The site, half-surrounded by metal woven fences, was exactly as it used to be, except for the abundance of 'Do Not Enter' tape covering the gaps. Sign posts with danger warnings had also been erected, which was startling to the three trespassers. It was Amy who voiced her concern first.
“I don't remember all this bein' here, guys.” She twanged the caution tape. “Since when did this happen?”
“What gives you the idea I have any faintest clue, Aims?” He shone his torch in her face, making her recoil from the light. “I told you, I've not been here for at least three years, even then I was only passing by!”
“Chill it out! I mean if you heard any news or whatever - get off the defensive.” She laughed, and Joe gave her a bat on the arm with his torch.
“Don't take the piss, this is just all a bit strange to me too. It's been here for years, I have no idea why they'd tape it up, now. Maybe just a council thing, a complaint from an old dude.”
“Really, Joe, just calm down, why you bein' so scared? Lost your sense of adventure or somethin'?” She received another whack from the torch by Joe.
“I am not scared. You shut your face, now.”
“Will you two love-birds shut the fuck up.” Natalie finally added to the conversation. “Giving me a God-damn headache. Look, it's just some weak shitty tape. Nothing's happened, we walk through and get a fire going, everything will be right as rain.” Amy and Joe fixed each other with an icy stare, but remained silent. Natalie had already started to walk ahead, lifting the tape and looking back to see if they were following. Amy smiled, nodded and stepped under the tape. Joe paused for a couple of extra seconds.
“What do you mean love-birds?” he accused and sped after the other two, who had rushed on ahead.
When they reached their moonlit destination, Joe finally caught up. The space shuttle lay in the field over a single grass-covered panel that would have lifted it vertically in order to point it up at the sky for lift-off. It didn't look much different from a plane with the wings at the back instead of in the middle.
“Could you two try not to leave m-”
“I thought you weren't scared, Jodie?” Nat interrupted. She always called him Jodie when she was trying to wind him up. Amy just about managed to stifle her laugh.
“I know Nat's brother ain't here lookin' after us this time, Joe, it's okay if you're scared. You can just walk back on your own, in the dark, all alone.” She shared a look with Nat.
“Yeah, Jodie. And remember, no funny shit with the girls tonight if you decide to stay, all vulnerable out here far away from civilisation.” They both looked at Joe as seriously as they could manage, watching his fuse slowly burn.
“Fuck you guys! Actually fuck the both of you!”
“No, Jodie, that's what I just said not to do!”
“Right, screw it, I'm leaving, I'm-” Amy caught him by the arm so he couldn't leave.
“Oh, we're just windin' you up, silly. Honestly! Get a sense of humour.” Amy said through a few of giggles.
“Oh, I missed you guys so-fucking-much!” Nat smirked at her friends, and then looked up at the abandoned space shuttle, marked with rust; a remnant of the past. It looked just as she remembered, and if anything had changed, it was too dark to tell.
* * *
“How's your bro, Nat? Haven't even spoken to him since that drink he bought me on my twentieth.” Joe asked.
“Oh, Chris is still a shit.” Nat smiled. “But he's well. Think they moved him again last year, somewhere safer this time, hopefully. Should be getting a phone call on Sunday. I'll let you know.”
“Cool. I keep forgetting you're sticking around for a while. Welcome back.” They shared a smile. “Didn't Chris tell us about this place, like, why it was here? I used to love his stories, I just never remembered them.” He laughed.
Amy put on her best impression of Chris she could, lowing her voice and pausing every few words to draw suspense. “...With the American interest in going further into space, however many years ago,” She gestured, with outreached arms, to the sky “Britain would join them. We developed some of our own technology to share with the allies. These shuttles were built to test that...” She paused, pleased with herself. “Or somethin' like that, anyways.”
“Not a half-bad impression.” Nat smirked. “But yeah, only about three shuttles with that goal in mind were actually launched over here. The rest they took to the US. This shuttle was supposed the be the next launch, but the team were moved a few days before. I'm pretty sure he explained how it had been deactivated, not just abandoned, too. But fucked if I remember.”
