by R Davison
“Okay, let me orient myself.” The cosmonaut pirouetted to see the airlock below him and then spun around until it was at his back, and he could see down the truss. “Okay, I have my bearings now.”
“Let me know when you are at the last segment with the solar arrays.”
“I will be there shortly.”
Jerry finally roused himself from the self-imposed oblivion he had been in since Paul had left. His hands still ached from pounding the bulkhead in his fit of anger. Feeling bored and frustrated, he floated around the compartment looking for something that might interest or amuse him. Having nothing better to do, he switched the intercom to monitor mode—maybe there was something going on in the station that he would find useful. The speaker was quiet for a few moments and then crackled with static as Alexander’s disembodied voice inquired about the station’s port side. Jerry perked up immediately and drew nearer to the speaker.
The speaker squawked again, “Commander, to save time, maybe you can give me the details on what I must do once I get to the P6 truss.”
“That sounds like a good idea. I will give you the basic steps and we will add the details as needed when you get there.”
“That will work for me also.”
Jerry puzzled over the list of things the cosmonaut would be doing. He did not have enough information to put it all together, but reasoned that the problem must be serious if someone had to do an EVA. Looking around the compartment as he dwelled on the few details he had, he suddenly noticed a small viewport on the far wall that he had overlooked earlier. This was intended to provide the operators inside Kibo a view of the experiment platform outside of the module.
Jerry floated over to it and peered outside. Sure enough, it gave a nice view of the platform. He noticed that by shifting his point of view, he was able to see the end of the main truss. The view was partially blocked by a set of solar arrays located about two-thirds of the way to the end of the main truss.
As he stared out the port, he suddenly saw a space-suited figure come into his field of view, making its way to the end of the truss. In the moonlight the figure took on a more ghostly appearance, followed closely by its obedient, golden, serpentine tether.
Jerry listened to the conversation between Alexander and Susan but still was in the dark as to why the cosmonaut was out on the far end of the truss. He strained to get a better view to see what was going on, but found himself frustrated by his poor vantage point. He mused to himself how they would not be here if it were not for these damn Russians, cursing out loud, the more he thought about it.
His focus waned and his mind began to wander as he found himself staring at a small mechanical arm stretching out over the platform outside the compartment. Jerry’s eyes focused on the arm. As he became conscious of what he was looking at, embers began to glow deep in his memory.
The arm! I can use the station’s arm to see what’s going on, Jerry thought to himself. He paused to remember where the control stations were for the arm. Just as he was about to enter a search through the computer he remembered that one station was in the U.S. lab module, just up from where he was.
Jerry shot toward the hatch and quietly opened it, peered outside, and listened for any sign of activity near the node that he was about to enter. The intercom still carried the conversation between Susan and Alexander. Hearing no other voices, Jerry quietly floated out of the compartment toward the lab module.
As Jerry slowly made his way to the arm control station, he tried to pull the information he would need to work the arm from memory. A year earlier, while visiting the Canadian company that manufactured the arm for the shuttle and the station, he had a chance encounter with the arm for the space station. The company had a working model of the station’s arm and control station, and he was given the opportunity to play with it for several hours.
Jerry entered the lab module and carefully listened for any signs of unwanted visitors coming from the command module. He debated with himself about whether or not he should close the hatch between the lab and the rest of the station.
Closing it gave him isolation, but he would not be able to hear anyone approaching. Leaving it open gave him advanced warning if anyone were coming, as long as they made some noise on the way. It was too easy to be stealthy in zero-g, no clicking of heels, or shuffling of feet on the floor.
He pulled the hatch over and closed it; better to have some warning, even if it were short, than no warning at all. He double-checked that the hatch at the other end of the compartment was open for a quick getaway, and then he moved over to the control console for the arm.
Looking over the displays and hand controllers, he could feel the familiarity of the system come back to him. It was a quirk of fate or genetics, which gave him the ability to do something once and remember it forever, that brought the knowledge of operating the arm back to Jerry. Jerry smiled.
After the control console powered up, the displays showed views of the station and space depending on where the cameras were pointing. Jerry manipulated one of the hand controllers and watched the view in the monitor.
Quickly, he oriented the arm so that it pointed along the main truss toward the port side of the station. He could now see the cosmonaut working at the end of the truss. Leaning over to the comm station, Jerry flipped on the monitor switch so he could hear Susan’s conversation again. He was feeling pleased with his little achievement and his smile broadened.
Susan, with help from Nicholas, managed to get Alexander to the point of removing the access covers and locating the power couplings for the communication system. It was slow going at this point because of all the other wires, cables and connectors that were in the compartment adding to the confusion in identifying the correct connectors to be removed. After much discussion, and double-checking they were all sure that Alexander had located the correct connectors.
Jerry finally was able to zoom in the camera for a clearer image of the cosmonaut, but was still unable to see what he was working on. He had elevated the arm as high as it would go, but to no avail. Swearing and staring at the control panel he saw a switch that was marked, MOBILE TRANSPORTER. One side of the switch was marked PORT, the other STARBOARD.
