Chapter 14• Guard your heart
-(Very Slight language warning this Chapter)-
/
*Day 8 of Origenes Crisis*
(One day before the naming of the crews)
/
I often wondered why the days leading up to something critical always seemed to drone by slowly, while the minutes and hours of said day sped by in ridiculous haste.
Day 8 was about putting it all together.
All of our simulations were suited; All of which went very well.
I had mastered the harness, which meant I was ready for the moon's gravity to some degree.
The changes brought on by the events of the previous day were immediately noticeable.
I was updated constantly throughout the day. No fewer than three NASA workers followed me at all times.
They quite literally waited outside of the bathroom for me.
As odd as it was, compared to feeling relatively unimportant over the previous months, it was a pretty nice change of pace.
"How are you feeling?"
"Did that make sense to you? If not, I wrote it down."
"If you think you'll get lost, just find me and I'll take you!"
"When's the last time you had water?"
"You sure you're feeling alright?"
They weren't leaving anything to assumption. They needed to know if something was wrong, which I appreciated.
The constant streams of information yielded their own rewards.
I finally received confirmation from what had been given as an estimate in our packets.
5 g's of force would be the maximum amount we would feel during our mission.
We'd likely feel 3-4 g's during launch, 2-3 when we'd lift off of the moon, and 4-5 when we would reenter Earth's atmosphere.
I had already shown tolerance for it, and the centrifuge never lied.
My in-flight G-force training was going well also.
MacGyver was even surprised at how much I'd improved.
After what he'd called our "most intensive flying day yet", I experienced no wobbly feelings nor any loss in strength.
I was so hyped, in fact, that I hopped out of the cockpit and asked if we could fuel up and fly again!
That gave me the confidence needed to tackle the underwater external damage repair simulations once again.
This time, once our suits were on, we had to wait an entire ten minutes for every vent and tube to be re-checked for leaks and abnormalities.
Weston was absent from the trio, so Soot took his place.
Soot, Arlo, and I formed an incredibly well-balanced team.
Soot was naturally talkative and gave plenty of encouragement.
"Rocky is definitely better equipped than I to handle this one, so let me move out of the way before I start a fire", he'd say, setting me up to take the lead and work my "magic."
By that time, Mission control was beyond correcting him on the point that you can't start a fire underwater.
Soot kept Arlo and I laughing and energized for sure.
About an hour into the exercise, our pals at mission control decided to surprise us by remotely splitting the Command and Lunar modules while the three of us were congregated on one side of the split.
"Uh oh, looks like another anomaly down there", MC said jokingly.
Since this split was supposed to happen in lunar orbit, the sudden jolt of separation was a surprise to all of us. So much so that I dropped a wrench and watched it sink to the bottom of the pool as I tried to steady myself on the semi-sheer surface.
Technically speaking, the command module would never be left empty under any circumstances.
Still, they wanted to see what we'd do in the case of an astronomically improbable instance.
Arlo acted quick, grabbing the detachable cable that would keep us from floating off of the spacecraft.
He removed it, handed an end to Soot and I, and jumped across.
The combined weight of the two of us proved adequate enough to hold Arlo while he bridged the gap.
He floated between the two vehicles with the cable as we attempted to lower him to any part he could reach.
We were on the lunar landing half, so all we needed to do was ensure that Arlo got over to the command module's cockpit.
He passed close enough to reach down and grab a paw-hold.
Still hypothetically speaking, our emergency would have been over at that point. Arlo could just crawl back to the hatch, which had a special mechanism to allow entrance to someone who had been locked outside, and fly the module back to retrieve the lunar lander half.
Disaster averted.
However, these simulators weren't able to be piloted and moved only according to Mission Control's whims.
To bridge the gap, Arlo went for the old-fashioned pull-on-the-rope method.
I had accidentally discovered that whatever our tethers were made of responded to the magnets in our toolkits.
Since magnets don't need air or gravity to work, they were key for holding small things like bolts and nails.
I held one tether piece in place with one magnet, then used a larger magnet right behind the chord itself.
This wasn't so much pulling but shortening the amount of chord between Arlo's half and ours- Little-by-little.
At that point, the Command Module half began to rotate so that Arlo was no longer standing to our opposite.
Arlo's suit itself was different than the others, as his had a small winch built into the side of his detachable toolkit.
I definitely felt that a winch would be highly useful to me as the Mission specialist, but my final suit would have plenty of unique bells and whistles that I was oh so eager to see.
After he connected his half of the tether to the winch and started it, our combined efforts brought the two halves close enough to re-magnetize back together.
"Well done crew", hailed Mission Control, "If we were all professors, we'd give you three an A+."
"Please don't do that to us again, I thought we were friends", replied Soot over the radio.
"Copy that. The promise and friends- over."
I was beyond surprised. Despite the stressful conditions- I had a genuinely good time underwater.
My adventures didn't end there.
I was also forced into a large plane that would fly in high, near vertical sweeps only to dart downwards afterwards and gave those who rode inside a near zero-gravity experience.
I was still having fun, even as Origenes started to become "My Baby", as Nivram had put it.
