April

by Mackey Chandler

  "It smells really strong," she told her grandpa. "I hope after it isn't so new and the plastic and rubber has a chance to outgas, it smells better."

  "Sorry to tell you Honey, but as the suit ages it loses this smell, but you outgas and rub off on it and it kinda develops a eau de locker room. It helps a lot if you stuff a bag of activated charcoal in each leg when you're not wearing it. Also I suggest you don't eat garlic for a few days before wearing it and never, never, wear perfume in a suit unless you are sure you are gonna love it forever. Some like to put a little cinnamon or clove oil in, to scent it between uses."

  "You want to get a tin of Bag Balm and rub a generous handful in the fold at the top of your thigh and your rear end and elbows when you know you will be hours in your suit. Some smear it in their arm pits and between their toes too. If it gets too stinky to stand, ask somebody going out pressure to leave it outside for a shift with the helmet off."

  They were watching the last consumables being loaded and walking up to the cabin hatch. She and Easy were going to ride it up on the shop elevator. It lifted the craft in spin slowly, giving the station balance damping system a chance to compensate for the movement of a big mass on the outside of spin. If they just dropped out a lock from the outside deck, the sudden change in angular momentum would cause a wobble and put heavy stresses on the station and spin bearings. They'd ease out the end of the station, right next to the loading dock, close to the axis of spin where the tension holding their mass to the hub was only a few hundred kilo instead of thousands.

  April realized she had lost her grandpa and turned. He had stopped at the cockpit view ports and was looking at the hand pinstriped flourish surrounding the calligraphy, which proclaimed the vessel the Happy Lewis.

  She couldn't remember ever seeing her grandfather cry before. But his cheeks were both wet and he was unashamedly bawling.

  "You named her after me." He sniffed and wiped his nose. He turned and hugged her and didn't seem disposed to make it a quick one. After a bit he stopped and patted his pockets and not finding what he wanted he walked over to a rollalong toolbox and got a blue shop rag to wipe his eyes and blew his nose. "It's quite the honor to have to live up to, having a ship named after you."

  "Silly goose. You do the living first and then they name the ship for you. Not the other way around. If you want though, you can start racking credit up for your next one. Maybe something a little bigger."

  "No, No. This is just fine. Thank you.

  Jon was coming up and Easy was sitting in the hatch opening waiting for them. Jon looked over her shoulder at the handle of her lesser sword sticking up.

  "I just felt naked with my laser strapped to the boom," April explained.

  Jon looked even more suspiciously at the desert camo case, hanging on Easy's shoulder. It looked like it could hold a couple hard salami or a pair of Thermos' and had Cyrillic lettering stenciled on the coarse cloth, with a couple universal hazard symbols. "Snacks and travel games to keep the kids busy," Easy lied transparently.

  "I don't even want to know," Jon assured him.

  April looked around, but Bob apparently was not interested enough to see his scooter launched on its maiden voyage. It was just operating equipment to him.

  They helped April over the hatch edge and stepped back. They had already said their goodbyes to everyone else. April's grandpa stepped back and took a pic with a hand camera, of them both standing in the rectangular hatch with their helmets off. They had their hands on the overhead, leaning forward a bit and looking down at the camera so serious. The same pic would eventually be on the story board at the Space Museum on Luna.

  They left the hatch open for the ride up and climbed in their seats. Easy brought the other three Singh generators up, in addition to the one running for auxiliary power. Whatever extra power was made went in the accumulators. One by one he silently worked down through the check list on his main flat screen and turned all the orange lines into green. Just like my dad, April realized. He's not as comfortable as younger people talking to the computer. But finally he asked, "Happy confirm all checklist items green and verbally advise if any degrade." A pleasant male voice agreed, "All items green - will observe and advise." A female voice was usual, but Easy had vetoed the idea instantly. It sounded funny to address the ship as feminine, with her grandfather's name, she had to admit. The elevator had been stopped for awhile before they got done with their checks and their weight had dropped to near nothing as they climbed.

  Dave was obviously watching, because he spoke as soon as they were done. "Do you want to button up now? We'll start pumping you down and open your port."

  "April. Will you dog the hatch now and return to your seat?"

  April was surprised he would specify returning to her seat. She was about to discover Easy was a different person at the controls of a vessel. He said exactly and completely, what he wanted done. And Easy was not something which had been laid upon him as a description of a laid-back command style. She had heard other people say it before, but was surprised what his tone of voice drew out of her. "Aye, aye, sir," and she hopped to it.

  "The rule in my command," Happy informed her when she returned, "is anytime we are under pressure and subject to movement, one of us should have a helmet on, ready to respond to pressure loss. If you want to have a cup of coffee, or wash your face off with a wet nap, fine, just let me know so I can put my pot on. Anytime you want to have yours on too it's at your own discretion. I personally won't sleep in a vessel this small without a helmet on, so I can seal up just by slapping the face plate home."

  "A cabin this size can lose pressure in seconds from a very modest hole. Some of the things you see me do, you may think - What are the odds of needing it? But if the one in ten million chance happens and you have a failure, you will live. Now tell me the truth. I know you have been cramming for your test. If I had a heart attack ten minutes from now, could you bring this ship back into safe dockage and not bust it or hit the station?"

