by Drew Cordell
The maintenance tubes were dark, but he had traveled through them hundreds of times. Thick bundles of wires and tubes containing water and air passed alongside him as he floated. He remembered the first time his father had shown him how to navigate through the crawlspaces. With the station in full power, they'd be lit, but now, he only had the dim light from his datapad to guide his way. The station was moving, and he knew it because he kept bumping into the walls. The bumps were getting more uncomfortable, and he knew he needed to hurry.
Nick knew the procedures for abandoning the station. Engineering always left last even though the command to leave the station had already been issued. Nick wasn't going to get on the Delver without his parents.
Pressing forward, Nick glided to the airlock of the central axis. He let out a sigh of relief when he checked the seal on the other side and saw a green light. His whole plan would fall apart if the central axis was compromised. He grabbed the handle on the circular door and twisted it before pushing. The door opened, and he pulled himself into the central axis. On an ordinary day, it was the one spot on the station with zero G. The rest of the station rotated, but the central axis didn't. Nick was shocked to see that he wasn't alone. Lucky Jarvis was floating in the center, wearing a confused expression, like he hadn’t expected anyone to come to the same place.
“Nick? What the fu— uh, heck are you doing in here? You're supposed to be on the Delver.”
“I'm trying to get to my dad in Engineering,” Nick said.
“Same here, partner,” the man said, twisting his face into a look of frustration. “Look,” he said, pointing toward the monitor that hung above him, attached to the spherical pane of glass that exposed the backdrop of space. “The hatch for the Engineering module has an imperfect seal, which means we’re locked out. Since module three is gone, we don't have a direct way there. If we go in through Medbay and get a couple of vacuum suits, we should be able to jump between modules if someone can open the airlock on the other side. To do that, there needs to be a hard vacuum on both sides, though. I imagine the engineering crew is going to take the Hopper to get to the Delver, but we’re running out of time.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Nick replied. He knew he could trust Lucky, his dad’s best friend, and he was thankful he didn't have to do this alone anymore.
Nick rotated in the air and propelled himself through the maintenance tube toward Medbay, following Lucky. There was a violent shake, and Nick bounced against the floor of the tube, grimacing and stabilizing himself in the air.
“Almost there, kid,” Lucky said as they reached the airlock. The light was green, and Lucky opened the door, pulling the two of them inside Medbay. The room was completely empty, and the emergency light cast sinister shadows off the sleek, white interior of the room. As the moved to the emergency supply closet, Nick pivoted and propelled himself toward the communications console lining the wall. He punched the button for engineering and began to talk.
“Dad? It's Nick.”
“Nick, thank God. Why aren't you on the Delver? You need to get there right away.”
“The way is blocked, I came to get you,” Nick replied, thankful to hear his father’s voice. “I'm here with Lucky; we’re going to jump over once we get our vacuum suits on.”
“Lucky is with you? Put him on the line,” Nick’s dad said.
Nick moved over to Lucky who passed him a vacuum suit. “Put that on, pal.”
Lucky pressed the button on the console and started talking. “Vinny, there’s only one suit, I'm going to have to try to find a different way to the Delver or try my luck on Earth in one of the crash sacks. I'll see to it that Nick’s suit is ready to go before I leave.”
“You're a good friend, Lucky,” Nick’s dad replied through the console. Nick was struggling with the tangles of synthetic mesh but had already managed to pull on the pants and boots. The legs and boots were much too big and sprawls of the suit fell onto the shoes that swallowed his feet whole. Putting on the suit in zero G proved difficult, but Lucky moved over and helped him get everything on properly.
“You're a brave kid, Nick,” Lucky said as he twisted the heavy helmet into place on the hard, circular frame of the suit.
“I'm scared,” Nick said, feeling the twang of panic growing.
“I know, I am too, and it's okay. Feeling scared just means you’re human. You are going to be the first kid to do an EVA in space, though, probably ever. How cool is that, buddy?” Lucky asked, fixing a reassuring smile on his face as he checked over Nick’s suit one last time. Satisfied, he twisted the valve on the oxygen tank on Nick’s suit and the helmet hissed before filling with cold, stale air.
