“Permanently?” Tony’s voice sounded in Bill’s helmet.
“I doubt it. Sooner or later the pipe is going to give out. But I don’t see any other fix at the moment. Maybe Houston can think of something before that happens.” Bill looked up and toward the Earth. It seemed farther away than it had earlier. He was sure that if that was the case, then something had gone way wrong on the aerocapture procedure. He really needed to get back on the horn with Houston.
“Well, Bill, we’re ready for you to come in whenever you are,” Tony told him. Bill could sense the anxiety in Tony’s voice.
“Tony, have you noticed anything different?’ Bill asked.
“Sure have. The ACS thrusters haven’t kicked in for the past couple of minutes.”
“Right. There’s nothing more I can do out here. Let’s cycle the hatch,” Bill ordered after he climbed in and untethered himself.
“Roger that, Bill,” Tony replied. “Cycling the hatch.”
Nothing.
“Uh, Tony. Cycle the hatch.” Bill put a glove on it and prepared to help out with a tug.
“Roger that, Bill. Cycling the hatch.” Tony tapped the icons on the screen for the hatch software to activate. Again, nothing happened. The door remained wide open.
“What else can go wrong?” Bill muttered to himself—hoping he hadn’t jinxed the mission as soon as he said that. He made his way over to his couch and in front of the command consoles.
“Is there a problem, Captain Stetson?” Hui asked.
“Looks like there might be. We’ll work it.” Bill tried to focus his mind. So much had happened in the last few hours that it would have been too much for most normal people. Fortunately, Bill was far above the average—even for an astronaut.
“Bill, there is no power getting to the door. The circuits must’ve gone dead when we cycled it open.” Tony continued to look at the diagnostics screen that was almost all orange and red.
“Houston, this is Mercy I. We’ve got our leak stopped, but now our main hatch door is frozen in the open position,” Bill communicated back to Earth.
“Copy that, Mercy I.”
“And, Houston, you might as well give me the rest of the bad news, because it looks to me like we are presently farther away from Earth than I expected us to be.” Bill almost held his breath waiting for the answer.
“Roger that, Mercy I. Bill, here is the problem. Something went wrong on aerocapture, and you came out in a forty-four degree inclination. Plus, your orbit is fairly elliptical. The orbital guys tell me you’re tracking with a perigee of about one hundred and ninety-four miles and an apogee of about three hundred and sixty-seven miles.” Bill listened and tried to work some of the math in his head. He couldn’t. But that was what Houston was for.
“Okay, Houston, what does that mean?”
“You don’t have enough fuel to crank your inclination enough to make it to the space station. You’d also need to circularize your orbit some. There just isn’t enough fuel for both maneuvers.” Mission control got quiet for a second.
“What do we do, Houston?” Bill asked.
“First thing we need to do is get that door closed. We think we have a workaround.”
“Roger that,” Bill replied. “What do we do?”
Chapter 34
“Pull harder, Hui!” Tony urged the Chinese taikonaut. “Bill, I don’t feel it budging at all.”
“Yeah, I think the motors are seized up, and I haven’t cut the right interlock cable yet,” Bill replied. “Houston. That didn’t work.”
“Roger that, Mercy I. There is a mechanism behind the panel you just pulled off on the right side and underneath the door’s track. You see it?”
“Roger that, Houston. I see it.” Bill reached in the hole they had made in the ship’s interior panel to feel the track-alignment mechanism. The door looked like it was in the right place, and nothing was wrong mechanically. It had to be software or a seized-up motor.
“Okay, Bill, pop the breaker-box lid open with the regular screwdriver,” the mission control engineer directed.
“Roger that.” Bill reached in with the long-length screwdriver and loosened the spring-loaded screw mechanism holding the breaker box in place. When he got it loose, it flipped up easily. “Okay, Houston. Got it open.”
“Now, there is a single throw breaker on the bottom right-hand side of that circuit box. Do you see it?”
Bill reached up with a finger poised to push it if that was the order.
