Free Burnout: the mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 by Stephanie Osborn

thought it looked awful damn smooth for a break," Crash admitted, irked. "How can you tell for sure?"
    "Look," Mitchell said, moving to one side and gesturing to the microscope. Crash bent and looked through the stereo eyepieces. "See those striations? Those are cut marks from a diamond tipped blade."
    Crash looked up at Mitch, casting about for logical, normal explanations. "Then maybe the hatch will come in later; it may have been too unwieldy to handle all in one piece…"
    Mitchell looked at the independent investigator grimly. "You know as well as I do that's not proper procedure, Crash. And it's not possible anyway. The ablation marks and burn scoring overlay the cut striations. This cut was made before re-entry."
    Crash stared at the lab chief blankly. "Aw, hell. That means…"
    Mitchell nodded, troubled. "It means somebody was hacking the Orbiter into pieces just before re-entry."
    * * * *
    "All right, my flight's set up for noon," Crash told Guy Mitchell shortly thereafter. "I've got just enough time to get back to the hotel, pack everything, check out, and get to the airport."
    "Good. I'll run a few more tests on this, and email you the results later today. This is major, Crash."
    "I know, Mitch. I'm goin' straight back to JSC as soon as I get off the plane."
    "Got your laptop?"
    "That's a roger. I'll plug in and download your report as soon as I can find a port."
    "Good luck, Crash… Godspeed," Mitch said in an odd tone, glancing about in apprehension.
    Crash was in a rush, however, and missed both Mitchell's tone and his look. "See ya, Mitch."
    * * * *
    On the smooth flight back to Houston, Crash broke out his laptop and pored over the payload controller logs, scrutinizing every little detail. For the most part, he found them fairly straightforward, but with the occasional amusing entry, usually dry "space humor" or accounts of minor flubs on the communications loops.
    The Operations Controller log was a bit different, however. The log was chock full of notations, even in the margins, especially during TSS operations and retrieval. Then he encountered an odd entry.
    Position Mission Elapsed Time Event
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OC 09/10:23:08 Meteor viewed on D/L vid; below Orbiter altitude. No ionization trail observed. Exo skim? SSL interested.
    Wow , Crash thought, fascinated. The video down link caught a meteor! And beneath the Shuttle, too. That's damn rare. No wonder the Space Sciences Lab was interested. Odd that there'd be no sign of friction though. Anything big enough to see on the monitors would have to be causing some friction, even at those altitudes, and that means an ion trail. So that's kinda weird. Pretty cool, though.
    The nonstop flight wore on, and Crash plodded through the logs, finding nothing more of any real interest. The flight attendant came by, informing him that landing was imminent, so he shut down and stowed his laptop under the seat. Shit, he thought, annoyed. Nothing so far.
    * * * *
    When Crash checked his cell phone messages upon arrival at Houston's Hobby Airport, he found a voice mail waiting from Gayle Tippett, who was both the STS-281 flight surgeon, and his girlfriend.
    "Crash, it's Gayle. I know you've been busy, but… Come by my office as soon as you can, honey. We've… we've got Jet, Crash."
    Crash headed straight for the parking lot, threw the luggage into his waiting truck and pointed it toward NASA Road 1.
    * * * *
    "Hey, ‘Doc,'" Crash's pet greeting for his flame was decidedly subdued as he entered the flight surgeon's office. "Got your message, Gayle. I just got off the plane from Huntsville, so I came straight here."
    "Yeah, I got your message you were out of town on the investigation, so I didn't worry. I just thought you might… want the opportunity to say goodbye." The petite strawberry blonde looked at him, compassion in her eyes.
    "Gayle… are you sure it's him?" Crash asked, in deep pain. "I… I