“Easy, my darling Sagiso,” her grandfather used his pet name
for her, the little orchid with the angel-shaped flower which had grown in his
garden in Tokyo and that he had carefully nursed in his dome on Luna City.
“Ojichan, I’ve missed you so much.” Jude tried to reach up
to touch his now smiling face but her arm felt so very, very heavy.
“And I have missed you too, my beautiful girl. I wish for
nothing more than to take you in my arms and carry you away.”
“Then do it, my dear grandfather.” Jude willed herself to
raise her head, another bolt of myalgia slicing through her like a samurai
blade.
“Not yet, precious petal. Your life isn’t done with. “The
crinkled features began to go foggy.
“No, “Jude pleaded. “Stay, Oji, stay.”
He leaned down, with ease for a man of his years, and his
lips grazed her forehead. “And remember always, my thoughts will always follow
you into your dreams.” And with this, his traditional farewell to her, he was
gone.
“Oh-jee,” she cried.
At the edge of her blurring view, with tears as much as any
pain, Jude could make out a figure in an orange helmeted bio suit thrashing
toward her.
“Chief, we’ve got a live one here.”
“Thank fak.” She barely registered
the tones of Dug Howe from Kakuda before the darkness overtook her.
The mood on the station following the news from Boulogne and
the Tereshkova was low. Although the
crew managed to busy themselves with making the three modules as safe and
sturdy as they possibly could, there was a palpable air of joylessness.
“Why don’t they just send up a shuttle and get us the fak
out of here?” Wib had protested at the next morning’s meeting. The same thought
had crossed Jude’s mind too.
“Because it might be a false alarm. Cee-Cee is a business
concern, with shareholders and profits to make.” Glass replied. “They are not
going to send up a shuttle just on the off chance we might hit a bit of rough
space weather.”
“And we are so close to finishing up – if all goes well, we’ll
be home in a few days anyway.” Maxie was trying hard to sound cheerful but Jude
could tell he was covering up his concerns.
“Yes, “Glass grasped at the support from her systems
technician. “Plus, if there is any minor damage, we can get that sorted too
before they ship us out. In that way, everyone’s happy and we return from a job
well done.”
“We’re just drones to them.” Wib snarled. “Stuck up here,
out of sight, out of mind.”
“We’re no different from any other workers on energy
platforms or test bases.” Hennessey put in his two yen’s worth. “You knew the
deal when you signed on, so stop moaning.”
Jude could feel the tension prickling in the air. She could
soon be seeing her first low-gravity fist fight.
The normally silent Kristof spoke up in zher modulated and
measured Martian tones. “The latest real-time telemetry coming in from the
Advanced Composition Explorer seems to indicate that this particular event will
be pretty minor. SOLO, the solar orbiter, is predicting some minor soft errors.
However, I believe I have made sufficient adjustments to minimise this and any
reparations will be not at all problematic.”
“Thank fak for Spock here,” Wib said. “But what about us
poor soft-bodied apes, eh? We’re going to be battered about like nobody’s
business.”
Jude felt his jibe at poor Kristof was uncalled for and told
him so. “Lay off zhim Wib – Kristof is just doing zher bloody job and so are
you. We all are. Look, Glass and I have converted the sleep spaces into a pretty
decent shelter, with plenty of anchor points and protective padding” Glass gave
Jude the thumbs up, visibly grateful for her contribution both to the safety preparations
and the now raucous debate. “It’ll be a tight squeeze but we can ride out
pretty much whatever this oncoming storm throws at us. We’ll be fine.”
Glass took back control of the meeting. “We’re all tired and
stressed, I appreciate that. Since we got the warning, we’ve been…how do you
say it…knocking our pots in to ready ourselves. And we’ve done brilliantly.”
Maxie spoke up. “Everyone – I wasn’t going to say anything much
really but seeing as we could all do with something to look forward to – it’s
my lovely Kristof’s birthday today.” Kristof motioned to zhis lover to pipe
down but Maxie continued. “So, once this little bluster is passed and we’re all
ship shape again, I have a couple of bottles of brandy and some pouches of space
pudding stashed away in my locker. And,” he nodded to Jude, “our delightful Ms.
