Orbital Maneuvers

by R Davison

  “Jerry, calm down! We have plenty of time.” Paul said, but was beginning to become a bit concerned that Ivan had not arrived yet. The cosmonauts behind them talked in Russian in low voices causing Paul to wonder if they shared his same concerns or exasperations.

  “Yeah, plenty of time! Just like last time, until we missed the window!” Jerry spat out.

  At the announcement of eight minutes Jerry tried to get out of his seat. “I’m going to go get them,” he said struggling with his harness.

  Paul took a deep breath and was about to yell at Jerry to stay put when he heard Ivan’s voice echoing though the tunnel to the CRV. “Wait! I think I hear Ivan coming!” Paul shouted, which stopped Jerry for the moment. They all could hear Ivan and Susan talking and Jerry slowly settled back.

  Susan and Ivan made their way to the CRV mostly in silence, although they held hands, which said much more than words could say at this time. Susan was fighting the butterflies she now felt in her stomach, and the emotional giddiness she was feeling having put her decision behind her. Her thoughts drifted back over the good times she had shared with Ivan and the rest of the crew as they prepared for this flight. Thoughts of Jill and Jerry brought a starkness of reality to her otherwise happy memories. As they passed the cupola, Susan glanced out the window and images of Jill flashed through her mind, making her wish even more that she were with them, returning to Earth. She wondered if Jill’s family was even aware of their daughter’s death, or if they knew that the shuttle crew had made it to the station.

  Susan suddenly remembered that she had stored Jill’s personal effects in the Habitat module and wanted to bring them back. She felt she owed it to Jill to return them to her family. Susan squeezed Ivan’s hand and said, “Ivan, I stowed some of Jill’s things in the habitat module. I want to return them to her family. They live in Maine and should not have suffered directly from the impacts. Before we go to Russia, do you think we could get to Maine and return them to her parents? That’s the least I can do for Jill now.”

  Ivan nodded in agreement, and said, “Yes, I think we could do that provided that we can find the transportation to Maine. We will have to see once we land, but hurry, we only have about four minutes until the window closes.”

  Susan nodded and with a tug on Ivan’s hand pulled herself closer to him. She quickly kissed his cheek and then headed into the Habitation module while Ivan hurried in the opposite direction to the CRV.

  Ivan entered the CRV to be greeted by Jerry saying, “It’s about time.” Ivan shot Jerry a piercing glance and moved to his seat. Paul, ignoring Jerry’s comment, asked about Susan. Ivan told him that she was coming, but went to get Jill’s belongings to take to her family.

  “Hey, that’s great! I’m so glad she changed her mind,” Paul said.

  Alexander spoke up. “Ivan, good work! It would have been horrible to leave her here alone.”

  Ivan stretched to look over his shoulder toward Alexander. “I did not do much,” he said “Susan made the decision on her own, but it is good that she is returning.” He then turned his attention to adjusting his seat harness to keep him secure for the ride back. Ivan had no idea what the ride was going to be like in the CRV. The shuttle provided a fairly smooth ride back, but the CRV was so much smaller and lighter. With its bathtub -shaped hull, characteristic of a lifting body design, Ivan wondered just how stable it would be through the turbulent atmosphere. Remembering Alexander’s comment about the lack of windows, he realized that they had only a limited forward view on the one display, which could be very disorienting and disturbing to anyone susceptible to motion sickness. It does not really matter, Ivan told himself. It is the only ride back and if we can walk away from the landing that is all that matters.

  Jerry looked at his watch with great anticipation as it displayed only two minutes and twenty seconds left. He was about to lament the time again, but held his tongue as the open hatch above him caught his eye. He looked around slowly and noticed that Paul was lying in his seat with his eyes closed, while Ivan was tinkering with his harness. The Russians are quiet for the moment. Probably staring at the ceiling. That’s all you can do in these damned reclined seats, he thought. The burning thought of being stranded on the station seared Jerry’s mind. He was determined not to live that fate, especially if he had to be stranded here with Susan, the root of all their problems! Not this time! he feverishly thought.