“Hah yeah...” Joe said. “'So no ideas of flying off tonight.' I remember him saying, every time we came. Would be nice to see him again, actually.”
“I'll tell him you miss him dearly.” Nat laughed. Nobody else spoke for around a minute. The fire's calming growl was nice, it drew her in and her mind wandered.
“Earth to Nat.” Amy said. This broke her concentration.
“Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to remember exactly how long ago it all was.” She said, poking down her last batch of wood for a re-fill. “Bloody long time.”
“I dunno.” Replied Amy “You gettin' all nostalgic on us? Big city life made you forget about us 'til now?”
“Don't be a fuck-wit! I just wanna figure out the times n' shit. Joe?”
“Let me think.” He paused, counting on his fingers. “Wait, do you mean when we were last together or when we last camped at the shuttle?”
“We were last together after my first year of university, which seems like a bloody long time. Four years ago, was it?”
“Well yeah, you'd have been nineteen, then Amy and I eighteen. So five years before that. Nine years ago. Does seem like a long time when you put it like that...” Joe lost himself in his own thoughts. The firelight faded a little bit, Nat's bag of firewood had run it's course over the couple of hours as they spoke about nothing. Joe, springing back from his daydream, passed her a bottle of cider. It used to be her favourite, though not anymore, but she decided not to say anything, just smile. Amy seemed pleased, though.
“Cheers, darlin'! So, anyone tellin' any scary stories or somethin' while the fire is alive? What's a camp fire without a scary story?” Amy said and looked at Joe, who looked worried, then Nat in turn.
“My storytelling is shit, you know it is...” Nat said. “But I did hear this creature story the other day about a tree that eats people. Can't remember what it's called now, but the name translates to 'I-see-you' or some shit. Creepy fucking stuff.” Amy seemed unimpressed.
“Great, well even if there was a story there, you've sucked the life out of it, ain't ya? Why do-”
“Um, guys.” Joe cut in. “Can you hear voices?” Amy frowned at him and shook her head.
“Lame try, dude.”
“No, seriously I'm not joking. I can hear someone speaking.” Joe said and all three of them listened in silence for a short while.
“Can't hear shit.” Nat said finally. “Anyway, Aims – I don't think I have any other stories..”
After twenty minutes the fire was almost completely dead, they drank their drinks, took it in turns to pee around the other side of the shuttle, and unscrewed the hatch to go inside.
It wasn't until their third camping trip to the shuttle, when they were children, that they realised they could get inside. It was bigger than they realised, with rooms in every direction for every purpose. Only Chris was strong enough to open the hatch originally, so when he gave in to their nagging and gave the door a try, they were all very excited about exploring. After they had tired of exploring, they decided to sleep in the cockpit, with all the seats and buttons. What once was wonder, was now awe as Natalie remembered every time they had been here before. The cockpit was clean, which seemed strange as they always used to find their muddy tracks and rubbish from their last trip. However, it had been a long time and they weren't the only people who knew about the shuttle, so she paid it no mind. Each of them sat in their respective seats and continued to talk. Joe slipped into his sleeping bag and sat in his chair, while the girls left theirs on the floor and used their pillows to sit on and warm the seats.
“We should have brought more food.” Amy started. “I'm getting' hungry again.”
“Oh, shush,” said Joe “We ate plenty. I brought breakfast, but there's no chance you're starting on it now. You'll get fat.”
“Maybe I want to be fat!” Amy said with a glare.
“Oh, you two never stop, do you?” Nat interrupted. “Here, I've got crisps and dip if you want some.” She crunched a few in her mouth to emphasise her point. Amy got up and went over to sit on the arm of Nat's chair and grabbed a stuffed hand from the packet.
“Thanks, Nat. Best flavour, too! Mmm.” She continued to oversell her enjoyment of the food, quickly glancing back to frown at Joe. Nat started to explain her unhealthy diet from when she was away from home.
“Umm, guys.” Joe said. “Something's not right.” Though neither of the girls paid him attention. “Guys, we're moving!” He said a bit louder but they continued to ignore him. “Can you not feel that?” Joe shouted above the girls' chatter and the rumble of the raising platform forced them to pay attention. They both stood up and froze in confusion. Amy began sliding to the back of the room, followed by a sleeping bag and two pillows, and after a few more degrees, Natalie.
