Orbital Maneuvers (24 page)

Susan read through the file and was impressed by how brief it was, or rather how sophisticated the CRV really was.  The basic reentry was fully automated and required only the selection of the desired, preprogrammed landing site.  The ability to manually control the vessel was limited.  One could change its orientation while in orbit and steer the huge parafoil while landing.  There was no information on how to program a landing site that was not preprogrammed into the autopilot.  Susan thought this would make life very interesting if all the preplanned sites were inaccessible due to the dust and debris. 

She thought about Jerry’s stunt and wondered how he intended to fly the CRV back by himself.  If he even thought that far ahead.  After all, she knew how much training she and the rest of the crew had with the CRV, and she had no real idea on how to initiate the departure from the station and reentry.  Curiosity got the best of her, and she turned to Ivan,  “Ivan, did you have any more information on the operation of the CRV than that one briefing we all had?”

Ivan looked over to Susan and thought a moment, trying to recall the briefing she referred to from the hundreds of briefings they had had over the years.  “No, nothing formal, that is.  Why do you ask?”

“I was just looking over the emergency procedures for it, and it got me wondering how Jerry could plan to jump in and take off with it.  I mean, it is pretty well automated.  You don’t really need to fly it once you initiate the separation from the station, but still, you have to have some idea on what to do.”

“Well, he was not very rational at the time.  He may not have given that much thought.  He was focused on getting off the station, no matter what.” Ivan stared off into space thinking about Jerry and what he knew about him.  It did not really fit Jerry’s character to take such a desperate action.  Jerry was one who usually calculated his next move carefully before taking it. 

“Or, maybe,” he hesitated, “maybe he read up on it the way you are doing now.  He was alone and did have the time.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.  He was not one to be that impulsive.  Although, it’s hard to tell what was going on in his twisted mind at the time.  Like you said, he was not very rational.”

She turned back to the document on the display and just stared at the words.  Her mind was fixed on Jerry and what had driven him to do what he did.  She toyed with the console keyboard and noticed that she had inadvertently highlighted a command on the header to the file. 

Looking closely at it and pushing thoughts of Jerry aside, she realized that it was a link to the files properties.  Curious about what it might tell her, possibly about the programmer, or tech writer who wrote the file, she clicked on the link.  The display snapped to a list of information that told her when the file was created, and to her amusement, by whom.  There was other information listed below that was of lesser interest.  Just as she was going to jump back to her original page, her eye caught the last bit of information:
LAST TIME ACCESSED
.

She noted the time, but didn’t think much about it and switched back to the screen for the emergency procedures.  But something nagged at her about that time.  She checked her watch and saw that the file had been last accessed about seven hours ago.  Susan knew that she had set her watch to the station’s time when they powered up the station earlier, and it appeared to be functioning properly now.  Looking back at the screen, she saw that the clock in the lower corner of the display agreed with her watch. 

Puzzled, she switched back to the file properties and checked the logged time again.  Sure enough, it was previously accessed a little over seven hours earlier than her watch displayed now.  Thinking about the time they had been on the station, she realized that seven hours ago they were unloading Endeavour. 

“This doesn’t make sense,” she mumbled to herself.

Hearing her mumble, Ivan asked, “What does not make sense?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to say that out loud, I was just talking to myself.  It’s this file I was looking at.  It was last accessed about seven hours ago.  That would place it about the time we started to unload Endeavour.  Right?”

Ivan thought about it for a moment and then checked the time on his display.  “Right.  So?”

“Did you access any information about the CRV then?” Susan asked, knowing the answer.

“No, I was working with Alexander at the time and did nothing with the station computer then.  Why is this important?”

“It just doesn’t make sense.  Why would the time on this file be off?  Oh, damn!” Susan exclaimed having a flashback of entering the Habitation module and unexpectedly running into Jerry. 

“Nicholas and I ran into Jerry in the Habitation module when we brought over a load of stuff.” Turning to Nicholas, she said, “Remember that, Nicholas?  Do you remember how funny Jerry acted when we entered?”

Nicholas nodded his head.  “Yes, I remember that, he looked very guilty.  I mean, he would not look at us, as if he did something he was not supposed to do.”

“Yes!” Susan shouted. “Exactly!  That’s what I thought when we saw him, but I really didn’t think about it at the time.  He must have taken the opportunity to check out the CRV when he and Paul separated.  He’s been planning his escape from the moment we got here!”

“You do not know for sure, Susan,” Ivan countered.

“Ivan, it only makes sense.  There is no other logical explanation for it.”

“You may be right, but what good does it do you, or us, now?  I guess what I am saying is that we know that Jerry was determined to leave the station before we entered a higher orbit.  It makes sense that he would check out his only avenue of escape.”

“You’re right, but how can you be so calm about it?  Damn it!  He was scheming this all along and would have gladly left us all here if he got the chance!”

“But, he did not do it.  We stopped him, right?  So it is just another piece of evidence that tells us that Jerry went off the deep end.” Ivan’s voice remained calm in contrast to Susan’s, which she found irritating. 

Susan heaved a big sigh and relented.  “You’re right.  It really doesn’t matter now.  It’s a good thing I didn’t find out about this before the incident in the airlock, because if I had, I would have jettisoned him into space!” She turned, went back to her station, cleared the screen and left the module to Ivan and Nicholas.

Nicholas watched Susan float out of the room and turned to Ivan, who was still looking at the empty hatch Susan had passed through.  “She seems very upset,” he spoke softly and in Russian. 

“She is very hurt,” he replied.

