OUCH! What's happening? Why is the station shaking so violently?
Mark just woke up from bumping his head on the ceiling, if there was such a thing as a ceiling in a space station. He quickly removed his sleeping harness, made to prevent him from flying all over the place while sleeping.
"Eric! What are you doing?" he screamed. No answer came back. Instead, the station rocked once more and the lights shut down.
"ERIC!" he screamed as loud as he could. "This station ain’t a plane!" Once again, no answer came back. Which was quite unusual considering the station was supposed to be manned with ten people right now; eight scientist and two pilots. It's possible they were too busy dealing with what was happening to answer.
The only light he could see was coming from the small feet wide windows. And by the look of the light beam dancing madly all over the small room, the station was doing some insane spinning. For an instant, the beam lit the back of the room, where the sas toward the other module of the station was locked.
That explains why nobody answered.
He tried to reach the nearby wall to give himself a push. At the same moment the station appeared to roll on itself, if such a thing was possible for such a huge structure. The "wall" punched him on the head, sending him flying in the opposite direction. About in the middle of the room, the station changed direction again. He crashed heavily on the wall, losing his breath. Something was hiding his vision. He tried to remove it with his hand only to find it was some kind of liquid.
Juice?
After all, he did sleep in the "kitchen", as space inside a multi-billion dollar station wasn't really the primary concern of governments. People simply slept where there's some space left to hook an harness. The others made him sleep in the kitchen because they say he was snoring a bit too much. Mark kind of liked the excuse, because it meant he could sleep alone.
The light from the viewport lit his hand quickly, showing a dark red liquid.
Blood...
His throbbing head suddenly reminded him of the trashing he just got. He wasn't seeing well, and there were too many stars in his field of view. A nasty cut on his forehead was slowly spitting small bubbles of blood that were slowly floating away. Some actually tinted his white suite with small red spots.
Get out of here! You're at one of the extremities. Reach the center of the station. If the station is rotating around it's center of mass, you're in danger here. he told himself.
The rocking appeared to have slowed down, but he wasn't take any chance. He pushed the wall to propel himself toward the airlock node, a small sphere with an airlock door on each axis. He entered it and quickly grabbed the locking mechanism of the next module, just in case the station would try to another dance move. Putting his feet on the "floor", he pushed the lock as hard as he could. It wouldn't budge.
He stopped to think, the only reason the lock would be hard to open, by design, is if the other module was decompressed. The system would prevent him from opening it. He didn't like that idea one bit. He checked on the panel to the right side of the door. It was all red, a clear sign that the other side of the door there was only the vacuum of space. No matter how hard he would try, the security built inside the door would never let him open it, which in this case was a good thing.
Keeping himself close to the walls, he moved toward the viewport and peak in it. Looking in the direction of the airlock, where he should have seen the huge solar panels and dozen other modules, there was nothing. Well, not nothing as he noticed, the module adjacent to his own was there. As the station continued to spin, the sun finally lit the neighbor module.
"Oh..." was all he could say. The module was only half there, spitting debris around. The hull appeared to have been cut clean. As if someone sliced it with a plasma torch.
He looked around more and couldn't find any debris bigger than a fist.
That makes no sense. If it was destroyed, there should be lot left of a thousand ton station!
Looking down, he noticed the escape pod was still attached to the airlock node. It didn't appear damaged, at least at first sight.
Everything was still spinning madly. Earth, the moon, sun, Earth again... Watching it all swirl made him close to letting his dinner come back to his nose. He pushed himself away from the window just in time to not be sick. At least all the normal celestial entities were still in the right place.
There wasn't much choice to go around. The lack of any light or sound from the air recycling unit made it very clear, there was no power left in this module. There was no way to send any distress call. There weren't any space suits ether. He couldn't use their integrated communication system, but even if it had, they didn't have much range anyway. He looked around. There was some science equipment discarded from previous experiment, but nothing he could use in his situation.
The station, or the module he reminded himself, rocked again and hit something. The impact was big enough to be heard from the inside. Suddenly, the sound came. He remembered his training with expert pilots before this mission. They all told him what a decompression would sound like, and what to do in those cases. The idea was quite simple, you don't take anything, you don't pack, you don't think, you just move out of there.
