The Getaway Special

8

Two people in an airlock made for a tight fit. “Are you sure about this?” Allen asked, his voice about half an octave higher than usual. Even with full air pressure around them he was barely audible with two layers of glass between his mouth and her ears; she read his lips as much as heard the words.

“Sure I’m sure,” she said with exaggerated mouth motions. She turned the airlock depressurization control knob to 5 psi, held it a minute to make sure the suits weren’t going to leak, then turned it to zero. While they waited for the air to bleed out, she turned her head until her face was right in front of his and said, “As soon as we get out, grab your hyperdrive canisters and follow me to the descent module.”

I can’t hear you, he mouthed, leaning in to touch his helmet against hers.

“That doesn’t work,” she said. “You have to read lips.”

It doesn’t work? He looked like a kid who’d just learned that the Tooth Fairy wasn’t real.

“Not enough surface area in contact,” she said.

I’ll be damned, it doesn’t work. What did you say?

She spoke slowly and enunciated each word separately. “I… said… get… your… hyperdrive… canisters… and… follow… me.”

Right.

When the airlock pressure fell to half a psi, Judy opened the outer hatch. The last of the air puffed out in one final whoosh, and she let it pull her out. Swinging around the edge of the hatch, she helped Allen through, then pulled herself down onto a flat package in the cargo bay where she could get a good solid surface to kick off from toward the space station overhead. It was only twenty feet away or so; Gerry had nearly held them back too long.

They didn’t have time for the Manned Maneuvering Unit, the thruster chair that they normally used for moving around in space, nor did they have time to set up a cable and traverse the distance with carabiners. They would have to jump free. While Allen unstrapped his hyperdrive engine, Judy kicked off. For a heart-wrenching moment she was sure she’d screwed up and would miss the space station entirely and drift off into space until she ran out of air, but at such a short distance she’d have had to be trying hard to keep from hitting something. As it was, she’d gone nearly straight up; she had to push off from the stations airlock and scramble along handholds to reach the descent modules.

Carl had seen her pass over his target. The radio came to life with his frantic call, “Judy, what the hell are you doing out there?”

She didn’t answer. Every second counted now. If the station had someone suited up and waiting in the airlock, he could still stop them.

“Judy, answer me.”

She pulled herself up against the closest descent module, opened the hatch, and climbed inside. It was a tiny thing, barely big enough for the two seats it held. Judy crawled into the one farthest from the door and studied the control panel. It was simple enough; a power switch, a switch to blow the bolts holding the module to the station, a joystick to control the attitude thrusters, and a single red button labeled “Retro.” Gauges and radio controls and manual overrides for the retro jettison and parachute release systems filled up the rest of the panel, but she had seen more complicated kitchen appliances. She flipped the switch that put the emergency locator beacon in manual mode, made sure the manual switch was set to “Off,” then she flipped the main power switch and smiled when the green light above it lit up.

“Who do you think you are?” Carl demanded. “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? You’re in space, for god’s sake! You can’t just steal a horse and ride out of town!”

“Wanna bet?” she muttered, but her mic was still off. She leaned back out the hatch to see how Allen was doing. He had one of the canisters loose, and was working on the other. Judy waited nervously while he got the second one free, tucked one under each arm, then tilted his head back to see where she’d gone. She waved at him from the hatch of the descent module.

He waved back, but nearly lost the canister under his right arm. He grabbed it again, but that motion lifted him off from the cargo bay and started him tumbling. He realized his predicament instantly, but instead of waiting for Judy to come get him, he kicked out with his left leg, evidently hoping to at least get himself moving toward her.

It didn’t work. Judy watched, helpless, as he tumbled away at a forty-five degree angle. He’d managed to do the nearly impossible; it looked like he was going to miss the entire station, and there was nothing Judy could do to help him. If she jumped to intercept him, they’d both float off into space, and if she took the time to clip her safety line to a handhold, she’d never reach him.

The radio was a confusion of voices, Carl calling “Man overboard,” Mary shouting orders to someone else inside the station, and ground control demanding to know what was going on. Judy was about to switch on her transmitter and tell them to shut up and do something useful, like send someone out with an MMU, when Allen did the only thing he could do to save himself: he took the canister from under his right arm and threw it as hard as he could out into space.

Judy gasped. The hyperdrive! Or part of it, anyway. She hoped Allen had saved the valuable half. It didn’t look like he’d even stopped to consider it, though; he’d just thrown what he’d had in his hand.

The canisters weighed nearly a hundred pounds each; the reaction was more than Allen had expected. He nearly swept by the station on the other side, but Judy scrambled out of the descent module, gripped a handhold, and stuck her feet out in his path. He grabbed her boot on his way past and pulled her over backward hard enough to pop joints in her spine, but she held on and let him climb down her body until he reached the handhold.

He paused with his helmet next to hers and mouthed a single word: Thanks.

“Any time,” Judy replied. “Come on, let’s go before Carl sends the cavalry after us.” She pointed inside.

She let Allen climb in first this time, motioning for him to sit in the far seat with the remaining canister on his lap, then she climbed in after him and pulled the hatch shut. She flipped the separation switch, and the module shuddered as the explosive bolts freed them from the station. With the joystick, Judy rolled it over until she had a clear shot out through the payload bay; then she used the forward thruster to move them free of both the station and the shuttle. She kept up the thruster burn until they were moving away at a couple dozen feet per second; at that speed they could fire the retros in less than a minute without damaging anything with their exhaust.

She checked her suit’s oversize digital wristwatch. They were about halfway through their descent window. Good; that meant if they missed a little they’d still come down somewhere in North America . Judy hoped it would be someplace rural, but she would take what she could get.

Carl and Mary and ground control were all still shouting at her. Their combined voices were nothing but a distracting babble, so Judy switched them off. She swung the descent module around until the nose was pointed backward in their orbit, and when she was sure she had it lined up right, she pushed the big red “Retro” button.

Acceleration slammed her back in the seat. The shuttle spacesuits weren’t designed to be sat in under thrust; Judy felt all the internal hoses and seams pressing into her back and legs, and the waist ring drew a painful line between her kidneys. She tugged at it until it fit into the hollow of her back.

The thrust died away as the retro rocket burned the last of its fuel, and they were once again in free fall. Judy nudged the joystick left a little to keep them lined up properly, and waited for the first contact with the atmosphere.

It came as a gentle rocking, easily corrected with the thrusters. Then a little heavier, buffeting rather than rocking. Judy corrected for that, too, keeping the heat shield beneath them aimed straight into the onrushing air. She could feel the drag now, pushing her into the seat the same way the retro rocket had. Only this time the force didn’t stop at one gee. It built up, two gees, three, more.

With the gee force came the fireball. Long streaks of flame shot past the hatch window, engulfing the entire capsule.

Judy looked over at Allen. He was looking out at the flames with eyes as wide as fried eggs, and his mouth was gaping open. Judy couldn’t tell if he was screaming or just hyperventilating.

“It’s all right,” she told him. “It’s an ablation shield. It’s supposed to do this.”

Then a big flaming chunk of something swept past the window, and the capsule pitched violently to the side.