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thumbs-up to Barker, and lined up by the door.
Following the senior cadet, the plebes filed into the airlock. The door slid
shut behind them and Justin felt a momentary tightening in his gut. Since
returningtatheAcademy his platoon had gone on half a dozenEVAs , all of them
review-and-checkouts of what they had learned during the summer, but it still
made him nervous.
The sound of the alarm bell, the warning of depressurization, grew fainter as
the air thinned, and then there was silence except for the low hum from his
suit pump and a whisper of static in his headset.
"By the numbers, check off."
Justin scanned the LCD all functions were nominal, and he waited until the
roll call was complete.
Barker opened the inner airlock door and led the way into the docking bay. He
pointed out a tug and ordered the group to scramble aboard and strap in.
Justin eyed the craft cautiously. It was designed for short range ship to
ship operations; the tug was really nothing more than a titanium girder a
dozen meters long, with five-hundred-pound thrust engines mounted on either
end, and smaller hundred-pounderthrusters mounted to fire along the Y- and
Z-axes. A fuel tank was located amidships, and a chair for the pilot was at
one end. Bucket seats lined either side of the girder down its length, and the
seats could be snapped off to be replaced by hold-downs for cargo containers.
There was no hull; everything was fully exposed to the vacuum of space.
For this run two canisters packed with spare parts for their destination were
mounted above the fuel tank. Barker walked down the length of his ship, giving
it a thorough pre-flight and double-checking that each cadet was strapped in.
Justin settled into the chair directly behind Barker, and turned to watch as
he powered the system up.
The outer airlock door opened. Barker gave a short burst of power to the
stern engine and the tug lurched forward. While the tug was nosing out of the
bay, Justin looked up relative to the rotational axis of the ship, becoming
momentarily disoriented as he saw the center of the ship above him. The
angular momentum imparted by the ship's rotation caused the tug to fall
outward or upward relative to the central axis of the ship as it cleared the
dock, the one-tenth gravity instantly replaced by the stomach lurch of free
fall.
Barker expertly conned the tug, rolling it over and lining up on his target,
Habitat Franciscan Three, which hovered like a white pencil just above Orion's
belt. Justin gulped hard, trying to ignore the momentary flutter in his
stomach.
"Everyone all right?"Barker asked.
There were no replies and Justin silently wondered if any of his comrades
were worried about getting sick, what would happen if the fuel tank ruptured,
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or any of a hundred other prospects that could certainly ruin someone's day.
"It's a straight-out run," Barker announced. "Forty-two minutes, so hang on
while I power up."
Now clear of the Academy, Barker gave the tug full throttle and Justin felt
the slight kick of the engine straining against the several tons of mass it
was pushing. Looking back he saw the Academy, silhouetted by the Moon.
Forty-five degrees off was Earth, withNorth America shimmering under the
noonday sun. He clicked on his faceplate magnifier; as he powered it up to
maximum,
Earth appeared to leap towards him. A front of clouds was drifting across
theMidwest . Most likely by sunset, he thought, there'll be a line of
thunderstorms rolling throughIndiana . A touch of homesickness hit him. He
loved that time of day, when the air became still, hushed, the sky overhead
darkening and then the first faint cool breeze swirling in from the west to
break the humid heat. The slanting rays of the evening sun would disappear
behind the towering thunderheads and then the storm would come lashing in,
chilling the evening air.
He clicked the magnifier off and looked back at the Academy. They were
starting to pick up speed; the Academy ship was already smaller.
Everything was silent, stark, highlighted by the brilliant glare of the sun.
Yet all he had to do was put his hand up to block the streaming light and the
stars appeared on either side of his hand.
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