“It's kind of cool, I guess,” Nick said, doing his best to give Lucky a smile. Nick knew the man was risking his life to save him, and he was thankful.
“Once I'm out of the room, your dad is going to drain the air in both rooms then open the airlocks. When he does, you need to jump straight toward him quickly, but take your time to make sure you line up with the other airlock. Your dad will catch you.”
Nick gave Lucky a firm nod.
“I've got to try to find another way to the Delver or hunker down on my ride to Earth. Good luck, buddy, and hopefully I'll see you again,” Lucky said before diving through the tube toward the central axis of the station. Once he shut the airlock, A tone indicated that the air was draining from the room. A few seconds later, and the alarm that had been blaring had disappeared. The room was silent other than Nick’s breathing in the large helmet. The limbs of the suit were too long and fluttered behind him as he hovered through Medbay toward the airlock door that was opening. When the door opened, he could see Earth below. The planet was impossibly close now, and it looked like he would fall into the sea of gray below if he tried to jump.
The airlock on the other side slid open, and Nick could see his father standing in the doorway. His dad was also wearing a vacuum suit and was motioning for Nick to jump. The vacuum suits they wore didn't have radio transponders like the heavier EVA suits that were built for long-term exposure. Nick also knew that his air supply was limited to the single O2 tank strapped to his belt. The suit had a recycler, sure, but it wasn't built to last, and Nick’s father had told Nick to always to rely on the O2 tank alone even though Nick had never worn a vac suit before this.
Nick took a deep breath of stale air and prepared himself to jump. He fought against the instincts that screamed for him to stop, to turn back and try to find another way. His instincts told him if he jumped, gravity would catch him and pull him down to the gray Earth as a ball of molten slag. Readying himself, Nick kicked off the back wall and through the open airlock into space.
6
Vibrations through Vinny’s arms shook his bones, and his view of his son floating through space suddenly shifted. The station had dropped further down, closer to the atmosphere, and his son was off course now. Vinny had prepared for the scenario but hoped it wouldn't happen. If he missed the catch, Nick would drift off into space endlessly, suffering a long, drawn out death of exposure, suffocation, or God forbid, dehydration if the recycler somehow lasted that long. Vinny pushed the chilling thoughts out of his head and jumped out of the airlock, angling his body upward to intersect with his son. As he approached, the cable around his waist snagged, and he was pulled back. Nick was flying through space quickly, and Vinny only had seconds to recover. Moving with haste, Vinny extended his arm and barely caught the empty glove of Nick’s vac suit. The catch was close, but it did the trick. Vinny pulled Nick in close and wrapped an arm around him and the floating limbs of Nick's vac suit. He reached down and tugged on the orange Ethernet cabling that connected him to a handle in engineering. It was hard to believe that he depended on a single electrical cable to bring him and his son back to relative safety.
When they were safely inside, Vinny closed the airlock and began pressurizing the room again. They'd have to wait until it was at full pressure before they could open the hatch to the other mod
ules and get to the Delver.
A harsh jolt shook through the station and gravity returned, at least partially. Vinny knew they had entered the atmosphere and they were running out of time. Under full power and uncompromised station conditions, it would take the room five minutes to fill. Vinny estimated that they had less than one minute until they were tossed around like rag dolls and forced to stay on board the station as it fell to Earth. Cursing, Vinny plucked a large metal wrench from its wall holder and brought it down on an air pipe as hard as he could. The air pipe cracked, and Vinny could begin to hear a faint hissing as the pipe started filling the void in the room. Vinny brought the wrench down again and split the pipe down the middle, and the effect was amplified. He could hear Captain Reggie over the intercom now.
“If you haven't made it to the Delver, secure yourself in a crash sack. Good luck,” the distorted voice said. This couldn't be happening; they had to make it. Vinny knew the station wouldn't make it to the ground in one piece; it would shred itself apart and burn. End of the line. Vinny turned to his son and wrapped him in a hug, tears blurring his vision as he silently wept.