“Okay, Bill, don’t touch it yet, because it may only let loose for a second or two. Make certain that Tony and Hui are pulling on the door when you do,” Houston directed.
“Understood, Houston.” Bill looked over at Tony and Hui. “Are you guys ready to pull?”
“Yes,” they replied in unison.
“Well, then, in three, two, one, go!” Bill depressed the button. It clicked on, and the hatch sprang to life. The release and close mechanism activated and started cycling the door closed. Then there was a snap he could feel in the panel box as the breaker threw open again. “Don’t stop! Keep pulling!” he shouted.
Tony and Hui had gained enough momentum with the door before the breaker clicked again that it actually slammed closed. Bill depressed the switch once more, and the lock seal popped into place just as the breaker threw again. Tony and Bill both tugged at the latching mechanism and agreed it was closed.
“Houston, I believe that worked.” Bill swam his way back to his console and scanned the screen. “Looks like the interior is sealed off. Tony, start repressurization.”
“Roger that, Bill.” Tony sounded relieved.
“Now, while the cabin comes back up to pressure, why don’t you folks down there start talking to me about how we’re gonna get home.”
“Well, Bill, we’ve got a solution. It’s an unexpected one. But we’ve got one,” mission control started. “We’re working an orbit circularization burn calculation based on the fuel you’ve got left. We’ll give you the procedure in a few minutes.”
“Yeah, and we circularize our orbit. Then what?” Tony asked.
“At that point, we’ll be in a wait mode as the Space Excursions ship Dreamscape plays chase with you. Once it catches you, you’ll dock with it, all of you will transfer over, and then the captain of that ship is going to bring you home. Over.”
“Dreamscape?” Bill and Tony said almost simultaneously.
“Houston, would you repeat that?” Bill asked.
“Uh, roger that, Mercy I. The Dreamscape is in LEO right now and starting to crank up to your orbital inclination,” Houston explained.
“But they just got back from the Moon a week ago! They’re flying again already?” Tony said, completely flabbergasted.
“Roger that, Mercy I. It appears they have a short turnaround. Good thing for us. At this point we wouldn’t have a workaround for getting you back down.” Bill waited for the reality of that last statement to sink into everybody on the ship.
“Understood, Houston. From the looks of things outside, we couldn’t attempt any type of reentry even if we weren’t too heavy.” Bill thought for a bit about what they needed to do exactly.
“Captain,” Hui interjected.
“Yes, Hui, what is it?”
“If this Dreamscape has to adjust its inclination and then catch us to dock, how long will that take?” Hui asked.
“Don’t know.” Bill had no clue. He did know that on several of the times he flew the Ares 1 and the Orion capsule to the ISS, it usually took about three days to get up, change to the station inclination angle, and then chase down the station and dock. “If I had my guess, we’re talking a couple of days.”
“I see.” Hui grimaced noticeably. Bill figured that the taikonaut was ready to get out of her nasty spacesuit for good. But they could manage a couple more days.
“Houston, Mercy I.” Bill had other concerns as well. Maybe Hui did, too. “Before we do any circularization burn and before Dreamscape starts orbit mat
ching, we should do a quick status check. We’ll probably need to minimize our O2 usage.”
“We’ve been looking at that, Mercy I,” Houston replied. “We want you to run a quick systems diagnostic on the propellants and pressurants. That P & P PROP warning earlier needs to be fully assessed.”
“Understood, Houston. We’re already on it.” Bill turned to Tony and off-mic said, “Tony, let’s get that started.”
“On it.” Tony was already tapping at the screen. With the cabin pressurized and the immediate dangers somewhat benign, he placed his suit gloves in the box near his seat, and his helmet came off. The rest of the crew had done the same.
Bill didn’t want to bring it up, but he was pretty sure that it was starting to smell in the cabin. There was an air filter, but it hadn’t been designed for six. Bill unbuckled himself and decided to float around the cabin and check on morale. The Chinese pilot was still out, but his vitals seemed to be a little better. The stimulants, antibiotics, and other injections that Tony and Dr. Xu had administered to him seemed to be improving his condition.
