Hayden Kaine stared at the blinking console lights and wondered how long he would live if the atmosphere vented.
Basic survival skills were taught at the academy, but aside from a few emergency evacuation drills, most of what he knew was anecdotal and theoretical. And over a decade old.
After all, how could someone know what to expect when a living body is exposed to the vacuum of space? Physics told him that his blood would boil, and if he held his breath, his lungs would explode, but had anyone tested it?
Academy drill sergeants spun gruesome tales to scare cadets with how horrible their deaths would be if they did not follow safety protocols. Though he acknowledged the wisdom of the teaching, he had no concept of what it would feel like to vent his air and end it all.
A perimeter alarm sounded, jerking him from his morbid thoughts. The tempting voice in the back of his head retreated like a coward when his mind was presented with a more immediate concern. He wondered if the time might come when it would not.
“Talk to me, Ship. What is going on?”
“Our angle of approach needs adjustment, Boss, if we don’t want to bounce off the atmosphere.”
He leaned forward to examine the readout. “Decrease by seven degrees.”
“Your wish is my command.”
Hayden pushed back into the pilot seat and tightened his restraints. For some reason, he never gave the AI a name. Not doing so was rude, but then the idea likely only bothered him.
Too many crazy ideas. Corralling them and keeping them under control was difficult. What he needed was a good stiff drink to settle down.
The tempting thought was quickly dismissed.
Remaining dry for twelve weeks and four days was a personal record; an accomplishment he realized he should feel proud of. Instead, he wondered why he still bothered with the effort.
Another, more urgent alarm sounded, accompanied by the smell of burning circuitry. The ship shuddered, setting off additional warnings.
“Piece of shit,” he mumbled as he unbuckled. The salvage vessel had been old in his grandfather’s time. Every major safety system was bypassed at least three different ways, and that was just by him. There was no way to tell how many other offspec repairs the previous owners had made just to keep the old bird flying. It was impossible simply to order new replacement parts anymore. People had to make do with what was at hand, or go without, and Hayden couldn’t afford to lose his ship.
As he pushed himself to float toward the smoking panel in the back of the cockpit, he grabbed a fire extinguisher. After lowering the visor of his helmet, he opened the door and put out the flames.
“What failed this time?” he asked the AI.
“Fuel transfer control valve on the starboard side.”
“That’s kind of important. Bring up the specs on my HUD.”
“Not to be alarmist or anything, Boss, but that little bump knocked us out of our approach window. We’ve got about two minutes to correct our course or be bounced into space. There’s bingo fuel, so that could be a serious setback.”
Hayden stuck his head inside the open panel to assess the damage. “It’s the transfer relay again. Reroute the control signal through the manoeuvring thruster module, just like last time. I can put it back to normal as soon as we break atmosphere.”
“You like dangerous living, don’t you?”
“You didn’t hide a spare FTCV in the hold that I’m not aware of?”
“Sorry, Boss, we’re out of just about everything—unless you found something useful on that last wreck we visited?”
“Nope,” he said as he strapped himself back into the pilot chair. “That sucker was picked clean by Derry and his crew.”
“They do tend to make things more of a challenge these days.”
The AI didn’t appreciate how challenging. Since Derry’s arrival, his merry band had already stripped every derelict Kaine found. Making enough to feed himself was becoming a concern.
“Tomorrow is another day,” he said, more to himself.
After one last paranoid check of their entry vector, he settled back in his seat for the bumpy ride home.
At once, every alarm went haywire, and the panel covering his repair work exploded open in a spray of sparks. The ship jerked sharply to the left, and Hayden suddenly found himself pressed with more than his own weight against the restraining harness. He became dizzy and wanted to vomit.
The restraints dug into his shoulders. Out of the front window, the blue and tawny surface of Ricote spun dizzily across his field of vision.
“Ship...” Speaking was a struggle. He couldn’t inhale a full breath. “What’s going on?”
Shit!
Whatever happened took the AI out with it.
Outside, he saw flames lick off the hull. Sweat flowed freely from every pore of his body. His closed visor prevented him from wiping the stinging perspiration from his eyes. The rapidly rising cabin temperature would soon cook him in his spacesuit like a foil-wrapped potato.
In about one minute, maybe less—he’d lost track of time—the burning vessel would break up, and he wouldn’t need to wonder what it felt like to die in the vacuum; he was about to be cremated.
There was only one bat-shit crazy thing he could think of, but he had to reach the thruster fuel control to make it happen.
Hayden reached his left arm back and looped what little slack there was in the restraining harness strap around it. Better to break that one, he thought.
As secure as he would ever be, he hit the buckle release.
Like a rat shaken by a dog, his legs shot out from under him toward the ceiling. Agony tore through his shoulder and elbow as the seat belt jerked.
Fighting the G-force, he grabbed the harness with his unrestrained hand. The torment to his injury was excruciating. He felt himself starting to pass out. Reflexively, he held his breath and squeezed his stomach, trying to force the blood back to his head.
As his vision cleared, he remembered his training and began the Hook Manoeuvre while he pulled himself down to the controls.
He anchored his feet under the console to relieve the stress on his injured arm. With his free hand, he tore off the panel access cover.
He was going to need a drink when this was over.
