Awakening: Part 2 of What Happens In Space

Commander Jones and Major Heder took their mystery guest to the medical station. Major Heder began checking him over as the commander went back to the pod. As he stood there, looking over the pod's condition, the commander felt a curious sense of dread. Something about the appearance of the pod, the markings on its outer hull, and the pilot’s comatose state set off his spidey senses.

After inspecting the outer hull and using a radiation detector, he climbed inside the compartment and checked the electronics.

“This isn’t possible,” he mumbled to himself.

The instruments were frozen, but active. He examined the screens and looked over the flight logs. What he was seeing made him stop. He needed to report in to mission control.

Jones hurried to the command module and signed into the system. He began frantically typing a message.

Retrieval was successful. The lone occupant of the capsule appears to be a man in his mid-thirties. The markings on his flight suit are generic, but the instruments and his flight logs indicate he’s an American astronaut. Please advise of any other missions currently underway.

-Commander John Jones

Jones looked at his watch, and again, there was missing time. He couldn’t have been examining the pod for that long, but an hour had gone by since leaving the med bay. Wiping his eyes, he attributed it to fatigue. He’d been aboard the I.S.S. since the evacuation months ago, and with only he and Major Heder left aboard, there was more to do than normal.

“Commander,” Major Heder called over the intercom.

Pressing a button on the controls, he responded to the Major’s call and learned that the mysterious guest was starting to wake up.

“Roger that,” he told her. “I’m on my way.”

Once he was there, he found Major Heder talking to their guest. The Major heard the footsteps as John approached the medbay and waved him into the area. She introduced him to their guest, explaining he was the mission commander.

“Thank you for my rescue,” he told Commander Jones. “I understand I owe you two my life.”

“Well, you were on a collision course with our station,” explained John.

“But, you could have chosen to evacuate. Instead, you risked your life to save me.”

“So, how do you feel?”

“Other than being a little out of it,” said the man, “I’m okay.”

“Good,” Commander Jones told him. “We do have some questions.”

“Maybe those can wait,” suggested the major. “Until he’s gotten his strength back.”

John looked at Major Heder, annoyed by the position she’d placed him in. If he pushed now, he’d seem unreasonable. There were important questions about their guest, questions that NASA had yet to answer.

“Sure,” sighed John. “While you get comfortable, perhaps I can have a word in private with my partner.”

“I’ll be here,” answered the man in the bed.

Major Heder followed John to the outer corridor and through a bulkhead door. Once they were alone, John turned and faced her. He had a worried look on his face that she hadn’t seen before. Something about this had him unnerved.

“What is it?”

“Did he say anything to tell you where he’s from?”

“No,” she answered.

“Did you notice his accent? His perfect use of American English?”

“I did find that familiar,” she admitted.

“And NASA didn’t alert us to anybody else being out here. There were no other reported missions. So, who the hell is he?”

She looked puzzled, wondering if he’d reached out to mission control, and looking back toward the medbay. Her superior wasn’t usually paranoid, and she’d always found his insights made sense. But, if the astronaut in the medbay is American, NASA would have known when they alerted them to the pod that it was a NASA escape craft.

“A couple of hours, and then you can ask him anything you want,” she promised. “I’ll hold him down while you waterboard him.”

He hated her sense of humor. She was right, though. As far as he could tell, a couple of hours wasn’t going to change anything. NASA may even get back to them before that and have some answers.

General Max Cantrell marched into the Pentagon after being summoned to an emergency meeting. Things were heating up, and the President was already on his way back to the States from an overseas trip. What he was about to be briefed on was a change in the parameters of NASA's current mission to the International Space Station, as well as a change in the status of their national defense readiness plan.

"Good, Max, you're here," announced the Vice President as the last of the commanders entered the room. "Please, sit down."

"Thank you, Mr. Vice President," he responded, taking a briefing packet and finding his usual place at the table.

"There's no other way to tell you all this, except to say it. We have gone to Defcon 2, and we are looking at an intrusion aboard the International Space Station. How it happened, we don't know. But, there's been a mission that not one single country is taking credit for," explained the Vice President.

"Sir, why is this a problem. The I.S.S. usually has a multistate sponsored team aboard."

"General, you were only appointed recently, and I wish we had time to read you in more completely, but there are two I.S.S. facilities in orbit. One of them is run by the United States, Israel, and England. It's also got a defense system on it capable of responding to any threat by the BRICS consortium."

"How did you keep this a secret?"

As the Vice President prepared to answer the question, two Secret Service members rushed into the room and pulled him away. Alarms began going off throughout the White House. As the Joint Chiefs sat there, each grabbing the phones in front of them, one by one, they were pulled out of the room to be relocated.

The screen in front of Commander Jones lit up. It read:

Commander:

None of the space community admits to having a mission failure warranting the use of a space pod. It's unknown who your guest's allegiances will be with.

The country is moving to DEFCON 1. Recommend you prepare for an additional period aboard the station. Prepare all weapons systems. Up the station's readiness to match the current protocol as established.

Find out who your guest works for. Protect yourselves.

Mission Control.