Offworld Read online

  Books by Robin Parrish

  THE DOMINION TRILOGY

  Relentless

  Fearless

  Merciless

  R O B I N P A R R I S H

  Offttvrkl Copyright © 2009 Robin Parrish Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc. Art direction by Paul Higdon.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may he reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Parrish, Robin. Offworld / Robin Parrish. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-7642-0606-1 (phk.) 1. Astronauts-Fiction. I. Title. PS3616.A7684036 2009 813'.6-dc22 2009007609

  DEDICATION

  For Evan

  May your dreams carry you beyond the stars. I adore you, and I always will.

  ONE

  AUGUST 11, 2032

  Right , foot.

  Left _ foot.

  Right foot.

  Left foot.

  Stumble.

  Red dirt f lied Burke's field of view. Not that it was much of'a change. Red dirt had been all he could see for hours. Even the bright pinkish tan of the planet's sky was washed away by the windstorm.

  "Beech! " he called out, hoisting himself back to his feet as the wind spun him about. He carried a small black pack with a few meager supplies and some mission equipment inside. "I've got Zero visibility! No orientation! I can't see anything!"

  He stopped.

  Burke's training fought against the fear creeping into his mind, against the rising panic as the wind fed more soil and dust into the crevices of his space suit.

  Got to find my way ... dirt's building up ... soon I won't be able to move....

  "Habitat, this is Burke!" he yelled over the storm. "I can't see anything, and I've lost contact with Beechum.!"

  No answer. A brutal gust surged around him like the gale force of a hurricane, threatening to pick him up off his feet. He crouched to center .his weight, slung the pack over his back, and took a steadying breath.

  "Houston? "he tried haeartedly. There was little chance the relay satellite orbiting above would pick him up f the rest of his own team couldn't bear him from less than a hundred miles away. "Is anyone reading me?"

  No reply, not even static. The earpiece inside his helmet was dead.

  Okay, Chris. Think. You're in the middle of a dried-up riverbed that we've been studying for weeks. You know your way around this place. Think about landmarks. What's nearby?

  The wind cleared just enough for him to catch a glimpse of fa red boulder, directly ahead of his position. Burke crawled forward, on hands and knees, and stooped there in the shadow of the larese rock to rest and think. Fighting the dust storm had required all of his strength, every muscle ready to crumple fi°om the effort. He brushed aside the deep red dust on his right arm and uncovered an electronic readout on the underside.

  It read 5: 08 P~v.

  Which meant he had about four hours of oxygen remaining in his suit.

  And worse, nightfall would come in less than an hour. Martian days were just thirty-nine minutes longer than days on Earth, so sunrise and sunset were virtually the same on the red planet as on the blue one.

  So ... he thought. Lost on the surface of Mars, unable to reach the Habitat, unable to see, barely able to move, only four hours of air left, and it's about to get dark and lethally cold.

  If Dad could see me now ...

  The wind raged on, pressing Chris full frame against the boulder, wave after wave of red dirt pounding into him so hard he couldfeel it through the thickness of the suit. He could even sense the temperature dropping around him, in spite of his suit's automatic climate control, as daylight began to slide ever so slowly into dusk.

  Survival drills ran through his head ...

  The horrible roar of the wind made it terribly hard to concentrate.

  Water reserves running low, better save it.

  Sweat ran down into his eyes, but he couldn't stop it, couldn't reach his face through the tinted visor... .

  His head rested against the large red rock behind him....

  He passed out.

  APRIL 28, 2033 EIGHT MONTHS LATER ARES MISSION, RETURN VOYAGE T-MINUS 67 DAYS TO EARTH

  All five hundred square feet of the Ares turned on a central axis as the ship raced for home at 75,000 miles per hour. It was little more than a long, sophisticated metal tube that could separate into segmented compartments. The compartment farthest from the main engine served as the command module and resembled a tiny space shuttle, with small wings on each side and a tail fin that looked proportionately too small. The Ares tumbled through space sideways to give the crew a semblance of gravity, spiraling her way back to Earth.

  Christopher Burke awoke to the sound of his first officer pedaling a stationary bicycle at a steady clip, a baseball cap keeping her hair out of her face, and wires channeling music into her ears.

  Trisha Merriday looked tired. She concealed it well, but he'd spent two and a half years with her and the other two crewmembers, and he knew them almost as well as they knew themselves.

  "You doing okay today?" he tentatively asked. It was always a tightrope, asking how she was feeling, because he knew things about her that the others didn't. Things that she'd chosen to confide in him alone. Everyone has certain secrets that are best kept hidden, he reasoned, and he'd returned the favor by confessing to her his ongoing dreams that began after a near-disastrous incident on Mars.

  NASA would have preferred that they maintained a disciplined, formal tone in everything they did, of course. But it was impossible to spend two and a half years of your life with only three other people for company, and maintain formalities.

  Trisha made no verbal reply; she merely eyed him knowingly and nodded with an affirmative. He could see that she was putting on her usual stoic facade.

