by Dean M. Cole
On hands and knees, Vaughn crawled to the remaining tanks, mindful of the tether this time. After inventorying the remaining bottles and checking their condition, he strapped them back to the deck.
He'd lost one medium and one large tank. The loss eliminated any margin he may have had.
The man crawled back into the pilot seat. Panting breaths and pounding pulse echoed in his helmet.
Vaughn closed his eyes, trying to will himself to relax. He had to pull it together! If he kept breathing this heavily, burning through his oxygen supply, he wouldn't even make it to the station.
Instead of slowing, his respiration rate worsened. He couldn't seem to get enough air. He felt like a fish out of water.
The man activated the ham radio. "Angela, are … you … there?"
"Vaughn? Are you okay? What happened? Why are you panting?"
"Had an accident … lost a … couple of … oxygen bottles."
"Vaughn, are you breathing pure oxygen?"
He nodded. "I … Y-Yes."
"You're hyperventilating, Vaughn. Cut off the oxygen. Shut it down!"
The man blinked and looked around, his addled brain unable to comprehend the woman's words.
The periphery of his vision began to fade.
Deeper and deeper breaths didn't help.
"Vaughn!" screamed a female voice. "Close the oxygen val—!" Suddenly the sound of hacking coughs filled his ears.
Woman, coughing? A woman coughing! Angela!
The coughs stopped, and her voice returned. "Shut it down, Vaughn!"
Blinking, struggling to breathe, Vaughn groped for the long-handled tool that he'd been using to close the valves.
It was gone! Must have flown off with the bottles!
His vision shrank down to a pinhole universe.
The oxygen supply shut-off valve looked impossibly far away, as if seen at the end of a long tube.
His hands and feet tingled like they had fallen asleep.
Vaughn's eyes widened with sudden realization. His hands groped madly at his chest. A moment later, they closed on a lever. On the third try, his clumsy fingers managed to turn it. The hiss of flowing air died.
His chest heaved up and down as he continued to struggle for breath.
It wasn't working!
Icy panic gripped his heart.
He was going to fail!
No, he was going to die, and his fuck-up was going to cost Angela her life as well.
His mouth guppied as he fought to draw sufficient air. Wide-eyed, Vaughn shook his head.
She was wrong!
He reached for the valve, intent on restarting the O2, but then color and peripheral vision flooded back into his world.
His respiratory needs and rate dwindled precipitously.
"Captain!" The sobs had died. Instead, Angela's command voice reasserted itself. "Turn off your oxygen supply!"
"Thank you," Vaughn whispered. "You were right."
"Oh, thank goodness. I was starting to think I'd lost you." She coughed. "There must be something wrong with your suit. It should have kept your carbon monoxide levels in check."
"I had to make some … modifications, but I don't think this suit was designed for the kind of EVA I just did."
Vaughn's wry smile dissolved as his eyes fell on the shortened line of oxygen tanks. He shook his head. "But we have a bigger problem. I'm down a couple of O2 bottles."
"Oh, no! Do you have enough to get here?"
"I think so, but it's the return trip that I'm concerned about."
"Okay. Concentrate on what you're doing. I'll work on a solution."
Vaughn nodded as he scanned the module's instruments. "I just crossed three hundred thousand feet."
"Great! Less than a million to go."
"A million?!"
"It's not as bad as it sounds," Angela said. "You're about to climb through sixty miles. Only a hundred and sixty to go. What's your current velocity?"
Vaughn looked down. His eyes widened. "Shit! I'm going more than ten thousand miles an hour!"
"Okay," Angela said. "You've already gained more than half of the speed you'll need, but only about a quarter of the altitude. Increase your climb speed." After another spasm of coughs, she added, "Once you've got it stable, let me know your rate of climb and ground speed along with your current position and heading. Then I can calculate an intercept vector for you."
Vaughn nodded. "Okay, I'll call you right back."
The pilot eased back on the cyclic. The makeshift nose cone tilted up. He monitored the GPS's position and velocity. His speed leveled off just above ten thousand miles per hour. However, the module's rate of climb increased significantly. The last four digits of the altitude changed so fast that they looked like blurred eights.