Jerry’s smile returned as he threw the switch to the port side. Immediately the view in the camera bounced as the arm started to move toward the end of the truss. Jerry’s excitement grew as his target grew larger in the view screen. As the arm made its way along the truss, the conversation between Alexander and Susan began to shed more light on their project.
“Okay Commander, I have located the two power couplings for the communication system and I am beginning to loosen the connectors. It is a little tight here. I have trouble getting my hand inside the compartment to get a good grip on them.”
Susan’s voice responded in a very calm tone, “I understand Alexander, take your time. Paul is ready to break the KU-band connection here any time you are ready.”
“Understood. It will be a few moments, Commander.”
Jerry finally had a complete picture of what was going on, but not the reason why. His first impulse was that they were going to destroy the communication link to Earth, which would further complicate their return. Swearing again, Jerry pushed the mobile transporter switch to port again as if it would make the arm move faster. To his surprise and dismay, the arm suddenly halted. He scanned the displays and controls, cycled the switches, but the arm would not budge any further to port. He threw the mobile transporter switch to starboard and the arm began to move back toward its starting point. Throwing the switch back to port reversed the arm’s direction, but it still came to a dead stop short of his desired goal.
“Damn it all!” Jerry shouted out loud, as he grabbed the controls for the arm and began panning the camera around to see what was causing the transporter to stop. When the camera pointed back toward the transporter, the tether that Alexander was using passed in front of the lens. Jerry flinched as the bright flash of golden-white light crossed
the view screen. He paused the arm and pulled the focus back on the camera to see what had passed by the lens. Immediately it became obvious what had stopped the transporter. The tether was wedged under the front of the transporter and tangled in the rails.
Jerry studied the scene on the display before him, seeking a solution to his problem. “Well, this should be easy to fix!” Jerry was now talking out loud, forgetting his concerns about being caught in the lab. He positioned the arm so that he could grab the tether with the arm’s manipulator, an attachment that allows the arm to pick up, hold and use things. He had a secure grip on the tether and pulled it out from underneath the transporter with ease. He panned the camera toward Alexander and with a maniacal smile, began to pull the slack out of the tether.
“Commander, I have both connectors loose now. I will pull them free on your command.” Alexander’s voice floated around Jerry’s head as he pulled the tether tighter.
“Okay, Alexander. Paul is moving into position now. On the count of three, break the connections.”
“Understood.”
Jerry understood, too! He extended the arm toward Alexander’s position as far as he could. As he waited, he remembered how the technicians showed him how to override the safeties on the arm by entering a series of keystrokes on the control panel. He half-heartedly entered the code and was delighted to see the display flash: OVERRIDE.
He now knew that the arm would move much faster, maybe ten times as fast—he couldn’t remember exactly, as it would with the safeties in place. His smile grew wider. Keeping a tight hold on the tether, but also leaving several feet of slack to allow the arm to build up some momentum before the tether became taught, Jerry silently counted along with Susan.
“One…two…three!”
On two, Jerry pulled the control lever as hard as he could to move the arm toward the starboard side of the station! The control slammed against the stops with a loud crack. The space station’s arm, now a mechanical extension to Jerry’s arm, rapidly moved in response to the command given. The slack disappeared and the tether immediately grew taut pulling the unsuspecting cosmonaut off the station.
Susan barely finished her countdown when the intercom crackled with static and Alexander’s howl of terror and surprise, as he was catapulted from his perch and sent careening toward the other end of the station. Nicholas immediately called out in Russian to his commander and was quickly joined by Ivan, both trying to determine Alexander’s dilemma. Paul had disconnected the power couplings and floated there dumb-founded, holding the cables in his hands.
Jerry, hearing all the commotion on the intercom, immediately reset the controls on the console to the standby position, causing the arm to return to a folded position and power down. Darting across the compartment, he quickly opened the hatch that he had closed earlier and then propelled himself out of the lab module. He sought refuge in the Kibo module again.
Panting, and trying to catch his breath in between nervous laughs, he thought about what he would say if confronted. The answer was simple; he would deny it. There was no way they could prove he had anything to do with it, even if they figured out what happened to Alexander. Content that he had that issue under control, he made himself comfortable and began to formulate a plan to take the CRV.
Alexander was reacting totally out of instinct, thanks to the endless hours of training he had gone through in his military and space career. With the blackness of space trading places with the latticework of the station, and the distant voices calling to him through the comm system, his world seemed to be moving in slow motion. He strained to see the control panel on the front of his suit to engage the automatic recovery system built into the suit. Once engaged, the computer in the suit would monitor sensors that measure the motion of the suit to determine if it is stable or rotating.
If the computer senses the suit rotating, it fires a set of small gas thrusters to stabilize the suit. The cosmonaut could also manually use these thrusters to get back to the station, should he become untethered and drift away.