Sadako has kindly agreed to entertain us with a song. Or two maybe if we can
persuade her?”
“Well then, “Wib conceded, “That might be well worth going
through this for.”
Messages came in thick and fast over the comms from Boulogne
and both the stellar monitoring stations. There was a fair-sized coronal mass
ejection timed for 15:30 hours, station time. That gave the crew forty minutes
to make final checks and get strapped in to Jude’s shelter space. Hennessey had
shut down all the top line avionics and set attitude to a minimum. Maxie and
Kris had switched off all computing systems, bar life support and minimal
lighting. With some difficulty – their body shapes varying from Kristof’s slender
2.1 metre height to Glass’s matronly solidity – they all managed to cram into
the safe space. Maxie and Kristof snuggled together and welcomed Glass into
their huddle on one side while Jude found herself sandwiched between Wib and Hennessey
on the other. The station hummed then shook slightly, feeling like a small
paper boat rocking on a vast ocean. Then the proximity alarm sounded.
“Here we go, “muttered Glass as a massive burst of solar
wind crashed into the Tiandong. It
was hard to tell up from down as they seemed to roll right over. Jude’s mind
rushed back to that first training day with Hennessey as burning bile rose in
her throat. She reached out and grabbed his hand and held on tight. His hand
was warm in hers, which she was sure, like the rest of her was clammy and
shaking.
“Nearly done,” he craned over to whisper.
As suddenly as they had been tossed about, all was till and
quiet again. Jude released Hennessey’s hand quickly and moved to unfasten her
padded harness.
“Not yet,” said Wib, who had remained rigid like a statue
throughout, all his bombast of that morning now gone. “There might be some
aftershocks.”
The six of them waited but nothing more happened. They all
began unclipping and unhooking themselves from their protective cocoon.
“Thanks Jude. And Glass. “Maxie spoke for all of them. “I
was like a bug in a rug.”
Glass grinned. “Yes, all snug. Now, back to work, people.
Let’s have a sit-rep as soon as we can.”
They all headed out of the makeshift bunker and headed to
their zones. From the CCM, Maxie powered up the on board computers. Everything
seemed to have weathered the storm just fine. Then he noticed a flashing
display on one of the monitors.
“Fak, I knew it was too good to be true. “
“What’s up buddy?” asked Hennessey as he glided past, his arms
full of tools.
“The far aft airlock could be set to breach. Dammit, I
thought it was too good to be true.”
“Not a problem”, the Irishman said. “I’ll go and check it
out. Probably just needs some Kapton tape.”
Kristof’s voice came over the station-wide comm. It was
tinged with alarm. “I’m getting readings in from the OSO. That wasn’t the last
of the storm. There’s another CME and it’s headed our way.”
“Return to the safe zone. I repeat, return to the safe zone.”
Glass’ yelled.
Wib swam past Jude and pulled her in his wake. “In there.
Now.” And he unceremoniously shoved her into then sleep locker. Glass and
Kristof struggled in beside her.
“What about the airlock?” shouted Hennessey.
“Forget the fakking airlock.” Jude had never heard Maxie exclaim
like that before. “The heat shields are down.”
“Leave them and get your Martian arse in here.” The
typically subdued Kristof screamed at zhis partner.
“I can’t. Without them, even a small blast will leave us
dead in the water. We could even lose life support.”
Kristof began unhooking zher anchors but Wib put out a hand
to stop zhim. He was nearer to the door. Hennessey began unclipping his harness
to follow. Wib turned and shook his head.
“Keep her...them safe.” And he spun out and toward Maxie,
who was still valiantly trying to revive the heat shielding. They all watched helplessly
as Wib reached the slighter man, just as the violent shock wave hit the
station. The Mancunian enveloped Maxie and dived under the computer work
station as the viewing window bulged inwards. The cabin was illuminated in a
dazzling white light.
Wib raised his head and shouted over to his colleagues. “Close
the fakking door.”
Hennessey pulled it tight and they were plunged
into darkness, Wib’s contorted face burned onto Jude’s now tightly closed
eyelids.
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