Post by dans on Mar 21, 2021 15:36:19 GMT
Caroline Dean, Freedom's Star
Rescue? Who Needs a Rescue?
Once Sable surrendered, it was over except for the details - but there were a lot of details.
What to do with their prisoners? Captain Prague figured that one out.
"Put them in the bilge!" he snorted gleefully. "Then send them back to Earth in the SL R capsule." Skylab didn't have any waste recycling facilities; instead reusing an empty oxygen tank from one of the original Saturn rockets that had put much of the station into orbit. "The sewage tank's less than half full - plenty of room left for four pirates in space suits! SL R should be here in less than half a day - they can put up with wading around in sewage that long!" It wasn't actually as gross as the idea sounded - in the cold of space, everything in the waste tank was frozen solid. It was evacuated and separated from Skylab by an airlock; it seemed about as escape proof a prison as one could get in orbit. The individual pirates were allowed to enter Skylab one at a time, they were disarmed if necessary and fed, then sealed back into their suits and shoved unceremoniously through the waste lock.
How would they get back?
Their original launch vehicle needed repairs just to be air tight, and Prague doubted that any repairs performed in orbit would make it proof against the re-entry plasma fireball. SL R was bringing a new hatch and ports, and they could likely make their original launch vehicle air-tight - but any irregularities on the surface of the capsule they created when sealing the new port and hatch would be weak points where the plasma might burn through, and none of the astronauts had any desire to see just how hot it might get if that happened!
"Colonel Austin has simulation training on the X20 and experience flying lifting bodies," General York suggested from the ground. "Suppose Prague and O'Neill bring back three of your prisoners, while the three of you, Col. Austin, and 'Captain' Sable return in the Space Shark?" That sounded good to Joyce, Prague and Liberty Belle. Sable initially objected, but changed his mind when other less pleasant alternatives were presented - like remaining alone in orbit until a second SR R vehicle could be prepped to launch (a couple of weeks estimate) or making the rough ride through reentry with four men crammed into the space in the SL R capsule that was uncomfortably crowded already with the design limit of three.
He even agreed to spend a few hours coaching Col. Austin on the controls of the Shark, and he enthusiastically joined the work team that removed the scaffolding from the underside of the Space Shark, as the Ionic Thrusters were still incomplete; without the specialized knowledge of Major Dean, none of the other astronauts felt comfortable finishing the work on them.
With the prisoner situation squared away and their ride home assured, the original crew even found time for some science - with Liberty Belle pitching in as she had promised and ably performing all the tasks that had originally been assigned to Major Dean, except for working on the Ionic Thrusters. SL R arrived on schedule, with O'Neill in particular announcing his disappointment that the pirates had already been subdued, and Colonel Austin perhaps secretly relieved that he wouldn't have to put the extra capabilities of his bionics to any strenuous tests in micro-gravity - at least this time! The three prisoners were loaded onto the SL R capsule and O'Neill and Prague returned it safely to Earth. And a few days later, with about 80% of the Skylab 3 science objectives completed successfully, Austin piloted the Space Shark back to Earth and a successful landing on the dry lake bed of the White Sands Testing Facility in New Mexico.