Alone on the Edge (The Chronicles of Anna Foster)

by Patrick Stutzman

  “Acknowledged.”

  At that second, she heard the vent system click on. Several seconds passed before the dust in the air began to swirl away from her. After what felt like a long moment, her view was as clear as it was back in Blue-2.

  She stepped over to the maintenance panel in the middle of the area and opened it, thankful that she had left it unbolted. She held the detached panel behind her and let it go, sending the metal plate tumbling loudly to the floor. Anna looked behind her with a start but quickly smiled at her mistake, realizing that she was used to being in zero-gravity when performing repairs in a spacesuit.

  Anna turned her attention back to her work assessing the compartment she had just opened. A thick layer of dust, which had avoided being removed with the air by the intervening panel, covered the control system cabinet. Her eyes moved upward to the large duct that extended from the vent above the cabinet into the innards of the station. Crouching down, Anna was able to direct her light source upward and scan the length of the duct that was visible. Finally, she found that a small section of the duct about a meter from the air scrubbers had ruptured, spilling dust all over the area.

  “There you are!” she whispered with a hint of a smile. “At least the air filter will be clean.”

  Doing her best to map the route to the scrubbers, Anna determined that the best route would be through a ceiling access panel halfway between the door to Blue-2 and her current position. She withdrew from the cabinet and walked to the ceiling access hatch, where she opened it from the wall panel. The door slid open and extended a ladder down to the floor within easy reach.

  She climbed the ladder easily, experiencing a slight inconvenience due to the size of the life support system on her back. She quickly noticed that the dust spewed from the ruptured duct covered virtually everything above ceiling level.

  Shaking her head at the thought of the massive cleaning job ahead of her, she continued to climb for several more seconds before she stopped and looked down. Judging from the distance, the span could easily be 8 to 10 meters to the floor, but her inability to look straight down due to her helmet felt like it skewed her results. She sighed, grabbed for the next rung, and stepped up only to have her foot slip. Her reflexes forced her hands to clench as she fell. One hand had slipped off the rung, but the other gripped tightly and stopped her rapid descent. Pain shot through her wrist and hand as her body came to an abrupt halt and dangled from the ladder. Anna struggled to keep her hold on the ladder and glanced down. She guesstimated her drop was least 8 meters to the floor. The dust on her gloves made her grip uneasy, and she felt her fingers slipping. She reached her other arm up to grab the ladder, but the bulky suit brought her hand a couple of centimeters short. She reared back and lunged for the ladder, grabbing the side just as her other hand slipped from its handhold. Her new grip on the ladder felt more secure with less dust settled on the vertical surface. She settled her feet on the closest rung and continued her climb while holding the sides of the ladder along the way.

  Finally reaching the top, Anna carefully made her way to the duct connected to the air scrubbers. The maintenance platform allowed her to reach the rupture fairly easily, but the jagged edges of the fissure forced her to balk at a quick repair. While wondering what would have caused the duct to rip open, she reached over the bulk of the duct and pushed the dusty edges inward to help provide as smooth a surface as possible to apply the tape.

  After a few minutes, Anna had smoothed the crack as best as she could and removed most of the dust from the side of the metal tube. She took the roll of duct tape from a pocket on the side of her leg and applied three strips to seal the opening. Satisfied with the results, she returned the roll to her pocket and moved to the ladder.

  As she grabbed the top rung, she noticed that some of the dust blew off of the ladder. With a raised eyebrow, she looked at her hand to find a small rip in one of the fingers which was leaking air. Her expression of curiosity shifted to one of horror, and she slid down the ladder, slowing her descent as she approached the ceiling level.

  Anna landed on the floor harder than she desired. Fighting back the stinging sensation she felt as she moved, she turned and sprinted for the door to Blue-2. Quickly pressing the switch, the door opened, forcing the air from the neighboring section to rush into the vacuum. Caught off guard, Anna lost her footing due to the sudden airstream and slipped away from the hatch to land on the floor on her back. She fought against the gale to stand and regain her ground. The door closed as she reached the hatch, cutting off the intense wind and giving her a chance to catch her breath and prepare to try again.

  Bracing herself in front of the door, Anna pressed the switch again. As the door opened, she leaned into the wind and pushed forward, grabbing the doorframe to help pull herself through. With a surge of strength, Anna shoved her way through the hatch and slapped the switch to close the door behind her.

  She scrambled to remove the helmet and fling it onto the deck. Slumping against the door, she slid down until she sat on the floor, breathing heavily the entire way. She wiped the sweat from her brow and looked up at the brightly lit ceiling.

  As soon as she caught her breath, she ordered, “Computer, return the air to Blue-3.”

  “As you wish, Anna.”

  After panting a few more times, she looked at her glove and examined it a little closer. The gash was not a clean cut and perfectly indicated a forced tear. Concluding that the rip occurred when she was pushing down the jagged edges, she then checked the amount of air remaining in the suit and found that she had only 16% of her tank remaining.

  Her eyes widened as she remarked, “That tank was supposed to last for at least two hours. Didn’t I fill it?”

