The commander looked over at his co-pilot and frowned. Pasha had just asked him about the odds of survival for their crew mates. Pasha couldn't have been thinking clearly. They all knew the odds.

“Honestly, none," answered Commander Rogers. "We’ll await confirmation of casualties until we plan any memorials. I don’t want any of you under the illusion that someone may have survived re-entry with a blown-out cockpit in an uncontrolled spacecraft.”

Reece took that opportunity to try to get his mind and theirs off the heartbreaking topic and on to the very real problems at hand.

“Commander, I captured a few images of the station’s outer damage," said Reece. "I’ll explain what we need to do to enact the repairs.”

“Alright, show us what you’ve got,” replied Commander Rogers.

“They should’ve uploaded to the station’s primary and backup mainframes almost immediately," said Reece. "Thomas, can you pull them up on the overhead display?"

“Sure thing,” Thomas replied as he navigated the touchscreen at the control room’s primary workspace.

Soon, the first image appeared on the overhead and Reece began explaining the damage as well as his recommended fix actions. When they finished analyzing each image and Reece’s plans, they came up with a repair schedule. First, they would stage all the equipment and supplies he would need. Next, Reece would repair the gaping hole in the airlock module.

During this time, Commander Rogers would do a full inspection of the lab to determine how much internal damage there had been. He would need to flood the lab module with the atmosphere from the adjoining garden module. The life-support in that module was down and it was slowly venting atmosphere. Depending on what Commander Rogers discovered, Reece would either do internal repairs of the lab or perform outer repairs of both the garden and the lab in one EVA.

“Okay,” announced Rogers. “I need Thomas, Reece, and Stephanie to go and get some chow. When you’re finished, Reece, I need you to start staging everything you’ll need for the repairs. Thomas, Stephanie; I need you two to return here and relieve the rest of us so we can eat as well.”

Silently, the trio made their way to the mess hall. They barely spoke and ate their food mechanically, numb from the sudden loss. The shock was beginning to sink in, and Reece simply felt dazed. He cleaned up, mumbled a farewell, and made his way to the engineering section. It took about three hours to find all the tools and materials and get everything staged at the EVA airlock. When he had just about finished, Commander Rogers approached him.

“It looks like there was some interior damage to the lab. It wasn’t noticeable earlier because the atmosphere had just started to vent, and the damage was behind a rack of science equipment.”

Of course, Reece already knew some of this but played dumb, just in case.

“The airlock still takes priority, but the interior damage to the lab will need to be repaired before you repair the outer damage since there may need to be some bending of metal. That would be much harder if the repairs were completed in the opposite order,” explained the commander.

“Okay, that sounds about right. By the way, everything is ready for my EVA.”

“Danielson, how long will it take to finish the repairs on the airlock breach?”

Reece started doing the calculations out loud.

“About forty-five minutes to get to the breach and prep it for the patch. About twenty minutes to get each sheet moved down to the breach. Thirty minutes to weld each in place. And another fifteen minutes to return me and all the required tools back to the airlock, so... about three and a half hours.”

“Okay, that sounds pretty fast, are you sure you’re up for it?”

“Yeah, it needs to get done and I need to keep my mind on task.”

“Understandable, Reece. You have my condolences. They were all good men, great men in fact. And I understand that you had become somewhat close to Angel before he left. I won’t pretend to understand exactly what happened aboard Hermes, but it doesn’t change what we need to do or how we feel right now. Go ahead and suit up, I’ll return to the control room and get everyone set for another zero-G activation. Godspeed Danielson.”

“You too, sir.”

Commander Rogers nodded his head towards Reece in acknowledgment and turned towards the passage back to the control room. He left just as Reece opened the EVA suit closet. A few minutes later, Reece was wearing the suit and floating in zero-G once again.

The tricky part was coming up. He needed to navigate the required materials and tools for each trip to the airlock breach without causing damage to the station or himself from the heavy plates of steel. Even with no gravity, they still could easily attain enough momentum to cause serious injury or damage. He carefully pried one of the plates off the wall where he had temporarily affixed them and slowly guided it into the airlock. Once he had the plate positioned, he grabbed his torch. Reece had everything he needed. Now he just had to make sure it was all secured.

He started out by checking that his tool bag was already attached to one of the EVA suit’s connection loops. Next, he attached a rope to both the plate and the welding torch and clamped the other ends to another of the EVA suit’s loops. Finally, he held everything still while shutting the inner bulkhead door and securing it. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, he opened the outer bulkhead and guided the items slowly out of the airlock.

