Orbital

Forty-Seven Signal

I’m inside a thirty-foot cargo module drifting away from the space station. I’m wearing a track suit and have no radio to call over to the station and ask what the hell is going on.

Also, it’s freezing inside here. I might just die of hypothermia before I suffocate.

On the bright side, if I wanted any more proof that I’d reached my Sherlock Holmes “aha” moment, I guess this would pretty much be it. Yay for that.

I spend five more seconds staring out the window at the station then decide I need to jump into action.

My first priority is to figure out my priorities. Number one would be getting out of here and back to the station.

The simplest way would be to get them on the radio and have the mechanical arm grab me, or use one of the attached spacecraft to nudge me back into the docking collar.

I try the comm panel again, even though I know it’s a futile effort, given the fact that whatever cable connected it to the station has been severed. There’s also the fact that whoever shut the hatch and did the explosive discharge probably made sure I had no way to call back to the station. They wanted to be certain I was royally screwed.

My hat is off to you, stranger. Mission accomplished.

I do a cursory inspection around the hatch, just in case there’s another comm panel. Nope. I check the wall of the hull, pushing cargo out of the way. Still nope.

Okay, there’s no built-in system to call over to the Sagan. What’s my next option?

I’m in a module filled with electronics and components, maybe there’s something here?

I start ransacking the boxes and bins like a hyperactive kid on Christmas morning.

I ignore the labels and tear everything open, even if it says “Concentrated Cleaning Fluid.”

The compartment quickly fills with duct tape, micro-electronics components and a thousand spare parts.

By the time I reach the last crate the air is filled with the contents of everything I could pry open with my cold desperate fingers. A working radio isn’t among them.

Sure, there might be enough components floating around in here to make one; if I had three weeks and all the tools to put the parts together — and the blueprints.

No such luck. My chance of communicating with the Sagan from this end is nil.

While I pray that someone over there has realized that they’ve just ejected this module, and the affable David Dixon is nowhere to be seen, I’m not ready to risk my life waiting for them to come to that conclusion.

In survival training they teach us to work towards a solution on your own, even when you’re fairly positive your support team is doing the same. Presently, I’m not all that confident they even know I’m missing, let alone are working towards saving my ass.

I’ve caught myself twice attempting to tap an imaginary headset over my ear to ask Laney for help. No such luck, David. You have to figure this one out.

No radio or other means to communicate with the station, I have to figure out some other solution.

Okay, if I can’t signal them to come get me, I have to find a way to get from here to there.

In my search through the crates I was focused on finding a radio and didn’t see anything like a spacesuit, but I do another pass anyway.

My life would get easier and probably greatly extended if I could just find a suit in here somewhere.

Another riffling through the random items turns up nothing. Just lots of raw parts and quick fix materials to keep everything in the DARPA labs running.

This is increasingly looking like a lose-lose situation.

My best course of action may be to start praying to different deities in order of popularity for hope of divine intervention.

Fuck.

The cold is getting to me and I can feel my body shivering.

I find a sheet of mylar insulation and wrap it around me, hoping it will keep some of the heat in. It sort of kind of works a little. But it’s just a palliative in an increasingly dire situation.

I go back and look through the small window. The station is about 100 meters away now. It’s not a huge distance, but it might as well be across an ocean given the amount of vacuum between us.

Okay, David, don’t give up. You’ve been in worse situations…

Nope, not really. Sure, there was that time I thought I was going to have to suffocate in my spacesuit. But I had Laney looking out for me and an actual spacesuit to suffocate inside. Here I’m stuck in a freezing cargo container just wearing work clothes.

Think possible. Come up with some ideas. Anything.

Okay, I can’t reach the space station. What if I could communicate with them some other way?

This module is filled with tape and large plastic containers. What if wrote “Help!” using the tape and kicked one of the crates out the hatch? They’d have to see that floating through space and know I was onboard, right?

Sure. And my dead body floating next to the sign would also be a helpful indicator to my whereabouts.

There’s no airlock here. It’s just a hatch. Once I open it, all the air that’s keeping me alive will rush out and leave me choking. My sign is a horrible idea.

Okay, what’s next on the list of dumb suggestions?

What if I sealed my self inside a container and opened the hatch somehow? If I wrote, “In here!” on the crate they’d have to send something out to retrieve it. I think.

So, how do I seal myself inside a container and manage to open the hatch? Not even Space Houdini could pull that off.

There’s also the not inconsiderable problem of what happens if they don’t see my box or my sign. I’d just freeze and suffocate all that quicker.

Compared to the alternative, is a fast death really such a bad idea right now?