Orbital Maneuvers (20 page)

“What?  What did you find?” Susan’s fit of anger with the Captain subsided for the moment.

“Here is an error message, indicating that there is an airlock open that was not open before.”

“What airlock?  Where?  It’s not on the Joint Airlock where Alexander is, is it?”

“No, it is on Node 3...the airlock to the CRV.” Ivan looked at Susan, and instantly they both knew what that meant.  “Jerry!” they shouted in unison.  Ivan made a dash for the hatch, and Susan pushed herself over to the intercom and flipped it on, “Paul, Nicholas, meet us at the CRV!  Jerry is trying to take the CRV!” She launched herself out of the module before the echo of her voice died in the station.

Paul and Nicholas narrowly missed colliding with Ivan as he shot down through the tunnel connecting nodes one and three.  In a matter of seconds, he was in the airlock tunnel to the CRV just as Jerry was pushing the hatch closed.  With one huge push from the bulkhead at the beginning of the tunnel, Ivan propelled himself toward the closing hatch.  Rotating his body so he was flying feet first, he hit the hatch with such force that it flew open and threw the unprepared Jerry crashing into the seats.  Ivan landed on Jerry, seizing him by the collars of his suit. 

Paul and Nicholas were right behind Ivan, with Susan behind them.  They hesitated for a moment, not sure what Ivan was going to do with Jerry.  Susan could barely make out what was going on, trying to look past Paul and Nicholas into the darkened compartment of the CRV.  She heard Jerry’s strained voice, and fearing the worst, she yelled out for Ivan to stop.  Paul and Nicholas took their cue and rushed inside to save Jerry from Ivan.

Ivan backed off as soon as he heard Susan’s voice and let Paul and Nicholas pull Jerry out of the CRV.  Jerry looked quite shaken by his ordeal.  His hair was disheveled and his suit twisted and stretched to one side.  He did not look at Susan as he was escorted out of the airlock.  Susan looked inside the CRV and saw Ivan floating in the dimly lit compartment.  “Are you okay?” she asked.

“…Yes,” said Ivan.  His ankles ached and the heels of his feet burned from his collision with the hatch, but he enjoyed the distraction the pain brought him from his embarrassment at losing his temper with Jerry.  He was glad that Susan called out, otherwise he may not have stopped. 

He was suddenly thrust back into a memory from his childhood when he had finally had enough from a bully at school.  When he let himself go, after many months of torment and harassment, it took four other boys to pull him off the boy.  In spite of all the praise and cheers he received from his friends, he had felt so ashamed of himself for losing control that he cried as he walked home from school.  Those same feelings were with him now, gnawing away at him just as they did so many years ago.  He was glad it was dark inside the CRV.

“You sure that you’re okay?” Susan asked, not convinced, but not wanting to press too much.  She moved into the hatch a bit more and seeing Ivan pull back slightly, she stopped.  “Come up when you catch your breath, and let’s see if we can get the engines back online again.  I will take care of Jerry,” Susan said.  She looked harder into the dim compartment, but still could not see Ivan’s face in detail.  She slowly backed out of the hatch and pushed herself out to catch up with Paul and Nicholas. 

Susan could hear Jerry’s voice as she approached the Joint Airlock.  She was greeted with the sight of Paul and Nicholas, each holding an arm, and Alexander hanging on to Jerry’s legs.  Seeing them floating near the top of the compartment made the scene all the more comical.  At the moment Susan was too angry to see the humor.  Jerry stopped struggling when he saw her enter the compartment.

“What the hell are you doing, Jerry?” She shouted and could feel her face flushing with anger.  “Are you trying to kill all of us, or just yourself?” She was now face-to-face with Jerry, nose-to-nose, and she pushed closer.  Jerry pulled back as far as he could, but with the three anchors he had on him in the small compartment, there was nowhere to go.  Resigned to the fact that he could not get away from Susan, he looked her in the eyes and with a raspy voice, he hoarsely whispered his response.  “I might as well save myself before
you
kill us all!”

“You are so out of touch with reality, I don’t know if I should feel sorry for you or push you out of this airlock!” said Susan.  “Had you completed your stunt you would have surely killed yourself and probably us in the process!  That’s not even addressing the fact that you were intentionally stranding us here!” Susan backed off; Jerry’s stale breath was making her nauseous, and she needed some room.

