by R Davison
“Let me tell you about the first time I had to lead a flight of MIG-29’s on a routine patrol mission,” he continued. “I was two months out of flight school and in an active squadron, happy as could be that I was flying the MIG as much as I was. My flight commander had taken a liking to me and one day, from out of nowhere, he told me that I was to be the flight leader the next day for the morning patrol. I almost wet my pants with excitement and fear when he told me. I had a lot of work to do to prepare the squadron for the flight. Planning fuel loads, refueling waypoints, diversion bases, not to mention the flight assignments for each pilot and his wingman. I checked and double-checked all the numbers and directions and radio calls, and finally got to bed at two in the morning. We were to take off at o-six hundred hours! The dream I had that night, or morning, did not help my nerves. I dreamt that the flight took off fine but shortly thereafter, one by one, I would lose my flight members. Every time I would lose a plane, I would go over the flight plan and try to figure out what I did wrong. It was like being shot each time a plane fell out of the sky and I knew that I was responsible. The dream ended when I was the only one left and all I could hear were the calls from the pilots, as their planes hit the ground, echoing in my headset. I did not want to lead that flight when I woke up. I thought of every way to get out of it without losing face with my flight commander. Finally, I realized that I had no choice but to fly and lead the mission. I kept telling myself that it was just a dream and I was just suffering a case of nerves but that did not really help. I remember taking off and listening to every sound that came over the radio, listening for that message as it came in my dream when the first plane went down, or any indication that something was wrong. But it never came. The flight went off with no problems at all. Well, until my flight commander jumped us in a surprise attack on our way back to base, but that is another story.”
“Susan, the mind can do strange things to people in the best of times, and in the worst of times it can direct you down the path of self destruction, if you are not careful.”
“I know what you’re saying, Ivan, and I appreciate it, but this is different,” said Susan. I’ve had first time jitters before and this is not the same. I don’t know if it’s a sixth sense, or intuition, but whatever you want to call it, it’s different. It’s a feeling deep down inside, like you know you are going to experience something and it is not going to be pleasant.”
“Susan, what do you think is going to happen?”
“I don’t know, but for some reason I feel that it is coming from out there,” she said, pointing out the window at the black velvet of space studded with pinpricks of light.
“What do you think is out there? Aliens?”
“No, not aliens. But something dangerous…very dangerous.” Susan’s voice grew softer, colder, and more frightened as she felt the danger getting nearer, seeping like ice water into her bones. With much effort, she pulled herself back into the shuttle with Ivan, and with the fear, too. Her voice rasped as she said, “I think we should release the satellite and land as soon as possible.”
“Susan, you are not sounding very rational at the moment. If you keep this up I am going to have to talk to Houston about this.”
“I am not crazy, or irrational! I don’t know how to tell mission control that we have to abort the rest of the mission based on my intuition alone! If I did, I would have already told them myself. Look, I know this sounds crazy but if we are still in orbit in a couple of hours, something is going to happen. I don’t know what— just that it won’t be good.”
“Susan, in a couple of hours you and Jill will be out on your EVA taking care of business. We pack up our stuff and in twelve hours we go home, right on schedule. As you say, ‘piece of cake,’ right?”
“Ivan, the satellite service procedure is not going to go as planned. I can feel it.”
“You are letting yourself get carried away, Susan,” Ivan said. He was beginning to have serious doubts about Susan’s mental well-being.
Susan moved closer to Ivan and lowered her voice, “Ivan this is not going to work, trust me. We need to get back to Earth now!” She floated out of her seat and headed toward the hatch. “I’ve got to get on O2.”
Susan joined Jill and strapped on a portable oxygen tank and mask to begin the process of purging the nitrogen from her bloodstream to prevent the bends. Susan always thought it was so non-intuitive that one needed to do this to avoid the bends in outer space. She wasn’t deep-sea diving but the low pressure that was used in the space suits required the astronauts to purge their systems of nitrogen before sealing up the suit. The consequences of not doing that could be debilitating pain and even death, just like a deep-sea diver who does not decompress before surfacing.
Paul and Jerry assisted Susan and Jill as they were slowly inserted into their spacesuits. The process went pretty much by the book with very little extraneous conversation. Much care was taken to ensure that all pieces of the suits mated properly and there was the usual range of motion and flexibility. Checking the communications, cooling and respiration systems to make sure that they held onto their little piece of Earth as they ventured out into the hostile environment of space were but a few items to cover on the checklist.
Ivan came down just before Susan and Jill donned their helmets. He patted Jill on the back and offered her some words of encouragement. As Jerry and Paul hovered around Jill to complete her suit-up, Ivan moved over to Susan. He watched her very closely, trying to access her condition, but she was focused on the moment and there was nothing showing on her face. She looked up and caught him staring at her.
“Is something wrong?”
Ivan, feeling a bit uncomfortable, grinned. “No, but I was going to ask you the same question.”
“I’m doing okay.” She wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to say any more at this time. Maybe she was over reacting, she thought.
