KR_IME

by Andrew Broderick

  “You’re straight down the centerline,” Nikita replied. “Now we wait.”

  “What’s my periapsis now?” Kinuko asked.

  “4,152 kilometers,” Nikita replied. “You’re actually heading lower than he is at the moment, but before you get to that point, you’ll do another burn to match his orbit.”

  Kinuko now had time to look around and think. Below was nothing but blackness. The hole in the stars that was the night side of Mars grew ever larger. Meanwhile, above, the Milky Way was glorious. Jupiter and Saturn could also be seen. As she studied the sky, she realized it was no longer the sky (in the sense of being separate from her environment). She was part of it now. All of them were just celestial bodies, following pre-ordained paths dictated by the laws of physics, and so was she. She felt like she could swim and float among them forever, free of the constraints of a spaceship. This is what I’ve always wanted, she thought to herself. She hoped heaven would be like this.

  Nikita’s voice rudely interrupted her reverie: “You’re 588 kilometers from us now. Your time to rendezvous is an hour and fifty-two minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine. The SEV and my suit are both nominal.”

  “Good. We’re all watching you on radar. Godspeed.”

  The waiting continued. Try as she might, she could not see the IME. It had also long ago passed into the shadow of Mars. She watched where she thought it must be, hoping to see a star’s light momentarily eclipsed by it. Deep down though, she knew this was foolishness: the chances of her seeing such an eclipse were almost zero. Then, looking ahead, she saw Deimos. It was only a little brighter than Jupiter. She watched it for a while, fixing its position in her mind with respect to the stars in the background. Sure enough, its movement along its orbit was visible, like the glowing tip of a clock’s minute hand – only this minute hand was 26,000 kilometers long. In thirty hours, it would have completed one revolution and be back at the same point.

  “Swap out your fuel pack again, but keep the nearly spent one that’s in now,” Christopher instructed. “That way, you’ll have plenty when you get there.”

  “Okay,” she replied. They then discussed the maneuvers that would be needed to arrest the spin of the stricken craft. There was one jagged piece of metal protruding from the devastated back end of the craft that could be seen in the telescope pictures. They guessed it was about a meter long. She would attempt to grapple it, and then swing the SEV around quickly to take up the slack, before pulling back on the rope to stop the rotation. Contingency scenarios were played out in words, and Kinuko pictured the scene and what she would need to do a hundred times as she coasted through the deep darkness. Jokes and general chit-chat were not neglected either – Alessia had ensured this, in order to put her at ease, so that she was in a good frame of mind before the most daring space rescue ever attempted.

  70

  At length, Nikita said: “Okay, Kinuko, now you’ve got to do the last burn in order to meet up with him. You have to raise your orbit slightly to match his. In one minute, you have to do a thirty-three-second forward burn. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Nikita counted down, and she applied maximum forward thrust. Everybody watched the radar display and trajectories carefully.

  “Eight degrees right,” Nikita said.

  “Copy that,” Kinuko replied, as she maneuvered the craft.

  “Twenty seconds left on the burn. You’re looking good,” Nikita said. He counted down the last seconds, and instructed her to shut off the thrust. “Your trajectory is good, and you’re about three minutes away from rendezvous.” Kinuko’s stomach did a flip, as she wondered what she would find and how she would pull off the rescue – if there was anyone left to rescue.

  “Deploy two of the camera bots,” Christopher ordered. She reached into the forward under-seat locker, retrieved two of the breadbasket-sized machines, switched them on, and let them go. Their headlights came on, and they emitted small puffs of gas from their thrusters as they attempted to find their positions automatically.

  “Martin and I are taking manual control of the bots,” Christopher said. “We’ll point them to give you the best illumination. We can see you now, crystal-clear,” he said, as the bot to her left swiveled around to point at her.

  “Turn the light off! It’s too bright, and my eyes are still dark-adjusted!” she said, in annoyance.

  “Sorry.” Christopher switched off its light until it was thirty meters away. As her eyes slowly adjusted to pitch-darkness again, she made out a faint twinkle of light in the distance.

  “There it is!” she exclaimed. “I can see light reflecting off its hull!” The others cheered.

