Chapter 13

Chapter 13

“What the hell was that?” Wayne shouted while stumbling forward.

“What?” Alex asks, as he staggers out of the cockpit.

“What happened?”

“We jumped I think.”

“Fuck my head and ears hurt.”

“Mine too.”

“Is it going to be that bad every time?”

“I guess we know why they had the pilot wear his suit, hearing protection.”

Wayne opens the food cabinet and removes his squeeze bottle of vodka. Closing the door, he squeezes off a large shot into his mouth. “Want some?”

Alex reaches his hand out, grabs the bottle and takes a shot himself.

“Thanks, I needed that.”

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know. I guess I better go find out.”

Two hours later, Alex emerges from the cockpit.

“We are point six light years from our target sun, that’s about five thousand six hundred seventy two billion kilometers.”

“That’s not very close.”

“Look on the bright side, the light we are seeing is only two hundred nineteen days old, so we have more current information.”

“Okay brainiac, one more jump? Two more?”

“One for sure. We will have to see how close we are then.”

“When are we going to do the second jump?”

“I have the survey equipment looking for our planet, it may be awhile. I need some sack time anyway.”

“I’ll take the watch, go catch some z’s”

Six hours later Wayne wakes Alex up.

“What’s up?” Alex says his voice cracking.

“Survey gear says it’s got our planet, and I have lined the ship up with it.”

“Time for me to get to work.”

“I left the reactor on, I hope that was the right choice.”

“I probably should have shut it down. I just didn’t want to fight the preheat again.”

If you want to start the calculations, I’ll bring you a something to eat.

“Thanks.”

Ten minutes later, Alex yells back to the main cabin “Beginning jump sequence. You might want to suit up or find some ear plugs.” Alex sets a computer timer for a thirty two minute count down, and finishes eating his breakfast-in-a-tube.

At twenty five minutes remaining on the timer, Alex gets up and walks to the main compartment, and starts to suit up. Wayne is back the sleeping area, looking very bored.

“Are you going to suit up?” Alex asks.

“I rolled up some tissue and shoved it in my ears.”

“Okay.”

Strapping himself in, Alex watches the countdown.

The timer reaches zero, and Alex shouts to the back” Less than a minute!”

Forty two seconds later the J-coil starts charging, the noise not bothering them as bad this time around.

Twang LURCH.The sun fills much more of the forward view. Alex starts the survey equipment, and shuts down the Vapor reactor. Wayne arrives in the door way, and Alex removes his helmet.

“Much better this time around,” Wayne says.

“Yeah, better for me too. I have the survey started.”

“What kind of range do you think we need to be at?”

“Eight hundred thousand kilometers. One billion at the very outside”

“Think we are that close?”

“I hope so, but I suspect we will need one more jump.”

A second later the survey display fills in the range to the primary star as one hundred seventy six billion kilometers.

“Confirmed, we need one more jump.”

“Jeeze, what’s wrong with this ship? We shouldn’t need this many jumps.”

“The ship is operating within expected parameters. If we had current jump and navigation software, we would arrive in one jump.”

“I really don’t like this little piece of shit you found.”

“Sorry, I’ll find a better one next time.”

Wayne lets loose a loud belly laugh.

“Bingo, there’s shit hole. You want to line us up?”

“Aye captain.”

Alex gets up and passes by Wayne, who takes the pilots seat.

“Strap yourself in, course adjustment in one minute.”

Alex steps into the sleeping net, and hooks himself up.

The ship maneuvers for about two minutes.

“All yours skipper.”

They trade places, and Alex restarts the reactor, and jump sequence, setting the range for one hundred eighty billion kilometers.

The count-down timer reads 2:05 minutes when the J-coil starts charging.

Twang LURCH.Alex shuts down the reactor, and starts the survey equipment.

“Well, how far are we now?”

“We will know in a minute.”

“The reactor is overheated, no more jumps for a while.”

