He flicked his eyes down to see. “Real garden spot,” he grunted. He closed his eyes again, slowly.
As they drove into orbital darkness, the light around them swiftly changed from bright white to orange to blood red, like a fading flare was illuminating their faces.
Chad gagged, his whole body convulsing as he tried to contain it. He fumbled in his leg pocket, yanking out a sick bag just in time to get it positioned over his face as the steak and eggs shot out of his mouth like a jet. Luke grimaced and pulled himself across the hatch to the other window. He poked Michael and silently pointed with his chin.
Did they really have to make the bag transparent?
They both winced and watched in morbid fascination as Chad gagged again, the vomit ricocheting off the far end of the bag and flying weightlessly back onto Chad’s face. The cabin filled with the sour smell of vomit.
Luke pulled a cotton napkin out of his shoulder pocket and silently waved it to get Chad’s attention.
Chad took it from him. He squeezed the sick bag closed with one hand and mopped his face from forehead to chin with the other.
Michael tried humor. “Well, at least we can’t smell Luke’s farts now.”
Chad took one more swipe at his face and then stuffed the cloth into the sick bag, rolling and sealing the open end with the attached red twist tie. He pulled his own napkin out of his shoulder pocket and more carefully wiped his face and hands.
“I’ll get you some water,” Luke said. He squeezed past Chad to flick the pressurization switch, and pulled out the water dispenser, squirting it onto Chad’s napkin.
“Thanks,” Chad mumbled, wiping his face once more. He held up the half-full barf bag, a disgusted expression on his face. “What do we do with this for the next week?”
“I’ll chuck it when I go outside,” Luke said. “Maybe I can use it to disable Almaz.”
“Very funny,” Chad said as he Velcroed the sick bag next to the hatch, his newly empty stomach making him feel much better. He took a deep breath and checked his watch.
“We’re going to have to start cabin depress soon for the EVA.” He looked at Luke.
“Let’s get you dressed for battle.”
“Apollo 18, Houston, back with you through Madagascar. Looks like your burn was right on the money. We’re genning up prelim numbers for your second burn now.”
CAPCOM paused. “If you copy, type five balls.”
Michael had the digital response ready and pushed Enter.
“We see that, and all systems look good. If you have any problems, type five ones.”
Maybe this isn’t so bad, Gene Kranz thought, sitting in his Flight Director chair. Might be better for everyone if they can’t tell us exactly what they’re doing when we’re close to Almaz.
ALMAZ
25
Rendezvous, Earth Orbit
The Apollo crew had put their gloves and helmets back on, and the suits were stiffening as the pressure inside the capsule dropped in preparation for Luke’s spacewalk. Luke was watching the vomit bag inflate with the air trapped inside it, and hoped it wouldn’t leak or burst before they got to hard vacuum. He asked, “How you feeling, Boss?”
“I’m fine. Michael, how’d the burn look?”
“Right on the money. We should see Almaz ahead and above us soon.”
As soon as Michael caught sight of the space station, he’d manually maneuver Pursuit up close and try to match speeds exactly so Luke could physically reach out and touch the Soviet ship.
Tricky flying, but Michael had talked at length with astronauts who’d done the same sort of thing during the Gemini program. Wally Schirra had got to within a foot of another Gemini ship, and easily held his position there.
Luke was in front of one window and Chad at another, both peering into the blackness. The horizon was a faint purple glow arcing around the Earth.
“We’re still night for a few minutes,” Chad said. “I don’t see the ship yet. How soon until we get comms back with Houston?”
Michael held the Flight Plan in his overinflated left glove and clumsily ran his finger down the column. “We’ll have them in ten minutes or so.”
Chad thought about it. “The plan is to wait for Houston’s GO to open the hatch, but if we see that we’re getting there early, I’ll make the call.”
Luke floated away from the window to give Michael a clear view and grabbed onto Pursuit’s hatch opening handle. “I’m ready,” he said.
The wooden door of Mission Control opened abruptly, and Al Shepard strode in. Kaz caught it swinging as he and JW followed, and quietly closed it behind them. Al had phoned from ops at Ellington, and the three of them were up to speed on Pursuit’s communications problem. They climbed the tiered steps past the floor-level console, heading to join the officers at their assigned positions: JW to SURGEON on the second level, Kaz beside him to assist the CAPCOM, and Al up two more levels to the center back at DFO, Director of Flight Ops. They each reached into cabinet drawers under the consoles and retrieved headsets, plugging in and becoming part of what was going on.