  She studied him as she pedaled and pedaled, her legs and feet churning the stirrups.

  "Here," she said, pulling a bottle of water from a holder attached to the bike. She tossed it to him, and it took a second longer to reach him than it would have on Earth, the artificial gravity from the ship's spin only providing eighty percent of Earth's pull. "You look like you've already had your workout."

  Chris nodded once, a quick thanks, and then took several long draughts from the bottle.

  Trisha waited until he was done, trying not to be obvious about the fact that she was watching him, considering his appearance. But he could feel her eyes.

  He stood from his bunk and stretched. Chris struck an imposing figure at his full height, which had lengthened even a bit more in the weightlessness of space. Blond, blue-eyed, handsome and strong, he'd always gotten more attention than he'd ever desired. But then, NASA couldn't let an unattractive man be the first person to walk on Mars, could they? It was a reality of the job that would have caused others to question themselves, but he had no such doubts about himself or his abilities. He'd been preparing to be an astronaut his entire life, and so insecurity rarely troubled him.

  "Had the dream again, didn't you?" Trisha said softly, so her voice wouldn't carry. She continued her relentless pedaling, the nonstop, rhythmic sound threatening to lull him back to sleep. His brain was still stumbling into consciousness, tripping over memories that were weakly fighting to surface.

  Chris nodded, not looking at her. He closed his eyes, straining to think back ...

  "How far did you get this time?" she asked.r />
  Chris rubbed his eyes; it did nothing to clear away the bleary lack of focus that was there. "Not much further than the sandstorm. I passed out somewhere along the way. I don't remember anything after that." His jaw clenched as he ground his teeth-a bad habit he'd acquired since the mission began. "There was one new detail that came back to me. I remember checking my air supply. There were only four hours left."

  Trisha stopped pedaling and the small cabin fell silent. "Four hours? Are you sure?"

  He nodded again, still not facing her.

  "That can't be right. You were missing so much longer-you were out of radio contact for over eighteen hours before we found you."

  He spun on her, frustrated. "I know that!"

  Trisha frowned, surprised.

  "Sorry," he mumbled. "I just ... can't make sense of it. Any of it."

  Trisha studied him.

  "I'm the first person to walk on Mars," Chris went on. `And there's an eighteen-hour window of my time there that I can't account for. NASAs expecting a full debrief as soon as we get home, and I can't even begin to explain what happened. I just can't remember."

  They both knew how NASA felt about ambiguities-especially when it came to one of their astronauts. An unknown might as well be called a failure as far as the media was concerned.

  Trisha was considering a response when a shout came from the command module, carrying all the way to their cabin, down near the main engine.

  "Chris, you better get up here!" Terry called out, his voice betraying a hint of panic. "We've lost contact with Houston!"

  Chris bolted for the command module as fast as he could, Trisha right behind with her exercise towel draped around her neck.

  "What happened?" he said before he was fully in the cockpit.

  "Ground Control's broken contact," Owen said calmly as if nothing were wrong. Owen Beechum, mission specialist on the team, rarely flinched.

  That was less true of the crew's command module pilot, Terry Kessler, who paced the tiny five-by-five space at the back of the cabin like a caged cat.

  Chris pushed past Terry and took his seat at the nose of the ship, examining his console. "We're still receiving telemetry."

  "Telemetry, yeah," Terry replied, still pacing, "but nobody's talking."

  Trisha joined Chris in her customary seat beside his. At his nod she leaned forward.

  "Houston, this is Ares, respond please," she said with her finger on a control marked VOX. It was like a speakerphone for the command module, transmitting everything they said back to Houston. Her tone was all business.

  No response.

  "This is god of war calling Mount Olympus. Do you read?" Chris called. The Greek mythology references were an easy habit they'd fallen into less than a month into the mission.

  A long moment of silence passed as the four of them listened and waited for a response that never came. Even Terry stopped pacing, crossing his arms anxiously.

  "What about the ISS?" suggested Trisha, referring to the International Space Station.

  "Nothing" Owen shook his head. "No transmissions of any kind are coming from the station."

  Chris looked out at the stars but caught his own reflection in the glass. He could see the others: Trisha sitting next to him, Owen behind her, and Terry pacing again in the back. Chris looked past the reflection, far into the deepness of space, wondering about the communication breakdown. Was it the ship? Something on the ground?

  "Try Tranquility," he said softly.

  Owen's eyebrows shot up, but then he quickly nodded, conceding it was worth a shot. Though the Ares had no established procedure for contacting Tranquility Base directly, Owen was more than capable of working around such limitations.

  Tranquility Base was the first and so far only-permanent base on the surface of the moon. It resided in the Sea of Tranquility, the same site where Armstrong and Aldrin had first walked on the moon in 1969, and had been named in honor of Armstrong's famous announcement when their tiny craft landed there.

  A few moments of fingers brushing lightly over keys and Owen nodded at Trisha that he was ready.

  "Tranquility Base, this is Ares. Tranquility Base, Ares," Trisha said into the microphone. "Do you copy?"

