The Final Expedition

Day Sixty-Eight

“I thought I’d find you here.” I said as I entered the Cupola. Natalya was gazing through the large windows at the Earth. She glanced over her shoulder at me and flashed me a smile. I pulled myself towards her and kissed her.

“What are you up to?” I asked her.

“Just taking a break and thinking about home.” She said wistfully. “I think no matter what we find and what happens when we get there, I’m still looking forward to putting my feet on solid ground.”

“I know what you mean.” I agreed. “I miss just walking from A to B, the feeling of weight on my feet. Strange that I’d miss something so mundane.”

“I miss proper food.” Natalya added. “A fresh, hot, cooked meal.” She subconsciously flicked her tongue across her lips, imagining the taste, making me smile.

“I do miss food.” I agreed. “But I think I would actually kill for a bottle of beer. A nice chilled bottle, covered in condensation, freshly opened…” I closed my eyes, imagining the taste, before opening them again to find Natalya smiling at me, amused by my flight of fantasy.

“Now you mention it, I’d like a glass of white wine.” Natalya admitted. “A big glass of Pinot Grigio. That would taste so good right now.”

“Pinot Grigio?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry!” Natalya shot back. “As a Russian, I must drink only Vodka?!”

“You said it.” I smiled, before remembering something else. “I miss having a real shower with hot running water. So hot that the room is fogged up with steam by the time I’m finished. I miss that feeling of being properly clean.”

“I think we all miss you feeling properly clean.” Natalya giggled, leaning in and sniffing me before recoiling theatrically. I feigned indignation before smiling.

“How rude!”

“Another thing I miss is the smell of flowers.” Natalya said after a moment’s thought. “I used to always have fresh flowers in every room in my apartment in Star City during my training. I love flowers. Something for you to remember when we get back to Earth.”

“I don’t know about that.” I replied doubtfully, furrowing my brow. “I kind of see this relationship as just a space thing…” She frowned at me before jabbing her elbow into my ribs.

“That’s not funny!” She smiled. Just for a moment, the catastrophe on the Earth’s surface far below, beyond the one and a half inch thick glass of the Cupola was forgotten as we considered our future together. Then, as if to awaken us from our reverie, a terrific crash echoed through the station. We looked at each other in surprise.

“What the hell was that?!” I exclaimed, looking through the windows of the Cupola just as a large piece of debris tumbled past the window, only missing us by a few metres. I pulled myself back instinctively, my heart racing. “Fuck! That was close!”

“Oh no!” Natalya pointed towards the solar array. We watched in horror as another piece of debris impacted with one of the huge solar panels, before careering off into space. The station vibrated around us from the impact. The smashed solar panel gently twisted on its axis before finally breaking off and hitting the adjacent solar panel. The stem of the second solar panel bent inwards and swung towards the body of the station, scraping down the underside of the modules, catching one of the Soyuz capsules, the impact reverberating down the station.

“Oh shit!” My eyes widened as it began to sweep towards us. I felt my whole body tense as I anticipated the crunching impact of the solar panel smashing into the cupola and our imminent death in the frozen vacuum of space. Just before the solar panel reached us, the twisted stem finally fractured and tore away from the truss, breaking away and floating off into space, narrowly missing the vulnerable windows of the cupola. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Natalya whose shell shocked expression mirrored my own. She opened her mouth to speak, but her words were drowned out by a shrill screech as sirens filled the air.

“We need to close the shutters.” Natalya shouted, over the wailing sirens. She hurriedly pressed a series of buttons, motors whining as protective steel shutters began to fold agonisingly slowly into place over the windows. “Let’s get out of here.” She said, pulling herself through the hatch. I followed her and we turned and sealed the Cupola behind us before pulling ourselves towards the hatch into the Unity Node. Morrison floated past us, closely followed by Aki, both pulling themselves in the direction of the Zvezda module. I knew from my training that in the event of an emergency, we should assemble in the Russian service module.

“Follow me.” Morrison told us. “We’ve had a breach!”

“It might be the Soyuz capsule at the back of the station.” I told him. “Part of the solar array broke off and hit it. We saw it happen from the Cupola!”

“The solar array’s been damaged?” Morrison grimaced. “It’s worse than I thought.”

We followed Morrison and Aki into the Russian segment. When we reached Zvezda, Karpov and Flynn were already in the process of closing the hatch leading to the Soyuz capsule. After a great deal of effort, they managed to close it and get a seal. Flynn angrily thumped a red mushroom shaped button on the wall, silencing the sirens.

“Goddamn it!” He cursed.

“Get suited up.” Karpov told Flynn. “We need to inspect the damage immediately.”

“It’s not good.” Karpov told us as Morrison helped him remove the helmet from his spacesuit. We had all gathered outside the Quest airlock in the Unity Node. Flynn was suited up just behind Karpov. They had been assessing the damage for more than an hour.

“Hit us with it, Sir.” Morrison told him.

“You’ll already be aware from our radio silence during the E.V.A. that the communications array is damaged. It’s pretty bad. Half of it just isn’t there anymore. Don’t think there’s much we can do with that. Two of the main solar arrays are gone, but we should be able to carry on with the remaining six. We may have to shut off some of the experimentation racks to compensate. We lost a little oxygen from the breach, but we got the hatch shut before we lost too much. We’ve had a look at the damaged Soyuz capsule. While we can patch it up, its structural integrity has been compromised. We won’t be able to use it to return to Earth.” He paused a moment to let the last sentence sink in while Morrison helped Flynn to remove his spacesuit.

“So whatever happens from now on, three of us are stranded up here for good.” Aki replied. Karpov nodded grimly.

“I’m afraid so.” There was a long silence.

“We should have tried to return to Earth when we had the chance.” Flynn finally said bitterly. “We should have listened to you, Wes.”

“There was no way of knowing this would happen.” Morrison defended Karpov. “You couldn’t legislate for this.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit.” Flynn turned his anger on his compatriot. “I respect your unwavering confidence in the Mission Commander, but we all knew this was a strong possibility. We all know that debris in orbit is tracked remotely from the ground and we’re told in good time of any incoming to let us carry out a D.A.M.” I glanced at Aki quizzically.

“Debris Avoidance Manoeuvre.” She whispered.

“Once we lost contact with Mission Control, we were always running the risk that we might hit some debris.” Flynn told Karpov. “And guess fucking what?!”

“Calm yourself, Major.” Karpov growled, glaring back at him. “We’re all in this together.”

“Not anymore, Mission Commander.” Flynn replied, taking on a sarcastic tone as he referred to Karpov by his title. “Thanks to your questionable decisions, three of us will be waving the other three off with nothing but a cold death in space to look forward to. I’ll tell you something, Karpov, it’s sure as fuck not going to be me!”

“We’re all scared Flynn…” Natalya reached out to him, trying to calm the situation down. He slapped her hand away.

“Get away from me.” He thundered, before pushing himself past us in the direction of the Destiny module, disappearing through the hatch and leaving us all speechless.