“Oh God! Oh God!” I scream, the sound trapped in my suit, my fingers slipping.
“Commander,” the intercom crackles. “Where are you? We don’t have a visual on you.”
Mind racing, heart pumping, fingers slipping.
Why are they moving?
Fingers slipping.
Below me nothing, above me nothing, all around me…nothing. The only things connecting me to something are my slipping fingers on the auxiliary lines trailing from the open hatch of the shuttle to my suit’s pack, like a creature trailing its entrails.
“Commander,” the suit’s intercom cuts into my panic. “We have experienced a systems failure. We’ve lost control of the shuttle, thrusters are malfunctioning. I repeat we’ve lost control of the shuttle. Hold on, Commander!”
But I can’t.
The shuttle noses its way through the black nothingness in bone rattling thrust bursts that cause the lines to slacken and tighten as I’m towed behind. With each jolt my fingers slip. Each dislocating jerk threatens to rip the pack from my suit exposing me to space.
Eyes darting wildly for a way out of this nightmare, the cumbersome suit hinders my peripheral vision but I don’t have to see the nothingness all around me to fear it. It beckons to me.
“No!” I scream again, grasping at the lines. Panic sets in, it’s only a matter of time, I can’t hold on for long. I struggle to maintain control, my heart pumping the adrenaline through my body. With a huge effort I place one hand in front of the other. Painstakingly slowly, I pull myself along the auxiliary lines. I inch closer to the open hatch; if I can reach it I can climb inside, seal myself in and open the airlock to safety.
“Commander,” the intercom transmits. “We are initiating a full systems reboot to regain control of the shuttle. Comms will be offline, standby.”
The shuttle is a beacon of salvation, my way home. I fight with every breath as the thrusters suddenly cease their intermittent firing and the shuttle coasts in silence, propelled by its own momentum, dragging me behind it.
I edge towards the hatch, ten metres to go. Hope.
Sweating heavily from the effort, I sense safety like a rabbit running for its hole from its deadly pursuer.
“-owering up,” the intercom starts in a haze of static. The shuttle is illuminated once more in its countless lights. With a sinking feeling I recognize a light that wasn’t there before. The flashing hatch door alarm. In silence, the hatch slowly begins closing. With renewed effort I clamber along the lines, desperately trying to reach the hatch.
Hope fades.
“Cease hatch closure!” I yell in panic not knowing if I am being heard or not. “Abort! Abort!”
“Commander,” comes the frantic reply. “The systems are scrambled. The hatch is on auto. The computer senses a velocity it deems dangerous to hull integrity of the exposed airlock. It’s locked into an automatic closing sequence. We can’t hold it open.”
The words don’t register, blind panic takes over. No matter, I know all of this. Thirty years as an engineer, pilot and astronaut will teach you all you need to know about shuttle protocols.
Two metres.
Realisation of my end doesn’t come in a sweet embrace of acceptance; it’s a wave of rushing fear. My knees go weak, hands become clumsy. I strain all I can, but I know I won’t make it.
“Wait! Wait!” I yell over and over again. I fight to survive, the visor of my helmet fogs from my rapid breath, squinting I see the hatch slowly begin to squeeze over the lines.
The universe holds it breath, so do I. The hatch gives a pause as if deciding my fate. For a moment I think it won’t cut the lines, then there’s a sudden tug. They’re cut. With wide eyed horror I see the lines come free and slowly curl and twist like headless snakes dying in slow motion. The shuttle glides past. Reaching out with gloved hands, I vainly trying to grab onto something, anything. My fingers slide uselessly over the smooth hull.
“Wait, please…” my voice trails off as I realise the communication lines were hardwired to the shuttle through the auxiliary lines. I’m cut off; my last words will be heard only by me. Their sound strangled by the oppressive silence of space.
In dismay, I glimpse a face looking out at me through one of the shuttle’s passing portholes. I can’t make out who it is. Kirov, Indira, too hard to see. I can see the emotion though, the emotion in that face mirrors my own. Helplessness.
“Come back!” I cry, reaching out to the face in the porthole, my other hand still grasping the useless lines, a souvenir to a world I’ll never see again. As the shuttle passes, its tail fin nudges me sending me into a slow cartwheel. In zero gravity, I feebly try to stop the dizzying spin. Through the misted visor I see a cycling image of the shuttle, distant stars, nothingness, and then the shuttle again. The images play over and over, the shuttle edging away with each loop. I watch the horror-reel until I can no longer see the shuttle.
I’m alone. Truly alone. I hear the enshrouding sound of nothingness, silence. Only my ragged breathing breaks it. I realise the shuttle won’t be coming back. Something had gone very wrong. With an engineer’s mind I calculate my odds of survival: 0.009%. I sob uncontrollably as the imposing emptiness presses in, embracing me. The vastness of empty, cold, dark space. Claustrophobic, I become small, insignificant. Tapped. Struggling against insanity, I fight the urge to rip off my helmet and scream into the nothingness in defiance.
Helplessness, weightlessness.
Time passes slowly. The suits life support system has enough oxygen for hours, yet time loses meaning as I drift in silence through the slowly spinning cosmos. For eternity I drift amongst the stars, awaiting my end.
Helplessness, weightlessness…
My Virtual Writing Desk 
Posted on May 2, 2011
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