Days Until Home

by Mark Gardner

  They would need to enter through one of the external airlocks similar to what they were currently in. Which meant exiting the ship and crawling around on the outside. Without any safety tethers.

  Viktor looked at Jessica’s unconscious bulk, then down at his own teapot arm.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Oh,” Jimmy agreed, wide-eyed and manic. “Oh fricken no.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Dumping the air the normal way would stir the air tanks. Might be a bad idea. We can manually eject the hatch instead of suckin’ all the air out, but the air scrubbers’ll still do a little dance. We better hope all that stirring-up doesn’t make it explode a little.”

  “A little?”

  “Maybe. Or a lot.”

  They put on their helmets, twisting to lock the seal. Jessica’s helmet proved tougher to connect with the swollen beehive of gauze wrapped around her head. In the end they removed a few layers, already yellow with pus, and squeezed the helmet over top. She never so much as flinched, and several times Viktor had to make sure she still breathed.

  The medkit had adrenaline inside. Jimmy and Viktor spent a few moments discussing waking her up. In the end, they decided it was too dangerous. Which meant they’d need to haul her like a load of minerals.

  Since he had two good arms, Jimmy was the one to pull the manual airlock clutch, his other arm tight around a handhold. Viktor held onto another as if his life depended on it. Which, in reality, it might. They left Jessica clipped to the wall.

  Jimmy pulled the lever.

  The square door fired away silently, there was a soft rush of air against their suits, and then the muted silence of the black.

  From their angle he couldn’t see Egeria-13, or anything else. Only the stars. Maps on earth showed the asteroid belt as being chock-full of rocks but, in reality, most clusters of atoms larger than a boot were spaced millions of kilometers apart. The darkness of space seemed to drink the light from their airlock. It pulled at them like a whirlpool.

  Looping his foot around a hand-hold for stability, Viktor used his good arm to unclip Jessica from the wall. He waited for Jimmy to move outside the ship, but the kid didn’t budge. Viktor turned on their direct suit comms.

  “Ready, Jimmy?”

  He flinched as if he’d been scared, then turned and gave a thumbs-up. “Yeah. Totally ready.”

  He still didn’t move.

  “Jimmy…”

  “I’ve never, well, done an EVA before.”

  “Never?”

  “Not for real,” Jimmy said. “In a simulator on Luna, sure, but always with walls on four sides.”

  “We drilled on the surface of an asteroid a hundred kilometers wide,” Viktor reminded him. “You were fine, then.”

  “That’s different. Ground underneath my boots. Real ground, rock and ice, not metal. Up here…ohh.” He clutched the handhold inside the airlock and recoiled from the open door.

  “Jimmy, we need to go.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Jimmy, do you need me to go first? Would that help?”

  “I…maybe. I think, yeah, it would.”

  Viktor sighed, but his renewed focus kept him from dwelling any longer than that. “I’ll get in position, then you send Jessica to me.”

  With the nudge of his toes, Viktor drifted toward the black square. He grabbed a hand-hold near the door, which pivoted him around to the outside. His feet bounced off the hull of the Kerwood, absorbing enough of the inertia to nearly stop him. The maneuver also banged his left elbow, sending a jolt of pain through his gut.

  Hand-holds like giant staples ran across the ship’s exterior. Crew were supposed to use safety tethers, clipping along every few meters as a backup mechanism, but they didn’t have that luxury then. One mistake…

  “Okay Jimmy,” he said, looping his boot underneath a hand-hold. He felt stable. “Send Jessica my way. Slow.”

  The woman’s body floated out the airlock like a sack of potatoes. Viktor grabbed the hook on the back of her suit and pulled her around. His foot creaked against the metal hand-hold as he one-armed Jessica to his chest. He held her close. He wished they had a length of rope to tie the woman to his own suit, to free his hand, but if they were wishing for things he might as well have wished for a fully functioning ship.

  He waited.

  “I am needing your help, Jimmy.”

  Ten seconds. Jessica’s bulk blocked most of his view.