  Susan entered the Habitation module, looked at the lockers that were built into the walls, ceiling and floor for storage and suddenly realized that she did not remember which one she had placed Jill’s things in. She glanced at her watch and saw that she had about three minutes left. With a wave of panic, she started opening lockers one after the other, all the while trying to recall what she did when she entered the module with Jill’s belongings. She remembered that Ivan was with her. Paul and the rest of the group were in the module talking, but she could not remember her actions at that moment. With each successive locker she opened, only to discover that it did not contain the treasure she so dearly wanted, her sense of panic grew.

  Checking her watch she saw she only had fifty seconds before their departure window opened. Cursing, Susan moved faster, as she finished checking all the lockers on the one wall and moved onto the next wall. The lack of gravity further hindered her efforts, as she had to hold on with one hand while she opened the locker with the other. If only there was gravity, I could use both hands and open two at a time, she thought. The thought of abandoning the search was beginning to form in her mind, as she knew she was out of time without even looking at her watch.

  Jerry slowly moved his hands down to the central buckle on his harness and very slowly, and carefully, released the latch, pressing it firmly against his stomach with hopes of muffling the mechanical click it would make when it released. The buckle released with a pleasingly quiet pop, which was mostly drowned out in Jerry’s ears by the thumping of his own heart. Jerry slowly pushed the harness out of his way and then checked to see what Paul and Ivan were doing. Content that they were still preoccupied with their own distractions, he located the red launch button on the control panel and noted its position relative to the hatch. Without a second thought of his actions or their consequences, Jerry pushed himself off the seat in one explosive move. Grabbing the massive hatch, he pushed it into place with one smooth motion and slammed the release lever into the locked position!

  Paul opened his eyes at the sound of the commotion and was totally confused by what he saw. He did not expect to see Jerry over him and it took a second or two to realize that he was pushing the hatch closed. “What the hell are you doing?” He yelled at Jerry and struggled to release his harness. Shouts in Russian joined in from the back of the CRV as Alexander and Nicholas realized that Jerry was loose.

  Ivan also reacted to the sound of Jerry leaving his seat and by the time Jerry had closed the hatch Ivan was already free of his harness. “Damn you, Jerry! What are you—” he shouted, but before he could reach the hatch, Jerry had shoved past him and smashed his hand onto the launch button. “NOOOO!” Ivan screamed in disbelief, as Jerry hit the button.

  The computer on the CRV obeyed the command that was given when it detected the launch button had been depressed. It jumped to the new program that had been recently stored into its memory and without regard to its passengers, the station, or the CRV itself, applied full thrusters and released the docking mechanism.

  The engineer, who modified the code for them, at the last minute thought that they might be in a hurry to separate from the station and changed the thruster power setting from twenty-five to one hundred percent power. The CRV shot away from the station quickly and violently, exposing those strapped in to a high g-load against their harnesses, but it was much worse for Ivan and Jerry who were not restrained. The rapid push away from the station sent both of them crashing into the ceiling. Both men were dazed by the impact and were not prepared for the next modification in the code that immediately rotated the CRV
one hundred and eighty degrees and fired the braking engines at full thrust! Ivan and Jerry collided with each other, their heads bearing the brunt of the impact. Both unconscious astronauts were then thrown toward the back of the CRV and onto Alexander and Nicholas.

  Susan’s hand was holding the door to the last empty locker on the second wall, which she had just finished searching, when she felt a slight vibration pass through door. The sensation she felt seemed odd and unexpected, but she did not immediately process its possible implications, as she was preoccupied with the debate over checking one more locker or just giving up on finding Jill’s possessions. An instant later, Susan felt a pressure wave spread throughout the station, the result of the airlock between the station and the CRV being left open when the CRV undocked. The abrupt rush of air out of the station into the vacuum of space caused her ears to pop at the sudden pressure loss. An alarm klaxon blared a warning, as the station’s computers detected the loss in pressure. Within a fraction of a second, the computers isolated the source of the leak and immediately commanded the hatch to the CRV’s airlock to close.

