"Our secret weapon apparently boasts an interesting side effect," Boris Feyodov said knowingly. And in his tired, silent heart he found delight in the fact that the end of the world was proving to be even more entertaining than he'd ever dreamed.
Chapter 21
Cosmonaut Sergei Sagdeev's return to space had been a silent defeat.
Russia's space program was not what it had once been. For years it had been a testament to ingenuity, endurance and sheer stubbornness. The man was always less important than the mission. Back in the late 1980s, Sergei had been one of the cosmonauts selected to test the limits of how much time was humanly possible to spend in space.
Sergei had stayed aboard the space station Mir for just over three months. Ninety-eight agonizingly long days.
An eternity away from his native Yaroslavl on the banks of the Volga. Away from his wife, his little daughter.
Away from Earth.
At first back then, the planet had seemed enormous, stretching wide beneath the fifty-two-degree inclination of the cramped station. As his time in space grew however, the planet seemed to shrink. With each passing day it grew smaller and smaller until it was little more than an insignificant speck against the greater backdrop of eternity.
Everyone he knew, everyone he would ever know. All the great figures both present and past had lived and would die on that same insignificant speck. Thanks to his time on Mir, Sergei Sagdeev had returned to Earth with a perspective on Man's place in the cosmos few people could appreciate. Sergei was one of the few human beings on the planet to understand just how tiny and worthless he truly was.
When he finally made it back home after his long ordeal, Sergei vowed never to return to space. His future work with the space program would be done only with solid ground beneath his feet. He had no desire to remind himself just how inconsequential he was.
It was a promise he could not keep.
The Russian space program had been flailing for a number of years. There was serious talk of scrapping it altogether. With no other training in a disaster of an economy, Sergei had begun to worry about his future job prospects. Things had looked bleak for some time when a private Netherlands-based corporation stepped in to help finance some of Russia's space program. In exchange for funding, they wanted the right to use the dilapidated old Mir station for commercial ventures. And they needed experienced cosmonauts to help them get their plans off the ground.
And so, in spite of the promise he'd made to himself, Sergei Sagdeev had, at the ripe old age of forty-seven, returned reluctantly to the endless black void of space.
This time he would be on Mir for only three weeks. Some minor work needed to be done on the dust collectors, and a few of the old data systems were getting an upgrade. A MirCorp rocket was on its way with fresh parts and supplies. It would be docking in minutes.
Alone in the crew habitat at the far end of the orbiting station as he watched the slivery needle that was the approaching rocket, Sergei pressed his hand against the cool insulated window. As he sat so far above the blue-green speck that was Earth, his heart was sick with longing.
He knew the actual distance from Mir to his small home. 360 kilometers. More than 220 miles.
The window fogged a silhouette of his hand. Windows. The more primitive Salyut series of stations had none. Here they were supposed to be an improvement. Sergei would have preferred no windows at all.
Through the thick pane he continued to watch the approaching Dutch rocket. His heart was heavy.
In Mir's tiny dining quarters, Sergei listened to his commander's gruff voice over the station speakers.
"Dyevit. Vohsim. Syem. Shest..."
The speaker system was old and muffled.
As the small manned rocket closed to dock, the Russian voice continued to count down.
Sergei watched the rocket float to a crawl. Unfiltered sunlight sparkled off the gleaming white surface.
He hardly heard the command for the rocket to use the docking port at station control.
A single tear rolled down the cheek of the lonely, insignificant cosmonaut.
It was the sight of the rocket that did it. It came from there. From home.
He would be going back soon. And this time nothing would compel him to return to this cold, eternal hell.
Through a window in the nose cone of the approaching rocket he saw one of the two-man team. The cosmonaut's white gloves were moving across the control panel.
Sniffling, Sergei hardly had time to focus on the shifting gloves when the rocket vanished from sight. It was impossible. One instant it was there; the next it was gone.
In the tiny galley the disappearance of the rocket had barely registered as an anomalous flash on the optic nerve of the seated Russian before it reappeared.
It was huge and white and blotted out the planet below. It flew sideways, faster than any propulsion system yet devised could have delivered it. And, faster than the mind of Sergei Sagdeev could reconcile what had happened, the runaway rocket collided with Mir.
Inside the fragile shell, Sergei hit the floor of the dining area in a shower of food trays and equipment. With a groan a stress-fracture cracked up the hull, splitting wide the side of the buckling station.
On his back, Sergei finally saw the face of the gloved cosmonaut who had been working the rocket's controls.
The man's eyes were wide and glassy. The rocket had been thrust forward at such a great velocity that his skull had cracked open against the headrest of his seat. Flecks of blown-out red spotted the interior of his helmet visor.
Sergei saw all this in an instant. And in the same instant he knew that the only way he could see the man so clearly was because the rocket had pierced the delicate shell of the orbiting station.
In it came, huge and heavy. Splitting the station and blasting anything that wasn't strapped down out into the cold void of space. One of those things was cosmonaut Sergei Sagdeev.
Mir creaked and vibrated and burst into two fat, jagged halves. The sections spiraled away, propelled by the same invisible force that had overwhelmed the supplies rocket.
Silent screams issued from the pressurized command module.
And through all the panic and destruction that started in space but would end on the Earth below, a lone cosmonaut floated off into peaceful, eternal repose.
An insignificant speck in an endless black sea.
Chapter 22
With sirens blaring and lights flashing, the motorcade sped through the frozen streets of Moscow toward the Kremlin.
Traffic pulled quickly to the side of the street, allowing the police cars to pass. In the midst of the official automobiles was one unmarked car. In the back seat of the black bulletproof sedan, Director Pavel Zatsyrko of the SVR clutched a manila envelope tightly in one hand.
A hasty call over the radio while they were still a mile away opened the old Spassky Gate. The SVR director did not have time to wait in line to be cleared through the gates.
Barely slowing, the motorcade raced inside the Kremlin. His car hadn't even come to a complete stop before Zatsyrko jumped from the back. Envelope in hand, he raced up the steps to the Grand Kremlin Palace. His shoes clicked urgently on the polished floor as he ran to the gilded door of the special conference room. He found the president of Russia waiting for him at a large table inside.
The president was a slight, balding man with clear eyes and a frowning face. He did not rise when the perspiring SVR head entered the room. At five feet four inches, Russia's leader was self-conscious about his height. To mask his diminutive stature, he stood only when absolutely necessary.
The men had been associates years ago. They had worked together back in the days of the KGB. Both men had been stationed in East Germany during those terrible days just before the Berlin Wall trembled and fell.
"What is so urgent that we could not speak on the phone?" the president asked his old comrade. Russia's leader wore a grim expression. He had only just learned of the destruction of Mir.
So far there was no explanation among the world's scientific community for all that had been happening in space. Some were saying that a cloud of stellar dust particles had intersected with Earth, wreaking havoc on all orbiting devices. Others blamed increased solar activity. In spite of Anna Chutesov's opinion on the subject, the president of Russia still hoped that one of these theories was true.