by Jack Vantage
Dylan clipped his on and everyone’s suits sounded ready. He could see the small screen top left, his heart was beating fast at ninety bpm, and his temperature was a sweaty thirty-eight degrees. The indigo communication line was straight and unconnected. His suit pulled taught and it felt like he was standing in a rubber cover that was too tight.
Fox began throwing the harness like tubes to everyone. “These are your air gas propellants, they will give us the boost we need to get to the ships. You can turn left or right and straighten with them. You secure it like this.”
Fox strapped the harness over her shoulders and connected it together with grey metallic round clips from the hip to chest. It fastened the front body with an x. She turned and displayed the thrust’s, which curved the shoulder blades like the oblique letter y. They pointed out from the body at the back with round triangular nozzles. Two small canisters, holding the air gas, positioned before the nozzles, and she held two sticks with buttoned tips in her hands.
“The thrust’s work as follows. Right hand right thrust, left hand left thrust. Press and depress to activate and stop. We need to shoot half a mile. We need to stay together. We begin in the escape pods.”
She placed a hand over a hexagon tile and pulled it from the wall. A hole, large enough to crawl through, appeared.
“These operate very simply. You climb in and lie on your stomach. Above you, is a glass shield. You will be able to grab a joystick right in front of you. Press it up and you go down, left and you go left, right and you go right, down and you go up. There is also an eject button. When you are close enough to the ship, hit it and use your suit’s thrusters to guide you safely to it. Those are the only controls. Just follow my orders and you’ll be fine.”
Fox exposed a hole for everyone to climb into.
“We need to stay in a straight line. If you feel yourself wandering, steer carefully and veer the correct way. Don’t panic. When we eject from the pods the helmet is tinted and reflective of the sun, like your suit is. So you’ll be safe. I will now activate the communicators. They will allow us to communicate with each other and both ships. When ejected from the pods remember, to stop, press both thrust buttons together. It takes, at speed, around a hundred metres to stop, so give yourself enough braking space.”
Fox began typing into a computer that was built into the wall, which was sideways, but she shaped her body to do so.
“Michael, see you on the ship,” David said. He slapped Michael’s arm with manly gesture.
The helmets communicators activated.
“See you there,” he replied.
“My friends. I will pray for us all,” Hammed said.
“Guys we can do it, we can do it,” shouted Leon.
“Are you ok Calvin?” Fox said, as she re gathered with the group.
“Am good,” he said. Terror was in his eyes.
“Okay everyone, listen. The sequencer has activated. We are about to start the countdown. Everyone into the pods.”
“Stage one of spacewalk preparation commencing,” a computerised female voice said inside the helmets’ speakers. Above the lob sided hexagon door, an amber dot ignited on the wall. Dylan felt air circling his body. He felt pure oxygen filling his lungs as he moved to his pod hole.
Fox said, “Deep breaths, everyone. Your lungs need to fill before the suit pressurises to one ATM. Quick, deep breaths. We need to drain the nitrogen from your blood.”
Dylan looked over the group and watched them all breathing heavy and fast. Zero gravity awaited behind the door. The real universe was there, where relativity was gold and the human trash compared to its physics and micro mechanics. Dylan hoped it would allow him through, guide him a safe passage. He nodded Lecodia and helped her into her pod.
“Stage two commencing,” the computer voice said, as the Amber dot changed to red. Dylan climbed in to his pod. The escape pod was dark inside. Only the emergency red light lit. Dylan grasped the chunky joystick tight with both hands, which was slightly sunken from his lying body. There was barely enough room to move. He hoped he hadn't climbed into his coffin.
“Your suits should be adjusting the pressure of your body, it needs to, or you’ll die. Now the room will adjust and pressurise us ready. When the doors open, I have issued the emergency ejection. Our pods will blow out and gain speed. So, everyone ready. I will now contact the ships.” Fox spoke with a mayday tone. “Migration, Migration, this is a survivor in need of assistance.”
The pods whirled a loud hiss and swirl, as they switched on and lit with a cool halogen blue.
As the door of Dylan’s pod sealed at his feet, he thought of Lecodia. Quietly he said, “Baby, I’ll see you there.”
Lecodia replied, “I love you.”
And the computer began counting down. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five….”
“Ready yourselves,” Fox said.
“Three, two, one.”
Something yanked Dylan’s body backward, like the feeling as you travel a runway at take-off. A hole directly in front of his eyes zipped open, and the void sucked him to it. It was a smart catapult of force, because instantly they were travelling fast in silent jettison.
Dylan looked to the seven pods that flew the void right of him. The tops were transparent material, like glass, and he could see the pilots inside. The pods were shaped like thin ellipse circles, with a white shinny base. Each pod held a clear transparent tip that enabled a panoramic field of vision. Everyone guided their pods in close formation, with their tiny thrusters emitting a waft of power from their rears.
Chunks of the bridge, and other shards of the station, were spinning through space, like a minefield on a battlefield. Some would intercept the escape pods roughly a hundred metres ahead.
