When Wesley Maddox directed the construction crews in space even when he coordinated the earlier stages of construction in the Arizona facility he'd been thankful that the media was kept at bay. Answering asinine questions when there was real work to be done angered him; he had very little patience for such things. Therefore, the past two days of his life were some of the longest he ever experienced.

Countless interviews on major television networks, answering the same questions about the accident and the future of the space station, left him completely drained. So when he finally reached the suite at the fancy, expensive hotel the government lodged him in, Maddox did not even change out of his suit before flopping on the bed.

This bed is the only reason I haven't figured out a way to get off this planet and back to the station, he thought, enjoying every soft contour the mattress provided.

When he'd gotten back to his room, Maddox switched the TV on, a habit that four months in space apparently hadn't broken. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep for the next week but heard for the past few hours about President Marshall's big speech to the country.

Although the President personally assured him that space construction would continue with him in charge, Maddox wouldn't feel totally comfortable until he heard the President make this announcement to the country.

Before the speech started, Maddox decided to rest his eyes, only for a few moments. When he snapped awake from unconsciousness, he did not need to hear the President's voice to realize he missed the beginning.

"For the past few days, I've had to weigh countless options in deciding what to do with the space station," Marshall said.

Maddox just hoped he didn't miss anything important.

John Fare's eyes filled with water but it had nothing to do with losing control of his emotions due to the impending divorce of his parents. Cigarette smoke left a haze over the living room at his house, stinging his eyes and bothering his sinuses to the point it looked like he was crying.

His mother, on the other hand, had been crying. She sat on the couch next to John, her eyes red and puffy. Her eyes were this way a lot recently, especially over the last few days. Since she kicked his father out of the house, John's mother was a wreck, smoking cigarettes and crying until her tears ran dry.

John vaguely remembered his mother smoking when he was young but she'd quit years ago. When his father left, her nerves could not handle the reality and her only trip outside the house was to a local convenience store for a carton of smokes.

John rubbed his eyes and coughed. He wanted to go upstairs to watch the President's speech in peace but knew his mother would cry even harder if left alone. The only time she attempted to hold herself together was in his presence.

"Mom, maybe you shouldn't smoke so much," John said. "I haven't seen you without a cigarette since...for the past week."

"Tell that to your father," she said. "Can't you see it's his fault. He left us. And now he's making me smoke these things, probably killing me in the process."

She refused to take responsibility for her role in the situation. In reality, she was the one who told John's father to leave. But when he finally took her advice, she blamed it all on him.

"I need a drink," his mother said. She stood from the couch and walked out of the living room, leaving a trail of smoke in her wake.

Finally, I can listen to what the President is saying, John thought, focusing on the television for the first time during Marshall's speech.

"On one hand, I could cease construction, as the tragic loss of two men has led to the devastation of two families," the President said.

John had once been interested in every part of the space station process. Now he could barely pay attention during the most important speech the President gave on the subject.

John stared at his mother's pack of cigarettes on the edge of the coffee table. He glanced back at the doorway before picking them up and flipping the pack open. It was mostly full, at least full enough so his mother was unlikely to notice one missing. He took out a cigarette and put it in his shirt pocket, closing the pack and putting it back on the table exactly how he'd found it.

They're helping her, he thought. When she goes to sleep later, I'll see if smoking helps me, too.

Slava Kovalchuk was alone in the main space station piece, listening at mission control to a transmission of President Marshall's speech. Having worked and lived with Wesley Maddox for the past four months, the Russian missed the other person there to keep him company. Slava was accustomed to spending time alone in space, though; the Russian program never sent so many people into orbit at once.

Slava wondered if Maddox would have trouble adjusting to the isolation of living alone when the time came for him. The American struggled with difficult decisions and often turned to Slava for agreement before giving orders to his construction teams. James Armour asked Slava earlier about leading a NASSA construction program, which meant Wesley would have to learn to become a leader on his own.

The President had not yet mentioned this training program in his speech. Slava wondered if it would come up at all.

"I could bring home all of the brave men who-....," Marshall said, the transmission to the space station cutting out momentarily. "- their lives on the line to make history. I could make this project go away forever."

George Marshall stared into the camera, his eyes now burning with intensity at what he had to say.

"But that's not the American spirit. Our country's most shining moments have come in the face of adversity. I expect no less than a shining conclusion from the space station. The project will continue under the leadership of Wesley Maddox and will continue to expand and grow until its completion. New training programs will be opened to the brightest and bravest of this country's great young minds. My hope is to have hundreds of new space construction workers by the end of next year.

"Together, we can make this happen. Together as a country, together as Americans, together with our Russian brothers, together as one humankind. Good night and God bless you all."

The TV screen faded out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

Immediately following the conclusion of President Marshall's speech, Slava radioed the leaders of Teams Three, Four and Five, informing them that construction would not be ending. The news was well-received by the three team leaders, especially the leader of Team Five, who'd been in space for over a week without a single moment of working action. Slava had no specific information to give them about when construction would continue, but he guessed it would happen soon.

