Page 13

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I look up from the page, Alex’s soft snores my cue. She fell asleep to my voice, reading about love, romance, and lab work. That was my old life, at least the lab work part, and it all seems so very far away now.

These words on the page are the closest I have come to intimacy in the past three long years.

I skim a few pages ahead, quickly snapping the book closed when I spot the phrase ‘lines himself up with my entrance’.

A flicker of movement in my periphery - nothing but an overhead light blinking. I glance around, my throat tightening. Did anyone see me? Heat rises up my neck, into my cheeks. I scrub a hand over my face. Ridiculous. I am a grown man.

Reaching for my satchel, the worn leather having seen better days, I flick it open and deposit the novel. Remembering the crunched paper in my pocket, I grab it and throw that in the satchel too.

How embarrassing. Matthias ‘thinks of everything’ Müller and I forgot the damn Quittung in the book.

Smooth .

I crumple the receipt further, scrunching it tight and throwing it into the bottom of the bag. Stupid piece of paper is probably the most useless thing up here.

Well, perhaps the second most useless thing.

My eyes drift over to the entrance of the makeshift HQ set up in the dining module, picturing the Gigolo , with his unkempt blonde hair, shooting everyone a charming smirk as he seduces them into more idiotic ideas that are just as likely to get Alex killed than to save her.

Unfortunately, he seems rather insistent on a spacewalk. Clayton too.

I can see the logic of collating a complete image of any damage to the exterior of the station. However, I fail to see how prodding around out there will help Alex.

As if she can sense my very thoughts returning to her, she lets out a deep exhale followed by another soft snore. At least like this she can conserve oxygen.

Luckily, Chelenko has spent most of his time unconscious, also reducing the burden on their precious air.

A clamour of voices spill out of the opening ahead, the vague noises slowly beginning to formulate whole sentences.

“Yuri, grab Matty too. Get him suited and booted, while….” The rest of the conversation grows indistinct. Cl ayton's deep voice muffled by the excess of supplies lining the walls.

Flipping my satchel shut, I stretch myself to full height. My hips and knees are stiff from folding myself into this little nook beside the sealed hatch to Columbus.

I’m getting too old for this .

Yuri slips into the corridor. His gaze roams the halls until it falls on me.

“Matty.” His smile spreads wide, “You don’t mind me calling you Matty, do you? Come, we go for walk outside.”

He glides down the hall towards me, quickly covering the distance between us, continuing passed.

I follow, reaching him just in time to have a white space suit boot thrust in my arms.

“Get dressed. I check airlock is still working.” He starts, drifting off as his hands work over the console beside the door.

He mumbles to himself, beneath his breath. I barely catch a word between the ‘ahhs’ and the occasional “ chert ” - usually followed by a quick slap against the machinery. ‘Percussive engineering,’ I hear Alex’s voice say in my mind.

I slide the rest of me inside the suit's torso, slipping into both boots before I reach for the gloves. My hand pauses over them, my eyes focusing on the helmet instead. The black, red and gold patch on my shoulder reflects in the visor. Taunting me.

Home.

I’ll never see it again.

Never see Mutti.

Never bring Alex back.

She is going to kill me when she finds out she will never see that damn cat again. Not that it would live long with the portions Mutti feeds him - he’ll be lucky to survive three years without developing diabetes.

A burden for another day.

Yuri is staring at me now. His brow wrinkles.

“ Wie bitte ?” I ask, dumbly.

His frown deepens. “Perhaps we go get the Kid to help.”

“Kid?”

“Luca.” Yuri reaches for his comms.

I grab his arm, stopping him.

“ Alles gut. I was thinking. Of Earth.”

Yuri’s frown softens, his smirk returning. “All ladies will be crying that I am gone.”

My eyes roll in exasperation. I have my doubts about Yuri’s ‘ladies’. Even stronger doubts about the ROSMOCOS’ Human Resources department, and their non-existent seminars on sexual harassment in the workplace.

“You have woman back on Earth?” He asks nonchalantly as his hands slide the helmet over my head, adjusting the UV filters on the visor.

I frown, “You know Alex is my wife, right ?”

“ Da ,” He flaps his hand in an attempt to disperse my comments. “Your wife has boyfriend.” He turns to face me. “What about you?”

“ Nein .”

“No boyfriend?” Yuri smirks.

“There was one woman…” I start.

His grin returns in force, his mouth stretching wide. “I knew you holding out on me.”

“It’s nothing….” I begin, my mind reeling back to Earth and the one and only time a woman took an interest in me after Alex left.

“Diana, my assistant.”

Yuri’s eyebrows hike up his forehead. “ Chert , you dog.”

“It wasn’t like that. She knew Alex.”

That only sends his eyebrows further into the stratosphere. He turns me around, pointing me inside the airlock.

Looking forward through the small window in the door ahead, I see the endless sea of space. Blackest night stretching forever onwards .

“I worked a lot. She was always there. I barely noticed her. Barely noticed anything…” Through the numbness . I pause, waiting for Yuri.

He grunts as I hear the tell-tale click of a helmet seal locking into place.

I sigh. “She offered herself to me. One night. Right there in the lab - if you can believe it.”

