ISS (9 page)

He was trying to console her and desperately searching for the right thing to say but that definitely wasn’t it she pulled a pillow over her head.

”Just go, get out of here,” she sobbed.

He got up off the bed and gently closed the door behind him. He was confused by her reaction but it was not making things any better by hanging around so he grabbed a flashlight and headed back to the hangar. It did not matter that there was no electricity in the hangar or the offices attached to it. In some ways he found it easier to be methodical searching in the dark with the narrow beam of the flashlight. It was less distracting. They had not seen any dogs or wildlife of any kind and it had been a long time since they’d seen any living people. He figured the Jericho Space venture people would be careful about keeping animals off the property especially the runway. He went into the main administration offices and found a computer. It was a Dell and it looked pretty old. He figured it would likely be networked with a main computer somewhere in the building but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to power up a network mainframe but he would have no problem booting up the Dell. He unplugged all the wires from the back and left them all except for the power chord. The RV had a good 110 volt power supply and there was the old folk’s desktop computer. It had a monitor and all the peripherals he would need to run the Dell. He hoped that this computer has some useful information for the crew on ISS to figure out Jericho’s flight systems.

He looked around and found a cart in a hallway closet and put the computer on it and rolled it out of the office. The interior of the hangar was huge but with the lights out it felt like the walls were closing in on him. He was walking back to the RV when it struck him that a business like this must have a backup diesel power supply. Tomorrow he would search for it because he realized he would have to be mighty lucky to have picked the one computer in the whole place with the engineering data they needed. Gerry could help him with the mainframe. When he got back to the RV he heard the shower running and he took that to be good news. He was finishing plugging in the computer when Sara came out of the bathroom wearing a shiny looking bathrobe with Flamingos on it and a towel wrapped around her wet hair. The sight was completely female and it reminded him of his mom and sister; it was what they used to do and suddenly he missed his old life. She came over to him and put her hand on his back.

”I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a girl,” she said.

He smiled and said, “It’s okay I know it’s hard for you. It’s hard for me too and anyway I like girls,” he said. When he realized what he’d said he blushed bright red and she laughed at his discomfort.

“Oh really Jack how hard is it?” she said teasingly. He turned a deeper shade of red and quickly ducked his head under the desk and pretended to be busy connecting wires. They did not talk about what had happened between them and now because time had passed since the ‘event’ he was shy about it.

She giggled at his discomfort. She could never figure out why some guys were so uncomfortable talking about something so basic to human beings. She and her friends talked about boys and sex from when they were preteens and two of her friends were fourteen when they first tried it with actual boys. It was usually the nerdy ones like Jack that came to it late in their teens or even twenties. She stopped herself from teasing him more; after all, she thought, he was trying to make her feel better. He was a nice guy and unlike most of the guys she knew he was at least trying. She had no practical experience with sex herself so she was being disingenuous by acting superior to him where that was concerned. She was always skinny and flat chested growing up and there weren’t many boys that were interested in her, at least none that she was interested in.

“So what’s with the computer?” she asked. He was relieved to be on a different subject and he looked up at her from under the desk.

“If I can boot it up there might be useful plans or technical data for Jericho One on it. Jerry needs it for figuring out what to do and to teach me how to fly it.” She noticed that when he talked to her his eyes kept dropping to the front of her bathrobe. She leaned in closer to him to look at the screen and she let the front of her robe open up a little. She did not have to look at him to see if he noticed she felt the heat of his gaze upon her bare skin and it gave her goose bumps. “There is something I didn’t tell you,” she said, “when I was a kid my dad had a Cessna 185.” He shifted his gaze to look at her face waiting for her to explain what she meant.

“Do you know what that is?” she said. He shook his head no.

“It’s an airplane.” He continued to look at her blankly his mind clearly on something else.

“I know how to fly an airplane,” she said putting it together for him.

He looked at her face and it took him another few seconds but he managed to say.

“You know how to fly an airplane?”

“Well you don’t have to act so surprised lots of women fly.”

“Ah, like do you have like a license and everything?” he said, confused by this new information.

“Why? Do you think I’ll need one?” she laughed at his amazed expression.