  "I think I could, but if at all possible I'd chose not to."

  "An interesting answer. Want to elaborate?"

  "Unless I saw I was on a vector to crunch something. I'd let my motion take me well clear of any traffic or the station and only stop my motion relative to the station a klick or two out and call for someone with a lot more experience to be taxied out and bring this ship back in to dockage." April explained.

  "What about me?" Easy demanded.

  "What about you? You're dead. I'm supposed to kill myself and crash this sucker in some poor person's cubic, so they can do an autopsy on you faster? The guy they taxi out can hurry to bring you in. You'd still probably get help faster the way I said, than the cautious way I'd feel I had to ease this thing back in."

  "Ruby told me you were a smart girl," he said, satisfied. "Are we ready to break a seal and get out of here?" Easy demanded.

  "Just waiting for you to get done with the cabin chatter and tell us goodbye," Dave responded on com.

  April was a little put out to think everyone with access to the cabin feed could hear her casual examination.

  "You have a signal on the navigation channel, which will beep your radial vector to clear nearby traffic and construction. If you burn clear on your forward X, you will have a Y negative of 2.80 meters/sec. And a right hand rotation of 172 seconds. Opening the hatch now. Launch at your pleasure.

  "Number two. Program an X positive burn and a coast and flip to a standstill. Kill our rotation and radial velocity. You have the conn. Acknowledge."

  "I have the conn. Will you advise me please?"

  "Sure what is it April?"

  "If I set the attitude jets to just equal the radial acceleration we have this far off the axis, will I get enough back pressure off the wall to push me away and maybe scrape the other side going out?"

  "Good question. No. this is a big enough tube and we're a small enough ship it'll squirt out straight as an arrow using the bare numbers with no correction factor. We hav
e a good two meters clearance to the wall. You're not going to build up any pressure in such a big gap."

  April punched instructions in the computer and then checked it by having it display a graphic representation of what the maneuver would look like on the screen.

  "Would you do me the favor of double checking my instructions Sir?"

  "We don't have to be so formal. I'm still just Easy. Hmm. What is this here for?" he asked pointing to a few lines with his finger.

  "I told it to fire the attitude jets a short burst while we're still hanging on the grapples, so if any of them are not operating we find out before we're hanging loose and can bump into the walls."

  "You really are a belt and braces kind of girl aren't you?" I'll show you another trick. Dave has strain gauges on the grapples. We'll program just the four jets we're using to keep us centered in the tunnel, to fire after testing them all. Then Dave can tell us how we looked for balance before we commit to release. He tapped in the instructions again and she wondered if he would permit it, if she instructed the computer verbally?"

  "There. Want to check it for me?"

  She looked it over carefully. Not sure if he would throw in an error just to catch her. "Looks fine to me. Shall I inform Dave?"

  Easy nodded a tiny bit, looking at the board like he was distracted and she started to call Dave, but bit it off and looked suspiciously at him.

  "Was that an affirmative response Easy?"

  "Yes it was April." There was a definite twinkle in his eye. He had been testing her willingness to act on a less than certain acknowledgement.

  "Dave we are running a general thruster test and then immediately a specific thruster check to test our balance against station acceleration. We'd like a report on those numbers and then we will ask for release on signal. Confirm."

  "We are looking for a thruster test and a balance test. After which you'll want a report and ask for formal release. Right?

  "Yes. Initiating in a few seconds. She double checked the line break, so only the first part of the program would run and punched in a ten second delay. She announced, "Initiating thrust in ten seconds from my tone," and punched the big yellow square which produced a chime and counted down to zero. Meanwhile she got her thumb over the abort button in case she needed it. She felt a slight shiver build up for about two seconds then taper off. None of the warning lights came on and no voice, so all her jets burned green. A slightly easier vibration was felt after a short pause. Then Dave came back on. "You balance out on both grapples to within eight Newtons. It's within the error of our gauges. Looks good to me."

  "Thank you Yard," she addressed him formally for the first time. "Would you clear our port and set your grapples for our command? I will call Traffic Control and confirm our exit."

  "Grapples to your signal, clear."

  April saw the lights go green on the board for the command and the port ahead swung out exposing a black circle.

  "You are clear of our control and have a good trip. Treat it kindly and don't forget where to bring it when ya bust it."

  April opened a line to Traffic Control and cleared her throat before keying the mic.

  "M3 traffic, this is the Happy Lewis requesting traffic insert from North dockage. We will match velocity standing off and contact Departure Control for clearance on local two. Are we clear?"

  Happy Lewis you are clear. Contact on local two for departure. You do not show a transponder code in our database. Is this a maiden flight?"

  "Yes Local, we are a re-registration. Would you like to assign us a code?"

  "Coming on your line for loading, you are enrolled on our log this day, as The Happy Lewis out of Mitsubishi Three, tail number M001739 registered to Lewis Couriers, transponder code 12001401739, Whom shall I list as having the conn?" He asked very formally.

  April suddenly understood taking her out the maiden flight, was an honor to allow such a junior pilot as herself to do, if she was to be noted in the station log.