Nicholas moved over to Ivan’s station and asked, “Why should she be hurt?  I can understand anger, but not hurt.”

Ivan took his hands off the keyboard and massaged the back of his neck.  “We have worked many, many months together, no, years and had many good times together.  We, as a group, grew very close together, helping each other out when one was in need.  Susan always kept her position as commander in the background.  I do not think that there was ever a time that she had to exercise her authority, until today.  That was hard enough for her to do to someone she always considered a close friend.  Then, to find out that this person was willing to betray her, and her crew, was too much.”

“She should not take it personally,” said Nicholas.  “I do not think Jerry is in his right mind.  Although I have known only this side of him.  I mean…he would never have gotten this far in the space program with an attitude, or behavior like that.  No?”

Ivan stopped massaging his neck.  “You are right.  Jerry never exhibited behavior such as we have seen here.  He was always more on the aggressive side and had no trouble expressing himself if he felt the need to.  But, these times are not typical by any means.” Ivan moved from his console and stretched his arms and legs, flexing his ankles and his hands. “We may be weightless, but that does not stop one from tensing up their muscles!”

Nicholas smiled and nodded in agreement.  “I know what you mean.  The exercising we did on MIR was a nice relief from the stationary tasks we would end up doing for hours.  Do you think Susan will be alright?”

Ivan looked out the empty hatch and thought for a moment.  “Yes, I think she will cope with this.  She is very strong.” After another moment of silence, he added very softly, “She is definitely being tested by all this, that is for sure.”

Susan floated the length of the station, not paying attention to where she was going or what she passed by.  She kept mulling over Jerry’s actions and could not help but think about the terrible consequences had he succeeded in his attempts to injure Alexander, or steal the CRV.  She felt that it ultimately must be her fault that he did what he did.  After all, she was the mission commander.  She should have seen this coming and stopped it before it progressed to such a dangerous level.  She laughed sickly to herself as she thought about all that psychology training and behavior analysis she had to sit through. 

“What a waste,” she heard herself say out loud as her voice echoed off the walls of the compartment.  In frustration, she continued her discussion, aloud, “Well, NASA never prepared me to deal with the end of the world!”

At that point Susan realized that she had traversed the entire length of the station and found herself outside of the Kibo module.  She remembered that Jerry had stayed here while they were trying to get the station moving.  Curious as to why he would have chosen this as his retreat, she entered the module.

Entering the Japanese module, she immediately noticed an oriental character about it, which she found quite appealing.  The layout was very similar to the rest of the modules in the station.  There were the assorted wall racks and experimentation stations, the computer docking station; all in all, it wasn’t much different from the other modules. 
Maybe it was the colors they used
, she thought. 

Floating to the far end to check out the viewport she had spotted, she was side-tracked by the shimmering cherry tomato bush.  The vibrations from the engines shook the entire station and caused the plant to shake, or more appropriately, shiver.  She stood mesmerized by it, the bright red tomatoes and the dark green leaves, so much in contrast with the starkness of space.  She was tempted to snatch a few tomatoes to eat, but she did not feel very hungry at the moment and besides, she did not want to disturb the dance the little bush was performing.  Watching it was somehow relaxing.

After a few more moments by the plant, Susan moved down to the end of the module and looked out through the viewport.  She could see the experimentation pallet that was outside the module in the vacuum of space.  There were several boxes, and canisters that she assumed were experiments in progress, but had no idea what they might be.  As the station crossed the terminator, from night to day in its orbit, the sun glinted off the solar arrays and drew Susan’s gaze away from the experimentation pallet. 

She looked at the large panels, now fully exposed to the sun and marveled at their size. Suddenly it dawned on her that they were providing the electricity that powered the station at this very moment.  Following the line of the truss as it pointed toward the dark of space, she recognized the P6 section of the truss where Alexander disconnected the communication system’s power. 

Her eyes grew wide as she suddenly realized that Jerry had a ringside seat to the show!  “Of all the modules he had to hide in, it had to be this one, at that time!” Susan growled. 

Pulling away from the viewport, she just floated and closed her eyes.  She listened to the sounds of the station, and although she could not feel the vibration, she could hear it.  The little bush that was dancing in the wall rack quietly hissed as its leaves rubbed together.  Slowly the sounds receded from her as sleep began to creep into her conscious mind. 

“Oh, it feels good,” she heard herself say and immediately snapped out of her dream-like state with the realization that she was supposed to awaken Paul!  Susan checked her watch and swore when she saw that an hour had passed since the time she told him that she would wake him.  She headed out of the compartment in search of Paul.

Susan came out of the Kibo module fully intent on finding Paul, but grabbed hold of the bulkhead when she realized that she did not know where he was.  She decided that since she was at this end of the station, she had better check out the other modules off this node.  Quickly, she poked her head into the nearest module, which turned out to be the Centrifuge Accommodation module. 

It was dark inside and she called out to Paul, no response.  The next module off the node was the Columbus Orbital Facility.  As she pushed open the hatch, she almost bumped head-to-head with Paul who was coming out.

“Oh!  I’m sorry, Paul,” Susan apologized, red-faced.

“No, I’m sorry.  I did not mean to startle you.  I heard you call out and figured that my time must be up.”

“Yes, I’m sorry that it’s a bit later than you wanted.  I got side tracked in the Japanese module here,” Susan nodded in the direction of the Kibo module.  “Did you get some rest?”

“No, I couldn’t sleep very much, a few minutes here and there,” Paul started to head toward the command center, but stopped as Susan called out to him.  She felt she should let him know about what Jerry had done.

“Paul, hang on a second.”

“What is it?”