He glanced toward Quazar and realised the horror and the beauty of the situation. His home was a giant ball of frost. The glazy globe was frozen solid, shadowed dark, and iced with snow. Only a few thin glints of light sparkled from its icy crust. It was like a tiny snow flake in the finite universe. Eclipse, the moon, was hidden by its own dust, and Quazar’s two other satellites were like ghosts in the night due to lack of light.
He looked back to the approaching debris. Tiny meteors and asteroids were showering it, their trails a stunning orange hue. The debris was free floating, and they bumped like billiard balls would their table. Silently, an asteroid shower began pelting the cellular shaped photovoltaic station beyond the debris. It was an explosive array of destruction. The station was throwing more and more debris into space as the asteroids exploded through it. Migration was over the slick solar station that was receiving a beating. Most of the stations were still intact and connected as Dylan could see below and around him.
Fox came on the communicator. “Everyone, watch your direction when we hit the debris. Think quick.” She then continued to look for Migration’s frequency. “Migration, migration.” Dylan shut her out again.
The debris neared, and Dylan readied himself for fast manoeuvring, his reactions on fire with alertness. The group entered the cluster of space junk side by side. Dylan flashed past torn and jagged sections of the station, spinning and floating like mobile walls.
Then he neared a fifty-foot long piece of the bridge, still intact, that had sheared from the building. It spun and aligned with him, blocking his path.
Lecodia shouted, “Dylan, look out!”
“Got to go through,” he said.
Like a monorail travelling a tunnel, he sped through. Its edges, gridded floor, and transparent roof blurred past. He looked out through the clear bridge roof and watched the group zooming along. Then he shot out the end just before it had turned again.
He tilted the joystick and veered back towards the group, who twisted and weaved through the obstacles of death. Jets of thrust blasted from each pods rear, as they turned and dodged. He shouted, “Lecodia, left!”
“I see it,” she replied as she dodged a small, sharp piece of debris.
Ahead asteroids contin
ued to plough through the nearing stations body in silence. They entered its top and exited its bottom. The stations external windows glowed and dimmed with each piercing hit, like a giant lighter was flint sparking inside.
Fox said, “Everyone follow the station’s curve. We have to go over it.”
A strange man’s voice came through the communicator. “This is Migration. Survivor, what is your position?”
“Migration, this is a group of survivors. We are currently jetting through space to you. Are you still at your docking location?” Fox inquired.
“We are about to leave, and so is Noah. We have a window from the asteroids, so you guys had better hurry. Did you say jetting?”
“That’s right, ´en route to you. Please open the maintenance bays of both ships. We need access.”
“I will leave them open. They are at the ship’s rear, top side. You’ll get a visual on them when close. Good luck.”
“Leon, David, Hammed, swing right,” Dylan shouted, as he watched a tiny pebble of an asteroid missile towards them. It trailed with a tiny tail, much like the trail witnessed when using a sparkler. Suddenly a deadly shower of minute stones rained all around. The group dodged and weaved and began to split as the debris blocked paths. They neared the station, and followed its curvature over, like it was a planet.
Fox and Calvin began slipping away. They were pushed rightward.
“Fox, Calvin, your straying,” Dylan said.
“I’m okay. We’ll be right back,” Fox said.
Calvin was silent, until a tiny asteroid clipped his pod. The pod veered, rocked and smoked. Calvin screamed into the communicator with terror. In a panic, he ejected. The pod’s clear roof blasted violently away, and momentum carried his body forward in an uncontrolled roll.
Another asteroid hit his body. It scraped past him in a blur, but it took a chunk of his leg with it.
He screamed again before freezing in mid-scream. Calvin’s body hit a chunk of jagged debris, and shatter like glass into a thousand pieces.
“Fox, get back here,” Michael said.
“On my way,” she replied, and veered back.
All pods began flowing over the station. Dylan watched its slick photovoltaic panelled shell, and uncountable windows, scrolling past fifty metres below. It was like they travelled the curve of another world, flying free.
Asteroids began pelting again, tiny stones smacking the station ahead. It was like bombs had detonated on its surface as rubble and danger was thrown up into the air. The silence was unbearable and disorientating. Just the sound of breathing hit Dylan with constant repetition. The group veered left to avoid the shower of asteroid tailing beauty.
Fox said, “We should be able to see the ship any second now. We’re almost over—” She moaned with a terrible pain, and something impacted her pod.
Fox ejected. Almost immediately,
an asteroid struck her in the back.
Lecodia screamed.
Fox’s body was torn to shreds. Bits of her flew in all directions, as the asteroid ploughed into the station below.
Through the speakers, David pleaded, “Stay focused everyone.”
The curve reversed and began descending away. Dylan could see the galactic ship far below, at least three hundred metres away. It was huge, like a sky-scraper in space, only shaped like a cigar. It was bumped and lined with a million crevasse-like indentations. Numerous windows glowed along its length. The ship was a deep, iced blue that looked artificial and expensive.
Quazar weighted the space to Dylan’s left, its crust glassed over with ice. The variations in the colour struck Dylan. In places, snow white hid the planet’s terra, and in others a cold, pale frost covered with a glassy gloss where the standing cities beneath were sealed and preserved like ancient monuments awaiting discovery.
