“It won’t hold on forever, but we don’t need forever,” he said.
“I knew all these cables would be good for something one day,” Samantha quipped.
Avery helped Samantha put on her SAFER jetpack. Then he let his crowbar go so he could don his spacesuit.
Alexei came first, roaring, gnashing his teeth and looking straight at them. As expected, he got caught in the amalgam of cords and cables that Avery had prepared. He started smashing the 3D printer, pure rage in his blank eyes.
“It’s going to give any minute now!” Avery yelled at Samantha, but without taking his eyes off of Alexei. He then stepped to the outer hatch and turned it open.
“You gotta get in there!” he told, Samantha, still looking at Avery.
Avery didn’t see it coming. He almost blacked out from the sharp pain across his head. The impact was so hard it launched him into the Quest airlock. He turned around slowly, touching the back of his head, searching for bite marks. And then he saw what hit him.
Samantha was standing in front of him, crowbar in hand.
“What are you doing?” Avery asked, still in a haze.
“I’m sorry that I had to hit you, but it was the only way you would get in there,” she said, trying to hold back tears.
“What are you doing?” Avery said. “Get in here!”
He tried getting out of the airlock, but Samantha pushed him back inside.
“The bite on my arm,” she began, “it’s getting worse. I can feel the infection spreading. You don’t only turn when you die. Apparently you just turn faster when you’re dead.”
Alexei was seconds away from breaking out of his snare. Willmore was right behind him.
“You don’t know that,” Avery said, trying to regain his wits.
“I’m a doctor. I do.” She then showed him her arm. The parts surrounding the wound were turning purplish. The purple color went up her arm, straight to her chest and probably to her brain.
“No!” Avery yelled.
“You have to go!” She said. “Someone needs to get back to Earth and report what happened here.”
“I won’t leave you!”
“You have to,” she said. “Think of your wife, think of your dad. NASA is going to expect a full report of the situation.”
“I can’t leave you…”
“Yes, you can,” Samantha said. “I only have one thing to ask of you.”
“Anything,” Avery said. A small tear, which quickly turned into a bubble, formed under his right eye.
“Please, try to find my husband and kids. Tell them that I love them and that I will always love them. Please, tell them that I fought bravely and that I didn’t give up, but don’t tell them I was bit. Don’t tell them. Just find them.”
“I promise you that I will find them,” Avery said. “I promise you that. I promise you that, Sam.”
They hugged for a couple of seconds. Then Avery stepped in and Samantha closed the hatch. At the exact same time, Alexei broke free from the cords. Avery turned away, but not before taking one last look at Samantha, crowbar in hand, taking on Alexei and Willmore.
***
Avery had spent enough time at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, which was basically a large indoor pool, to know his way around the space station. The training center had an exact replica of the ISS, as well as different space vehicles from Japan and the European Space Agency. Being in the pool was supposed to mimic the weightlessness of space, but now that he was outside, Avery realized that it was easier to maneuver in space. He didn’t have to push through the water, like he had done while training.
The ISS had plenty of hooks and handrails on its exterior to aid astronauts while performing EVA’s. However, they still had the safety of a tether. Avery did not have that luxury. One false move and he would float away into space.
He still felt dizzy from the impact on his head, but the sudden change of pressure was also taking a toll on him. He didn’t have enough time to acclimate his body to the sudden change and he hadn’t spent enough time breathing pure oxygen. The curvature of the space helmet also wasn’t helping. He felt disoriented.
“Sam, do you copy?” he said, talking into the microphone in his helmet.
Usually, EVAs would be performed slowly, but with the fire spreading all over the station, Avery didn’t have much time.
He took a hold of a handrail near one of the mating adapters that hook the U.S. and Russian segments together. These were not the circumstances he thought of when he dreamed of performing his first EVA. He had told Veronica how he would look at the Earth and take in its beauty, its deep blue. He told her how he would look for Kansas and that although they obviously wouldn’t see each other, he would wave. Was she looking up now? Was she safe?
He made his way to the Zarya cargo block. Although it was now used mainly for storage, this module had been the first building block of the space station.
Avery felt exhausted. He could barely move. He knew that the “bends” were starting to kick in. He needed to make it to the Soyuz and as quickly as possible before his body decided to shut down.
“Sam?” he said.
There was no answer. Avery had never been a fan of silence. He liked being around people, being around city traffic. Out here though, and with no Houston on his ear, there was a solitude that could drive one to madness.
Avery could see the Rassvet and Poisk docking modules. He wished a Russian Soyuz would be docked there, but it was empty. His escape Soyuz was further ahead, docked to the Zvezda service module, where the fire had started. He only hoped that the space station’s inner hatch, plus the Soyuz’s own hatch was enough to protect it from the flames.
It was a strange feeling that of knowing that you have to stay awake and hold on, but have your body trying to override your brain.
Suddenly, Avery lost his grip. He was floating away into nothingness. He was floating away fast. It was easy to let it all go. All he needed to do was just float away until the oxygen on his suit expired. He could close his eyes and pretend this was all a nightmare.
An image of Veronica’s face came to mind. Then came that of his father and finally, he thought of the promise he made to Samantha. He couldn’t die here. This was not the way he was going out.
Adrenaline and panic soared through his body, jolting him awake. He activated the SAFER mechanism, using the two remotes to maneuver himself back to the ISS. But instead of flying straight to where he had been holding on to, he decided to fly closer to the Zvezda. It was a huge risk, but he knew he didn’t have much time. Either the entire ISS would be destroyed by the fire, or he would black out.
“I’m almost there, Veronica,” Avery whispered.
The nitrogen jetpack began to dwindle down. He was only 50 feet away from the Soyuz now.