Jerry’s eyes became hard.  “You’re the one who wanted to stay, not me.  I’ll take my chances alone.  I don’t need you or anyone else for that matter.”

Susan turned to leave, telling Paul to hang on to Jerry until she returned.  She did not get more than a few feet outside of the hatch when Jerry began struggling to free himself.  This time he managed to push Alexander off his legs, shoving him up against the bulkhead in the process. 

Looking at Alexander with murderous eyes, Jerry spat, “There!  Enjoy that ride as much as you did outside? Damn Russians!  We would be home now if it wasn’t for you!”

Susan spun around at Jerry’s words and darted back into the airlock.  Paul and Nicholas were doing their best to hang onto Jerry, but neither of them had a good anchor from which to gain any real leverage on him. 

Susan grabbed his nearest hand and with a quick motion twisted Jerry’s wrist back so far that he yelled out in pain.  Again in Jerry’s face, and now through clenched teeth she asked, “What did you just say?”

“Let go of me!  You’re breaking my wrist!”

“What did you say?” Susan hissed again, but this time it was accompanied with more pressure on his wrist.

“Ouch!  Damn it, let go!” Jerry shouted at Susan, but only received more pressure on the delicate joint. 

“Did you have anything to do with Alexander’s incident on his EVA?” Susan’s face was now as contorted as Jerry’s.  Paul anticipated hearing Jerry’s wrist bones snap any second now.  Suddenly, he felt Jerry’s body relax.

“Alright!…Okay! Okay!  Stop, and I’ll tell you!” Susan eased off a bit, but did not let go of Jerry’s hand.

“Talk!  What did you do?”

“I …” Jerry had relaxed, and could now feel Paul and Nicholas also relaxing their grips on him.  He chose that moment to make a break, thinking that he could knock Susan out of the way in the process.  Susan never let her guard down, and the instant she sensed Jerry’s intentions she viciously twisted his hand, bending it back further than before.  Jerry howled in pain and finally realized that he had no hope of getting free, at least not without a broken wrist.

“I…I…pulled his tether—with the arm.  Let go of me!  I told you what you wanted!”

“You tried to kill him?” Susan could not believe what she heard.  She felt deep down that Alexander’s accident was no accident, and she knew somehow Jerry had a hand in it.  But she did not really think that he would be capable of killing somebody!

“I did not try to kill him.  Just to stop him.” Susan eased off on Jerry’s wrist and he breathed easier.

“You know the hazards of working in space!  You know the dangers of working around a structure like this station and the consequences of tearing your suit or losing your tether!  The results of your actions can be as deadly as if you shot the man in cold blood!” Susan gave Jerry’s wrist a violent twist and pulled his arm over to Paul.  Pushing Jerry’s hand into Paul’s she shouted, “Hang on to him!” She flew out of the compartment and headed to the Habitation module.

Susan passed Ivan as she headed to the Habitation module.  “What is all the yelling about?” Ivan asked, as Susan shot by.

“Give Paul a hand in the Joint Airlock.  He will fill you in.  I’ll be right back,” Susan called over her shoulder, leaving Ivan a bit uneasy at what he may find.

Once in the Habitation module, Susan found the medical kit and nervously searched for something that would put Jerry out for a few hours or more.  As she searched, and her anger grew over Jerry’s actions, she reasoned that stronger would be better.  In one of the kits, she found a package of hypodermic needles and in another, bottles of different drugs, each with a description of the drug, its uses and a dosage table. 

As she excitedly searched for what she wanted, several bottles began to stray from the kit and she had to stop what she was doing to retrieve them.  At last, she came across a bottle that was marked as a sedative.  She quickly scanned the label looking for the dosage table.  She guessed that Jerry probably weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds on Earth and pushing one of the syringes into the bottle filled it to the level for a two hundred pound person. 

