Cris Jolliff

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It took nearly two breathless hours of thrusting, maneuvering, and braking before we were able to get our first brief glimpses of the old satellite through the tiny heat-resistant windows in the capsule.

“Sonovabitch,” Zagovich exclaimed as we rotated into view of the satellite at a crawl. “There is a dock on the cylinder!”

Pavel and I looked at each other in excitement. This was much better news than we could have hoped. It meant we wouldn’t have to tear apart the satellite to remove the capsule from its grasp. Zagovich reported this to ‘control’ with his usual terseness. We got the go-ahead from Captain Jackson immediately. It sounded like there was relief in her voice.

“The docking target is clear,” Zagovich reported, then gave the two of us orders off the comm channel. We complied at once, the tiny capsule began orienting itself with the hatch on the satellite.

“Twenty meters.” A short pause

“Ten meters. Engaging braking thrust.” Another short pause. Zagovich was working the control systems now, his heavily gloved hands barely moving on the oversized controls. His eyes never left the targeting screen. I doubt he even blinked.

“Flight One, this is control, I show your blips merged. You have the ball, Jim.” I could hear her smile in the transmission.

“Five meters. Four. Wait…okay, there, got it.” Zagovich was throwing switches and pressing buttons, but I didn’t pay any attention. My focus was solely on the powdercoated and dented aluminum shell outside of my viewport. I was surprised by the seemingly small amount of work it took to lock the tiny capsule to the satellite. Either Jim Zagovich was an ace pilot, or this astronaut stuff was easier that everyone made it sound.

There was a loud clank, followed by a series of cycling motor sounds, and that was it. We were docked to the Chinese satellite.

“Cycling the airlock systems.” Zagovich was still reporting in to control. “There is air pressure, but no breathable air aboard the satellite. The locks cycled, and we felt more than heard the tiny rush of air as the two atmospheres were connected by the tiny gap between the two hatch covers.  We immediately unbelted ourselves and made our way into the darkened satellite.

It was surprisingly roomy within the drifting hulk. Although it was dark, our suit lights shed copious light through the central chamber. It was about three meters across, where machinery wasn’t intruding, which was not very often, and there were two ports in the chamber. It took us some time and exploration, but we discovered the lighting control panel and, with the help of my portable computer, managed to safely turn on the interior lights. Some time later, we established that the CO2 scrubbers had failed, probably some years ago. Though the atmosphere was otherwise clean, there simply wasn’t enough oxygen to support life. Never mind that is was as cold inside the satellite as it had been outside. Thank God for suit heaters.

I began to assess the condition of the Chinese escape vehicle, while Zagovich conducted a thorough inventory of the satellite by personal inspection. He had a list of items that I had translated (correctly, I hoped) for him, and he was comparing symbols on various containers, looking for useful supplies. Pavel had examined the satellite’s egress hatch and discovered to all of our mutual pleasure that it was a fully functioning airlock in its own right, and he began the external spacewalk to inspect the exterior of the Shenzhou-class capsule. It was designed for overland reentry. It was a true antique, and it was clapped out. Really spaceworn.

Pavel and I began the release procedure to separate the old boat after I finished inspecting its interior. It was cluttered with debris, as though the Chinese had been using it as a wastebasket, but the equipment appeared to be functional and the entire satellite appeared to have full power.

“Stepping release motors.” I called through the helmet comms. We hadn’t bothered to try the satellite’s comms equipment.

“Go ahead, David.” Pavel’s voice was tinny in my ear. In spite of the vacuum cold, the closeness of the suit and the clumsiness of the gloves had made me start to sweat. I turned down my internal heater two degrees and then stepped the motors. The release locks were still engaged.

“Looks good, David. Step release mechanism one.” I was vaguely amused by how Pavel’s English was very precise when using technical jargon, but his conversational English had always been heavily broken. I guess you learn what you need to do the job, and the rest comes as it comes. I stepped the first release mechanism.

“Moving now.” A brief pause, followed by, “Step release mechanism two. I wish I had drink right now, tovarich. This is very boring.” I cycled the second mechanism, and red lights erupted all over the board. The hatch leading into the fat bell-shaped Chinese re-entry vehicle cycled shut, but not before it gave me a brief glimpse of vacuum. Thank God we were all still in our suits, or we’d have popped our cogs for sure. Zagovich came sailing up from the storage area below me. Drawn by the rush of escaping air that preceded the closing of the upper hatch, he was cursing a blue streak.

“David…Oh Shit!” Pavel sounded very alarmed. I felt a “clunk” against the side of the satellite, and then the audible alarms faintly rang through the suit, keeping pace with the lights on the control board.

“What the hell is going on, Mr. Brown?” Zagovich had grappled with a set of cables and stopped his upward drift nearly parallel with me. I was trying to interpret the symbols on the flashing lights, but my attention was directed at the fact that I saw space through the hatch before it closed.

“I think the Chinese capsule has been released, but I can’t figure out how, or why.”

“Mr. Kosov, please respond,” I looked over to Zagovich. Like me, he was sweating inside his suit. From Pavel, there was no response.

“I’m going out there,” I said, pushing off from the control panel. Zagovich followed me towards the airlock.

“We both will go.”

We stood silently in the dark little airlock that had been built into the satellite. This old satellite was really more like a stealth station. It had all the amenities expected of a cramped flying tin can. Neither Zagovich nor I spoke. We were dreading what we would find. Or what we wouldn’t find, to be more precise.

When the outer hatch finally opened—there was no indicator to show us the atmosphere had been evacuated, it must have burned out—we quickly clamped our tethers to the inset tie-down point in the center of the dingy floor, and made our way around the exterior of the satellite. It was only the second time I’d ever been out in a vacuum. Zagovich began transmitting to Pavel again, but still no response.

