One Person's Trash

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say, but when you are hit with an impact on your body from behind and your head hits the back of your helmet as you are thrusted forward into your spacewalk partner, when you collide helmet to helmet. She grabbed onto me and her arms flailing. I could hear her over the comlink but there was so much static I couldn’t make out a word she was saying. She kept pointing at the ship but the safety line was real tight and pulling us back it felt like, but because of the helmet and the tension on the tether I couldn’t look back to see what was going on. Then suddenly it was peaceful, the safety line loosened up and we were still hanging onto each other and then Yanisha stopped waving her arms.

When you’re so close, face shield to face shield, but I couldn’t see her face because of the reflective sun visors. She was just lifeless there. I was asking her if she was okay, telling her to shut off her sun visor, yelling at her, shaking her, but nothing, just static, I started to panic and tried to tell her to hang on and that we’d get back in the ship. I had a hell of a time but gradually got turned around and could finally see the ship and started pulling us back to the port door. The door opened and I dragged her inside and closed the door. I hit the equalization button and waited for the room to pressure up, but it wouldn’t. I hit it again. I raised my visor and checked the equalization air tank gauge and it read full, I retried the vapor lock on the outside door and it was fully engaged but the light didn’t come on. I kept calling out to the bridge but nothing, I called engineering but no response. I’m talking out loud saying “what the hell is wrong with everyone, what is going on here? Why won’t this damn thing work?” Why won’t anybody talk to me? I was really puzzled and stopped to think was I doing something wrong? Did I forget something?

Then fear started to whelm up in me thinking all kinds of crazy things, thinking back to when the tether was so tight, why did it tighten up like that, what the hell happened to Yanisha, is she knocked out, dead? Engineering is just in the next pod, I wonder if they are working on this glitch, what if that burnt fuse earlier in the landing gear module had something to do with this? My mind was going a hundred miles an hour and I was breathing rapidly, racing back and forth in the chamber checking things, when I suddenly remembered to look at my air supply, “I’m down to 30%”. “I gotta calm down and relax and think this through” I said. I pushed over and quickly grabbed Yanisha’s arm and checked her gauge and she was at 41%. Again my mind started racing, she has 41% is that because she’s not breathing, no it’s probably because she’s relaxed and not flying around like me, holy crap I’m panicking, I gotta get a hold of myself. I started thinking about the emergency manual and reciting the protocol in my head and realized that I wasn’t supposed to be panicking but to take a deep breath and just float.

We were floating around in the docking chamber when I suddenly realized the internal gravity system wasn’t working either. I was running every step of re-docking protocol through my head, and I said it all over again. We had power and lights but why no air? While I was talking to myself and reciting practically the whole damn manual, suddenly I thought I heard a very faint voice on the comlink a midst some louder pops, but the static was so bad I couldn’t make it out. By the time I had realized that I had heard something it stopped. I stopped talking and reciting the manual and just listened ever so still, even my breath in my suit was louder than the voice was, I stopped breathing and ...quietly listened, felt like forever. You may not be able to hear a scream in a vacuum, but the internal noise inside your head starts to scream louder and louder, buzzing in your ears, you can hear the blood pulsing around your ears, when you are waiting to hear what you heard once. Even a small, ever so small breath causes the fabric in the liner in your suit to make a faint crackling noise. A person like me in a vacuum, my God this has to be the noisiest place in the galaxy. I was sooo, sooo alert just waiting for that sound again that I swear, I could even hear my sweat running down my ear. I even thought to myself, “I have to think quieter”. How stupid does that sound, I chuckled!

I don’t know, maybe 5 minutes, 2 minutes, who the hell knows, 1 minute went by and I started to realize I was just imagining everything...maybe. I could feel a wave of disappointment engulfing me, depression I guess. Here I am in the docking station with no way to equalize the docking chamber. I have a possibly dead space walk partner, I can’t raise anybody in-ship, I have 30% air, I looked at my gauge and now I have 27%. I though a lot and then said out loud, “maybe I could go out and survey the ship and see what the hell’s going on”. So I began calculating how much air it would take for me to go and traverse the back engineering section anyway, the solar array and landing gear, wouldn’t have much more air than that, “but then I have to get back here and try to get this damn thing to work”, besides I don’t want to leave Yanisha alone in case she wakes up”, I said. “Who am I kidding she hasn’t moved in what, 30 40 minutes”, I blurted out, almost pissed off.

Then very faintly through broken vocals and a lot of static Yanisha said something, at least I thought she did, but now I was starting to think I was imagining it and just hearing someone, anyone just to appease my fear of being all alone in outer space with (looked at my gauge again, now 24% air, ...but… what the hell, even if she did come back to life, what would we do? We’re still up the creek without a paddle.

I started looking for ways to get air out of the tanks, maybe not to fill the room just in case there is some bigger problem, but to replenish our suit tanks. Then I heard it again, I couldn’t make out what she was saying, so I grabbed her shoulders and said, “ say again, I’m here, lower your visor”. She moved her arm, holy shit, I was ecstatic, started laughing. She spoke again but every second word dropped out and the static. I said, “say again, the static is really bad, speak slower and say each word twice”. I was listening so hard when she spoke each word slowly and repeated them, “we … static, static … are, so … so, skk static … static ded.. I started checking the antennas on our suits and found if I hold my helmet against the metal docking wall that it improved the communication line. She said, “we are so screwed, might as well save your breath”. I said are you okay? Man I was worried about you! She was finally able get her visor up.

She moved closer to me and then she just stopped moving staring out the door port window into space. We’re also told that water cannot exist in a vacuum as well, but the tears I could see in her eyes told me that it is completely possible, and that she knew a lot more about what happened, than I did…..