300 Minutes of Danger

by Jack Heath

  As she spun, she got a look at what she was falling towards. A massive rip in the hull, stars glimmering on the other side. Washington’s helmet was hurtling down to Earth.

  Washington himself was tangled in one of the storage nets attached to the wall. His eyes bulged, motionless, unseeing.

  23:30‘Commander!’ Jessie cried.

  No response. Even if Washington had survived the sudden loss of oxygen and exposure to sub-zero temperatures, he wouldn’t have been able to hear her without his helmet.

  23:10Jessie flailed about, grasping for something, anything. Her gloved hands found one of the harness straps from Washington’s chair. She yanked hard on it, stopping her descent. Now that all the air was gone, she wasn’t being sucked towards the hole in the hull anymore.

  Jessie pushed off the chair. When she hit the wall, she grabbed the support struts and crawled over to Washington’s body.

  The stars outside were spinning. Even with her vomit-comet training it was hard not to feel sick. She squeezed Washington’s outstretched hand. No reaction.

  She untangled him from the net and pushed him towards the storage compartment. His lifeless body drifted in the vacuum until it hit the door. Jessie jumped after him, floating through the control room just in time to stop Washington from bouncing out of reach. She clipped his belt to hers so that he didn’t float away.

  21:50If she opened the compartment door now, all the air would explode out, blasting her and Washington out through the breach into space. She prodded the touchscreen next to the door and triggered a decompression.

  She waited for twelve agonising seconds while all the air was sucked out of the storage compartment and sealed in tanks. As soon as the pressure gauge hit zero, she wrenched the door open and dragged Washington inside.

  21:20Everything on the ship was cramped, but the storage compartment was even more so. Two massive gas tanks marked O2 and N dominated the room, leaving just enough space for a crate of MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat.

  20:00Jessie slammed the door shut. There was a touchscreen in here too. She jabbed it until she found the setting to pour the air back in. When the storage compartment reached 0.8 atmospheres of pressure, she detached her helmet.

  Her ears popped and the cold hit her like an alpine river. She ignored it. ‘Commander Washington,’ she shouted. ‘Can you hear me?’

  Washington didn’t respond. He simply floated like a mannequin filled with helium.

  19:30Jessie ripped off her glove and pressed her fingers to his throat, searching for a pulse. She had to hold one hand behind his head to stop him from floating away.

  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

  A pulse!

  She pulled Washington towards the door and positioned his face over the touchscreen. A fog of condensation appeared on the glass. He was breathing.

  19:05Jessie almost wept with relief. Washington wasn’t dead. Unconscious, yes—maybe even in a coma—but his lungs and heart were working. Perhaps running twenty kilometres every day for eight years and eating only rice, lentils and chicken really could make someone invincible.

  ‘You’re tough, I’ll give you that.’ She wiped her eyes and held up her hand. ‘High five.’

  18:20Washington didn’t respond.

  The radio in Jessie’s suit was only designed to communicate with people up to a kilometre away. But the craft itself could broadcast much further. Jessie prodded the touchscreen and opened a channel.

  ‘Atlas, this is Icarus,’ she said. ‘Atlas, this is Icarus. Come in, over,’ she said.

  A heart-stopping delay as the signal travelled down to Earth. And then:

  ‘We read you, Icarus.’ A female voice. ‘What’s your status?’

  17:50‘There’s a breach in the hull,’ Jessie said. ‘The control room is depressurised. Commander Washington and I are in the storage compartment. I’m OK, but he’s unconscious.’

  To her credit, Atlas didn’t sound panicked. ‘What are his vital signs?’

  ‘He’s breathing and he has a pulse, but he’s not responding to anything I say.’

  17:20‘What about the breach in the hull? Are you able to patch it?’

  Jessie peered through the small window above the doorhandle. ‘I don’t think so,’ Jessie said. ‘It’s at least two metres long and one metre wide.’

  ‘Oh. Copy that, Icarus. Stand by for instructions.’