  Susan froze for an instant. The first thought that occurred to her was that some debris had hit the station, and the hull had been breached. She snapped out of her daze, and forgetting Jill’s belongings, pushed herself out of the module toward the CRV. Susan’s confusion returned as she narrowly stopped in time to avoid colliding with the closed hatch to the CRV’s airlock. That wasn’t closed before, she thought, trying to block out the noise from the alarms and shake off her bewilderment. She felt that everything was moving in slow motion, dream-like and unreal.

  Susan looked around the compartment and noticed smoke in the air. No, she thought, not smoke. It doesn’t smell…water vapor…from rapid decompression! Susan peered through the window on the hatch only to see an opening into space where the CRV once was. She now knew why there was condensation in the compartment.

  Susan stared in disbelief at the black void where the CRV had been, then numbly pushed herself as fast as she could to the cupola, bumping into the walls as she went to get a view outside of the station. She fully expected to see the CRV’s shattered remains shooting away from the station, thinking that some debris had hit the CRV itself. In utter disbelief she saw the little ship floating away from the station, gracefully pivot and ignite its braking engines! Susan reached out her trembling hand as if to catch the shrinking ship and in a hoarse whisper, all she could manage to say was, “Ivan…” as the ship disappeared from her view.

  XXVI

  In the CRV the chaos was beginning to settle as Paul managed to pull Jerry’s unconscious body off Alexander and secure him in his seat. Little red balls of blood floated about the cabin from the wounds Jerry and Ivan had sustained on their faces and heads. Alexander and Nicholas, struggling against the deceleration caused by the braking rockets, were able to push Ivan down to the empty seat between them and with Paul’s assistance, strap him in. Paul grabbed the first-aid kit and tended to Jerry’s wounds, as he appeared to be bleeding more severely than Ivan. “I think he broke his nose,” he said. Checking Jerry’s eyes, Paul groaned, “Oh no, it looks like he may have a concussion, too!”

  Alexander was tending to Ivan. Upon Paul’s assessment of Jerry, he quickly checked Ivan’s eyes to see if they were dilated. They weren’t dilated, but did not respond to the light as Alexander expected.

  Alexander shouted loudly to be heard over the noise generated by the braking rockets. “Ivan does not look okay, and he has a cut and bruises on his head.” Taking the medical kit from Paul, he asked, “What happened? Did Jerry initiate the launch?”

  Paul could not restrain himself. “Yes! This stupid son-of-a-bitch launched us before Susan had a chance to get on board!” He realized that he was letting his anger get the best of him and offered an apology to the cosmonauts. “I’m sorry. There was no sense in this. None, whatsoever! Jerry had it in for Susan, and he finally got his chance.” He looked around the cabin for a viewport to see the station and then realized that there were none. “Oh, God,” he said, “I hope she’ll be alright!” As a second thought, he asked, “Can we get her on the radio?”

  Alexander and Nicholas looked at each other with blank stares and then to Paul who was shaking his head realizing what they were thinking. “I know nothing about this ship other than it’s used as a lifeboat,” he said.

  Alexander asked Paul, “Are you not trained to fly this?” Before Paul could answer, Alexander looked down at Ivan and suddenly realized that with Ivan unconscious they had no one to fly the CRV.

  Paul shook his head. “No. No way. I don’t know much about it at all.” After a moment, he added, “This ship is supposed to fly itself, but with the program changes that were made, I think I would like to have someone up front to take over just in case. I don’t really know if we even left within the departure window or not! I don’t know what implications that will have.” Turning to Nicholas, Paul asked, “You were with Ivan, did he talk about flying it back?”

