"I hope Pierre's suit doesn't rip," Cho said, looking out the porthole anxiously.
"The EVA suits," Hermione stated, "do not 'rip'. They are comprised of various polymers, all of which have tensile strengths far greater than..."
"Oh, skip it, please," Cho cut in. There was a long silence.
Hermione carefully strapped herself into her hammock. One time floating out of it unexpectedly had been enough.
"Sorry. I'm just scared."
"Quite all right, so am I. Cho, if I may ask...why did you decide to...come back?"
"I didn't think I was going to die billions of kilometers from home if I did," she answered.
"We're not going to die," Hermione said, trying to sound confident. Cho didn't answer.
There was another silence. Clanking noises drifted down from the control room. Lawrence was extracting the wrecked coils from the Apparition chamber (trying to do this by magic would have destroyed the remaining computers), and Bernard was trying to sort out the oxygen pipes. Pierre had gone EVA to get the replacement coils, which were outside the part of the ship still holding pressure. Cho was wearing the other EVA suit; her job was to put a Bubble-Head Charm on herself and Apparate outside the ship (which should be safe enough with the bulkhead and hatch between her and the computers) to help Pierre if he got in trouble. Hermione had been ordered to rest, to maximize the chance of her magic being successful.
"So it worked out well? You and Ron?" Cho asked suddenly.
"Yes, it did," Hermione answered, almost apologetically. "Look, we cannot all get what we want in life..." She trailed off. "I've never learned when to stop talking, have I?"
"Not really," Cho answered. "But at least you aren't an idiot like me."
"You aren't an idiot."
"Really?" Cho sniffled. "What do you call someone who brings in the person who gets a society of thirty people, our best chance, caught? Then makes the one guy she loves hate her? And decides...and decides to stop using magic, like that would make anything better..." Teardrops welled out of her eyes and drifted away toward the air vent, wobbling back and forth. "I'm useless, useless!"
The hatch opened and Henry lurched into the cabin. "Right, what the bloody hell's going on here?"
"I'll handle it," Hermione said. "Cho's...she's having some..."
Henry nodded after a moment. "Do what you can." He opened his mouth to say more, then closed it again and went out, shutting the hatch gently behind him.
"How are you doing, Pierre?" Cho asked, trying to sound normal.
"I am doing well, am near ze coils. I am not sure I vill be able to hold all of zem..." His heavy breathing replaced his voice in Cho's headset. "Cho, please go and ask Lawrence whezzer he thinks you can, er, with ze safety, Apparate out here. This eez too many things to carry."
"I'll ask him," Hermione said.
"No point both of us getting out of these," Cho returned. "Oi, Lawrence!"
"What?" he almost snapped after a few seconds.
"Pierre says he isn't sure he can carry all the coils. He wants me to Apparate out there and bring them in for him."
"Bloody hell, I told him, you're not doing that unless it's an emergency. Your suit might not come through with you. Right, tell him to make several trips if he has to, we don't lose that much in the airlock."
"All right..."
Cho told Pierre that, while Hermione adjusted her straps again nervously. Floating in space was far too much like riding a broom. She got them more or less in order, and lay "back". Cho continued listening to Pierre's status reports, but stopped speaking. The whirring of the oxygen fans drowned Lawrence's banging, and Hermione slowly fell asleep.
Henry Lawrence was managing to keep calm, but only barely. Part of this was fear, and part amazement: they were hundreds of times further from Earth than any human had ever been! Even if they died out here, this was...
He got another coil loose. Holding it in one hand, he carefully moved a plastic bag he was holding to get the old coils toward the "bottom" of it. Releasing the coil he'd just extracted, he unzipped the bag and swept the latest coil inside. A few oxidized fragments had drifted out of the inside of the equipment, and he had to sweep those up as well. He closed the bag, released it (being careful not to leave it moving), and began examining the next coil. It seemed to be fused.
"Bernard, we've another fused coil here, how many can we safely leave in?"
"How many do we have?"
"This one makes four."
"That...should be okay."
"Right." Henry continued to the next coil, which was not actually fused in place, but was stuck.
"I'm checking my work here, but I'm pretty sure we can make the test whenever you're ready," Bernard said.
"That's not time critical, so let's wait until Weasley's up and the Frenchman's back inside. I'll want their opinions."
