Juggernaut

‘Unplug the unit. There are grips either side of the console. The detonator and explosives should lift smoothly out. Get Hassim to help carry it from the vehicle.’

We carried the auto-destruct unit from the airlock and set it down on the cavern floor.

‘Return to the crew compartment.’

‘Okay.’

‘There’s a wall panel, secured by four lock-screws. Should be a voltage symbol on the panel.’

‘Got it.’

I unscrewed the bolts. A cavity. Clumps of cable.

‘The Saliut-5 data system. It captures telemetric and medical information for post-flight analysis. I’ll talk you through the de-installation.’

‘It’s gone.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The entire unit has been removed. Someone cut through the wires.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘There are data ribbons hanging out of the wall. They’ve been sawed with a knife.’

‘Chyort voz’mi,’ muttered Ignatiev.

‘It seems someone was anxious to ensure Spektr kept her secrets.’

There was a long pause.

‘Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?’

‘Open the cockpit. It’s time we saw who flew this thing.’

The crew compartment was separated from the cockpit by a thick bulkhead.

I turned the release handles and pulled back the flight-deck hatch.

Darkness. The cabin lights had shorted out.

‘Hassim. Give me some light.’

I crawled into the cramped flight deck and filmed. Hassim crouched by the doorway.

A single high-backed couch facing banks of instrumentation. Commsgear, telemetric read-outs, navigation management consoles and attitude controls. Row upon row of dials and toggle switches.

The flight-deck windows were smoked almost black by the heat of re-entry.

I crawled into the cockpit on my knees.

‘There should be six red switches. Centre panel, above the thrust levers.’

‘I see them.’

‘They isolate the main boosters. Flip them upward into the off position. I don’t want some random command impulse to trigger the combustion chambers and blow us to pieces.’

I put down the camera. I rested my stump on a deck plate for support and reached forward to flip the bank of switches.

‘There’s a pilot right next to me. He looks long dead.’

‘Any obvious signs of injury?’

‘No. His suit is intact.’

‘Film it.’

The figure was strapped in the command couch. The couch was a foam and fibre-glass body-shell mounted on ram-jacks to absorb a heavy impact.

The cosmonaut wore a grey canvas pressure suit. His boots and gauntlets were attached by lock-rings. A hose anchored to his chest-plate was plugged into a wall-mounted oxygen supply.

‘Give me more light.’

Hassim crawled into the compartment and held the torch above his head.

The dead cosmonaut had a silver rosary wrapped round his wrist.

‘His helmet is sealed. I can’t see his face.’

I kept filming.

A mission patch on his sleeve: the tricolour of the Russian Federation and a clenched fist. A name tape on his chest.

KONSTANTIN.

‘Can you move the pilot? Can you extract him from his seat?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Don’t violate the integrity of his suit, understand? Don’t release the lock-rings. Don’t lift the visor.’

I shut off the video camera and passed it to Hassim.

The cosmonaut was held in his seat by a five-point harness. I twisted the central clasp. The straps unlatched and fell free.

I turned a screw-ring, and released the oxygen umbilicus from his chest valve.

I shut off the light.

‘Give me a hand.’

Hassim gripped the cosmonaut’s ankles. I pushed my hand and stump beneath the pilot’s armpits and supported his weight as we swung his body from the seat.

We manhandled the dead man from the cockpit, through the stowage area and out the airlock.

‘Put him in the sarcophagus.’

I pulled a polythene sheath from a long box. A steel coffin with a big biohazard symbol etched into the metal and a porthole in the lid.

We laid the cosmonaut inside the steel container, still in his pressure suit, and folded his arms across his chest. We sealed the lid.

We entered the decon cycle. We scrubbed our suits with bleach, hosed down under a shower head, then stood bathed in ultraviolet light.

We towelled and dressed.