  “Did a little explosion get you?” he asked, hoping it sounded like a joke. He listened to his breath echo in the helmet, once, twice, three times.

  Viktor was beginning to get worried when he felt Jimmy banging along the hull. An invisible hand pulled Jessica away. He let it.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Totally fine,” Jimmy said. “100 percent, no, 110 percent fine.”

  “In case you get not-fine,” Viktor said, “keep your eyes on the hull directly in front of your face. One step at a time, yes?”

  “Sure. One step at a time. Like climbin’ a ladder.”

  “Just like climbing a ladder.”

  Jimmy breathed into his microphone. “Not a problem.”

  Unburdened, Viktor moved along the row of staples that curved underneath the ship. That’s where they’d decided was their best chance: the cargo trunk that ran the entire height of the ship. It had access to most of the Kerwood.

  That route would also keep the ship between them and the sun. The cheap launch suits had enough insulation and temporary chemical heaters to keep them warm in the darkness, but they weren’t sun-grade. A minute or two of direct sunlight, uninhibited by an atmosphere, would roast them like turnips.

  Viktor took a deep breath. Just a short stroll. He’d done it a million times.

  He climbed along the staples for two meters, as far as he could go and still touch Jessica. He stopped, hooked his foot into another hand-hold, and grabbed a handful of Jessica’s suit and pulled her forward. To his relief, Jimmy followed.

  They continued like that, moving like an accordion keeping Jessica between them, just in case something unexpected happened. Even with all his decades of experience, there was something unnerving about doing an EVA without a tether. The tingle of danger, like playing Russian roulette, except instead of the randomness of a bullet’s location, they played with the seemingly random nature of kinetic energy. The slightest unexpected shift in the Kerwood, whether from an exhaust or if the engines were tested, could send them hurtling off into millions of kilometers of vacuum.

  An unexpected ship maneuver seemed more and more unlikely, though. With every passing second, Viktor began to dread that he, Jimmy, and the lump of muscle that was Jessica, were the only ones alive.

  At a glance, the underside of the ship looked undamaged. Viktor rotated a mental image of the Kerwood, picturing where he thought the explosion had occurred. Near the engines? That made the most sense. Especially if there was a xenon leak.

  But had the xenon leak happened before the explosion? Or as a result of it? He thought about asking Jimmy—how did an uneducated miner know so much about chemistry—?but then stopped himself.

  Focus. No slip-ups in the black.

  They moved like an inchworm across the hull, one Jessica-length at a time. Eventually, the grey shape of Egeria-13 appeared in the false sky, like a rising sun. It surprised him, because they were already underneath the ship and moving along a flat section. No longer curving. It took Viktor a long heartbeat to realize what that meant.

  The ship was rotating, very slightly.

  And if the ship was rotating, soon they would be in direct sunlight.

  He didn’t dare tell Jimmy for fear of panicking him. Instead, Viktor said, “Feels good to stretch our legs, huh?” and moved a little bit faster.

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said, seeming to be concentrating too hard to make a joke.

  In the distance, near the front of the Kerwood, a long shadow stretched from an instrument antenna, the area around it brightening as if s
omeone were nudging a dimmer light switch. Viktor pulled Jessica’s body forward, unhooking his foot from a hand-hold at the same time, cutting corners to save a few seconds.

  “Almost there,” he said. “Gonna feel good to get back inside. Eat some more hardened food paste.”

  Jimmy laughed, a ridiculous sound with so much immediate danger about to crest the edge of the ship.

  Viktor floated the last few meters to the airlock, grabbing a handhold and swinging himself to a stop. To his relief, the computer panel on the side glowed green. He punched in the standard access code and prepared for the door to open.

  Instead, it flashed red.

  He punched it in again, slowly this time to make sure he didn’t fat-finger it. Again, the panel flashed in rejection.

  “It broken?” Jimmy asked from Jessica’s feet.

  “No.” Viktor frowned at the screen. If it was inoperable, that would make sense. But for it to be functional and not allowing him inside… He switched his comms to a different circuit, hoping it could connect this time.

