Murmansk-13

“Somebody has been looking after her, at least in a manner that’s kept her functional,” Nilsen turned to Hernandez, he looked frustrated, his face washed with the lambent blue omitted from the reactor viewport. “But that isn’t our concern, maybe there are folk on here, maybe they’re sending repair crews out. I’m inclined to think it’s the later. All I want is to get the shit we need and get back to the Riyadh.”

They’d not found Syntin or an effective fuel substitute for the Riyadh’s rockets, neither had they found any exotic matter or cryogenic fluid. In truth, they hadn’t expected to. Stations didn’t need wormhole drives and stores of fuel for elongated periods of thrust. Crews were shipped in and out on set contracts negating the need for cryosleep. Instead, the closest analogue for thrust Murmansk 13 possessed were eight small rockets positioned for orbital alignment and spin correction that worked in tandem with the orbital stabilization reactor, effectively a gravity anchor that also provided the spin for centrifugal gravity. The system worked in an automated programmed loop, with the rockets firing whenever the gravity anchor threatened to drag. Then they would fire in short rapid bursts to rectify the misalignment before a problem ever materialized. It was a surprisingly simple, if over-engineered system that worked well because of the basic programming that spoke to the various mediums of stabilization requiring minimal human input.

It was also a system that was growing old and tired, the fuel lines they’d found in the thruster compartment were near spent, mere tens of tons of marine grade diesel remained in the gently rusting pipes. Once that run out no auto routine could rectify misalignment. Steadily, the station would part from her geostationary orbit and be pulled into whichever celestial body exerted the most gravitational force, either being sucked into the milky green planet’s atmosphere and breaking up, or being slingshot into space and disintegrating.

Hernandez closed his eyes and remembered the silent rush of the debris that almost killed him and crushed the Riyadh. Murmansk-13 was already breaking up under her own centrifugal duress, casting extraneous chunks of herself into space. At a steady rate of decay she would be a mere spinning top, skeletal by the time she smashed into the surface of some planet or moon.

Or burnt up in the necrotic bloom of the supergiant.

There ain’t no maintenance crews coming here, not now anyway. Hernandez thought, but chose not to bait Nilsen. The Chief Engineer was already harried, survival plan A was a bust. They wouldn’t be flying their way to salvation, all they could do now was find air scrubbers and filters that would hopefully fit the Riyadh and turn her into a giant lifeboat. Perhaps salvage whatever propellant they could from the thrust lines to provide a tiny dose of inertia and hope the Captain’s group found a bevy of stores.

Without cryo fluid, even survival would be hell. With no means of communication, save their mindless emergency beacons; every mouthful of rations would taste like a step nearer to starvation, each breath a breath less that could be taken later on. If salvation never came, they could drift for months, recycling their scrubbers, recycling their water production filters. The air would grow steadily staler as the scrubbers became less and less efficient drawing out carbon dioxide; background toxins would build up to dangerous levels. Meanwhile, the water would grow steadily less sanitary, they would have to revert to dumping their waste from the airlocks. All the while they would be weakening, their bodies slowly consuming themselves until they drifted away, like the ship.

Once the emergency beacons ceased broadcasting, the Riyadh would become a silent tomb, a derelict with a compliment of bodies on an endless mission into the deep darkness. Hernandez shivered.

“Hernandez, get the dollie.” Nilsen said, walking away from the eddying throb of the reactor. “Let’s see if we can’t find more life support systems than the Captain can find supplies,” he chuckled mirthlessly at the dark competition.

Hernandez glanced at the time readout, built into the EVA suit at the wrist. He’d been carefully monitoring it for a while, “Chief, it’s almost been eight hours.”

“So?” Nilsen didn’t turn to look around, he continued down the gantry way that bisected the reactor compartment, toward huge steel doors designed for blast containment.

“So, Tala… sir.” Hernandez tried to control the edginess that was tempering his voice, it would take less than thirty minutes to retrace his steps back to the service corridor, to the junction where Tala had been told to meet the crew, another half hour back. Both groups agreed they would send a representative to wait for her. Hernandez wasn’t prepared to welch on a friend. He wouldn’t.