Solitude: Dimension Space Book One

by Dean M. Cole

  "Hey! Where are you going?"

  "I'm just along for the ride, Vaughn. I've done all I can for you. The ball is in your court now. You'll have to wing it from there."

  Vaughn nodded and cast a weary eye at his suit's dwindling O2 supply. It was all that remained.

  "Okay, I'm on it!" He adjusted the module's heading and power for intercept. Soon the ISS stopped shrinking, but he had to change the ship's angle several times.

  "Angela, I keep having to adjust my intercept course."

  "Welcome to orbital mechanics one-oh-one. Every time you change one variable, it affects the other. Usually, we have computers to compensate for that. But, like I said, you're just going to have to wing it."

  Vaughn nodded. "Okay, but I'm getting low on oxygen. Be ready at the airlock."

  "I'll head there now. But I won't be able to talk to you. This radio isn't portable."

  "Wait!" Vaughn said. "Where is the airlock?"

  Angela described its location. Vaughn could now make out enough of the station to pick out the indicated spot. "I got it."

  "Okay, Vaughn. I'll see you there."

  "See you there," he agreed. The man cast another nervous look at his suit's oxygen supply. A series of zeroes now flashed across its display.

  "Shit," Vaughn whispered, careful not to transmit this time.

  Ahead, the station grew to its largest yet. The pilot cut the thrust. Weightless again, he rotated the module one hundred and eighty degrees. With the station now beneath him and closing quickly, he began to increase power.

  Suddenly, the red CO2 warning light started flashing in the upper corner of the man's visor.

  Vaughn shook his head. "Wonderful."

  The module's closing rate slowed. However, he kept having to make slight lateral course changes, but each correction brought him a little closer to the ISS.

  A few minutes later, the station's silver white and gold surfaces and similarly colored flakes of debris filled Vaughn's universe. Arcane equipment scattered across multiple trusses surrounded him. After a couple of additional module flips and turns, he zeroed out all velocities.

  The thruster now flew in formation with the ISS. Only ten feet of space separated it from the specified airlock.

  The man started to have difficulty with concentration. He was breathing heavily again, but this time it had nothing to do with excess oxygen.

  Vaughn was drowning in CO2.

  He unbuckled his seat belt. Careful not to disturb the controls, Vaughn disconnected the tether from the waistline of his spacesuit but kept its free end in his gloved hand. Next, he gently pushed off of the module and began drifting toward the airlock.

  As he floated across the ten-foot gap, Vaughn spotted Angela's shockingly gaunt face in the window adjacent to the open hatch. A weary smile hung beneath sallow cheeks and dark, sunken eyes.

  "Oh shit, Angela," he whispered between gasping breaths. Vaughn waved, hoping his shock hadn't shown.

  Her despairing smile brightened.

  Vaughn shifted his eyes to the grab bar that ran the length of the airlock housing. As it drifted into range, he grasped it. Just as he did, the tether tried to yank out of his other hand. Grunting with exertion, the man just managed to hold onto both. However, his right hand began to slide down the grab bar.

  Like a prisoner being tortured on the rack, Vaughn felt the station and the module trying to pull his arms out of socket. The pilot grunted again as he struggled to rein in the velocity his departure had apparently imparted on the thruster. His sliding hand reached the end of the bar.

  Vaughn's shoulders creaked under the strain.

  Stars flared in his vision.

  Just as he thought he could no longer hold on, the pressure eased.

  Fighting for breath, Vaughn hung suspended between the two vessels for a long moment.

  His visor had fogged. He could barely see.

  Panting, the man eased the tether toward the grab bar.

  His moisture-occluded vision narrowed.

  As Vaughn continued to fight for air, he watched the hook draw closer to the rod. It was all he could see. Blackness had already swallowed the rest of his universe.

  Finally, the hook clicked home, and the man latched the module to the station.

  Vaughn moved hand over shaking hand to the airlock opening. As he slid in head first, he saw the thruster drifting toward his feet, heading for a slow-motion crash with the airlock door!

  Struggling for a breath that wouldn't come, Vaughn braced his arms against the inside of the airlock. As his vision faded to black, he felt the module hit his feet.