Seeing it still concerned me, even in simulated form.
But it no longer held power over me since I knew every inch of its tech-riddled internal layout.
For the first time I thought, even if I were selected for the mission and made it all the way to the telescope to find an unsavable mess, I wouldn't regret a thing about the process of getting there.
At the conclusion of my day, however, I made a discovery that I wish I hadn't.
Somehow, Sophie sent me outside to wait for a tram to take me back to my sleeping quarters, but she didn't go with me.
For the first time that day, I was alone.
I heard two very familiar voices and turned a corner to see two NASA workers under an awning. Smoke from their cigarettes wafted through the air.
They hadn't noticed me, but I could still hear them.
Although I didn't plan on eavesdropping, the chance just fell into my lap.
I hid behind a parked NASA van.
It seemed that neither one of them were particularly happy.
"Yeah, I've been relocated before, what a pain in the ass", said one.
"Man, honestly, this is probably their way of firing me- without actually firing me", said the other.
"Well, they'd be kinda silly to fire you now", said the first.
"I mean, I've had a good run. Probably should have been gone a while ago", the second said.
I wondered, did my leak discovery somehow end up getting someone moved away?
The first added, "The people who bear the brunt of the force are never those who deserve it, you know it."
"Well, regardless I'm still watching the launch. The mission should go well, I hope", the second said.
"Oh, you didn't hear", the first interrupted. "Yikes…."
"Oh, come on, don't play like that now, I'm already halfway out the door", said the second.
They both fell quiet- I leaned in.
The first went on, "Apparently the official diagnostics report leaked out, some weird email glitch of some kind. They measured the possibility of damages to the telescope while it's up there on the moon."
"Oh, yeah?", said the second.
The first continued, "Combined with the capabilities of that spacecraft, it's going to boil down to the Lunar module pilot and the Mission specialist- the two who actually get sent down to take the plunge. Apparently, whoever wrote it up talked with Dr. Rosen. The official word was- best case scenario- they've got a 47% probability of success."
I heard what they said, but it didn't really register- I just stood there.
They had finished their conversation, long polished off their cigarettes, and left.
I couldn't stand the smell, but I just stood there.
I wasn't a statistician, not at all.
But 47%?
That was our best shot?
I couldn't help but wonder; Who was on the list as the best crew combination?
Who?
I walked back in a disappointed fog.
I was having a good day, but it was almost as if none of that mattered.
I sat down, waiting for the tram that still hadn't come.
***End of Chapter 14***
Chapter 14• Guard your heart
-(Very Slight language warning this Chapter)-
/
*Day 8 of Origenes Crisis*
(One day before the naming of the crews)
/
I often wondered why the days leading up to something critical always seemed to drone by slowly, while the minutes and hours of said day sped by in ridiculous haste.
Day 8 was about putting it all together.
All of our simulations were suited; All of which went very well.
I had mastered the harness, which meant I was ready for the moon's gravity to some degree.
The changes brought on by the events of the previous day were immediately noticeable.
I was updated constantly throughout the day. No fewer than three NASA workers followed me at all times.
They quite literally waited outside of the bathroom for me.
As odd as it was, compared to feeling relatively unimportant over the previous months, it was a pretty nice change of pace.
"How are you feeling?"
"Did that make sense to you? If not, I wrote it down."
"If you think you'll get lost, just find me and I'll take you!"
"When's the last time you had water?"
"You sure you're feeling alright?"
They weren't leaving anything to assumption. They needed to know if something was wrong, which I appreciated.
The constant streams of information yielded their own rewards.
I finally received confirmation from what had been given as an estimate in our packets.
5 g's of force would be the maximum amount we would feel during our mission.
We'd likely feel 3-4 g's during launch, 2-3 when we'd lift off of the moon, and 4-5 when we would reenter Earth's atmosphere.
I had already shown tolerance for it, and the centrifuge never lied.
My in-flight G-force training was going well also.
MacGyver was even surprised at how much I'd improved.
After what he'd called our "most intensive flying day yet", I experienced no wobbly feelings nor any loss in strength.
I was so hyped, in fact, that I hopped out of the cockpit and asked if we could fuel up and fly again!
That gave me the confidence needed to tackle the underwater external damage repair simulations once again.
This time, once our suits were on, we had to wait an entire ten minutes for every vent and tube to be re-checked for leaks and abnormalities.
Weston was absent from the trio, so Soot took his place.
Soot, Arlo, and I formed an incredibly well-balanced team.
Soot was naturally talkative and gave plenty of encouragement.
"Rocky is definitely better equipped than I to handle this one, so let me move out of the way before I start a fire", he'd say, setting me up to take the lead and work my "magic."
By that time, Mission control was beyond correcting him on the point that you can't start a fire underwater.
Soot kept Arlo and I laughing and energized for sure.
About an hour into the exercise, our pals at mission control decided to surprise us by remotely splitting the Command and Lunar modules while the three of us were congregated on one side of the split.
"Uh oh, looks like another anomaly down there", MC said jokingly.