“What the fuck is happening?” Nat shouted. “No, seriously, what the actual fuck?”
Joe slid out of his sleeping bag and jumped down onto the wall, which was now the floor, to join the others. “I don't know, but I really don't like it. Are we taking off? I think we should get out of here.”
“Obviously we should fucking get out of here, Joe!” Nat replied, but Joe had already started down the rungs which were previously on the floor. Nat followed closely after and realised that Amy was too busy hyperventilating to think for herself, so she grabbed her by the arm until she followed down the ladder.
Sixty seconds 'til lift off...
The stoic female voice sent a wave through the ship and a shiver down Nat's spine. She looked below at the ladder to find that Joe hadn't slowed down for them and was already stepping onto the path to the outer hatch.
Fifty seconds 'til lift off...
Nat finally made it down to the corridor and saw Joe struggling to twist the wheel on the door. She started towards him, but Amy pushed ahead of her.
Forty seconds 'til lift off...
“Get us out! Open the door! Open the door!” Amy barely stopped herself before reaching Joe and grabbed a hold of the wheel alongside him. Pulling with both their strength they couldn't manage to undo it.
Thirty seconds 'til lit off...
Walking up just behind the two yanking at the wheel, Nat pressed a glowing green button labelled 'Decompression.' A loud hiss could be heard and the door wheel gave way so fast both Amy and Joe fell.
Compression compromised, lift off shutting down...
A brief wave of relief sighed through all three of them, before they realised their next problem. With the door opened, Nat joined the other two in peering down the one-hundred and fifty foot drop to the ground. Further, including the pit where the panel, which was now the only thing holding them up, used to be.
“Heh, so this thing works.” Nat said after a twenty-ish second silence.
“How are you so damn calm?” Yelled Joe.
“I'm bloody not, Aims, I'm just good at dealing with the panic. Anyway, I assume there's a button that puts us back on the floor. Let's go find the shit.”
“Okay,” Said Joe “Lead the way, then, smart-arse.”
Minutes went by of the three searching for the right button in the cockpit – or indeed searching for anything that might help. Using the chairs and other various things around the room they had to climb up to where everything was. Amy jumped from one of the back chairs and grabbed onto a handle on the side of the room, which flipped open, dropped her with it, sending papers and packages flying across the room. Amy sat, dazed, in a heap of things. Joe picked up and examined a first aid kit, and Nat picked up a fan-folded paper that looked like a drawing.
“Well fuck, this might be useful.” She lifted up her page showing the others a full sized map of the shuttle, with all the rooms.
“Nice find, even if it did cost me a bruise on my arse.” Amy mused. “Maybe there's a manual on the control thingy. Showin' how to set us down, or somethin'.”
“Shh!” Joe interrupted, for the second time that evening. “I hear talking, do you hear talking?” They all listened, Nat heard a couple of taps on the ladder outside, but they were faint so she dismissed them. There was nobody else on the shuttle with them.
“Probably something falling, we are the wrong way up and shit.” Nat shrugged and carried on searching.
“How do you reckon it started anyway, I didn't press anything.” Joe said, almost defensively. Amy frowned.
“Mhmm, sure. I bet it was you, pressed the big red button or somethin'.”
“To save another fucking spat,” Nat interrupted. “Let's assume remote access.”
“Well that would be much worse.” Said Joe. “That would mean someone is actually trying to launch the ship.”
Compression achieved.
All three of the young adults froze.
Sixty seconds 'til lift off...
They scurried and yanked at the door on the floor. Amy got there first, started pulling it from the wrong way in panic.
“Oh God, oh God!” Joe started chanting. “I hate time limits...”
Fifty seconds 'til lift off...
“Give it the fucker here.” Nat pushed Amy out of the way and tried the door herself. It was locked after all, not just Amy's fault. She searched for a way to unlock the door without much success.
Forty seconds 'til lift off...
Thirty seconds 'til lift off...
