“Communications?”
“Down.”
“Visuals?”
“Down.”
“Defense.”
“Down. Look, when I say everything is down, I mean everything.”
“…well shit.”
“You don’t need to tell me, Marqus.” Dr. John Anderson pulled his coat tighter around him. The space station’s heating systems were also included in the ‘down’ department. All that kept themfrom crashing was the Earth not being where they were currently falling, though it wouldn’t be too long before that changed. Dr. Marqus Quandary’s pacing put John on edge more than crashing however.
“Would you please sit down, Marqus? You’re using more air than is needed.”
“Pacing helps me to think.”
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but this isn’t a problem that will be solved by thinking. We’ve tried what we can but there is zero response.” John made a circle with his thumb and index finger. “Zero. Phobos Station is dead and we can’t bring it back.”
Marqus paused midstride and gave his friend a look of sarcasm. “Well I’m glad sitting on our hands is the plan we’re going with then.” He resumed his pacing. “Much less tension that way.”
“We’re waiting, yes, but for our orbit to decay enough for Earth-bound trajectory. Re-entry will power the emergency thrusters and land us safely.”
“I get that, but I want to know how in the hell this even happened! Don’t you, John? We’re scientists and suddenly ‘I dunno, it just happened’ is a good enough reason?”
John sighed, his breath a faint cloud before his face. “Of course it isn’t. But we don’t have the tools-”
“Forget the damn tools!” Marqus rapped his temple. “We’ve got all we need up here. Now are we gonna sit around until we gently crash or figure out the why behind it?”
“Youthful impertinence disguised as optimism… so what do you think happened?”
“Well I’d like to start with that initial explosion.”
As if cued, another explosion rocked Phobos Station and sent Marqus sprawling to the floor. Every system rebooted instantly, flooding the station with light and loud warnings of a detected collision. Strapped to his chair, John witnessed a flux of activity across the monitors. Sensor readings maxed out before plunging below nominal levels only to max out again. Errant satellite feeds of random television channels aired and changed every half second as if being surfed through by a hyperactive child. Geometrical data of the station’s relative position to Earth warped erratically, over and over again, causing a series of inordinate shifts in power to the thrusters.
More impressive than all of that was the surveillance footage. Stars appeared to rip themselves from the massive, inky backdrop of space and swelled to insane proportions. The expanding bodies converged and formed a chaotic, shining white layer that blotted out the universe beyond. From the vantage point of the camera, it appeared to have no limit; because it didn’t. In mere seconds the Earth had been encapsulated. John stared in awe at the phenomenon until another blast shuddered through his isolated, increasingly insecure home.
2 comments:
The dialogue at the beginning is really funny. I'll admit that I skimmed passed it the first time, but then went back up, and when I read, the "when I say everything" line, I laughed out loud.
From a person who does not know a lot about space and ships, and someone who is definitely a skimmer, here's my perspective:
I was waiting for more detail as to where they were, believing there would be more description later. This made me not really pay attention to what was being said, and also feeling I was missing something when there wasn't. The sentence, "all that kept them from crashing was the Earth not being where they were currently falling," was phrased cleverly, but I got confused about the image and what was going on.
In my mind's eye, I thought they were a space station and in space. That line implied to me they weren't rotating around the Earth, but then I didn't understand what falling meant. I thought maybe for a minute they were around another planet, or that they weren't in space. My eventual understanding, as I make an effort to figure it out now, is that it is a long fall.
Are they, Dr. Anderson and Dr. Quandary, on the space station? I assumed at first they were, then, by their actions and dialogue, which indicated mild anxiety and nerves instead of mortal fear, I wasn't sure. I guess the line, "We've got all we need up here," indicates they are?
I suppose my question is, are they going to die if it crashes?
I think a mild insert of some small additional details will clear everything up for me.
Also, on a totally different note, if you are going be sending these stories out for publication, make sure to take them down from here and that they don't come up when you search for them in Google. No one will take a story that's already on the internet (unless explicitly stated otherwise.)
First, thank you very very much for the comment and the comments :)
The 'falling' part is essentially their orbit. All an orbit really is is an object's constant free fall around whatever celestial body it circles. So they are always falling, but soon they won't be falling the right way. Also, they're not worried because once they hit the atmosphere the station will land itself.
"...Re-entry will power the emergency thrusters and land us safely.” So no, they are in no danger of dying... for now. They are also practically superheroes, as can be seen in another story on here called "It ain't what it used to be", so they're unlike normal people.
The "We've got all we need up here." line means their wits are all they need to help themselves as Marqus had just rapped his temple. I hope these helped clear things up.
I don't intend to submit these stories in to any publications as I self-publish, but I'm glad to know it would impact their eligibility.
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