“De-crimp what?” Scott sounded surprised, almost annoyed.
“The hypergolic fuel line to the thrusters.”
“What the hell’s been going on up here?”
“It’s a long story. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up—if I can get back to work. You transfer the fuel and I’ll explain later. And check with MCC about the status of those ASATs!”
“Copy,” Scott replied. Kind of sullenly, she thought. And the link went silent.
* * *
Her arms and chest still aching from struggling with the fuel transfer hose and opening valve, Kimberly reached Node 1 and started pulling herself across the outside of the module, heading for the access panel on the Russian FGB. She still felt weak from her brush with the bends, but at least that and the pressure of dealing with the two terrorists were behind her. The only worry she had now was that she might not be able to fully de-crimp the small-diameter fuel line.
The Earth continued to rotate below, showing no sign of the approaching ASATs or the turmoil wracking the U.S. eastern coast. But she couldn’t dwell on that false serenity. She was under a fast-shrinking timeline.
She spotted the metal access cover, still poking up vertically from the FGB’s outer skin as she pulled herself across the module. Securing her booted feet, she took out the vice grip, looped its safety line around her wrist, and pushed her helmet over the open access port.
She spotted the millimeter-thick tube that carried fuel to the thruster engines still buried in the layers of insulation. Trying to steady her breathing, Kimberly slid the pliers inside the small compartment. At first she could barely feel the small indentation, but her pliers abruptly caught as she gently ran the tool along the length of the tube. There was no question about it: she hadn’t fully de-crimped the line.
How did I miss this when I was out here before? She thought she’d checked to see if the tube was symmetric after she’d initially de-crimped it. She must really have been out of it, she thought, when she’d been out here earlier. But after struggling through the bends, she knew she’d been lucky to get back inside the station, much less partially fix the line.
She rotated the tool, then lightly squeezed the compound pliers, turning it in a circle around the line’s circumference. Then she slid the long-nosed compound wrench back and forth several times until she was absolutely certain that she had fully de-crimped the tube. She debated calling Scott to have him test the flow, but she needed him to transfer as much of the precious hypergolic liquids as he could—and they needed to assure the ground that they had successfully refueled the station.
With her safety tether retracting in, Kimberly started to make her way back to the Joint Airlock. Once again she left the access panel open, not because she thought she’d be back, but this time because every second counted.
JOINT AIRLOCK
Kimberly struggled to shimmy out of her suit before heading down to Central Post. She had red chafing marks around her elbows, collarbone, and the tops of her shoulders from her skin rubbing against the suit. She knew the irritation would fade away in about half an hour, but she looked like a sweaty, slimy worm that had just crawled out of a tight enclosure. What a way to feel when seeing her ex-husband for the first time in nearly a year.
Still wearing the tubed cooling garment, she kicked off to the side and caught a glimpse of Scott’s arm as she glided down the module’s axis. He’d already changed into his habitual blue-and-silver polo shirt with the Air Force Academy football logo. She thought that he wore it to let people know that even after a successful career as a fighter pilot and astronaut, his college experience as a defensive back was one of his personal highlights.
Then she thought, Or perhaps he remembered that it had been her favorite shirt when they were married.
She rotated around the hatch as she entered Central Post and pulled to a stop in front of one of the consoles. Floating upside down relative to her, Scott wore a headphone and a mike. He nodded as she entered, but continued talking as he ran through the fuel transfer checklist with mission control.
Fighting a sudden impulse to throw her arms around him, Kimberly nodded back as she turned to the laptop and focused her attention on the ISS graphical interface. She called up the station’s housekeeping parameters. The fuel tanks were already more than a third full, so she started keying in the commands for the engines to start boosting.
They needed to start gaining altitude without delay. Atmospheric drag had been increasing almost exponentially, especially since she’d hit bingo fuel. They were so low that raising the station’s orbit would be a real fight between atmospheric drag and the engines’ thrust.
She immediately set the control states, and watched as the hypergolic fuel made its way through the lines. She couldn’t feel any sense of motion from the minuscule 100-microgee acceleration, but there was a faint, unmistakable shudder as the thrusters fired. A low, barely perceptible vibration permeated the ISS.
She called up the fuel flow indicator: it was almost back up to normal. A sense of relief gusted through her: her efforts to de-crimp the fuel line must have worked.
Seconds passed. Scott waved for her attention, then gave her a thumbs-up. “ADCO confirms we’re climbing, right at five meters per second. They’re forwarding that information both to our defense liaison and the State Department channels, to get it to the Chinese.”
“But is our altitude increasing fast enough that we’re no longer a threat to crash?”
“I would think so. As long as we keep going up.”
Kimberly scanned the systems readouts, still not quite able to believe they were out of hot water. “What about the Chinese? Have they stood down their ASATs?”
Scott spoke to CAPCOM once again, relaying her concern. Kimberly saw that they had now transferred more than half the Starliner’s fuel; the station’s tanks were well above their minimum levels.
She ran through the whole list of diagnostics, checking the various housekeeping functions as well as the sensors scattered through the ISS. The only anomalies she saw were that the JPM’s power was still off, and the small experimental airlock was still open to space.
They’d eventually have to perform another EVA to close that outer hatch, Kimberly realized, but right now that ranked near the bottom of her priorities. Getting the ISS high enough so that it was no longer a threat to crash back to Earth, and ensuring that the Chinese had stood down their antisatellite missiles was at the top of her list.
Scott motioned for her to come over to the link he had set up with mission control. Kimberly swam to him. Grabbing his shoulder to steady herself, she saw on the screen Chief Astronaut Tarantino. He looked ragged, but incredibly more relieved than he had looked the last time he’d spoken to her.
“Kimberly,” he said. Then he stopped, choked up. “You’ve been through a lot. We can’t thank you enough—”
“The ASATs,” Kimberly interrupted. “Have they called them off?”
“The answer is yes and we don’t know. Our Aegis cruisers have stood down from launching additional missiles,” Tarantino said, glancing at a sheet of paper at his side. “But we’re still trying to find out the Chinese status. We received confirmation on the U.S. systems while I was getting an update from Scott. You don’t have to worry about them anymore. As far as STRATCOM is concerned you’re now in a stable orbit, and even if Scott hadn’t brought along the extra fuel, the station has plenty of supplies until the next Russian Progress resupply vessel docks in another month. You should come home now, both of you. Return to Earth.”