Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) (81 page)

After a minute Gabe reached over
and slapped his hands. “Stop that, you’re making me nervous.”

“Sorry.” He stopped. “You know, we
never practiced this.”

“What?”

“Waiting five minutes for a
response.”

Gabe chuckled. “No, we didn’t, did
we? It wasn’t in the Apollo training plan, so it didn’t get into ours. They
never had to wait more than a few seconds. Besides, if we’d done that we would
have spent all our time in the trainer watching you twiddle your thumbs.”

“Yeah, good point. It’s not exactly
like calling cross-town on your cell phone, is it?”

“No. 47 million miles roundtrip.
Patience.”

“Not my strong suit.”

She grinned. “I know.”

“Oh, I dunno,” said Abby. “I can
think of one thing he’s pretty patient about.”

Jeff and Gabe both glanced at her.
“What?”

Susan’s hand came up between Jeff
and Abby’s seats and wagged a finger at her.

Abby smiled softly and shook her
head. “Um, never mind.”

“What?” Gabe persisted.

“You’ll find out.”

“Huh?” She frowned at Jeff.

He shrugged.

FLIGHT, “
Ares
, this is
Newport, readback correct. Out.”

Jeff sighed with relief. Saved by
the bell. “Alright, let’s get on with it. Gabe, time to burn?”

“Twenty-three minutes.”

FLIGHT, “
Ares
, if you can
send me an ACCEPT, we’ll upload state vector and target load to the DSKY.”

Gabe shook her head and glanced at Jeff. “No, not
until I’ve seen it. This may look like an Apollo command module, but it’s not.
They can buffer it, and we’ll see.”

Jeff frowned. “Gabe, they’ve got bigger computers
down there than we have.”

“I don’t care. I’m navigating, not them.”

He glanced at Abby.

Abby nodded. “She’s right. Everything they’re seeing
happened two and half minutes ago. They only think they know where we are,
which way we’re pointed, and how fast we’re going. Gabe does know, cause she’s
here. We’re in a time warp, trust your navigator.”

He glanced back and forth between them, then smiled
at Gabe. “Roger that. Uh, Newport,
Ares
, send it to the buffer, NAV
wants a look, and I concur.”

“Coming up on two minutes,” said Abby. “Delta-V
Thrust B on?”

Jeff nodded. “At two minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Translation Controller, Armed,” said Gabe.

Abby flipped a switch. “Armed.”

“Rotation Controller, Armed.”

“Got it.”

“Standby for 69-second SPS burn in eight seconds…
Mark,” said Gabe.

“PROCEED,” said Jeff.

“Got B Mode,” said Abby.

Jeff nodded. “Burning. Looking good. Uh, Newport,
Ares
,
we’re burning.”

Gabe sighed aloud. “Thrust A.”

Abby glanced at her. “Got them both?”

“Yeah. Thrust A and B.”

“Chamber pressure?”

“95% on both.”

“Okay.”

Gabe smiled. “Oooo, gravity. That’s nice.”

Abby chuckled. “Enjoy. It won’t last long. Gimbals
are dancing a bit, but not as much as I’d expected.”

“EMS and G&N CALS are together,” said Jeff.

Abby nodded. “Pitch trim is a bit over one degree,
yaw is hovering around zero.”

“Ten seconds,” said Gabe.

“And in 3, 2, 1…”

“Shutdown. Ball valves closed.”

“Roger,” said Jeff. “Good burn?”

Gabe shrugged. “So far as I can tell. I’ll have
telemetry for you in a minute.”

“Rog. Newport,
Ares
, shutdown. We’ll have a
post-burn state for you in a couple minutes.”

“Abby, residuals?”

“Um, yeah, minus 0.9, plus 0.5, minus 0.4. Jeez! How
do you do that?”

Gabe grinned. “Just a little high school math.”

Jeff smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think we
went to the same high school. Are we gonna trim that?”

“Yeah. Abby, just tap the throttle and get the
x-axis residual down below 0.5 feet per second. The others are fine.”

“Roger that.” She nudged the RCS controller. “Okay,
it’s now minus 0.4.”

“That’ll do.”

Jeff clapped his hands. “Okay, let’s wrap it up.”

Abby nodded. “Rog. Pitch one, off.”

Gabe flipped a switch. “Off.”

