“Thirsty, Jack?”
“No. Not yet, Skipper. I don’t feel shocky. Just tired. And like I have God’s gift to sunburns.”
“I’ll say. Let’s get your legs blown up. Can you hang on here for a minute?”
“I’ll be here.”
Parker could hear in Enright’s voice that he was coming around.
“Don’t go ’way,” Parker called as he went topside through the ceiling access hole. He soared to the front of the flightdeck cockpit. There, he locked tinted sunshades over the six forward windows of the cabin. He would protect Enright from the sun. Although quickly setting, the sun shone hotly through the windows from low in the western sky. The cabin looked dusky with the shades over the windows. He did not bother to darken the two rear overhead windows or the two rear bulkhead windows facing the payload bay. These windows were already in shadows from Endeavor’s hull.
“Okay to come aboard, Cap’n?”
Parker cast a surprised look toward the floor hatch behind the copilot’s empty right seat.
“Sure,” the AC replied with a faked, matter-of-fact voice.
“About done sunning yourself and takin’ it easy, Jack?”
Parker watched the cheesecloth head float up from below. Enright carried the squeeze bottle of salty, electrolyte soup.
“Can’t party all the time, Skip.”
“Reckon not, Jack.”
Enright strapped himself into his right seat. He plugged his outer pants into the cabin’s portable oxygen system located on the back of each flightseat. The anti-G trousers slowly inflated to twice the size of Enright’s thin legs.
The AC floated behind his own, empty seat. Looking over the center console, he studied his partner with the grossly swollen, masked face. The AC’s face betrayed his concern.
“Now my legs look like yours, Will.” Jack Enright was back.
“How you like it?” the AC smiled as he strapped into his left seat.
“I’d really rather be in Philadelphia.”
“Me, too, Number One.”
Out the tinted front windows, LACE hovered to the left of Parker’s seat and Soyuz flew 50 yards off Enright’s right shoulder. All but a wisp of debris had disappeared from the vaporized Chinese spacecraft.
“Down to just the three of us?” Enright asked.
“Yep.”
“Wonder how many pilots she carried?”
“Don’t want to know, Jack… Drink some water.”
Enright pulled a squeeze bottle from beneath his seat and he forced the drinking tube between his painful lips behind his moist gauze mask.
“Endeavor: Configure AOS Dakar at 05 hours, 01 minute. Sunset momentarily. How’s Jack?”
“Lookin’ like the creature from the black lagoon, Flight. But we’re both on station forward. Sunshade up on the windows forward.”
“Real fine, Will. Do you have your visors on and locked?”
“Ah, negative, Colorado. Jack couldn’t get into his with a crowbar. And I couldn’t hear him if I wore mine. So we’re a bit naked up here. Both of us still sweatin’ in the liquid coolant skivvies.” The AC spoke into the twin lip mikes of his CCA Snoopy hat.
Outside, the sun was flattening upon the western horizon orange and hazy. With Shuttle rightside-up and her nose parked toward the northeast, the low sun shone into Parker’s leftmost forward window. The tinted shades cast a blue pall upon the cockpit. The Colonel’s right hand reached up to Panel Overhead-Six above the forward windows. He turned five knobs which dimmed the floodlights of the cockpit and brightened the red back-lights of the instrument meters and pushbuttons. In a minute, the sun was gone.
“Pullin’ the sunshades now.”
The crewmen removed the six window shades to reveal the moist black sky west of the African coast. Outside, Soyuz 100 meters away had trained her intensely white arc lights upon LACE 50 meters from Endeavor’s port side.
“Ivan is illuminating the target again. Any air-to-ground from him yet?”
“Negative, Will. Not a word.”
Endeavor flew in pitch blackness halfway between Brazil and western Africa.
“With you another 2 by Dakar, Endeavor. We’re not getting any bio from Jack. Check his plugs, please.”
Before Parker could look sideways, the copilot pulled a cable from his coolant long johns and plugged it into a wall jack.
“Got Jack’s vitals coming down now. Thank you.”
Enright nodded. He could hear the ground over a wall speaker mounted in the upper right corner of the forward instrument panel.
“Wilclass="underline" We’re looking at Jack’s bio harness digitals. His pulse and pressure look stable. Doc wants you to keep close watch on both when you’re out of ground contact. Pay close attention to his BP especially. If you see any sign of neurogenic shock, get an electrolyte IV into him immediately. We also recommend the anti-G pants for Jack for the rest of the mission.”
“I’m ahead of you, Flight. Not to worry. Jack is doin’ fine.”
“Good news, Endeavor. Doc is right here if you need any assistance.”
In the right seat, Enright fumbled with a CCA headset. Carefully, he put the Snoopy headgear around his neck like a scarf. Snapping the chin strap in front of his throat, the CCA floated upon his shoulders without touching his gauze face. He positioned the microphones to rest near his swollen lips.
“I’m with you, Flight,” Enright said with a dry mouth. He spoke as through a mouth full of cotton.
“Super to hear your voice, Jack. Doc Gottwalt is at a Canaveral console listening if you need him. How goes it?”
“Afternoon, Mike. I’m uncomfortable but okay. Real stuffy in my nose. Skipper shot me up with the good stuff and I’m feelin’ no pain. Could sell that on the street… Safer way to make a living.”
“Copy that, Jack. But you wouldn’t get a room with such a view.”
Enright looked through his wet and sticky eyeholes toward his right window. He saw the red-and-green running lights along the afterbody of Soyuz against a star field borrowed from a Christmas card.
“Guess not, Flight.”
“Endeavor: At 05 plus 05, you’re crossing the Equator. You are LOS Dakar and now AOS by Ascension Island.”
“Roger, Flight.”
Endeavor cruised southeastward 1,800 nautical miles west of Libreville, Gabon, on the west African coast. Missing the African mainland well beyond the eastern horizon, Shuttle would not make another landfall for 2,600 miles.
“For your burn pad, Wilclass="underline" Your next deorbit burn opportunities are coming up fast at 05 plus 33 plus 21 for Edwards and 05 plus 42 plus 11 for Kennedy landing. Can you set up for getting down that quickly?”
Parker glanced toward Enright at his right.
“Jacob?”
Enright raised his left hand. He gave an airman’s thumbs-up.
“Ah, negative on that, Colorado… Ain’t quite got ’em all in the corral yet. Jack and I are not done here yet.” The voice of the Aircraft Commander was full of Go.
“Will, backroom says no joy with Jack. We want you down this revolution.”
The tall flier’s left hand gripped the glareshield overhanging the instrument panel. His free hand worked his microphone button.
“Tell your backroom to…” Parker felt a hand lightly upon his right shoulder. “… to put their re-entry plots away till a little later.”
“Hear you, Will. Understand. But Jack cannot possibly go outside.”
The command pilot stroked his right leg, throbbing and swollen.
“Jack won’t.”
“Endeavor,” the ground began.
“Stand-by one, Flight.” Enright called softly over the microphones floating beneath his wet chin.
“Okay,” the black boxes crackled.