The sound of an alarm clock roused
George from his sleep. “Another exciting day in outer space. Yeah right, today
will be the same as always,” he thought. He changed from his nightwear to his
station jumpsuit and shaved. He then walked to the elevator to the low gravity
ring of Farreach Station. Farreach was a mining station built at the 5th lanier
point around the earth. By shooting small spacecraft, known as mules ,from a
mass driver on the moon, they were able to tow asteroids to within easy travel
of the moon or earth. In fact Farreach station included several asteroids in
its construction. When a mule towed the asteroid in, it would be attached to
the station. Then remote control mining machines would mine the precious ore
and ice to be refined on site.
George arrived on the operations
ring, which was at ½ the earth’s gravity. George felt much lighter; it took him
only a couple of long strides to reach his control station. He strapped himself
in and powered up the extractor, a giant mining drill with laser and plasma
reinforced cutting edges. The device slowly was extended on a long mechanical
arm to where an asteroid was docked. The giant spiral cutting head started to
spin and dig itself into a large ore vein.
For the first few hours of the shift
things went smoothly. George watched almost in boredom as ore was brought to
the surface by the drill, scooped up by a claw bucket conveyor and brought to
the refining center. Then in the distance he saw a glint. It was an asteroid flying
towards the station. On its forward face was a mule attached via a series of
anchors dug into the surface by small drills. It seemed almost routine, but
George notice something was wrong. The retro rockets should have fired, bringing
the asteroid to a slow crawl, but the asteroid was not slowing down.
George’s first instinct was to activate
his radio link and call in to his boss.
“I think we have a situation here, an
asteroid is coming in at high speed and the mule seems to be malfunctioning,”
said George into his radio headset.
“Mining bay 15 we see the object, we
are firing up the laser cannon battery as we speak and trying to get control
back over the mule,” said the control room.
Slowly the asteroid got closer and
closer. A few minute later, a series of laser emitters around the base let out
beams of light. The beams landed on the asteroid and small jets of vapor
started to fly off the giant space rock.
“It’s not working,” thought George.
He grabbed the nearby emergency low-atmosphere air supply helmet and put it on,
shouting, “brace for impact!” The asteroid, despite being slowed by the laser,
was not stopping anytime soon. It barreled into the docked asteroids, knocking
them into the station. It then plowed into the outer habitation ring of the
station, creating a giant gap in the structure.
Inside the station, it was absolute
chaos. The shaking from the impacts made an earthquake seem minor and steel
plates were buckling at odd angles. Men rushed to put on emergency oxygen
helmets and rush to the emergency escape pods. George tried to make his way to
the nearest escape pod but the ceiling collapsed, cutting him off. George
looked at the heads up display (HUD) in the helmet screen. The oxygen level
hovered at 45 minutes. He thought, “45 minutes. I have to get out of here
quick.”
He floated to the elevators but the
connecting struts had buckled along with the elevator shafts within. He floated
to the escape pod tubes, but they all had been jettisoned. He floated to the
air locks and found the doors were powered down. He then floated to one of the
terminals at a control station; he saw that they were still on. With a few
presses and swipes of the touch screen a schematic of the giant doughnut shaped
station appeared on the screen. The station had taken massive damage from the
collision. Oxygen levels were at 5% of normal levels, The rings were coming
apart and starting to float off into space. Worse, he saw that all the escape
pods had been jettisoned, save for one in the refining center, which was in the
center of the station, now barely attached to the rest of the station by
tension cables. George thought for a moment; he was in quite the predicament.
Then he saw an exterior maintenance equipment room and had a stroke of genius.
He went inside and found all the
thing he needed: thruster packs, magnetic grapple guns, magnetic grip pads, and
explosives. He quickly equipped himself with the necessary tools to cross the
gap from the operations ring to refining center module. He placed A C4
breeching charge on a wall and pressed the detonator, a second later a large
hole had appeared in the wall. Grabbing the grapple harpoon launcher he had taken
from closet and a portable high capacity battery, he stepped through the hole
confident in the ability of his jumpsuit to serve as a space suit if necessary.
He then aimed his grapple launcher at a one of the struts; it flew through the
vacuum and attached itself to the strut. George delighted, then activated the
reel function of the grapple and flew across the void to the strut. The grip
pads he attached to his boots magnetized as he got near the metal strut. He
then aimed for a large piece of debris from the impact. His grip pads
deactivated and the grapple gun’s reel started back up dragging him across the
void.
He then aimed at an airlock on the
exterior of the refining station. He fired and his boots demagnetized. He
started to fly across the void to the refining station. Then a truss from one
of the mining bays flew got tangled in the cord as it flew by. As he began to
be pulled in the same direction of the truss George released the gun and fired
up the jet pack he took from the maintenance room. He used the thrusters to
boost his speed so he could reach the far side of the gap in time. After a few
seconds the thrusters cut out. He reached out and floated forward for what
seemed an eternity before he reached the exterior handle of the airlock. He
looked at the control panel. It still had power. “Good thing the refining
station has a separate power source,” he thought as the air lock opened.
He looked around the refinery. The oxygen
levels were minimal and the lights were dim, indicating the refinery’s solar
array was nearly destroyed. He looked at his HUD, his oxygen levels were down
to 10 minutes. “I got to hurry,” he thought. He floated down the empty
corridors, kicking off walls and pushing himself with handrails to speed
himself up. He found the escape pod and tried to prep it for launch be he
couldn’t; there was not enough power. Panic stricken at having minutes of
oxygen left, he fumbled to attach the battery to the console. When the terminal
powered up, he furiously pushed buttons trying to start the pod’s system. A
loading bar appeared on the screen. George simply watched as it took an
eternity to fill up. He threw himself into the pod as a message showed that it
was ready to go. His HUD showed he had seconds worth of oxygen left. George
took a deep breath as oxygen levels rose inside the tiny vehicle. George pushed
a few buttons and the escape pod jettisoned from the station.
A
few moments later George took off his helmet, seeing that oxygen levels had
risen to a safe level for humans. He took several deep breaths and
looked back as Farreach station broke apart into hundreds of pieces as the
little escape pod made way along a preprogrammed course to the nearest moon
colony.
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