— 56 Hour Remain —

Five stared at the makeshift panel, the extra slate she’d charged and half-connected above the broken screen was finally ready to receive a signal. It was almost connected. She pulled the soldering iron she’d packed from her belt and began sealing the last connections. She could only hold things in a simple claw grip through the oversized gloves, but it was enough to press the small metal wire into place to put the connections together. Hours of work out in the vacuum of space was finally coming to a head. She smiled to herself as she watched the slate begin booting up, reading the signals it was starting to receive, and reached down to press the radio button again.

“Aaaand… there. AH-!” she let out a surprised cry as electricity arced from the panel, striking her suit. Thankfully, it was insulated to shock and she didn’t actually feel anything from it directly. “Oh! Oh wow! That was bright!” she called out shakily.

As the engineering module began to turn, she let out a cheer and pumped her arm as best as she could in celebration “Yes! I told you I could do it!” she waited a moment for a reply, but none came. She pressed the radio button a few times, but it didn’t even make a clicking noise “Ugh… seriously?” she shook her head, figuring that the shock must have damaged the radio system.

And that’s when she noticed she was beginning to float freely. The magnetism of her boots must have been powered in the suit’s control unit as well. “Okay, no need to panic. That’s what the cable is for.” she tried to assure herself. Reaching out to grab hold of her lifeline, she pulled it taut… and found that it led right through the space between the engineering module and its enclosure.

That’s when she panicked “Wait… wait wait, no, don’t…” she pulled on the cable, but found it was stuck on something. She’d just be crushed if she pulled herself through there. And the cable was probably going to lose out against the heavier machinery turning around. Five started to breathe heavily, eyes darting back and forth between the panel and the cable.

She could pull the panel back off, maybe it would stop the module from spinning, but she wasn’t sure if she could fix it again after that. She couldn’t doom them like that. Then she noticed as the module spun, there was an opening. It was just a small corridor, but it was an opening. She looked down to where it was turning and saw the other end of it at waste processing. The access hatch that had been on the ceiling before!

Five took a quick look in every direction to see if there was anything else she could use, but it wouldn’t be long before she lost her only line giving her control of her own movement. Frantically, she pulled herself down against the station again and then looked up, calculating her trajectory quickly, and with a desperate grunt, launched herself to the rotating access corridor. As she floated, she felt the tension of the cable go loose. Something had snapped it, just like she thought. If she missed, she would be drifting out into open space.

Terrified, she kept her eyes on the access corridor and saw she was just slightly off from what she predicted. She quickly unhooked the prybar she had on her belt and winged it as hard as she could into space. Just a slight shift in momentum, and she found herself hitting the top corner of the corridor just in time, where she hung on for dear life. Clambering to the inside, she panted loudly, tears in her eyes as she relived the terror of that moment over and over again, unable to calm herself even though she had reached the relative safety of the door. “Never again. Never going into space ever again! I never want to SEE space again!” she cried to herself as she secured what was left of the cable to the ladder inside the turning chamber.

—

— 54 Hours Remain —

It was a long, terrifying wait for the corridor to snap into place against the rest of the station, and Five was in tears when she felt the chamber locking itself mechanically to waste processing. The moment the room started to pressurize and the familiar pull of gravity started pulling at her consistently again, she was weeping in relief. She was done being the hero, damn being the brave one, Two could keep the role. She was exhausted and as the room filled with air, she unlocked her suit helmet, dropping to the bottom hatch. She just lay there, crying to herself, thankful to be alive, but torn apart by the experience of what she’d just gone through.

But she was safe. And that’s all she could think of as she drifted off into well-deserved rest.

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—

— 44 Hours Remain —

Five woke slowly from her heavy sleep. She had grown used to sleeping on metal at this point, and she found herself pleasantly refreshed at first. That was, until she got a good look around and remembered the circumstances that had brought her here. She breathed heavy as she relived those tense few moments again. She shook her head “No… the others. They probably think I’m dead.” she mumbled to herself, trying to distract herself from that memory.