Xu, on the other hand, was having a lot of pain with his leg. Bill and Hui had to order him to take a pain injection. He resisted, arguing that he needed to keep an eye on Ming. Xu then made a comment about possibly losing his leg. Bill hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
Then there was Zhi. The engineer and political officer had caused a lot of their troubles. He was in his suit with his gloves off and helmet tethered to him but was otherwise immobile. Hui had his arms duct-taped to his torso and his legs taped to his couch. She fed him and gave him water if he asked for it. But Hui was not about to let him loose. Bill agreed and let her handle it. She seemed capable of controlling the situation. There were a few times when he got loud and mouthy at first, but when he did, Hui had Xu or Tony sedate him.
“Captain Stetson.” Hui floated beside him while Bill was taking the time for a snack. Bill wasn’t sure, but he thought he was eating yogurt. He chased it with some orange juice.
“Yes, Hui?”
“I’m concerned about our oxygen and carbon-dioxide levels.” Hui frowned slightly.
“I know. Tony and Houston are running the numbers right now. CO2 shouldn’t be a problem, though, because we’ve got plenty of extra lithium-hydride scrubber canisters.” Bill pushed over to a bin, turned and pulled the locking mechanism, and slid it out to show Hui a stash of scrubber filters. “See?”
“Good. What about oxygen?”
“Don’t know. We should know soon enough.” Bill finished off his juice with a final squeeze and then kicked back over to his station. “Tony?”
“You’d better talk to Houston, Bill.”
“Alright.” Bill buckled himself in so he wouldn’t be floating around. He had always found he could concentrate on what he was doing better that way. Then he put his headset back on. “Houston, this is Mercy I. Any word on our status and burn calculations?”
“Uh, roger that, Mercy I.” There was a brief pause. “Bill, we are optimizing the burn for the Orion as well as calculations for the Dreamscape. Your rendezvous is critical. It looks like Orion will have enough oxygen to sustain you until Dreamscape can get there, but just barely. You’re going to have to drop to a third of an atmosphere to maximize your O2.”
“Just under five pounds per square inch shouldn’t be a problem, Houston, right? After all, that’s what we do for an hour or more before a long-term EVA.” Bill wasn’t too concerned. He had spent hours at four and half pounds per square inch atmospheric pressure during some of the EVAs he’d done on the ISS. And there were people who climbed Mount Everest and spent many days at a comparable pressure or less. They’d be weak and light-headed, but they’d be alive. Some people responded poorly to the low pressure after a while and had blood form in their lungs, but astronauts would be weeded out if they showed any such symptoms. Bill hoped the Chinese picked their crew as stringently.
“Roger that, Mercy I. All of you should be able to handle the low pressure, but it will likely be uncomfortable for you.”
“We’ll make do, Houston. We’ll make do. Now, how about those burn calculations, over?” Bill was ready to do something. Anything.
“Roger that, Houston. Thanks for the numbers.” Paul Gesling had been on an open channel through Space Excursions’ mission control and NASA’s mission control since he had reached low Earth orbit. NASA had finally figured out exactly where the Orion space capsule had ended up and had worked out a complex series of burns for the Orion and Dreamscape to perform. Paul worked as cooperatively with the NASA engineers as he could.
“Thanks to you, Dreamscape. Let’s hope this works so we can bring our people home,” Houston responded. “Now, do you have any further questions before you initiate the burn, over?”
“Negative, Houston. We’ve got it under control.” Paul double-checked the computer screens to make certain the data for the burns had been entered correctly. Mission control had repeated it several times as he entered it, reread it, and then checked it again. NASA was nothing if not thorough. Paul almost took their cautiousness as a sign that they didn’t trust him. But he did his best to put those types of thoughts out of his head. They didn’t help anybody, and those poor folks in that space capsule stranded in orbit, the wrong orbit, needed all the help they could get.