  He gave a final grunting shove.

  Then the blackness swallowed the rest of him.

  "Vaughn!" Angela pounded on the small window. "Watch out for the module!"

  It was a futile effort. He was still in hard vacuum. There was no way the man could hear her, but he must've seen the approaching thruster. His boots suddenly emerged from the airlock and stopped the drifting vehicle.

  "Great job, Vaughn!"

  Another lung-shredding cough racked her body.

  "Now, close the door!"

  Nothing happened.

  Angela shifted to the airlock window. Peering inside, she saw the man's motionless figure floating within.

  "Oh, no!"

  The external door was still open!

  Angela toggled the manual override, and the hatch began to close. Then it hit the captain's foot and reversed direction.

  "Damn it!"

  The woman cycled the switch again. The door stopped and then resumed its agonizingly slow closing sequence. It hit Vaughn's boot. The previous contact had nudged the man deeper into the airlock. This time, Singleton's foot bounced off, and the door finally closed.

  "Yes!"

  Angela activated the airlock's emergency atmosphere cycle, rapidly flooding its interior with air. Then she threw open the inner hatch and dragged Vaughn's limp body into the station.

  She unlocked the man's helmet and pulled it off. His sweaty odor was the most wonderful thing Angela had ever smelled. She patted his face and got no response.

  "Vaughn!"

  Still nothing.

  The woman pinched his nose and placed her lips over his beard-covered mouth, breathing fresh, oxygen-filled air into his lungs. After a few respirations, she checked his neck for a pulse. It was there: weak, but there.

  Angela tried to breathe for him again, but another spasm of coughs racked her body. As they subsided, she looked down.

  Vaughn had opened confused eyes.

  Oh shit. Does he have brain damage?

  Then they focused, and the man grinned sheepishly. "Hello, Commander Brown."

  "Oh, thank you!" Angela said, hugging the man fiercely.

  Captain Singleton returned the hug just as vigorously.

  "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she whispered as tears muddled her vision.

  Vaughn leaned back and shook his head. He studied her face for a long, silent moment. "I'm sorry, Angela." Then his voice became choked as he, too, shed tears. "So goddamned sorry."

  The woman shook her head. "I told you to stop apologizing, Captain."

  She wiped the moisture from her lids.

  After doing the same, Vaughn gazed at her with his warm, green-flecked brown eyes, then looked away with an embarrassed smile.

  Angela decided that she liked those eyes.

  "I should have figured this out a long—" He turned toward her and stopped mid-sentence, a confused look now on his face.

  Angela's eyes widened as a squirming white furball cocooned in a loose clump of matted brown hair drifted between them.

  Chapter 31

  Vaughn tried to keep the shock from his face. Angela was truly emaciated. Above hollow cheeks, sunken eyes stared from a face straight out of a World War II concentration camp image. The sight of her condition deepened his self-loathing.

  This was his fault.

  He looked away. "I should have figured this o
ut a long—"

  Suddenly, something wriggled under the cotton cloth of her hoodie. Then a tiny mouse wrapped in strands of the woman's greasy hair popped out.

  "What in the hell is in your hair?" Vaughn blurted and instantly regretted it. "I'm sorry."

  Color erupted across Angela's cheeks. She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. Things can get pretty cold in here." Splotchy red starburst criss-crossed her sallow face as she dug in her matted hair. "So these little guys have taken to camping out under my hoodie."

  Vaughn watched in amazement as four mice swam in the air around them. Each had a small, tattered diaper that might have once been red or blue, but now the frayed cloths looked like pink and almost white.

  Then he noticed the smell. The place stank. Overriding the hot, dank fumes rising from inside his suit, a mix of ammonia, stale air, and perfumed body odor assaulted his olfactory senses. He smiled and swallowed back the bile that threatened to trigger a series of retches.

  Apparently seeing something in Vaughn's face, Angela blushed anew. She nodded. "Bad, huh?" Floating in front of him, she continued to try to push her matted puffball of tangled hair back into the hoodie. "Environmental control's been running on reduced power since the flare fried the solar panels."