Once outside, he carefully made his way to the airlock breach, moving painstakingly slow. It was precision work guiding everything along. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally made it to the gaping breach. While pinning the plate down temporarily, he used the torch and hammer to heat and pound the remaining framework back into place. He spent the next half hour welding the first plate into place. So far, so good.

The round trip for the second plate went much smoother but still took a long time welding it into place. The third plate was going smoother yet, but right as he was about to put it in position, he lost his grip on it and it pulled away from him and the station, once it reached the full length of the rope it tore Reece off from the rungs he was holding onto with both hands. Luckily, he had anticipated the strength of the tug and had slowed the momentum of the heavy object before losing his grip.

He was still tied off, which was the only thing that saved him from drifting off into open space and to his slow death. He took a deep breath and slowly pulled the plate back to himself. Hugging the plate against his body, Reece pulled himself back to the station. He made a second attempt, taking extra care. This time, he finished the patch by successfully welding the last steel plate into the remainder of the gap. He had prepped the plates well and they fit perfectly into the gap, effectively sealing it up. He double-checked his welds to make sure they were airtight. Finding no issues, he contacted Thomas.

“Station Control? The repair is complete, do you copy? Over.”

“Copy that, we read you. What’s the situation? Over.”

“Fairly good. Can you re-pressurize the airlock module? I need to make sure that my welds are completely airtight. Over.”

Thomas did just that, and sure enough, there were two pin-hole leaks that he found from the outgassing. Taking the torch, he closed the two small holes and the leaks finally stopped.

“All done. Give me fifteen minutes to get back inside. Over.”

“Copy that Reece, and good job. Come on back,” replied Thomas with relief in his voice. “You earned your dinner tonight. Over and out.”

Fifteen minutes later, Reece was again safely inside Zhengzhou Station and the gravity system was spinning back up. Reece breathed a sigh of relief as well. He believed that the hard part was over. Once gravity had been completely restored and Reece had stored his EVA suit and tools, he returned to the control module.

When he got there, he was greeted by Commander Rogers. Thomas, Naeva, and Stephanie were also stationed in the control room.

“Nice job, Danielson.”

“Thanks, Commander. Say, have we had any updates on the search for the Hermes’s crash site?”

“Nothing yet,” chimed in Thomas. “But it’s still early.”

Naeva stood up from her console and approached Reece.

“You must be famished. I was about to head to the mess for some dinner. Why don’t you come with me? I could use the company.”

Reece looked at the Commander who nodded in return.

“Alright,” Reece said to the seemingly wistful lady. “Lead the way.”

The two left for the mess hall together, Naeva uncharacteristically silent. Three people were already eating when they arrived. Pasha was having a heated discussion with Zia and Aika over what they had heard in that last communication with the shuttle before the horrible incident.

“I’m telling you, I clearly heard Angel yell ‘you bastard’ right at the end of that transmission. “There was definitely some kind of altercation between him and someone else and Taylor was trying to keep it under wraps. Why else would he act like nothing was wrong all the way up ‘til the end?” said Pasha in exasperation.

“Okay, okay,” replied Zia. “But it’s so little to go on. We still don’t know much about what transpired. And even if we did know, I’m not sure that it matters anymore.”

Pasha hung his head in defeat as Reece and Naeva quietly made their way over to the kitchenette to collect and prepare their food.

“Fine. I just hope whatever it was, wasn’t important,” replied Pasha dejectedly. "That it wasn’t something we need to know.”

“Fair enough,” replied Zia with a slight nod of acceptance.

“Look, it’s definitely not worth arguing about,” added Aika. “I think we’re all just strung out emotionally after what just happened. I get it. We just shouldn’t bicker amongst ourselves. This is hard enough without that.”

“Good point,” sighed Pasha. “Leave it to Aika to be the rational one here. It just hurts, you know. Especially since we don’t know what happened and they haven’t even located the shuttle yet.”

“My wife would say we need that to help find closure,” Zia chimed in. “We can begin the healing process. For now, though, we just need to stay focused on doing our jobs.”

“Speaking of focusing on our job,” added Aika as she looked directly at Reece without expression. “Shouldn’t you be repairing the damage to the station?”

Somewhat taken aback from her rather accusatory comment, Reece replied, “Yeah, I’ve finished with the shuttle airlock. I’m headed to the lab once I get something to eat. How’re you all holding up?”

“As well as might be expected,” replied Pasha. “How about yourself?”

“Well, like you all were saying, I’m trying to stay focused on my job.”

“On that note, I’m going to get back to mine,” said Aika and she rose and began cleaning up.

“Yeah, I think we’ve been here long enough,” added Zia as she rose too.

Pasha followed suit and by the time Reece and Naeva were ready to eat, the mess was clear except for the two of them.