In The Shadow Of Ceres

I’ve heard it said that in space, no one can hear you scream. However, due to the new Wide-Range Servo-tech communicators recently installed into our suits, that was no longer the case. Yet to me, coming to in my suit while floating in the emptiness of space, this is no comfort. My immediate action is to scream in panic, which I do, only for the HUD to flash red, catching my attention. With my current course of screaming my lungs out I was using too much oxygen and would kill myself even faster.

We were on our way from the Mars Spaceport on a typical supply drop before heading home to the Europa colony. We charted a route through the Main Asteroid Belt, where the rocks are at their thinnest, brushing just past the dwarf planet Ceres. Captain Rajas was going to let the computer formulate a safe path that he would manually navigate, the safest course of action in the ever shifting belt.

Everything had been going fine until we were passing Ceres. The computer tried to alert Captain Rajas of a speeding asteroid coming from Ceres shadow but it was to late. The giant rock crashed into the middle of the ship with such force that the ship nearly spun a full rotation, throwing everyone aboard to the left. It knocked gravity offline and I decided then to swim through the air to my quarters and throw my suit on. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes when the ship got pelted with more asteroids ripping holes throughout.

A horrible noise erupted, like ripping aluminum foil but times that by a hundred. I remember then, getting pulled from the hallway with all the people who were not in their suits. Hitting my head, and now…

Now I am looking at a third of the ship below me, it appears to be the bottom portion, made up of mostly sleeping quarters and storage facilities. Besides being torn from the rest of the ship, it looked pretty intact. Enough that I might able to get to a room with some life support, or at least find a few spare tanks of oxygen.

“Co-computer?” i say with a slight cough, my voice a little hoarse from the screaming. It acknowledges that it heard me and is awaiting a command.

“Show remaining oxygen levels.”

The HUD lights up and shows me the two tanks, the main one is almost empty, the secondary has about a quarter left. Not ideal.

“Off screen.” I say, looking around again to see if I can find a part of the ship closer. I hiss sharply and look back to the third of the ship, my heart rate, shown on the HUD, increases dramatically. Above me are the bodies of those who did not get into their suits in time. Their rigid bodies and horribly twisted faces are something I don’t think I will ever forget. That is the stuff of nightmares. I bite my lip and shake my head of the image before tilting forward to face the wreckage of the ship I can see.

“Computer. Activate Boot Thrusters. Manual control.” The computer responds angrily, advising against using the thrusters in the boots as it will use up too much of the remaining air.

“Ahh Override!” I shout desperately. I dont have the time to argue with a program. The computer takes a moment to take the warning signs down before I feel a slight click in my feet signalling the thrusters were active. Aiming for the ship I press my heels down in one quick pump. A small puff of air is quickly ejected from them propelling me forward towards the ship.

“Computer. Display oxygen levels, left side.” The computer responds quickly, throwing up visuals on the left side of my HUD as I let the thrusters have another quick pump of air, propelling me a little faster. Still the ship was far away, and my main tank was empty. Each small pump took a notable amount, they weren’t meant for travel like this. I dare to push down on the thrusters a third time to increase speed before disabling them. My oxygen is down to one eighth of a tank.

In the next ten minutes it takes me to get to the ship it has dropped to one sixteenth. I was pushing my luck here. As we come too the ship I angle myself to sail into an exposed hallway. The lights are dead, no power was making its way through here. Hopefully the doors have power, or I can muster up enough strength to manually open them. Each room should have at least one tank of air. As long as I can get into one and replace my tank I should be fine to get somewhere I can send out a wide-range message that another ship may pick up.

As luck would have it, the doors to the quarters in fact did not have any power, and the manual handles would not budge. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, but I knew it had to have an end somewhere. I pause looking at one of them doors, trying to think, the tank is nearly empty, holding on a sliver of air. Beginning to really understand that I am about to die I yell loudly and grasp the manual handle on the closest door and pull with all my might. The door lurches for a moment before hissing open. The room is dark, but I turn on the computers headlamp and glide in.

It takes me but a moment to find the two oxygen tanks and spacesuit in the closet of whoever lived in here. My spacesuit is empty, my last breath suctions the suit to me and i’m forced to hold my breath. I quickly attempt to replace the empty tank but it slips from my grasp tumbling away. In panic I start to move after it before realizing the mistake and grab back onto the  container holding the spacesuit and the other oxygen tank. It hurts to pull myself to the container, and my sights beginning to dim. I grab the other oxygen tank as fast as I can as I fight the onset of darkness...

