The Tipping Point (Surviving the Fall 9)

“Never.”

“Nope. You did, though, right?”

Commander Palmer nods. “I was part of the decommissioning crew. We shut everything down and prepped her for long-term storage. She was supposed to be kept in orbit till her station-keeping thrusters ran out of fuel, then she’d burn up.”

“How long was that supposed to take?”

“A year or so, give or take.”

A long pause passes over the conversation before Jackie replies. “So we’ll have plenty of time there to figure out our next move. Assuming we make it.”

Commander Palmer smiles at her from behind his thick visor. “We’ll make it.”

***

One and a half hours later, the capsule shudders again. This time, though, it’s not from the thrusters, but from an impact with its destination.

“Clamps?!” Commander Palmer shouts.

“Secure! Green lights across the board. We did it!” Ted, Jackie and Commander Palmer let off cheers of joy and elation as they celebrate their safe arrival at the International Space Station. Their arrival is both welcome and slightly unexpected, but they are all thrilled beyond belief that they made it. The real challenge, however, is about to begin.

“All right, listen up you two. We’re secured to the station but we still have to get inside. The downside with all of this is that we can’t afford to expend the fuel to dock the capsule properly so we’re just going to leave it hanging and EVA everything in.”

“Should be fun,” Jackie replied with a nervous laugh. “I’ve only done three EVAs before this.”

“No time like now to do your fourth, eh?” Commander Palmer unbuckled himself from his seat and slowly floated toward the top of the capsule. “Make sure everything’s secured. I’m going to pop the hatch in thirty.”

The sharp hiss of escaping air went away a second after Palmer unsealed the hatch at the top of the capsule, opening up the interior to the vacuum of space. Ted and Jackie stayed in their seats while Commander Palmer floated through the hatch, checking his oxygen levels in his suit for what felt like the hundredth time since putting it on. “I’ve got two hours of air left. We need to hustle to get inside and get the scrubbers turned on.”

“You want us to wait here and monitor your progress or follow behind with supplies?” Ted asked.

Commander Palmer hesitated with his answer at first, weighing the risks they were taking with the greater ones associated with running out of air. “Under any other circumstances we wouldn’t be grappling the outer structure of a decommissioned space station with a lifeboat while we try to EVA to the other side, force open an airlock and get inside all before running out of O2. So, yeah, you two gather the supplies and let’s do this as fast as possible.”

Chapter 5

Blacksburg, VA

Dianne swung open the bathroom door and looked out into the small room, checking to make sure that the two men hadn’t walked in without her hearing. They were still just outside the room, though, and based on their voices it sounded as if they were sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall. She tried to ignore their vulgar language as they continued going on about the various things they had done with and to the “workers” at the gas station, but everything she heard served to raise her blood pressure even more.

Bracing herself at the door, she listened to the position of their voices outside, trying to picture where they were in the hall. One to the right, and one leaning directly against it, I think. Killing didn’t come naturally to the homeschooling mother of three, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and evil had to be snuffed out.

Dianne threw her weight down on the door handle and pulled inward, stepping to the side as the door flew open and bounced against a rubber stopper on

the wall. A man wearing a filthy coat that was once the color blue fell backwards, his eyes wide and his arms flailing as he tried to grab for the doorframe to hold himself up. The rifle that had been in his right hand slipped and fell forward into the hall, landing with a light clatter as the back of his head smacked against the hard floor behind him.

The man just barely had time to open his eyes as Dianne stepped over him, bringing down the small sledgehammer in her right hand directly into the center of his face. The sound was horrific. Flesh, cartilage and bone all snapped and squished and squelched as the sledgehammer drove the man’s nose into his brain. His body jerked and twisted as his muscles spasmed, but no noise emanated from his throat as he lay on the floor, the plastic handle of the sledgehammer sticking out from where his mouth and nose used to be.

Though Dianne was sickened by the sounds of the man’s death, she didn’t hesitate to make her next move. Opening the door and slamming the sledge into the first man’s face had taken him and his partner by surprise, but in another few seconds she knew the second man would be fully aware of what was going on and would try to fight back. She wasn’t about to give him that chance.

She took a step out into the hall over the first man’s twitching body, glancing to the right and locking eyes with the second man, who was still looking over at his partner, trying to figure out what was going on. He started pulling up the rifle lying across his lap to aim it in Dianne’s direction, but she ducked low, pushing her body into his and pressing her knees on his hands to keep the rifle and his arms down and out of the way.

At the same time she slashed forward and to the side with the taped-together scalpels, cutting at the man’s throat as hard and fast as possible. If he had a chance to let off a shout or a cry for help, her position would be compromised and it would be that much harder for her to escape. While she wasn’t an expert at quietly assassinating people, she reasonably assumed that if his throat was cut wide open he wouldn’t be able to make much noise—at least nothing above a gurgle.

The sun’s rays through the window at the end of the hall glinted off of the silver tips of the scalpels as they whirled towards and through the man’s neck, cutting three deep gouges through his carotid artery on the left side of his neck, through the upper portion of his trachea and just barely nicking his right carotid as she pulled the scalpels free. He tried to gasp in surprise and pain as the blades sliced through his flesh, but Dianne was fast enough with her movements that there was no time for him to react—at least not at first.

Blood spilled freely from the left side of the man’s neck and his face turned from one of surprise to one of shock and disbelief. Rivers of red ran across his skin, barely visible in the shadows, but leaving a trail of warmth and stickiness wherever they went. Dianne could feel his hands moving beneath her legs as he struggled to bring them up to his wounds, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood. He choked and wheezed as blood poured out of his neck, flowing into his damaged trachea as well as down his front and onto Dianne’s right hand and arm. The warm wetness wasn’t something she was expecting and she nearly jumped off of him, but instead clamped down on his chest with her right arm, putting her face up next to his. She dropped the scalpels from her left hand before clamping her hand over his mouth and nose, stifling his gurgling cries to ensure no one could hear them.

As she stared into the eyes of the man who only moments prior had been talking about the captives in the gas station camp as though they were so much cattle, she saw fear. Pure, unadulterated, raw fear. His pupils dilated and contracted as he looked between her and the brighter parts of the hall, searching for some way out of his situation. There was nothing he could do, though. Death’s wings were wrapping themselves around his body.