Ivan wasn’t convinced, but he knew how tough Susan could be. He had to try again. “Still have those feelings?”
Susan grabbed her helmet as it started to float away from her. “Nothing more than the normal jitters one has before an EVA. I’m fine. Here, help me with my helmet.”
Ivan took her helmet and as he lowered it over her head he whispered, “Good luck out there. Things are going to go well, just relax.”
Susan reached up and grabbed Ivan’s arm before the helmet was completely on. Peering out from under the bottom of her helmet she looked at Ivan and whispered, “I don’t know what the future is going to bring but, I want to thank you for all that you have done for me throughout all our training. Sometimes I think that I would not be here if you were not there coaching me, and most importantly, being my friend. Thank you for that.”
“Susan, it has been my pleasure to help you and I am quite honored that you consider me your friend. I have enjoyed working with you. You have made my stay in the states so much more enjoyable that I feel it is a second home to me… Anyway, we are going to finish with SCIEXSAT and head home, and I will let you buy me dinner!”
“It will be my pleasure,” Susan smiled as she pulled the helmet down and Ivan locked it in place.
Although Susan returned his smile, it was with much effort as she wanted only to scream and run. She then cursed herself for letting her nerves wear on her and her weakness show through. You can’t lead if you’re falling to pieces, she scolded herself. Here, Jill is wound up in knots over the EVA and you, the pro, are a basket case. Get with the plan! Susan straightened herself as much as she could in the suit and took a deep breath of the cool oxygen flowing into her helmet. She waved to Ivan, who was heading back to the flight deck with Jerry.
The suit intercoms were now active and Susan could hear Jill breathing hard as she made some final adjustments on her suit. “Jill, are you all set?”
“Set and ready to go. Are we cleared for the EVA from down below?”
“We are clear to begin the EVA.”
“How are the butterflies?” Susan asked,
peering into Jill’s visor.
“They are still there but smaller than sparrows at this time.”
“Great! It’s amazing and wonderful out there, and you’ll do fine. Just watch out for the little green men!” Susan winked at Jill, who broke into a big smile. “Paul, we’re ready.”
“Then let’s open the doors and let you ladies out!” Paul said, guiding Susan and Jill into the airlock. “It’s time to get this show on the road!” As he closed the hatch to the airlock he gave them a thumbs-up and added, “Good luck and be careful you two.”
III
The sounds of the shuttle slowly disappeared as the air was pumped out of the airlock and there was nothing to carry the vibrations to their helmets. All that could be heard was the hiss of the intercom system and the whir of the pumps and motors that kept the air and cooling systems running in their suits. Susan always felt somewhat like a robot when she was in a space suit, kind of like a female version of Robbie the Robot. Even with that thought she had to remind herself of how vulnerable she was cocooned within this microcosm of Earth. On the other side of her suit the temperature was about 250 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, nothing like the balmy 75 degrees she felt the morning of the launch. Outside her suit there wasn’t any air that would gently caress her skin, squeezing her on all sides with fifteen pounds of pressure per square inch, like it did when she walked on the beach near the Cape. There was a vacuum, no pressure at all: harsh and unforgiving. Within her suit she was provided with a comfortable temperature and pressure, but it was not designed to provide her protection from the cosmic rays, micrometeorites, and high-energy particles that are blasted from the sun with each solar flare that erupts. She was at the mercy of things she could never see, or even feel, but could be extremely deadly nevertheless.
Susan followed Jill out into the payload bay and after they attached their tethers to the tie-downs by the hatch she took a moment to marvel at the Earth overhead. It was so different to see Earth in its entirety from the bay than to peek at it through a small porthole inside the shuttle. The multihued globe commanded Susan’s attention, which she gave willingly. It was only with much effort that she was able to tear her eyes from her home world and focus on what had to be done.
“Wow!” Jill said. “What a view!”
“Yeah, I know. And just think, we’re getting paid to be here!” Susan said.
“It’s even better than I imagined, even better than you said it would be. Amazing!”
“Yes, it is,” Susan said. A twinge in her stomach brought her back to the moment and the dread that was building inside her. She forced herself to move on to the work that she was expected to do.
Jerry had retracted the arm so that SCIEXSAT was nestled in the bay; looking somewhat like a high-tech marshmallow on a stick. Jill’s task was to remove the sample plates on the satellite and replace them with new set of plates, which would be collected in a year by another shuttle mission. Susan’s main task was to tend to a piggyback experiment that was mounted on the sidewall of the payload bay. These small, self-contained experiments went along on a mission because there was some room to spare. Usually they required little or no support, but this one in particular needed to be monitored and adjusted after being in space for space for seven days. She would be working with Paul who was conducting the experiment from a station on the middeck. He designed the experiment and his company paid for its space on this mission. Susan caught herself smiling as she thought about Paul. She figured that if it were a hundred years earlier Paul would have been a rancher raising cattle in Texas. In this day and age, he could forgo the spurs and steers and instead get his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Texas. He seemed to be a very relaxed person who was able to enjoy whatever he was presented with, be it riding the fence line on his ranch or mixing up some noxious smelling chemicals in the lab. She wished she could be that relaxed, but then again, she knew she would have made a dreadful cowgirl.