  The silence of static returned from the tiny speaker above the microphone. Trisha tried again, repeating her hail, but no reply came.

  "Systems diagnostic," Chris said mechanically to Owen.

  Already done. By the numbers, all the way," he replied.

  Chris glanced at Trisha and she looked back. An entire conversation passed between them in a single look.

  Terry and Owen said nothing, waiting, and their silence lingered in the air along with an unspoken question.

  "If there's nothing wrong with the ship, then the problem is on the ground," Chris concluded, rising from his chair. "Keep monitoring, let me know when they get it fixed. Until then, we'll proceed as normal. Hopefully, NASA can hear us even if we can't hear them."

  With that, he disappeared down the corridor, the discussion officially over.

  Trisha hesitated, not following Chris out of the command module. Something about the apprehension in Terry's eyes held her back.

  "But .. ." Terry stammered, "shouldn't we try something else?"

  "Our options are very limited," Trisha pointed out. Like most of the ship's countless systems, the communications equipment was fragile, despite multiple redundancies, and not easily fixed if broken. Just one of the prices paid for attempting to visit another planet.

  Owen looked up from his console, agreeing with Terry. "It doesn't add up, Trish. We should be picking up something, even if it's not NASA. Satellite feeds, military broadcasts, signals to or from ... something," he concluded, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

  The two of them waited for Trisha to respond, but she was lost in thought. She was the consummate first officer, fiercely loyal to Chris, and grateful he almost always deserved it. His leadership instincts and decision-making were unlike anyone she'd ever worked with before. And this time was no different.

  "Chris is right," she said. ,If the radio is working on our end-and the diagnostic says it is-then the problem is back home. And if the problem is on our end, there's nothing we can do about it now," she said before exiting the command module.

  Trisha didn't follow Chris to the rear of the craft, where her stationary bicycle waited. Instead, she detoured into the lavatory, which was located near the midsection of the ship, where gravity was weakest.

  Inside, she locked the door and leaned back against it. Lingering there, the crook of her right arm found its way up to rest against her forehead. Her shoulders slumped, and she let out a very long breath.

  Soon she had folded slowly to the floor, as if an enormous weight were bearing down on her back. She couldn't find the strength or the will to get back up.

  But a knock at the door startled her into rising again.

  "Trish, that you in there?" It was Terry.

  "Yeah," she called out. "Be out in a second."

  "Hurry, could ya?" he said back in a soft voice, as if trying to keep the others from hearing. "I'm gonna soak the carpet out here."

  Trisha stepped forward to the flight medicine bin and retrieved a nondescript pill bottle. She popped the lid and dry-swallowed two capsules.

  Collecting herself, she exited the lavatory, not bothering to watch as Terry rushed inside.

  Alone in the command module, Owen continued trying to get a signal. Houston, Tranquility, the ISS, anything. But he received only silence in return.

  What was going on?

  Truthfully, Owen was unsurprised that something like this had happened. Aside from the mysterious eighteen hours when Chris had gone missing, the entire mission had been glitch-free. And space travel was never free from glitches. The technology was just too new, too untested. Though he never said it to the others, he'd been waiting for something to go wrong for months.

  He thought of his wife and son waiting for him on Earth. Would he ma
ke it back to see them? Was this communications problem the beginning of something bigger?

  His gut told him it was. He was the least experienced astronaut on the mission, but it didn't matter. He could feel it.

  There was more going on here than they could see.

  JULY 4, 2033 ARES MISSION, RETURN VOYAGE T-MINUS 0 DAYS TO EARTH

  Earth loomed large each time the tumbling ship's forward windows caught sight of it, and all eight eyes onboard the Ares were aimed straight ahead, marveling at the beauty of a place they hadn't seen in just shy of twenty-nine months.

  "Houston, Ares," Chris intoned from his pilot seat up front, still going through the motions in case Mission Control was able to hear the crew, even if the crew couldn't hear Mission Control. If nothing else, the flight recorder would be taping this historic moment for later examination. "We are still receiving no transmissions from the ISS, so we are proceeding with manual landing protocol. Over."

  NASA took no chances when it came to the design of the Ares. Redundancies were built into the ship to ensure the crew's survival, and unlike past spacecraft, the Ares had three separate options for returning safely to Earth.

  The first and most ideal solution was for the ship to rendezvous with the International Space Station and dock there. The crew would then take a special shuttlecraft down to Earth, leaving the Ares to be dismantled or recycled in orbit. Should anything go wrong with the planned ISS docking, the second option allowed the command module of the Ares to detach and reenter Earth's atmosphere by itself. In a best-case scenario, the tiny crew-carrying module would use its small wings and retractable landing gear to glide down to the landing pad at Kennedy Space Center, much like the space shuttles did decades ago. In a worst-case scenario, the third option allowed for the Ares' command module to float on the open sea, after the ship had parachuted into the ocean, and to await retrieval there. Just like NASAs first astronauts had used successfully in the Gemini and Apollo missions.