Lost in Space
Houston there’s a problem
“Is that the last of it?”
“Yeah.”
The orange flavored beverage was tart and the bubbles were nice. I savored it. It would only be water after this.
“Care for another?” he asked, extending a piece of the white nutrition cube.
We’d run out of dehydrated food days ago. Budget cuts meant shorter missions only got Nutri-cubes, but the long mission still got some sense of real food, to keep up morale they said.
The waxy cube didn’t taste like much, just the barest hint of vanilla, and cardboard.
Jake floated back over to his station. We’d cut the gravity generator a week ago.
“Still no word?”
He just shook his head.
I spent the next twenty minutes staring out of the window. I never got tired of looking at the stars. Especially with the lights dimmed so much the view was truly something spectacular.
I watched Jake staring at the monitors, looking for something he missed..
I wadded up my sweatshirt and sent the makeshift ball flying at him.
“What the heck?” he said.
“Spaceball, don’t let it get past you.”
He smiled and sent the ball flying back. I caught it, spun, and sent it back where it flew by him.
“One to nothing.”
“You’re on.”
We played for nearly a half hour.
“Ugh, I’m starving now,” he said.
“Dinner’s on me,” I said, tossing him a cube.
“God, you think they could have made chocolate ones.”
“That would be amazing right now.”
“A chocolate shake, from the Cantina at Orbital Base. I’d kill for one right now.”
“Ugh, my mouth.”
“With fresh whipped cream.”
“You’re literally killing me right now.”
“Then you go down and watch the artificial sunset set. It’s just the best.”
“You just liked the girl who worked there.”
“I know. I’m going to miss her. I wonder if she’ll think about me.”
“Maybe when they announce the lost mission.”
“Oh maybe we’ll get black stars at mission control.”
“White ones.”
“Really?”
“Black ones are just for those who died in combat. This would be categorized as missing or assumed lost. We made no contact with any enemies.”
“Huh, well I guess a white star is cool too.”
“Your parents will get to add them to their jumpsuits.”
“Oh that’s good I guess. Will Maria?”
“Yeah she’ll get one. The kid too I suppose when he gets older.”
“The kid?”
“Feels weird to use his name. I only knew him for two days.”
“There’s still time. You might get to see him again.”
He just shrugged. I knew it just as much as he did. We’d been out of contact for over two months. And we are just a little exploratory vessel. Nothing really valuable to go looking for.
Suddenly his face changed.
“What’s up?”
“The rebreather went down.”
“Oh god. Can you fix it?”
“I can try.”
He tinkered with it for hours.
Neither of us said anything for a long time.
Finally, I grabbed the rolled up blanket.
“First one to ten wins.”
“We should really be saving our air.”
“What for?”
“Good point.”
And so we played for a bit and for a few moments we were able to push our plight from our minds.
Something caught my attention, while playing, I thought it was the rebreather starting up.
“Did you hear something?”
“No, also that was game point.”
“Figures.”
“It will be kind of nice to go out on top.”
“How much time do we have left?”
“A couple hours I suppose, we only have the air left in this section.”
He was right, we had shut off most of the ship, to save energy.
“Come on, let’s split a Nutri-cube.”
We ate. The oxygen must have been running low because the cubes were starting to taste good.
We chatted for some time. Jake did his best to make me laugh, but I could tell he was scared.
“Do you think it will hurt?”
“Naw,” Jake said, “It’s actually better this way. Beats starving to death. That’s what was going to happen. Now it’ll be like drifting to sleep.”
“Okay,” I said.
Death sat in the corner just out of sight. He didn’t have the heart to pull the dead man away. The younger man had been talking to him for some time. He checked his watch.
He decided to wait a few minutes to reap them together.
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Matthew that was wonderfully written and so sad. There's so much to unpack in that story; the cheapness of the government in feeding the mission, the isolation and the fact that one man had a child back on Earth that he will never know, and the bravery as they face eternity. Phew! You really got me with this one.
Dang, so good Matthew! Sad, but good. I'm a big space nerd so I really enjoyed this one.