One Giant Leap by Ben Gartner

Author:Ben Gartner [Gartner, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crescent Vista Press

Chapter 21

“I don’t know, exactly.” Kal finally got flustered with David’s pressing questions about how much breathable oxygen was left on the ISS. “I told you, best I can guess is maybe two hours.”

David floated away with his hand to his forehead and mumbled, “Two hours.”

“There are two Soyuz escape capsules still attached to the ISS,” Mae said. “Those can take three people each.”

“If they’re not damaged,” Kal said.

“But there are eleven people over there.” David pointed to the window. “If six left in the two Soyuz, that would still leave five of them on station.”

“They’d let our parents go—and Fin’s uncle—right?” Mae asked. But she looked down as soon as she said it. How could you choose something like that? Were any of their lives more important than the others’?

The fact was: if our four guardians took the capsules, plus two of either the Aether or ISS crew, that would still doom five brave people to death.

“The ISS has four space suits, right?” I asked. “There’s oxygen enough in those for hours.” I thought it was a pretty good idea, given the circumstances.

“Yes, but that would still leave one person without,” Kal answered. “Unless they traded off.”

“I know,” I said. “And the oxygen on the station would stretch longer if they weren’t all breathing it.”

She smiled at that, and her eyes got wide. “That’s a great idea.”

“Well, call ’em,” Mae said. “It’s worth a shot.”

As Kal was reaching to hit the comms button, it flashed, and the commander’s voice spoke from the speakers. “Aether, this is ISS. We have an idea.”

“We do too,” Kal said. “Actually, Fin does.”

“Okay, great. Why don’t you go first?”

I didn’t expect the commander of the Aether to give me the floor, but I briefly recapped the idea to use the suits for their oxygen, thereby extending the supply on board.

“Excellent idea,” he responded. “And it overlaps with what we’re thinking. Commander Smith and Flight Engineer Morales are going to do an IVA.”

That’s an intravehicular activity, what NASA calls a space walk inside a vessel in a vacuum; it still requires a full suit and depressurization, but it’s not technically outside the spaceship, which would be an EVA.

“What do you mean?” David asked.

“They’re going to investigate the damage to the Harmony module. It seems like it was a sizable event so we can’t guarantee our kit will have what we need to repair it, but we do have some patch capabilities. One of my buddies plugged a hole with his thumb once. Temporarily. Remind me to tell you that story later.” The commander chuckled once, like he was remembering that day.

His lighthearted moment actually made me feel better. For a second.

When no one spoke, the commander continued, “Yes, well, this will necessitate that we first depressurize the connected Destiny module with the two spacewalkers inside, before they open the hatch to Harmony. You with me?”

“Affirmative,” Mae responded.

“Good. So we just need you to hang tight while—”

“And if you don’t repair it?” David asked.

“Well, son,” the commander replied, “we have a backup plan for that contingency.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.