  “Approach to within ten meters and then stop, so we can get a good close-up look at the thing,” Nikita said. She approached gradually. Its form and structure became visible, much like that of a deserted sailing ship appearing slowly out of the mist.

  “It’s pretty much like a blunt silver cone, with the big end in shreds,” Kinuko said. “Lots of jagged metal, and panels blown half-off. I’m moving in closer.”

  Christopher strained to see his first close-up view of the craft. “It’s a good thing both its fuel tanks didn’t go,” he said. “It’ll have used hypergolic propellants, and if they’d mixed there wouldn’t be a piece of that ship left bigger than an inch across.” The others nodded, at once disturbed and awestruck by the sight of the derelict that now filled a large window in the hub.

  “Okay, I’m about ten meters away now,” Kinuko said. “It’s still impressive, even in this state. I’m sure you guys can see it very clearly. I don’t see any signs of life at all.”

  “There’s the piece of metal we saw before, that you should try hooking onto,” Christopher said.

  “Yeah, I see it. Looks like a broken pipe or something,” Kinuko replied. “The ship’s really spinning quite fast.” The lights from the camera bots and the SEV’s headlight reflected brightly off different parts of its surface as it rotated.

  “Move in a bit closer, and try to get a feel for how to grapple it,” Aleksandr said.

  Kinuko moved in as close as she dared, and wondered how on earth she was supposed to stop something that massive from spinning. The wrecked end of the ship came past every thirty seconds or so. It was a frightening, jagged mess that would puncture a spacesuit easily. The portholes were towards the front, but inside was completely dark and nothing could be seen.

  “Go to unfurl the rope?” she asked.

  “Go ahead,” Aleksandr replied.

  She untaped a fifty-meter rope from the right side of the SEV. One end was already securely fastened to the SEV's front fender. The other end was attached to a grappling hook. She felt sick with fear as she took the hook in her hand, checking that the rope wasn't tangled. The two camera bots hovered ten meters to her left and right. “I guess the only thing left to do is go for it,” she said. The others could hear the nervousness in her voice, yet also a note of calm resolve.

  “Fire when ready,” Aleksandr said.

  She brought her arm back and, as the rear of the ship came around, tossed the grapple across its path. It flew in a straight line, dragging the rope behind it. The rope crossed the path of the broken pipe and, as the pipe came around, it caught the rope. The grapple spun quickly around the pipe and snagged onto the rope securely. The others cheered, but only for a moment as they knew the hardest part was still to come.

  Kinuko piloted the SEV quickly around, to follow the bottom of the ship, before the rope went taut and yanked the front fender off the SEV. She made a circle, having to fly quickly to keep up its rotation. The rope became taut, but then she lost control of the SEV. The centripetal force pulled the front end of the SEV towards the ship and the back end flew out away from it. The SEV spun quickly about its long axis and precessed chaotically, like a spinning top. She became completely disoriented; the only thing she recognized were the two lights,
off to her sides, that seemed to fly across her field of vision as she spun. The others watched in horror, unable to help.

  The pipe suddenly snapped free from the wreck. The SEV was no longer tied to the ship, and went hurtling off into the darkness. The slight elasticity of the rope meant that the lethal piece of metal was catapulted straight towards Kinuko when it broke free, with the grapple still attached.

  “Aaargh!” she screamed, trying to regain control and stop the SEV from tumbling. She saw a glint of light reflected from the metal as it flew at her. Guessing instantly what was happening, she applied full down thrust. She only just managed to duck in time, as it flew past. It would rebound again at the other extent of its travel, but not with the same deadly speed.

  At this point, her training kicked in. She calmed her mind to keep panic at bay, and stopped the SEV tumbling, one axis at a time. The rope had wound itself around the SEV as it spun. She looked around to find out how far she was from the Chinese ship, and saw it over her right shoulder in the distance.

  “Kinuko! Are you okay?” Aleksandr's slightly panicked voice said over the radio.

  “Yes, I'm fine,” she replied. “How far away did I fly?”

  “About half a kilometer, and you're going away from it at twenty meters a second.”