7
Jess Li strapped herself into the pilot's seat below the captain’s chair. She had already taken the pill concoction that would help her fight through the major Gs they were about to pull. The medication sang in her blood, and she fought back the nervous twitching that accompanied the hyper focus and dissociation with a duller reality. They'd have to fire the Delver’s engines before detaching from the station if they were ever going to make it. The Delver’s thrust was going to screw with the station’s chaotic path and momentum. She knew she would have a hard time stabilizing the Delver before firing the launch thrusters if the station wasn’t positioned correctly. The Delver was designed to take off from the ISS, but nothing was built to take off in Earth’s atmosphere. The engines could overheat, or they could launch off course. So much could go wrong. Hell, everything could go wrong. The Delver wasn’t built for planetary flight at all and was a bulky spacecraft designed for flight to and from the lunar and Martian bases only. Flight in a dense atmosphere like Earth’s was not only untested, but it also equated to almost certain death.
“Jess, when you're ready, get us out of here,” Captain Wallace called through his headset.
“Copy. Engines are purring like a kitten. Take off in five seconds,” Jess said, positioning her hand on the flight controls and activating the wrist braces that would lock her arms in place when the crushing forces of acceleration hit. The medication was surging through her veins, and she took a deep breath and tried to collect herself.
“Prepare for launch. Heads back against your seat and don't move until we give the all clear,” Reggie called as he attached the wrist braces to his own flight suit. Jess didn't expect him to stay conscious for the next part but didn't say anything. She had to focus on the task at hand. With a final deep breath, she bit down on her rubber mouth guard and pushed the accelerator forward to 5G. Instantly, the Delver detached from the ISS and came to a hard stop from its freefall. Jess lurched forward then forced her body back into the chair before the engines fired and rocketed them upward, or at least the direction she perceived as up. The force was crushing, and it rattled her bones. The corners of her vision darkened, but the powerful drugs kept her coherent as the ship continued to accelerate. Pushing through the atmosphere was easier than Jess expected, but she didn't want to pull the ship out of its thrust cycle yet, she wanted to get as much distance as possible between them and the Earth as possible in case those dicks with the missile had more firepower they were willing to use. Unlike the station, Jess didn't think the Delver could survive a direct hit.
As the Earth became a distant sphere behind them, Jess flipped off the burn and clocked the ship’s velocity at just under twelve thousand meters per second. The crushing strain was replaced by a flood of relief as the intense force of acceleration faded away as quickly as it had started. Captain Wallace lifted his head, waking from unconsciousness. “Are we clear?” he asked in a groggy voice.
“We’re clear, Captain. I imagine you've got one hell of a headache now,” she replied. The stims would cause an unpleasant crash for her later, and she'd be required to take a nap, but she wasn't too worried about it.
Jess couldn't believe that someone had fired a missile at the ISS after eighty-three years. She couldn't believe there were any missiles left after the footage she had seen from 2039; it seemed impossible.
“Jess, I'm getting a signal of something trailing us. Velocity is 14K,” Reggie called from his chair.
Jess looked over at the display and flipped the pilot controls to auto. “I see it. Trying to get LADAR on it now. If it’s a missile, it’s going slow. Get the dish pointed at it, we’ll try to scramble it with some garbage signals.”
“Wait, I'm magnifying the image. It doesn't look like a missile. Look at this picture,” the captain told her as he sent it to her display. From this range, the image looked fuzzy, and Jess could just barely make out a familiar outline.
“That looks like the Hopper, but it was—” she started.
“This is Vinny Morello on the Hopper, if you can hear me, keep your movement vector constant. Do not deviate direction or velocity. Repeat. Do not deviate direction or velocity.”
“We thought you went down with the station. It's good to hear your voice, Vinny. Is Nick with you?” Captain Reggie asked. There was a delay on the communication channel. It wasn’t significant, but it would make synchronized flight adjustments more difficult.
