‘Well this is unusual,’ Hawley buzzed over my intercom.
‘You’re telling me!’ I buzzed back, laughing. ‘Are you ready?’
‘I guess,’ he replied. Even over the scrappy comms system, I could tell he was nervous.
‘You’ll be fine,’ I soothed him, turning so he could see my face under the visor. ‘This is just a routine wheel replacement.’
‘There’s nothing routine about it!’ he said. ‘This has never been done before.’
‘Well then,’ I grinned, reaching for the airlock lever. ‘Let’s go make history.’
The silence was eerie as we floated around the ship, hugging the metal as we made our way to the underside. I radioed to the flight team that we were ready, and they dropped the shuttle’s landing gear for us to inspect.
‘Oh yeah, that’s a nasty blowout,’ I whistled. ‘Definitely no landing on that.’
‘What’s the plan, boss?’
I quickly scanned the terrain and the damaged wheel and told Hawley to follow close behind me. We clipped ourselves to just underneath the landing gear, so we could easily reach everything we’d need. I pulled out my knife and quickly cut away the damaged tyre.
‘Where did you learn how to change a tyre?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘I used to spend time with the mechanic near Toowoomba,’ I said with a laugh. ‘That trick is all me though. Do you have the spare?’
He pulled it off his back where it had been mounted and passed it to me.
‘Alright,’ I murmured. ‘How do you want to go on?’
‘I wish I’d spent more time taking shop at school,’ Hawley muttered.
‘You’re a fighter pilot who doesn’t know how to change a tyre?’
‘The thing about changing tyres, in my experience,’ he explained, ‘is that if I looked hard enough, I always managed to find a professional tyre fitting in my area.’
‘How’s that working out now?’ I asked, slipping the new tyre onto the wheel.
‘You’re the one doing it, aren’t you?’
I laughed and gave the tyre a final punch to make sure it was seated right.
‘Looks like we’re good to land,’ I said, flashing Hawley a thumbs-up.