  Silence fell. Jessie put her palm on Washington’s forehead. His skin was no longer freezing. Hopefully this meant he was recovering, but the sooner he got medical help, the better.

  16:30‘This is Atlas calling Icarus.’

  ‘Uh, go ahead.’

  ‘I’ve got some bad news,’ Atlas said.

  ‘More?’ Jessie demanded. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘The decompression has knocked you out of orbit.’

  ‘I’m going to crash?’ Jessie felt dizzy.

  ‘No. The escaping air pushed Icarus in the opposite direction. You’re headed away from Earth. You need to change course, or else you’ll find yourself in deep space where we can’t help you.’

  ‘OK. How do I do that?’

  ‘Are the controls intact?’ the woman asked.

  Jessie peered through the window. The instrument panel had all the usual lights on—plus some extras warning about the decompression.

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘But I can’t get to them. The breach is in the control room. I can’t pressurise it.’

  16:00‘You’ll have to fly Icarus wearing your spacesuit,’ Atlas said. ‘You passed your flight training, right?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t open the door. All the air will escape from the storage compartment.’

  ‘You’ll have to depressurise the compartment first.’

  ‘I can’t! Commander Washington will suffocate.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a flight suit?’

  ‘Suit, yes,’ Jessie said. ‘Helmet, no. It was sucked out into space.’

  15:45‘Stand by.’

  There was a longer silence this time—or maybe it seemed longer because Jessie was dreading the answer.

  One helmet. Two astronauts. One with years more training than the other.

  What if Atlas told Jessie to give away her helmet? What if someone decided Washington’s life was more important than hers?

  She told herself that wouldn’t happen. Washington couldn’t fly the ship while he was unconscious. But she found herself chewing her nails, a habit she’d thought she had broken.

  ‘Icarus, come in.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Jessie said warily.

  ‘We’ve talked to the crew of Genesis. We think we have a plan.’

  15:05Relief washed through her. A plan!

  ‘You’re not far off course,’ Atlas continued. ‘Your new trajectory will bring you within fourteen metres of Genesis. When it comes past, a member of the crew is going to jump off the hull, land on Icarus, climb in through the breach and pilot your craft to safety.’

  Jessie boggled at the screen. ‘What if he misses?’

  ‘Her name is Racine. She’s the best we have—she won’t miss.’

  14:50‘But what if she does?’

  ‘She’ll be tethered to Genesis, and won’t unhook unless she lands on Icarus successfully. If she were to miss, she’d be able to reel herself back in. But you guys would be in serious trouble. By the time Genesis came around again, you’d be out of reach.’

  Fear gnawed at Jessie’s stomach. ‘Thanks for being honest with me.’

  ‘She won’t miss,’ Atlas said again.

  ‘What can I do?’

  14:35‘Just sit tight. She should be landing on your hull in about two minutes.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  Jessie checked Washington’s pulse again. It would be awful if he died while they were waiting to be rescued. But his heartbeat was steady. His breaths were now audible—no need to hold his face up to the glass. Jessie wasn’t a doctor but she thought his chances were good.

  She pressed her face again
st the window. She thought she could see a spot in the black void beyond the breach. At first it was no bigger than the spinning vortex of stars around it. But soon it got bigger and bigger until she could make out details. Two grids of solar panels, sixteen in all, on either side of a box-shaped chassis. Genesis, coming in fast.

  ‘Icarus.’ The voice was fuzzy. ‘We … problem.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘… Telescope … looks … solar flare.’

  Jessie’s blood ran cold. A solar flare—a sudden explosion on the sun’s surface—was every astronaut’s nightmare. It could disrupt radio communications, disable electronics and knock spacecraft out of orbit. And worse, any astronaut who was outside their ship when it happened would be fried.

  13:00‘Tell Racine not to jump!’ Jessie cried, although Atlas was probably already doing that. ‘Tell her not to—’

  Outside the window there was a moment of brightness, just like the flash of a camera. Everything in the control room sparkled for a split-second. If the breach in the hull had been facing the sun, Jessie would have been blinded, and perhaps burned.

