Chapter 4. Space Walk.

The spaceship entered a slow orbit around the Earth-sized planet. The ship's slowdown from cruising speed had been completed before Jack and his crew had exited hibernation. Tog had adjusted the ship's speed to orbit near to the disabled space probe, using positioning rockets to get as close as possible to it.

Jack studied space probe schematics to see how best to repair it. The process would require two of them to go over to it and remove the disabled radio system and replace it with a new one. The space walk would be tricky because of the separation distance, which was large enough to avoid any possible collision. The last thing he wanted was for one of them to become stranded in space because of not having enough rocket fuel to return to the ship.

He was satisfied that Jessica volunteered to accompany him to the probe. She had some training in working with electronic equipment. She and he had studied the probe's circuit diagrams and photos of its innards.

"It looks like all we have to do is remove this outer plate to get to the radio system," he said, pointing at a picture of the probe.
"How do we know that it's just that one unit?" she asked.

He shrugged. "We don't. We'll replace it and tell Tog to test it before we return to the ship."

Jessica wasn't sure it would be that simple, but it was all they had to go on.

Jack and Jessica went to the ship's so-called hanger deck where they could get into space suits. This required a physically hard climb up an embedded ladder to a round entrance portal in the center of the forward crew station wall. At this point they would be in free fall as they hand clawed their way up to the hanger deck. Once there, they got into space suits, a process that took a half hour because of being in free fall. First was an under garment that covered everything but their faces. Then came the outer suit, which forced them to crawl into it from the top down. They had to help one another put on the helmets and check to make sure they were soundly attached and had no leaks.

The suits had a backpack that included small maneuvering rockets, which they would use to go over to the probe and then return.
Jack told Tog to decompress the hanger deck. That required waiting for fifteen minutes of allowing pumps to remove all the air before the hanger door opened, allowing Jack and Jessica to use their suit rockets to slowly travel to their target.

When they arrived at the probe, Jack began the job of removing a panel that covered the radio unit. What made it somewhat difficult was that it was very close to the antenna. He struggled to remove it, and then make sure it didn't float away. Jessica helped him in that process.
The radio unit didn't seem to have suffered any damage. There was nothing to indicate why it had failed. Jessica handed him the new unit, which he carefully inserted into its proper location and tightened it in place.

He turned to Jessica. "Connect with Tog and have him do a test of the radio system."

She did, and Tog told her that the system was now operational.

"Well, that went well," Jack said. "Let's get the cover on and fastened."

Jessica helped him tighten the screws that held the panel in place.

With that completed, they were ready to return to the ship. Jack looked at her and smiled. "Look down."

She stared at him with a confused expression.

"Look down at the planet," he said.

She did and her expression went from annoyance to complete surprise. "What the hell is all of that?"

"That is positive evidence that extra-terrestrial intelligent species are out there in the galaxy."

"We had better get some good photos of it," she said.

"We can do that from the ship," Jack replied. "Let's get back there before something goes wrong."

They used their backpack rockets to return to the hanger deck. After closing the hanger door, Jack told Tog to recompress the hanger. That required fifteen minutes, after which they removed their space suits, a process that required twenty minutes.

Returning to the crew wheel was by means of the tube that ran through the center rod of the rotating decks. When they arrived at the command center, they were greeted with applause.

"Did you two have fun?" Lorie asked them while grinning,

"Actually, we discovered something that is absolutely unbelievable," Jessica said.

That elicited confused looks.

What Jack revealed changed everything.