Murmansk-13

Odd then that now, as his lucidity returned in a state of emergency override, his thoughts turned to his wife. Lucia knew of his infidelity, although she pretended not to. Tor had played along, bullied her to stay in shape, knowing in any other version of the world a woman like her would never be with a man like him. She’d remained trapped and loveless because of his wealth and some small part of his mind allowed him to rationalize his betrayals because of this. Olaf had been doted upon with love by both, but without the functioning umbrella of united parentage owed to a child. His love had been meted out in individual parcels or under strained tension, the dynamic even more askew than the average child of divorce.

Ultimately it had been Lucia that bore and raised his son and now Tor felt an ineffable affection toward her he’d not felt in a long time, perhaps ever.

“Captain!”

Tala’s voice buzzed through the speaker, a wash of static feedback. His magboot reached into the twisting, velveteen emptiness of space. In his reverie Tor had drifted from the structurally weak deck, already pulled open by the impact that had gouged the hole. He could feel his internal compass spinning in disorientated paroxysms as his lucidity returned with a quickening nausea. His anchored foot bounced up and down on a portion of deck, the supporting frame of which was torn away to the celestial winds. Tor felt himself tilt sideways as his gauntleted hands reached agonizingly for the lifeline. Rubberized fingertips glancing against the tightly corded steel of the wire.

It was no use, he was going to fall.

From behind him, a deft weight surged into his back. The force was placed at such a point to thrust Tor a little up and forward. Grasping for the line, he turned to see Tala falling backward having pushed him. He knew with their limited oxygen supply that if she fell back to the airlock she would suffocate long before reaching the Riyadh.

He simply could not fail Tala and hope to live on.

With his free hand, Tor desperately tried to grab her but it was already too late. In saving him, Tala had propelled herself out of reach. Once more Tor felt the fear, had it been self preservation? Stiffen his body, clench his hand around the harshly vibrating lifeline as surely as Tala slipped from salvation. He watched her drift back, ten meters, twelve, reaching down with the toe of her magboot. At fifteen meters he saw her bend down, dialling up the strength of the magnetism. With a snapping clank and a static scream, the boots pulled Tala sharply from the airless vacuum to the deck. The wrenching force distending her leg and for a short while she rested, genuflecting in the dim and dead airlessness of the corridor.

Tor could hear her breath heavy through his speaker, punctuated with mewling pain as she stood up. She dialled back the magnetism to almost nothing on the injured leg and began limping toward the line. Each step met with an agonized cry or expletive that softened to a mere whimper as she neared.

Guilty for another failure and contrite; Tor shuffled forward on the line, suspecting Tala wouldn’t say anything due to her heritage.

“Captain,” Tala said her voice lightened with pain. “You are fucking useless.”

Tor burst into laughter despite himself, eating up more of the oxygen he hadn’t earned. She was right, Tor couldn’t let his focus slip again, if he let his mind flee to that uncaring place it would be fatal for them both.

Instead he focused on the line bowing gently as it stretched into the intangible horizon and on the Riyadh in florid albedo against the darkness of space before moving forward into the void between.

☣☭☠

The violent flicking of the lifeline made it difficult to hold, beneath their hands and through the complex polymers of the EVA suit gauntlets, the line felt alive and serpentine. The harsh steel bucked, bruising and wearying the palm, but both Tor and Tala knew each fresh handhold was another closer to safety.

They were perhaps a half way across now, the Riyadh growing infinitesimally larger with each shuffling movement as Murmansk-13 loomed behind them. The cancerous station was disintegrating as it gathered momentum, the gravitational pull of the supergiant wrenching each keyholed rivet and overtaxed plate. Great sheets of ragged aluminium fluttered from the dying leviathan, metallic petals thrown to the cosmic wind, glinting in the red starlight.

Hundreds of little geysers of escaping pressure and vaporizing fluids fantailed from fatigued welds and hairline cracks – exacerbating the decay, cutting up the station as effectively as a Bangladeshi breakers yard.