“I believe it.” Yuri chuckles.

“I said no.”

“Why?” He moves forward to the console, the doorway behind us seals closed with a soft hiss, and a clank of the magnetic locks. Yuri turns to face me, smirking through the helmet visor. “She ugly? Sorry, my friend.”

“No. She was pleasant enough. She just wasn’t Alex.” I sigh a heavy exhale.

“Ahhh.” He says, understanding. “You couldn’t get it up.”

“Ja, exactly .” He slams the button. A loud siren sounds off. Lights flashing. “Wait. No . I didn’t say that.” I feel earlier’s heat returning to my cheeks.

“You know, there is pill for that.” Yuri continues.

The computer chirps in, interrupting our conversation. “ Depressurisation in process. ”

“I don’t need a pill.”

“There is no shame, my friend. ”

“I could have slept with her. I just didn’t want to,” I huff, glaring at Yuri. The effect of my stare likely diminished through the many layers of the helmet’s visor.

“Sure, whatever you say.” He waves his hand again.

“It was a sterile lab.”

He looks at me, one eyebrow raised.

I’m protesting too much. Let Yuri think what he wants. The crazy Russian.

“ Depressurisation complete.”

Yuri reaches forward, his hand grabbing the door's manual override. “Ready?”

I nod, instinctively holding my breath.

I don’t care what people say about the beauty of space. The calm. The peace.

They're wrong.

There is no peace in the endless void.

An infinite tide of darkness ever searching for a land that doesn’t exist.

It never stops.

Never ends.

In mathematics we work with infinities and absolutes, but when you’re presented with the vastness of true infinity then the word ‘space’ doesn’t cover it.

Yuri pushes the hatch forward, the heavy metal glides easily through the air. He clips his tether to the guideline

and pulls himself through .

I breathe.

One boot forward, then the next. I clip myself to the guideline. A quick tug to ensure it’s secure. Then I push through the open door.

Following the guideline. One hand in front of the other. Examining the metal exterior as I go.

There are a few scrapes to the protective paint covering, but more concerning is the buildup of corrosion. The paint and metalwork is already beginning to flake and lift from the main body of the station.

Unlike the ships of Earth, there is no moisture to cause rust. However, in space, the corrosion usually stems from the bombardment of UV rays and meteors colliding with the station’s hull, but the station’s true enemy is atomic oxygen.

My eyes flick to where the station's body joins to the solar array. The moving parts are the most susceptible to space corrosion. The last thing we need are the joints seizing up.

The golden wings closest to me are mostly intact, apart from the unhealthy angle of the leftmost arm. And the final solar panel appears to be missing.

Not bad, all things considered.

I shift to my other side, my left hand clutching the metal bar on the wall. My legs flail beneath me for a moment before I steady myself against the metal .

“Scheisse.” I hit my comms on , “ The left side of the station is shredded.”

“Damage report,” Clayton demands.

“Destroyed in the meteor storm. Multiple asteroids have pocked the metal. The solar array is Kaputt. We will be lucky to salvage it for parts.”

And tucked beneath the solar array, cocooned in metal work, that once made up the starboard photovoltaic array, is the Columbus module.

How is Alex still alive in there?

I hit my comms on, “I think my previous estimations are off. Way off. There is no way she has hours left with this level of damage.” Asteroids – plural – must have pierced straight through the hull, and even if they haven’t, station shrapnel surely has.

“How is the other solar array?”

“Appears functional.”

“Comms?”

“In one piece.”

The metal graveyard is bathed in an ominous red hue. Reluctantly bringing my attention away from the safety of the Station, outward to the void.

This isn’t Earth. This isn’t our Sun.

This is a dream. A nightmare.

Overshadowing the Space Station is a gas giant, its surface a swirl of rich oranges and deep purples.

A crimson aura surrounds the planet, encircling it from behind. It spins, the vibrant oranges swallowed by purple clouds as it turns.

Slowly, it reveals the source of the red aura. The eclipse passes, each moment stretching into the next. Until…

My lips part at the sight. “ Wunderbar.”

Never in my life would I have thought I would get to witness this.

“What do you see, Matty?” Clayton asks.

“A giant red star. Larger than our sun.”

The rays are bright enough to tinge the planets and the Station in a crimson smear. The brilliant light is blinding, even despite the UV filters of my visor.

Slowly, my eyes adjust.

Its crimson body ebbs and flows as energy ripples out before splashing back in on itself.

Besides the Red Giant, small streams of flux tether it to a smaller body. A gleaming white pearl against the backdrop of night.

“A binary system.”

“Wow. Sisters.” Yuri laughs.

We must be the first humans to see such a sight.

I jolt, feeling a bump against my shoulder. “We definitely not in Kentucky no more,” Yuri says.

“Kansas.” Clayton’s deep voice mingles with static on the comms .

“Earth gone. Sister suns. Who gives a fuck?

“Kansans?” I offer. Coughing, I attempt to clear my dry throat. “Our main focus is still getting Alex out of there.”

“Head home. We can do some more sightseeing later.” Clayton adds.

I turn to my now silent companion, a rare occurrence for Yuri.

He nods, “Let’s go save your girlfriend.”

“My wife .”