9. Dancing in the space

“Hey, help me with this” — Brad’s nagging reached its goal, Dan finally turned away from the horrifying scene and focused on why they came…

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

“Hey, help me with this” — Brad’s nagging reached its goal, Dan finally turned away from the horrifying scene and focused on why they came out the first place.

Dan followed the instructions precisely and they could realign the first thruster in minutes. As the work went on, they got faster and faster. Each thruster had dozens of pins securing them to their position, some were broken, some just bended, others just moved their platforms a bit. One particular thruster had more pins broken, only held by two and could fly off and cause more damage when the drum spins up.

“Just break that antenna down and bring it here, Dan”

Dan walked slowly to the a pointy metal, he was still uncomfortable in the suit and the situation, though as a quick learner, somewhat started to enjoy it deep inside. When he got to the antenna, kneeled down to have a better grab on one of the metal sticks when he noticed a button. These were turned off, not damaged. So he pushed it in and a small red light confirmed his action.

“Mitch, come in!”
“Its Mitch, how is the situation out there? I could not hear you guys.”
“Brad said they could work as is, but we are still realigning a few of the thrusters, we would have lost a few of them during the spin.”
“Then good we checked, keep it up, let me know when ready and will initiate the process, I have comms with the opposite side too.”
“Will confirm.”

One of the broken antenna in hand, walked back to Brad, they cut the antenna to pieces using their standard laser cutter from the toolset. Brad worked in a few holes and secondary pins so they can lock them in and in a few minutes they were done with their thruster, realigned a few more when they headed back to the exit point.

“Mitch, we are done, spin it up.”
“Brad, we are still outside.”
“Don’t worry, the process takes at least ten minutes, we will be back before that.”
“Confirmed, come in guys, we gonna spin up in a few minutes.”
“On our way.”
“This is reckless!” — Dan was furious, so far seemed Brad knew what he was doing, but this step did not make any sense.

The moment Dan opened the outer bulkhead, he felt a grab on his arm that spun him around and a punch to the helmet threw him back. His shoes were deactivated for the entry so could not stop him from flying away. Though the sheer size of the ship generated a very small, minuscule gravity by itself, which pulled him at least back down to the structure.

His disbelief filled his mind as he was trying to get up and activate his shoes. Brad was already next to him with an activated laser cutter. Dan instinctively swung the toolkit to Brad, hitting his hand and the cutter making contact with the ship structure centimeters from Dan’s foot. Not over yet, Dan throw himself to Brad and struggled to keep away the cutter from himself.

Seconds passing, the thrusters slowly activating and Mitch on the line again:

“Guys, are you inside? The spin starts in any mom…” — his audio was cut off with a large screech.
“You could not stay on your ass.” — Brad whispered, still emphasized every second word of it. — “Would have been painless to blow up together.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sorry man, I had to do this.” — a blow from Brad knocked down Dan again.

This time Brad did not go against Dan, instead slipped through the open bulkhead and closed before Dan could get through. At the same time, the spinning got faster and faster, the moon slipped a few degrees around Dan’s vision.

“Grab something” — Dan heard Ava’s voice and could swore on seeing her face in front of him. But that is impossible, Ava did not wore a space suit.

Dan was slipping away from the door. Rolled over and he throw his hands out in front of him in hopes of grabbing anything. The moment slipped out of his open hands. A few centimeters grew to a few meters distance from the faster and faster spinning drum. As he looked around, the suit’s computer showed the distance and remaining fuel where he looked. Only the rings did not spin when the spaceship’s main structure generated gravity. All the rings were too far for Dan to reach, or he could reach them before he runs out of oxygen. On the price that he can’t slow down actually to not splat like a bug on a windshield.

“Wait for a round” — Ava’s voice again.

He could use the thrusters to stand on them as the non-exhaust side was safe. If he misses just by a few milliseconds, he will be vaporized behind the thrusters. Although a painless end compared to running out of oxygen in half an hour. He activated a bit his thrusters to get away from the drum as he would be vaporized anyway in the wake of the thrusters.

Though he lived on the ship for years, from the outside he could not estimate how fast the drum spins already and how long the thrusters will be active. As the minutes were counting down to the last breath, he was counting the rounds. In any moment, he could try to push back. If he fails to grab anything, he will be thrown away again and with increasingly large force, he will waste a lot of fuel for one try. As his thoughts were racing, the thrusters stopped, the drum reached one round per minute with its comfortable earth-like gravity on its inner surface.

With its outer surface being a deadly trap for Dan. Counting down the seconds in his head, he prepared to move back to the drum. The moment came and his thrusters pushed him toward the ship, cut and then brake. A bit of upward push so he avoids being flattened by the thrusters itself. Grabbed the top of a thruster, just above the platform it is pinned onto.

His weight and the impact was enough to crack the thruster’s pin, separating it from the ship’s body. Catapulting the thruster right away from the drum in straight line, spinning around, Dan lost his consciousness for a moment as blood rushed down from his head. His grab failed and the thruster left into the darkness of space while he floated away on the same path until the suit stopped his path on command.

This little maneuver costed half of his remaining fuel and only ten minutes of breathable oxygen left as the spinning drum floated next to him, so close yet out of reach.