Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [2]
After all, he was here, wasn’t he? And it wasn’t his fault that he’d arrived after Ruiz had checked out the rest of his Teammates in their vacuum suits and gone through the paces of the final exterior drill. In fact, he’d even offered to wait until Ruiz was ready to go, but the master chief had simply said, “Let’s do it.”
Sanders was so grateful, he looked almost giddy, an expression that seemed natural on his boyish features. With Sanders’s dusting of freckles, sand-colored hair, and light blue eyes, Ruiz had no trouble imagining him as a twelve-year-old, though he was in fact twenty-five. At an avuncular thirty-five, the master chief was the old man of the outfit and a contrast to Sanders in every other way as well. Dark of complexion and black-haired, befitting his Puerto Rican ancestry, Ruiz was fond of saying, “I’m too old for this shit.” But he and his Teammates knew it was a lie. In fact, here in space, with the unlimited vistas and the hostile but thrilling environment, Master Chief Rafael Ruiz was having the time of his life.
He paid particular attention to the back of the ensign’s suit, visually confirming that all the connections were secure and that the helmet was properly seated in the collar, with no creases or obvious flaws in the material. He checked the LED on Sanders’s chest while the ensign did the same with his HUD; both showed that his blood pressure and temperature were normal, with his heart rate only slightly elevated—just what one would expect from a guy about to make his first untethered space walk.
“All checked out, Enswine,” Ruiz declared, his voice tinny and mechanical within the confines of his Plexiglas helmet.
“Thanks, Chief,” Sanders replied. If he’d heard the mispronunciation of his rank, he knew better than to comment. Although ensigns technically outranked petty officers, even master chief petty officers, any young officer with a pretense of wisdom knew that he needed to earn the master chief’s respect, not simply demand it by virtue of the single gold bar of rank he wore.
Ruiz turned and allowed Sanders to inspect the back of his suit; then they repeated the drill of comparing the LED and HUD data.
“Looks like we’re good to go,” the ensign finally concluded, giving the chief a pat on the shoulder.
The two SEALS moved down the passage to the air lock, using the handles in the bulkheads to pull themselves along. Quickly easing themselves into the spacious compartment—it could hold six suited SEALS in close quarters—they waited only a few minutes for the pumps to draw the air out. Checking his HUD, Ruiz watched the air pressure drop. In the first minute it went from the atmospheric pressure of Earth at sea level to that near the summit of Mount Everest. In another ninety seconds, the sensor read “0 PSI.”
Each man attached a tether line to his utility belt. The thin filament would reel out as they moved and would keep them secured to the station until they determined that their IMS was working properly.
Only then did Ruiz nod toward the wheel on the exterior hatch. It was a design familiar to anyone who had ever served on a submarine or any other navy ship, which included all SEALS. “You want to do the honors, Enswine?”
Sanders nodded and quickly, even eagerly, spun the wheel.
When the outer hatch opened, they were confronted by the full infinite vastness of space. The sun was on the other side of the station, and Earth, half-illuminated, was brilliant and beautiful just “overhead.” In shadow, they moved away from the air lock.
Ruiz, as he always did upon emerging from the air lock, took a second just to stare. He never got over the wonder of seeing the whole world in one look. The Atlantic Ocean was blue and dazzling except where the spidery outline of a tropical storm moved toward the Caribbean. Ruiz’s wife was safe in Coronado, but he crossed himself and whispered a prayer for his mother’s safety in San Juan. He could see England and the Bay of Biscay, but the east coast of the United States was obscured by clouds.