Naeva Amari

He awoke with a start. The first thing he noticed was his splitting headache. The next was that Naeva was still curled up on top of him, and they were both still completely nude. The room had cooled considerably, so Reece looked up at the digital readout near the door. The time was 07:13. The shuttle, Hermes, was scheduled to launch back down to earth in twenty-seven minutes, and there was no way he wasn’t going to see Angel off. He was also sure Naeva probably wanted to see the outgoing crew off as well, so he gently shook her and called her name.

“Huh, what…oh, hi handsome,” answered Naeva groggily as she looked at him through eyes narrowed to slits. “What time is it?”

“A quarter after seven!”

“Shit!”

Naeva’s eyes got wide as she looked at Reece.

“We’ve only got a few minutes to see them off before their shuttle leaves.”

“I know. We over-slept.”

“Well, it was worth it, don’t you think?” replied Naeva as she pulled herself off of him and shakily stood up.

“Most definitely, but we’d better get a move on if we want to catch them.”

“Of course, and we both need a shower. I guess we’ll have to share one since there isn’t time to take one separately,” said Naeva as she winked at him and turned the shower faucet on. Stepping in once the water had heated up, she looked back at Reece with an approving nod and smile at his nakedness. Reece admired the view as well before he too stepped into the shower. Joining her in the welcoming warmth of the falling water, he took a moment to let the spray wake him up. They both quickly soaped up the important areas and rinsed off as Naeva gave Reece an amused look.

“I’ll take care of that later for you, big guy,” she said smiling wickedly. “But we simply don’t have time right now.”

Her face turned into a mock pout as Reece looked down and saw what she was talking about.

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“Oh, do.”

Naeva turned the water off and they both got out and quickly dried off with the towels from the floor. With no time or way to get to clean clothes, they were forced to put on the same clothes they wore the night before. Luckily, they were in adequate condition, if a bit wrinkled. Naeva took a minute combing out her long hair as Reece cleaned up the mess of towels. The two of them hurried to the launching module where just about everyone was sure to be.

They were greeted with a myriad of looks from jovial to disgusted, but all of them somehow 'knowing' looks. Reece was embarrassed and imagined Naeva was too, though she didn’t let it show.

Everyone went back to what they were doing, which was exchanging hugs, handshakes, and farewells. Solomon gave Naeva a long hug before offering Reece a handshake. He spoke with Thato for a few moments that ended in a firm handshake and half-hug that spoke of the comradery the two men must have shared. They stood that way, sharing the moment before Solomon let go first. Turning, he entered the airlock and joined Aldo, who was already in the shuttle. The man hadn’t said much to anyone as far as Reece noticed.

He chuckled inwardly as he thought the man was at least consistent with his detachment from the rest of the crew.

Angel had just finished giving Naeva a long hug, so Reece extended his hand to him. Angel batted it aside and gave him a big bear hug instead. He took the opportunity to whisper in Reece’s ear.

“I’m afraid you may have just made your time here very interesting. Take care of yourself, the crew, and my baby. I’ve got your word. Oh, if things go south, you CAN trust Naeva. You may need to. Trust me.”

After the cryptic comment, Angel released him from his grip and crawled into the airlock after Taylor. The outgoing commander had completely ignored Reece for some reason. That reminded him of the man drunkenly following Aika out of the dining module and he wondered what had transpired between him, her, and Solomon. With the two of them leaving, he may never know the whole story, if there was one to know.

He looked over at Aika who had tears silently trickling down her cheeks. Of course, she wasn’t the only one with sadness in her eyes. The Beckers both looked sad to see their coworkers and friends leave. Commander Alex Rogers, who was now the newly minted Station Commander, leaned in and called one last time through the airlock to the outgoing crew. “Godspeed.”

He stood back up and shut the airlock’s inner door and secured the latch. Reece could hear the Hermes crew doing the same with the outer latch. Once they could no longer see the crew, they all went to control to observe the shuttle’s descent to the earth and stand by to assist if necessary. Within the control module, Thomas sat down at the comms channels and donned a headset. “Shuttle Hermes, do you copy? Over.”

“We copy you, Station” came Taylor’s voice from the shuttle. “All systems are green. We are ready to disengage at your mark. Over.”

“Copy that, standby for countdown. Over.”

Thomas looked across to Pasha who was furiously typing away at the navigation computer. He hit the enter key pointedly and waited for the computer’s output which displayed across the screen after a few moments.

“Okay,” said Pasha to Thomas, “We have a solid window in fourteen minutes.”

“Roger,” returned Thomas, and over the comms link, he said, “Okay, Hermes…release will commence in just under fourteen minutes. Over”

“Copy that. Ov...” came back Taylor’s voice, followed by a grunt of pain over the communications link.

“What was that? Over,” asked Thomas over the link with clear concern in his voice.

All was silent, so Thomas called out again with no answer.

“Danielson...go down and check it out,” ordered Commander Rogers.

“Sir,” answered Reece as he turned to head back down to the airlock.

The static of the intercom flared on again.