The stars are so crisp and brilliant when you are up in space. There is a sense of vertigo that is heightened by weightlessness, but to stare into that void was to increase the sensation one hundredfold. There’s nothing between you and that spectacular vision but a thick bulb of plastic and a few inches of air. On my first “walk” I had just drifted for a few minutes, enjoying the unfiltered, unequaled view of the universe. The raw enormity of what I was seeing was enough to feed my imagination for a thousand lifetimes. The sight of it all, without sound, special effect, or edge of screen to interfere, was humbling. I shall never forget that day, or this one.

We practically threw ourselves up a series of handholds, Zagovich following me much too closely for safety. I noted on the way “up” that many of the grips had been recently used. Pavel had come this way. Where was his tether line, then?

It wasn’t until I crested the upper end of the satellite that I finally was able to guess at what had occurred. Just as I was about to hand myself over the lip though, I felt an unrelenting tug on my tether. I quickly turned in the suit. Foolishly, I could only see the back of my own helmet. I more slowly turned my entire upper torso, to see what Zagovich wanted, keying my mike at the same time.

“What is it Commander?” I said, perhaps a bit too impatiently, but I was eager to find out what had happened. It was when I was turned to face him that I saw he still had both hands on the hand holds, and was not touching my tether.

“What?” came his confused reply.

“Oh, Bloody Nora!” I exclaimed. I was out of tether.

“Mr. Brown. You appear to have reached the end of your tether.”  Well, golly, Mr. Zagovich, Bob’s your uncle. I did not need people to restate the obvious to me.

“Then bloody go and clip my tether to your suit, so at least one of us can get up there!” I fairly shouted into the mike. I had begun to sweat again, profusely this time. Zagovich wordlessly began the trek backwards to the airlock, and as I turned to face forward, I was gripped with a fierce attack of vertigo. I nearly swooned, and almost lost my grip on the satellite at the same time. I was falling apart, just like everyone else.

It was then that I also saw what I desperately wanted not to believe…could not dare to believe. There was a broken tether clip attached to the rung just above my hands. I had not seen it in my haste to climb up to the capsule. It was the same manufacture as ours. Fresh as a daisy, but the buckle end was rended, as though some great force had torn it free. I began to tremble uncontrollably. Behind me, I could feel Zagovich removing the tension from my tether. I held very still. Any sudden movements might jerk me away from the satellite and rip the tether’s end from the commander’s clumsy gloves and throw me into space—like Pavel, Oh God!

“Go ahead, Mr. Brown.” Came a sudden voice in my headphones, shocking me back into the moment. Zagovich had attached himself to my tether. With all haste, I thrust myself up and over the edge of the bulbous satellite. As I had feared, the Shenzhou re-entry capsule was nowhere to be seen, and neither was poor Pavel. I searched the release mechanisms for signs of failure, of which there were plenty. I snapped some quick photos of the exterior of the hatch and made my report to Zagovich, and then to Control. Through choked voices and vision blurred by tears, we managed to enter our own reentry vehicle and maneuver it away from the old Chinese deathtrap.

“Flight One, we have three blips in motion near the satellite. One is yours, the other two are probably Mr. Kosov and the Shenzhou vehicle.” After some quick transmission of coordinates and estimations of remaining fuel, we set off to investigate. We came upon the Chinese capsule first. It was spinning madly. There was virtually no way for a vehicle like ours to match that insane rotation, especially when short on fuel, so we wrote that off for the moment. We met Pavel a few moments later, and activated the close quarters transmitters, hailing Pavel, but there was no reply. A close flyby revealed the reason. His suit had been horribly crushed; blood had seeped through it in several places, only to freeze. His face shield was a red mass, reported Zagovich from his view port, and I for one was grateful to be spared from having a clear view of such a thing.

Our return to the station was to be one of great celebration. Instead, there was no warm greeting, no happy smiles of success. Only heartbreak announced our return to Sustarre Station. Their eyes still haunt me to this day. There was never anything certain about living—all our lives were subject to the whim of the fates, and that no matter how hard we struggled, there was still a great element of chance that could take away everything. Zagovich reported our loss to the station. He looked as weary as a man could look, and still draw a breath.

Those two very different women were joined in a mutual terror and grief. Looking to me as though I might have an answer—or might be somehow to blame, I could not tell which. Neither ever expressed such a sentiment, but I felt it strongly, nevertheless.

The four of us began the laborious routine of excavating unnecessary equipment from the remaining re-entry vehicle to accommodate four riders. It was going to be no small feat, but we were up to the challenge. Pavel’s death had thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak, and honor demands a response to such a blatant challenge. Once the labor had been completed, we made for our bunks and work areas to gather whatever personal effects that we could carry on our persons; there was no room for any baggage of any kind. Juliette grabbed several of her unfinished research notes, burned to DVD in haste, and some small bits from her personal effects. Zagovich ditched the gun and grabbed the station logs. The captain brought only one thing, her baseball cap that read “CO Sustarre Station” with the requisite “scrambled eggs” decoration of gold leaf along the bill. She was wringing it her hands as though it had been soaked in something. I grabbed nothing of my own. I had nothing here of consequence, my only important belongings were already down there, on the contaminated earth. Instead, I grabbed the last undisclosed work of Dr. Noell, thinking that at least his memory could be carried nobly in this way. I also pocketed Pavel’s battered flask. He had left it behind. There was no room for it in a suit, and no way to drink from it anyway.

Unguided by any kind of ground control, we were forced to make our calculations based on GPS, Magnetometry, and celestial navigation, as well as visual inspection of the ground. It would have to be enough, as there was no one to do the job. We installed one extra piece of equipment, the fastest laptop on the station, to assist us with last minute adjustments. Our return to earth was…anticlimactic, to say the least.

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