  "Apprentice April Lewis, ID 837-21-4002," she answered quickly.

  "Luck, to your ship and crew," he offered personally. Sending a ship out for the first time, even a refit, was still not so common as to have no formality. "Please confirm when you talk to Departure on two. Be careful out there. Clear at your pleasure."

  "Shall I take her out Easy?"

  "As the fellow said April. At your pleasure. You still have the conn."

  Just to be polite April spoke again. "Executing on your radial signal Yard." She waited until she saw the light blink again and then punched the yellow square. It would take a full rotation of the station before it came around again and they released. It seemed forever as the sunlight on the wall swept from one side of the open hatch to the other as the station turned.

  There was a clunk of grapples retracting and the faint vibration of the thrusters suddenly holding them where the grapples had been and the main ordinary drive pushed them out of the tube they were in at a gentle tenth G. As soon as they were clear of the hatch the thrusters killed their small spin component and the main drive went off.

  With a mechanical precision the autopilot gave a small thruster burn at opposite ends to flip them over and an exactly opposite burn just in time, to stop them pointed back exactly at the station. Then the main did a equally long tenth G burn to leave them floating, looking back at their home turning slowly, but otherwise motionless before them. April let out a long relieved sigh.

  "And that's how you fly a space ship," Easy concluded. "Anybody can do it with a computer."

  "It was great, thank you. But if you don't mind Easy, I'd like for you to take the conn for awhile. I think I'd like to practice a little more, when we're not two meters from the station."

  "OK. I have the conn, but you took her out," he reminded her before he keyed the mic. "Departure Control, this is Happy Lewis beeping a new transponder. We'd like to confirm automated departure in approximately ten minutes for ISSII. Sending you our preliminary flight profile." He punched the upload of their navigation program to control.

  "Happy," he addressed the ship, "position your attitude for the next scheduled burn and confirm."

  "Maneuvering." the ship said and chimed. There were a couple of small burns on the thrusters and the scene outside wheeled over and then stabilized. "Attitude stable and confirmed by star fix," the computer confirmed.

  They had agreed on a slow and normal initial flight profile, to not demonstrate any additional capacity. So their profile showed a normal length half G burn initially.

  Departure Control was taking a lot longer than usual to respond.

  "Uh, Happy Lewis in queue for departure. We have a request from Earthside for detail. Could you confirm command structure?" This was unusual.

  "I am Jefferson Carter Dixon, Master, ID 674-91-2055 commanding with new Apprentice April Lewis, second, making her first flight. You have all my history and logs in the database. I am qualified to fly solo, so Miss Lewis' status is irrelevant," he said a bit frosty.

  "Thank you. Earthside is clear now. You are confirmed automated departure on your profile. Please monitor Low Earth Three and contact Local Two ISSII on arrival. Local out."

  Easy looked at the clock. He had less than a minute to his burn. It was not courteous to hold the pilot unreleased so close to his burn. He had never had an ID request on departure before. "Somebody's playing games with us already," he told April. Then they felt a shudder and were pushed gently into the seats. They were on their way.

  "Easy, why did you give me the privilege of being logged as taking the Happy out on her maiden flight?" April asked.

  "Well, I did a bit of research, you see," he said grinning. "There was no apprentice pilot ever listed as taking a ship out on the pilot's first flight and no apprentice pilot ever listed as taking a ship out on its maiden flight. So I figured it would be amusing to log an apprentice pilot, who is an owner and thirteen years old, taking a new ship of a new class out, on the first flight for both of them."

 
"I suspect it is a combination of firsts that won't be logged again for a very long time and no matter if it is again someday you will always be the first. I didn't want to make you nervous by mentioning it. It is an interesting bit of trivia to remember. The sort of thing that can win you a beer on a bet."

  Chapter 21

  Eddie was surprised how quickly they got an appointment to speak with the Head of Security for ISSII. They had about twenty minutes to walk down to his offices. Justine suggested he not walk in carrying, so he peeled the holster off his ribs and left it laying on his guest bed. When they went out the door he was in the center of a square.

  Uncle Justine was at his right rear, with his woman Mary in front of him and John at his left rear, with a new man he had not introduced in front. They were all dressed casually but Mary had on a loose caped coat draped over her shoulders and the new man had a soft sided piece of luggage.

  When they got near the offices it was set up differently than he was used to on M3. There was a plaza with several businesses on the same hub. Two streets arched away up the curve of the station and two went away flat to the next rings each way along the axis of rotation. Even the overhead was different, trying to duplicate a beautiful Earth sky very successfully.

  John and Justine sat at a table outside a small café, which used some of the plaza to simulate outdoor seating. Mary found a bench for public seating on the other side of the corridor and the new man went across to a suite of business offices and went inside.

  Eddie went in the station offices and saw the Security section was a separate suite inside the General Station Complex. He went through and found a live receptionist. And after examining her, he figured a live guard also. "I'm Eddie Persico," he offered. "I have an appointment with Jan Hagen." She led him in without calling ahead and turned the chair for him in silent invitation to sit and announced, "Mr. Persico."