Justin saw an opening between two groups of cadets and took a shuffling step out onto the moving path. He started to lose his footing, and reaching up, he grabbed a handle, which jerked him along. Other cadets piled in around him, the more experienced setting off with leaping bounds down the track.
"Heard Major Davis got you on your Astro — Navigation problem this morning."
Startled, Justin saw Tanya standing beside him, holding on to a strap. Ever since their return she had been coolly formal. Perhaps the kiss she had planted on him during the summer was now a cause of embarrassment.
He tried to think of something witty to say. Having become a fan of old Bogart movies during the summer leave he tried a "Bogey" shrug and uttered a non-committal "Yeah, it happens."
The nervous squeak in his voice ruined the Bogart effect and he felt himself reddening.
"Study together tonight?" she asked. "Maybe we can figure out what Davis has up his sleeve."
"Yeah, sure."
"Great. Come on, we're losing the group."
Tanya bounded ahead on the walkway, taking twenty-foot strides. Justin tried to follow, noticing once again how gracefully she moved. She was, after all, part of the Academy's low- and zero-gravity ballet troupe, and her lithe, easy moves kept diverting Justin's attention as he struggled to keep up. There were times when looking at her made his heart skip a beat, and then there were other times when he wished she'd simply disappear. The way she was moving now definitely did not make Justin wish she would disappear. Watching her, he missed his strap and awkwardly tumbled into a group of upperclassmen. They soundly dressed him down until they jumped off the track into a side corridor.
His own group was now more than a hundred meters away and Justin struggled ahead, breathing a sigh of relief when he reached the end of the track and stepped off into the EVA prep area.
Their instructor, Senior Cadet Barker, was already calling the group to attention as Justin came through the doorway. Barker spared Justin a cold look but said nothing as he fell into line.
"All right you plebes, you got lucky today. Standard EVA has been scrubbed for the afternoon."
Some of the group looked disappointed, wondering if they were going to get stuck with another indoor suit drill, though Justin hoped Barker might opt for a game of falcon flying instead.
"We're in a near-orbital intersect with a Habitat Unit," Barker continued, "and the powers that be, in their infinite wisdom, have scheduled you pukes to go over for a look-see. We'd be making the run anyhow since we got some spare parts they need, so there's no sense wasting the tug space. We're taking a standard K-class open rig tug, so suit up."
Justin teamed up with Matt. Drawing two standard EVA suits from the lockers Justin helped Matt step into his suit, zip it up and connect his back pack. Matt then helped Justin into his suit. He clipped on his helmet, then finally his gloves. Justin checked the LCD readout inside his helmet and with a touch on the arm pad activated the system and ran a diagnostic. Everything checked out positive. The two then double-checked each other's suits, signaled a thumbs-up to Barker, and lined up by the door.
Following the senior cadet, the plebes filed into the airlock. The door slid shut behind them and Justin felt a momentary tightening in his gut. Since returning tathe Academy his platoon had gone on half a dozen EVAs, all of them review-and-checkouts of what they had learned during the summer, but it still made him nervous.
The sound of the alarm bell, the warning of depressurization, grew fainter as the air thinned, and then there was silence except for the low hum from his suit pump and a whisper of static in his headset.
"By the numbers, check off."
Justin scanned the LCD all functions were nominal, and he waited until the roll call was complete.
Barker opened the inner airlock door and led the way into the docking bay. He pointed out a tug and ordered the group to scramble aboard and strap in.
Justin eyed the craft cautiously. It was designed for short range ship to ship operations; the tug was really nothing more than a titanium girder a dozen meters long, with five-hundred-pound thrust engines mounted on either end, and smaller hundred- pounder thrusters mounted to fire along the Y- and Z-axes. A fuel tank was located amidships, and a chair for the pilot was at one end. Bucket seats lined either side of the girder down its length, and the seats could be snapped off to be replaced by hold-downs for cargo containers. There was no hull; everything was fully exposed to the vacuum of space.
For this run two canisters packed with spare parts for their destination were mounted above the fuel tank. Barker walked down the length of his ship, giving it a thorough pre-flight and double-checking that each cadet was strapped in. Justin settled into the chair directly behind Barker, and turned to watch as he powered the system up.
The outer airlock door opened. Barker gave a short burst of power to the stern engine and the tug lurched forward. While the tug was nosing out of the bay, Justin looked up relative to the rotational axis of the ship, becoming momentarily disoriented as he saw the center of the ship above him. The angular momentum imparted by the ship's rotation caused the tug to fall outward or upward relative to the central axis of the ship as it cleared the dock, the one-tenth gravity instantly replaced by the stomach lurch of free fall.
Barker expertly conned the tug, rolling it over and lining up on his target, Habitat Franciscan Three, which hovered like a white pencil just above Orion's belt. Justin gulped hard, trying to ignore the momentary flutter in his stomach.
"Everyone all right?" Barker asked.
There were no replies and Justin silently wondered if any of his comrades were worried about getting sick, what would happen if the fuel tank ruptured, or any of a hundred other prospects that could certainly ruin someone's day.
"It's a straight-out run," Barker announced. "Forty-two minutes, so hang on while I power up."
Now clear of the Academy, Barker gave the tug full throttle and Justin felt the slight kick of the engine straining against the several tons of mass it was pushing. Looking back he saw the Academy, silhouetted by the Moon. Forty-five degrees off was Earth, with North America shimmering under the noonday sun. He clicked on his faceplate magnifier; as he powered it up to maximum,
Earth appeared to leap towards him. A front of clouds was drifting across the Midwest. Most likely by sunset, he thought, there'll be a line of thunderstorms rolling through Indiana. A touch of homesickness hit him. He loved that time of day, when the air became still, hushed, the sky overhead darkening and then the first faint cool breeze swirling in from the west to break the humid heat. The slanting rays of the evening sun would disappear behind the towering thunderheads and then the storm would come lashing in, chilling the evening air.
He clicked the magnifier off and looked back at the Academy. They were starting to pick up speed; the Academy ship was already smaller.
Everything was silent, stark, highlighted by the brilliant glare of the sun. Yet all he had to do was put his hand up to block the streaming light and the stars appeared on either side of his hand.
Again it started to catch him; he remembered the lyrical stories of his father and grandfather. They talked about the early days of space exploration at the beginning of the 21st century, when humanity finally set itself the goal of reaching for the stars.
And I'm part of this now, he thought. Fearful as I am of it all, still I am part of it. He wondered if his father, too, had been afraid of the simplest things at first; whether he would get sick in zero gravity, if he was nagged by the anxiety that something would go wrong and bring him to a terrible end. And pulling a Hansen that was a dread as well. I might someday screw up, and then the honored name of my father would be eclipsed by the foolishness of his son.