The GPS's displayed vertical speed had long ago pegged out at its max value of six thousand feet per minute. The actual number was well above that. Vaughn noted the current altitude and started his watch's sixty-second timer. A minute later, he mentally noted the new altitude. After some rough calculations, the man whistled.
Vaughn smiled but then remembered the need to keep his emotions in check. He concentrated on sipping the now restored flow of oxygen. Closing his eyes, the man took a calming breath and then squeezed the radio transmit trigger. "Okay," Vaughn said in a soft, level tone, almost whispering. "According to my calculations, my vertical speed is now ninety miles per hour."
"Good! What's your current ground speed and heading?"
"Ten thousand two hundred and thirty-eight miles an hour and increasing slowly." Before she could ask, he called out his current coordinates. They'd be off by more than a mile, but at this scale, he didn't think it mattered.
"Okay, good. Hold that speed until you reach an altitude of two hundred nineteen miles, the ISS's current altitude. Once you're there, adjust your pitch to maintain it, but don't change your power setting until you get a ten percent Delta-v."
Vaughn's eyebrows knitted. "Delta-Vee?" He'd heard the term before but had no clue what it meant.
"Sorry—" Angela coughed and then continued. "I mean your change in velocity. In other words, how long it takes you to get from ten thousand miles an hour to eleven thousand. It is a crucial calculation. But once you reach eleven thousand miles an hour, hold that speed and call me right away."
"Hold that speed? Why? I thought the idea was for me to catch up with you."
"If you match my speed too quickly, we'll never merge."
Vaughn nodded. "Okay, got you. Do you have a heading for me yet?"
"Yeah, just got it. Turn right to zero-niner-eight."
"Roger, turning right to heading zero-niner-eight, adjusting rate of climb to maintain a ground speed of ten thousand miles per hour."
"Perfect!" After a brief coughing spasm, she added, "Once you hit eleven thousand miles an hour, call and let me know how long it took to gain that ten percent increase in velocity!"
Vaughn nodded. "Will do, Commander. Talk to you then."
Her voice softened. "You're really doing it, Vaughn … I'm so proud of you."
The man blinked, confused as a new, unfamiliar emotion swelled within him. Pride? Yeah, although not for what he'd done, but for how Angela saw it, how she felt … about him. He'd never cared about that before.
Vaughn smiled. "Th-Thank you, Commander."
"I told you to make it Angela, Vaughn."
"Okay, thank you, Angela-Vaughn."
The woman laughed and then signed off with a snort.
Still smiling, Vaughn fine-tuned the module's pitch. As the speed reduced to ten thousand miles per hour, he adjusted the controls to keep it there. The reduced speed bumped up his rate of climb. A minute later, he calculated his new climb rate at roughly a hundred miles an hour.
Vaughn's smile faltered as he saw the current oxygen bottle's dwindling pressure.
"Stay calm, Captain," he whispered. "Just sip the air."
Vaughn cast a nervous glance at the planet's tilted and curved ho
rizon.
Yeah, good luck with that!
Chapter 29
"Don't look at me like that, Nate Junior," Angela said. "Nadine was an old mouse. It's not my fault she died."
The rest of Nate's siblings continued to crawl around in Angela's literal rat's nest of greasy hair. As she floated down the tube that connected the Cupola to the JEM, the three of them moved restlessly in her tangled locks. Their faded red and blue oft-washed diapers skittered through her peripheral vision.
Having pushed off the Cupola bulkhead, Nate Jr. paced her down the passageway. Tiny swimming motions kept the adroit little spacewalker on a parallel course with her. As he drifted along about a foot right of her head, his left eye seemed to gaze accusingly.
Angela looked away from the flying mouse. "Jesus, Vaughn, you better hurry and get here before I totally lose my shit."
As she drifted into the slightly warmer environs of the Japanese Experiment Module, Angela plucked the mice from her hair. She stuffed all four of them into their vented box and then headed toward O2 control.
