Henrik Refsnes

Let’s try a different tack.

32 hours and I haven’t keeled over. Still don’t have the cable, but I know where it is. It’s where my rig is. I’ll get to that.

I went for the option with the cable. In no way was I going to launch myself into space without a lifeline, and I figured it would be good practice. Lucky, as it turns out, because my aim fucking sucks. Took me three tries to hit the remains of a cargo hauler.

On a positive note, welding the cable to the hauler did nothing to the trajectory of the ark, so that was also good practice. It did, however, alter the course of the hauler quite a bit, but we’ll get to that.

First, the dead guy in the closet. I suppose I should have expected something like it, but dead bodies in the dark of space is still jarring. There’s nothing quite like a mummified Federation space cowboy with his suit half zipped coming at you in close quarters.

A cheap scare too. My own fucking fault. What I get for having an overactive imagination and watching too many zombie flicks. Anyway, the additional air supply I had strapped on came loose, which was when I grabbed the duct tape. In retrospect that was the best thing that could have happened, though not before oxygen dropped to yellow.

I found the cable about the same time Al told me to get the fuck out. Not his words, mine. The hauler, attached to the ark, had slingshot right into the path of another wreck. In one way a hugely successful proof of concept, in another, an unmitigated fucking disaster.

At least I got the cable-drum secured with the rig before the other ship smashed into the hauler, which went about as well as you can imagine. My face-shield cracked in a close encounter with a bulkhead and metal splinters pierced the suit, and my arm.

Still, the rig took the brunt of the damage, spinning out of control with me in it. So, there I was, venting air and desperately duct-taping my suit at several g. Up’s fucking down, and the HUD goes off like the main act just came on stage. As if that wasn’t enough, the cable to the ark sheers off.

I panic, eject, and by pure luck manage to grab hold of the cable. All the while my helmet is filling up with blood and vomit, so I can’t see for shit, yet somehow, I’m kept alive by duct tape. I can’t say I remember much after that except repeatedly thinking this is not how it ends, and at some point, injecting myself with adrenaline in an airlock.

I’ve lost 23 hours, but the autodoc has finally patched me up enough to be coherent. I’m sitting in the medbay staring at the blip of my rig’s beacon. That’s where the cable is—and dammit, I did not go through all of that to give up now.

Now it’s personal.