Nat finally managed to find a button on an outer wall by a bunch of messy papers, clearly titled 'Lock'. Amy must have knocked it when she fell from the cabinet-of-many-things. She took a moment to appreciate that all the buttons were labelled pretty clearly on the walls. But not the one they needed fifty seconds ago.
Twenty seconds 'til lift off...
They raced down the ladder, running to try to open the hatch, again and stop the lift off.
Ten seconds 'til lift off...
When Nat reached the corridor she looked just in time to see that as Amy, who had reached the button first, was about to press the green button, it turned red. 9 She pushed it. 8 It did nothing. 7 She pushed it again, 6 and again, and again 5 in stunned silence. 4, 3, 2 Joe looked around at Nat with the widest she had ever seen eyes stretch.
Lift off...
The three of them were held fast to the wall in the centrifuge. The rumbling shook Nat's skull to painful levels and she felt intensely sick. She was pretty sure she heard Joe try to speak but the rumbling overwhelmed him. She felt a jolt as the giant fuel tank on the other side of the lifting plate detached itself, having used all it's fuel to push higher into the atmosphere. Before long everything went fuzzy, then it was hard to think, and then there was only blackness.
* * *
When Natalie woke, she was floating.
Her vision was blurry and her insides felt strange. There was a distinct smell of vomit. She regained her composure and wriggled around the space ungracefully. She had not trained for this. It wasn't so apparent to her until now how much everything was just that dull grey metal of typical space colours. Why weren't astronauts more invested in some nice scenery, she thought. A few greens would be nice around here. The quiet made itself known, and Natalie felt almost calm, even relaxed. Amy broke her concentration with a groan as she came to. Nat hadn't even noticed her until now and she focused – trying to understand what was happening. She was in space, Amy was here but Joe was not. She shook Amy by the shoulder and motioned for her to follow. The shuffling through space didn't take long to get sort of used to, though they both were a little clumsy. They propelled themselves towards the cockpit using the rungs of the ladder, creating deeply echoed taps through to the other end of the shuttle. The back of the shuttle was eerily dark. Not deep-space blackness, but that artificial darkness accompanying a night-time power cut. She opened the door to the cockpit and pushed herself through. Joe was inside, reading one of the papers scattering the airspace around the room.
“Where was that map, Nat? The one you had before?”
“Fuck-sake Joe, how long have you been in here? You seem pretty fucking cosy.” Nat replied. Amy was staring out one of the windows.
“Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow. Guys, we're actually in space! Floatin' around... in space!” She squeaked in excitement, Nat scarce thought she'd seen Amy this excited before.
“Am I the only one here who understands the shit-storm we're in right now? Y'know, fearing for my fucking life?”
Joe looked up from his page. “Trust me, when I say I'm more scared than you are, Nat. But you were the one talking about dealing with the panic. Anger isn't helping me look for this page, is it!”
“No, Jodie, it isn't! But neither will passive-damn-aggression.”
“You ain't understandin' this, are you guys? We're in spaaaaace!” Amy pitched in, they both looked at her with fury. “Jesus, can we not enjoy this for a little bit? Who gets a chance to go into space?”
“I'd have loved to go into space with you, Amy.” Nat said. “But not a fucking one-way trip.” Amy looked a bit stunned and went back to the window. Joe held up his hand.
“Look, I fully understand you're a bit unhappy, Nat. But Amy doesn't deserve this and it's really not helping. We could at least find a way out... I can't do this on my own.” Nat took a few breaths before replying. “Please?” He added.
“Right, okay. I stuffed the map in my pocket, it's here.” She felt around her pockets and found nothing. “Shit, I must have dropped it.”
“Probably the zero-gees!” Amy said. Nat nodded and swam her way back to the corridor, to find when she dropped it.
With Amy and Nat both looking away, Joe took the moment to try and calm himself a little and put his hands over his face. A single tear escaped and floated upwards. When he opened his eyes, he saw the globule and caught it, Amy saw the whole thing.
“You're tryin' too hard to be tough, dude. You don't have to, we're all friends here.” Amy smiled, and Joe faked a smile back.
“I know, I just figured one of us would have to take control, you know?”
