by S. K. Vaughn
“May, the breach has expanded to five and a half inches. It is no longer safe for you to patch. I recommend sealing and jettisoning the biogarden.”
“Negative. I can get there. We have to preserve the oxygen.”
The tremors hit again, and May went sprawling. She dropped the patch canister and had to tear through plant matter to find it again.
“Seven inches. May, get out of there. You are in grave danger.”
May tumbled through the garden, clawing and kicking for anything to stop her momentum. Her hands closed around a metal support rod, and she held on for dear life. More debris flew past her, smashing into the wall near the hull breach. To her horror, some of the softer objects were pulled through the small hole and shredded to bits as they were spat out into space. She was still a good thirty feet from the breach, out of patch canister range, but she didn’t dare try to get closer.
“Eve, can you seal off this room and lower the pressure to decrease the suction power of the breach?”
“I would have to decrease your atmosphere to a dangerous level to make even the slightest change.”
“Do it. The pull is too strong.”
May heard a loud rumbling sound and saw the oxygen tanks starting to shake away from their wall brackets. It was too late to save the biogarden, maybe even too late for her to get to safety so Eve could jettison it.
“Decreasing atmosphere fifteen percent.”
May instantly felt the effects. Her breathing became labored and her limbs sluggish, but the tanks settled for the moment.
“I’m going to get myself clear of this door so you can seal it,” May said, huffing and puffing. “Where do I need to go to be safe for jettison?”
“The adjacent lab module will be safe. Please hurry. Soon our emergency systems will take over, and I will have no control over jettison.”
With a mechanical groan, the oxygen tanks started to sway, ripping bolts out of their moorings. May needed to buy some time to get to the outer door. The patch canister she had was made from thick metal, designed to take the worst kind of beating in these circumstances. May positioned it on the ground in line with the breach and let it fly. It shot like an artillery shell across the room, and the top of it slammed into the hole. For a brief moment, the sucking wind subsided. That was May’s chance to escape. She sprinted back through the ruined garden, clawing her way to the exit door. The wind was coming back as the canister rattled in the breach, reaming it out and making it bigger. The metal frames of the oxygen tanks were back to rattling, and more bolts snapped.
As May got to the door, her patch canister was sucked through the breach. With a larger opening, the sucking wind was like a jet engine, pulling out huge swaths of garden vegetation. At the moment it was thick enough to slow down the wind, but the hole was rapidly chewing it to bits like a wood chipper. May clung to the edge of the door frame with both arms and legs, trying with all her strength to move the foot or so that she needed to get outside the door so Eve could seal it. It felt as though she were doing a pull-up with a car strapped to her back.
“Eleven inches. Fissure lines radiating from the breach. Emergency systems override is imminent. May, you need to clear that door now.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
May tried it again, and this time she pulled herself close enough to the door frame to hook her other leg around it as well. Then, pulling with all four limbs until it felt like her bones would break, she got herself to the edge.
“Almost out, Eve.”
Even saying as little as that nearly caused her to black out.
“Copy that. I’m ready and have a visual on you.”
May pulled again, rotating her body so that her legs were now flat against the outside wall, but her torso was still inside the door. She had nothing to hook her foot into. Her arms and core had to do all the work. She was nearly clear a couple of times but lost ground when she had to dodge more flying debris, this time coming from the outer labs. Nearly out of strength, she gave one last pull and got clear.
“Now!”
Eve slammed the door and sealed it. May fell to the ground, gasping and weak. No time to rest. They were seconds away from a forced jettison that would take May with it. She limped as quickly as she could to the next lab module. As she reached the door, she heard the booming of the oxygen tanks coming off the wall. Jettison alarms sounded. May jumped through the door to the next lab module and sealed it.
“Biogarden sealed. Decoupling,” Eve said.
May’s throat was ragged, and her voice was swallowed up in the pain. She crawled to a bolted-down lab table and wrapped her arms and legs around one of its cold steel supports.
