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CHAPTER ONE

Four minutes. My patient has been dead for four minutes already, and I wait longer.

Every muscle is poised, ready for action. All I can hear is the gush of my blood pumping through my veins, rushing in my ears.

Thump.

Thump.

My whole body is wound tighter than a pocket watch. My palms are sweaty as I grip tighter at the med kit, my knuckles white against the black straps. 0945. I watch the minutes tick along on my watch.

I’ve never brought a patient back from death longer than six minutes, and that was a unique case – the body catalysing into a self-induced hibernation once the child’s body hit the arctic waters. Six minutes under ideal conditions lead to that positive outcome.

I glance down at my wrist. 0946.

New patient. No medical background. NASA should have one on file, but NASA isn’t here. I only know what I can see, what I could observe peering into Columbus through the two-inch strip of glass in the sealed hatch through the sealed hatch .

Male. Roughly 5 ft. 10. On the leaner side, I’d hazard 140lbs. Russian, Slavic descent. Blood type… Let’s start with O+ and hope for the best.

Ailments include a stab wound from a foreign object to the right iliac fossa, head injury, low oxygen levels, blood loss, and exposure to the vacuum of space, which brings all new issues to contend with.

Space may be a vacuum, but it's sure not sterile.

That’s one of the reasons I’m up here, exploring the petri dish of bacterium the expanse has to offer.

Somehow, I hadn’t quite expected my first twenty-four hours to pan out like this.

The clamour of the background comes to the foreground, the hissing of the ventilation struggling as it repressurises the module. The corridor is a tight fit for the four of us.

“ Atmosphere secure .”

No sooner than the computer chirps out confirmation, Yuri has his hands on the hatch, removing the probe’s head and flinging it open as wide as possible in the narrow three-foot corridor.

I push forward, gliding to a halt just off from Chelenko’s purpling body. Welts rise along his exposed flesh.

In my best attempt in zero-G, I drop to my knees and check over the patient. My hands glide over his face, his arms, checking his neck. No pulse. Another glance at my wrist. 0947. We are well past best-case scenarios now.

My hands continue lower, searching. I pause as they reach the wire cutters. I can already feel myself chewing at my lip – a terrible habit, only slightly more hygienic and not as unsightly as picking the dry skin from them.

I rip open his jumpsuit, and the worn zipper groans in complaint. I take a few heated breaths against my cupped hands to warm them before I slide them down his chest, pulling the jumpsuit open wider.

A spiderweb of silvery, healed scars covers his skin like a map of past injuries, the scars thickening over keen points—this poor man. I can only hazard a guess at the kind of torture he has endured.

My practiced hands glide to the sternum, finding my mark.

“I need a stretcher,” I call over my shoulder as I rummage through the med kit, pulling out a syringe.

I tap my comms, relying on the comms recorder to track my notes, “1mg adrenaline injected at 0947.” I stab it in his chest, drop the spent syringe, and leave it to float as I start chest compressions.

I’m too used to my assistants knowing my every move, anticipating my every need, and ready to respond – snatching up discarded needles.

Counting up from one, I sing in my head. Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive. The tune keeps me on beat for compressions. At thirty, I pause, leaning down to breathe into his mouth before kneeling over him again.

Pesquet arrives. Luca helps her with the stretcher. They place it on the floor beside Chelenko’s cadaver. Not cadaver for long if I can help it .

At sixty, I lean down again to give him two rescue breaths, puffing into his open mouth. “Move him on three. One, two, three.” Between the three of us, we shift him over. He doesn’t flinch, twitch, or make a noise.

Zero stimuli to my touch.

With no time to lose, I clamber on top of the stretcher, straddling Chelenko, being careful to give the foreign object protruding from his abdomen a wide berth. My feet find a natural anchoring point tucked beneath the metal frame of the stretcher’s sides.

Back to compressions. I plunge down on his chest with the full weight of my body and feel a crack, the vibrations running up my arms.

Fuck.

“Fractures to the costa verae three and four,” I say to the recorder.

Continuing anyway, I adjust my hand placement to mitigate further damage, but even so, cracked ribs are better than death.

“Let's get him to med bay,” I say with all the authority of the Head Surgeon. The reality is, I don't even know if this place has a med bay. I think I will be lucky if there’s a well-stocked med box – not including what I brought up with me. I’ll have to make do with any surgical equipment left over in one of the labs.

I look at Luca, who nods. He grabs the end of the stretcher and steers us down the corridor. I can hear Pesquet barking commands at him.

I look at my patient below, wondering if I’m actually witnessing the ruddiness slowly seep back into his cheeks. Or perhaps it’s wishful thinking.

“Don’t worry, Chelenko. I’ve got you,” I grit out between ragged breaths as I continue singing ‘ Stayin’ Alive ’ in my head.

Unsure if the rush of adrenaline coursing through me has me imagining the slight squeeze of fingers I feel weakly clutching my ankle.