With Marshall's speech ended and his future in space now known, Slava left the small control room in his part of the space station. He floated to his living quarters and strapped himself into bed, which resembled a sleeping bag attached to a plastic board. It wasn't very comfortable but still much better than any bed aboard the Russian space station.

Slava closed his eyes and immediately fell asleep, no longer worrying about Marshall's big decision. And since there was no timetable for when construction would restart, this was the first opportunity in four months that he could sleep untroubled.

A short time later, a beeping noise and flashing red light woke the Russian, the first time he heard the beeping or saw this flashing light. He remembered the warning system was set up in his room as a way to let the sleeping leaders know about urgent calls from Earth. Slava and Maddox took turns sleeping during the last four months and never needed to utilize the paging system, which went off after three minutes of not answering a call from ground control.

Slava checked his watch and saw he'd only slept an hour. He unstrapped from his bed and climbed out of the sleeping bag. He floated back to mission control and was met by a familiar voice.

"Ground control to space control, come in. Come in. Slava, this is ground control, do you read?" James Armour asked.

"Ground control, this is space control. You are calling back so soon, Mr. Armour?"

Slava allowed himself a yawn but only because Maddox wasn't around. Whenever his American counterpart was present, Slava refused to yawn, worried that Maddox would somehow link his sleepiness with weakness.

"It appears so," Armour said. "I've just spoken with President Marshall. He wanted me to pass along an order to you. He wants your crew to restart space construction immediately. As of this moment, we should return to our previous schedule."

Slava was surprised this was happening so soon after Marshall's announcement but he never disagreed with his superiors.

"I was quite upset about the loss of Vladimir, as well as your American Frankie. But I truly am believing that your President is correct to be starting back construction right away," Slava said proudly.

"Thank you, Slava. The President will be happy to hear that you share his opinion," Armour said. "I'm sure you heard at the end of the President's speech about putting together our plans for the space construction program. Wesley Maddox will be staying on Earth for at least the next month to help recruit the brightest minds our universities have to offer. During this time, you will lead our construction efforts. The first thing we want completed is the reinstallation of the utility arm and tracking system along the North Corridor. The President strongly stresses that this job be your top priority."

"Team One already did most of the work already. It should not be making a problem for Team Five to do job," Slava said.

"Good, the President will be glad to hear that normalcy is returning to your crew," Armour said. "Once Maddox completes his recruiting, he will return to space with another of the teams. At that time, we'll bring you back to Earth to meet your program staff and finalize any requirements you need to teach the new recruits."

"I will be looking forward to this teaching work," Slava said. "We will be helping our crews with more workers added."

"Nothing on Earth can stop construction now, Slava," Armour said. "It's once again in the hands of you and your workers. Good luck."

"Thank you, Mr. Armour," Slava answered. "We will be starting here in less than hour."

Slava flipped several knobs on the communication equipment, ending the transmission with Armour while turning to the frequency of the three docked space shuttles. Once the Russian got the three team leaders on the radio, there was only one thing he had to say.

"It is time to be getting back to work."

Less than an hour later, Slava looked out of the mission control window and saw Team Three already at work on the East Corridor, the most complete of the space station corridors. Team Three was the last of the original teams to make the trip to space four months ago. They were the most tired of the teams from their lengthy stay but were also the most experienced and first of the teams to restart working.

Team Four which would no longer be called the Rookie Team by Frankie Barnes was next to make their way into space. Their job was the West Corridor, a job they'd taken over from Team Two after the first shift/shuttle change. Since the accident caused the destruction of the North's utility arm, Team Four's West Corridor now had the best progression.

Finally, twenty minutes after the first two teams made their way into space, Slava received a transmission from the leader of Team Five.

"We are all suited up and ready to go out," a feminine voice said. The voice belonged to Veronica Sites, the only woman on the entire construction crew. In Russia, Slava would never have seen a woman do this sort of work. But the no-nonsense attitude of Sites made her the perfect worker and the unanimous decision to be leader of Team Five.

"Please, be going slowly for your first time and be sure to follow the correct protocols," Slava said.

"Copy that. We're going out," Sites said.

Ten minutes later, Slava watched Team Five begin their first work on the space station, fixing damage to the utility arm and tracking system on the North Corridor.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2015.

FOUR YEARS, ELEVEN MONTHS, FOUR DAYS UNTIL IMPACT...

Wesley Maddox now realized that he took the right career path by going into the field rather than becoming a professor. He stood at the front of a large lecture hall, fielding questions from half a dozen MIT professors, questions for which he did not always have the answers. The professors seemed friendly enough, casually dressed and not as uptight as Maddox thought Ivy League professors might be. They appeared genuinely interested in the space station and its progress, even if the questions they asked were highly technical.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen. My area of expertise on this project is broader than that," Maddox answered. "I deal very little with the intricacies involved in construction. My research team at McNalley & Jones helped create and develop many of the technical aspects of the station."

