Just about armageddon, p.1
Just About Armageddon, page 1
part #2 of Lifeboat Augusta Series
Just About Armageddon
Jamie Beckett
Installment Number 2
of
The Lifeboat Augusta Series
A Royal/Winfield eBook
Praise for Author Jamie Beckett
“In the first installment, To the Lifeboats, Tagget joins an elite group of specialists chosen for their ability to rebuild earth from the catastrophic effects of the meteorite. Pilot Keisha Miller was trained by Governor Raphael Fuentes, leader of the Lifeboat Augusta, who has designs on a space empire. Tagget and his small team embark on a high-risk plan to stop Fuentes as the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.
The second installment in Jamie Beckett's sci-fi thriller series, Just About Armageddon, finds Randy Tagget aboard a space platform called the Lifeboat Augusta. Planet Earth is smashed by a meteorite. Tagget’s crew has no idea how long it will survive, but that's not his only crisis. Beckett’s background as an airline pilot lends credibility to the flight scenarios. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers hungry for the next installment.”
--CG Blake, author and journalist
"Beckett skillfully creates a hero who does not have the usual, clichéd heroic traits. Randy Tagget is anxious, scared and uncertain about his dangerous mission . . . Beckett pulls it off masterfully."
John Blumenthal, author of Three and a Half Virgins
"This would be a great basis for a Sci-Fi television series."
Kevin Garrison, author of The CEO of the Cockpit
Also by Jamie Beckett
Burritos and Gasoline
The Lifeboat Augusta Series:
To the Lifeboats
Just About Armageddon
Isle of Safety
Coming soon: A Binary Choice
Just About Armageddon is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© Copyright 2012 Jamie Beckett
All Rights Reserved
Published by: Royal/Winfield
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Publisher’s Note:
The publisher and author do not have any control over and do not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published by: Royal/Winfield
ISBN 978-0-9914783-2-3
Visit the author website:
jamiebeckett.com
Original cover design by: http://wpmerlin.com/
For Uri Gragarin and Alan Shepard, two pilots who knew a thing or two about blazing trails.
Acknowledgements
The decision to tell this story as a series owes its origin to a variety of influences. None of which is any more or less important than the others.
The original idea came about because of a conversation with my son, Dylan. It was his opinion the old man could make a science fiction story work at least as well as the stories his college professor was assigning. The idea resonated with me, and so I let my mind wander and meander and travel whichever way it wished for a time. All of which resulted in this series of installments, which taken as a whole, relates the story of Randy Tagget, the Lifeboat Augusta, and the nature of humankind.
If I am completely honest, of course, the science fiction genre is something of an anachronism today. The current level of technology in our day-to-day lives is beyond the understanding of at least a significant minority of the general population. In fact, nearly everyone I meet is perplexed by at least one device in their home, their car, or their pocket, on a daily basis.
Perhaps the blurring of these lines was best described by Captain Gene Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the moon. Of his three days on the moon in 1972, where he and fellow astronaut Harrison Schmitt lived in a pint-sized efficiency apartment, drove an unusual automobile, and strolled around the neighborhood gathering souvenirs for the folks back home, “That's science fiction,” said Cernan. And that reality, led directly to this fictional story.
This series and I owe a considerable debt to my good friend and fellow author, Joni M. Fisher. It is largely because of her this work has been honed, corrected, proofread, edited, and occasionally gutted with glee. It has been my good fortune to have talented people like Joni providing me with discerning insight, critiquing my work with ruthless affection, and generally making sure I don't humiliate myself in public—which I assure you, is a genuine risk.
And now having said all that, it's on with the show.
Jamie Beckett
September 2011
Starke, Florida
Contents
Additional Works
Reviews
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Author
Bonus Material: Isle of Safety
ONE
Keisha Miller flew along the B-deck passageway with the intensity of a woman on a mission. Randy Tagget clung to her back like a koala joey to its mother. Fear showed on the faces of the survivors crowding out of their quarters into the corridor. An intense vibration followed by a loud metallic cracking sound would reasonably cause a stir anywhere, but aboard a spacecraft still under construction even as its inhabitants were arriving, the prevailing reaction was verging on panic. Tagget held it together emotionally, but just barely.
“Move, move, move,” shouted Miller as she weaved through the growing throng. Where handholds were scarce, fellow passengers became the object of her grasp. Miller, with Tagget in tow, propelled herself forward using anything within reach. Not everyone they encountered appreciated the experience.