“Then just let Nat do it. And stop pretendin' you're any kind o' leader. We all know she thrives on bossing others.”
“...yeah.” He said, and let out a single genuine laugh. Natalie slid through the door and Joe held her gaze. “About thirty seconds.”
“What?” Nat asked.
“Before you two came in, I was only here for about thirty seconds. I was hardly planning a wedding.”
“Oh, al'right. Point noted. I have the map here, anyway.”
“Good, can you read it? It's difficult to focus on something when my hands are shaking like a Richter nine.” Nat hesitated for a second before swallowing hard and gave a sharp nod.
“Okay, so it seems pretty straight forward from here. We're at the nose, up this way.” Nat, held the print up and pointed. “The corridor goes down the middle of the shuttle. The rooms branch off. Here, we have bedrooms. Here are bathrooms.”
“Fantastic, I could use the bathroom.”
“Shush, Amy, I'm speaking. Besides, you don't even know how to pee without gravity.” This stopped Amy in her thoughts, Nat could see her trying to figure it out. “Anyway... Here we have an infirmary, where I assume they also keep the space suits, as I saw on a film once. Here is a kitchen. I have no idea what this empty space is. But if I can remember from nine or ten years ago, that's probably a leisure room, or something. At the back here we have a fuck-off big area for storage and astronaut shit. Here is our point of interest, though, lady and lord. This room here, in this little bit of writing, claims to have an escape capsule.” Both Amy and Joe's eyes lit up at the sound of that. “So. We have three options. We try to find a radio, to call for help. We use the escape capsule to get back to Earth. Or we could hope there is some kind of auto pilot that will take us down as we are. As we do not know if any of these will work, let's just do all fucking three.”
“Okay,” said Amy “I guess I can go lookin' for the escape pod.” Joe turned toward the controls and started looking at each little gadget.
“Right, and I'll look for a radio. Can't be too hard.”
“Which leaves me rummaging through the fucking paperwork. Thanks, guys.” Said Nat, who immediately caught a couple of pages floating about and tried to make a pile. Amy pushed her way to the door of the main cabin and stared down the lone and increasingly dark corridor. She paused for a long while before she said anything.
“Yeah, I'm not going down there without a light switch.” She said. Nat laughed.
“I doubt there'll just be a flicky switch on the wall, but most of the shit around is labelled.”
“But what if it's not here? I ain't goin' out there on my lonesome!” Amy closed the door again and crossed her arms so violently, she began to front-flip on the spot. She grabbed something to stabilise herself. Nat laughed at her again.
“Honestly, we're here alone – I don't know what you're scared of.”
“Well,” Joe chipped in. “How do you know? Maybe there's a team of people running it from the back.” He shrugged. Nat rolled her eyes.
“Like fuck is there! They'd need to use this room, or they'd have at least heard us talking or some other shit. It was either an accident or the rocket was launched remotely.”
“Whatever, Nat. I can't see any radio here. So I'll go with you, Amy, and we can find some lights and the rest.”
“Thankin' you, Joe.” Amy opened the door again, and slowly used the wall to scale further down. Joe caught up and braced himself alongside her against the other wall and Nat saw them fade further into the black. A sudden sense of dread befell her.
“Wait, hold the fuck up! Don't leave me on my own!” Nat grabbed the ladder and used it to speed up behind the other two. Who were laughing at her.
“I thought you weren't scared.” They said in unison, and looked at each other in confusion.
“Oh, shut-up. Trying to use auto-pilot is a stupid idea anyway, none of us know anything about this shit.”
“Well that's why the research was your job. But fair point.” Said Joe
“Look, let's just stick together, al'right?” Nat said. Amy nodded and grabbed Nat by the arm. They carried on down the corridor, Joe used his torch when it started to get a bit too dark. They looked in at the bedrooms and kitchen, which were pitch black. Amy stopped in the bathroom and it took her almost fifteen minutes to figure out how it worked, meanwhile Joe went back to finish off the crisps and dip. When they regrouped, they seemed in fairly decent spirits until it caught Nat's attention that one of the lights was on in one of the doors down the corridor. Joe turned his torch off and they swam each other to the window and looked inside.