“Nick is with me, yes. Our disconnection from the ISS wasn't perfect, and the Hopper has sustained some damage to the airlock, but everything else appears to be doing okay. The O2 tank is full as well, so we’ll have more air for the Delver. Do we have a headcount of how many people made it on board?” Vinny asked.
“With you two we have fifteen,” Jessica replied sullenly. She couldn't believe that twenty of her lifelong friends, family, and peers were unaccounted for or dead. Worse, she didn’t even have the time to think about exactly who was missing; they had only received the headcount from Monica over comms.
“Damn. Did Lucky make it?” Vinny asked.
“I don’t think so. We just have to pray the station landed safely,” Jess said, feeling the dull ache in her veins as the meds dissolved and faded away.
“Look, Jess. I'm sorry, we did all we could. There was no saving—”
“You did everything you could, Vinny. You're responsible for the lives we saved, and the possible survivors that make it to Earth,” Reggie interjected.
“Yeah, okay. Listen, Jess, I'm probably going to need help docking this thing. Flying isn’t my forte, and I’m surprised I made it out of atmosphere honestly,” Vinny said.
“The Hopper is one hell of a ship; I’m not surprised you made it out. I'll take control of the Hopper once you've closed the gap a bit more. I'm running the calculations on the Delver’s mainframe right now, and I'll key them over once they're done. You and Nick stay strapped in just in case. You may be in for a bumpy ride as I line this up.”
“Got it, thanks, Jess. I'll keep the comms up if you need me. Otherwise I'll cut the chatter so you can focus.”
“Are you good to do this? I can manage if you need to sleep, I know those stims are rough,” Reggie said to her.
“I've got this,” she said, pulling another pill from the small socket on the top of her glove, placing it in her mouth and chewing with a grimace.
“Be careful with that shit, Jess,” Reggie called to her, sounding disappointed. “Those stims are addictive, and we don’t have an endless supply.”
“I’m being careful, Captain. I just need a boost to get through this docking procedure. I estimate I’ve got a relative velocity tolerance of six meters per second. The Delver should be able to line it up, but I need to be careful, nonetheless.”
“No more stims after that one. You shouldn’t chew those pills either.”
The chemicals re
ignited her blood, and Jess felt her brain refocus. “Yessir,” she said as she adjusted the controls to keep the ship stable while checking the Delver’s calculations.
“Hey Vinny, adjust six degrees starboard. Your comms dish is acting a little finicky, and I want a lower lag time for these longer-range flight adjustments.”
“Copy. Adjusting six degrees starboard.”
“That did the trick; the connection is much better. Taking control now, just sit back and be sure both of you are strapped in tight,” Jess said to the engineer.
“Copy, we’re all set here, Sergeant.”
The Delver completed the calculations and uploaded the file to Jessica’s display. She clicked the file icon and dragged it to the screen on her right so she could still see her primary interface. “Worst case, I’m projecting a three meter per second relative velocity for the docking procedure.”
“Do you trust the fine-control thrusters at this velocity?” Reggie asked.
“Hell yes. The Hopper is even more precise than the Delver, I’m not worried, and we should be able to line up the airlocks just fine.” Jessica uploaded the files to the comms array on the Delver and prepared them for transmission. “Captain, please be on standby while I fly the Hopper.”
Reggie nodded. “Got it covered, Jess.”
“Vinny, we’re all set, hold on tight,” Jess said as she punched the button to launch the laser-guided code to the Hopper.
8
Nick’s head was tossed to the side as the ship lurched uncomfortably. The painful launch from the Engineering module had shaken him up. His head still hurt, and his lip was sore from when his teeth had latched down during the crushing acceleration. Nick thought he remembered passing out during the journey, but apparently, his father had somehow made it through the launch. The Hopper was fast, and Nick still had lingering nausea. He didn’t want to bother his dad and ask about Haley, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He hoped she made it on board the Delver.