The Final Expedition

Day One Hundred and Fifty

“Hey.” I called out as I entered the Destiny Laboratory where Natalya was riding the exercise bike. She turned her head and smiled at me, but it was an empty smile and there was weariness in her eyes. “I just wanted to thank you for, you know, saving my life and everything.” She nodded and stopped peddling.

“How are you feeling now?” Natalya asked me.

“Not too bad.” I smiled weakly. In truth, my throat was still bruised and painful and I was feeling pretty shaken up by the whole incident. “More importantly how are you feeling?”

“I feel terrible.” Natalya admitted. I opened my mouth to reply, but she put her hand up to stop me. “I know what you’re going to say, that it was either him or you and you’re probably right. Deep down, I know I did the right thing, but he was my colleague and my friend and I killed him. I murdered my friend. I’ve been peddling on this damn bike for an hour and watching this stupid movie,” She nodded towards the screen opposite the bike. “But all I can think about is that crazy few seconds, replaying it in my head over and over and over again. I keep thinking maybe I could have stopped him some other way, got him away from you without killing him. Oh Max, it was horrible. I stabbed that screwdriver into his neck, feeling it sink into his flesh and he turned to look at me, grasping me with one hand, while trying to grab the screwdriver handle with the other. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out, just a gargling noise and then he coughed up blood, a shower of red bubbles erupting from his mouth, splashing all over me. Then he looked at me one last time, a deep sadness in his eyes. I watched them dim as the life drained out of them and his grip on me relaxed.” I reached out and gently squeezed her hand.

“There was no time to do anything else.” I reassured her. “I was already unconscious. If you had hesitated, I would probably have been dead and he may have overpowered you too. Wes might have been finding both our corpses floating outside the station about now.” Natalya nodded. The scorched area at the end of the module caught my eye and I suddenly had a thought.

“It makes you wonder whether that fire in here was an accident.” I said. “It was Flynn and I trapped at that end.”

“A dangerous method if he was trying to kill you both.” Natalya replied after a moment’s thought. “That fire could have killed us all.”

“Well, I guess we’ll never know either way.” I shrugged.