The only professor who appeared different than the others was a tall, skinny man with a hawk-like nose; he introduced himself as Dr. Owens. The others asked Maddox to call them by their first names but Dr. Owens did not even offer his. He wore thick glasses and was the only one wearing a suit, along with a bow tie to match. Dr. Owens was also the only professor who did not smile or appear excited when talking about the space station.

"Since you have very little knowledge about the specifications of your space station, how about a broader question?" Owens asked rhetorically. "Do you believe President Marshall made the correct decision about continuing construction on the station?"

It was a question Maddox had been asked hundreds of times by the media since arriving back on Earth. His opinion on this subject was well known; Dr. Owens was obviously baiting him. Maddox could tell the other professors were in agreement on continuing construction but with a single question, Owens made it quite apparent that he was not.

Maddox was all too familiar with the fact that many people wanted the space station scrapped. Everywhere he went, protestors waited to bombard him with taunts and booing and signs saying that the 'space station killed.' In fact, Maddox expected large protests when he arrived for his advertised visit to the MIT campus. He was shocked to see only a handful of people holding placards outside of the building, none of whom even recognized him when he walked by.

"I do believe it was the correct decision," Maddox said simply.

"You believe it's right to place more people in harm's way-to kill more of your workers-in order to continue a job that is not safe, nor has any precedence from which you can learn," Dr. Owens said. "You believe it's right to continue raising the taxes of every single American for a project that is highly unlikely to ever finish. You believe it's right to promise the country that 'normal Americans' will one day live aboard your completed space station, even though any intelligent person realizes this is a ruse by the government to gain public support. You believe it's right that cancer research and AIDS research and world peace and world hunger research no longer have the same monetary support from the government because your space station continually goes over budget?"

"The world is not a perfect place," Maddox said, angered by the attacks from this pompous professor. "But I believe this project is supported by a lot of people, a lot of hard-working people who are trying to do something scientifically historic. And I do believe that 'normal Americans' will live aboard one day, although that's not a decision I get to make. This project gives many people hope and I believe hope is something you have greatly undervalued."

"Hardly," Dr. Owens said, turning and walking away. The belligerent teacher took a seat in the last row of the lecture hall, which began to fill with students.

"Don't worry about Dr. Owens," one of the other professors said. "He's alone among us with his opinion. I speak for the rest of us when I say your space station gives us hope. We all hope it's successfully completed one day."

The other professors nodded, giving Maddox hope that many people out there agreed with him and the President. If only those people were as loud as the people against us, Maddox thought.

"I am used to dealing with people like Dr. Owens," Maddox said. "But thanks, I appreciate your support."

"Owens is only jealous because none of his students have ever been this excited to attend his astrophysics class."

Over the next few minutes, the large lecture hall nearly filled completely. While some of the students stared at Maddox in awe, the rest of the hall was filled with excited chatter.

Wesley Maddox only read about half of the planned recruitment speech given to him by James Armour. It had no doubt been written by some sort of public relations person. Maddox hated giving speeches nearly as much as he hated recruiting and only skimmed the speech on the ride from Boston Logan Airport to the college. But as he read the words, it became clear that whoever wrote the speech obviously knew little about being in space.

When the project leader glanced at his audience, the once excited expressions were gone from every person in the hall. The students were deathly quiet but not because they hung on to Maddox's every word. In fact, some of the silence was due to the fact that many of the students were falling asleep.

"Blah, blah, blah, blah," Maddox said, finally ripping up the rest of the speech. "That concludes the boring part of my speech today."

This received stifled laughter and a smattering of applause, enough to wake most of those who'd nodded off.

"A little bit of advice for your public speaking classes: before using a speech, always read it first, especially when somebody else has written it for you. You'll want to know if it's going to make you fall asleep before it makes everyone else fall asleep," Maddox said honestly.

This drew more laughter, as Maddox sliced through the bored tension he'd built in the lecture hall.

"It's time to cut through the garbage and get to the point," Maddox said. "I'm going around to the top schools in the country; here, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley. This program I blabbered about for twenty minutes, it's something special, and we're only taking the brightest minds. There's never been a program like this before. Ask any astronaut how long they had to train and work before reaching space and they'll tell you the same thing: years. Years of hard work and making the right connections. But this program is different.

"We need construction workers for space, it's that simple. It is a strenuous job: physically, mentally, emotionally. We could have found older people like me to fill the spots in this program but we realize the space station is our future and so are each and every one of you. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to help assemble the most impressive structure ever attempted by man, and to do so in the most unique environment possible: space.

"This training will last one year before you're given real experience. It's certainly not for everyone. We know this and you know this. But I hope this interests those of you brave enough, intelligent enough and adventurous enough to be part of something truly special."

By the time Maddox finished, he was amazed at how easy it was to talk honestly to these kids. Once he stopped reading that horrid speech, he could tell that he grabbed and held the attention of most in the giant lecture hall.

"I know this is a lot of information to digest at once," Maddox said, looking upon the sea of deliberating faces. "If you have any questions, please feel free to-"

Dozens of hands shot up before Maddox even finished his sentence. The first hand he saw belonged to an attractive girl who sat in the front row.

"I see there are some questions," he joked. "Yes, the young lady in the front."