“Wait, you told me you were afraid of heights,” he said.

“I am, my fear was partly the reason why my dad bought the plane, to help me get over it, and also because he wanted one,” she said smiling.

He stood up and looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. She could not read what was on his mind until his face broke into an excited grin.

“This could work,” he said,” I mean actually work.”

She watched his face as the impact of this news continued to dawn on him.

“Well the flying part yes probably,” she said, “but the rest of it, the space stuff, I don’t know anything about that.”

Without realizing what he was doing he came to her and wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.

“Oh my God we can do this we can really do this,” he said. His tone was incredulous.

Sara hugged him back grinning at his infectious excitement. Yes we can, she thought, dam right we can.

Steve was happy to hear about Sara’s flying experience and they were talking about flying small aircraft as Jack left to search the hanger for the mainframe and backup power supply. He found a diesel generator around the back of the building but it was out of fuel and would not start. He figured it must have started automatically when the power went out and run continuously until it used up all its fuel. He found a tank of diesel in another building and used it to replenish the generator. He fired it up and it was running smoothly by the time he’d found the mainframe computer on the second floor. Restarting it was simple he pressed the reset button and in less than a minute everything was back on-line. The next job would not be so simple he needed to find a microwave dish transmitter which he could aim at the ISS. They began training the next morning with Steve directing them for fifteen minutes every ninety minutes from the ISS. He made them practice ten hours a day until they almost dropped from exhaustion. The work of flying the Jericho One was divided up between them, they both spent hours in the cockpit going over systems and controls with Sara spending the most flight seat time while Jack maintained the physical systems and learned all the ground crew and navigation duties.

They used the next fifteen days, with only one day off for a trip to the city for food, to prepare for their flight. By the time they were finished training they could locate and read off any instrument or gauge or instantly flip any safety switch on the flight deck. They did not necessarily know why they were flipping the switch they simply needed to be able to find it quickly amongst the hundreds in front of and beside them. The crew of the ISS would make the decisions as to which switch to deploy and why. Steve was a tough task master making them go back over it many times if he had any doubts about their knowledge. They did not complain because, after all, their lives would depend on them pressing the right button.

The spacesuits they found were intended for use by the flight crew of Jericho One and were much better than the light duty suits used by the tourists. They’d spent a campy hour modeling them for each other and laughing at the bulky butt pads. There were some awkward moments when the topic of going to the bathroom in zero gravity came up and it was Commander Randall who helped them with the details of that.

The pre-flight training and preparations were complete and the supplies needed to replenish the ISS were loaded into the external cargo holds and strapped down. Sara spent so many hours on the radio with Gerry Wright going over the details of how to fly the huge spacecraft that she mumbled about inertial dampener controls in her sleep. They practiced the procedure for depressurizing the cabin and opening the hatch once they reached the ISS. They were to stay aboard the JERICHO ONE until the scientists were certain they’d found an anti-virus but just in case something went wrong they needed to be able to leave JERICHO ONE. Jack searched the exterior of the aircraft for a likely place for the astronauts to grab and secure Jericho One with the Canada arm. There was nothing solid enough on the exterior to safely latch onto so Gerry decided that they would have to risk deploying the landing gear in space so they would have something reasonably strong to grab onto. The risk was that grabbing the gear might damage it and they would lose the ability to return to earth in JERICHO ONE.

***

“Do you want some more?” she asked him as he put down his glass.

“No thank you I think that should do it.”

“Are you sure?” she said but before she finished speaking he jumped up and ran to the bathroom making it just in time. He sat on the toilet and it felt like everything inside him, including his brain, was falling out his bottom. Jesus, he gasped, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. It was, unfortunately, his idea and he was not in a good position to suggest a change now. He was sitting there waiting for the next load when there was an urgent knock at the door. “Hurry up!” The look she gave him when she rushed past him into the tiny washroom wasn’t exactly sweet. It had been his idea to drink a lot of orange juice laced with Vitamin C to clear their digestive tracts so they would not have to ‘go’ in weightlessness.