“Brace for jettison,” Eve called out. The couplings connecting the biogarden to the rest of the lab deck were blown, and it was released into space. The ship shook violently, sending May rolling across the lab floor. She grabbed on to the pipes under a sink and felt as though she were clinging to the back of a stampeding elephant. As they shot into space, the oxygen storage tanks exploded. The concussion from the blast rocked the Hawking II and sent May flying vertically from her position on the floor. She landed on her back, quickly losing consciousness.
“May, can you hear me?”
Black smoke rolled across the floor, curling up around her, while flames licked up the side of the wall.
“May?”
20
Stephen Knox woke to the sound of his home comms line whistling in his ear. He searched for the glowing clock numbers in the dark. 3:45 a.m.
“Lights.”
Soft illumination faded up, bringing him back to reality. He lay there for a moment, his mind slowly putting itself back together after having been scattered to the wind by sleeping pills and red wine. Bedroom, he reminded himself. It was the room he’d shared with May when they were together. Decorated in her ultramodern style, with muted dark colors and low, angular furniture, it always looked unfamiliar to Stephen upon waking. He had joked with her that it looked no different from most luxury hotel rooms, something she took as a high compliment.
Stephen fumbled for his comms pad, found it under a pile of dirty clothes on the floor, and looked at the screen. It was showing no fewer than forty-five missed calls. How much wine did I drink? The pad whistled again. Call number forty-six.
“Raj, I hope you’re in jail or a hospital bed in need of a kidney.”
“Let me in, man.”
Sharp rapping on the bedroom window. Stephen sat up, maybe too quickly.
“Are you outside? Blinds.”
The mesh veneers on the bedroom window slid quietly into the wall, revealing Stephen’s friend, Raj Kapoor, the brilliant engineer who designed the Hawking II, peering in like a Peeping Tom. Raj had an enormous head for his small frame, crowned by a tangle of curly black hair, a patchy beard that refused to have anything to do with his mustache, and thick brown glasses, fogged, as they often were when he was agitated.
“Jesus, what the hell are you doing out there?”
“Dude, I’ve been trying to reach you for the past six hours. Let me in before your neighbors think I’m a terrorist.”
“You’re from Mumbai, you drama queen.”
“This is Texas. They probably think Indians send smoke signals and shit.”
“Door’s open.”
Stephen rolled out of bed and threw on a raincoat in lieu of knowing the whereabouts of his robe or any clean clothes. Raj burst through the front door. He made it a few steps into the hall before he tripped on something and tumbled hard across the floor. “Ow!”
“Lights,” Stephen said as he walked into the room.
The room lit up. Raj was lying on the floor, having tripped over the luggage and boxes Stephen had brought back from Wright Station.
“I see you’ve unpacked,” Raj said, getting to his feet.
“Coffee?” Stephen asked, ignoring his comment.
“Do I look like I need coffee? Ever?”
“I’m having some.”
“You’ve got clothes on under that raincoat, right?”
“Why are you here, Raj?”
“We have a sat conference with Warren in . . .” He looked at his watch. “Now.”
“Why the hell didn’t you just tell me that, you moron?” Stephen bellowed. “I look like a flasher.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not like your bad fashion is going to surprise anyone.”
“Hilarious. What’s this about?”
“I don’t know. Just got the order to rouse you.”
Stephen’s adrenaline shot up. What if Robert was calling to confirm May’s death? After avoiding it when he returned from Wright Station, he’d finally found the courage to go home. He thought he had resigned himself to the worst-case scenario, but in that moment he felt grossly unprepared to have it confirmed into reality.
“What if it’s bad news, Raj?”
“Incoming sat comm,” his home AI purred. “Accept?”
“Yes,” Stephen said, buttoning his coat higher.
The NASA insignia appeared on the screen.
“Hold for Director Warren,” the soft electronic voice said.
Stephen felt like a death-row prisoner on execution day. His anxiety had quickly spread to Raj after the bad-news question. Robert’s face appeared on the screen. He was playing his usual role of the harried yet professionally composed leader.
“Hello, Stephen. Raj.”
“Hi, Robert,” Stephen said.
“How are you holding up?”
“To be honest, I’m not.”
“Well, I have some news that will lift your spirits. We’ve received an SOS signal from the Hawking II.”
Stephen couldn’t believe his ears.
“I . . . Oh my God.”
Raj patted him on the back, way too hard, as usual.
Stephen coughed. “That’s incredible. When?”
“Twenty-seven hours ago.”
“Why didn’t you call me then?” Stephen spat.
Robert’s eye twitched ever so slightly. Stephen knew his tells by now; that one meant he was irked and caught off guard, but that would be the only sign of it.
“We needed time to confirm, and when we had, we tried to reach you but had no luck. That’s why I asked Raj to track you down.”
“See?” Raj said. “He’s been too busy wallowing in self-pity, Robert.”
“Shut up, Raj,” Stephen said. “Robert, that’s great news.”
“Yes, but we all need to temper our expectations here. The team has decrypted and analyzed the packet data. First off, you need to know that the ship’s AI is reporting multiple casualties, but Maryam is not among them. Also, the ship has been severely damaged and is barely functioning at a nominal level.”
“Oh my God,” Stephen said again, quietly. “Any chance of remote repair?”
“We’re working on that, but we may need onboard assistance. Aside from May, we have no idea if there are any other survivors with the right expertise.”
Stephen and Raj were completely deflated. They knew the prognosis. Surviving in deep space with a fully functioning vessel was already a monumental challenge.
“Robert, what if May or any of the other survivors are unable to assist? Is it possible to launch a rescue? If they’re somehow incapacitated, trying to make it back—”
“That’s all the information I have right now. We’ll be sending transmissions round the clock. Stephen, once we receive an answer, if you’d like to send May a recorded message, we’ll set it up at Johnson as soon as possible.”
“Yes, I would like to do that,” Stephen said eagerly.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the team is remaining optimistic up here. NASA is no stranger to problem-solving, even under the worst of circumstances.”
“Thank you, Robert. I appreciate your candor and will try to adopt your optimism. At least now we have something cutting through the radio silence.”
“Exactly. We’ll take whatever we can get. I need to get back, but we’ll be in touch.”
“I’ll make sure I’m reachable this time.”
After the call, Stephen and Raj sat among the moving boxes and drank coffee.
“As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right,” Stephen said. “I have been feeling sorry for myself since I got back.”
“I’m always right, and you always hate to admit it.”
Raj had a way of saying things that sounded like a joke or an exaggeration while keeping a completely straight face. He was one of the most interesting people Stephen had ever met. His IQ was intimidating and his academic credentials and career accomplishments—especially considering he was only thirty-five—were unprecedented, yet he looked and spoke like a kid obsessed with pop culture.
When NASA had tasked STMD with designing the Hawking II, Raj had quickly risen through the ranks. In addition to being a gifted designer and engineer, he had a knowledge of scientific research processes that was as robust as Stephen’s. With research being the primary focus of the mission, Raj made it also the primary focus of vessel design and functionality. The result was a space-based lab with a near-perfect replication of Earth-based research environments. Scientists on the Hawking II could perform real-time experiments on planetary samples without having to wait until they returned. The vessel’s size was much larger than that of most others, but it had been Raj’s idea to build it in space to avoid the constraints imposed by having to piggyback on a launch vehicle.
Stephen had been blown away when he saw the preliminary designs, and he and Raj became fast friends. They’d spent many hours collaborating, which included sibling-like arguments that had landed them in hot water with Robert Warren on more than one occasion. In the end, all of that had proved part of an inspired equation that yielded one of the most exciting vessels NASA had ever built.
“I hate not knowing more about the ship,” Raj said.
“What about the crew? Multiple casualties?” Stephen asked, perturbed.