David said, “Guys, I think we had better eject.” The ship was only around two hundred metres away. “In three, two, one.”
The five survivors ejected. Dylan felt the pods clear roof blow away. Then his body was thrown out into a dive. Dylan grabbed his thrusts. The escape pods continued speeding away before crashing into the station a few hundred feet below. Dylan felt naked in space and could see his reflection in the passing photovoltaic panels of the space station as he dove.
Michael said, “Everybody ease up slowly.”
“Baby on your thrusts,” Dylan said.
“I got it, I got it,” she replied.
They were in a head-first dive, falling towards the ship.
Michael said, “Okay, very slowly, bring your legs to angle down.”
Dylan looked to his left and watched Lecodia tuck her legs into a cannonball position. Dylan followed, and his body slowly turned. The jet packs thrusts began to slow him, and his decent turned from a fall to a glide as he outstretched in a standing position. He could feel the jets of gas blasting and breaking behind.
Then the universe threw one last stone at their death-defying escape. They were so close to the ship, just a hundred metres, and it was so big below that he felt like he was standing in a city street. Yet the universe had shaped its own plan for the group.
An asteroid was hurling directly at them. It appeared like a speck of sand in the void of space and grew to the size of a football field. There was no avoiding it.
“Quick, move!” Dylan shouted.
But it was too late.
The asteroid slammed into the station above them. The top of the station was scalped by the asteroid. It exploded, and Dylan was hit by its shock wave. There was nothing he could do. The force of impact punched his body, and he lost control, orientation, and momentarily consciousness.
###
For a split-second Dylan was gone, but he regained life mid-spiral and landed hard. He looked around. He was lying on the top of the ship.
“Lecodia!” he shouted and looked around frantically.
But she wasn’t there.
“Lecodia!” he shouted again.
The ship’s top was carved with crevasses along its length, mini gaps and gorges. It was an industrial design with a thousand miles of curved indentations that shielded the wiring, piping, and ducting with the ship’s body.
“Lecodia!” he shouted again.
David said, “They’re gone!”
Dylan looked to his left.
David was bouncing along on foot towards him. “I watched them disappear with the explosion. Listen, look up. We need to get to the back of the ship. We have to go now, or we’ll be dead.”
“I saw them too.” Michael said from his right. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Dylan peered up at the hit station. It was ablaze and ripped open. Electricity arced into space like a thunder storm was alive inside the station. A heavy load of debris was heading their way from the force of the explosion. Dylan stood and tried to run, but he couldn’t go anywhere, like he was trying to run under water.
He hit the jet thrusts, which lifted him slightly and pushed him forward. David and Michael mimicked his move. Dylan landed, then jumped while thrusting which moved him forward ten metres at a time.
Dylan jumped a crevasse like gorge, which was deep and vented steam. He cleared it easily as the debris began falling. David moved up beside him, as large bits of the station slammed into the ship’s roof.
Ten metres to Dylan’s right a fiery chunk of the station exploded into the roof, then ten metres to his left another. It was a game of chance. He kept his head down and space walked as fast as he could. David jumped along with him to his right.
Dylan felt the ship move and begin to swing away from the devastated station. Desperation began clouding, and his strength was diminishing with every blow of the raining debris. He was about to give up, he was about to succumb to the end, when a light glowed from within the ship ahead.
“There it is!” David shouted.
When Dylan reached it, he dropped in through the hexagonal door. The room was like the pressure bay of the space station, a geodesic sphe
re grid with hexagon indentations all around. Michael dropped in after him.
David hit the button to seal them in, and Dylan collapsed in a heap on the floor.
The computer voice of the room said, “Initialising pressure and oxygen normality.”
Dylan just lay there as the suit wafted with oxygen and slowly deflated. He had only one thing on his mind.
“We made it!” David shouted.
Dylan couldn’t even smile. He was in shock, stunned that the only thing he ever wanted was not beside him, holding him, celebrating with him. He began to sob with grief.
Endless scenarios played over in his mind, but they were all too much and Dylan cried from the soul. He would never see the love of his life again.
Chapter 37
Distance Is Painful
In a giant hall, where thousands of bodies struggled with the reality of their situation, Dylan sat and stared blankly. His emotional turmoil had overcome his consciousness. He couldn’t feel anything, even himself. It was like his mind hid in another realm to avoid the pain he felt inside.
People rushed around him. The hall was alive with chatter. Cries of relief and grief sounded. All around him people were calling out names, searching for loved ones. A blanket covered his naked body. He pulled it tight.
Dylan tried to seek solace in the fact that his parents would be with him soon, but he couldn’t hide or run from the piercing emotion of torn love.
His imagination, once a brilliant place to escape, had turned against him. He saw Lecodia’s last moments, replayed them in excruciating detail. He could do nothing, was rendered incapacitated. He imagined her thoughts, her fear, and her pain. The emotion was suffocating, strangling, murderous. He cried again.
Why that close? Why not me?
If he could swap positions he would. If he could go back in time, he would. But the universe mocked his futility. Lecodia was indispensable to his emotions. It was like his soul had walked away from him. Without her he was incomplete. Where once her shielding love warmed him now lay a vacant gelidity.