Blood and Treasure - Softcover

Pote, Ryan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593953177 ISBN 13: 9780593953174

Verlag: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S., 2026

Inhaltsangabe

The destruction of the International Space Station and the discovery of an ancient scroll are inextricably intertwined in this debut crossover thriller from a former Navy helicopter pilot.

The International Space Station suddenly loses contact with Earth. When a NASA tech devises a way to restore the feed, the images that come through are unfathomable: a scene of terrible violence, the crew unresponsive, droplets of blood hovering in zero gravity. But which of the astronauts on board would have done such a thing? And why?

Off the coast of Mozambique, former special ops pilot and current treasure hunter Ethan Cain sees something he can’t believe: an object shot out of the heavens plunging deep into the Indian Ocean. When he goes to investigate, it becomes even less intelligible. A space capsule has crashed into the sea, and inside is a woman—alone, unconscious, and injured. Ethan knows he must save her. What he doesn’t know is who she is, how she got there . . . or why she’s the only survivor of a killing spree conducted 254 miles up in the sky.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ryan Pote is a twelve-year veteran Navy helicopter pilot who was part of a joint interagency special operations task force deployed throughout Central and South America. He was medically separated after sustaining injuries during an emergency landing. Ryan currently works for the Department of Defense. Before his time in the Navy, he worked as a scuba diving instructor in Hawaii and as a microbiology lab tech conducting algae-biofuels research. He holds a master's degree in history from Ashland University. He lives with his wife and children in New England.

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PROLOGUE


Johnson Space Center

Houston, Texas


Only the dead silence of space replied for the crew.

“Station, Houston,” the tech said. “How do you read?”

A tonal chirp like the one from a tiny bird followed the broken sound waves from the digital speakers throughout Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control. The sound was a carryover from an old technology and was no longer produced by the radios organically; now, the artificial Quindar tone bookended all transmissions. This tone echoed across dozens of blank faces. Again, the radio pinged, but this time it was followed by a thick Japanese accent.

“Station, Scooba. Come in?”

Everyone in Mission Control listened, holding their breath. Still, there was no answer. Then the radio pulsed from Germany. “Station, Munich.”

Then more.

“Station, Montreal. Over.”

“Station, Moscow.”

Korolev, Moscow. The Russian Center for Control of Flight, known by American astronauts as SOUP. Korolev was the sister to Houston for control of the International Space Station (ISS).

“Station, Moscow. We’re transmitting in the blind. If you hear us, we’ve lost link to station and cannot control thruster. Be advised, orbital creep is approaching critical altitude. Station, Moscow. Come in, Station?”

Jordin Devine sat at her desk in Mission Control, perched on the second floor of Building 30 at Johnson Space Center. A tiny cog in the international machine of space exploration. A very tiny cog. Each of the twenty long desks, stacked with computer monitors, handled a different area of the station. Jordin tucked her hair behind an ear and focused on the monitors, so hard her eyes stung. She handled audio and video, and among the important problems growing for the ISS, audio and video took priority for the flight director. He needed to see his astronauts. Hear their voices.

She furiously tapped away at her keyboard, rifling through the endless lines of code.

“Devine?” The flight director said, projecting his voice over the room. The flight director was an astronaut himself and the one responsible for the ISS in orbit. He was known to all by his callsign, Remi.

Jordin spun in her chair. “Sir?”

“Devine, we need something—”

“Yes, sir. Working on it,” Jordin said.

“Well, work faster.” Remi remained stationary, staring at the opposite wall full of giant digital screens streaming the orbit of the ISS around the globe.

The orbital path fell, displayed by a colored line playing in a looped graphic, blinking from green, to white—then red.

Jordin leaned into her keyboard, fingers keeping pace with the dizzying speed of her cast gray eyes. An eagerness preceded the last rap of her hands on the keys.

“I've got a feed…”

“Audio or video?” Remi said.

Jordin clicked her mouse and lifted her gaze to the big screens on the far wall of the control room.

“Both,” she said.

A crackling hum filled Mission Control as the audio came through. Then a live video feed flickered on from inside the Destiny Laboratory and the Unity module (Node 1), connecting the US and Russian Orbital sections. It was muted in dark shades of red and slipped into a black screen at irregular intervals before finally establishing a continuous live stream.

Everyone glued their eyes to the screen. Gasps floated across the room like a dark cloud. The flight director turned away and whispered into his headset. Remi spoke to the “back room,” or executive NASA leadership. It was a one way flurry of information without reply.

Then Jordin stood, covering her mouth with a trembling hand as the video resolution tightened. “Oh my God…”



The International Space Station


The internal lights of the International Space Station flickered and dimmed, twitching a slow death. With every spark from a bundle of split wiring, the station’s lights guttered. The constant, gentle drone of the station was interrupted only by the radio, churning clipped static as the station flew over the horizon, away from the frequency’s reach.

“Station, Moscow?”

“Stat—oscow—”

A single eggshell-colored Extravehicular Mobility Suit glove moved through the Unity module. It wasn’t flying; it was falling. Falling off the edge of the earth as the station executed its orbit at over 17,000 miles per hour. Spinning like a ballerina, the glove impacted a padded wall, sending it twirling on its axis through a swarm of floating orb-like marbles and into the Harmony module—the heart of the ISS.

The burgundy-colored spheres stretched and blobbed. Some clung to one another and formed larger orbs, while others multiplied and stained the glove red.

That’s what blood does in outer space.

The woman hooked her feet under rungs on a wall of the module, holding herself in place among the zero-gravity environment. She took a deep breath and brushed the wet nodules away from her face as if they were flies. Her cheeks were smattered with blood, tissue, and tiny fragments of debris. The circular window only made it worse; without it, she wouldn’t have ever known the station was rotating. But every two seconds, the light reflected off the earth’s surface and flashed over her almond eyes. Strobing a reminder of the station’s motion, hurtling out of control through orbit.

The radio continued to crackle, but the woman continued to ignore it.

“—tation, Mosco—”

She wore an EMU suit, but the helmet and gloves had been removed. Bloody hand prints marked the suit and partially covered the red, white, and green of the Iranian flag on her shoulder. A velcro patch on her chest held a name written in both Farsi and English:

Mojdeh “Moj” Zahedi.

Her eyes locked in on a computer screen as she fought back the flutter in her stomach and the bile rising in the back of her throat. Vertigo. She could throw up at any moment. But there wasn’t time for that now. There was only time to complete her task. She wiped away the beads of sweat that pooled on her skin.

Moj released the Russian Makarov 9mm pistol from her hand, and it gently drifted away before the stiff corpse of a man in a navy blue flight suit bounced off the wall—a bloody orb growing over his body like an inflating balloon. She nudged him along and returned to her work. Fingers jabbing at a breakneck pace, she worked her way through the station’s systems.

LIFE SUPPORT — FAILING.

ACTIVE THERMAL CONTROL SYSTEM — LEAK WARNING. STATION TEMPERATURE CRITICAL.

ORBIT — DEGRADED. ORBITAL DECAY CRITICAL. WARNING. FIRE THRUSTERS.

WARNING.

WARNING…

Moj muttered in Farsi, then Arabic, then Russian, before closing her eyes and slamming a fist into the keyboard. The station shook.

Moj screamed something in Farsi.


Houston

The video feed cut to a black screen.

CONNECTION LOST.

“What?” the flight director said. “What the hell just happened?” He paced the floor of Mission Control. “Get me back that video feed, Devine.”

“Yes, sir. It wasn’t a live feed, like I originally thought. There’s a delay.”

“How long of a delay are we talking here?”...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593953177
• ISBN 13: 9780593953174
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar