Solitude: Dimension Space Book One

by Dean M. Cole

Angela thought her jet pack had sufficient compressed gas to return her to the ISS. Likely, the SAFER module could arrest the outbound velocity and fly her back, but considering the dire consequences of failure, she sure as hell didn't want to find out.

  The woman had latched the tether to the spacesuit's left hip. Now she hung from it, teeter-tottering like a human see-saw. She held the large loop of cable in her right hand. As Angela oscillated back and forth, she tried to latch onto the end of the array arm with the closest available limb, alternating between her hands and feet. The glove bounced off of the white metal bar, knocking her upper body away from it, so she tried to hook a heel over it. On the fourth iteration of this insane see-sawing motion, she finally hooked a calf over the nearest structural member. A moment later, she draped her other leg over the bar as well.

  Angela panted heavily, trying to catch her breath.

  Now hanging upside down from the back of her knees, the astronaut looked like the world's highest trapeze artist. Heart racing, she peered overhead, looking down on the planet below. The cable had started to move in earnest. Loop after loop of wire fell from her right hand, each a little faster than the previous.

  She had to slow it down. Otherwise, the line might snap when it reached the end.

  Angela looked at the palm of her suit's left glove, eyeing the insulation and the white duct tape that held the extra padding that she had added. Fortunately, her frantic attempts to grab the end of the array arm hadn't dislodged any of it.

  "NASA engineering at its finest."

  She grabbed the cable. As the fingers of the glove closed around the wire, the thick padding made it feel like she was holding a vibrating softball. The tremors manifested as noise in her suit. Its pitch raised an octave as the cable continued to pick up speed. She squeezed her hand and the frequency of the vibrations leveled and then began to fall off a bit.

  "It's working, Nate!"

  She felt a soft tug, and then a puff of insulation and tape sprayed from her glove. At the same time, she heard a hiccup in the whine of the sliding cable.

  "Shit!" she yelled. "Have to watch for those splices, Commander."

  She shook her head. The spacesuit's gloves were very durable, but if she'd been stupid enough to try to brake the cable's momentum against the glove's unprotected palms, that cable splice might have torn out a chunk of it and exposed Angela to the vacuum of space.

  "The glove's makeshift padding just paid off," she reported to the voice recorder.

  "I sure as hell hope nobody ever hears this, because if you're listening to my stupid ramblings, it means you've arrived to find the station empty but for a mouse carcass and this damned smartphone filled with my babbling voice."

  "Here comes another splice." Angela released the wire and let it pass.

  "Damnit!" she shouted. "The wire took off the instant I released it."

  The astronaut grabbed the rapidly accelerating cable.

  "That whine you're likely hearing is the braided line rubbing against the glove's added padding."

  Angela bore down on the wire, squeezing it. The droning dropped an octave as she managed to slow the line. Being stretched between it and the station, she started to feel like a torture victim on the rack.

  "Hang on," she said with a grunt. "It's really starting to pull now, and there's another splice coming."

  The whining continued to ramp up. Heat began building in the glove. Then a fine spray started to radiate from the padding.

  "Crap! It's melting the insulation."

  Angela grunted with exertion as she fought to keep the wire's acceleration in check.

  "Feels like my damn knees are going to pop out of socket. I don't think I can hold it much—" Then a scream burst through her lips as the next splice tore at the padding, launching a fresh gout of insulation and tape. "Damn it! I didn't let go quick enough! Another splice nicked me."

  A whistle rang out, and her ears popped as the suit's internal atmospheric pressure dropped.

  "Shit! Got a hole in my glove!"

  Angela checked the suit's gauges.

  "Not too bad. It's small. I'll tape it in a minute." She paused, grunting as she fought to rein in the cable's inertia. "Have to stop this damned thing from snapping off."

  The last loop fell away.

  The muscles in the astronaut's hand cramped painfully. She screamed through gnashed teeth. Angela could feel the veins in her neck bulging with exertion.

  Suddenly, the glove's insulation burst into flames. The escaping mix of oxygen and melted foam burned like a tiny rocket plume, spewing from her glove like Iron Man in flight.

  "Shit! Hand's on fire!"

  The wire snapped taut and then went slack.

  "Please, don't tell me the damned counterweight broke off!" the woman said as she snatched a roll of duct tape from her utility belt. With her flame-free hand, the astronaut wrapped up the glove. The fire extinguished, and the leak sealed.

  Angela looked up. To the limit of her vision, the cable looked loose, its long, wavering curls disappearing toward the scrolling ocean below.

  She squinted her eyes, trying to make out the wire's distant end, but it was too far away to discern. Then she saw the angle of the cable's curls starting to diminish.

  A moment later, the line went taut again.

  Watching its slow bounce, Angela nodded triumphantly.

  "We're good! It held!"

  A few moments later, the astronaut returned to the base of the support arm. She inspected the insulated clamps she'd used to secure the cable to the structure. She'd left the wire disconnected from the station's electrical system, so that a partial slip of the cable wouldn't destroy one of only two still functioning connectors.

  With her well-insulated hand, she grabbed the barrel of the connector's live end. A frown pursed her lips as she looked at the label riveted to its side:

  C819

  It was the same connector that she and Bill had been working on when all this had started.

  Thinking about the first experiment's melted wire, Angela closed her eyes and uttered a silent prayer. Then she said, "I'm about to connect the cable, so if this is the last recording and you've been trying to figure out what the hell caused that big burn mark on the port end of the array truss … Well, now you know."

  Angela turned her head sideways and squinted her eyes as she looked askance at connector C819, slowly inching the two pieces together. Just before they made contact, the connectors glowed as a blindingly bright arc vaporized a splinter of conductive material that floated between the two halves. Then the connector clicked home, and the light died.

  "Still here," she reported. "We're definitely making electricity. Got a flash during the connection. Good thing I'm wearing Depends," she said with a relieved chuckle.

  "Now that it's bonded to the system, everything looks good … so far. Won't know until I try to fire up the power management computer."

  Angela took a deep breath and then let it out in a long, exhausted sigh.

  "But that's going to have to wait a little longer. According to my calculations, that first cable will only generate half of the electricity I need."

  She looked at the second spool. Three hundred feet from her current location, the other half of her tether experiment waited at the opposite end of the array truss structure. The spool floated lazily, attached to the only other support arm that still had a functional power connector.

  Now that she'd finished attaching the first tether, it was time to do the second one.

  The astronaut checked her gauges. Even factoring in the air lost during the leak, she should have enough.

  Just.

  Angela sighed again. "One down, one to go."

  An hour later and now with partially melted insulation and scorched duct tape wrapped around both of her gloves, Angela floated out of the airlock and back into the dark station. The suit's pulsing red warning light intermittently illuminated her blue-tinged face as she struggled for breath.

  Th
e astronaut tried and failed to release the helmet visor, but all of the padding wrapped around her gloves made it impossible.

  Trapped in her spacesuit, Angela felt the tenuous thread of consciousness threatening to snap—an event that would certainly lead to her death.

  The sweat-soaked loose strand of hair floated into her right eye again, but the woman didn't have the breath to blow it out of the way.

  Weak light streamed from her tumbling flashlight, sweeping its yellow beam through the dark interior of the station. Writhing and fighting with the layers of duct tape that were fouling the right glove's locking cuff, she ricocheted against the far wall. The woman would happily tear off the tape with her teeth, but if she could do that, she wouldn't be in the throes of suffocation induced by a depleted O2 supply.

  Angela had to get a hand free! She frantically beat the gloves against one another. Finally, a piece of insulation flew away. She tore at the freshly exposed edge. Then the left glove twisted off. Angela slung it aside. The sticky mess adhered to a nearby bulkhead.

  She opened the visor.

  Steam boiled out of the helmet.

  Angela took a deep, gasping breath of the station's cold air.

  "Thank you," she croaked.

  For long minutes, the woman floated motionlessly in the middle of the station, her fogged breath gouging steam-filled columns into its icy atmosphere.

  Gradually, color returned to her grayed-out peripheral vision.

  With slow, lethargic movements, the astronaut twisted off the other glove. Finally, she unlatched the helmet and lifted it clear.

  The ISS's atmosphere had gotten pretty rank since the battery bank had died yesterday, but cold, smelly oxygen was better than none.

  "I'm back in the station," she said with steamed breath, updating the ever-listening recorder.

  The woman made a sour face. "I'm not sure which smells worse, me or the inside of this station."

  Then she sniffed the steam rising from the collar of her spacesuit. "Yep, I win. Serious case of monkey butt here."

  Angela grabbed the tumbling flashlight and floated over to Nate's spacesuit habitat and slid the visor open. His pink nose and white whiskers emerged out of the helmet's shadowed interior.

  Angela smiled weakly as the rest of the fat little mouse floated into view. "There's my buddy. How do you keep gaining weight? I have you on strict rations, mister. Got a little stash you're keeping to yourself?"

  The exhausted woman shivered as she rubbed her neck, rocking her head side to side. The vertebrae popped audibly. She took another deep breath and then crinkled her nose. "Love what you've done with the place. What a wonderful smell you've created, Nate."

  The astronaut finished wriggling out of her spacesuit. She plucked the white rodent from the air and placed him on her right shoulder. He seemed to enjoy riding along with her when she moved around the station. If she didn't bring him, he'd often squeak incessantly.

  Angela tucked the iPhone under the waistband of her pants. The voice recorder app was still running. Nate gripped the wet fabric of the woman's steaming hoodie as they glided down the tube toward the electrical controls. Once there, she plucked the mouse from her shoulder. He floated next to her as she stared at the power management and distribution computer.

  "I left the PMAD's main breakers off. Even though it is used to dealing with the fluctuating electricity supplied by the solar arrays, I wanted to be here when it started to receive the feed from the two tethers. That way, if something went really wrong, I might have a chance to shut it off before the whole damn thing melts."

  She extended a trembling hand toward the breaker. "Well, if this works and it doesn't kill me, I'll have the world's first tether-powered space station."

  Angela swallowed and then said, "Here goes." She flipped the lever. It snapped into the on position with a loud click.

  And nothing happened.

  "Please," she whispered.

  Suddenly, an amber LED on the panel flashed to life. Then another group of them lit up as well, these all green!

  "Houston, we have power!"

  After clapping her hands and giving Nate a miniature high-five, she moved to the distribution panel. First, she turned on the station's lighting circuit.

  Angela squinted as beautiful, glorious light flooded the module. A moment later, she reached for environmental control, but before she could activate it, a loud click echoed through the module, and the lights died. Angela yanked her hand back, but the sound had come from the PMAD. Its amber LED now flashed furiously. A message popped up next to the light:

  "Insufficient electricity for current demand."

  "Shit!"

  Angela checked the power levels. Her improvised dynamo was generating usable electricity, but not enough to run the whole ISS. She would have to shut down and close off most of the station.

  "Well, Nate, I don't think it'll matter much to you, but our living space is about to get a lot smaller."

  Chapter 15

  A skinny man ran down Boulder's Main Street. Silver hairs highlighted his red and brown beard. The man reached up and pressed the side of one of the Bluetooth earbuds.

  "Tell me another joke, Siri."

  A few seconds later, the jogger began laughing. "Good one."

  Vaughn long-pressed the headset's button again. After the short chime, he said, "Siri, what's on my calendar for the day?"

  "Sky Captain, you have lunch with the President at eleven. I also see dinner with Marilyn Monroe scheduled for five PM."

  "Thank you, Siri."

  Another voice chimed up. "Three miles completed. Total time: twenty-six minutes, thirty-nine seconds. Average pace: eight fifty-three per mile."

  "Enough of that shit," Vaughn said. He slowed to a walk, two fingers pressed to his carotid. "Yep, still ticking." He lowered his hand and checked his watch. "Holy shit! I'm late."

  Picking up the pace, he jogged another block.

  "There it is!"

  Having lost its cargo unknown miles before arriving at this destination, a long passenger train had come to a stop in the middle of Boulder. Ahead of Vaughn, its silver railcar straddled Main Street. The purring sound of a well-muffled, top-of-the-line generator came from the far side of the train.

  Vaughn stepped onto the stairs at the near end of the railcar. He pressed a red button, and the 1950s-styled diner car's glass door slid open with a rude-sounding burp of compressed air.

  The man stepped into the air-conditioned space and raised a hand. "Hey, Jack. Sorry I'm late." He looked beyond the row of booths. Spotting his goal, Vaughn walked briskly through the railcar. He waved dismissively. "Don't get up. I'll be right back."

  Reaching the car's far end, Vaughn opened the large refrigerator. Cool, fogged air poured out, chilling his sweat-covered body. His arm disappeared into the appliance's dark interior and then emerged with a ceramic-capped green bottle. After a moment's consideration, he reached in and dug out a second one.

  Then Vaughn stepped up to the brightly colored jukebox. He grabbed a coin from the stack on top of the machine and dropped it into the slot. It fell through arcane innards sounding like a gambling token bouncing through a Pachinko machine. Vaughn selected a song completely at odds with the diner's 1950s motif.

  Bouncing his head to the hard rocking beats of Metallica's Fuel, the man walked back to the diner's only inhabited booth. He plopped down onto the bench opposite its celebrity occupant. Vaughn placed the two beers on the table, then grabbed the closest one and opened it. The bottle's rubber-lined ceramic cap lifted with a satisfying pop.

  He raised the pint to his lips and took a long draw from the ice-cold beer.

  Then Vaughn's eyes widened, and he lowered the bottle. "Sorry. How rude of me." He slid the second beer across the table's white Formica top. "There you go, Jack."

  The life-sized cardboard silhouette of President John F. Kennedy didn't move. It just continued staring blankly over Singleton's head.

  Vaughn frowned. He reached
over the table and grabbed the shoulder of the cardboard man. After a little coaxing, the half-folded likeness of JFK now smiled right at Vaughn.

  "That's better, Jack. Always important to maintain eye contact." He gestured with the beer bottle. "Drink up."

  Vaughn took another long swallow. "Ahh," he said, then burped loudly and rubbed his flattened abs.

  The day after the aborted suicide attempt, Vaughn had woken in a comfortable bed and with a clear head for the first time in weeks. He'd started running then. In the subsequent six weeks, he'd lost sixty pounds. Fortunately, the Disappearance had only taken living animals. There was plenty of canned meat and, in the areas where electricity still worked, lots of the frozen variety as well. His diet consisted solely of lean meats and canned veggies. Sore muscles and sugar cravings filled those first days, but since then, things had gotten better. Even his outlook had improved. He'd struck up this friendship with the dead president.

  Vaughn raised both eyebrows and gave the head of state a knowing grin. "Did I mention I'm having dinner with an old friend of yours?"

  Suddenly, the ceiling's indirect lighting flickered. Outside, the purring generator sputtered and then backfired. The lights continued to strobe, and the music from the jukebox got louder.

  "Goddamn it!"

  Vaughn slammed the beer bottle down hard enough to send a gout of it spraying across the cardboard cut-out. An undignified rivulet of the bubbling yellow liquid ran down the President's face.

  Then flickering yellow light flared up outside, backlighting the curtains at the end of the booth.

  "What the hell?"

  Vaughn brusquely swept aside the ruffled cloth. Through the window, he saw flames crawling across the generator he'd placed behind the railcar. Then the fire jumped to a puddle under the small machine. The flames tumbled and hopped their way up a rivulet. Vaughn's wide eyes traced the liquid to its source. Ten feet away, it connected to a much larger puddle beneath the 5000-gallon gasoline tanker that he had jury-rigged to the generator.

  "Oh shit!" he yelled.

  The man jumped from the booth and sprinted toward the exit. Just as he reached for the red button to open the glass door, he heard a loud whoosh.