God damn it I will not die out here! Not like this! Through sheer willpower I fight the darkness off and move the tank to the side panel of my suit where it belongs and attach the valve. I sigh to myself for a moment as I feel my spacesuit flood with a fresh wave of oxygen. I take a few minutes to breath heavily before going after and replacing the empty second tank. I sit there for a few more minutes, monitoring the oxygen levels and staring back out at the hallway.

I stop revelling on how close a call that was too decide on my next course of action.

“Computer. Do a low sweep scan for any doors with power.”

The computer begins its scan and I feel a surge of relief as the main door at the end of the hallway still had power, with luck the rest of the ship past that did as well and I would be able to rig up some kind of long range communications through my suits Wide Range Servo-tech Communicator. Feeling a little better about my situation, I kick off the walls of the room and float towards the door, no air thrusters needed to traverse the ship now. I make my way down the long hallway and cant help but think of all the bodies I had seen and feel very lucky the room I had forced my way in hadn’t contained more.

As I reach the door I have my computer scan beyond to see if any life support systems were online, they were not, but several monitors and a few of the room doors were operational. I hit the button to open the doors and try and grab onto something. If there was any atmosphere left it was going to be sucked out.

Instead the doors noiselessly opened and bathed me in soft, albeit, flickering, light. It was one of the recreational rooms where people could interact, play games, and grab a drink when they were not on duty. There was a breach in the ceiling, I could see out into the asteroid belt from where I was floating. Which I focused on, more bodies floated around here, they fared no better than those outside. Braving myself to face the horrible twisted figures around me, I muster enough courage to move and do my best to ignore the bodies as I search for the nearest monitor.

I grimace as I push a few bodies out of my way and shudder as they effortlessly glide away. I fight the urge to vomit as I turn away to look at the monitor. I bring up the communications menu and type in my personal code to manually start a distress signal, The ships black box would be with the helm, and that was not attached to this portion of the ship. I needed them to know I was here so they would come find me. I use my Wide Range Servo-tech Communicator to then put out a looping message requesting rescue.

Once it’s done I sigh and close my eyes for a moment. I’m feeling shaky, and it’s hard to open my eyes. Hard to do much of anything really, everything feels heavy, I am just too tired. Maybe I can just rest my eyes for a few minutes…

Sometime passed before a ship came close enough to the wreck to pick up the distress signal. They were able to recover many of the supplies meant for The Europa Colony. They were about to take off when they decided to do a deep scan for any traces of life. There they found the small section of the ship where the sensors were picking up a faint signal from a Wide Range Servo-Tech Communicator. A small team was sent out to investigate, and bring back anything usable.  Two men went in first, using their boot thrusters to navigate through the ship they easily maneuver through the short hallway, easily forcing their way into several of the rooms, marking available spacesuits, oxygen tanks, communicators and the like, before making their way into the final room where a filled spacesuit drifted lazily in the air, there was a hanging spacesuit and one full oxygen tank, the second one drifted around the back of the room.

“What do you think happened to this guy?” asked a burly man, his one size fits all spacesuit nearly stretched to its limit.

“Well he’s dead.” responded the other man sporting a mustache and some thick rimmed glasses.

“Well yeah, I mean, look how peaceful he looks. How did that happen?”

The mustachioed man marked the unused spacesuit and oxygen tanks before turning to his partner. “He must have died sleeping, most likely passed out from losing too much oxygen. As the brain died it released a chemical called DMT. He probably sailed into oblivion in a dream. Better that then how his fellow crew members did.”

“Poor guy, he was so close too.” the big guy said indicating the oxygen tanks.

“Yes, well better this way than the others here.” The mustachioed man repeated. “Now, pick him up and lets be on our way so the retrieval crew can come pick up the few salvageable things. Captain wont be happy if we leave him, he needs to be cremated with the rest and sent into Jupiter's eye.”

The big guy nodded solemnly and grabbed the body and the two used their boot thrusters to navigate out of the ship to their own. A retrieval team sent out for supplies before abandoning the sections of the ship to the asteroid belt.