  “Okay. Turning around to head back. Meanwhile, this damn rope is coiled around me. I have no idea how to get it off.”

  There was a pause from the other end, as she reoriented the SEV and started the trip back to the Fire. Christopher's voice came over the radio: “You'll have to cut it.”

  “Cut it? How am I going to snag the other ship if I do that?”

  “You have a backup rope. The one taped to the left side. It's also a fifty-meter rope, and it’s fastened to your fender. Check that the fender is still intact.”

  “It is,” she said, as she began slicing away at the rope with the knife from her suit pocket.

  “Good.” Again there was a pause, during which Kinuko thought there was undoubtedly a discussion underway on board the Explorer. The pieces of rope drifted away from the SEV as she approached the wrecked ship again.

  “Okay, Kinuko,” Christopher said, “on the front of it, there's a couple of U-shaped bars where the parachute shroud lines were no doubt attached. In retrospect, we should have used these in the first place. Try to get the grapple onto one of these this time.”

  “Copy that,” she said, as she untaped the second rope from the side of the SEV and took the grapple in her hand like a lasso. She pulled in to within three meters of the tumbling spacecraft, and made very sure that the SEV wasn't drifting at all as she waited for the front end to come around again. The bars she was aiming for this time were much smaller than the broken pipe.

  As it came around, she tossed the grapple gently into its path, timing it to snag on the bars. Success! “I'm hooked on!” she said. A cheer rose up from the IME.

  Without delay, she flew around so she was above the other ship, in the plane of its rotation, and then started to fly in a circle around it. She followed the ship's nose as it arced around. This time, however, she kept the nose of the SEV pointed in, towards the other craft, which meant she had to skillfully apply a combination of upward, forward, and rotational thrust in order to match its rotation rate. The star field wheeled past in the background, as she concentrated intently on her target. The reflections from the camera bots' lights danced across its silver skin. The others held their breath as the rope slowly became taut. She and the wrecked ship now orbited one another, connected by the rope. The others watched, amazed, but didn't dare say anything to her in case they broke her concentration. Keeping the in check SEV's tendency to roll about its axis as the rope pulled on it, she slowly began to apply braking thrust to arrest the other craft's spin.

  At first it seemed like nothing was happening. She increased the thrust, so that the SEV was now pulling hard. Then, perceptibly, the tons of mass began to slow down. Christopher said: “Great work, Kinuko. I'm moving one of the camera bots to be in line with the axis of the spin, so we can tell when it stops. We don't want to start pulling it back the other way.”

  “Okay.”

  She kept pulling on it. Christopher watched it carefully. “Okay, back off on the thrust now. Gently... keep low thrust on for now… it’s almost stopped. Bingo! Cease thrust. It's stationary!”

  “That's some fantastic work there, girl!” Alessia exclaimed. “Unbelievable piloting!”

  “Thanks.”

  Kinuko flew in towards the ship to let the rope go slack. Wow, she thought to herself. I've pulled off the nearly impossible. She flew right up to the nose of the craft, and came to a stop. She wrestled the grapple free from the U-bar and coiled the rope.

  “Christopher, where's the damn duct tape?” she asked, still high on adrenaline.

  “Oh... uh... forward locker, right in the front where it tapers off.” She reached down, with difficulty, and retrieved roll of tape. To her relief, a long tab of tape had been left that she could grab with her gloved fingers. She taped the rope to the side on the SEV.

  “Now the real fun begins,” Christopher said. “There's a two-meter rope taped to the front of the SEV. It's attached to your fender, and there's a carabiner on the other end. That's to anchor the SEV to the handhold by the door.”

  “Okay, got it. I just hope I can open the door. The blast could have twisted the fuselage so badly that the door sticks.”

  “Yeah, you can only try. No one can say we haven’t done everything in our power to rescue this guy,” Christopher replied. He turned to the others and said, “It’s a miracle that she even got there and managed to stop it spinning. At this point, I’ll be happy if she just makes it back alive.” They nodded, remaining transfixed by the scene shown on the large display windows.