They could collect urine easily enough but solid waste was another matter. The space company provided hi-tech diapers for use by the tourists but because he and Sara would be out longer than the average tourist ride they needed to make sure that most of what was inside them had come out before they took off in the morning. It was two A.M. and they were lying in bed not sleeping.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her. She looked at him and grimaced,

”Hungry, how about you?”

He nodded his agreement it was going be a long night of listening to their stomachs growl, he thought. They were comfortable in each other’s company they had become close friends. It came into his mind quite often that she was a girl and all the things that went with that but more often she was just someone he liked as a person. He didn’t mind that she teased him sometimes, in fact he liked it.

“What do you miss the most?” she said. She didn’t have to say any more.

“My mom I guess. You?”

“My Dad,” she said.

She told him that her mom died when she was a baby in a car accident. She had no memory of her except for the pictures that her dad had of her. Her dad was her whole world for her entire life. He reached over her and turned off the light.

In the dark she asked, “Do you think anyone has done it in space?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. Probably the French,” he said.

“Yeah, that makes sense. They probably drank wine too,” she said and giggled.

“If a NASA astronaut did it, the evidence would show up on their life-support telemetry data. How would you like to explain that NASA,” he said.

“I wonder what it would be like, I mean doing it in zero gravity?” she said.

“The word ‘fun’ kinda comes to mind,” he said.

“Yes it does,” she said.

They were silent for a while and then she slipped her hand into his.

On the day they were to blast into space they were up early. The dawn sky was pink and the rising sun cast long shadows behind them as they walked to the hangar. The air was cold enough to for Jack to see his breath as he climbed up onto the tractor. He started it and let the engine warm up before backing it up to Jericho One and slipping the tow ring onto the nose gear. He was used to driving the tractor because two days earlier he’d used it to push open the unpowered hangar doors so that the highest part of JERICHO ONE’s tail section could pass through. He climbed down and walked around the spacecraft and did the visual check he was taught and then removed the wheel chocks from the landing gear. Climbing back on the tractor he gently applied throttle to the engine and the massive spacecraft crept forward.

He turned and saw Sara carrying the ladder as she climbed onto the engine starting unit. There was a plume of white smoke when she started it and drove onto the tarmac following along behind JERICHO ONE. When the spacecraft was centered and pointing down the main runway he stopped and backed up to release the tow ring. He drove the tractor off the runway safely out of the way and shut it off. They’d rehearsed the next part quite a few times but it still made him nervous.

As part of their planning they wanted to avoid becoming overheated so they did not dress in their flight suits ahead of departure. They left them and their other gear in the spacecraft overnight and planned to suit up on the way but now he was shivering in the chill morning and wondering if it had been a mistake. Sara pulled up alongside Jericho One’s tail section and he went behind the unit and uncoiled the thick electrical cable and plugged it into a receptacle under the fuselage. He gave her the thumbs up signal and she fired up the generator. In less than a minute all systems on board Jericho One would be live and they would have engine starting power.

She jumped down and they stood amid the noise and cold and hugged. He noticed she was trembling but he didn’t know if it was from the cold or excitement. Probably both he thought. He steadied the ladder for her as she climbed up to the open main cabin hatch. It was his job to disconnect the generator after main engine start and drive the starting tractor out of the way.

This was the trickiest part of this whole thing and the only part they could not rehearse; they could not start the engine while practicing because fuel conservation was critical. The hard part was avoiding being roasted alive by the engine as he climbed the ladder into the spacecraft.

He was shivering and it seemed to be taking a long time but then he heard the main engine begin to spool up and he covered his ears with his hands at the intensity of the whine and he was soon engulfed in exhaust heat. He waited until Sara came to the hatch to give him the thumbs up signal before he disconnected the generator and drove the starting unit over onto the grass beside the runway.

The next part was the most difficult, he needed to climb aboard Jericho One and release the ladder and close and seal the hatch without falling or getting char broiled by the engine. He ran up the ladder quickly without getting singed but it took him three tries to get the door closed and sealed but when he did the relief from the engine noise and heat was immediate.