“Zzzzt...All…good…just bad comms, swapping...bzzzt…you bastard!”

Reece recognized that last voice as Angel’s. What was going on? Was this the beginning of the big move that Angel had been talking about or was it just a comms problem... which seemed unlikely at this point. He sprinted down to the airlock. Before he could get there, an explosion rocked the whole station, throwing Reece to the floor. He swiftly jumped back up and saw through the bulkhead window that the airlock was just gone. The inner bulkhead seemed intact until Reece approached it and looked through the small window.

He could barely make out the shuttle as it fell away towards the earth, but the cockpit looked heavily damaged. No one onboard had much of a chance of survival under those circumstances. The hairs on the back of Reece’s neck stood up as he heard metal bending directly in front of him. The metal of the bulkhead began to warp which also caused cracks to spiderweb across the small window Reece was just looking through.

“Oh, shit!” thought Reece as he turned and rushed out of the module. Turning immediately once he cleared the failing module compartment, he shut its emergency bulkhead. It was just in time, as the airlock bulkhead ripped completely out of the module’s wall, leaving a gaping hole and sucking all the air from the compartment. The wreckage of the airlock bulkhead bounced off the shuttle docked at a nearby airlock and clipped one of the station’s modules on the other side of the ring before hurtling off into space. There it joined the rest of the circling space debris.

As the atmosphere was sucked out, Reece saw the door on one of the storage lockers fly open. It was on the opposite side of the compartment from the bulkhead and wasn’t empty. Three EVA suits clung to their hangers for a few seconds before getting sucked through the ragged hole where the airlock had once been. A couple of tool bags, rags, and a few parts also flew out, followed by the suit’s matching EVA helmets. Reece mashed the buttons on the intercom near the door.

“Control!” exclaimed Reece. “The airlock access compartment is compromised and airlock one is just gone. Also, Wisdom looked like it took heavy damage. Additionally, a bunch of gear including all the EVA suits in this section got sucked out of the airlock breach. Over.”

“By the gods, can you determine what happened? ...over,” came Commander Roger's reply.

“Impossible to say, sir. However, the inner bulkhead is missing for airlock three and it hit the second shuttle, Wisdom, and a module on the other side of the station, possibly the lab or the garden. There’s a big breach where the door used to be. Over.”

“Okay,” Rogers replied. “Return to control, I’ll go and check out the module damage around the garden and lab. Over.”

“I can check it if you’d like, Commander. I’m much closer. Over.”

“Do as I say, Reece. I won’t lose any more crew today. Do you copy? Over.”

“Copy that, Commander,” replied Reece before adding, “Oh, and Commander... you should check our orbit. An explosion like that could have thrown us off course. Over.”

“Good thinking, Danielson,” replied Commander Rogers. “We’re checking it now. Come on back to control. Over.”

“On my way. Over and out,” replied Reece.

Double-checking everything, Reece ensured that the bulkhead between the module he was in and the airlock access module was secure. Once he was satisfied that the inner emergency bulkhead was completely intact and properly sealed shut, he rushed back to the control module. Reece arrived out of breath and looked from one face to another. Aika was crying. Zia and Stephanie looked mortified, and Naeva shook her head meaningfully at him. No one was saying it, but they all dreaded that their crewmates may have been lost.

“Did you see anything down there?” asked Thomas, his voice thick with concern. “We felt some kind of explosion.”

“I arrived too late to see exactly what happened, but I did see that Hermes’s canopy was shattered, as was the entire airlock. It looked like the shuttle rammed into the airlock. I didn’t see an actual explosion, but the entire airlock access module is compromised. Did you pick up anything more from the intercom?”

“No, nothing,” sighed Thomas.

“Is there any chance of survival?” asked Aika.

All eyes turned towards Pasha.

“None,” stated Pasha. “Even if they managed to avoid getting sucked into space, they couldn’t pilot the shuttle from the cargo hold.”

Reece just shook his head.

“What in the abyss could have happened?” asked Reece to no one in particular. I swear it sounded like a scuffle was going on during those last two transmissions.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” agreed Thomas. "Something strange is going on."

The Commander’s voice sounded over the intercom. “I found the bulkhead’s trajectory. It smashed itself into the garden module but luckily didn’t completely penetrate it. We have some repairs that need to happen sooner than later, however. Have we heard anything from Hermes? Over.”

“Nothing, sir. However, we were able to determine that we are in a slightly expanding orbit, but the computer has determined that a slight change in spin should correct for it,” replied Thomas. “Do I have your permission to proceed? Over.”

“Copy that, make it happen,” replied Commander Rogers. There was a long pause before he addressed Reece, “Alright, Danielson…I need you down here for a damage assessment. Over.”

Reece gave Thomas a knowing look which Thomas returned. Then he turned and headed out to the garden. Reece could tell from that look that Thomas shared his concerns. Something was not right with the station, above and beyond the strange experiments in the bio-lab.

“He’s on his way. Over and out,” relayed Thomas over the intercom while Reece made his way across the station.