No such luck. My chance of communicating with the Sagan from this end is nil.
While I pray that someone over there has realized that they’ve just ejected this module, and the affable David Dixon is nowhere to be seen, I’m not ready to risk my life waiting for them to come to that conclusion.
In survival training they teach us to work towards a solution on your own, even when you’re fairly positive your support team is doing the same. Presently, I’m not all that confident they even know I’m missing, let alone are working towards saving my ass.
I’ve caught myself twice attempting to tap an imaginary headset over my ear to ask Laney for help. No such luck, David. You have to figure this one out.
No radio or other means to communicate with the station, I have to figure out some other solution.
Okay, if I can’t signal them to come get me, I have to find a way to get from here to there.
In my search through the crates I was focused on finding a radio and didn’t see anything like a spacesuit, but I do another pass anyway.
My life would get easier and probably greatly extended if I could just find a suit in here somewhere.
Another riffling through the random items turns up nothing. Just lots of raw parts and quick fix materials to keep everything in the DARPA labs running.
This is increasingly looking like a lose-lose situation.
My best course of action may be to start praying to different deities in order of popularity for hope of divine intervention.
Fuck.
The cold is getting to me and I can feel my body shivering.
I find a sheet of mylar insulation and wrap it around me, hoping it will keep some of the heat in. It sort of kind of works a little. But it’s just a palliative in an increasingly dire situation.
I go back and look through the small window. The station is about 100 meters away now. It’s not a huge distance, but it might as well be across an ocean given the amount of vacuum between us.
Okay, David, don’t give up. You’ve been in worse situations…
Nope, not really. Sure, there was that time I thought I was going to have to suffocate in my spacesuit. But I had Laney looking out for me and an actual spacesuit to suffocate inside. Here I’m stuck in a freezing cargo container just wearing work clothes.
Think possible. Come up with some ideas. Anything.
Okay, I can’t reach the space station. What if I could communicate with them some other way?
This module is filled with tape and large plastic containers. What if wrote “Help!” using the tape and kicked one of the crates out the hatch? They’d have to see that floating through space and know I was onboard, right?
Sure. And my dead body floating next to the sign would also be a helpful indicator to my whereabouts.
There’s no airlock here. It’s just a hatch. Once I open it, all the air that’s keeping me alive will rush out and leave me choking. My sign is a horrible idea.
Okay, what’s next on the list of dumb suggestions?
What if I sealed my self inside a container and opened the hatch somehow? If I wrote, “In here!” on the crate they’d have to send something out to retrieve it. I think.
So, how do I seal myself inside a container and manage to open the hatch? Not even Space Houdini could pull that off.
There’s also the not inconsiderable problem of what happens if they don’t see my box or my sign. I’d just freeze and suffocate all that quicker.
Compared to the alternative, is a fast death really such a bad idea right now?
Forty-Eight
Ejecta
Last time I thought I was going to die in space I’d kind of tricked myself into thinking I was okay with the whole thing. After all, I’d basically saved the world. Everything else is downhill from there.
If I’d known I’d be trying to pay rent by acting as an underwater rent-a-cop trying to stop delinquent catfish, I might have reconsidered a bright and fiery death burning up in the atmosphere.
Right now, facing asphyxiation and freezing, that doesn’t sound all that bad.
Asphyxiation…
I climb through all the crap I set free and find the box with the small oxygen cylinders. Each one has about a half hour of air in them, but if I stick a hose into them and let them slowly release their high oxygen mix, I’ll last a little longer.
Okay. One problem solved. I’ve got a couple more hours of freezing to death.
Back to the question of how I get the hell off this thing?
I’d discarded the idea of trying to throw something out the hatch because this module doesn’t have an airlock. What if it did?
I look around at some of the large crates. I might be able to push two of them against the hatch and improvise something that doesn’t leak as much air as outright leaving the door wide open.
But how would I operate the handle?
I swat through a cluster of tape and try to find a long metal rod or something else I could use to open and close the hatch while I’m on the other side of a wall of containers.
Sealing them up wouldn’t be all that difficult; I’ve got all the repair tape in the world I could possibly hope for. Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to open or close the hatch that wouldn’t suck me into the vacuum of space.
Back to square zero.
I peer through the window at the Sagan station. It’s noticeably smaller now. The bright lights glitter through the frost on the glass from my breath. It’s a pretty thing from here, but so so far away.
With all this tape though, I could make a rope bridge from here to there and just climb across — If I wouldn’t suffocate and die from depressurization.
But it’s a beautiful thought.
All this tape. I could write “Help me!” on the hull if I had a way to go out there.
I find a small tool kit with a sharp blade and some tools for picking away at 3D printed models.
I could use one of them to puncture a hole in the module that would act as mini jet when the atmosphere rushes out.
While that could send me back towards the Sagan, it’s just as likely to cause me to spin uncontrollably or sail right past it.
I’ll save that as plan Z, in the event of there being no other option and I decide to just “do something,” instead of passively dying.
Hell, there’s a good chance I could ram the Sagan. That’ll serve them right for abandoning me.
I search through the supplies, hoping something jumps out at me, but come up empty.
To conserve heat, I crawl into one of the smaller crates and crouch inside like a cat in a cardboard box. It’s not elegant or a proud way to die, but I’m not shivering as much.
My brain has been over every solution I can consider and still hasn’t had a master stroke of genius.
I allow myself a moment of motivational daydreaming to imagine what I’d do if I got out of this.
I’d have thought I’d be focused on seeking revenge on whoever did this to me, but all I can think about is what it would be like to kiss Laney. Not the brother-sister fraternal pecks we give each other, but a long tongue-twisting kiss where I run my fingers through her hair and feel her in my arms. That kind of kiss.
I’ve kissed a lot of girls, but I’ve never desired one particular kiss as much as this one.
Damn it, David. Do something.
Other than puncturing the hull and turning this into the Last Resort Express, all my other options involve opening the hatch to do something. And opening the hatch would be suicide because I don’t have a spacesuit.
A spacesuit. You knew it would be cold down here, but you decided not to wear your suit. Now look at you, freezing to death and trapped in a giant coffin because of a fashion choice.