Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Juno tried to hide her relief.

‘Get a little sleep,’ Fae said. ‘I’ll need you tomorrow. You did a good job tonight. All the right things.’

Juno and Harry wandered dazedly into the darkness of the corridor. The only illumination came from the yellow glow of the caution lights.

‘It could have been us. Not Orlando.’ Harry stopped walking for a moment, leant against a wall.

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Why wasn’t it?’ He looked at Juno as if he really believed that she might have an answer.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I mean… it just seems so random. So random and so fucking stupid. I can think of all the different ways it might have not happened. All the times to turn around. To tell them to check the fuel tank again. To…’ Harry slammed his fist against a wall, and Juno saw that his eyes were wet. ‘He saved my life, you know.’

‘Who?’

‘Commander Sheppard.’ Harry swallowed. There were bloody smears on the wall-panelling behind him. ‘It could have been me. It should have been.’

Juno was startled by this show of emotion. She reached out to put her hand on his arm, but he pushed her away, ‘Don’t touch me,’ he said, then jabbed a finger at the door of the infirmary. ‘You better do everything you can.’

‘I will.’

‘You better not let him die.’

‘I won’t,’ said Juno foolishly. ‘I promise.’

IGOR AND ELIOT SAT on the control deck while Astrid paced. Poppy was jabbing at buttons on the communications panel, tear stains making dirty tracks under her tired eyes. All over the room monitors were flashing with warnings and error messages. On the dashboard, instrument gauges were spinning. They barely noticed Juno as she entered.

‘Umm… hi.’ Her voice was soft.

Astrid spun around. ‘How is he doing?’

‘Badly,’ Juno said. ‘Fae did what she could but he’s probably bleeding into his brain. He’s stable now. Sort of. We might just have to wait and see if he wakes up. There’s not much we can do. It’s not like there’s a neurosurgeon on board.’

‘Neurosurgeon?’ Astrid’s voice was weak with horror.

Juno stepped further onto the flight deck. ‘So, the lights aren’t back on.’

‘No.’ Poppy shook her head. ‘We’re asking Ground for their recommendation but – as you know – past Europa, communication’s pretty patchy. Our telemetry systems constantly broadcast information about the Damocles back to mission control, so by now I’m sure they know something’s wrong with the ship. Though they might not know the extent of the damage.’

‘And what is it?’ Juno asked. ‘The extent.’

‘We’re looking at a real four-point failure,’ Igor said. ‘We were hardest hit in quadrant three. That whole area is depressurized, which means we’ve lost access to – amongst other things – the equipment bay. There was a collision in the service module as well.’ Fear ripped through Juno’s stomach. The service modules were the uninhabited modules that contained most of their life support equipment, the fuel cells and oxygen storage tanks, the main computer, the thermal control systems.

‘There’s been quite extensive damage to the greenhouse and the breathing equipment too.’ Juno thought about the shattered spires and the algae sloshing across the ground. Igor said it all slowly. ‘Until we find a way to fix the fuel cells, we’ll be relying on storage batteries.’

‘Which will last how long?’ Juno asked.

‘Two days,’ Astrid replied. ‘Two and a half maybe.’

‘Why can’t we just hurry up and fix the broken fuel cells?’ Juno asked.

‘That’s the plan. It’s not so simple, though,’ Astrid said. ‘There’s a hole in the hull. Both those quadrants have depressurized. To go in to fix it we’d have to do a full EVA.’ Juno tried to imagine Eliot and Igor outside the ship, struggling to fix the broken fuel cells with the clumsy gloves of their spacesuits.

‘Should Igor perform a spacewalk?’ Juno asked. She wanted to add in his condition, but the rest of the crew guessed her meaning.

‘We’d need another pair of hands,’ Igor agreed. ‘Harry’s injured. So Astrid, probably.’

‘So, we’ll fix the fuel cells and everything will be okay,’ Juno said. ‘I mean, we’ll get back on track?’

Igor lowered his gaze. ‘As Commander Sheppard would say, insh’allah. We’ll try tomorrow. Get some sleep tonight.’

‘How can we sleep?’ Poppy asked, the static on the monitor shining a grey light on her pale skin. ‘We sent out a distress signal hours ago. But I’m not getting a response.’

‘Give it some time,’ Igor said.

‘We don’t have time,’ Poppy muttered. Juno knew that Poppy was thinking about the fifty hours of power they had left, or the thirty hours of oxygen. Juno was, too.

‘Waiting here and worrying won’t get us a response any faster.’ Igor’s voice was firm now. ‘I want you to all go to bed.’ He climbed with wincing effort out of the commander’s chair. ‘Besides,’ he added as if on second thought, ‘Sleep will save oxygen.’