Sara was belted into the pilot’s seat and when she saw the green indicator light that told her the door was sealed she released the brakes and throttled up the engine. The huge craft shuddered and began to roll down the runway. Jack struggled to walk up the aisle against the increasing acceleration. Fuel usage was critical because of the extended distance they would need to travel. Gerry had calculated the amount of fuel they would need from engine start to orbit and warned them in the strongest possible terms that there was no margin for error. They were traveling down the runway at ninety knots when Jack strapped himself into the co-pilot seat.

“Check gauges,” Sara said over the engine noise.

He began the automatic scan he’d been practising for what seemed like months, checking everything from tire temperature to cabin pressure. Everything was nominal and he gave her a ‘thumbs up’ and a grin. She was concentrating so hard her return grin was more a grimace than a smile. He watched the muscles in her forearms bulge with the stress of controlling the huge machine. It was at its most unstable barreling down the runway. Her bangs were in her eyes and soaked with sweat and her brow was deeply furrowed in concentration. He turned away from her and looked out the windscreen and felt butterflies in his empty stomach as the nose of Jericho One began to lift. One minute they were rolling at speed down the runway and the next they jumped into the sky with a solid kick in the pants. He couldn’t help it he yelled “Yahoo!”

The cute sweaty pilot in the next seat smiled at his outburst though she never took her eyes off what she was doing. A few minutes later they were at twenty thousand feet and climbing steadily and just as planned ISS came on line as they passed through sixty five thousand feet. The sound of Gerry Wright’s voice came through loud and clear.

“Great job you guys that was a perfect takeoff. Now it’s time to put on your gear and get ready for zero G,” he said. He would talk them through the next few critical hours. Jack got dressed first and finished fastening the airtight outer lining of his spacesuit and then took over flying while Sara struggled into hers.

They had not put them on earlier because things have a way of being delayed especially with such a complex task as getting Jericho One airborne and rather than risk overheating themselves and depleting their suits energy reserves the plan called for suiting up under way. Jack held the spacecraft steady keeping the rate of climb constant like he’d been taught.

“Give me a read out,” Gerry said.

Jack read off the various gauges and indicators, scanning them in the sequence he memorized and going back over them if Gerry did not hear every one. When he turned his head to read the fuel transport gauge he caught sight of Sara lying in the aisle between the passenger seats with her legs up in the air struggling to get into her suit. He laughed at the look of frustration on her face and she glowered back at him.

“I’m not a bean pole like you I have hips,” she shouted over the engine noise.

“What’s going on?” Gerry said.

“The pilot is having trouble getting into her pants,” Jack said.

“You are going to run out of time you’d better help her Jack. Look on the upper right corner of the display console. There is a button with the label APX engage it and let go of the stick,” said Gerry. He did as he was instructed and watched as the auto pilot took over the controls.

“Did the autopilot engage?”

“There is a green light on,” Jack said.”

“Okay good, you can go and help her but don’t take too long.”

Jack climbed out from behind the flight controls being careful not to bump any switches on the way out and walked back to where she was struggling.

“What should I do?” he said. She considered it for a moment and asked him to get behind her and help her pull. With his help they managed to pull it up quite a bit but not enough. They continued to struggle and pull but they didn’t manage to get it up enough to close the seal. “Are you sure this is the same suit you wore before?”

They spent time earlier practising putting them on. Once they mastered it they loaded them on board with all the other flight related gear.

“Yes,” she said.

“I don’t understand how you gained weight in two days,” he said shaking his head.

He heard Wendy Randall’s voice come over the radio.

“Jack, I need you to put on your helmet and plug into the consul.” he found it and placed it on his head and plugged it in. The Commander’s voice was now inside.

“Jack, I think Sara is retaining water. That’s why her suit isn’t fitting,” she said.

“You mean she drank too much?” There was a pause and she said, “No Jack it’s not that. When girls get their period, that is, when they menstruate sometimes they retain water and it makes them kind of swell up.”

“Oh,” he said. He took off his helmet and went back to Sara still struggling. “Do you have your period?” he asked. “Yes.” “The Commander says you’re retaining water. You are going to have to take off your pants,” he said, “she thinks that’s the problem.” She looked at him closely and then asked him, “Is that really what she said?”

