She glanced back at him. Maybe he was okay. “He’s moving towards the lander, but I don’t hear him saying anything.”
Kaz assessed possibilities. Had Chad somehow damaged his suit while sabotaging Lunokhod? She must have seen what he was doing. Had she caused the suit problem? How best to handle it?
“Thank you, Major Gromova. We’d like you both to end the moonwalk now and return to the Lunar Lander for ingress. We need to get him plugged into the ship’s systems to restore comms.”
“Ponyala,” she said, grunting as she grabbed the long antenna and heaved it back, trying to restore its original shape. The metal of its support mount twisted, and she pulled and looked up to align it with Earth. She bent the smaller antenna as well, until it was near vertical. Hopefully enough!
She turned and saw that Miller was almost back at the lander. She glanced at the distant TV camera, pocketed the gun and loped after him.
There was an audible sigh of relief in Mission Control as Chad came into view. Maybe just a data dropout, Kaz thought. They watched as he went straight to the base of the ladder and began climbing, Svetlana following. The moving images were blurred, but they could see the white of Chad’s suit disappearing as he crawled through the hatch. The cosmonaut was on the ladder, following.
Chad’s anger roared in his ears. You goddamned whore! He got up off his hands and knees, turned inside Bulldog, reached down and closed and locked the hatch.
As soon as he could get oxygen flowing into Bulldog, the climbing cabin pressure would push against the wide, square surface of the hatch, holding it even more firmly in place. She could turn the handle on the outside, but no matter how hard she pushed against the pressure, soon she wouldn’t be able to budge it.
Svetlana was trapped outside.
Her helmeted head was just clearing the top of the ladder when she saw the hatch swing closed. Nyet! She pulled hard on the railings with both hands and pivoted her body up onto the small porch, reaching to push the hatch back open, but it was already securely in place.
She leaned back to try to look up through the windows, but the space was too confined. Would he actually leave me out here?
She studied the bare metal face of the hatch. On the left there was a semicircle of gold foil and on the right a larger brown semicircle of bare fiberglass. There was writing across the center of the hatch, with what looked like instructions. Instructions mean options. Think, girl!
By the right half circle there were two orange lines painted like clock positions and words in block capitals. She puzzled out the English letters: Lock and Unlock. Must be otkrit and zakrit, open and close. There had to be an external control. She scrabbled at a rectangle inset into the fiberglass, and a Velcroed cover peeled off, revealing a metal handle. It was pivoted down, aligned with Lock. She grabbed it and twisted, but it didn’t move.
She leaned hard forward and worked her fingers behind it until it was securely in her palm, and pivoted with her whole upper body, pulling with all her strength. It released, turning through the short arc, and with a push the hatch swung away from her. I’m in!
Chad was reaching up to turn the oxygen control rotary switch when he felt the opening hatch bump into his legs. He looked down in irritation. Fuck! He urgently needed to solve his suit problem.
He stepped clear so she could open the hatch all the way, and he grabbed and yanked on her backpack to get her through faster. Moving around her as she got to her feet, he bent and relatched the hatch closed, reached up to his right and pushed the Cabin Repress circuit breaker in. An unseen valve clicked open, and oxygen from Bulldog’s tanks started flowing.
“FLIGHT, they’ve started cabin repress.” The calm voice of the Systems Officer belied the release of tension in the room. The small interior size of Bulldog meant the crew would have breathable atmosphere in just over a minute, and could take off their helmets.
Chad watched as the cabin pressure climbed. When it hit 2.5 psi, he moved the lever on his suit to Off, and as it stabilized at 4.3, he started taking off his gloves.
Watching from the back of the cabin, Svetlana warily copied his actions. Had he really just tried to kill her? Or was closing the hatch his way of showing her who was boss? Her hands ached after the hours fighting the pressure in the ill-fitting gloves, and it was a relief to get them off and stow them in her left leg pocket.
He was hooking his suit up to the ship’s hoses, his hands moving confidently as he bypassed the failed systems of his damaged backpack. Turning, he beckoned her closer, pointing at her hoses, reaching out. They’d both raised their gold visors, and she watched his face as he worked. It was curiously expressionless, giving her no hint of what he was thinking.