He moved as fast as he could toward the airlock node. He didn't try to open the same lock as before. Instead he moved to the lock of the escape pod, a simple Soyuz module with only enough reserve to make it back on ground. The lock didn't resist at all, proving the pod was still pressurized and hopefully in one piece. He quickly entered it and turned around to lock it again. Something burst on the other side and the "kitchen" started to lose atmosphere quickly.
He was already not feeling very well, and the lost of pressure didn't help. The few stars in his sight multiplied as he pulled as hard as he could on the door. The air flow was keeping him from close it. Finally the inner door locked into place. He quickly closed the Soyuz door and pulled the emergency handle that released the small spacecraft from what was left of the station. With a metallic noise, the Soyuz slowly moved away.
He sat in the pilot seat and buckled himself up. Not being a pilot, it would be hard to land this thing. But being built in the purpose of an escape pod, the procedure was almost all automatic. He pushed the button that should have launched all the procedure. Instead of a dashboard lighting up and the altitude thrusters firing, nothing happened.
What? No electricity here too? But this thing has its own power source! Whatever hit the station also disabled the pod.
Any idea of using the pod to contact Earth, ask for help or just explain what just happened vanished. It also meant he didn't have much time. Without air recycling, the small space of the pod would only allow him to breath for an hour, or two, maybe less considering how much air got sucked out while he was closing the airlock.
He put his hands under the dashboard and pulled a hidden handle. A few second later, the thrusters lit up and started to slowly push the pod toward Earth.
I will thank the Russian engineers when I'm back. If I get it back. Good thing they never trust the high tech stuff!
The handle simply turned on the manual system. Exactly like an airplane system, the remaining hydraulic pressure would open the thruster’s valves and force them to light up without any help of electronic or electricity. The pod started slowly turning away from the blue horizon.
Oh... right!
The teaching he got about those pods came back. Once turned on manually, he would have to pilot it... manually. Some mechanical parts would make sure he wouldn't do anything really stupid, but with no computer, he would have to enter the atmosphere on his own piloting skills, which he quickly remembered were close to none.
That's why we have two pilots normally! Always a spare! Hope they are all right... Somewhere. He thought about Eric, the main pilot and that Russian pilot whose name he never managed to pronounce correctly.
He put both hands on the two pilot sticks on each side of him. He push it slightly and nothing happened. Pushing harder, he finally got an answer as the pod stopped turning. Then slowly started turning in the other direction. Without the fly by wires system, he would have to manually push the hydraulic to move the thrusters around.
Mark quickly remembered the teaching he received. What angle, speed and dozen other variables he should be looking for in this situation. He looked at the small viewport in front of him. Some lines where printed on the glasses.
Got to align Earth's surfaces with the third... or is it forth line?
"ARG!" he screamed. "Third line it is." He pushed the right handle forward, making the pod plunge down.
Time passed by, as he kept checking the planet position compared to his orientation. He was quickly reviewing again and again all the technical data he could remember about this kind of situation. They made him train for months about all those details.
Earth started to get close and closer. On top of the whisper of the altitude thrusters, there was now an high pitch noise made by air rushing around the pod. Then all of a sudden, the sound of metal being ripped apart, right behind him.
"Oh sh... Forgot!"
He bent forward, grapping a huge red handle from under his seat, and pulled it as hard as he could, as if his life depended on it. He forgot to dump the propulsion unit of the pod, which wasn't made for atmospheric reentry. With a bang, the rear of the Soyuz pushed itself back and sideways to prevent collision with the habitable pod.
The release of the engine unit also trigged the released of the parachutes, which a few minutes later found enough air pressure to deploy themselves. Mark almost lost consciousness from the abrupt change of speed. But the pod was still going too fast. The late release of the engine unit put too much speed on the pod which was hurling toward the ground at dangerous velocity.
He checked in the window, clouds were quickly leaving the sky for a view of the rushing ground.
At least I'm landing on ground. The ocean might have been a bad idea.