A man wearing large headphones with a microphone stared stunned back at the three people in the shuttle. All three of whom were speechless. His face through the small porthole window began to shrink after a huge crack sounded from inside the door. The escape capsule drifted slowly away from them. Before long, the entire pod was in full view and all four people involved simply remained dumbfounded. The capsule could easily have fit seven or eight people, though it carried only one passenger who's lips began to move. He was shouting something, but only silence could be heard.
“So, that was our escape?” Amy said, finally. Joe was too busy hyperventilating to answer and neither Amy or Joe noticed the tears drip out of Natalie. Her heart was a sunken ship wreck, and she was going to drown. It was Amy that started moving toward the cockpit, dragging Joe behind her. Nat couldn't bring herself to move from her spot, so she remained slumped – deflated by the apparent inevitable.
“Fuck” She shouted, turned, and slammed her fist on the door behind her, which pushed open. Crackling speech filled the solemn quiet of the corridor, causing Joe and Amy to turn back as quick as they could.
“The radio?” Nat sniffed. Amy pushed in front of her inside the room and Joe got out his torch, having calmed down somewhat in the face of help. When they entered, the lights turned on automatically. The room was filled with a station board, computers, comm. units and microphones. It was the room that Nat wasn't sure of on the map, which turned out to be where the radios were. So perhaps their chances were a tiny amount higher than fucked.
“Can you... me. Who... Ah, damn... Need....” The radio failed to stay on for long. It was Amy who picked up a microphone closest to where the sound was coming out and spoke back. The man kept talking, breaking up, but sounded as if he did hear something back.
“Wait, I'll... and... should, fix...” the voice continued until eventually it cleared and a slick stream vented through the room. “Can you hear me? Am I coming through?” Nat pushed Amy out of the way and grabbed the microphone.
“Yes! Yes, we can hear you. What the fuck is going on?”
“Smooth, Nat.” Joe added.
“I don't know how you got in there, but you really weren't supposed to be.” The voice replied. “Listen, I can't be giving you all the deets, but I can tell you, to be sure, you need to get off that shuttle.” Nat frowned.
“That's not helpful, you shit! Bring the capsule back!”
“No can do, I'm afraid. I've been pushed into orbit. The shuttle is low flying, so slowly in about two days I'll get low enough, with enough speed, to break the atmos; no return trips. Thing is, I don't know much about that shuttle, I wasn't the one who reactivated it, I was just assurance to see it off. It was meant to look like an accident.” There was regret in the man's voice.
“What was? What was an accident? Tell us everything you know, it might help us escape.” Nat showed no intention of lowering her voice. The pause at the other end was long.
“I'm sorry. To be sure, I am.” He eventually said, slowly and carefully. “But it's worth more than your lives. I can't tell you anything.” This took a few seconds to fully sink in.
“You.. Fucking... Wh-” Joe snatched the microphone away from Nat before she could continue.
“Look,” He said. “I'm sorry for my friend, but I'm getting pretty sick of floating about, here. What are our chances of getting off this shuttle?” The man took a few seconds to respond.
“Slim. I don't wanna lose you all hopes or nothin', but you were in the worst place at the worst possible time. I know the radio ain't connected up to Earth, but who knows what else is there? If you do find a way back, make sure nothing comes back with you, capiche? And, eh, don't tell anyone about this, or I can't ensure your lucky lives will last. Anyway, good luck.”
“Wait, what?” When there was no response, Joe repeated himself. “Who are you? What do you mean? Please, don't just leave us!” The radio was dead.
“What a prick!” Nat shouted and hit the desk. She noted that Amy was being particularly reserved, and went over to give her a hug. They both needed it. Joe held his head in his hands. The persistent darkness outside the room didn't help matters, the ship was just smatterings of grey through an abundance of blackness. Joe hadn't given up, however, he looked in each of the other rooms with his torch while the others simply followed – having no ideas of what else to do. Though Nat wasn't sure what Joe was looking for, she still held an element of hope that they could find something.