Since this split was supposed to happen in lunar orbit, the sudden jolt of separation was a surprise to all of us. So much so that I dropped a wrench and watched it sink to the bottom of the pool as I tried to steady myself on the semi-sheer surface.
Technically speaking, the command module would never be left empty under any circumstances.
Still, they wanted to see what we'd do in the case of an astronomically improbable instance.
Arlo acted quick, grabbing the detachable cable that would keep us from floating off of the spacecraft.
He removed it, handed an end to Soot and I, and jumped across.
The combined weight of the two of us proved adequate enough to hold Arlo while he bridged the gap.
He floated between the two vehicles with the cable as we attempted to lower him to any part he could reach.
We were on the lunar landing half, so all we needed to do was ensure that Arlo got over to the command module's cockpit.
He passed close enough to reach down and grab a paw-hold.
Still hypothetically speaking, our emergency would have been over at that point. Arlo could just crawl back to the hatch, which had a special mechanism to allow entrance to someone who had been locked outside, and fly the module back to retrieve the lunar lander half.
Disaster averted.
However, these simulators weren't able to be piloted and moved only according to Mission Control's whims.
To bridge the gap, Arlo went for the old-fashioned pull-on-the-rope method.
I had accidentally discovered that whatever our tethers were made of responded to the magnets in our toolkits.
Since magnets don't need air or gravity to work, they were key for holding small things like bolts and nails.
I held one tether piece in place with one magnet, then used a larger magnet right behind the chord itself.
This wasn't so much pulling but shortening the amount of chord between Arlo's half and ours- Little-by-little.
At that point, the Command Module half began to rotate so that Arlo was no longer standing to our opposite.
Arlo's suit itself was different than the others, as his had a small winch built into the side of his detachable toolkit.
I definitely felt that a winch would be highly useful to me as the Mission specialist, but my final suit would have plenty of unique bells and whistles that I was oh so eager to see.
After he connected his half of the tether to the winch and started it, our combined efforts brought the two halves close enough to re-magnetize back together.
"Well done crew", hailed Mission Control, "If we were all professors, we'd give you three an A+."
"Please don't do that to us again, I thought we were friends", replied Soot over the radio.
"Copy that. The promise and friends- over."
I was beyond surprised. Despite the stressful conditions- I had a genuinely good time underwater.
My adventures didn't end there.
I was also forced into a large plane that would fly in high, near vertical sweeps only to dart downwards afterwards and gave those who rode inside a near zero-gravity experience.
I was still having fun, even as Origenes started to become "My Baby", as Nivram had put it.
Seeing it still concerned me, even in simulated form.
But it no longer held power over me since I knew every inch of its tech-riddled internal layout.
For the first time I thought, even if I were selected for the mission and made it all the way to the telescope to find an unsavable mess, I wouldn't regret a thing about the process of getting there.
At the conclusion of my day, however, I made a discovery that I wish I hadn't.
Somehow, Sophie sent me outside to wait for a tram to take me back to my sleeping quarters, but she didn't go with me.
For the first time that day, I was alone.
I heard two very familiar voices and turned a corner to see two NASA workers under an awning. Smoke from their cigarettes wafted through the air.
They hadn't noticed me, but I could still hear them.
Although I didn't plan on eavesdropping, the chance just fell into my lap.
I hid behind a parked NASA van.
It seemed that neither one of them were particularly happy.
"Yeah, I've been relocated before, what a pain in the ass", said one.
"Man, honestly, this is probably their way of firing me- without actually firing me", said the other.
"Well, they'd be kinda silly to fire you now", said the first.
"I mean, I've had a good run. Probably should have been gone a while ago", the second said.
I wondered, did my leak discovery somehow end up getting someone moved away?
The first added, "The people who bear the brunt of the force are never those who deserve it, you know it."
"Well, regardless I'm still watching the launch. The mission should go well, I hope", the second said.
"Oh, you didn't hear", the first interrupted. "Yikes…."
"Oh, come on, don't play like that now, I'm already halfway out the door", said the second.
They both fell quiet- I leaned in.
The first went on, "Apparently the official diagnostics report leaked out, some weird email glitch of some kind. They measured the possibility of damages to the telescope while it's up there on the moon."
"Oh, yeah?", said the second.
The first continued, "Combined with the capabilities of that spacecraft, it's going to boil down to the Lunar module pilot and the Mission specialist- the two who actually get sent down to take the plunge. Apparently, whoever wrote it up talked with Dr. Rosen. The official word was- best case scenario- they've got a 47% probability of success."
I heard what they said, but it didn't really register- I stood like a statue.
I felt my eyebrows furrow, not in anger necessarily, but in a slightly confused huff.
They had finished their conversation, long polished off their cigarettes, and left.
I couldn't stand the smell, but I just stood there.
I wasn't a statistician, not at all.
But 47%?
That was our best shot?
I couldn't help but wonder; Who was on the list as the best crew combination?
Who?
I walked back in a disappointed fog.
I was having a good day, but it was almost as if none of that mattered.
I sat down, waiting for the tram that still hadn't come.
***End of Chapter 14***