“I’m on it! Brakes direct!” the voice shouted from the submerged flightdeck as the arm made a slow swing across the open bay toward the tail fin with Jacob Enright in between.
“Full manual!” the chief called loudly. “Nulling rates from up here with brake drive direct!”
As the manipulator arm swung slowly out of control toward Shuttle’s tail, Enright’s left hand commanded the MMU backpack jets to thrust long and hard toward the tail which the RMS boom, the target, the PAM, and Enright slowly approached.
“We have oscillation building, Jack,” the chief shouted. “Pull him out, Number Four!”
Immediately, a NASA safety diver built like an Olympic wrestler reached for the space suit’s ankles. He jerked Jacob Enright down, but not fast enough. The swaying target slowly ground the pilot into Shuttle’s thick tail plane.
A burst of bubbles exploded from the top of the MMU, totally obscuring Enright’s helmet. The grotesque gurgle of a man spitting water bubbled over the wall speaker.
On his hands and knees at water’s edge, Will Parker labored to peer through the foam gushing to the surface.
Thirty feet below, the pressure of two atmospheres pushed a wall of ice water into the EVA suit’s torso and limbs.
With Enright on his back in a cloud of bubbles upon the floor of the payload bay, a diver straddled the pilot. The diver pulled hard on a wire ring at the pilot’s crotch. The foaming, heavy MMU backpack dropped away from the limp pilot’s backside. A diver at each of Enright’s arms pried his gloved hands from the MMU’s handles.
At the pilot’s head, the fourth diver carefully pulled the flier’s fishbowl helmet from his pale face. A rush of bubbles rose from the inverted helmet as it sank quickly to the floor of the Shuttle bay.
The diver at Enright’s head forced the mouthpiece from his scuba air tank into Enright’s open lips. Bubbles percolated from the tank on the diver’s back. While bubbles rose from the neckring of Enright’s suit, the diver squeezed Enright’s nostrils closed.
The pilot opened his eyes and thrashed his thick white arms at the mask of the diver leaning over his face.
A second diver restrained the pilot’s arms.
Jacob Enright inhaled deeply from the mouthpiece in his face and he relaxed his arms. He opened his eyes wide and he nodded on his back. The diver straddling the pilot’s waist released Enright’s arms.
Jack Enright gave a thumbs-up sign into the face of the diver beside him, who held his breath. Enright touched the mouthpiece between his teeth and pointed to the diver with the purple, bulging cheeks.
Enright took the tube from his mouth and he handed it bubbling to the diver kneeling over him. The diver put the mouthpiece into his mouth as Enright flexed his body and floated to his feet in the bay. His hair swayed in the chilly water.
The diver at the pilot’s side handed the mouthpiece to Enright, who took a long drag of air before he handed it back. Buddy-breathing with the pilot, the diver put his hands under Enright’s armpits as two other divers held each of the pilot’s elbows.
Slowly, Jacob Enright and the four divers clinging to him rose toward daylight.
The five men surfaced at the pool’s edge beneath Colonel Parker’s crouching body. Behind Parker, six anxious men leaned over his shoulders.
Jacob Enright spit out a mouthful of water. Colonel Parker ran his long, bony fingers through his partner’s wet and matted hair.
The pilot in the water choked out a soggy cough.
“So how’d we do, Skipper?” Jack Enright grinned weakly.
“You alright, sir?” asked a distant voice as warm fingers firmly grasped the shoulder of the dozing man in the corner.
Will Parker opened his eyes wide as he gasped for air like a drowning man. His eyes focused upon a young, bearded physician close to his face.
“Excuse me?” the tall man said groggily.
“You okay?” repeated the young intern.
“Yes… Yes. Thank you. A dream, I guess… What time is it?”
The intern straightened and looked at his watch.
“One-thirty in the morning.”
“Oh,” the Colonel mumbled as he ran his fingers through his short, graying hair.
The sitting man looked past the physician standing before him. He searched for the young woman who had been seated nearby. She and the old man had gone.
“I’m waiting for Dr. Casey.”
“Trauma Room One. That way.” The Colonel followed the young man’s arm down the dim hallway.
“Thanks.” The Colonel rose a head taller than the thin man in white. “Thanks.”
By the time William McKinley Parker reached the windowless door enscribed TR-1, he had fully recovered his bearings. His right leg at the knee throbbed as did each of his sore hips inside his baggy trousers.
“Damn,” he whispered rubbing his backside where he had been recently shot.
He leaned with his back propped against the tile wall in the hall beside the closed, heavy door.
“Help you?” inquired a fragile nurse at his elbow.
“Dr. Casey.”
“In there. You a doctor?”
The weary pilot’s mind mulled over his two doctorates in electrical engineering.
“Yeh.”
“Then you may go in.”
“Dr. Casey isn’t with a patient, is she?”
“No. Don’t think so. A staff meeting, I think. An M and M.”
“Thanks.”
Colonel Parker pushed open the massive door. He entered the bright examination room and found Dr. Casey and four men in white huddled around the exam table.
The tall airman blinked at a delicate young woman who sat upon the table. Her legs dangled barefoot over the table and a paper gown was crumpled about her sides. From her small waist upward, she was naked in the harsh glare.
Colonel Parker shrank into a corner. Dr. Cleanne Casey stared coldly at his haggard face. He could not retire with honor.
“You the consult?” asked an elderly man in a long white coat. The Colonel recognized the old physician as the figure who had comforted another young woman in the lobby 60 minutes earlier.
“Guess so.”
“Well… Your patient, Doctor,” the old man ordered as he and his colleagues in white backed away from the examination table.
With two long strides, the tall flier stood beside the naked young woman. He avoided Dr. Casey’s dark brown eyes heavy with the night. She said nothing.
William McKinley Parker laid a large, warm hand upon the girl’s bare shoulder. The girl blinked enormous and clear blue eyes. He had not seen such blue for over 20 years. Then, he had pressed his younger face to the small window of a two-man Gemini spacecraft 150 miles above Bermuda’s azure reefs.
When the tall man’s face creased into a warm and genteel smile, the crimson flush left the young woman’s neck and cheeks. She had a face like Truth.
“Have you a name, child?” the Colonel whispered softly.
“Maria.”
The Colonel smiled as his hard hand hid her bare shoulder.
With his large right hand, the sad-eyed pilot engulfed completely her small left breast.
“Breathe deeply,” Parker said softly. The girl’s narrow chest pressed warmly against his large hand.
“Again, child.” Her other breast disappeared completely into his palm.
Colonel Parker blinked a wetness from his gray eyes. He turned to the old physician who stood with his mouth open.
“Carry on, Doctor,” Will Parker commanded firmly.
“Live long, and be happy, Maria,” Colonel Parker said softly over his broad shoulder as the heavy door closed behind him.