Free The Krone Experiment by J. Craig Wheeler

and
turned again in his seat to look toward the man in the rear.
    “Well,” he demanded, “what’s going on?!”
    Without lowering his own arms, Newman could
sense that Wahlquist had dropped his guard.
    “No!” he cried. “Cover—”
    But it was too late.
    The beam seared out of the rotating
satellite, sweeping rapidly but uniformly across the reflective
face of the mirror, most of the power bouncing harmlessly off into
space. The joint at the center where the mirror segments all came
together reflected too little. It rapidly heated red then white
hot. The laser pulse lasted only a moment, but as it died away a
tiny hole was burned open, and the fading radiation passed through,
racing to the shuttle beyond. There was insufficient energy to
damage anything but fragile human tissue, but enough for that.
Wahlquist had averted his gaze when the beam struck, but it did him
little good. Wahlquist neither heard nor felt the impact on his
face nor deep in the base of his retinas. He saw the flash, the
last thing he would ever see. He knew that immediately and screamed
his bitterness.
    “AAAGH! I’m blind!”
    Jupp lowered his arms and tried to turn to
his companion.
    “It may be temporary.”
    “No, goddamn it! I know it! I’m blind!”
    The cold voice cut in.
    “Major, we must move quickly. If he’s
disabled, you must help me into my EVA pack. I’ve got to get out
there now!”
    “But he’s injured!”
    “We can’t help him! We’ve got a job to do.
And precious little time to do it in. Another shot like that and
we’re all fried. Help me with that pack. That’s an order!”
    Jupp unbuckled and pushed out of his seat
with his left hand, keeping a grip on a handle in the armrest on
his right so that he pivoted, floating toward his copilot. He
steadied himself by grabbing the armrest on the other chair and
stared into Wahlquist’s sightless eyes.
    “Larry,” he said firmly into his helmet’s
radio, “you’ll be in shock, take a pill and sit quietly. I’ll be
back in a few minutes.”
    Jupp gripped his friend’s padded shoulder
with gloved hand and then worked his way to the rear of the cabin
using convenient holds in the deck. He dropped down through the
hatch in the floor that led from the flight deck to the mid-deck.
Newman was already disappearing into the airlock that gave access
to the cargo bay. Jupp waited for him to clear the airlock then
passed through himself. Newman worked his feet into special braces
in the deck that would hold him as they fitted the pack, then he
twisted sideways to reach the extra-vehicular activity packs
fastened to the bulkhead. He unbuckled one pack and lifted it from
the rack, passing it around behind him. Jupp moved in and adjusted
the pack into the special braces at the rear of the man’s suit and
fastened the clamps. Over his headphone he could hear Wahlquist
reporting his condition to mission control.
    “Okay, Major,” the Colonel growled when he
was satisfied. “There’ll be some changes in the plans. Their
rotating craft complicates my work, but gives us an advantage. You
get back into the cabin. The laser fires out the side, in the plane
of rotation. As soon as you can make out the orientation, you move
us to just below it. That way they can’t take a shot at the shuttle
without changing the plane of rotation. That’s harder for them to
do than shooting at a target anywhere in the plane of rotation, so
you’ll be out of the line of fire, and I’ll be able to go straight
up out of the bay. You got that, Major?”
    “Yes, sir. I’ve got it,” Jupp replied,
striving to contain his resentment at taking orders on the ship he
piloted.
    “Okay. You holler when you’re in position.
I’ll go in along the rotation axis; anywhere else, I’d get swatted
away like a fly. I’ll have to go without the umbilical. It’d get
twisted like a spring as soon as I latched on.”
    “Without the umbilical?” Jupp’s voice
betrayed his shock. “If you lose your grip,