But he had no idea where he was about to land. The shapes of the lands didn't ring any bells. He didn't see any huge city or anything of consequences that could allow him to identity which country would be his host for the next few days. The ground was definitely moving toward him too fast for his liking. However at some distance of where he was heading, he noticed some golden lights.
Not a city... a small town maybe. Better than landing in a deserted place!
He looked back where he was heading. The last thing he remembered seeing in the glass, was a huge forest.
He had no idea how long he passed out. The first thing that came to his mind was the sharp pain in his right leg. Mark always saw himself as a pretty resistant guy. He normally didn't mind physical pain, but this was different. Tears came to his eyes as he looked down and saw nothing.
At first he didn't remember where he was or how he got in a position for this kind of pain. Why did he have dried blood on his eyes? Why is it all dark? He couldn't make any details of what was around him. Everything was in the dark, until some light came from the window in front of him.
Moon light?
Then everything came back to his memory, the station and the crash.
He unbuckled his harness and looked down again. With the light of the moon pouring in, he could see a bit of his right leg. The hull of the pod was crushed inside, and his leg was in the way when it happened. It was bent in a very weird way toward the outside. He tried to move it a bit only be to answered by the same sharp pain. He lost his breath and almost passed out again.
Alright. Left leg it is.
He slowly moved off his seat and landed his left foot on the crushed hull. He left himself fall to the left, resting his shoulder on the hull for a moment, taking some deep breathes.
When he felt his head was spinning less, he took hold of the airlock handle and pushed it hard. Not without much surprised, it was much harder to unlock.
I guess even Russian mechanics got their breaking point.
He put as much of his weight as he could on the handle and it finally gave away. The pins all around the airlock retracted. He took another deep breath and pulled the door toward him. He didn't let the door slam down, afraid it could touch his broken leg. He slowly lowered the door to the floor.
He took his time to exist the spacecraft, taking good care of his right leg. Once fully outside, he looked around. Like he spotted before the crash, he was in a forest. A dark and dense one on top of that, the moon light he saw was coming from the dozen trees his crash broken in the path of the pod. The light couldn't reach the ground elsewhere.
He pulled himself toward the nearest tree and sat his back to it. Breathing deeply a few time, he got a good look at his right leg. It wasn't that bad, no bones or blood to be seen. The tibia was obviously broken, but probably only at one place. He knew exactly what he had to do, but it wouldn't make it any easier. If someone was putting his leg into place, he could always passed out, but since there was nobody around, he had to do it himself.
He quickly found two stick about the length of his leg, probably broken by his "landing". He put them on each side of his leg, careful to not touch it. He then tried to rip off a part of his suit without much luck. The material was too strong for his hands only. He dug in his right pocket and pulled out a small Swiss knife.
A small grin appeared on his face as he remembered that technician on the launch pad saying he was an idiot bringing a knife in a space mission. You never know when you would need one. Opening the knife, he quickly cut off the two arms of his suit. He then carefully split the arms in two, giving him four strips of clothes.
He used the first two to tie the branches to the top of his legs, securing them in place for the next part. Slowly passing the next strip under his right foot, he tied it very loosely. He held each extremities of the strip in each hands for a few minutes, afraid of the next part.
He took a very deep breath, then two... then three. Holding this forth breath, he pulled on the strip of cloth as hard as he could. The strip pushed the two branches toward each other, and in the same time pushed in leg back in a straight position.
He kept holding his breath and quickly tied the strip as hard as he could. Once he was sure it wouldn't let go, he let himself fall on his back and scream out all the air he had in his lungs.
He breathed and screamed a few more time. He was in sweat and his hands were shaking, but the pain in his leg slowly moved from the "insane" toward the "it hurts too much".
He don't know how long it passed until the pain was once again manageable. But once it was, he slowly sat back and tied the forth strip of cloth between the top two and the bottom one that was now holding his leg straight. He hands were wet and shacking, making very hard to tie it correctly. Once done, he felt back on his back and continued to breathe deeply.
He felt drained, wet and tired. The adrenaline rush was now all gone and it left him light headed. The moon, the trees were all spinning.
Maybe I should...
He simply passed out there.
