Chapter Text
Chaper 2 : Hanging on at 8,335m/s
“You’re doing great Dewey, you can do this, just breathe.” Huey said calmly, not trying to add anything else unwelcome to the situation. Of course it did little to help, Dewey was still wildly kicking out in his mother’s hold, searching around the front glass of his helmet with his gloved hands trying to patch the suit’s breach.
It stuck out like a sore thumb, the glass having countless hairline cracks spreading out from the center impact point, the middle having a hole no bigger than half an inch large in diameter. Despite the small size it terrified him to no end, it would be one thing to have it happen to him, but being just a spectator and having little to no control over what was happening right now sent chills down his spine. And the screams through the radio didn’t help. Dewey yelled out in terror, tones leaving him that Huey wished he could have lived his life without ever hearing. A mix of screams and deep gasps for air took over the channel, it made it hard to even hear his mother, of whom was trying to get his attention.
“Huey I need you to to go ahead and open the hatch”
“On it!” He pulled himself ahead of his mother, being able to go at a faster pace without carrying someone else. Moving forward he, suddenly he was pulled back, and turning his head he found his tether was still attached to the starboard aft of the shuttle. In realizing there was no getting to it from the other side in time, he reached down and started to unlock and unlatch his tether mount. It was stupid and careless, and in usual circ*mstances he would never in his right mind think of doing something like that, but he wasn’t in his right mind, his instincts took him somewhere completely different.
With the tether disconnected and now entirely free, Huey used the wall and kicked himself forward towards the hatch. He floated independently, it was quiet as he traveled, atleast his concentration on the object made it seem so. Dewey’s voice still taking over the communications. He seemed to be on a good trajectory towards the hatch at first, but quickly realized he shot himself at too much of an angle and was heading right over the hatch.
‘Junior Woodchuck Rule 122: If faced with a detrimental issue, face it cool and collected for the best results.’ he repeated in his mind, taking both hands and trying his best to reach out towards the hatch. It felt like forever as he floated over the hatch and all he could get was his fingertips to drag across the surface. Thankfully, by the graces of Odin or whoever was out there, he was able to catch onto the ridge of the hatch just enough as the end to keep himself from floating into oblivion. He composed himself quickly, getting into position to crank the latch free on the door.
“P/S, seal quarters immediately and prepare to rapid depressurization.” He called out
“Copy, notify when ready”
He sat waiting, ready to open the hatch at a moment’s notice. He look over to his side, seeing his mother dragging Dewey along. He had failed to notice over the past 30 seconds he was becoming noticeably quieter through the communicator.
“Dewey! Dewey stay awake we need you to stay awake!” He got no better answer than a couple of quiet gasps.
“Are we sealed inside seat?”
“Almost, taking control of the ECLSS” The voice of Webby the payload specialist called back vigilantly
“Got it! Do it Huey!” Huey took both of his hands and put a firm grip on the latch lever and cranked it clockwise as hard and he could. Doing so resulted in him getting knocked back hard from the air leaving the now open hatch. His grip almost slipped off the handle, the force stopping just in time before his grip fully loosened.
“Mom, bring him in!”
“Working on it!” His mother hastily replied, trying her best to navigate Dewey’s body in a position to fit him through the hatch. “Take his feet!”
Without question he took his brother’s lower section and angled him to be able to get pulled in.
“Okay let’s go, bring him in, Dewey honey are you with us?” Dewey was now entirely silent and still, finally having passed out, or atleast that it what he hoped happened, he wouldn’t be able to live with the alternative.
Della compressed his floating arms and fit him entirely through the hatch, having some difficultly finding a route to get herself entirely though. Huey moved himself over, allowing his mother to squeeze past and fit behind him. “Closing the hatch, Mom can you equalize us?”
While Huey worked on getting the door locked behind them, Della looked cluelessly at the panel of gauges, knobs, and buttons.
“How do I work this thing?” She hadn’t personally used this system yet, Huey had been the one to follow the procedure prior to the EVA and while she was well in-tune with technology of this sort, this system was older and far from user-friendly.
“See that gauge to the right? Pull the yellow lock-out valve and press the red button until the gauge reads around fourteen point five, do it in bursts, don’t let the reserve boil over. Then turn the metal handle up and wait until the two other gauges look the same, the auto regulator will take over.”