  “Kerwood, this is Viktor Sharapov, along with two others, attempting re-entry at the lower escape trunk. My standard code is not being accepted. Need immediate assistance, if anyone is up there.”

  Jimmy said, “If this door’s not working, there’s the cargo airlock twenty more meters forward. We can try that. It’s not so bad out here, you know, once you get used to it. Don’t know why I was ever afraid…”

  Viktor looked in that direction. The shadow from the instrument antenna was moving across the hull. They had no time to continue forward and not enough to go back the way they came.

  He knew he failed at keeping the panic from his voice, but just then he didn’t care.

  “Kerwood, this is Viktor. Myself, Jimmy, and Jessica are attempting re-entry at the trunk airlock. Ship has a slight corkscrew lilt, and within seconds we will be sunward and exposed. Need immediate entrance.”

  Over the comms, Jimmy gasped.

  The corona flickered into view at the front of the ship like a flood light coming on. Viktor’s faceplate automatically tinted. The barest amount of protection his suit would offer.

  He hammered on the airlock with his fist, risk of suit puncture be damned. Jimmy appeared next to him and banged on the door too, screaming into the comms for help even though he was still on the direct connection with the Russian alone.

  They were going to die. They were going to be cooked alive in the vacuum of space.

  Viktor pulled back his arm and sent an especially hard blow into the metal, enough to propel him backward. His boot slipped, his arm flailed, and then the ship was moving away. Grey metal spreading out.

  He was floating backwards into open space.

  He kicked, and instinctively tried reaching with his left hand, feeling the fused skin tear against his suit. He was only two meters away from the ship, moving at a few centimeters per second but, for all it mattered, he might as well have been kilometers away.

  He screamed in earnest into the hollow helmet. Jimmy watched helplessly, crying a wordless cry of help over the comms. He waved at Viktor as if the big Russian needed to be made aware of his situation.

  Surprisingly, calmness doused Viktor like coolant. He saw the situation with sad clarity. What had he expected, banging on the metal? An equal yet opposite reaction, and all that. The simplest of physics concepts. He took no solace in knowing it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. That dying on the side of the Kerwood or a few meters away made no difference.

  The calm feeling disappeared, replaced by a sensation along his left side like scalding steam. Direct sunlight bombarding his suit, radiative heat transfer converted to convection heat. He closed his eyes against the air. Sweat immediately appeared at every pore. In moments, he would be roasted like a good piece of meat.

  He wished the cheap launch suits had a way to record a quick message. For Helena.

  He prayed to Saint Sergius, mumbling words he’d memorized as a child. Something in the nostalgic Catholic fear made the words come easy. He pretended the prayers were comforting. The scalding air tore at his throat, but he spoke the words all the same.

  Viktor had begun the third prayer when he was struck in the chest.

  He opened his eyes but couldn’t see anything in his steamed visor, and the sweat stung his eyes anyway. He felt like he was being grabbed by a giant claw in one of those old earth arcade machines, pincered around the waist and retrieved for collection. He wondered if there were angels in the black. If so, how could they carry him up to the heavens when he was already there?

  The angels sang to him over the comms, and he closed his eyes and waited to see the face of God.

  When his helmet came off, and the cool air chilled his sweaty face, all Viktor saw was Jimmy. He stared down with his child-like grin.

  “Vicky, you crazy sonofa bitch.”

  They were inside the airlock, and there was now a crowd. Several people floated a short distance away. With his eyes still stinging, Viktor couldn’t recognize the faces behind helmets.

  Jimmy still talked, he realized. “…finally opened, and floated out on a jury-rigged tether to grab you. Like a cobra strikin’ a rat. Ballsy slag. Wait, do they have cobras in Russia?”

  One man took off his helmet and floated to Viktor.

  “Siebert?”

  The fat miner gave an uncomfortable smile. He used a pair of copper shears to cut away at Viktor’s suit. He stopped when he reached the gut.

  “Uhh…”

  “An accident,” Viktor said.