“Yaw one, off…”

#

Gabe sat back from the Sundancer’s navigation
console and smiled.

Jeff put a hand on her shoulder. “How’s it look?”

“Beautiful. Couldn’t be better. This trajectory will
take us well inside Deimos’ orbit. The approach burns should be negligible.”

He grasped her shoulder, pulled down, and kissed her
cheek. “Good job.”

She leaned her head toward him and smiled softly.
“Thank you. Assuming the rest of our, uh… luggage arrives, we should be good to
go.”

“Where is everybody else?”

“On course, on time.”

“The MAVs?”

“Uh huh. Relax Jeff, these mid-course corrections
are minor. Nothing significant is likely to happen until we get to the orbital
insertion burn.”

At that moment the Auxiliaries Console Master Alarm
went off.

Jeff frowned. “You we’re saying?” He punched the
alarm button, turning off the alarm. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. Hang on.” Gabe cycled through several
displays. “Um, solar cell current is down by 12 percent.”

“That’s an entire panel.”

“Yeah.”

“Circuit breaker?”

“Jeff, give me a second.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, panel seven is offline, but I can’t reset
it.”

“Alright, put a camera on it.”

Gabe lit off the number three camera and swung it
around aft. “Oh my god! It’s broken in half.”

“We got hit by something.”

“What?”

“How would I know? Somebody’s missing wrench?”

“Out here?”

“Probably not. More like a rock?”

“Meteor?”

“Yeah, small one.”

“Oh god, what are the odds?”

“You’re the mathematician, you tell me.”

“Incalculable. I don’t think it’s ever happened
before this far in space.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything. Alright,
get cameras on it from every angle. Send photos to Newport. Get heads working
on it. I’m gonna find Abby and we’ll suit up and go have a look, and see if we
can snag that other half before it drifts away or hits something else.”

“Can I go? I haven’t been outside yet.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jeff hit the PA button. “Abby, Sue,
need you in the commons. Now!”

A minute later Abby came out of the truss. “What’s
up?”

Susan came out right behind her.

Jeff motioned them to the console. “Better have a
look at this.”

Abby gasped. “Jesus! What happened?”

“Panel seven got hit by something. Busted clean in
half. Get some photos and fire ‘em off to Newport, and get us some options.
Sue, get Gabe and I into space as fast as you can. We need to grab that loose
half before it drifts away or damages something else.”

“Jeff, there is no ‘fast as you can’. We follow the
protocol, and that’s all there is to it. That thing failed to kill you, don’t
do the job for it.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry.” He glanced at Gabe. “Should
have brought the Mark III suits with us.”

She groaned. “Who knew? Abby, turn us minus-X to the
sun and stop our rotation. That may prevent it from hitting another panel. But
be gentle with the thrusters and keep our Delta-V nulled. And keep an eye on
that panel piece; try and rotate around it to keep it close. Also, don’t use
the Sundancer quads, they’re too close and a jet of gas could shove it away. We
don’t want to have to go chasing it.”

“Got it.”

At the truss, Jeff gently grabbed Gabe’s arm. “Hey.”

“What?”

“I thought you didn’t work well under pressure.”

“I don’t.”

He smiled. “You did just now.”

She returned the smile. “Huh. I did, didn’t I?”

“Uh huh.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I’m growing up.”

He laughed, gave her push into the truss, and patted
her butt. “Yeah.”

She suddenly grabbed the bulkhead and glanced back
at him.

“What?”

“Um, can I change into the coolant garment in my
room?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Like Sue said, we stick to procedure.”

Gabe frowned.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud. I’ll turn my back.”

“You better.”

#

Two and a half hours later Jeff pulled the hatch
open and drifted out.

Gabe followed right behind him. She gasped. “Oh my
god, this is incredible!”

“Bet you never dreamed of doing this while sitting
in your cubicle at Caltech.”

“Uh… no.”

“Alright, well we can sightsee later.” He glanced
around, but didn’t see the panel. “Abby, where’s our missing solar panel?”

“On your nine o’clock, about 20 degrees behind you.
It’s drifted away a bit.”

Jeff turned around. “Ah, okay, I got it. Shit, I
don’t know if I can reach it. Gabe, stay here.” He pushed off from the airlock
and drifted out toward the panel. At the end of his tether the panel was still
out of reach. “Crap. I’m about ten feet short. Uh, damn, let me think.”

