Murmansk-13

Igor looked at Jamal, looked down on him, both physically and metaphorically. You’re weak and hysterical, like a woman was the big man’s appraisal. Jamal tried to steel his emotions in the sneering gaze of the giant, ogreish Slav, but his jaw betrayed him, his body convulsed as if to sob, then collapsed limp. He felt his enervated muscles scream.

Jamal allowed the increasing G to push him into the bench, the misfiring thrusters the only sound he was aware of. No muffled prayers, no sobbing, no human indication that oblivion approached. With what little movement deceleration allowed him, Jamal turned to the stars and enjoyed the odd sense of purity of his final moments. Shared condemnation in a cabin bereft of dreams, bereft of a future.

☣☭☠

The strident sound of the stations klaxon tore Katya from a forgotten dream. Her heart thundered in her chest as she grasped at cigarette smelling bed sheets. Where was she? A wave of nausea proceeded foggy memories of the night before – snippets of her leaving party, parched mouth and furred tongue.

What was that sound? The wailing klaxon filled her cabin, double berth but hers alone. Claustrophobia tugged at her senses, seven shorts wails, followed by one prolonged. General alarm, no command over the PA. She had to muster at her emergency point.

She rolled out of her bunk, catching her foot on the incongruous mock mahogany bedside table that lay at the wrong end. Katja hopped, tried to will away the familiar pain but merely promulgated the throbbing headache that was only worsening under the sounds of crisis. Her brain seemed velcroed to the inside of her cranium.

The severity of the situation caught up with her sleep and drink addled conscience, snapping her to some form lucidity. She stood in day old panties and an alcohol stained tank top. Got to get on some clothes.

“Shit, shit.” Fag buts were strewn over her lab gear, professional, but what did she care, she was going home today. She hoped.

She tugged on her station issue gray velour jumpsuit, Murmansk-13 insignia on the upper arms, an abstract of the Starburst constellation with the station silhouetted against the nearby red supergiant. She limped to her cabin door and pulled on grippy soled slipper boots, also station issue. Tentatively she peered into the habitation corridor.

District Three was dormant save for the incessant klaxon, deafeningly ignorable. Emergency strip lights lit an empty space, a plastic veneered corridor devoid of charm gently curved into the dim distance. Katja felt a first pang of fear, a sick emptiness in her stomach. This wasn’t like the frequent false alarms and drills, there was a wrongness here.

Where the hell was everybody else?

She lifted her feet, doubtful she’d reach a jog but quickly burst into a sprint. Adrenaline brought sobriety and clarity. She padded down the corridor, aware her booties no longer made that suckering sound they had when new.

Habitation appeared deserted, she reached the lifts but recalled her basic station familiarization to avoid the use of lifts in cases of emergency. It had been a day spent with her fellow newbies being shown around District Three by the district safety officer, a young jobsworth barely three years her senior who relished his authority.

She burst through the doors to the stairwell, ringing with the call of the klaxon, and headed up. After all, up was out. How annoying that the idioms of the safety officer were of practical use.

Katja powered up the stairs, but the heady concoction of adrenaline and fear was soon betrayed by her body. Three months of uninhibited station living; work, alcohol and isolation – not to mention gym and recreational avoidance – had not left her in the in the lithe condition she’d sailed through her medical in. As a teenager she’d been prone to puppy fat and it had returned with vengeance once she was hidden from the critical eyes of her mother and peers.

She paused, pulling at the fabric of the now too small jumpsuit. How long was the appropriate evacuation time? Fifteen minutes? It already felt like half an hour had passed, though it had probably been less than five. She pressed on as sweat beaded on her body, rolling in the void between skin and velour. Passed two floors of abandoned promenades, the recreation atrium and two half floors of soundproofed wiring cofferdams.

The fifth floor up was Laboratories and Medical Bay. Katja’s workplace. Double doors rocked on their hinges by some phantom zephyr. Her heart was racing again, and not through exertion. She pushed through the doors.