'59 - A Space Exploration Adventure: PT18steemCreated with Sketch.

in #story5 years ago

I'm going to have to go back through all my old notes for this story - if I can find them.
Keeping track of the dates over the 3 year period it covers is a bit difficult.
I hope there's no glaring errors spoiling your enjoyment of it

© A Sunderland 2011


Now though, Walsh was in his element. The job of upgrading the existing engines involved good old fashioned engineering talent and the work was hard, demanding, hot, and cramped. It called for what Walsh loved to call ‘buckets of elbow grease.’ One of his favorite tricks was sending apprentices and the naive younger engineers down to the stores for tubs of the imaginary special ingredient. He would shout after them, “run both ways and walk back,” much to their bemusement.


The first sign of danger was spotted by Lieutenant Ping Li from the cockpit of her supply shuttle. A stream of super-heated coolant spewed from Endeavour’s port exhaust valve. The white hot vapor sprayed a section of the station’s web like structure, buckling the struts and causing several of the intricate jointing brackets to bulge.
The force of the blast propelled the ship forward, skewing its nose to the right, putting incredible tension on its moorings, and stretching the thirty meter long access tunnel that connected the dock to the main door on her port side.
Li gasped in horror as the vapor began to crystallize. She turned to co-pilot Adam Young and said, “we have to warn the crew before the whole dock disintegrates.”
“It hasn’t done any major damage,” Young replied, “a small steam shower isn’t going to destroy a massive -”
“Did you not learn anything at the academy? Even physics 101 should have taught you about thermal shock.” She maneuvered her shuttle sideways on to the space dock’s central section. She lined it up with the airlock right next to the tunnel.
“I know that stuff!” Young retorted indignantly. “Even if a few struts snap it’s not going to fetch the whole thing down like a pack of cards.”
“What about the stress and tensile forces caused by a massive spaceship twisting on its moorings?” Li set the auto docking procedure. “This whole structure could be torn apart.”
Young grimaced and said, “why the hell are we hitching ourselves up to this thing instead of getting the hell out of Dodge then?
“You can get this ship to safety as soon as I am clear,” Li climbed out of her seat. “I have got to get the Endeavour under control.”
“You’re not qualified to pilot an interstellar ship.”
“I only need to use a counter-thrust against the escaping gasses to regain its equilibrium.” She punched in the airlock access code.
“Oh, so you’re going to save the world are you?” He sneered. “You’re not even fit enough to-”
Li was gone.
She stepped through into the main loading area, turned right, and headed for the tunnel airlock. She held her passcard out to swipe it against the access panel but was shaking so much she missed the scanner.
She gritted her teeth and mentally told herself, “keep it together!” She knew the tunnel was flexible and designed to extend by several meters and cope with a degree of stretch and twisting. Through the porthole she could see just how much it was being tested to its limits.
She put her left hand against the wall to steady herself and swiped the card across the reader. The panel beeped and then displayed her I.D. image. She punched in her code.
ERROR: INCORRECT KEYCODE.
She cursed herself.
Li pressed the first two keys, but before she could tap the third one she was thrown forward to her right. Her finger caught several keys before she could grab a safety rail. The floor rocked back slightly and she clung on tight to the rail.
She pulled herself upright and looked at the screen.
The same error message.
One last chance to get it right.
She put her left hand against the wall, steadied herself, closed her eyes, and concentrated for a moment. She took long, slow, controlled breaths; anxious to control the rhythm of her chest.
Her diseased lungs, a legacy of a childhood in an impoverished area contaminated by the illegal mining of rare earth elements in the Qinghai province of China, were already struggling to cope with the exertion.
“You can do this” she whispered to herself, As the floor rocked gently to the left Li applied slightly more pressure through her left hand to balance herself. She pressed firmly on each of the keypad digits required for her code.
She heard a voice behind her call out, “where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Looking over her right shoulder Li saw a security officer, Andreas Beyer, in full environmental protection (EV) suit, heading towards her on a three wheel electric buggy, his helmet beside him on the passenger seat. She pushed the ‘enter’ button and shouted back, “I’ve got to get on board that ship.” The airlock door opened with a gentle swish.
She winced at the sharp stabbing pain in her right lung.

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Hello @ebookwriter, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!

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