  12:50Then the flare was over. All the lights in the ship sputtered and went dark, fried by the distant explosion.

  Jessie watched as Genesis swept past. No-one jumped off the hull. Racine must have got the message in time …

  But that meant no help was coming. Icarus would spin further and further away from Earth, with Jessie and Washington trapped inside.

  11:50It took a minute for the electronics to reset themselves. Some of the lights came on. Others didn’t.

  The radio crackled. ‘Sorry, Icarus. Racine couldn’t do the jump. She would have been burnt to a crisp.’

  ‘Can they try again?’ Jessie asked. ‘The next time they come around?’

  ‘The tether is only twenty metres long,’ Atlas said. ‘You’ll be twenty-eight metres away from Genesis next time it passes you.’

  Jessie tried not to sound desperate. ‘Can they change course?’

  11:20‘It’s a space station, not a shuttle. They can slow down or speed up, but they can’t turn.’

  So we’re going to die, Jessie thought. ‘Is there anything else we can try?’

  There was a pause. Then, ‘Stand by.’

  It seemed unlikely. The jump had been their last chance. Jessie wondered how long she and Washington would survive before the oxygen ran out, or the food, or the water, or the heat.

  Her parents would be left with no corpse to bury. But she would at least have the chance to say goodbye, right? Before they were out of radio range?

  Tears stung her eyes. When she blinked, the droplets floated away towards the wall.

  ‘Icarus.’

  11:00‘I’m here.’ Jessie tried to keep her voice steady.

  ‘You’ll need to put on the space suit and steer the ship back into orbit,’ Atlas said. ‘There’s no other way.’

  ‘What about Commander Washington?’

  Atlas said nothing.

  ‘I can’t tell him to hold his breath,’ Jessie said. ‘He’s unconscious. The depressurisation will kill him.’

  ‘He knew the risks.’

  Jessie looked at Washington’s body floating helplessly in the air.

  10:40‘It’s because I’m a kid, isn’t it?’ she demanded. ‘No-one will care about a dead astronaut who’s a grown man. But if a kid dies, StarTours will have to cancel the whole program.’

  ‘We care plenty,’ Atlas snapped. ‘But Washington’s mission—which he willingly signed up for—was to protect you at all costs.’

  Jessie ran her hands through her hair. Could she really sacrifice Washington’s life to save her own?

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘There isn’t any other way,’ Atlas said.

  ‘Yes there is.’ Jessie put her helmet over Washington’s head and attached it to his suit. She heard a faint hiss from inside as it pressurised. ‘Tell the astronaut to get ready for a second jump.’

  ‘The tether isn’t long enough. And at this distance, she’s much more likely to miss, so she can’t jump without it.’

  ‘She doesn’t need to come to us,’ Jessie said. ‘We’re going to meet her halfway.’

  There was a small medical bay in the storage room. Some bandages, scissors, antibacterial cream—and an oxygen canister. Jessie wound a roll of duct tape around her body, fixing the canister to her back.

  08:10‘Are you talking about jumping?’ Atlas demanded.

  Jessie pulled a plastic breathing mask over her nose and mouth and taped up the valves so the air wouldn’t escape.

  ‘You can’t jump,’ Atlas said. ‘You don’t have a spare helmet. Or a tether.’

  The mask muffled Jessie’s voice. ‘Feel free to fly up here and stop me.’

  06:20A bag tied to the wall contained ear plugs and goggles. The lenses were designed to keep out most of the light so the crew could sleep. Jessie pulled the goggles on—Washington’s eyeballs hadn’t exploded in the vacuum, but that didn’t mean hers wouldn’t.

  She licked the ear plugs for a better seal and jammed them into her ears, wincing at the slimy texture. Her eyes, lungs and ear drums were all protected. Nothing she could do about the cold. She would just have to hope that she stayed conscious long enough to make the jump.

  05:00She clipped Washington’s belt to her own again.