Holding the hypo up to the light, she double-checked the level and checked the label on the bottle again to make sure she had the right amount.  Her eye caught a small label warning to get the patient’s history before administering the drug.  She thought to herself,
right, I’ve got a madman at my door, and I’m supposed to ask his medical history!
  Putting a cover on the needle, she carefully placed the loaded hypo in her sleeve pocket on her suit.  Thoughts of old comedies she watched as a child flashed through her mind of people sticking themselves with the very needles they were trying to give to some unsuspecting patient or victim. 
Well, let’s just hope that doesn’t happen this time
, she thought as she closed the flap on her pocket.  She returned the bottle to the drug kit and replaced the medical kits in the locker where she found them, then turned to survey the other lockers in the compartment.

Susan rummaged through a locker that was marked “Utility”.  She was not quite sure what she was looking for, but realized it when she found a roll of duct tape. 
Ah
, she thought,
the handyman’s best friend!
  She smiled as she grabbed the roll of tape and slammed the locker door shut.  On her way out of the compartment she saw a sleeping bag that had been brought over from Endeavour; she grabbed it and headed back to the airlock.

By the time Susan returned to the airlock, she found Jerry quite restrained.  He eyed her suspiciously as she entered the compartment.  “What are you going to do?” he asked, with more than a bit of nervousness slipping through his voice.

“I am going to make sure that you do not hurt yourself, or anyone else for that matter.” She tossed the sleeping bag at Jerry.  “Get in it!”

“Why?” Jerry knew that there was more to this than a nap.  “I’m not getting in that!”

“I said get in it.  If you need assistance I will be glad to help you.” She reached for the hand that Paul was still holding.  Jerry did not want to go through that pain again, his wrist still hurt from the last engagement.  He reluctantly reached for the sleeping bag with his free hand.  Ivan let go of Jerry’s legs, but Paul held onto his arm and hand. 

Among the three of them, Ivan, Nicholas and Jerry managed to pull the sleeping bag up all the way to Jerry’s neck, with his one arm that Paul was holding onto still hanging out.  Susan took the roll of duct tape and began to wrap the sleeping bag tightly, starting at the feet and working her way up toward Jerry’s chest using long spirals. 

“What are you doing that for?” Jerry’s eyes were getting bigger as he began to anticipate the worst.

“This is just to keep you safe,” Susan said calmly, as she continued her work.  “By the way, Jerry,” she asked, very matter-of-factly, “how much do you weigh?”

“Why?  Why do you want to know how much I weigh?” Jerry was even more panicked by the strangeness of the conversation and the eerie calmness in Susan’s voice.  Visions of her launching him into space from the airlock flashed through his twisted mind.

“Just curious.  So, how much do you weigh?” Susan ran the strip of tape across Jerry’s chest and shoulder securing the arm that was in the bag.

Not knowing what her game was and not able to see her face to get a hint at what she was up to, Jerry finally surrendered, “One hundred and sixty pounds.  Why?”

Ripping the roll of tape from the last wrap she placed on Jerry with a loud snap, Susan remarked, “Damn!  I was never good at guessing weights!” Confident that Jerry was secure, she pushed the roll of tape over her hand and up her arm like a bracelet.  Susan then reached for her sleeve pocket and pulling up the Velcro cover, withdrew the hypo. 

At the first sight of the syringe, Jerry’s face paled and his eyes popped opened so wide it looked as if they would come out of the sockets.  “What’s that?” Jerry shouted, and tried to struggle, but was quite immobilized in his high tech cocoon.  “What are you going to give me?” He looked at Paul desperately, “Paul, don’t let her give that to me!  She’s going to kill me!  Keep that needle away from me!  I can’t stand shots!”

Susan, in a very calm voice said, “Nonsense, Jerry.  I’m just giving you a little something that will help you relax and sleep for a while.” She checked the syringe to make sure that it had no air bubbles and was still at the level she filled it to.  In one quick motion she grabbed Jerry’s free arm and thrust the needle into the muscle pushing the plunger down firmly. 

“There you go…pleasant dreams, Jerry.”

Jerry let out a yelp, and as he watched Susan finish the injection his eyelids fluttered, and his eyes rolled up into the back of his head, as he fainted.  Susan pulled the needle out and pushed his arm into the sleeping bag.  She pulled the roll of tape off her arm and finished wrapping the tape around him.  “Had I known he would pass out at the sight of the needle, I would have shown it to him hours ago!”