Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Part One - “TO FIND THE SEA”
KEANU APPROACH
TWO YEARS AGO
KEANU APPROACH: TERMINAL PHASE
Part Two - “LONG, GENTLE THUNDER”
TWO YEARS AGO
KEANU STAY
SEVENTY-THREE DAYS EARLIER
KEANU STAY
Part Three - “SOME FRAGRANT NIGHT”
Part Four - “IN THE WIDE STARLIGHT”
Part Five - “FOR THE DEAD ARE FREE”
Acknowledgements
HEAVEN’S WAR
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2011 by Phantom Four Films and St. Croix Productions, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goyer, David S.
Heaven’s shadow / David S. Goyer & Michael Cassutt. p. cm.
ISBN : 978-1-101-51654-6
1. Human-alien encounters—Fiction. 2. Space flight—Fiction. I. Cassutt, Michael. II. Title.
PS3607.O925H43 2011
813’.6—dc22
2010054263
http://us.penguingroup.com
To Michael Engelberg
Dramatis Personae
ZACK STEWART, astronomer and astronaut, commander of Destiny-7
MEGAN DOYLE STEWART, journalist
RACHEL STEWART, their daughter
AMY MEYER, Rachel’s friend
SCOTT SHAWLER, NASA public affairs officer, the “voice” of the Destiny missions
TEA NOWINSKI, Destiny-7 astronaut
PATRICK “POGO” DOWNEY, Destiny-7 astronaut
YVONNE HALL, Destiny-7 astronaut
TAJ RADHAKRISHNAN, vyomanaut, commander of Brahma
NATALIA YORKINA, exobiologist and Brahma cosmonaut
LUCAS MUNARETTO, engineer and Brahma cosmonaut
DENNIS CHERTOK, aerospace physician and Brahma cosmonaut
HARLEY DRAKE, former astronaut, head of the Home Team
GABRIEL JONES, director of the NASA Johnson Space Center
SHANE WELDON, former chief astronaut, now Destiny-7 mission director
BRENT BYNUM, deputy national security adviser, White House staff
JOSH KENNEDY, Destiny-7 flight director
LINDA DOWNEY, Patrick Downey’s wife
JILLIANNE DWIGHT, crew secretary, Johnson Space Center
KONSTANTIN ALEXANDROVICH FEDOSEYEV, Russian, now a Revenant
CAMILLA, a Brazilian child, now a Revenant
VIKRAM NAYAR, lead flight director at Bangalore
THE HOME TEAM
SASHA BLAINE, Yale astronomer
WADE WILLIAMS, popular science and sci-fi author
GLENN CREEL, creator of Cartoon Network’s Escape Velocity
LILY VALDEZ, professor at University of California, Irvine
STEVEN MATULKA, president of the Planetary Society
JASMINE TRIEU, astronaut, capcom
TRAVIS BUELL, astronaut, Destiny-5 commander, capcom
JAMES and DIANE DOYLE, Megan Doyle Stewart’s parents
TOBY BURNETT, Wackenhut security officer at JSC
LEE SHIMORA, Destiny-7 Stay-3 flight director
Part One
“TO FIND THE SEA”
Near-Earth Objects are comets or asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighborhood.
NASA JET PROPULSION LAB, NEAR-EARTH OBJECT PROGRAM FAQ
What if it comes from farther away?
POSTER ALMAZ, JULY 7, 2016
KEANU APPROACH
Blue planet Earth and its seven billion human beings lay 440,000 kilometers below—or, given the arbitrary terminology of orientation in space, off to one side. If the sheer magnitude of the distance failed to provide a mind-boggling thrill, Zack Stewart could, by looking out the window, cover his home planet with his thumb.
That small gesture got the point across: He and his three fellow astronauts were farther away from Earth than any human beings in history.