The space station stored oxygen in a liquid state. Liquid O2 or LOX took up significantly less space than it did in its gaseous form. However, you can't just release LOX into the atmosphere. You have to run it through a vaporizer.
Apparently, Vaughn's suit had some but not all of those features. Spacesuits made for extended spacewalks sipped from a vaporizer attached to a LOX bottle while a CO2 scrubber kept the air breathable. She had previously scavenged parts from her only spare, so Vaughn was stuck with his jury-rigged configuration, and it needed compressed oxygen, not LOX. She could get all the O2 she needed from the JEM's environmental control, but she had no way of compressing it.
Or did she? As she stared at the various controls and connectors, Angela felt an idea beginning to form. She sensed it as a flurry of activity in her cerebral cortex, something there like a forgotten name, not quite percolating to the surface. She scanned the wall adjacent to the O2 controls, and her eyes fell upon the long-dormant zero-G crystal experiment.
Angela's eyes widened. She kicked off the wall and drifted toward the tool locker. A moment later she returned with a roll of tape clenched in her teeth and various implements in each hand. Soon the experiment's discarded stainless steel, laser-etched faceplate floated away and drifted behind Angela. Arcane piping, valves, and pumps protruded from the module's dedicated slot.
Angela launched into a flurry of activity. She vented the experiment's nitrogen inerting tank to space. By disconnecting and reconnecting various tubes to the tank and pump, she MacGyvered an oxygen compression system. A few minutes later, she had it connected to the oxygen vaporizer's output coupling. Using a trick she'd seen on TV, Angela rubbed spit across each of the threaded connections. She studied the globules intently. In a couple of places, the spit bubbled. A tweak and a twist fixed each.
After actuating the vaporizer, Angela opened the valve that fed the pneumatic pump. In a series of burps and farts that sounded more like the air brakes of a large eighteen-wheeler than something that belonged on the International Space Station, the pump went about its work. After verifying a gradual rise on the repurposed nitrogen bottle's pressure gauge, Angela kicked off the wall and drifted across the JEM.
As she sailed past the box and its octuplet of accusing eyes, Angela hitched a thumb over her shoulder, gesturing toward the belching and farting pump. "Keep an eye on that for me." She coughed and then added, "I have to find more tanks."
Vaughn pushed the stick forward. The numbers on the altimeter gradually slowed. A moment later, he remembered to reduce power. However, his speed had already increased precipitously. After a few minutes, the module stabilized at 219 miles above the planet.
Vaughn pumped his fist in the vacuum.
"Hell, yeah! Space station altitude, baby!"
The smiling man slowed the module to 10,000 miles per hour. Even going that fast, Vaughn was still well below orbital velocity, but his arms and legs already felt significantly lighter.
He noted the time and then increased the power to ninety percent. Vaughn held the altitude level at 219 miles. The craft rapidly accelerated. When it reached eleven thousand miles per hour, he noted the elapsed time and then reduced power, adjusting pitch until the altitude and speed stabilized.
The pilot turned the module perpendicular to its path across the planet's surface. With it pointed straight up, he applied just enough power to maintain altitude. Then he toggled the radio.
"Angela, this is Vaughn. Are you there?"
Nothing.
"Angela! Come in!"
A few moments later, a staticky crackle issued from his helmet's speakers.
"Vaughn! Sorry, I've been working on a project. I think I have your oxygen bottle problem solved."
He smiled. "Great job!"
The grin faded when he saw the pressure on his last O2 bottle. If he saw tank pressure that low while scuba-diving, he'd be headed for the surface. After this one, he'd be down to his suit's two-hour supply and its limited-use CO2 scrubber.
"Okay, Angela. It took seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds to get a Delta-v of ten percent."
"Good! At that rate of change, it should take you … ninety-three minutes to match my speed. Have you maintained the heading I gave you?"
Vaughn nodded. Remembering that she couldn't see him, the man squeezed the transmit trigger. "Yes. Still heading zero-nine-five."