The survey display fills in the range to the planet as six hundred seventeen million kilometers.

“We are in the good. Let’s plot our approach.”

Nine days later, the ship is in a higher solar orbit than shit hole, and well outside the spy satellite ring. Alex calculated their launch window using the rocket sleds maximum burn with only two percent fuel in reserve. Even so, this plot will require carrying an extra oxygen cylinder, and they were still cutting it close. Alex thought perhaps too close.

“Chow down,” Wayne says, before taking a bite from a brownie.

“I’m too nervous to eat.”

“We have a twenty hour plus EVA to do. Eat!”

“I just keep thinking what if the thrust is off, or I got our mass wrong.”

“Did you do your best?”

“Yeah, I double checked everything.”

“I trust my navigator; you should too.”

“Okay, let me disconnect the jump computer for our trip, and then I’ll eat something.”

“When we get to the transfer station, what are we going to tell them?”

“We say as little as possible, we don’t give them our real names of course. Carry nothing that will identify us.”

“You think the security police will arrest us as soon as we arrive?”

Alex disconnects the power cable to the jump computer and says “What they said years ago on the old transfer station was that people would try to sneak up and board the transport. They said they had electronic check points, if you went by one without a pass, it would trigger an alarm.”

“So they will think we are from the surface?”

“That’s what I am hoping.”

Alex removes the bracket holding the computer in place and puts it into his tool box.

“Then somehow, we need to get the attention of the secret group that hijacked the Lucky Dragon.”

Thirty five minutes later, Wayne detaches the rocket sled from the hull, while Alex removes the computer, and attaches it to his space suit, strapping it to the buttocks.

Alex shuts down most circuits, and turns the thermostat down to just above freezing.

He suits up, and joins Wayne outside the air lock.

“Let’s do this.” Wayne calls out confidently.

Alex straps himself in, and says “Ready.”

Wayne moves away from the scout ship, and lines up the first burn. “Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Three,two,one, now!”

The rocket lights and both men are slammed hard in the back as the rocket sled accelerates for nearly two and a half minutes.

“How ya doing kid?” Wayne asks.

“Okay.”

“Relax, slow your breathing. We need to conserve oxygen.”

“Okay.”

Alex realizes how tense all his muscles are, and concentrates on relaxing, and deep slow breathing.”

Ten minutes later Wayne asks “It’s beautiful, is it not?”

Alex opens his eyes, and observes the stars.

“Yes it is.”

Three hours after their first burn Alex checks on their progress against the plotted course.

They are off course by 1.73 degrees.

“I have some bad news, we need a course correction.”

“Huh, I was sleeping.”

“We are off course a little. I need you to do a course correction.”

“Send me the data.”

Alex has his computer transmit the correction burn data.

“Got it. No Problem”

Wayne’s suit thrusters rotate the sled, and the rocket fires a five second burn.

Neither man has much to say over the next seventeen hours, each trying to conserve oxygen use. Ten minute before the last burn, Alex pipes up.

“Wayne, set up our deceleration burn.”

“I’m on it.”

The rocket sled flips around, and lines up.

“We are ready. Five minutes before our burn,” Wayne reports.

“Excellent.”

“Our Oxygen cylinder is about empty, should we jettison it?”

“I did my calculations with it included at near empty mass.”

“Okay, I’m removing my filler hose now, just in case.”

“Just in case of what?”

“In case we need to abandon ship, one less thing to disconnect.”

“Okay, I’ll disconnect right before the burn.”

“Burn in ten, nine, eight, seven.”

Alex unclips his oxygen filler hose.

“Six, five, four, three, two, one, NOW!”

The rocket lights and both men are slammed hard in the back as the rocket sled accelerates for one hundred forty three seconds, and cuts out when the last of the fuel is expended.

“Damn it, we are out of fuel, and our burn was short,” Wayne shouts.