Rounding a corner near the main shaft of the lifeboat Miller found what she was searching for. Governor Fuentes held fast to a bulkhead, flipping through schematic diagrams projected onto an eyepiece. To Fuentes the diagrams appeared to be several feet wide. To everyone else they were the size of a fingertip. Hardly more than a smudge on his glasses.
“Governor,” Miller called out with the brevity and sincerity of an officer reporting for duty.
“Miller! Good.” An expression of relief washed over Fuentes' face as he shifted his gaze and focused on Keisha. “Get up to hangar bay control. Ronnie Tarkasian is on duty. Work with her to stabilize the Augusta and feed me information as soon as you've got it.”
“Yes sir,” Miller called back. She repositioned herself in preparation to launch off in a new direction, then turned to glance over her shoulder. Of Tagget asked simply, “You still with me?”
Tagget's voice shook with fear, “Yep. I'm still here. Where ever you go, I go.”
With a push they were off. Advancing up the vertical shaft they passed deck after deck of curious onlookers. Most stayed clear of the shaft, possibly because they found it's size to be intimidating. The main shaft was where the inner workings of the lifeboat resided. Nearly everything vital to the existence of the lifeboat and its passenger load was stowed, managed, or manufactured there. Nearly everything. To venture into the main shaft was to become vulnerable to potential danger. The pressurized zones of the lifeboat were managed from the shaft. It was also where the bulk of the consumables were stored. Massive tanks of water, pressurized gases, and chemicals littered the path. The main shaft was a place nobody went unless they were compelled to be there. No trespassing signs were redundant. The dark foreboding look of the shaft and it's mass of wiring harnesses, storage containers, and work areas were enough to repel the idle curious.
The hangar bay control area was easy enough to find. Large yellow and black lettering on the bulkhead identified the location. Miller and Tagget floated through a hatch leading away from the perimeter walkway. A feature than would remain nearly useless until the lifeboat spun up to create artificial gravity. A narrow passageway led to another hatch. Miller opened it, floated through, and found Ronnie Tarkasian rooted to the command chair along the far bulkhead. A large display in front of her showed multiple locations on the hangar bay, as well as capsules secured to the main docking ring. Her slender fingers flashed from keyboard to joystick and back again as a constant stream of instructions flew through her headset, directed at team leaders in the hangar bay and throughout the lifeboat. Her concentration was intense, yet not so finely focused that she was unaware of Mill
Miller secured the hatch and directed Randy to a corner of the control room. “Stay clear, alright? We've got to get control of this thing.”
Tagget's response was short and predictably timid. “Okay.”
Keisha turned in the direction of the control panel, nudged herself closer and reported, “The governor sent me to assist. What's our status?”
“We've got movement on all three axis,” Tarkasian answered. Her voice indicated stress as she related the story of the collision. “We need to be static for docking, and we've still got a dozen capsules to recover.”
“What do you have available for stabilization?” Miller queried.
“We've got attitude thrusters for all three axis, but they were intended to make small corrections, not major control adjustments. They weren't designed to overcome forces as extreme as these.” Tarkasian's stress level was rising. She was in control of herself, but the wear was showing. As she ran through the attitude control system with Miller, it became clear her sense of concern was growing.
Tagget remained in the corner, quiet and self-contained. Left entirely to his own devices, his engineer's curiosity began to kick in as Tarkasian and Miller swapped technical information about the lifeboat's movements in pitch, roll, and yaw. He overheard specifics about total thrust available for each axis, as well as fuel quantity, pressure, mass, and maximum torque allowances. His mental processes engaged more fully with each new piece of information.
Randy's head filled rapidly with equations, conversions, and calculations that related to movement. The workload consumed his thoughts, pushing the nearly crippling sense of fear he'd suffered from his mind, away from his cognitive processes, and out of his world – at least temporarily.
“Let's get the pitch arrested, then move on to the yaw and roll, respectively,” suggested Miller. “Does that work for you?”
“I'm not sure,” replied Ronnie Tarkasian. “What's your plan of action?”
“I'm suggesting a twenty-second burst of full thrusters to arrest the pitching motion. That won't stop us, but it should slow us down considerably. We're pitching at fifteen degrees-per-second now, so let's say that gets us down to ten. Once we know for sure what twenty seconds buys us, we should be able to calculate how much it will take to stop us completely. We can reorient to our original pitch attitude, then deal with the yaw, then the roll. Take one axis at a time and get this bad boy taking on survivors again.”
“Yeah,” replied Ronnie Tarkasian with noticeable relief. “Yeah, that could work.”
“Okay then,” Miller clapped her hands together and prepared to get busy. “On my mark give me twenty-seconds of full thrust along the longitudinal axis.”