  Vaughn shook his head. "Nah, it's not that bad," he lied.

  He fished down the neck of his spacesuit, producing several small packages.

  "I brought you some fresh water and a couple of protein bars along with vitamins and antibiotics for that cough."

  Vaughn released the bag of pills and pulled out the last item.

  Angela's eyes widened, and she dropped the protein bar she'd grabbed.

  "Thought you might enjoy th—"

  The woman snatched the yellow pouch. "Oh, God bless you!"

  A moment later, shattered Funyuns floated out of the bag. Apparently, they didn't fare too well when stuffed inside a spacesuit. This fact didn't seem to deter Angela or the mice. Within seconds, they had sucked or snatched every crumb out of the air.

  Seeing Vaughn's interest in the mice, Angela pointed at each in turn. "Vaughn, meet Nate, Natalie, Nancy, and Nadia." Then she gestured to him. "Kids, meet Vaughn."

  Vaughn touched two fingers to his brow. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

  He looked at Angela. "They're only a few weeks old."

  The woman's face flushed red again. She looked down. "Their parents … died."

  Her emotion-filled, choked words drove home to Vaughn just how much his failures had cost this woman. He felt his face flush, too.

  Angela looked up and smiled self-consciously. "Sorry, I was starved for conversation up here. These little guys are all the company I've had for the last two months."

  It was Vaughn's turn to hang his head. "I'm sorry, Angela. I should've—"

  Suddenly, her arms were around him.

  "Shut it, Captain," Angela cooed into his ear. She squeezed him. "Thank you, Vaughn. Thank you for coming for me."

  A lump formed in the man's throat. Overcome by the emotions that rampaged through his mind, Vaughn didn't trust himself to speak, so he just returned the hug.

  After a long moment, Angela leaned back. The two spacesuited figures exchanged self-conscious smiles as they wiped moisture from their eyes, both chuckling nervously.

  Finally, Vaughn gave her a meaningful look and said, "What do you say we blow this popsicle stand?"

  Angela nodded vigorously. "Oh, hell yeah!"

  As she guided Vaughn toward the JEM, Commander Brown shook her head. Way to go, Angela. You greet, literally, the last man on Earth with a head full of mice?! Couldn't you have just left them in their box? She laughed and shook her head again.

  Then the two of them floated into the Japanese Experiment Module. The mechanical pump's train-like choo-choo sound greeted their arrival. With a final swoosh, it finished pressurizing the last oxygen bottle. Eight tanks of varying sizes floated inside the JEM.

  Vaughn pointed at the complex arrangement of repurposed tubing. "You did all this?"

  Angela smiled. "Yep."

  The man's bearded face nodded appreciably. "Strong work, Commander."

  She had envisioned him as smoothly shaven, but Angela decided he looked good nonetheless. Vaughn's salt-and-pepper beard gave him a rugged outdoorsy look that she found surprisingly attractive.

  Angela pointed at the bottles. "These are just for you. My suit has liquid oxygen and a CO2 scrubber. It should be good for eight hours, more if I don't exert myself."

  Vaughn studied the tanks and their pressure gauges and then nodded. "That should be more than enough time."

  Angela pointed at his chest. "Is that a parachute?"

  Vaughn nodded again. "Yep, got one just like it for you back in the module."

  The woman felt her pulse quicken. She'd never skydived. "Do you think we'll need them?" she said, unable to keep the fear out of her words.

  Singleton smiled. "Better to have it and not need it than …" He shrugged and left the rest unsaid.

  "Oh … Okay." She nudged two of the O2 bottles toward him. "Let's start moving these to the airlock."

  A few minutes later, two humans, four mice, and eight oxygen tanks floated in front of the airlock's inner hatch. En route to the location, Angela had grabbed a ninth bottle, this one covered with foil insulation and fitted with a strap.

  Vaughn pointed at it. "What's that for?"

  Angela grabbed the tank and twisted its cap. "This is for my little friends."

  The man looked at her dubiously. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Angela."

  Commander Brown's eyes narrowed. "Listen, Captain! I'll be damned if I'm going to leave them!"