Alexander finally found the proper button, and the suit obediently responded by firing the thrusters and slowing his rate of rotation dramatically. It took about thirty seconds for the system to finally stabilize him.
Unaware of his location relative to the station, or even if he were still tethered to it, Alexander hoped that the computer would not use all the fuel to stabilize him and leave him stranded several hundred meters from the station. As he slowed down, he became aware of the frantic voices shouting in his headset. After a few moments, he realized that they were calling to him and finally he responded, “Nicholas, I am here. I think I am okay.” Alexander had been hurled up and away from the station, but thanks to the tether, he started to move in a smooth arc toward the starboard side of the station. The automatic recovery system had slowed him down, and by the time he stopped tumbling, he was near the airlock, looking out into deep space.
The tension level in the control module dropped an order of magnitude. They all started to breathe again and take note of what they were doing. Susan spoke first, “Alexander, you are sure that you are all right?”
As Alexander collected all his faculties, he rotated himself using the thrusters to see where the station was. “Yes, Commander, I am in a stable position, and I am still tethered to the station. In fact I am just by the airlock from which I exited!”
“What happened, Commander?” Nicholas asked, before Susan could get the words out.
“I do not know. In one instant I was pulling the power connections from the communication system, and in the next instant, I was tumbling like a Russian circus clown over the station.”
Jerry sat in the darkened Kibo module and smiled while he listened in on the conversation.
“Can you make it to the airlock hatch, or do you need help?” Susan asked.
“No, I am able to get to the hatch. Is the communication system down? Should I get back to the P6 truss?”
Susan looked toward Ivan for confirmation that the comm system was down. He quickly checked the display and nodded to Susan. “Both systems show full failure. You should come in now, Commander Orlov.”
“I will join you shortly.”
Susan turned to Nicholas and Paul. “You two head down to the airlock and give Alexander a hand.” Moving over to Ivan’s console, she said, “Ivan, let’s get this station out of here! Have you found the lockout command yet?”
“No, I’ve searched through all the places that I would expect it to be, but I have not found anything. Without knowing how deep into the software they placed the command, it is like trying to find the…how do you say it…needle in the haystack?”
“I see your point. What are the options?” Susan asked, as she absent-mindedly started to bite her lower lip, a sure sign of her frustration with this seemingly never-ending problem.
“We can all keep looking for the command. We will improve our odds, but I do not know by how much. Realistically, we may spend too much time in the process.”
“There has to be something better than that. We don’t have the time to poke through several million lines of code.” Susan looked at the display in front of her and tried to remember the programming classes she took in college. “Ivan, do they keep a log for all software changes made to the system?” She began to feel a twinge of excitement, as the idea jelled into a real possibility to pin down the location of the lockout command.
“Yes, there is a log that is kept on the main system. I checked that already. You do not think that Captain Mikhailovich would lay down such a neat trail for us to follow, do you?”
“Well, I had hoped that we might get lucky. What if…” she was determined more than ever not to let Captain Mikhailovich have the upper hand any longer. With her face all scrunched up in deep concentration, the idea finally popped out, “What if we rebooted the computers? Can we do that?”
Ivan thought about it for a moment before he replied, “There is a procedure for that in the troubleshooti
ng guide that I went through before. I did not follow it to the end though.”
“If we can reboot the system, maybe we can have it reboot in a safe mode.”
Ivan gave her a sideways glance, “You have been using your personal computer too much I see.”
“No, I’m serious. It would make sense to give the people up here an option to load in a set of software that is tried and tested and safe. Pull up the troubleshooting chart for the computer and let’s see what it says.” Maybe, just maybe, Susan thought to herself, this might be our way out of this haystack. Her wishful thinking was broken by Paul’s voice coming over the intercom.
“Susan, could you come to the airlock?”
“What’s the matter, Paul? I’m in the middle of something right now.”
“If you can spare a couple of minutes, I think you should see something.” Susan and Ivan exchanged quizzical glances. Ivan finally said, “Go ahead. It will take a few minutes to find the proper guide, and I will look for the reboot procedure.”
“Okay, Paul, I’ll be right there.” Susan left Ivan and now had her mind racing trying to figure out why Paul was being so mysterious. When she arrived, she found Paul and Nicholas floating by Alexander, who was still buttoned up in his suit. They were talking to each other while they examined the tether that connected Alexander to the station. “What’s the matter, Paul?” she asked, as she peered into Alexander’s helmet and waved hello.
“I wanted you to see how the tether has been damaged.” Paul offered a section of the tether to Susan to inspect. The lifeline looked alive as it slowly undulated in the zero-g environment, responding to the slightest little touch. Susan immediately saw what Paul was referring to. The tether appeared distorted, as if something had squeezed it or as if it had been caught in a vise. Susan ran her fingers along the material to feel the distorted, frayed fibers and noted the discoloration created by the stresses on it.
