Loose Lips - a Science fiction adventure

    With no engines running, the silence of space leaks past the thick re enforced bulkheads that separate a pocket of air from the vacuum. 

The quiet permeates the recycled air, clinging to the skin like dew on a grass blade, a memory from back home.

    Inside, one can imagine the pinpricks of starlight slice through the emptiness, casting a pale white illumination across the dull gunmetal hull of a cigar shaped cylinder, a lifepod.  The lifepod is a twenty foot long, twelve foot wide sealed compartment, a safe haven in the harsh environment of space when all else is lost on a space station, or moon colony.  Lifepods are the last resort in any emergency, an all hope is lost, abandon ship and hope they hear the SOS place to wait for pick up.

    What they lack in design, they make up in Spartan utility.  Primitive maneuvering with air propulsion engines, used for simple course correction.  Communications limited to a homing beacon, one continuously looped message, "Send Help" and the coordinates.  The lifepods are built for six, with life support systems capable of lasting twelve days, longer with less people, and vice versa.  Pack ten refuges on a lifepod, they have to be picked up in six days. More than ten, and trouble follows.  Systems failure occur within two and a half days, if they're lucky to last that long.

  Six flat cots fold down from the walls, three along each side.  There are no forms of entertainment, no computer books, or games.  A simple helm sits at one end, generally referred to as the front of the pod, an access hatch makes up the rear.  The helm has no window that looks out on the emptiness of space, only one round backed seat in front of a monitor and keyboard resting in the middle of a small, blank wall.

    Joe Tinker stood in front of the helm, an incredulous look on his face.

"What is this?" he asked.

He didn't turn to look at Captain Mike Dawson or Karen Guest.  They stood on either side of him in the cramped helm.

"Mr. Tinker, you are familiar with the helm controls of the lifepod?"

Dawson's voice was drawn and tight, matching his worn features.

He was young, one of the youngest commanding officers of a space mission in the history of the space program.  His youth was often the subject of debate, among the United Nations Council that appointed him, and in his own head.

Tinker was younger than the Captain, but not by many years.  He was a pilot, cocky, handsome in a life's not fair manner that people associate with pilots.  His cockiness was rooted in confidence, a fact he was content to brag about, given the chance.

"This is not a helm," he smirked.  "Where are the engines?"

"The lifepod operates on an intermittent propulsion system," Karen Guest's cool smooth voice whispered beside him.

She was as young as the rest of the crew.

Most of the recruits to the space program were fresh from college and eager to prove themselves.  The UN Council in charge of space travel wasn't bothered with using the young people to further the exploration of space.  After three or four tours of duty on a space station, or shuttle missions, the young recruits weren't so young anymore.  Experience being the great equalizer, the UN Council moved the experienced into desk jobs on the Moon Colony or worse, into lobbying positions with the various world governments.  Still others were sent to universities across the face of the earth, to search out computer aficionados eager to stretch the boundaries of knowledge.

Guest was one of those aficionados, a computer genius.  She had foregone her last year of university for an early commission in the space program, and never regretted her decision for a moment.  University had been a challenge for her, not for the rigorous standards or intense studies required, but for the social interaction. 

Karen Guest didn't like people.  She didn't understand them, could barely relate to them.  She buried herself in computers, creating new programs, rewriting system languages and avoiding contact as best she could.  Until she was assigned as Science Officer on the Space Station Global.  An opportunity of a lifetime for her career, even if it required her to talk to people.

Especially people like Tinker.

"I know how it’s supposed to work," Joe smirked like he had a secret.

"Then why are you complaining?" she shot back.

"Enough," Dawson's commanding voice cut through their bickering.  "Ms. Guest, put the emergency beacon in the loop.  The shuttle will be here soon."

"Captain, I would like to check your wound."

Dr. Chris St. Marie was older than the Captain, on her last tour of duty before being shipped to a cushy post at the Space Academy in San Diego.  She was attractive in her plainness, imposing without being too tall.

"My head is fine," Dawson said, gingerly touching the dried blood around a bruise on his temple.

"Why didn't they build any windows in this damn thing?"  Tinker whined from where the helm should be.

"The structural integrity would be compromised in a vessel this small. The hull has to be whole to be strong enough to withstand the pressure," answered Karen.

"Oh. I knew that."

“I doubt it,” she said. Or would have said if she hadn’t bitten back the remark and swallowed it down like a bitter pill.

She did that often. Just took what she wanted to say, what she should have said and locked it down, bottled it up and secreted it away to some dark place in the corner of her mind.

She imagined it a room, full of shelves, and on each shelf a glass bottle that looked a lot like a square whiskey bottle. The shelves sagged under the weight of things not said, the room fit to burst.

Guest wasn’t sure what would happen if it ever got too full. She wondered if she would survive. Or if she opened the door and released the demons trapped inside, would anyone else?

Dawson watched the exchange with a pained look on his face. 

Guest was notorious for her relationships with the crew.  Sensing trouble, he interrupted them.

   

"Mr. Tinker, remain at the helm.  Ms. Guest, to the rear."

He turned to lead her back to her bunk when vertigo overtook him.  The cramped confines of the lifepod started spinning in front of his eyes.  He stumbled in the walkspace.  Karen grabbed on arm and Dr. St. Marie reached for the other.  He collapsed between them, his brain ordering his legs to stand firm, the message lost somewhere on its way down.

 

  "I'm all right," he said, aiming for the first folded bunk, hoping to hit it with dignity.

    "I don't think so," said the Doctor.  She helped him settle on the bunk, propping him against the cold ceramic bulkhead.  She examines the wound on his head, grimacing.

    "It looks worse than it is," she told him, not so sure herself.  "I'm going to stitch it up."

    He nodded, holding a hand to his head to keep himself steady.

Karen Guest watched the Doctor and Captain for a moment, to be sure he wouldn't pitch off the bunk on the floor.  Satisfied, she moved away from him to the last double set of bunks hanging from the wall. 

Across from her, the Astronomer Terri Michael was curled up in a fetal ball, sobbing quietly.  Karen stared at her for a moment, feeling an obligation to ask.

    "Are you all right?"

    "They're going to die," Terri whispered, more to herself than to anyone listening.  She was fresh scrubbed and Iowa pretty, with corn silk blond hair and big blue eyes, red with crying.

    "Yes," Karen said.

    Terri's shoulders heaved in sobs.  Karen put a tentative hand on her shoulder.

    "They probably didn't feel a thing."

    "Just leave me alone."

    Karen nodded, plopped down in the bunk across from the astronomer.  She reached into a small bag on her cot, pulled out a tiny black box she rested in her lap.

    "Hugo-" she whispered.

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