T-Plus 14

  Another morning, another day spent opening crates and inhaling the dust that came complimentary with them. They kept the same pairs as they did yesterday and continued where they left off in their lid-ripping assembly line. Oliver opened a crate; Emerson opened a crate; Oliver rummaged through his crate, then checked Emerson’s. Rinse and repeat from yesterday.

  Oliver heaved the lid off of another crate and set it aside, pointing his flashlight to check its contents. He’d gone through dozens of boxes with a variety of items ranging from electrical cords, tool boxes, more outer space excursion suits, extra equipment parts for the various labs and clinics, extra parts for the drones and various equipment around the Bay, and other miscellaneous items such as gas masks and Engineering uniforms. This one wasn’t any different and contained an extra laboratory tool set wrapped in styrofoam and cushions to prevent the delicate glassware from breaking. The over-the-top protection did its job, and kept the cylinders and tubes from cracking even during the hangar’s great shuffle.

  He set the box aside, and leaned over to where Emerson had opened another box. She already had her light pointed into the depths of the crate. As Oliver’s light joined hers, his eyes widened at what they shone on. Just beneath the customary random tool boxes that seemed to be in almost every crate they opened, were a set of extra panels, exactly the ones they’d been searching for these past couple of days.

  The technician dropped the lid he was holding and rushed over to dig further into the crate Emerson had opened. She stepped aside, angling her light so he could see even when he set his own flashlight aside. There were several side panels, although none of them had the ports. Evidently, they had stored those in a different crate.

“Did we find what we need?” Emerson asked as he pulled the panels out in a hurry.

  Oliver nodded as he stacked the panels out into a manageable pile. Once he rescued the panels from their coffin, he glanced back to see what was left. There were still the tool boxes he had ignored. He popped them open to see one of them held the ports he needed, and the other held the necessary tools to equip said panels and ports. He smacked himself on the forehead, sighing all the while. He’d forgotten they stored the smaller parts and knick knacks in extra unused tool boxes they had around.

  The technician whistled for the others to gather up. Hearing his summons, the other six converged on their location. Upon seeing the pile of panels Oliver had set aside, Daniel lit up with excitement.

“You found them!” he cheered.

“Technically, Emerson found them,” Oliver clarified, waving the achievements over to the box-opener.

“Doesn’t matter,” the Chief said, rolling his shoulders one at a time. “Someone found them. Is that all we need?”

  Daniel looked over what was in the boxes, even turning over the toolboxes and some of the nearby crates they hadn’t gotten to yet. They found more panels in one of the unopened crates, and added to their stack. Several of the other crates even had some of the cables they would need to rewire the transformer back onto their power grid.

“Now we just need a power source,” Daniel murmured. “Either we need to make that attempt to secure one of those wayward solar panels, or we get lucky and find one in this mess.”

“Either way, if we snag the one floating outside, we would need to repair it,” Oliver pointed out, waving at the boxes around them. “And we already know where that’s going to lead us.”

“Solar panel parts?” the Chief asked. “Dr. Vaughn and I ran into a box of them a bit ago.”

  He turned to the scientist, asking, “Do you remember where they are?”

  Toast nodded, pointing in the direction of their quadrant.

“It’s close to the hangar hatch. I think.”

  With Oliver carrying the pile of panels, Soup taking hold of the two toolboxes, and Toast in the lead, their group headed over to the supposed site of their extra solar panel parts. As expected, Toast didn’t remember the exact location, but after some meandering through the maze the Chief and Toast duo created in their quest to open all the boxes, they finally found where the solar panel parts were.

  Daniel dug through the several boxes that contained the relevant solar panel parts. He, with the help of the available men, dragged the crates closer to the hangar hatch for the inevitable repairs they would need to make.

“So unfortunately, although we have all these parts,” he said once they were all by the hatch, collapsed on the floor in a variety of tired poses, “none of us have the expertise or the equipment we need to put a viable solar panel together. So we’ll have to go retrieve that stray one outside.”

  He looked around at the group, nodding to himself.

“Okay, so we need a team of at least five to go grab that solar panel,” Daniel said. “Oliver, Joey, and I will go, so we need two more. The rest will stay here and help mind the tether. When you feel us tugging on it, you should reel us in. Who wants to go with us?”

“Can’t you guys just go grab it yourselves?” Richardson asked.

“Sir, have you ever seen a solar panel?” Daniel asked, crossing his arms. “Up close, they’re huge, especially the ones necessary to power this whole Station. It’d take about five of us to drag that around, even with no gravity.”

“Fair enough,” the Navigator conceded, taking a seat on the floor beside Emerson.

  Oliver looked at the Navigator and three lab coats, waiting for someone to volunteer themselves. Soup was glancing at the others, and seeing how they were also giving glances to the people next to them, he volunteered first. Seeing Soup come forth, Toast also volunteered himself. Richardson and Emerson stayed behind with the Chief, ready to pull their tethers in.

Stolen story; please report.

  As Daniel and Joey suited up, Oliver and Emerson went to go find those extra suits, helmets, and boots they had found in some of their crates earlier. Soup and Toast followed them over, helping them sweep their area of crates again. Once they found the extra suits, the technician helped his two volunteers to suit up, guiding them through the process of stepping into the suits, and explaining how the radios worked and how the helmets were buckled.

  They returned to the hatch where the others had already tied the tethers to the doors’ inner handles. Daniel and Joey were already suited up minus their helmets. They had found rope in one of the other boxes and had secured themselves to two of the three tethers, leaving one free. As Emerson and the Chief helped the two scientists equip the rest of their suits, Oliver donned his, and together the five of them nodded once they were ready. At that point, Emerson secured the three of them to the tethers, Oliver and Toast to one and Soup was with Daniel, which left Joey on his own.

