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“It’s at roughly the same orbit we were at before this started, right?”
“Uh, yeah, we’re…” Commander Palmer stares at the banks of switches and monitors, looking through them as he tries to process Ted’s question. After several long seconds he whirls around, his eyes wide and his mouth open. “Yes! It could work!”
“What could work?” Jackie looks at Ted and Palmer in confusion as they start talking excitedly over one another.
“The ISS!” Ted turns to her. “We’re too far down and are carrying too much mass and momentum to slow our descent or try a safe splashdown in the lifeboat.”
“But if we use the lifeboat to carry us to the ISS, we should have full control over all the systems there.” Commander Palmer continued. “The computers were taken offline but they still have power. Everything’s just dormant!”
“Does the lifeboat have enough thrust to get us there, though?” Jackie asked.
“Not on its own.” Palmer shook his head. “But it uses a different fuel source than the station thrusters. There’s a spare tank for the lifeboat down in the cargo section. Back of the napkin math says that plus what’s on board will get us and all the supplies we can carry over to the ISS.”
“What do we do from there?”
“We sit tight and wait for a rescue. Or pray there’s another fuel tank and use that to get back home.”
Jackie shakes her head. “This sounds insane.”
Palmer nods. “It’s absolutely insane and we will probably die due to some sort of unforeseen variable involved in flying by the seat of our pants.”
“Sounds way better than sitting here waiting to die, though.” Ted replies.
Jackie hesitates for a second before nodding in agreement. “I can’t argue with that. Let’s do it.”
Chapter 11
Somewhere Along the Indiana/Kentucky State Border
The Ohio River
Jane held a flashlight in each hand, using them to illuminate Rick and Dr. Evans while she shook her head and loudly complained at them. “You two are positively insane. I can’t believe you think this is going to work.”
Rick and Dr. Evans sat on the ground, their shirts and pants off as they tore black plastic trash bags off of a roll Rick had dug out of the back of the car. He had picked up the bags when they were in the shopping center previously and while he didn’t know at the time how he was going to use them he realized that they would be perfect for helping himself and Dr. Evans cross the river.
Rick looked up from his work, sweat beading across his forehead despite his lack of clothes. “It’ll work. Trust me. Right, Doc?” Dr. Evans glanced over at Rick and nodded as he blew air into a group of bags five layers thick that were all stuffed inside one another.
“It should help provide some much-needed buoyancy in the water, yes.”
“Plus we can wrap up our clothes and shoes and have them when we get over there.”
“And a blanket, to dry ourselves off with.”
Rick nodded enthusiastically. “Good call. Jane, could you grab the blue one out of the back seat? It’s light enough to take with us, I think.”
“You’re crazy, both of you.” Jane hurried back to the car, grabbed the blanket and ran back to Rick and Dr. Evans. Rick folded the blanket tightly and sealed it inside one of the trash bags, squishing all the air out of the bag and then tying it tightly to keep water from getting inside. Dr. Evans did the same with his and Rick’s clothing while Rick stuffed their shoes, a flashlight and some food and bottles of water into another bag.
“Perhaps, but if it works then we’ll save a bunch of time over continuing to drive.” Rick stood up and examined the makeshift floatation device he had constructed. The bag was nearly full but not completely so which would allow him to rest his chest on it while kicking with his feet to both propel himself forward and keep him afloat. Dr. Evans had inflated his bags the same way and with a full five layers of plastic on both they felt confident that an errant branch or rock wouldn’t instantly tear and deflate the bags.
“What if the boat doesn’t work or you can’t get it loose?”
“We’ll swim back and keep going.” Rick shrugged. “It’ll take us twenty minutes to cross over, another twenty to check out the boat and then we’ll know if this was worth the time expenditure or not. I know this is crazy, stupid and whatever else you want to call it but I’m tired of sitting in that car trying to find a bridge to cross. We’re losing so much time it’s not funny. This could work, so we’re going to give it a shot.”
Jane nodded solemnly and followed Rick and Dr. Evans to the water’s edge. Rick turned to her and pointed out at the barge and boat across the river. “All right, just remember to stay here and keep the light pointed at the barge. We’ll walk upriver a bit before jumping in so that we don’t end up down too far away from the barge. As long as you keep the light over there we’ll know where to swim.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Jane said. “You two just worry about not drowning or coming down with hypothermia.”
Dr. Evans nodded. “It’s fortunate that it’s not quite as cold tonight as it was last night. But the water’s going to make the air temperature a moot point.”