Della was wide eyed from the instructions being thrown at her, she could see an array of three gauges on top of the panel, then looked further down. Luckily for her it seemed like the controls were color coded to be easier to use. What was next? Right, the yellow thing. She found a yellow knob about two inches in diameter and pulled it, then finding the red button that sat offset to the middle and pressed it a couple times. Doing it caused the gauge Huey talked about to increase in value, and so she continued pressing it in bursts. As she pressed it the hiss of moving air slowly became more apparent, when the gauge she was looking at eventually reached the right amount she looked at the chrome lever which was set to OFF. Checking it over that she did everything right, she then turned the chrome lever up to AUTO.
Now hissing was more audible than ever, the two other gauges climbed until reaching the same amount as the one to the far right. A click of some sort of relay came from the panel and the hissing ceased.
“Alright we’re pressurized, get him out!” Huey got right to work, taking his own suit off as fast as possible
“Mom unlatch me in back” He ordered, working on getting his gloves off, ignoring the proper procedure of disassembling it all properly in favor of getting to his brother as fast as possible. He felt Della unscrew the multiple mounts of the suit’s center ring locks and he got to work doing the ones in front. As they unscrewed he jerked to the side trying to twist the suit in half as soon as he was loose. It seemed to take almost an eternity but eventually one of the jerking motions got the suit split in two and he wiggled his arms out and threw the upper half of it away leaving only the lower half of the suit on himself which he ignored and immediately threw himself towards Dewey.
“Dewey can you hear me? Are you awake?” He got up close and saw the full extent of the damage done to the helmet, it was bad, he could see some orange from a part of his beak through the hole. He started getting the helmet off before stopping himself, floating over to the side and grabbing a cloth black bag that was used for storing the helmets in when not in use and floated back, he needed the bag to keep the broken shards from floating away and possibly getting in someone’s eye or elsewhere. Sure it was actually not glass, more of a thick plexiglass and wasn’t as bad, but anything in zero gravity can be dangerous, heck one could accidentally drown from brushing their teeth with water so any precaution was a good thing to do. He started carefully sliding the tabs of the broken helmet’s lock ring. Huey was terrified of what he was going to see. The anticipation he felt was the most sickly feeling he had ever felt before, anything could be waiting for him under it, maybe he was still conscious? Maybe he would be fine, staring back at him fine as if nothing had happened, then they could just go home and pretend none of this ever occurred and continue on with their lives. But- what if it is the exact opposite? What if he opens it and he is staring back like- like he, no he can’t even imagine that as a possibility. Dewey was going to be okay, whatever was waiting for him under that helmet they were going to make it through it together, he was going to be fine.
The lock ring came loose, and he slowly removed the helmet. He wanted to look away, but he forced himself to look at the sight before him. What revealed itself made him absolutely sick. Dewey’s eyes were closed, his mouth hanging slightly agape and his entire face purple, what made him even more sick was what came out of the helmet. What could only be floating masses of bodily waste made its way out of its container, it also stuck itself all across Dewey’s head, soaking itself into his feathers. Huey quickly expanded the cloth bag and threw it over the helmet, sealing it and tossing it over to his mother’s direction, she still was struggling to take off her equipment and let it float loosely. Taking two fingers he brought them over and placed them on Dewey’s carotid artery and waited, and waited, and waited some more. Beyond terrified, he repositioned his fingers and waited, still feeling nothing.
“No…” He whispered to himself “Come on Dewey, please!” he repositioned his fingers once again and waited. “Dewey please don’t do this, Oh god. Oh god!” tears welled up on his eyes and his mind went blank, he felt faint. Reality faded away for him, all he could focus on feeling anything on his fingertips, he hadn’t even noticed when the hatch towards the shuttle lab was opened, Webby climbing over to see what was happening. She gasped at the sight, stuck in her place and unsure of what to do.
Huey scrambled over Dewey’s body, taking off his gloves and other unecessary junk still stuck onto him. He once more desperately brought his right hand up and felt on his neck for a pulse, holding Dewey’s hand with his other left hand, he was cold. In that moment everything stopped, the ship was silent and everything was still. He blinked his tears away and they floated off, clearing his blurry vision and letting him better see his brother’s face and eyes, the eyes that weren’t opening.