She pulled herself out of the EVA suit and turned it around to inspect the controls on the front. There was a black streak across it and the panel was bent inward. It must have taken the brunt of the electrical arc that hit her. She shook her head as she held onto the corner of it, carefully prying it up to see the inside “Fried.” she muttered, tossing it aside. It was useless now.

She turned her attention to the room. A hatch up and a hatch down. She knew that going up would just lead to engineering, which was still closed off from the rest of the station because of her, so instead she focused on the lower hatch. She groaned as she inspected it though. The hatch’s release mechanism looked to be broken off. Damaged by eons of exposure to debris no doubt. She screamed out as she kicked the hatch, hoping she might just stomp right through it, but there was no such luck.

Looking up instead, she found the upward hatch was surprisingly intact. She rolled her eyes “Better than sitting in here.” she mumbled, releasing the mechanism and climbing her way up into engineering.

There, she saw an absolute mess. The machinery had all fallen to one corner after the rotation, thankfully away from the hatch she had been under “Not out of this yet.” she mumbled, approaching the door she knew was welded tight. “Hot in here…” she mumbled, unaware of the atmospheric problem the station was facing “Okay… okay, the plan… radio. There’s gotta be some way to contact the others. They can probably open the hatch on their side with my tools.”

Five began digging through all of the boxes of scrap she’d left in the engineering bay. She cursed herself for not leaving better tools and materials on this side of the door, but how could she have known she’d be stuck here later on?

It took her a few hours, but she cobbled together enough radio parts to make a transmitter. It wasn’t pretty. She didn’t even know if it would work. And she also didn’t know that nobody was still at the helm to listen for her. But she broadcasted a wide range signal to make sure the station would pick it up. She sat down on the floor around the transmitter, sitting back and waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

It quickly became agonizing. She didn’t know why, but she was feeling way more tired than she thought she should be.

—

— 42 Hours Remain —

Five began to notice that she was breathing heavier. The air was becoming thicker. Something was wrong, and no one had answered her signal yet. Five decided at last that she was on her own. She’d have to make her own way back into the station.

She began to move around the machinery that she could. She had to make something, and without some serious muscle, there weren’t many of the machines that she could hook back up and use in their position. It was something though. She drew up plans on the wall using a piece of chalk she’d found. It would have to be something thin to get through the door. It would have to cut. A power saw with a long blade.

It took her a full day of hard work. She kept an eye on her transmitter, but there was still nothing. She salvaged an engine from the refuse and extruded a few panels to make an assembly for the blade. She cut teeth into a carbon steel disk herself using hand tools. It was ugly, but it was quickly coming together.

—

— 32 Hours Remain —

Five was panting hard. She was becoming dizzy. The air felt like poison. But she had to keep going. The saw was shoved into the space between the doors, and was resting on the top weld. “Okay… come on Five… This has… this has to work. If it doesn’t…” she shook her head “Don’t think about it. Let’s get out of here.” she flipped the switch and the electronics hummed to life. The tool was gloriously unsafe, but it started spinning.

The saw shot sparks down into the floor, and Five did her best to shield her eyes behind the large tool. She tried not to think about the sparks shooting into her eye. She tried not to think about what she might have left near the door on the other side. She tried not to think about what she might have missed in the station that she was becoming so desperate for clean air. She tried not to think about her homemade saw snapping in half partway through the cut.

Instead she thought about Two, Three, and Seven. She had to get back to them. She told them that she would come back no matter what, and she was going to, dammit. She had to.

And before she knew it, the saw hit the floor. She was shocked at how quickly it had gone. That it hadn’t broken on her. That the motor hadn’t simply failed. She pulled the tool back and hurriedly hit the door switch, shuddering as she saw the doors begin to stretch open. She couldn’t believe it. It worked.

And right there, at the edge of the door, she saw Two just standing there looking probably just as shocked, and Five wanted to cry. But something in her calmed down on seeing her face. She felt like she was home. And so she just said the first thing that came to her mind. “Remind me never to weld anything shut… ever.” she said as her vision blurred and her body relaxed all at once, the saw spinning to a stop while she fell back into exhausted sleep.