"Good! What is your current position?"
He read off the numbers.
"Stand by." A flurry of keystrokes filled the silence. Then she continued. "That's good! You're close. Turn slightly right to a new heading of zero-niner-eight, and in exactly ten minutes and … eleven seconds from … now, apply the same power."
The man started his timer. "Roger. Right three degrees to heading zero-niner-eight, and begin my acceleration in nine minutes and," he read from the timer, "fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six seconds."
"Okay, Captain Singleton," Angela said. Vaughn heard his smile reflected in her tone. "Is there anything else Brown can do for you?"
"No, ma'am," Vaughn said. After a slight pause, he smirked and added, "I'm looking forward to meeting you, Angela-Vaughn."
"Me, t—" A series of hacking coughs cut her words. Then in a hoarse whisper, she said, "Me, too, Vaughn."
Chapter 30
Eighty-five minutes into the burn, Vaughn realized something was wrong. He still had another eight minutes until intercept. However, he was already approaching seventeen thousand miles per hour. Over the last twenty minutes, his angle of thrust had gradually flattened out. At the beginning of the scheduled ninety-three-minute burn, it had taken a forty-five-degree angle of attack to counteract Earth's gravity. However, the vertical component had gradually diminished as speed increased. As a result, more of the drive's thrust component went to accelerating the vehicle with every passing minute.
He toggled the radio. "Angela, this is Vaughn, come in."
"Go ahead, Vaughn. What's up?!"
She'd obviously picked up on his tone. He heard his concern reflected in her voice.
"I think something's wrong. Did you include a diminishing lift vector in your calculations?"
"Oh shit," Angela said with a cough. "No, I didn't. What's your current speed?"
Vaughn looked down. "I just crossed sixteen thousand five hundred miles per hour." He shifted his gaze to his watch. "And I still have six more minutes of thrusting."
"Oh, no! … Cut it. Cut it now!"
Without bothering to reply, Vaughn cut the thruster to zero. His stomach clenched as he got his second taste of free fall. Through a force of will, he held his concentration and focused on the instrumentation. He was losing altitude. The module wasn't yet at orbital velocity. Vaughn tilted the thruster back to vertical and increased power. Gravity reasserted itself but at a fraction of its normal level. Two percent power was all it took to maintain altitude.
"Vaughn?"
"I'm here. Not accelerat
ing anymore. What do we do now?"
"Okay," Angela said.
Vaughn envisioned her beautiful face nodding as she spoke. "We don't have much time to work with here. I'm closing on you pretty quickly. Give me your exact speed position and course."
Vaughn read off the numbers.
"Okay …" Another flurry of keystrokes filled the open line. "Turn to heading zero-nine-nine and apply seventy-five percent of the thrust you were previously using."
Vaughn did a quick mental calculation and came up with sixty-eight percent. "When do you want me to apply it?"
"Five seconds ago! Now!"
Startled into action, Vaughn began to apply the stated power, but only the module's altitude changed.
"Shit, shit, shit!"
Shaking his head, Vaughn adjusted the controls, tilting the thruster.
"What?!"
"Nothing. I'm fixing it."
A minute later, the pilot had the module stabilized back on the correct altitude and power setting.
"Okay," Angela said. "We're two minutes from intercept. I should be … Hey! I see you!"
Vaughn looked left and right. "Where?"
"You're at my ten o'clock."
He looked over his right shoulder. "I don't see you." Then one of the background stars appeared to move. It also grew in apparent size. "Well, I'll be a son of a bitch!"
The flying star continued to grow. Soon it took on a cruciform shape as the tattered remnants of the solar panels came into view. During one of their earlier conversations, Angela had told him about their destruction. Looking at it, Vaughn shook his head. The station looked like an ancient relic.
"I love what you've done with the place."
"Just remember those cables, Captain. They're still out there."
Vaughn nodded. The station appeared to float at the center of a hazy halo. "Looks like there's still a lot of debris left, too."
The ISS closed to within a mile, but then it began to pull away from him!