He smiled his answer; if she was swollen he figured taking off her pants would help. He helped her pull off the jammed space suit and then he waited to help her to take off her pants. She looked at him and said.

“Jack, go and check some gauges.”

A few minutes later she was pushing him out of the pilot’s seat. They both had their helmets on and suit systems operating as the sky outside the spacecraft lost its blueness. They were approaching the outer limit of the earth’s atmosphere. Gerry told her to start the procedure for switching the engine over to rocket fuel and when she finished the engine re-lit and gave them a huge hit of thrust. The next two hours would be critical.

They were about to navigate through tons of floating space junk and satellites that circled the planet in low earth orbit. Jack thought the whole ride was all pretty cool until he suddenly realized he was going to throw up inside his helmet. He put his head down low and did some deep breathing and the feeling passed. When he looked up again the view outside the windscreen now showed a completely black and star filled universe. He was awestruck and he looked over at Sara and she was sitting there, calmly flying JERICHO ONE like she’d flown spacecraft all her life. She even smiled at him.

“Jeez, how do you stay so calm?” he said.

“What you can’t see is that inside I’m scared shitless. My dad always told me when I was afraid to smile and nod, because if you don’t act scared you won’t feel scared. He was a terrible bull shitter.”

He laughed but her story helped to calm his nerves. Suddenly the radio was working again and ISS was asking for readouts. The next two hours went by quickly as they aligned the trajectories of the two spacecraft. It was Jericho One that was going to have to catch up to the ISS and they were on a good track to do that now.

An hour later she yelled, “I see it.”

The ISS was ahead and above them but it was impossible to estimate how far away it was. The only clue was its small relative size but that could mean a hundred or a thousand miles. “Sara, you are a bit hot you are closing the gap too quickly. How much reserve fuel do you have for the main engine?” “It reads 15000 pounds.”

“Okay good, this is what I want you to do. You need to turn your ship around and use the main engine to slow down. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Okay on my mark give the port side thrusters a three second burst this will begin to turn you around. The tricky part is using the starboard thruster to stop you when you are in the right position. I can see you now so I will tell you when to fire it. Okay now, three seconds on port side.”

She counted out loud as she held her thumb down on the control, ”one thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three,” she said and let go. “Okay that’s great now get ready to fire the starboard thruster for three seconds on my mark.” She did as she was told but this time nothing happened. They were spinning faster. Jack felt the centrifugal force on his body wanting to pull him out of his seat. “Fire it again Sara.” She did but with the same results.

“Okay guys hang on we’ll get right back to you.” She looked over at Jack and for the first time he saw fear in her eyes. “It will be okay they’ll figure it out,” he said.

He reached out his gloved hand and held hers. At least they stopped accelerating and the spin was manageable in terms of nausea. All they needed to do was close their eyes and the effects went away completely. The small amount of centrifugal force was not enough to make them motion sick. After a few minutes the radio came back to life, it was Jerry. “I think we’ve figured it out but we’ve lost our window for slowing you down. Sara find the auxiliary IGC damper switch located on your left below the Nav console and engage it and wait for the light.” She did what she was told and a green light came on. “Okay I got green.” “Good, now on my count fire the starboard thruster for a four second burst. Ready, now.”

Sara fired the thruster and this time they saw the craft’s rotation begin to slow as the stars outside stopped spinning past them.

“That’s great you guys, but now here is the bad news, you’ve got to catch up to us again by traveling around the earth once more. See you in seventy five minutes.”

They were traveling backwards and they watched as the ISS fell slowly further and further behind them.

“It’s weird but it doesn’t feel any different going backwards than it did going forward,” she said. Sara sounded a little bit shaky, traveling backwards was disorienting.

“You did a great job of flying this thing,” Jack said, “I know I could not have done it for sure.”

“God, don’t jinx us now. We’ve got a lot more to do before this is over,” she smiled at him thankful for the praise.

“I wanted you to know I think you are great and you are doing a wonderful job and if you kill us it’s okay.” She laughed and took a swing at him. They fell silent and Jack thought they must have dozed off because the next thing he knew the ISS was calling them.

“You guys sleeping in there?”

“As a matter of fact we are,” he said.