  Anna thought back over the last couple of days but did not remember doing so. She shrugged off the lack of remembrance, gathered up her helmet, and returned it to the supply depot, where she removed it and set it aside for repairs to be done later.

  Finally free of the itchy spacesuit, Anna rubbed and scratched at the various parts of her body that were still feeling the effects of wearing the suit and sighed with relief.

  “Computer,” she asked. “What’s next?”

  “The next item on the work agenda is repairs to the ventilation system in Green-1.”

  “Green-1? What happened in there?”

  “The ventilation system fails to respond. You need to attend to it.”

  Rolling her eyes up to look at the ceiling, she commented, “That was a rhetorical question.

  “Okay, I’m off to Green-1,” added Anna as she left the depot. She returned to the airlock where she had left her tool belt, replaced it around her waist, and set out for Green-1.

  Upon her arrival, she found that the vents were indeed offline. The air through which she moved felt stale and lacked the same character as in other parts of the station.

  Taking a deep breath, she ventured in and began her work. The repairs did not take very long to complete, as the system only needed a small part replaced that she had in stock. Before she knew it, she was back at the elevator with about half an hour until lunch. Thinking ahead to the meal and what food she would want to eat reminded her of the need to remove food module Beta-13, she figured that it would be best to complete the task before eating.

  Several minutes later, Anna stood in front of the food bank. Four rows of 20 red food modules were arranged before her within the specialized culinary system which had fed her over the last six years. With each module holding 3 different foods, she had a wide variety from which to choose each month. Unfortunately for her, each module was labeled with a computer code that could only be read by the system or somebody with a handheld reader calibrated for the system, so she could not tell what was in stock.

  At first glance, it appeared that the cleaning drone locked them in place pretty well, as all of the modules indicated that they were online and ready for use. Anna quickly located Beta-13, grabbed the cold handle, and yanked hard on it. The module budged
outward, and the indicator light shut off to acknowledge that it was disconnected from the system. In fact, the lights on all of the modules shut off once the module was removed. Much to her annoyance, the culinary system would not work unless each and every module was securely inserted into the bank. She had delayed her meal several times over the past few years, because she was in a rush to grab some lunch and had not pushed one of the units in all the way.

  Knowing that the food inside was raw and nearly frozen, she quickly pulled the module completely from the bank, hefted it with both arms, and rushed to the nearest airlock that did not lead to the landing bay.

  Stepping into the small chamber, Anna aimed the module at the floor and was about to eject all of its contents onto the floor, when she stopped herself before following through.

  “The computer said that I had to discard all of the fish,” she considered aloud. “I wonder if I can get rid of just the glowfish and save the others?”

  She turned the module around to have it point upwards and toggled the switch. The panels flew open, and the frozen fish from all three compartments sprang out into the air.

  “No!” she cried as she tossed the heavy module aside and sent it crashing to the deck and tumbling into the wall. She threw out her arms and moved closer to the cascading fish in an attempt to catch as much of the food as possible before it hit the floor. The first of the red glowfish landed just under her foot before it touched down, causing Anna’s leg to slip out from under her and throw her to the floor. The rest of the fish rained down onto Anna as she lied on her back, wincing from the unanticipated shock of losing her balance and the sudden pain in her back from the harsh landing.

  Pain wracked Anna’s head and back from the impact against the deck, but the aching was a mere inconvenience compared to the embarrassment she felt while she lied on the deck covered with fillets of raw fish. The icy food chilled her skin, and droplets of liquid from the parts of the food that had begun to defrost from being disconnected from the food bank trickled down her sides.

  Staring at the ceiling with a deadpan expression, Anna drummed her fingers on a salmon fillet under her hand for several seconds, during which time she mentally berated herself for shooting all of the fish into the air. After she sufficiently scolded herself, she grabbed the fish she drummed and angrily threw it against the wall. As the food hit the wall with a wet splat, she sat up, quickly at first but a bit slower after a slight jolt of pain shot up her spine. Although she felt a bit of a headache, her back seemed to be out of place. Cautiously rising to her feet, she judged from where the pain originated and twisted her torso in an attempt to bring her spine back into alignment, a trick she learned from her father during her childhood. A few quick turns, and the pain in her back was gone.

  She looked over the mess and her front with disgust, as bits of frozen fish were still dropping from her onto the floor. She sighed and called out, “Computer!”

  “Yes, Anna.”

  “Send the cleaning drone to airlock Gray-3 to clean up a spill. I have a headache and need to take a shower.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Anna rubbed her temples after she climbed out of the airlock and shuffled to the infirmary. After taking a dose of pain killers, she returned to her quarters and cleaned up.

  A short time later, Anna walked into the mess hall with a little more spring in her step and looking much cleaner, although she was still nude.

  “What do you want for lunch, Anna?”

  “You know,” she started. “The usual. Filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes.”

  “I am sorry, Anna. The culinary system is currently offline.”

  Stopping in her tracks, Anna asked skeptically, “What do you mean the culinary system is offline?”

  “Food module Beta-13 is missing from its slot and needs to be replaced, Anna. Once done, the system should be operational again.”

  She scowled and turned on her heel, storming out of the mess hall while grumbling, “God damn it!”