“Them too.”
“Jesus, you’re a real piece of work, Raj.”
“The ship is my baby. You know that. Just like May is your . . . well, not your baby, but you know what I mean. You must be very relieved.”
“I figured Warren was going to confirm what I already suspected. A lot of time has passed, and it just seemed like—”
“Trust me,” Raj interrupted. “I’m shocked anyone’s alive. Nothing cuts comms like that, for that long, for any reason short of something catastrophic.”
“You told me to keep my chin up a few days ago,” Stephen said.
“I figured that’s what people say.”
“That is what people say. Which is why they’re full of shit.”
Stephen’s mind was racing. He wanted to get Robert back on the line, grill him some more. The call had caught him off guard.
“What about a rescue, Raj? I mean, if they were to need it. Is that even possible? Does NASA have a vessel it could send? How long would that take? Maybe there’s a Chinese or Russian ship that could—”
“Chill out, dude. This is NASA. The answer to whatever needs to happen is yes. This is one of the most important missions in history. They aren’t just going to throw in the towel and go back to the drawing board. Trust me, an army of people is worrying about this now, twenty-four-seven, so you don’t have to.”
“Okay. You’re right. I’m still going to worry, but I’ll stop trying to be a backseat driver. I just want to do something, you know? It’s driving me nuts to feel so goddamned powerless.” Stephen started pacing. “I just wish I could help.”
“Send May some words of encouragement. Give her a pep talk. She probably needs one pretty bad about now.”
“Yeah. Moral support. That’s what I can do right now.”
“Just don’t mention, you know, any of that bummer shit from your marriage.”
“Wow, you really do think I’m socially inept.”
“You’re not as bad as me, but—”
�
�Shut up.”
Raj noticed that the door to one of the other bedrooms was ajar and went to peek inside. “Whoa, you actually went in there?” he asked, surprised.
“Yeah,” Stephen said. “Just, please don’t.”
Raj opened the door all the way. It was a child’s nursery. “I thought maybe you’d had it, like, remodeled or something by now.”
“Can we talk about something else?” Stephen said, closing the door.
“No. I’m going home,” Raj said. “I need me some cereal . . . and sleep, I guess.”
“Thanks for ambushing me.”
“No problem. See you back at the office.”
“Yeah,” Stephen said enthusiastically.
After Raj left, Stephen allowed himself a little sentimentality and looked in at the nursery. He’d built it as a surprise for May, but he hadn’t even been able to think about it since the launch. It wasn’t until he’d thought he might have lost her that he was able to summon the courage. It was odd, but looking at it brought him out of his dreadful numbness. He wanted to feel. He craved it. Opening that door had done the trick, beating him nearly senseless with pain. Since then, he’d kept the door open, forcing himself to keep the wound fresh.
Knowing May was still alive, though, made Stephen see it differently. Sunlight shone through the sheer curtains, lending a soft glow to the pastel colors and white trim. The stuffed animals in the crib looked like children patiently waiting for Christmas morning. Stephen switched off the lights and sat in the cushioned rocker, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars May had arranged on the ceiling. Orion, Stephen’s favorite constellation. Somewhere up there was the faintest glimmer of hope.
21
Houston, Texas
February 27, 2066
“I would like to propose a toast.”
Several hundred guests in formal evening attire were dancing and mingling in a gaudy ballroom at Houston’s Hôtel Versailles. It was the kind of place that made Stephen’s skin crawl, with enough gold, velvet, and ancient oil money to choke Louis XIV. While everyone else drank and ate their weight in champagne and prime rib, he sat in his ill-fitting rented tuxedo, nursing a sweaty manhattan and trying valiantly to have a conversation with the divorced Houston socialite Robert had foisted on him as a date. Robert was of the mind that Stephen needed to appear more “normal” to ensure that the wealthy power brokers behind the mission felt comfortable having an academic at the helm. She was a very nice woman, well spoken and appropriately attractive, but terminally dull.