What Happens In Space

NASA missions are being declassified, and it makes you wonder what the reports from the I.S.S. look like after prolonged exposure in space. During the 2025 mission cycle, a strange tale occurred.

Commander Jones stood at the viewport, admiring the image of home. His coffee, no longer hot, was in hand as he checked his watch. He was ahead of schedule. It was just after four a.m., following his 11th restless night.

Some days, the view left him deeply appreciative. Even though he missed home, his dog, and family, this was unforgettable. Each morning, Jones soaked in the scenery—beyond belief, like a scene from Star Wars, or gazing at Earth from Starfleet headquarters. But this was real.

Jamie Heder, his partner, strolled up behind him. She was the flight engineer assigned to the mission and was on her third stay. The majestic blue orb in space no longer held the same meaning for Jamie. She admired Commander Jones’s wide-eyed, childlike view of the world. Major Heder knew a different side of the world than the commander, and in the three months they were on the station, she’d been watching parts of the world change from their perch above it all.

None of those changes had been for the better.

As an Air Force Major, Jamie Heder received a briefing in the mornings that was different from her counterparts. They both listened to the briefing from Mission Control, as people walked past the camera on Earth, waving at them. However, Major Heder also received a briefing from Space Corps Command. While Space Corps Command wasn’t an active group on Earth, at least not in the same way the typical armed services were, it was part of the information chain, and as such, was apprised of rising threat levels.

Today, Major Heder came to find her partner. He had missed a message telling them there was a video conference.

“A little distracted?”

“Why?” asked Jones.

“Command held a conference, and you missed it,” she explained.

Jones looked at the hands on his watch. He had barely slept, but he swore moments ago it was just after four in the morning. It was now after eight.

The change in time confused him. He looked around the compartment, a makeshift recreation area that the crew used. With the advent of weighted chess pieces, they were able to sit and have matches, eat, and look at home. Now, he couldn’t remember being in there for the past four hours.

“Hey,” Major Heder asked, “Are you okay?”

“I guess I’m more fatigued than I thought,” he answered, assuring her that it wasn’t anything.

There was an annoying buzzing sound that came from the command center. Both Commander Jones and Major Heder rushed to see what it was. The echoing sounded like a bass drum inside Jones’s head.

“It’s an incoming from NASA,” explained Jamie.

‘Be advised, an unknown object has been discovered in your sector. It’s on a course to arrive at the ISS within the hour. Be advised, without corrective action, a collision is imminent. Suggest using the remote arm to acquire and bring it to you. Crew, this appears to be an escape pod, but we haven’t heard from whose operation.’

—Dillon

“Jesus,” sighed Commander Jones.

Jamie was studying the telemetry. There was a pod on a collision course with the side of the station. They had less than an hour to prepare for a rescue attempt before it struck the station.

“Can it even be done at that speed?” she wondered out loud.

Jones had sweat starting to bead up on his forehead. He knew they were screwed if he missed. He told Jamie to go prepare herself. They were going into suits, just in case. He was going to seal off the cargo area, remote arm control, and non-essential sections from the command center.

“You can do this?”

“No,” he admitted. “Nobody has ever done this. But, if we don’t want to miss our chance at getting home, I’m going to have to,” he told her.

Jones sat in his chair, carefully watching the incoming pod as it hurdled through space, heading directly toward them. There was no margin for error. He had to time the grab exactly, or he’d lose the pod and be left floating in space as the I.S.S. broke apart and began to spin. He could hear Jamie over his headset.

“Hey, kiddo,” he suggested. “Mind calming down a bit? I can hear the trembling through five bulkhead doors.”

“Why are you so calm?” she asked.

Jones was naturally calm. He wasn’t an astronaut, not as much as he was a soldier. So the tense situations didn’t faze him. Besides, he thought to himself, maybe there wasn’t anything to be worried about. The pod, according to his readings, was slowing down on its own.

“Major,” he announced, “If you’re not seeing what I am, we have a problem.”

Jamie took a look at the readings and then double checked the equipment. The pod, which was coming in at 27,000 feet per second, was now starting to decelerate. Is this right, she asked. Only to herself, but she talked through work when she was nervous.

“Jamie,” asked Mark. “Have you checked the speed on that thing in the past two or three minutes?”

“I’m trying to confirm,” she answered.

Mark looked out of the arm control compartment, and it was visible to him that the pod was slowing down.

“Do you believe this?” he yelled. “There’s got to be someone operating that thing for those kinds of adjustments."

As the escape pod slowly floated into reach of the station's remote arm, Jones brought the apparatus around and grabbed it a mere seventy yards from where he was sitting.

“Let’s hope that E.T. is friendly.”

Even as Jamie said it, Jones barely recognized the importance of such a statement. Astronauts were friendly, albeit eccentric. However, they didn't know where the pilot of the pod was from. And things on Earth weren't great. The station could get crowded if they were unfriendly.

Back on Earth, Assistant Director J.J. Dillon was on a rather loud telephone call with the White House. As he yelled into the phone, he waved Margorie Saint into the office. He needed to put a stop to things at the I.S.S.

"You've got it, now bring it in nice and slow. The docking clamps are armed."

As the clamps locked and the airlock sealed, both Major Heder and Commander Jones breathed a sigh of relief. Jones ordered the major to meet him at the pod.

Moments later, the two looked at the airlock door. Neither was in a hurry to move.

"Well," she wondered.

"Well, what?"

She looked at the door and questioned what to do. Were they going to investigate?

Commander Jones opened the door, and inside, they found a lone astronaut, semi-conscious. He was in the pod, strapped into a piloting seat. He appeared to be alive.