  “Sir, I see that, but…” he trailed off as he tested the give of the suit. Viktor’s skin pulled painfully. A moan escaped his lips before he could stop it.

  Besides Siebert and Jimmy, everyone else floated around, watching. Their stillness was wrong. Something had happened. Something more than just the ship explosion.

  “What’s going on?” Viktor managed to say.

  Jimmy watched the others as he hovered protectively over Viktor.

  Finally two of them took off their helmets. A man and a woman. Names failed to bubble up to Viktor’s focus, but he knew they were engineers.

  The woman turned to the man. “Ask him. Ask him.”

  The male engineer eyed her for a moment before turning his gaze to Viktor. “We saw the airlock open at stern. What made you do an untethered EVA?”

  The woman nodded accusingly at Viktor.

  Viktor blinked away his sweat, confused. Why did it feel like they were being interrogated?

  Siebert reached behind Viktor to remove part of his suit, and as he did he put his lips close to Viktor’s and said, “She didn’t want to open the door. Wanted to let you die out there.”

  A cold chill went up Viktor’s spine, and it was more than just the air hitting his exposed skin.

  “Well?” said the woman, crossing her arms. Adelaide. That was her name. Unpredictable fire shone in her eyes.

  “Answer the question. Answer it!”

  Viktor looked around the room. He, Jimmy, and Jessica were against one wall. The others all floated against the other wall, like policemen about to make an arrest. Siebert drifted sort of in between the two groups, a chemical welder on his hip. He looked like he was trying not to choose sides.

  Viktor opened his mouth to say something, then promptly passed out.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Days Until Home: UNKNOWN

  Winchester Hayes was concerned for his engineers, knowing they were his only hope in getting his girl back on track. If the Kerwood was damaged beyond repair, the engineers could do what was needed to give them a chance to survive a wait for rescue. They could also get the atmosphere back online so they could comfortably work on their current situation.

  He hated being in the dark. They were floating blind. The black was poking holes in his girl. Starry fingers reaching in to suck the life from anyone that was vulnerable. Winchester had gone from his standard sarcastic but cavalier attitude, to one of intense brooding.
r />   “Are you okay, Captain?” Gauge said.

  “I’m good, Gauge … just thinking.”

  They leaned against opposite walls of the medical bay, and Winchester braced himself between the bed—that Femke was on—and the adjacent wall. Marisol Vega was still asleep and had not even so much as stirred since Gauge set her nose and she had passed out a few minutes after.

  Winchester looked up at Gauge for the first time in an hour, and the big man met his gaze with cold blue eyes embedded inside a mask of stoic resolution.

  “You know what one of my biggest fears is, Gauge?” Winchester asked.

  “I don’t know, Cap,” Gauge replied. “Is it what we’re going through right now? All of our crew dead. The survivors a mystery to you. And, we here, stuck, helpless, and running out of options?”

  “Not this, but something similar. Back on Earth we used to do a lot of hiking. Me and the family, that is. Man, we used to travel to parks and just, you know, walk. Well, at least the parks that still had trees. Like in Indiana, when we used to go to see my parents. Cole loved our hikes. He thought trees were the most magical things in the world. But I imagine for a kid growing up in our world, that makes sense. Can you imagine? Something as natural and part of the Earth like a tree, an alien thing to my human child? Seeing how he reacted to nature, it made me realize just how slagged up we are, you know?”

  “What do you mean, Cap?”

  “Pah, I’m rambling. Feels like I’m just wasting precious oxygen,” Winchester said under his breath.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, Captain. If there’s anything we’re set on, it’s oxygen. Now you were saying that the world is, erm, slagged. What’s the reasoning?”

  “We were bad caretakers of our home, Gauge. All for what? Huh? To come up here to mine? My child thought that trees were magic, but his father taking people all over space, that was normal to him. We’re unable to contact our people here because that blast knocked our EPS offline. Normally, I would call down to engineering to check it out, but that option was taken away from me. We need to find a way to get it working ourselves.”