[54--Ophiuchus-Fr]

With all the hype you get on the TV about launch accelerations for the Titan and Apollo Rockets, I'd expected 'bone-jarring', but our lift-off didn't even bruise me.

The acceleration was definitely noticeable—I felt like it was about twice my proper weight—but it was really hard to gauge, me being strapped down.

I had nothing to do, and twenty five minutes to do it.  I wished they'd have let me bring my Grip.

Some time after we launched, I'm not sure when because I couldn't see my watch and counting had proven to be too subjective, the old Judge started looking peaked.  I could see his face redden through his mask, and then go purple.

I couldn't signal to the crew, and I was strapped into a harness that I couldn't unbuckle by myself.  All I could do was watch him fight for breath and struggle against his harness in vain.

He gave up after a bit, whether from exhaustion or he'd passed out I wasn't sure.  I could tell his eyes were closed though.

"NOW HEAR THIS," the same voice as before informed us, "STAND BY FOR FREE FALL.  FREE FALL WILL COMMENCE IN THREE MINUTES."

I didn't, in my wildest dreams imagine that twenty-plus minutes had already elapsed since we blasted off.  I started counting again.

I was up to six minutes when the voice spoke again.

"FREE FALL WILL COMMENTCE IN SIXTY SECONDS."

My sense of time was all askew. 

Come on, I willed the Judge to stay alive.

He opened his eyes and he vomited into his mask.  When he finally stopped retching, I could see that the seal had leaked.  He was in sad shape.

"FREE FALL IN THIRTY SECONDS."

He was gonna drown in his own vomit, while I watched helplessly.  He might not make it another half minute.  I grasped the buckle on my chest again, trying to figure out how to bypass the lubber-lock.

"FREEFALL IN TWENTY SECONDS."

I was frantic now, desperate to get out of my Iron Maiden and help him.

My arms were trapped, held down above the elbows.  The buckle was the only thing I could reach and it wouldn't budge.

My feet were free, but what could I do with them?

"FIFTEEN SECONDS."

The Judge was coughing, possibly chocking on his own bile.

I had to do something or he was a goner.

"TEN SECONDS."

I managed to get my knees up near my face, and unseated my mask.

I shook my head violently and the mask came away.

"Little Help down here," I yelled, hoping they had a microphone in the cabin.

The hatch dilated again and Vastis came down the ladder.

"Calm down, Heywood," he tried to grab my mask.

"Never mind," I yelled at him.  "See to the Judge."

"FIVE SECONDS."

He turned around and loped across the cabin, snatching the Judge's mask off.  He spat and retched again. 

"STAND BY FOR ZERO ACCELERATION."

A buzzer went off and sounded for the longest time.

Vastis was trying to undo the Judge's harness and clear his mouth at the same time.

The Judge kept puking on his hands and coughing up foamy pink chunks.

The buzzer stopped and suddenly the room was floating.

What sputum had hit the floor generally stayed there, but a few of the larger globs floated off in nasty-looking pink spheres.

The Judge came free but heaved again, vomiting a cone of free-floating filth.  I was caught with a full broadside. 

He arched again, lifting himself off the ground and knocking Vastis spinning.

Vastis flattened out like a starfish and caught a stanchion of the ladder-cage as it passed.  He launched himself to me and flipped in the air, coming to a crouching stop right by my left ear.  He hooked a foot under a nearby rack and bent over me, deftly unlatching my harness.

There was a big round hatch over the rack he was standing on and he opened it, tossing me a wad of a tan-colored fluff.  He took another wad and dove into the air, sucking up the vomit as he went.

I cleaned myself off, oblivious of the chaos around me. 

By the time I was done, the Judge was sitting calmly in a different chair and Vastis had wiped the cabin down.

I was also floating free, just out of reach of any handhold.

He grabbed me by the foot and towed me to the center of the cabin.

"Grab on to a handhold and keep it.  Groundhogs are required to keep a handhold at all times.  No skylarking."

I noticed his nametag had his proper name.  He was all business, and showed no signs of his dirt-side antics.

I blinked and nodded.

He turned to my fellow passenger.

"Are you okay, Judge Garr?"

