I knew that it would be at least ten minutes before Nick would be knocking
on the hatch, as it would take him that long to climb into his space suit, go
through the airlock routine and stomp his way down the cargo ramp and across
the intervening distance to the shipwreck. I closed the inner airlock door and
opened the external hatch door when the chamber had been emptied of oxygen in
preparation for Nick’s impending arrival. Then I decided to investigate the flight
deck more thoroughly while I awaited his arrival. It did not take very long to
thoroughly investigate the cabin, for although it was a fairly large area,
there wasn’t very much in it to thoroughly investigate.
Behind the high-backed pilot seats was a circular coffee table surrounded
by a pair of semicircular couches. Attached to the semicircular bulkhead behind
them was a high rectangular bar-style bench with two swivel seats on each side,
all firmly bolted to the deck. Partway down the starboard corridor were two
bunks recessed into the inner bulkhead, and by leaning forward to check them I
found to my great relief that neither of them were occupied. I could venture no
farther than that down the starboard corridor due to the hull damage from the
crash, but when I retraced my steps down the portside corridor I found a door
in the inner bulkhead just beyond a pair of bunks on that side that I had
obviously missed before. I found the button to open it and walked cautiously
into a large semicircular bathroom. On the other side of the bathroom opposite
me was a door that obviously accessed the starboard corridor. Midway between
and facing sternward was another door, which I approached and opened to find
that it directly accessed the engine room. I retraced my steps to the flight
deck and found that Nick had not arrived aboard yet, so I continued forward and
lowered myself into one of the pilot seats to wait for him to arrive.
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