Back to the Moon-ARC

Moving rapidly, the Altair rose to rejoin the now-empty Orion in lunar orbit.

“Did you feel that?” Tony asked Bill.

“Yes, I did!” Bill reached up and tapped the attitude-control algorithm screen, bringing it to the front. The thrusters started firing rapidly, and the ship started rocking back and forth.

“Ahhh!” Hui shouted as she lost her handhold and slipped. “I’m falling!”

“Tony! Grab her!” Bill shouted. But Tony couldn’t react fast enough to do anything. Fortunately for Hui, her tether pulled taut and stopped her from falling farther than just an arm’s length outside into the lunar night. But she was dangling against the already rocking ship and throwing off the center of mass for the control algorithms to adjust correctly. Tony and Xu did their best to pull her back up and steady her.

“Houston! We’ve got rapid bang-bang corrections going on, forcing us to precess and rock like mad. Any suggestions?”

“We’re working on it, Mercy I, but it might take longer than it will take to get up to the Orion. Are the manual controls an option?”

“Roger that!” Bill replied. Are the manual controls an option hell! “Manual systems online. Pilot taking over in three, two, one!” Bill took the controls and fought against the rocking and bucking ship. Bang, bang! Bang, bang, Bang, bang! went the manual corrections he initiated through the joystick. For several moments it seemed as though Bill wouldn’t be able to overcome the wild ride that the computer had generated for them. But finally he got the ship settled down enough that he could control it completely.

“Houston, I’m gonna have to fly her up to Orion. There are orange and red lights popping up nonstop on my screens.”

“Roger that, Mercy I. Good luck.”

“Did we do something to the ship that we shouldn’t have?” Tony asked.

“Sure we did, but it didn’t cause this. We’ve got either some software or electronics issues going on here,” Bill said.

It was a long three hours of constant course correction and slipping and holding on and slipping again all the way up to the Orion. But Bill knew that he was just the man for the job. He had hours and hours of training time on this vehicle. Granted he’d never simulated flying it with holes in the sides and six passengers aboard, but he was the most experienced at flying the ship.

After the second time that Hui had been tossed sideways and nearly out of the ship, she managed to use her tether to lash her left arm to a handhold.

It was a long three hours.

The rendezvous with the Orion capsule went exactly as planned. The crew then transferred from the Altair to the capsule that would return them home.

Stetson surveyed the five-person crew that he would be responsible for bringing home. They were alive, but tired and dirty. This was the first time he noticed the stench coming from the open suits worn by the Chinese. They’d been living in their suits for days, and they reeked of body odor, urine, and fecal matter. They’d been able to vent the worst of the mess from their suits while the air in their lander had been kept warm by the makeshift Bunsen burner, but when the air got unbearably cold, they’d just “vented” into their suits.

Everyone’s suits, except for Anthony Chow’s, were covered with a layer of lunar dust, turning their previously pristine white appearance to dark gray.

“What a mess,” Stetson told them as he surveyed the situation. “Okay. We all need to shed these suits and bag them quickly.” He didn’t want to offend the Chinese, who might not be aware of just how bad they really smelled, so he decided to use a plausible sounding, and totally accurate, alternate reason for asking them to remove their suits.

“You’re all covered with lunar dust. We can’t risk letting the dust get into Orion’s systems, so we need to get them sealed up as soon as possible. Please strip them off and secure them as best you can against the aft wall.” Lunar dust was formed from eons of meteorite impacts, and each piece was more like a multi-spiked ball than its well-weathered Earthly cousins. It stuck to everything, and letting much get into the Orion’s cabin simply posed too great a risk to its electronic systems.

The first to enter the Orion was Bill Stetson. After checking the ship’s onboard systems, he went back into the Altair and scanned the rest of his crew. He cycled them in and then pressurized the cabin. They each began getting out of their suits.

“Captain Hui, we brought one change of clothes for you and each member of your crew. This is one case where knowing a little about each of you ahead of time came in handy. Here are packages with your names on them. They contain the clothing and a few other items your people thought you would need. Also, there are antiseptic wipes available.”

Hui smiled and then replied, “I am not by nature a very modest person, Captain Stetson, but I understand the indelicate situation in which we find ourselves, and I will, of course, efficiently work the problem.” With that, she and the rest proceeded to strip. They then placed the filthy suits in garment bags, sealed them, and stowed them as best they could.

Hui looked like a different person without her bulky spacesuit and dressed in a fresh flight suit. Chow had changed into his flight suit, and both Xu and Zhi were clad in clean undergarments provided. They’d also managed to get Ming into his fresh flight suit. Each of them had bathed with the wipes as best they could.

“Gentlemen and lady, welcome aboard the Orion.”

Stetson helped Dr. Xu transfer the limp body of Ming Feng into one of the four chairs anchored to the floor of the capsule that would return them home. The chairs were arranged two on each side, one above the other with an aluminum deck below each of the top two seats. Open space separated each pair of seats, allowing movement between them.

Stetson buckled Ming into a seat on the lower deck.

The four remaining astronauts pulled themselves through the ring and floated into whatever open space they could find available in the very cramped interior of the Orion.