Susan listened to the conversation between Jill and Mission Control as she made her way over to the experiment enclosure. “Paul, I’m about to open your box. Are you ready?”
“Roger, that, Susan,” Paul replied, his voice sounding thin and small through the helmet’s headset.
“Okay, I’ve got the replacement cartridges and I will swap them out on your command.”
“Copy that, Susan. Hang on a second while I get the system set for recalibration.”
Susan smiled, “You don’t mind if I just float?”
“Ah…yes, float, I got it! That was a good one! Hang or float, your choice, just don’t leave the cargo bay. I’m almost done…there. We’re all set. You can swap the cartridges now, Susan.”
“Copy that, Paul. I’m swapping them out now.” Susan removed the test cartridges that had been inserted before launch and replaced them with another set that would be retrieved once they were back on the ground. Paul would need to recalibrate the system for these new cartridges and she would have to tend to the unit to make any necessary adjustments. The process was a bit tedious and would take many iterations.
“Susan, you have about ten minutes before I’ll need you again,” Paul said.
“Call me when you need me,” Susan said. She looked out of the cargo bay as the shuttle passed into the shadow of the earth and the stars stood out boldly against their black backdrop, no longer having to compete with the glare of the sun. Her sense of foreboding grew the more she stared into the void. Susan fought the urge to return to the airlock and argued with herself that she was just over-reacting. Susan snapped out of her musings when she heard Mission Control talking to Jill about the replacement panels she was having trouble attaching.
“Roger, I had some difficulty removing the mounting screws when I removed the original plate in position X4. The material on the plate seems to have reacted with the screws and the new screws are just not going in quite as easy.” Jill moved back and surveyed the satellite for a moment. “Jerry, can you raise SCIEXSAT about a foot or so? It’s a little awkward getting at this lower panel.”
“Roger that, Jill,” Jerry replied. “How’s that?”
“Great! That’s much better. Thanks.”
Mission Control cut in, “Jill, tech support wants to know if you can reuse the old screws.”
“They are pretty useless at this time. They came out pretty hard and the heads are shot. I’m going to try a little more elbow grease on this one. Hang on.”
“We copy that, Jill,” CAPCOM replied.
Susan watched as Jill applied more force to fasten the stubborn screw and her body rotated while the satellite remained stationary, as if she were a white pinwheel attached to the glistening satellite. Newton’s third law of motion was in full force: For every action there will be an equal and opposite reaction. Jill let out a gasp of exasperation and Susan floated over to give her a hand.
“Try this, Jill.” Susan braced herself on a support strut that was installed for the CRV and let Jill prop her foot against Susan’s foot. From this position, Jill was able to tighten the screw without rotating around the screwdriver.
“Thanks, Susan,” Jill said. “I think I need a refresher course in Physics 101.”
“No problem,” Susan said. “It’s amazing how we take gravity for granted.”
“That’s for sure.” Jill gave all the screws one more check to make sure that everything was tight. “Mission Control, that’s the last panel, everything looks good. Ready to toss this baby overboard for another year.” Jill’s fatigue echoed in her voice. It could be quite exhausting working in micro-gravity and after two hours of wrestling with the satellite she was ready to call it a day.
“Jill, telemetry looks good for the new panels. You are cleared to release SCIEXSAT. You did a great job.”
“Thanks, Houston, couldn’t have done it without you, or Susan. Jerry, you heard the man, let’s unload this beast so we can come in for lunch, I’m starving.”
“Roger that, Jill, that makes two of us.” Jerry scanned th
e cargo bay to make sure the astronauts were at a safe distance. “All clear from SCIEXSAT?”
“Roger, all clear,” Susan and Jill echoed.
“Okay. Let’s raise this nice and easy.” The satellite rose out of the payload bay in a smooth motion as Jerry manipulated the controls for the arm. “We are at maximum elevation and now I am rotating ninety degrees to proper release attitude…Ready to release…three…two…one…release! No, wait…damn it. Houston, we do not have separation. SCIEXSAT is still engaged with the arm.”
Susan had a sudden twinge of fear along with a flashback of her dream, hanging motionless in the water as the dolphins disappeared in the darkness. A sense of impending doom started to grow. She forced herself to think about the satellite and the probe mechanism and how they worked together. Susan took a deep breath to compose herself and suggested that Jerry try to jerk the arm back and forth to jolt the mechanism into action. Jerry complied as best as he could but the arm was not designed for such rapid movements and the satellite was still stuck fast.
Ivan’s voice popped in over the intercom, “If we bring the satellite back into the bay Susan and Jill may be able to release it and then I can drop the shuttle out of the way.”
“No, that won’t work,” came Jill’s voice in response, “the satellite needs to be a hundred meters or more away from the shuttle before we can use the maneuvering rockets, otherwise the rockets will contaminate the new plates on the satellite.”