“Come on,” he said, talking to the SAFER. “Come on! Almost there.”
The nitrogen ran out, so Avery extended his hands and positioned himself to drift straight into the Soyuz. There was a sharp pain on his joints once he crashed into the Russian Soyuz. He tried to grab onto something, but there were no handgrips close by. He pressed the SAFER trigger and the jetpacks emitted one final burst of nitrogen.
He twirled, losing all sense of direction. Everything was spinning. The station, the Earth, everything was in constant motion.
Avery was exhausted and slowly began to drift away, but in one last attempt, he grabbed part of one of the large solar panels, to keep himself from floating into the void. Then, he carefully made his way to the Soyuz and opened the exterior hatch. The vacuum of space sucked all the air out and if it wasn’t because everything was strapped in, it would have taken food and equipment out into space. Avery closed the hatch and pressed a button that began to pressurize the cabin.
He sat there, beyond exhausted. He took off his helmet and reached for a pure oxygen mask, knowing well that this was the best and most efficient way to fight decompression sickness. He wanted to cry. Willmore, Rogers and the entire Russ
ian crew were gone. He was the only person alive in in space, and as far as he knew, he may have been the only human being alive.
But no, Veronica had to be alive, he thought. Houston promised. But where was Houston?
“Houston, do you copy? This is Flight Engineer Ryder Avery. I’m the sole survivor aboard the ISS. The Russian crew turned out to be…infected. It was a massacre up here. Houston?”
He put on his oxygen mask again. The Soyuz began to shake forcefully. Avery looked around the Soyuz. He noticed water and food to last at least a week. He also saw a Sokol space suit tied to one of the walls of the Soyuz. The Sokol would be key in keeping him alive in case the Soyuz began to depressurize unexpectedly.
Slowly, Avery started donning the Sokol, all along while taking his oxygen mask on and off.
“Houston, I think the fire is spreading and if I don’t move quickly, the Soyuz will be compromised.”
He waited for a response that he knew wasn’t coming.
“I will commence the procedures for landing,” then he took a long pause and said, “Houston, I sure hope the whole freaking cavalry is awaiting my arrival.”
Avery was hoping that the search and rescue helicopters, members of the Kazakhstan armed forces, NASA staff, and even Bill Ingals, NASA’s photographer, would all be there to greet him and tell him what was going on.
“Be there,” he whispered.
He looked at the computer data, but since Houston was out of commission, the only Optimal Return Trajectory he had was that of a simulation they had done a week ago.
“Houston in the blind, I don’t have any updated data, so I’m going to pray and hope last week’s simulation would be enough. If all goes according to plan, I will be landing somewhere in Karaganda. Over.”
Avery detached the Soyuz hooks, which now pushed away from the doomed International Space Station. He looked at the station through the computer, thinking of Willmore and Samantha, thinking about the station itself, once the greatest achievement of humankind, now lost forever. All of his life he dreamt of being in space, and now, he couldn’t wait to get back to Earth, to Veronica.
“Houston in the blind, I’m doing my best to hang in there. If Veronica were here, she would tell me to keep going. She would tell me that I can do this.”
After a few minutes, Avery performed an engine burn, to renter the atmosphere.
“I can’t think straight, Veronica. I want to make it, but I don’t know what I’m doing. I think I might have decompression sickness.”
Avery kept coming in and out of consciousness. He didn’t feel the hammering sensation of the Soyuz separating into three parts, the orbital and instrument modules all waiting to be disintegrated along with the ISS in the nothingness of space. He didn’t feel gravity tugging at him, making his hands and head feel suddenly heavy. He didn’t feel the pull of the main parachute, or the expulsion of the frontal heat shield and the external window glass.
When he finally came to, Avery was only a few meters from touching the ground. He put his hands close to his body and buried himself in his seat as much as possible. It was easier now that gravity was part of his reality once more. Then, a loud bang. Avery felt like he had crashed into a huge semi-truck. Everything was shaking. Everything that was not securely fastened fell around him—helmets, space suits, water and food pouches—all fell. After a minute, there was complete silence.
He sat there for a couple of minutes, half awake, half delirious.
“I’m alive,” he whispered to himself. Then he began yelling, “I’m alive! I’m alive! My God, I’m alive!” He laughed, tears of joy and of terror.
He unfastened his seat belt and tried getting up, but his feet failed him. They felt heavy, foreign, as if they belonged to someone else’s body. He tried once again, and this time, he was able to regain some balance. He looked out the window, hoping to see the cavalry, but there was no one. Not a single soul.
“Houston?” he said, to no one, to everyone.
Exhausted, he sat in his chair looking at the window and then he saw them.
“Yes! Yes!” he yelled.
He got up once again and got closer to the window, his heart filled with joy. He was finally going home. Houston had probably retaken control of the Mission Command Center. He would have to give a full report to his superiors, but he would do nothing until he knew for sure that Veronica was safe. But then, Avery took a good look at the crowd he saw from afar. There were no helicopters, no hummers and no cameras. The people running toward him were running fast, too fast. They didn’t look natural. They were zombies.
The End
To be continued…
###
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you so much for purchasing and reading this short story. I love telling stories and there’s so much more I want to do with Ryder Avery, but I need your help. I’m a father of two who works and goes to school full time. For now, writing is a hobby, but I’ve always dreamed of making it a profession.
So how can you help? If you love this story and want to see more of my work, please tell your friends to purchase Dead Space and also leave a review on Amazon. The more reviews this story gets, the more likely the Amazon algorithm will list me in its suggestion to readers who purchase similar books. Oh, and unless you put SPOILER ALERT on your review, try to refrain from mentioning the word “zombie.” Let’s not spoil the twist for the rest!
Thank you!
Dead Space: A Short Story Page 4