  Kinuko flew very slowly and carefully down the side of the ship, to the right porthole. She looked in. At first she couldn’t see anything, as it was so dark. Then she made out lots of debris floating around inside the cabin. Squinting, she could just make out a figure in a spacesuit. It wasn’t moving.

  “I can see him!” she exclaimed. “He has his helmet on. Can’t make out much else. There’s lots of stuff floating around in there.”

  “Copy that,” Aleksandr said. “You are go to open the door. Be careful, though: there could be all kinds of hazardous stuff in there – chemicals, sharp objects, live wires, et cetera.”

  “Will do.”

  She flew carefully around to the door and, after making sure she was completely stationary, unfurled the rope from the front and hooked it to the handhold beside the door. She was relieved not to have to worry about stress on the rope this time – it was merely to keep the SEV from floating away.

  Kinuko unfastened her seatbelt and pulled herself along the rope, to the handhold on the ship. “There’s what looks like a rotary door latch. I’m going to turn it.” She twisted it to the right half a turn, which was as far as it would go, and pushed. The door didn’t move, but she did as the reaction pushed her away. She pulled herself back again, and shoved as hard as she could.

  “The door’s not moving.”

  “Crap,” Christopher said. “It’s a standard hatch door handle… not sure why it wouldn’t open.” He and the others thought for a minute. Then it came to him: “Oh god, I know why: he said it was pressurized inside. The door opens inwards. There’s no way you’d be able to force it open against hundreds of pounds of pressure.” There was a sigh, and a look of utter disappointment from the rest of the crew.

  “It’s not like we can get CNSA to send it a command to depressurize,” Emile said. “We’re in the radio shadow of Mars for another two hours.”

  “Yeah, and that’s assuming it could even receive and respond to a command,” Martin said. “It looks completely dead in the water to me.” They instinctively calmed and centered themselves, and thought rationally. Anything else during an emergency in space could get you killed very quickly.

  “Could
she maybe break the window?” Nikita asked.

  “She has a crowbar with her,” Martin answered. “I’m not holding out much hope, as the glass is probably an inch thick, but we can try.”

  “Okay, Kinuko, try and break the window with your crowbar,” Aleksandr commanded.

  “Copy that. Will do.”

  She unclipped the SEV from the handhold, pulled herself back to it, and flew the short distance back to the right porthole. The same chaotic, jumbled, scene presented itself inside. She took the crowbar from the rear compartment and jammed it into the window as hard as she could, grunting from the effort as she did so. It didn’t even make a dent. The reaction put the SEV in a slow roll to the right. She corrected it and tried again, with the same result.

  “I thought so,” said Christopher, with a sigh. There was a long pause, while they all thought hard about what could be done. Then Alessia’s eyes opened wide. “The third camera bot!” she exclaimed. “That’s why she was supposed to take it!”

  “Of course!” Christopher said. “I can back it up a hundred meters from the ship, and ram the window with it! I bet that’ll break it!”

  “It should be enough force,” Martin said.

  “You’ll have to do some pretty fancy flying with it to hit that small target,” Nikita said.

  “Oh, I will,” Christopher said. “All that time spent on video games won’t be wasted.”

  “Kinuko, deploy the third camera bot and get the heck out of there,” said Aleksandr.

  “Will do,” she replied. She grabbed the third bot from under her seat, switched it on, then turned and flew away from the ship.

  “Emile, you take control of the first bot,” Christopher said. “Back them both up twenty meters from the ship, so I don’t accidentally hit them.”

  “Or have them be destroyed by flying glass,” Alessia added.

  Christopher flew the bot 150 meters from the ship, then stopped.

  “I’m ready,” Kinuko said.

  Christopher took a minute to line up the porthole in the center of the camera’s view, and make sure the bot wasn’t drifting in any direction. He took a deep breath. “Here goes,” he said. He gunned its forward thrust to the maximum, carefully applying small bursts of side thrust to keep it lined up. It accelerated quickly, as though it had been shot from a catapult. He deftly kept the tiny porthole in the dead center as the bot picked up speed. When it was only about fifty meters from its target, he backed off the forward thrust as he didn’t want it to go straight through and obliterate everything inside the cabin.