“We will have to use our jet packs from here.”
Wayne is already un-strapped before Alex even finished his statement. As the rocket sled passes the transfer station, Wayne pushes himself from the sled, does a quick mental calculation, and lines himself up for a long burn. His jet pack fires and Wayne keeps the burn going until he is no longer moving away from the station.

“Where are you Alex?”

“I am free of the sled, and I’m waiting for my computer to plot my burn.”

“No time, make a guess and hit it.”

“I think it’s better to wait for the plot. I don’t want to waste fuel on a bad guess.”

“Every second you delay, you’re getting farther away; you may not have enough oxygen to make a long trip.”

“Moot point now, the plot is finished and the jet pack is firing.”

Wayne plots his own course to the transfer station, and realizes just how close his fuel is to being gone, having used his jet pack to maneuver the rocket sled consumed a great deal of his fuel. The plot sets his ETA at thirty six minutes.

“Alex, what your ETA?”

“Sixty five minutes, shortest.”

“I don’t have enough fuel to rescue you if you pass out.”

“So I won’t pass out.”

“Conserve your air, no more talk. I’ll meet you at the airlock.”

Alex fights to choke back his fear. Suddenly aware of his every breath, he struggles to slow his breathing. His suit informs him that he has fifty nine minutes of oxygen remaining at his current usage. “I’m going to run out.” He thinks to himself. Trying to relax, his mind comes up with more worries: What if the CO2 scrubber fails, they were pushing the limits there too. What if I run out of fuel, like the rocket sled did? Did the jetpack’s computer’s plot include the computer strapped to his ass?

Realizing he was sweating profusely, and nearing panic, Alex closes his eyes and thinks of Keri, imagining her waiting for him at the airlock. The way he would kiss her, hug her, take in the smell of her skin.

As Wayne slowly approaches the busy entrance to the cargo hold, his jet pack fires with its last bit of fuel, leaving him almost motionless outside the opening. A cargo handler approaches, and is forced to do a burn to avoid colliding with Wayne. Wayne gives him a frantic wave, which the pilot of the handler responds by flipping his running lights off and on. Wayne tries several preset channels on his suit radio, but all remain silent.

“Control, I have a man EVA in the traffic pattern, I have been unable to make radio contact,” the handler pilot says.

“Copy that, how long before he clears the traffic pattern?”

“He is barely moving.”

“Control to all cargo handlers, be prepared to cease operations, we have a traffic emergency outside the cargo hold.”

After trying all the presets, including transmitting on the emergency frequency, Wayne sets the radio to scan for signals. Not wanting to waste anymore time, he un-straps himself from the jet pack, and pushes it away from him in an effort to slow his remaining velocity relative to the station. That should send a message he thinks to him self.

“Control, the crazy bastard has jettisoned his jet pack, and needs rescue,” the handler pilot says over the radio.

“We are scrambling the rescue team now. I need you to attempt a rescue unit six.”

“Where is his EVA partner? He could make the rescue, I might hurt him.”

“There are no scheduled EVA’s today.”

“Copy that, I’ll do what I can.”

The handler pilot maneuvers slowly towards Wayne. For his part, all Wayne can do is extend an arm towards the approaching cargo container. As soon as contact is made, Wayne tries to get his feet directed against the cargo container, hoping his magnetic boots will take hold.

“Does any one have a visual on him? I can’t see if I got him or not.” The pilot calls out.

“You got him, his magnetic boots have taken hold, and he has secured a safety line,” another handler pilot radios in.

“Permission to enter the cargo bay.”

“You’re clear to enter, and then you are to proceed to the airlock.”

The cargo handler enters the huge cargo area, and slowly makes its way to the airlock, where it comes to a gentle stop. Wayne disconnects his safety line and expertly jumps for the airlock. Once inside, he begins to cycle the airlock. When the inner door opens, he removes his helmet at shouts at the security guards waiting to arrest him.

“My buddy is out there too, and he is running out of air!”