Chirkov did not turn to look, but stared straight ahead and fought to hide his disgust. But he soon became puzzled after several long moments of silence, and he turned to look over his shoulder . . .
. . . to see the Russian air force colonel’s face as white as a consulate dinner tablecloth, his mouth open as if trying to speak. “Ilianov . . . ?” The colonel looked up, his eyes as round and big as saucers, and now Chirkov saw Korchkov’s face with an equally shocked expression—very, very unusual for such a highly trained security officer and assassin. “What is it?”
Ilianov was stunned into silence, his mouth still hanging open. As he shook his head in utter disbelief, he slowly tilted the open urn toward Chirkov . . .
. . . and that’s when the Russian ambassador could see that the urn was completely empty.
ONE
Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.
—RAY BRADBURY
MCLANAHAN INDUSTRIAL AIRPORT, BATTLE MOUNTAIN, NEVADA
SEVERAL DAYS LATER
“Is the guy asleep, Boomer?” the flight surgeon monitoring the crew’s physiological datalink radioed. “His heart rate hasn’t changed one bit since we put him on the monitors. Is he freakin’ dead? Check on him, okay?”
“Roger,” Hunter “Boomer” Noble, the aircraft commander on this flight, replied. He left his seat, climbed back between the two side-by-side cockpit seats, walked through the airlock between the cockpit and cabin, and entered the small four-person passenger compartment. Unlike the more familiar orange full-pressure space suit worn by the two passengers on this flight, Noble’s tall, lanky, athletic body was covered in a skintight suit called an EEAS, or Electronic Elastomeric Activity Suit, which performed the same functions as a traditional space suit except it used electronically controlled fibers to compress the skin instead of pressurized oxygen, so it was much easier for him to move about the cabin than it was for the others.
Noble, his mission commander and copilot, retired U.S. Marine Corps pilot Lieutenant Colonel Jessica “Gonzo” Faulkner, and the two passengers were aboard an S-19 Midnight spaceplane, the second of three versions of the United States’ single-stage-to-orbit aircraft that had revolutionized space flight when the first, the S-9 Black Stallion, was made operational in 2008. Only three of the S-19s had been built, in favor of the larger experimental XS-29 Shadow spaceplanes. All versions of the spaceplanes could take off and land on runways built for commercial airliners, but each had special triple-hybrid engines that could transform from air-breathing supersonic turbofan engines to hypersonic supersonic ramjets to pure rocket engines capable of propelling the craft into Earth orbit.
Boomer walked up to the first passenger and checked him over carefully before speaking. Through his space helmet’s visor he could see the passenger’s eyes were closed and his hands folded on his lap. The two passengers were wearing orange Advanced Crew Escape Suits, or ACES, which were full pressure suits designed for survival in case of a loss of pressurization in the passenger compartment, or even in open space.
Yep, Boomer thought, this is one cool cucumber—his first trip into space and he was either sleeping or on the verge of it, as if he was on a wide-body airliner getting ready to take off for a vacation in Hawaii. His companion, on the other hand, looked normal for a first-time space passenger—his forehead glistened with sweat, his hands were clenched, his breathing rapid, and his eyes darted to Boomer, then out a window, then at his companion. Boomer gave him a thumbs-up and got one in return, but the man still looked very nervous.
Boomer turned back to the first passenger. “Sir?” he asked via intercom.
“Yes, Dr. Noble?” the first man replied in a low, relaxed, almost sleepy voice.
“Just checking on you, sir. The flight doc says you’re too relaxed. You sure this is your first time in orbit?”
“I can hear what they’re saying. And I don’t think I’d forget my first time, Dr. Noble.”
“Please call me ‘Boomer,’ sir.”
“Thank you, I will.” The man looked over at his companion, frowning at the man’s obvious nervousness. “Is Ground Control worrying at all about my companion’s vital signs?”
“He’s normal for a Puddy,” Boomer said.
“A what?”
“A Puddy—a first-time astronaut,” Boomer explained. “Named after Don Puddy, the guy at NASA that used to give shuttle astronaut candidates the good news they’d been accepted to the astronaut training program. It’s natural to be supernervous, even for veteran astronauts and fighter jocks—if I may say so, sir, it’s kinda creepy to see someone as relaxed as you appear.”