“Hang on,” said Gabe.

Jeff felt a slight tug on his tether. “What?”

“Hold on.”

He used the air jet to turn slightly back toward the
ship and glanced at Gabe. “What are doing?”

She reached for the end of his tether that was
attached to the airlock.

“Gabe! Don’t!”

“Shut up.”

She unhooked him, snapped the loose end to her
harness, and pushed off toward him.

“Are you crazy?”

“Yes, but you already know that. You’ve got another
50 feet. Go get it.”

“Oh god.” Jeff jetted toward the panel, then jetted
to a stop when he reached it. “Okay, I’ve got it. Gabe, stop your motion.”

“Okay, I’m stable.”

“Do not put any strain on that line! That’s all
that’s keeping us from becoming space junk. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“Okay, I’m coming back.” He jetted back toward the
ship with the panel in tow. About halfway there he called to Gabe again.
“Alright, get back to the ship and reattach me.”

“On my way.”

When they were both safely back at the airlock and
Jeff hanging onto the solar panel, he turned and glared into her faceplate.
“Don’t ever do that again!”

She smiled. “Okay.”

“Okay then. Any ideas what to do with this hunk of
junk? It won’t fit in the airlock.”

“No. Let me see the end.”

Jeff swung the panel around so they could look at
the impact end. “Jesus! Looks like it was vaporized.”

“Uh huh. Well, at a relative velocity of 60 or 70
kilometers per second, on impact it probably was. That’s why there’s so little
collateral damage. No shrapnel. Just an instantaneous burst of intense heat
and… poof.”

“Wow. Makes you a little nervous standing out here,
doesn’t it?”

“A little.”

“What if we just secure this to the backside of the
rest of the panel?”

“No, I don’t like that. The impact may have damaged
the drive. I doubt it, but it’s possible. I want to run a full set of diagnostics
before we put any load back on it. Let’s not make things worse. As the saying
goes, first, do no damage.”

“Okay, then what do we do with it?”

“I don’t know. We may just end up throwing it away.”

Jeff was getting annoyed. “Then why did I just go
get it?”

“Because we may need it. And stop yelling at me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Abby’s voice came over the radio. “If you two are
finished with your lover’s quarrel, I have some info from Newport.”

Jeff chuckled. “Yeah, we’re done. What have you
got?”

“Heidi has Sheri and Bob online. They’ve been poring
over the schematics and looking at options. They want to see close-ups of the
damaged ends before they make a recommendation. They also want us to run full
diagnostics on the drive to determine if there’s any damage.”

 “Okay, we’ll get photos. Do you have any idea where
we can stow this thing? Gabe and I are stumped.”

“Um, let me think for a second. Uh… how about tying
it down to a couple lifting pads on the CM? Just don’t scratch the paint, or
anything else.”

Jeff and Gabe both turned and looked at the command
module just behind them. “I’ll be damned. Why didn’t we think of that?”

Gabe put her hand on his arm. “Because we were
arguing about it instead of thinking about it?”

“Good point. Okay, let’s try not to do that again.”

“Fine with me.”

#

The comm console beeped with an incoming email. Gabe
got up from the dinner table and read it. “It’s from Heidi.”

Jeff glanced over. “What’s the plan, Fran?”

“Hang on. Oooo, you’re not gonna like this.”

“It’s been that kind of day. What?”

“They don’t see any practical way to repair the
panel; we just don’t have the necessary materials with us. They’re suggesting
that we remove the remnants of the panel, and panel five, and replace them with
panels one and three from the EDS. They have the same mount but the EDS panels
are a little smaller. But, it’ll restore us to about 97% power, and maintain
weight and moment so we don’t wobble on rotation. And we still have the Service
Module panels for backup.”

“Holy shit! I’ll bet they wouldn’t be suggesting
that if they were up here and had to do it. That’s gonna be one hell of a job.”

“You have anything better to do over the next three
months?”

He groaned. “No, not really. Do you agree with
them?”

“Yes. It’s not the easiest solution, but it is the
best.”

“Ugh. Alright, the engineering brain-trust has
spoken.” He glanced at Abby. “Job opportunity.”

She hung her head. “Oh great.”

“Can I help?” said Susan. “I haven’t been outside
yet.”

Jeff shrugged. “Alright, we’ll make this an
all-hands evolution. Good thing we brought a toolbox with us.”