  Returning to the airlock, she found the cleaning drone departing through the door with a receptacle in one of its metal claws. The smell of cold fish permeated the air. She entered the airlock and found that the module was gone.

  Chapter 12

  Quickly scanning the room and not seeing the missing component, Anna cried out, “Computer! Where is the cleaning drone?”

  “The cleaning drone is in Gray-2, near the gymnasium.”

  She rapidly searched through the facilities in Gray-2, which included the mess hall, the food bank, and the recycling center.

  The recycling center?!

  “Oh, god!” she yelled as she bolted from the airlock.

  “Computer!” cried Anna as she sprinted down the corridor. “Stop that cleaning drone!”

  “As you wish, Anna.”

  Focused only on what moved ahead of her, she ran at full speed, until she found the drone standing in the middle of the hall empty-handed.

  Skidding to a halt and nearly tumbling onto the deck, Anna stopped in front of the drone and anxiously asked, “Where’s the module?”

  The drone stopped and silently looked back at her.

  After a couple of seconds, she grabbed its crane-like neck, shook it violently, and screamed, “Where’s the fucking food module?!”

  Unaffected by Anna’s futile attempt to strangle it, the drone pointed down the corridor and attempted to move that way. The gentle tug cued Anna to reluctantly release her death grip on its metal neck and follow.

  The drone led her back to the food bank, where she found Beta-13 securely plugged into its slot and all of the indicator lights on.

  Anna stared incredulously at the mechanism with her jaw dropped open. While she stared, the cleaning drone quietly made its escape through the door.

  Finally breaking from her trance several seconds later, Anna asked, “Computer, when did the culinary system come back online?”

  “2 minutes and 3 seconds ago.”

  Her eyes narrowed at the bank after she heard the answer, and she growled, “Thank you.”

  “Glad to be of service!” the computer offered cheerfully.

  Without saying another word, Anna returned to the mess hall in a huff, her arms straight down her sides and her hands balled into fists.

  “What do you want for lunch, Anna?”

  She grumbled through her teeth, “Filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes.”

  “As you wish, Anna.”

  Anna froze in the middle of the room.

  “Wh, what?” she stammered.

  “You requested filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes, Anna. That dish is being prepared for you.”

  Anna looked confused.

  “Are you sure this isn’t roast beef and regular mashed potatoes like I ordered a couple of days ago?”

  “Filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes are being prepared for you, Anna.”

  Now, Anna looked even more confused.

  “You’re lying to me. How can you possibly have filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes?”

  “I am not capable of lying, Anna.”

  At that second, the plate of food appeared in the slot. The scent of cooked beef reached her nostrils, and she took in the scent, testing it at first but breathed it in a second later as if it was the last thing she would ever smell. She rushed to the slot and pulled out the plate, recognizing the food immediately as filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes.

  “Oh, my god,” she whispered. “This can’t be!”

  She sat at the table just a few steps away, cut a bite of the food in blinding speed, and thrust the bite into her waiting mouth. Anna swooned as she savored the meat and moaned her delight.

  “Oh, my god!” cried Anna with her mouth full of food. “How did you get this?!”

  “Apparently, the module containing this food was sent with your shipment in error.”

  “Thank god for errors!” she exclaimed with glee as she consumed the rest of her meal.

  Sev
eral minutes later, Anna leaned back in her chair with a huge smile on her face. The plate sat on the table, devoid of the food it once held. Not a single crumb was left and appeared to have been licked clean.

  After remaining silent for a couple of moments, she asked, “So computer, what else is in that food module?”

  “Food module Delta-9 also contains lobster thermidor and baked alaska.”

  “Oh, wow! I’m going to be spoiled this month!

  “Wait a minute,” she stated as she sat up, sobered by a thought that crossed her mind. “What foods were left out of the normal order because of this?”

  “Bacon, pork chops, and turkey breasts.”

  “WHAT?!” she screamed, standing to her feet and shoving the chair behind her as she stood.

  “Delta-9 normally holds bacon, pork chops, and turkey breasts, and those foods are missing from the monthly manifest.”

  Anna’s head dropped as she pondered the twist of fate. She had been looking forward to having turkey for over three weeks, and she normally ate the poultry dish first whenever the new shipment came in each month. But, she finally got her filet mignon in its place. The trade-off seemed to be pretty good in her eyes.

  “You know, that’s okay. I think I can live without them for a month. Besides, I finally got to eat filet mignon again.”

  “As you wish, Anna.”

  Feeling good about her situation, Anna departed from the mess hall and went to the command center located at the top of the station. A room she very rarely visited and its lack of attention showed by the poor condition most of the furniture was in.

  The elevator door opened and showed Anna the dark room ahead. None of the lights or system access panels was currently active; the elevator was the only source of light for her to use.

  “Computer, lights,” she ordered. Instantly, the overhead lights came on to reveal a relatively clean room, almost as if it had been preserved in a museum. All of the seats were perfectly positioned in front of their dark, unlit consoles. The transparent dome that composed most of the opposite wall gave her a clear view of the field of stars above the station.