  “No, other than the controller, there, that was to be used to maneuver the CRV on landing if needed,” Nicholas said, pointing to the control stick by the left seat. “If this ship had an airlock on it I would personally jettison this…this bastard from it!” Nicholas added bitterly, pointing toward Jerry. The noise from the braking rockets suddenly stopped, catching them all by surprise and derailing Nicholas from his diatribe. Nicholas quickly slid out of his harness, floated over to the left front seat and strapped himself in. Scanning the control panel for a radio transmit button, he noticed the display showing a communication frequency. “The display here shows a radio frequency, I guess that might be what we are transmitting at,” he said. Looking over his shoulder toward Paul, he asked, “Do you know if the station is receiving at this frequency?”

  Paul again shook his head. “I don’t know. Damn it! I wish I had paid more attention to what Ivan was doing on the station. I could be of more help now.”

  Alexander, who was applying a compress to Ivan’s wound, shook his head. “Paul, do not do this to yourself,” he said. “You were busy, as were we all, trying our best to get us all back safely. We each had a job—”

  Nicholas interrupted. “I will try to transmit, but I am not sure if this is going to the station.” He searched the control panel again for the transmit key, but only found a button on the display that showed the word: RADIO.

  He pressed it and the screen changed to show the status of the radio, which was that it had passed its power-up checks and was functioning normally. There was also a button that allowed him to change the transmit and receive frequencies. Nicholas pressed these buttons and noticed that the display changed and immediately returned to the original frequency. The computer was again following its new instructions and had set the radio to transmit and receive on the agreed upon frequency that the Australian Air Force had given Captain Greene. The computer was not about to let anyone change that frequency.

  Not knowing if he was really transmitting to the station, or at all for that matter, Nicholas spoke awkwardly toward the speaker that was on the control panel. “Susan, do you hear us? This is Nicolas in the CRV, do you hear us?” They all waited but heard nothing coming from the speaker. Nicholas repeated the call several times but to no avail.

  Suddenly, the CRV rotated another one hundred and eighty degrees, catching them all off guard. They heard and felt the ship jettison the rocket pack, which was now empty and not needed for their descent. It was rather unnerving to all of them to have the CRV act on its own, without giving a warning about what it was going to do. As the little ship spun around, Alexander swore under his breath.

  “I think we are about to deorbit,” Nicholas said looking at the display. He had noticed that the nose of the CRV had elevated, so they could not see the atmosphere they were heading into. This would allow the bottom of the ship, where the heat tiles were located, to bear the brunt of the fiery reentry. Paul and Alexander checked that Jerry and Ivan were securely rest
rained and then checked their own harnesses. Paul could use only his left hand to tend to Jerry, which made it difficult. He noticed that the bleeding had slowed considerably and was hoping that the worst was over. Paul pulled his harness a bit tighter and grabbed on to his seat with his white-knuckled right hand.

  Their lifeboat began its insertion into the upper atmosphere at a much steeper angle than its designers had originally planned for. The engineer that Captain Greene had found did this intentionally to make sure that the CRV would touch down in Australia, and not over-shoot into the southern Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, the engineer did not have the time to fully understand the implications of his modifications to the code that would allow this rapid decent. The CRV would now run the risk of burning up from the higher temperatures that it would experience upon entering the denser layers of the atmosphere at a much faster speed than the designed reentry profile. It would also be subjected to higher mechanical stresses on the airframe from the greater deceleration and buffeting it would experience passing through the thicker atmosphere. If the CRV survived these extreme conditions, it would still face the problem of having the parafoil deploy at a much higher speed than it was designed to handle.

  The men on board knew nothing of the dangers that lay ahead. They trusted the technology that placed them into orbit, just as they had no choice now but to trust the same technology to get them back down. A lot would come down to whether or not the original designers of the CRV built in a large enough safety margin to cover the extreme stresses that the little ship was about to endure.

  Deep in Cheyenne Mountain, a radar technician was monitoring the space station as it passed through the now reduced range of NORAD’s radar network. She noticed a small blip separate from the station and tracked it as it moved farther from the space station. Following her orders, she contacted Captain Greene and informed him of her observations. After confirming that the bogie was indeed following the trajectory expected for the CRV, Captain Greene made a phone call to his contact at the airbase in Edinburgh, Australia, informing them that the CRV was deorbiting.