How I Got Here: "A Rescue In The Void"
16 Sep 2022Columbuss
Commander Justin Estok. Stardate 16-SEP-3308."I'm in the wrong fuckin business..."
The infinite vastness of space can be smothering. Suffocating. Claustrophobic even. The irony never failed to register that such an endless void could feel so tight and restricting. Like trying to tread water in the middle of an endless sea, thousands of miles from any form of civilization, except out here, you're dealing in millions. The imperceptible vastness of the void is rivaled only by it's unpredictability. The Black is unforgiving. Constantly churning like a maelstrom of fusion and rock we all just exist in. It's one thing to navigate that maelstrom in a ship and quite another in a vac suit.
The hull of The Chelsie Grin clanked and rattled as she navigated her way through the wreckage left behind from the battle. Her headlights spear their way into torn up shells of once powerful vessels of war. Beams of light squeeze through bullet holes and blown out windows landing briefly on whatever panel or jagged, burned up piece of steel lie behind it. The light rolls across dozens of swollen, void choked faces, too small and far away to make out in the cavalcade of debris.
Minutes turn to hours as the Chelsie sifts through the rubble, before the lights landed on the hull of a Cobra. The light creeps across the hull revealing the ID: The Bunker Hill. John's ship. So named after some ancient battle field long ago when humanity only had one planet to worry about.
The drift of the wreckage in the debris field was anything but predictable. Doing my best to match the rotation of John's ship before letting the on board computer take over, I head below deck to the airlock.
"Keep her steady Chelsie,” I say before Chelsie beeped back in confirmation.
Slipping into the vac suit, I lowered the Remlok helmet, sealing it at the neck as it gave out an audible hiss to indicate the helmet was secure. Pressing the button above the door, I stepped into the airlock and secured the door behind me. The medical sensors on my wrist shine red triggering a heightened heart rate warning.
"Tell me something I don't know" I say, silencing the alarm.
"Chelsie," I say into the helmet’s built in headset, "depressurize, vacate oxygen and prepare airlock for disembark."
"Acknowledged" a cybernetic voice replied.
The room began to groan and hiss as oxygen began pumping out, carrying with it any noise that couldn't manifest itself through physical contact with the vac suit. With the flick of a button, the airlock doors opened silently. Suctioning my way to the door, I look out into the vast, empty void that provided the backdrop to John's ship lying just a hundred meters directly out in front. Stepping out of the door way, I grab onto the support bars just outside while opening a hatch near the door labelled "umbilical", removing from inside, a long cable and securing it to my vac suit before suctioning my feet to the hull. Looking straight up at John's ship, the relatively short distance seemed miles away as chunks of razor sharp steel and debris floated in my path.
"I swear, I'm in the wrong fuckin business" I said outloud, before disengaging my mag boots and pushing off into the void.