“Roger that, Dreamscape. We’re here if you need us,” Houston replied.
“Control, could you get Gary on the line?” Paul addressed Space Excursions’ own mission-control team, which consisted of two to four people depending on the time of day and the day of the week. He had them switch over to their own private and encrypted channel.
“Roger that, Paul. Give us a minute,” they responded. A few minutes later, Gary was on the line.
“What’s up, Paul?” Childers asked. Paul could see his face on the videocam screen.
“We are almost go for this burn, Gary. It just dawned on me that we’ve never tried the airlock docking mechanism out before. We’ve never done an EVA from Dreamscape. And we’ve never actually docked with the International Space Station yet,” Paul said. His voice had more concern in it than usual.
“Do you have any reason to believe it will not function properly, Paul?” Childers raised an eyebrow, looking almost annoyed. “We shouldn’t have led these people on if we don’t think we can do this.”
“No, no. I’m just saying. We’ve never done this type of thing before. When it works flawlessly, we should have some camera footage of it for future customers to see.” Paul smiled at his boss.
“Now, that’s the kind of entrepreneurial spirit I’ve been wanting to hear from you! Great idea. You think you can figure out how to set up the internal and external cams to give us decent shots?”
“Once I make this burn I’ll have about two days with nothing else to do. I’ll figure it out. Uh, don’t take this wrong. I want to save these people with all my heart. But it just dawned on me that nobody was paying us for this flight, and it is going to eat into our budget.” Paul had other test flights in mind that this rescue mission would remove from the schedule. Dreamscape had a very tight and very fixed budget. Rescue missions hadn’t been figured into it.
“Don’t worry about the business end right now, Paul. Just do your thing up there. That will be worth billions in the long run,” Gary assured him.
“Right. When we’ve got more time in a few hours, we could talk more on the subject.” The burn countdown clock turned yellow, showing five minutes and counting. “Getting close. Better let you go and get NASA back on.”
“Understood. And Paul…” Gary paused and smiled. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Chapter 35
“Thanks.” Dr. Xu took the water bottle from Tony and took a long draw from it.
“You’re welcome. How’s the leg feeling?” Tony looked at the bandaged area around the taikonaut’s tibia. It had been a day and a half since they had done their last orbit-correction burn and would be another day mor
e before they could dock with the Dreamscape. There appeared to be no more leaks, bursting pipes, randomly firing thrusters, or sticky solar panels, so they had all taken off their suits. As far as Tony was concerned, doing so might help him save Xu’s leg.
“It hurts, but not as badly as it did yesterday,” he told Tony.
“Well, I’m going to redo this dressing and put you in a boot,” Tony explained. Xu nodded in understanding. “In America, we have these big football players break a leg completely into two pieces, get some surgery and wear one of these boots, and then they’ll be playing again by the end of the season.”
“I’ve seen the same, Tony.” Xu smiled. “I fear that I’ve lost a lot of bone material there. It will in the least make the bone shorter on that side.”
“I’ve seen that fixed, too.” Tony swabbed an antibacterial wipe over the wound and then filled it with triple antibiotic ointment before he rewrapped it. He noticed that Xu took a big whiff through his nose, as if trying to smell it. “Dr. Xu, I can assure you that there is no infection. You are not going to lose your leg to thrombosis or Clostridium perfringens. The antibiotic injections we’ve been giving you have worked just fine.”
“Thank you, Tony. This all is…” Xu paused nervously. “Unsettling to me.”
“As well it should be! It ain’t everyday that a man gets his leg nearly blown off by a forty five caliber pistol round.” Tony gripped his shoulder and nodded to the man. “You’re doing great. Don’t worry.”
“Very good then.”
“Now, let’s get you into this boot.” Tony slipped the inflatable plastic cast gently around Xu’s foot and then slid it up his leg like a sock. Then he pulled the tab on the inflation cartridge. The cast instantly filled with air pressure and held Xu’s leg in place. “There. That should do it. You should try to rest.”
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