Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War

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“I am so sorry.”

What did Vitaly mean by that? As the sole American astronaut on the International Space Station, U.S. Air Force colonel Rick Farmer was used to being the target of the Russian crew’s practical jokes. The most recent had involved their sewing him shut inside his sleeping bag and then wide-casting his reaction for the whole net to see.

Now, that had been funny. But this was outside. Different rules when you’re floating outside, only a thin tether keeping you hooked to the station.

The odd thing was that Cosmonaut Vitaly Simakov’s voice had been unaccompanied by his usual booming laugh.

Farmer rechecked his tether, more for mental reassurance than any need. It had been twenty-four minutes since he’d been able to raise Vitaly or anyone else in the station on his suit’s radio. That message was the last Farmer had heard from the mission commander after he’d made his way out of the station to repair the fluky number four solar panel. Even Houston was offline. He chalked up the silence to another one of those technical problems that made daily life in space so difficult, rather than the romance NASA still spun for the media.

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