“The countdown is now T minus nineteen minutes twenty-eight seconds. All systems are nominal. Therefore Code P-18 is not a valid command.”
"Shit," he whispered under his breath. "Petra, verify P-18 with Flight Control." He paused for a split second, then pushed a button on the console and commanded, "Abort instruction." Another pause, then, "Repeat verify abort command for N equals one over zero."
"What was that?" Eva was wedging her laptop under the left-hand G-seat.
"I think, I hope I just put her command-monitor function into an infinite loop. She'll just continuously start and stop the verification procedure. Maybe it'll render that subroutine incapable of blocking the other system functions."
"You're going to confuse her head? Good luck."
He settled himself in the central seat, then reached up and began unlatching the huge flight helmet. As he did, his eyes were suddenly flooded with grief.
"They killed him." He paused for a moment and just stared. Vance thought he'd finally become befuddled from the shock. But then he choked back his emotion and continued. "We're going on the deck. Under their goddam radar."
"What did you say?" Vance strained to catch his words. The English was slurred.
He seemed to grow faint, his consciousness wane, but he finally revived as he finished yanking the giant helmet down over his head.
Vance's headphones came alive as he heard the Russian. "Daedalus I to Control. Do you read? I am now bringing up core rpm for starboard cluster, outboard trident." A second later, he continued, "We have S-O ignition."