Free Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam Page B

television camera in the white room had kept frying itself until it had gone off completely. No problem. C-SPAN, the only network carrying the launch, didn’t come on board until seconds before launch, anyway. It was all going like a precision watch.
    â€œLaunch control, this is security.”
    Bilstein squeezed the transmission button on the comm unit attached to his belt. “Go ahead, Ty.” Ty Bledsoe was the chief of the security guards at the pads.
    â€œAaron, UAC says the ingress team never showed up at the fallback. I checked with the gate. They don’t have a record of them leaving the pad.”
    UAC was the United Aerospace Contractors, the ingress team’s employer. “You think they’re still at the pad?”
    â€œNot really. The team got permission some time ago to go over to the slide-wire landing-area blockhouse and watch the launch from there. They were only supposed to do it for one launch, but you know Shorty Guardino and his guys.”
    Bilstein’s eye fell on the countdown clock, a huge digital timer above the launch control room. T minus one minute, twenty-four seconds. The ET was pressurized, the nozzles on the main engines were aligned. A hell of a time for a glitch like this. He was going to raise hell with UAC during the debrief. “Get some eyes on the tower, Ty,” he growled. “Thanks for letting me know.”
    â€œAnytime, Aaron.”
    Fifth Level, FSS, LC 39-B
    Barnes reached what she hoped was the crew accommodations level after climbing up the inside ladder. One of the lifts was there, blocking her. The door of the shaft of the stuck lift was closed. She hung on with one hand, stretched her body as far as it would go, and pushed her fingers inside the crack between the doors. She got a grip through the rubber bumpers and pulled with all her might. She worked out at the gym constantly. Her strength training paid off. When she got the door pulled back a few millimeters, it automatically opened.
    Slide Cage Area, LC 39-B
    Jack handed Guardino an envelope. Puzzled, Guardino turned it over. “What the hell is this? What are you trying to pull?”
    â€œGive it to NASA,” he said, and slammed the release levers forward. The baskets fell until the cables took up the slack, then the overhead pulleys began to screech. Guardino opened his mouth but Jack couldn’t hear what he was yelling. Then he was gone. The two baskets raced down the cables. Jack watched until they slammed into the restraint net at the bottom and then, to his relief, saw the ingress team get out and run like rabbits for the bunker. Jack moved quickly to the mini—control room behind the IG curtain and threw the switch that sent a signal to the connection terminal room located below the pad’s elevated hardstand. A series of ten blasting caps on the main line were actuated, any one of them enough to blow the three-inch-diameter cable apart. The Launch Control Center no longer communicated with
Columbia.
    Firing Room, LCC, KSC
    The voice level suddenly rose, calls coming over the loops. Ground Control got to Bilstein first. “Launch, we’ve lost service to the stack. Looks like a break in the main line.”
    Bilstein responded. “All positions, this is Launch. This is a hold! Stop all launch proceedings immediately!”
    The GC immediately came back. Commands were not getting through to
Columbia.
    â€œWhat the hell do you mean. . . ?”
    â€œThe line’s dead, Aaron.”
    Bilstein looked at the countdown clock. It was stopped at T minus thirty seconds. But what was going on at the pad? The answer came quickly in a call from Ty Bledsoe. “Launch, this is Security. We got people coming down the wire. I say again, people in the cages coming down the wire!”
    â€œWhat the hell, Ty. . . ?”
    â€œI know, Aaron. I got a team going out there now to pick them up.”
    â€œNo, wait!” Bilstein cried. “We don’t