Ryan floated the rest of the way into the large cabin.
“Excuse me, Colonel, but do you?”
“The lieutenant and I have two hundred simulations on record, and that’s two hundred more than you.”
Ryan continued to push.
“Look, I’m sitting here like a bump on a log. I have nothing to do other than being a backup to the lieutenant. And, frankly speaking, if something happens to him, we’re shit out of luck. We need him in here to land this damn thing. I need to go out there instead of him.”
“Sorry, Ryan. I’ll make sure nothing happens to Lieutenant Dugan. After all the times you crashed the Altair in simulations, believe me, I’ll watch him closely. You stand down, son, but thanks for the offer. You stay in here and assist Maggio with the command module. Contact Houston as soon as we have a signal-clear?”
Ryan looked at the module pilot and then at Dugan, the lander pilot. Both men shook their heads at the obvious eagerness of the untrained and dangerous man they had in Ryan.
“Yes, sir, stay with the womenfolk,” Jason said sarcastically.
“Good,” Kendal said. “Now, get your environmental suit on, you’ll be reeling us out of the module’s hatch.”
Ryan moved to comply and as he did he saw the dirty look from Sarah as he entered the lowest deck of the Altair.
“Quit volunteering for things, Jason. Jack will be pissed. You remember what he said about volunteering?”
“Always let someone else do the volunteering, then you can be the smart one when you pull their asses out of the fire,” Jason and Will said simultaneously in the most mundane voices they could use.
“Right,” Sarah said. She had to smile at the dull voices her two friends used when imitating Jack’s dry sense of humor.
Ryan started pulling on his helmet with the assistance of several of the Army personnel. He looked at Will and Sarah as they locked it into place.
“Don’t worry, guys. Mr. Redundancy will be safe and sound inside the command module while others take the risk.”
As they watched Ryan float back through the umbilical tunnel connecting Altair and Falcon 1, Sarah couldn’t help but think about the bad luck the ship was having and about how Jack was faring back on Earth, which now seemed light-years away.
“Jason worries me sometimes,” Will said, frowning through his glass faceplate.
“You guys are all the same,” said an angry Sarah McIntire.
Ryan took the copilot’s seat to monitor the space walk. The two men were tethered by separate leads in case one fouled. The space packs they each wore were controlled by hydrogen jets in case something went wrong with the tethers. Ryan and Maggio watched through the camera system while the rest of the crew stood by belowdecks on Altair, waiting for word from outside the spacecraft. They watched on the CCT system as Dugan and Kendal made their way back along Falcon toward the damaged high-gain antenna.
As the spacecraft was traveling in excess of 34,000 miles per hour, the view was disorienting because they looked as if they were standing still. Kendal made sure the tool belt he was carrying was strapped tightly to his suit and gently pushed off from the hatch. Dugan soon followed. The glare of the sun shone brightly off the white-painted aluminum of Falcon 1 as they eased themselves hand over hand toward the mount that once held the antenna array. As they came up to the severely damaged mount, Kendal held fast as Dugan started to slip his thickly gloved hand around the cable that was the only anchor for the drifting dish. As he attempted to grab hold, Kendal waved him off.
“Secure yourself to the spacecraft,” the colonel said over the radio.
“Roger, sorry,” Dugan said. He slipped his hook through the base of the mount. When he did, Kendal waved for him to take hold of the cable.
Dugan expected resistance, as if he were pulling something in from deep water. Instead, he was rewarded with the dish actually sliding nicely toward the mount. Kendal studied the panel that housed the recessed radar system. He saw a large dent on the cover and he shook his head inside the large helmet.
“Here’s the problem with the radar and why we got such a late collision warning,” he said as he started to unscrew the access panel. When he had the cover off, he saw the smashed circuit on the radar’s motherboard. “ Falcon cut the power to the radar through the circuit breaker panel.”
Inside Falcon, Ryan lifted free of his seat and floated toward the circuit breaker panel for outside systems. He found circuit breaker 1911-b, radar and sonar, and he easily reached out and popped it into the break position.
“Power down,” Ryan confirmed to Kendal.
“Roger, pulling the motherboard for the system. Stand by.”
Kendal reached down and pulled the damaged board from the access hole. He looked to make sure that Dugan was having no trouble pulling in the dish. Satisfied, he let the damaged circuit board float free. He reached into his bag and pulled the new motherboard from its protective antistatic covering, then slipped it inside just as the damaged telecommunications dish hit the hard body of Falcon 1.
“There we go. She looks good, skipper,” Dugan said, as he examined the highly complex dish up close. “Cable is in fine shape. A new bolt assembly ought to do the job.”
As Kendal connected the small electronics cable to the motherboard, he looked up and nodded his head. Before Dugan could start placing the dish back on its mount, his VOX system came to life.
“Breakers back on, Colonel. We have radar contact bearing 117. It’s big and coming right for us,” Ryan said, and then hurriedly read off the coordinates. Maggio says you two should move to the bottom side of Falcon 1. The object is traveling fast.”
Kendal looked at Dugan and gestured for him to put the dish in its place.
“Wire-tie it for now and we’ll come back to bolt it into place.”
“Roger, skipper,” he said. As he reached for a wire-tie in his pouch, the radio came alive again.
“Smaller debris is heading our way in front of the main object!” Ryan called out on VOX. “Thirteen-no, make that fifteen small targets.”
As Kendal looked forward, he saw what Ryan was picking up on radar. From his position it looked like an oxygen or water tank that had once been attached to the ESA craft Astral. The smaller pieces were part of the landing pad from its missing gear. It had shattered when the Astral had separated from its mother ship. Dugan never knew what hit him as the rubberized pad slammed into him at over 34,000 miles per hour. The landing pad and several of its restraining bolts hit Dugan in the backpack and helmet, sending him skidding off the slick skin of Falcon 1, pulling his cable tether taught as it sprung like a bow string when he was hit. As Kendal reached for Dugan, he saw the blood inside the lunar lander pilot’s helmet as it spread quickly in the oxygen-rich environment. The sight made the colonel lose his grip and Dugan went flying past. Kendal held on tightly to the bulkhead as the rest of the debris slammed into him.
Ryan pushed off from the main breaker panel and went to the aft window of Falcon, where he saw Kendal’s suit get punctured in three different places. He saw the venting of his suit’s atmosphere just as the tether holding Dugan close to the spacecraft snapped. Ryan watched in absolute horror as Dugan slipped out of view and then Kendal, who gagged for air that wasn’t there. Jason watched, his eyes widening as Kendal’s rubber-coated tether became taut and then snapped as the ESA oxygen tank from Astral not only hit the communications array mount but the spot where Kendal had been anchored. The commander quickly flew free of Falcon 1. Kendal smashed into the engine bell and the impact sent him spinning crazily off into space.
Ryan continued to stare out of the window in silence. The two men were so far beyond sight that he just stared at the spot where they had been a brief moment before.