"Okay, is there anything else we need?"
"Well, have..." Henry broke off, pulling hard on the coil with the crowbar-like tool he was using. It didn't move. "Er, have you been recording the camera input?"
"I don't think so..."
"Well. We're out here, we ought to get some pictures, don't you think? It's a shame really that we've no scientific instruments, we could get all sorts of data on the interstellar medium..."
"I'll get some footage."
"That reminds me, the personal statements. We're to do 'em as soon as circumstances permit; well, in your case, they do. Damn this thing! So write yours up."
"All right, I'll get that bull out of the way..." Bernard extracted paper and the latest space pen model from a marked drawer, settled himself by the bulkhead, and began scribbling notes.
Hermione awoke, for the first time since launch, knowing where she was and what she was doing. A mix of dread and anticipation accordingly filled her body as she cautiously unzipped her hammock. She rubbed her eyes and face, which felt awful. The first thing she was doing after getting back to Earth was taking a good long shower. Ironic, really, she mused: she'd gone for far longer without washing during the war. One of the few times she'd wished she could do Bat-Bogey Hexes like Ginny was when Harry had "explained" why they could never have done what the Horcrux depicted: the smell. She'd settled for punching him in the arm.
She rattled through the hatch, with no idea what time it was. Time was pretty meaningless here: the lights and stars never changed.
A tired but focused Henry Lawrence looked over from his position at the computer, where he was frowning at the display. "Ah, Mrs. Weasley, I'm glad to see you're awake. Mr. Gaston was able to retrieve sufficient coils, and the American and I have succeeded in installing them. We're trying to check the system, but this computer is right awful, it's taking far too long."
"What's this 'the American' crap?" Bernard asked, flipping through a manual. "Maybe I'll start calling you the," he imitated a British accent, "right proper and correct English gen-teel-man."
"C'mon, mate, this is an international ship," Henry answered. "God Save the Noble Star Spangled Marsaillase and all that."
"Are we ready to test the oxygen lines?" Hermione asked. Sometimes these two were as bad as Harry and Ron.
"Yeah, we are," Bernard said. "Hey! Pierre! Get your Napoleon Bony-ass in here!"
"Right away, George Weighs-a-Ton," Pierre answered, pulling himself through the tunnel. "Miss Chang eez still asleep, I see no good reason to wake her."
"Agreed," Lawrence answered. "Right, Bernard, primary tank three valve to closed position."
"Primary tank three valve, closed position."
"Secondary tank three valve to closed position."
They continued to set the controls.
"Right," Lawrence said finally. He confirmed that the camera was recording. "This test will determine the, er, hyperspatial integrity of the AHAC-1 spacecraft. The test will be considered a success if air does not leak from the LOX tanks one and two pipelines - "
"Lawrence, we know all this," Bernard said.
"I am required to record this according to procedures given to me by my government. Right, success if air does not leak when valve O-8A is placed in open position, as determined by shutting off the oxygen supply to the cabin for a limited time and measuring the cabin pressure. If that occurs, we will attempt to, er, reunify the spacecraft through procedures to reverse Splinching. Failure will occur if there is significant leakage: if that occurs, our only viable option will be to set coordinates for a point in LEO where we will have sufficient delta V from the remaining thrusters to reenter in a controlled fashion, and attempt another enhanced Apparition to that point."
"Okay, let's do this," Bernard demanded. "Ready on valve."
"I am watching ze gauge," Gaston said. "Steady at 6.82 kilopascal."
"Right, Bernard, valve O-8A to open position."
"Tank one, main valve to open position."
"Mister Gaston?" Lawrence said after a moment.
"6.82...6.82...6.82..." After about thirty seconds, Gaston looked up with a grin. "Zat eez not going anywhere, Lawrence."
Bernard whooped loudly, startling the Brits. "Okay, this is amazing!" he said. "I'd love to be able to look down that pipe..."
"Right," Lawrence said. "We can worry about the science later. Mrs. Weasley, do you have a plan to reunify the ship?"
Test Flight by William Brennan
Chapter Notes: I may continue making changes to this if I find stuff that's really bad. Also, I've made a few nontrivial changes to the earlier chapters (one advantage of this format), FYI.