He woke up hours later, morning dew dripping on his face from the tree he was under. He had no idea how long he was off. The morning sun was slowly rising above the destroyed tree line, warning up his body. The birds were singing and the wind was slowly moving the trees.
I could have landed in far worst place I guess.
He slowly sat, careful to not move his right leg. He took a good look at his yesterday's work, almost expecting a mess to be redone. Instead he found the makeshift splint to be solid and well attached.
Good, won't have to redo it.
Next he did a quick check of anything he had in his pockets, a few pens, his Swiss knife, some ID card, his cell phone which he mostly used as music player. He quickly checked it, finding it also empty of any power.
Of course, whatever hit the station didn't go in detail. It drained everything. No cell phone, no distress beacon. There's simply no way for them to know where I am. Well, not much choice, I got to find some people.
He looked around, his sight quickly snapped on his feet.
No shoes? Of course no shoes. Who need shoes in a space station while sleeping. Walking anywhere in that forest is gonna be fun.
He finally took his first real look at the crashed pod. From the look of it, he was kind of surprised to still be virtually in one piece. The pod lost parts of its hull on the impact. It was half buried in the dirt and a trunk actually managed to punch a hole in it. There was no marking left and it only looked like a huge chunk of charcoal. The temperature the hull lived through was obviously above what its creators had in mind. The dirt and some trees were still smoking.
He slowly pushed himself toward the still smoking wreckage and looked inside. There wasn't much left intact inside. The control panel was mostly there aside from the trunk embedded in it. The emergency supplies were destroyed, water and some dehydrated food on what was left of the floor. There was a flashlight which he quickly found was also drained of any power.
Once the engine unit removed, that pod wasn't made to keep people alive long. A few hours at best, just the time it would take to land. The fuel, oxygen and power unit were all in the rear section. There wasn't much left in one piece. His sight went toward the pillar that was supporting the copilot's chair. It was normally welded to the hull, but the impact broke it off. It was a meter long tube of metal that shaped in a Y on top. The top was supposed to hold the bottom of the seat in place. He looked around and found that seat stuck in the rear, crushed between two pieces of warped hull. Had someone been sitting there, he would have been crushed in half.
He pulled the metal piece of the wreck. He inspected it and found the bottom to be hollow. He looked around and found a rock of the right size, sticking it at the bottom of the tube.
Not pretty, but that should make a good enough crutch.
Using the nearby tree, he very slowly raised himself on his left foot, careful to not move his right leg too hard. Using the makeshift crutch, he managed to make a few steps around. The crutch was obviously too short, but he didn't care much. He could put his weight on it and not on his leg.
His socks were wet and started to quickly gather mud and dirt, but running, or more likely walking very slowly, in a forest bare feet wasn't such a good idea. But even then, walking away from the crash site could maybe not a good idea. If rescue were on the way, leaving the pod simply meant his chances of being found would evaporate. But that was a big "if", as without distress signal, the only way someone would find him is if they saw the crash or at least the atmospheric reentry. On the other hand, he had a good idea of where the town he noticed was, or at least in which direction.
Where did I land? Which country? For all I know, I landed in one of those last few small country with a sick dictator.
He looked around, looking at the trees, but he couldn't remember where those species grew. Botanic was far from his specialty to begin with. For all he knew, he could have been in his backyard without knowing it. On top, distance wasn't easy to evaluate from a crashing spaceship. For all he knew, that town was days of walk away.
He was truly unsure of what to do, stay and hope someone noticed the crash or go and hope he would make it to any friendly town.
His thought process was cut short when he started hearing voice in the distance. He couldn't make any distinctive words and the voices intonations were of no kind he heard before. One part of his wanted to scream and ask for help, but his careful nature took over. He went to hide himself behind a few bushes, as fast as his very slow motion would allow him. He made sure to keep a line of sight on the crashed pod.
He waited a few minutes. The voices were obviously from two distinctive people, but he still couldn't make anything from their discussion. They stopped talking, but whoever it was, was now close enough to hear their footsteps.
Four footsteps sound?
At this moment, a zebra came around a tree at the edge of his vision, slowly walking toward a much smaller tree with small red flower on it.