  Vaughn held up his hands. "I just meant there might not be enough air for all of them."

  Angela blinked. "Oh … Sorry." Her cheeks warmed. She grabbed the nearest mouse and pulled the cap away long enough to slip the squirming white ball through the opening. "I gave them a little something. They'll be out soon. Should make them sleep for the first part of the trip. Plus, I pumped pure O2 into this before I capped it. They'll be alright." She finally looked back into his eyes. "Thanks for thinking about that, though."

  The man gently wrapped a hand around Nate's fleeing form and then handed him to her. He smiled. "Teamwork, Commander," he said, playfully mimicking her use of his rank.

  Angela laughed. "Guess I had that coming." She stuffed the last two mice into the tank and then strapped it to the side of her suit. With raised eyebrows, she looked at the man. "What do you think? Will it interfere with the parachute harness?"

  Vaughn shook his head. "No. Should be fine."

  Angela grabbed her helmet. Holding it above her head, she looked at Vaughn. "Ready?"

  The man nodded. "Yep."

  She looked at him for a long moment. Then Angela leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Grinning at the shocked look on his face, she slid the helmet over her head.

  "See you on the other side, Captain."

  Two airlock cycles later, the pair of unlikely astronauts floated outside of the station with their collection of bottles.

  "How's the new headset working?"

  Vaughn's face bobbed up and down behind his visor. "Got you loud and clear."

  Angela clipped the bottles to her spacesuit and then pointed to the exterior grab bar. "Hold onto that. I don't want you getting blown around by the exhaust."

  "What exhaust?"

  The woman didn't answer, she just smiled and aimed herself toward the drifting module. Then she activated her jet pack.

  Vaughn grunted as the blast of compressed air hit him. "Holy shit."

  Angela laughed. "Told you to hold on."

  "Thanks," Vaughn said wryly.

  Her eyes widened as she got her first unobstructed view of the thruster.

  "You rode this thing into orbit?"

  "Yep."

  The nose of the slowly tumbling module rotated into view, and Angela stared in open-mouthed amazement. "Are those …? Are
they g-garage …?" Unable to finish the question, she dissolved into laughing hysterics.

  "Yes. Garage Sale signs. And there are a few For Sale and For Rent ones in there, too. It's all I could find." Vaughn paused. "Did you just snort?!"

  Angela had, several times.

  Signs with various messages covered the entire nose of the thruster. Between her laughs and coughs, Angela could barely breathe. She hovered there for a moment, trying to blink the tears out of her eyes. Then she pointed at an orange cone that sported familiar white lettering. "Oh, my God. Is that a Home Depot funnel?"

  "Don't make fun! Ole Betsy served me pretty well. And if we're going to survive this, she's gonna have to hold on a bit longer."

  Commander Brown stopped laughing. She turned toward Vaughn. "Thank you for coming to get me. I know it wasn't easy. This must've taken an incredible amount of work and … and signage … just to make it all come together."

  After a pregnant pause, Vaughn spoke in a tone she hadn't heard before. "I definitely applied myself to this one."

  Angela found the wording odd but nodded. "Yes you did, Vaughn."

  Half an hour later, they had all the bottles secured and connected. Commander Brown had strapped herself into the left seat while the captain buckled into the right.

  He held up a thumb. "Ready?"

  Angela scanned the wrecked home she'd occupied these last few months. After a moment, she extended her own thumb. "Oh, hell yeah. I'm ready."

  Vaughn grabbed the flight controls.

  A moment later the seat bottom bumped Angela's backside. She felt a high-frequency vibration coming through it. For the first time in three months, the woman also felt gravity. It wasn't the real thing, of course, just acceleration. Initially, the G-force was light, probably less than a tenth of what she would feel on the surface. However, her arms already felt like they weighed a ton.

  Then gravity increased, and the station began to recede behind them. It looked like they were speeding away from the ISS, but they were actually slowing down.

  Vaughn patted the side of the module. "This thing doesn't have a heat shield. I'll have to hold us above the atmosphere until we've decelerated enough to enter it without burning up."