with the unknown objects.

Already, the outcry from the American public was at an excruciating crescendo.ISS Gone. Murder in the Heavens. President Wall Destroys Mankind's Monument to the Stars. Outbreak Leads to Total Destruction of ISS, Death of All Astronauts on Board.

Would she murder three more astronauts now? Chinese citizens?

“Get me Beijing on the phone.”

She waited, seconds ticking by as her national security staff reached out through the Beijing–Washington hotline. She counted in her head, staring at the conference table, her face a blank mask.

Jack… why do I sense your fingerprints on this?

“Beijing is on the line, ma’am.”