  The Chief and Richardson pulled the hatch doors apart, letting the five of them slip into the space in between the hangar and outer space. The doors closed behind them, leaving them in utter darkness. Well, until someone tapped their chest, their outline glowing in blue, and the familiar static filled his ears.

“Uhhh, what do we do now?” Soup’s voice buzzed in the radio.

  Oliver tapped his radio on, flashing blue for a brief second.

“We walk forward. Once we open the other gate, we’ll be able to see. Let’s just hope our solar panel hasn’t drifted too far.”

  Another blue light flashed in the darkness very close to Oliver.

“And if it has?” Toast’s disembodied voice spoke into his ear. “What then?”

  No one spoke for a moment. Without a good answer, Oliver eventually just said, “We’ll figure that out when we get there.”

  They continued on in silence. Occasionally, one of them would turn their radios on or off to communicate their locations. As Oliver tapped his own radio again, he reached out and felt a hard surface beneath his gloved palm. He turned on his radio and said, “Found the door.”

  A spasm of lights lit up around the room, and static flickered in and out of his ears. Once he saw a light right across from him, Soup’s voice floated in their helmets with a “Found the handle.”

  Soon after as Oliver was sliding his own hands across the hard surface, he also found the handle. With a brief message, he and Soup pulled the doors open and revealed the light of the Sun. Once the others had enough light to see, the others came over and helped pull the doors a bit further. They only pulled it open as much as needed, since their feet were already starting to feel lighter than normal.

  Oliver surveyed the open space around the Station, spotting their elusive solar panel just beneath them. It’d shifted a bit from its original location, and, to their great luck, it’d actually moved closer. He tapped his radio on.

“There she is,” he said, pointing at this operation’s goal.

  The others looked down at where he pointed. They checked that their tethers were secure once more before stepping out of the Station. Daniel stepped out first, beckoning for Soup to step out as well, so they could keep their tether together and not tangled with the other two. Once they were clear and floating in space, Oliver stepped out next, feeling the gravity of the Station leave him. He clung onto the rungs on the side of the Station, shifting after the other two that had already headed down and waited for Toast to follow him out.

  Once the scientist was clinging onto the rungs, Oliver continued downward, flicking his eyes up to make sure Toast and Joey, who was following after, were still there and hadn’t started floating away. Daniel and Soup were waiting for them further down by the rungs closest to their stray solar panel. Oliver paused on the rungs right above Soup and patted his chest.

“How’s it look?” he asked.

  Daniel looked up, patted his chest, and held his arm out toward the solar panel.

“I think it’s about twenty, maybe thirty meters out? How much tether do we have left?”

  They all turned to look at Joey, who was the closest to the hatch. He pointed at himself, and when Oliver and Daniel nodded, he finally turned around and eyeballed the length of the tether. After a few minutes, he patted his own chest and answered with, “I think it’s about ten meters left?”

  Soup tapped his chest, his helmet looking down at Oliver.

“That’s not quite enough. What do you want to do?”

  Oliver glanced at the remaining length of tether and then at the distance to the solar panel. He glanced at the extra length of rope tying them to the tether, except for Joey. They measured about ten to fifteen meters long, just enough so they kept to the tether and wouldn’t get tangled with each other. He patted his chest, looking up at Daniel and Soup.

“I have a crazy idea. Make sure I don’t float too far.”

“Uh, Oliver, what’re you going to do?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

  He wrapped his arm around the rung he was holding on to, slipping his ankle around another rung. Using his free hand and what he could of the arm he was using to anchor himself, Oliver attempted to undo the rope around his waist that was connecting him to the tether. Toast watched him as he did so, patting his chest.

“Hensley? What’re you doing?”

  Oliver didn’t answer, only continuing to undo the rope. He undid the knot keeping the rope to the tether.

“Uhhh, Hensley?”

“Oliver, what’re you doing?”

“What’s going on? What’s Mr. Hensley doing?”

  He patted his chest, finally answering their confused and panicked voices.

“I’m going to start a chain. Joey, you’ll be the base. You’re the only one who has your own tether, keep yourself stable and make sure the rest of us don’t go careening. Soup, Toast, just don’t let me and Daniel drift. Daniel, I’m gonna need you to untie yourself.”

  There wasn’t an answer from his fellow senior technician for a while. Oliver had already grabbed for Daniel and Soup’s tether, clutching onto it as he let go of the rungs. Soup grabbed his elbow, his eyes wide and confused behind the dark visor of his helmet.

  Finally, Daniel’s voice was heard through the static of the radio.

“You know, I didn’t want to have to do this, but I guess there’s not actually a better backup plan, huh.”

  Soup’s helmet went back and forth between Oliver and Daniel, his grip tightening on Oliver’s elbow. Toast had lowered himself down further and had grabbed onto the back of Oliver’s suit, making doubly sure he didn’t drift without a tether. Soup had used his other hand to grab onto Daniel’s suit as the other technician undid his own rope.

  Oliver patted his chest, handing the end of his rope to Toast.

“Hold on to that. Try to get as close to the solar panel as you can. Uh, and don’t let go.”

  Once Daniel got his rope undone, he handed the end of his to Soup. Joey’s panicked voice came late to the party, watching as his seniors began letting go of the rungs of the Station.

“Uhhhhh, guys, isn’t this a bad idea?”

  Daniel patted his own chest as he pushed off against the Station to get enough momentum to reach the solar panel.

“A very bad idea. Don’t tell the Chief about this.”

  Oliver made sure both Soup and Toast had a strong grip on their ropes, both hands clutching onto them as Joey had their tethers under one of his arms while the other clung to the rungs. He nodded, curled up into a ball with his feet against the Station’s wall like a swimmer ready to spring forward. He pushed off against the wall after Daniel, heading for the solar panel just out of their reach.