  ‘If this works, you owe me big time,’ she told him.

  No response. A pity.

  Jessie squinted out the window. It was hard to tell with the dark goggles, but was that Genesis coming around again already?

  ‘Is Racine ready to jump?’ she asked.

  ‘Jessie, I am ordering you not to do this.’

  ‘I didn’t quite catch that, Atlas,’ Jessie said. ‘Commander Washington and I will make the jump as soon as Genesis comes into view. Will Racine be ready to catch us?’

  03:40A long pause. Then: ‘She says she will. She’s as crazy as you are. Genesis is slowing down so you don’t get killed on impact.’

  03:00Jessie put her hand on the doorhandle. No sign of unusual solar activity, space junk, or any other hazards—except that freezing, hungry vacuum, waiting to pull her brains out through her eye sockets.

  There it was—a white dot appearing from behind Earth’s horizon.

  She should have asked Atlas to give a message to her parents in case she didn’t make it. Too late now.

  She turned the handle.

  02:20The air exploded out of the room and the cold rushed in like a tsunami. Jessie’s skin turned to ice. It was somehow like being burned. She could feel the veins standing out all over her body.

  She’d made a terrible mistake. This was impossible.

  But it was too late to change her mind.

  She hauled Washington out the door into the control room. The breach seemed even more terrifying now that there was no protective helmet between her and it. The unforgiving blackness of outer space yawned. Flecks of the shredded hull floated around her like dust in an ancient library. Jessie pushed through it towards the breach.

  02:00Genesis was getting bigger. Jessie tried not to think about how fast it was going, and what she was about to do—jump onto it carrying a man who was at least twice her weight.

  She had no tether. If she missed Racine, she and Washington would drift away into space. She would freeze to death, and Washington would eventually suffocate in his sleep.

  Fortunately the icy sizzling all over her skin was very distracting. The vacuum was pulling at her, stretching her in every direction at once. It was like a vampire, desperate to pull the blood out of her body.

  01:50Jessie crawled out through the breach into the void of space and was hit with a wave of vertigo. The ship was still spinning—right now Earth was a massive grey-blue ball above her, but it was sweeping slowly around so that soon it would be below. The first time Jessie went camping she had been struck by how bright the stars were away from the smog of the city, but that was nothing compared to this. Th
e stars—suns, she reminded herself, each hotter than the inside of a volcano—were almost painfully bright, even through the goggles.

  01:25The space station was a looming behemoth now. She could see Racine clinging to the hull, ready to leap. If Jessie didn’t jump towards Genesis now she would miss her chance.

  She crouched low, holding Washington in her arms so that his mass didn’t interfere with her trajectory …

  And launched herself into space.

  01:05As soon as her feet left the hull the terror became too big to ignore. What if she had misjudged the angle? She could drift away into the endless void until her body crash-landed on a distant moon, got sucked into a black hole and squished or was incinerated inside a distant star.

  But Racine had angled her jump perfectly. She was hurtling towards Jessie, both arms outstretched, the tether trailing behind her like a yellow ribbon. She was already close enough that Jessie could see her intense eyes behind the visor of her helmet.

  00:50Crash! The impact was completely silent but Jessie felt it in every joint. Racine’s arms encircled her. The tether went taut and swung them outward like a tennis ball around a totem pole, and suddenly all three astronauts were being dragged after Genesis.

  The tether got shorter. Someone was reeling them in. Jessie tried to examine the approaching airlock, but her eyes wouldn’t focus. The sun must have gone behind the Earth because it was getting darker, and darker, and …

  00:00

  ‘Ghuh!’ Jessie awoke with a gasp.

  She wasn’t in space. She was somewhere bright and warm. Her goggles had gone and a blanket was tangled around her body. Had it all been a dream?

  But she was still wearing an oxygen mask. She had that constantly-falling zero-gravity sensation. She must be in a spaceship—Genesis.

  She had made it.

  She turned her head and moaned. Her whole body felt like one big bruise. Looking down she saw that her skin had a purplish hue.