Tarkasian's fingers flew over the console inputting commands in preparation for the control correction. When she finished programming the control system she sat up straight and announced, “I'm ready when you are.”
“Good,” Miller acknowledged. It was in Miller's nature to assume command. Even so, her sense of confidence in the solution she had just outlined was less than she might have hoped it to be. She'd transitioned from the role of a passenger with no clear assignment to that of the lead controller preparing to take the helm of the largest flying machine she had ever encountered in her life – on her first day aboard and without the ever seeing the flight manual. Not even once. “Can you get the governor on the communications system? I want to brief him and get a green light before we initiate the sequence.”
Ronnie had the system up and operating on external speakers in seconds. The governor's voice filled the room.
“What's our status, Miller?”
“We've got a solution, sir. Tarkasian and I are in agreement. We're got movement on all three axis, and a plan to kill pitch first, then yaw, then roll. With luck we should have the Augusta back in position shortly.”
A short pause followed. Fuentes asked flatly, “Tarkasian, do you concur?”
“Yes. Yes, sir. I do.”
“Then make it happen . . . but keep this frequency open. I want to be on top of this throughout the procedure.”
“Yes sir,” both women answered in unison.
“Okay, here we go,” announced Miller. “On my mark.”
Tarkasian focused her full attention on the control panel in front of her, ready to fire two-dozen thrusters clustered in four packages around the circumference of the docking ring. Her hands hovered over the panel, ready at act.
“Five,” Miller counted down, “four, three, two--”
“No!” Tagget shouted, suddenly coming to life. “Don't.”
“Who was that?” Fuentes' bellowed.
Miller and Tarkasian turned and stared at Randy in utter disbelief. The forcefulness of his outburst startled them both.
Ronnie repositioned her hands, pulling them back from their position hovering over the control panel. She tucked them safely into her lap to prevent any inadvertent contact with the fire button.
Keisha answered Fuentes' question haltingly, “That was Tagget, sir.”
“Why are we holding, Tagget?” Fuentes' tone made his anger abundantly clear. “We've got to restore our attitude to recover the last capsules—and we can't do that while we're tumbling through space!”
“Yes, sir—I understand believe me.” Tagget's voice had an edge neither Miller or Fuentes had ever heard before. He spoke clearly, with confidence and conviction. Now, for the first time since he'd entered the program, he showed not even a hint of nervousness. He was confident, almost defiantly so. “But this plan won't work. All it will do is exhaust the fuel supply to our thrusters.” He looked Miller dead in the eye and with sincere sympathy mouthed the words, “I'm sorry.”
“The mass of the Augusta, loaded as she is . . . it's just too much for the thrusters to overcome. The control system was never designed to handle this much mass moving at this high a rate.” Randy shot a glance at Tarkasian sitting at the panel and gestured to her, “Well?”
“Well what?” Fuentes demanded.
Tarkasian spoke up. “He might be right about that, sir. Correcting for a control issue of this magnitude is on the outer edge of what the system was designed to do.”
“Fortunately, there's a better option,” Randy chimed in. “Ronnie, are the pilots still out there in any of the capsules on the docking ring?”
“Yeah, half a dozen or so.”
“And do any of those capsules have a Service Propulsion Module on them?”
Ronnie flipped through spec sheets for several capsules. She selected two and put them up on the large display for Miller and Tagget to see. “Ojai 7, and Canberra 91 are both modeled on the old Apollo program. They both have Service Propulsion Modules.”
“And can you reposition those capsules with the docking gimbal to use those propulsion units as retro-rockets?”
“Yes, we can reposition them but,” Ronnie paused. “I see where you're going. Yeah, we can do that. We can do that right now.”
Fuentes interrupted, “Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on up there?”
“Yes, sir,” Tagget spoke, but he was cut-off quickly by Tarkasian who was leaping into action.
“We're going to use two of the larger capsules on the docking ring as retro-rockets, sir. By orienting them in line with our movement on each axis, we can stop the tumble and re-position ourselves without using any of our fuel stores.”
“Will that exhaust the fuel capacity of the two capsules?” Fuentes queried.
Tagget closed his eyes and began running the numbers quickly. He extended his index finger into the air to indicate the process would take a moment. Miller took up the slack for him, reporting, “Wait one, sir.”
Ten seconds later Tagget opened his eyes and announced, “Yes sir, assuming they have full fuel loads now, they'll both be close to empty by the time we're done.”
“That's going to present those two capsules and their passengers with a significant problem when it comes time to leave the lifeboat, don't you think, Tagget?” Fuentes' sarcasm was so thick it was practically dripping from the speakers.
