Diaper-naut

It may have been a particularly long, boring and routine assignment as far as everyone else were concerned, but for Halley it was still only her third or fourth time going EVA. Just getting to be out there was exciting enough, and she couldn't yet see how it could ever be otherwise. This was exactly the kind of thing she had dreamed of herself doing, signing up, and now here she was, actually doing it. Even the very sight of the equipment laid out before her was enough to give Halley the shivers.

“Are you ready in there yet?!” came Tim's voice, brashly, banging on the door of the tiny cramped space in which she was suiting up. “Jeez, how long does it take?! You can skip the makeup!”

“I'm coming!!!” Halley squeaked, even though she wasn't even half way done. “Just give me another minute!”

It still wasn't easy. She knew all the steps by now, but there was layer after layer of it to put on. Starting with the undershirt, compression stockings and, the ahem... diaper, of all things, followed by a thin skin-tight body-suit laced with cooling and ventilation tubes. Then a headpiece, making sure all hair was tucked away. An outer layer, and that was before the rigid space suit itself, with separate huge upper and lower torso pieces, plus gloves and helmet, all of which had to be carefully linked up and locked into place. Not to mention the need to connect all the tubes and sensors to the necessary fittings as one went along, and the life support backpack at the end. She could do it all, but she had to think about it and take her time, slow and careful, checking and double checking. After all, you wouldn't want to make a mistake.

Okay; so on this occasion she'd spent 75% of the time so far on the diaper, of all things. It was a mandatory part of the get-up apparently, or she would definitely have done without it. Halley certainly had no intention of ever needing it, but last time it had bunched up most loosely and uncomfortably between her legs as the excursion went on, leaving her wondering if she'd put it on correctly at all. That was one thing she certainly wasn't about to ask her mentor Tim for help with, nor advice, for that matter. He was enough of a weirdo when it came to that sort of thing as it was. On this occasion, however, she'd made sure to get it right, at great effort... and now it was costing her in lost time. Hurriedly she thrust her legs down into the lower torso of the space suit, and pulled the upper half down on top, struggling her arms down the sleeves. She'd just have to skip on double checking the seals this time, and trust the sound of the clamps clicking into place.

“I'm not even kidding!” echoed Tim, hammering impatiently on the door again. “We're going to be out there long enough as it is, without you making us even later starting!”

“Just a minute!” Halley urged, frantically shoving her hands into the gloves, and getting the wrong ones on the wrong hands at first. Finally sorting them out and hearing them click, she reached thankfully for the helmet, almost done at last.

“Right, I'm coming in!” declared Tim, thrusting the folding door aside, fully suited-up, with face-shield down, and speaking through his suit's speakers. “You must be decent, at least, by now!”

“Hey!” squeaked Halley, as he bullied her bodily out of the door. “You didn't know that!”

“If you weren't by now, you deserve it!” Tim insisted brashly, clamping the life support pack into place for her, and doing a ten second once over of her suit seals with a practiced, expert eye. He found one he wasn't happy with, opened it and re-closed it. “Not too bad, though, rookie,” he appraised coarsely. “Only almost killed yourself once, this time. That's got to be an improvement.”

Within a few minutes they were in the airlock, and Halley was quivering with anticipation. It was hard to tell whether it was thrill or nerves, but either way, space was still having exactly the same effect on her as it had in the very beginning. She was wondering if it was ever going to wear off, and let her function out there with anything resembling a sense of normality. She'd settle, at least, for not screwing anything up too badly. Or peeing herself. The press of the diaper between her legs reminded her she was stuck inside this suit now for at least the next four or five hours, come what may. Halley tried to persuade herself the tingling feeling already in her bladder was only nervousness. It was probably a good thing, really, that every time so far, the fear of coming back in some kind of humiliatingly bemired state inside her spacesuit was illogically far greater than any concern that any outer seals might fail. Tim might rant about safety checks, but at least if Halley accidentally died that way, she wouldn't have to hear about it; if the other thing occurred, Halley doubted there was any way he wouldn't somehow know about it. He had a nose for such things, so to speak, and seemed to relish rubbing hers in any source of embarrassment; all in the interests of 'toughening her up' and making her a 'better spacer' somehow. Halley wasn't altogether sure it didn't come under the banner of sexual harassment, though she'd never have dared say anything.

Anyway, a few minutes later and they were outside, with more than enough going on to distract her. Emerging from the hub of the station, Halley's view suddenly went from close metal walls to an overwhelming panorama. Not only the entire planetary globe laid out beneath her, but the busy flow of orbital traffic and construction happening all around. Ships were being built and disassembled, satellites renovated, cargo transferred, and extensions built onto the station. Their job today was as simple as following the line of the station hull with a cargo sled in tow, checking antennae and replacing anything they found which was less than perfect. Hardly sophisticated work, and highly repetitive, but guaranteed to take hours upon hours before it was done. They could stay out here indefinitely, however, plugging their oxygen lines into station outlets when required, and sipping water or nutrient paste from tubes inside their helmets. The only kind of thing that wasn't possible was scratching oneself, or adjusting clothes, or going to the bathroom, of course...

Until now, Halley had always made it through a shift without anything more than manageable discomfort. Today, however, was going to be a different kind of day. Not even an hour in, and she was already beginning to feel it. Sure enough, it soon became clear that she already needed to the bathroom, and they'd yet to check even an sixth of what they'd been assigned. Just move from one to the next, plug in the testing wires, wait for the readouts to come up, and if all was good, move on to the next. If it wasn't, everything stalled for anything up to ten minutes, while they laboriously unbolted the antenna in question, stowed it in the sled, and bolted a replacement into place. Then that had to be tested too, and if everything wasn't correct, the whole process had to be repeated. Meanwhile, Halley's thoughts were turning ever inwards. It was worse even than she could have feared. She'd made sure her bladder was completely empty just before suiting up, of course, and gone as easy as possible on fluid intake to-boot; but there was no accounting for the steady rise in urgent pressure which was now developing in her lower bowels. When was the last time she'd gone like that? Not just before coming out here, or even any time today. The possibility Halley had always had to contemplate when required to strap herself into a diaper was unconscionable enough to mortify her, but the one that lay before her now was utterly unthinkable. She tried to concentrate solely on her work, praying that if she didn't think about it long enough, the problem might fade away. It didn't. Instead, Halley's hands began to fumble with her tools, and the work got clumsier and slower.

"Focus, rookie," Tim was hardly slow with his own reproach. "What's the matter with you!? You're getting sloppy!"

Sloppy? Halley shuddered inside her helmet, grateful her facial expression at least was free from being observed. Oh grief. What was she going to do?