What the... Where did I land? Africa? Great, finding a phone won't be easy. But that make sense. The two extra footsteps sound is that stripped fellow.
Whoever was speaking was bound to show up sooner or later. He watched as the zebra kept looking around, almost looking like it was seeking something. He then noticed that it was wearing jewelry, some kind of crud golden necklaces and rings around one of its leg.
But who dress up a zebra? What kind of backward country did I fell in?
Finally a voice came close enough to be understood. Although he still couldn't make the whole sentences, he managed to hear a few words.
"... comon... got... me! I saw something!"
English? Zebra and English? But what country is this?
However prepare for the unexpected, no book or training could prepare him for what came next. A small horse came after the zebra, bouncing around like a rabbit on caffeine, most likely a very young pony by the shape and size.
"I tell you Zecora! I saw a meteorite crash nearby last night!" claimed the small filly.
There was no doubt where the voice came from. Mark even saw its lips move. As a man of science, how could he believe what he just saw?
The training, the selection process to choose an astronaut, it was long and painful but needed to only take the best. Someone displaying mental instability was automatically rejected. They needed people who could keep their head straight even in the worst situations. What would happen if an astronaut, once in space, would lose it and start to hallucinate? He knew very well he never had any hallucination in his life. Why would it begin now?
Was the last 24 hours that stressful? He could remember weeks of training far more intensive than that. Sure he wasn't used to having his life put in danger and his leg broken. Did he just hallucinate the whole thing? Maybe the station was still in one piece and his teammates were wondering why he went insane bumping his head around and flee in an escape pod?
He shook his head. How do you notice from an hallucination from reality? Everything around shout it was real, the bird singing, the wind in the tree. Is a hallucination so detailed?
"Applebloom my dear, what you say I hear. If you saw a meteorite, we will find it, right?." said the zebra, turning around to face the filly on spring.
That's it. I lost it. Completely. A zebra doing rhymes. I dunno what happen, but I'm ready for a good padded cell. But rhymes? What's up with you my brain? Back in school I couldn't make any. Now you spit some in my hallucinations? Can a concussion really make someone go wacko?
He noticed he was holding his breath for almost the last minute. His heart was pumping hard and his brain refused to give him any answer about the situation. He was suddenly worrying about his health. He started to think he might have lost more blood than he thought or eaten something very bad.
He was still deep in thought and lack of when the filly started screaming.
"Found it! Found it! Told you!"
He looked up to see that "Applebloom" jumping around the crashed pod. But what would two equine do of a burnt out pod? There wasn't anything left salvageable. For now, he decided, he would only watch. For all he knew, those two were humans and his brain decided to play some nifty trick on himself. He couldn't simply walk up to them and ask them what the hay was going on.
He almost started to laugh at the bad joke his brain came up with.
"It looks like you did Appleboom, but what is this contraption of doom?" said the zebra coming up near the young one.
"I dunno Zecora." She quickly entered her head in the pod and removed it even faster. "Ewww... Doesn't smell good in there. Like something nasty burned. You think somepony was in that thing?"
"I couldn't say but if you may, on this Twilight I think could put some light. It could have been created by a spell. I'm sure she would be able to tell." she said looking down on that huge sphere of charcoal.
"Oh! That's a good idea!" exclaimed Applebloom while starting to jump around again. After a few jumps she stopped and looked like she was deeply thinking. "I heard sis saying she was coming this morning to help repair the cider machine. She should be at the farm right now! We can get her here before noon!" She started running from where they came from, stopping a few meters later and looked back. "Come on Zecora! I want to know what this smoking thingy is!" She signaled her to follow her.
"Alright, alright, little one. I'm following, you won." she replied while following the jumping filly.
"Sometime I wonder where you get all those rhymes..."
Zecora didn't care to reply.
Mark was still stunned of the encounter. What just happened? He knew almost nothing of psychology, but he was sure right now he could be diagnosed with a dozen mental illnesses. His mind was blank, he couldn't think of anything. Less than ten minutes ago, he was seriously wondering if he should go seek a town or stay there waiting for rescue. But now, he couldn't think straight. He couldn't think of anything.
But... but... what... what was that!?