"Yes," he said, thumping his chest.  "Thanks to you, young lady."

"I couldn't do anything," I apologized.  I'd felt so helpless.  "Sorry."

"Don't," he warned.  "We can't know what would have happened in that last twenty seconds, had you not intervened.  I owe you a debt honor."

"No need.  I wasn't able to do much."

 "There is a need," he said seriously.  "Young kids don't have enough consequences, good or bad, these days."

"I suppose.  I'm Dani, by the way; Dani Heywood."

"Nice to meet you, young lady.  Why is such a young woman traveling into space, and by herself, no less?"

"I'm sixteen," I told him, pulling out the Federal ID they gave me when I was emancipated.  "And an adult."  I figured a judge would take it all in stride.

He took it and looked it over. 

"Nice you meet you Dani.  I'm Henry, Henry Garr."

"Likewise, I'm sure.  You are a Judge?"

"Yes, I'm a Federal Judge.  Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals."

"Are you on vacation?"  I couldn't imagine what else a judge would be doing going to space.  Was he fulfilling a life-long, and nearly life-ending, dream?

"Business," he said.

"Me too."

We talked, idly for several minutes, but then an awkward silence intervened.  You could only follow someone so far while you were wearing their vomit.

Captain Griffin slipped down the ladder like a fish, and zoomed over to where we were sitting.

"We're coming up on the station.  If you wanna see the it, now is the time."  He pointed to the ring of ports around the perimeter of the ceiling. 

I floated up to one and looked out.  The station, looking like a bicycle tire, grew slowly.  I watched for a few minutes and was alarmed at how quickly we were approaching it.  It grew as I watched, and fairly loomed in the window by the time the Captain spoke again.

"Time to get you all strapped back in."  He pointed us to new seats and rearranged the counterweights.

He buckled us down, but with a different harness that left our arms free.  He gave us each a mask, but didn't fix them in place.

"I'm going to trust you two.  We're going to flip on our axis and then another burn.  This one will be short and sweet.  Six seconds, 10 centimeters per second squared.  You should both be fine.

"We'll click-to in about three minutes, then we'll start unloading."

He shinnied up the ladder and the pressure hatch closed behind him.

"NOW HEAR THIS, STANDBY TO UNCLUTCH GYROS."

I heard a clunk and a whirring noise.  I felt the slightest of pressures pushing me into my seat.

"ACCELERATION WARNING!"

Then another push, but harder this time, and steady for six seconds. 

Finally, a klaxon, and another warning over the loudspeaker.

"IMPACT IN ONE SECOND."

There was a clunk, then a hissing sound, and I felt a gentle bump.  The whole cabin began to shake and I heard a disturbing metallic groan.

Then we were still, but hardly quiet.  Besides the hum of the onboard machinery, I could hear a cacophony of noises, presumably coming from the space station itself.

We were unstrapped by the time the first foot came down the ladder.

It was Captain Griffin, but Vastis was right behind him.  I was surprised to see a third pair of legs emerge, these clad in white.

Their owner was a thin, dapper man in his mid thirties, with coal black hair and a goatee.  He wore a white uniform, with two black bands on his shoulder boards.  His nametag said "Inspector Fiennes, I.S.A."

Judge Garr was looking a little green, but none of the rest of us seemed bothered by the lack of gravity.

We made our way down the ladder and out the airlock, where we found more guards, dressed in white jumpsuits and tabi socks, guarding the entrance. 

With them was another man in white, this one a Customs officer named Eisenmeuller.  He looked at our papers and stamped them.  He didn't have any questions for me or the Judge.

"Welcome to Ophiuchus Station," he said pleasantly.

We were hanging in mid air, beside our ship in an enormous cylinder with a door on each end.  There was more than one ship inside. 

There was a gantry about halfway down the wall, and he pointed to a door on it.

 "Please proceed to the mezzanine, and give them these papers.  They will process you in and give you billeting assignments.  The Skipper has been notified and you should expect to be debriefed within the hour."

I took my package, now getting quite thick, and dived toward one of the ladders that ran the length of the dock.

I caught it and walked myself, hand over hand, to the mezzanine.