* * *
It was inside the storage room that 'something' was found. The room was a vast expanse filled with crates and tubes and basic storage equipment. In the middle of the room laid a cylindrical container with mist pouring out of the sides, it was the only thing that caused any motion in the room, so it was hard for them to not keep returning their gaze towards it. Though after searching around the room for something, anything, Joe found a few canisters that seemed like they were used the hold samples of rocks or things.
“Hey guys, I'm pretty sure I saw one of the paper thingies about these – they're used for samples to send back to Earth without returning, which means there's a chute or something to send them.”
“Interesting,” Nat said, “So what? We can send our death letters back to earth? How fucking optimistic.”
“What's in there?” Amy interrupted, pointing at what seemed like a handle to a wardrobe behind the sample canisters clipped to the wall. She made her way over, helping Joe move everything out of the way and opened it up. And it could have been their ticket home, all three of them thought it. Joe spoke first.
“You take the piss all you want, Nat. But we could always try sending ourselves home.” Behind the doors were a set of six capsules, just like the sample canisters, but much larger. Potentially large enough to fit a human or two inside.
“I'm pretty sure that's not safe, we'd suffocate in one of those.” Amy said.
“Not if we had a supply of oxygen,” Joe begun. “Besides, you heard the guy say we're in low orbit, if we pushed straight down, we might be able to break the atmosphere sooner. It'll likely have a tracker and parachute for when we get close.”
“Fantastic, but that doesn't explain how we're randomly gettin' oxygen, Joe.”
“Space suits.” Nat said, half to herself. When she realised the two were staring at her, she explained. “It might be a bit of a squeeze, but space suits are designed to regulate and time your oxygen, I think, anyway. Shit, we could probably fit a couple of bonus tanks in the capsule if we go alone.” She didn't like that last part, speeding through space alone wasn't an inviting concept. Though it could be their only way home. She also knew Joe would get quite claustrophobic, he hesitated before he spoke.
“It's worth a try. Help me carry three of these out, then.” They carried the first one out towards the room where the escape capsule was released, then a second. The work was awkward and clumsy, as while the objects weren't heavy in the zero gravity, they were still big and fairly hard to navigate by three amateurs.
On the third capsule, Amy got nudged back by the tail end and fell into a few of the smaller canisters, now free-floating, and sent them spinning across the room. One of the canisters hit a clip on the side of the smoking pot on the floor and it flipped open. All three looked at it. The lid gently rose without any resistance and what fell up out of it looked like a ball of darkness. The ball rose into the centre of the room and neither of the three could quite understand what it was, it seemed otherworldly, as if made of non-human materials. Before Nat could second-guess that she saw it twitch, a singular fat tentacle-thing folded out of the mass, followed by another and another. There were nine tentacles in total, before what was previously was a ball was now an unnatural starfish. None of them said anything, but when Joe decided to shine his torch on the blackness-material object, it shimmered, almost metallic.
When it moved, Amy jumped. It's chubby extremities pulsed inward to spindly ones and back, it's mass stretched a couple of times and it started writhing, flailing in the lack of gravity. It seemed like it couldn't get any control. The three could not take their eyes off of it, and eventually it stopped flinging it's limbs about wildly and executed a perfect spin, stopping and spreading out like a child-drawn sun. Only, without the light. It started to drift towards Joe, who, when it was close enough, ducked out of the way and left it drifting onto the wall. It stuck to the wall with an unknown grip.
“I'm going to guess that nobody else has any idea what the hell that thing is?” Amy asked, but didn't expect an answer. Seeing it closer up, it was a few feet across, just over half the height of Nat, in all directions. When it was stuck to the wall, it's middle swelled, making it like a dome. Joe shined the light directly onto it, and she saw that it was moving, like it was covered in tiny cilia that really grossed her out. She hated it. It reacted to the long exposure to the torch, shrunk and started moving towards the source. This time it was fast. Really fast. Amy let out a gasp, and when Joe wasn't quick enough, it wrapped a spindly limb around his leg. He cried out as if in pain, and Amy screamed. Nat did all she could she could think to do, which was to shove the large capsule towards it, in the hope to knock it off. Before she could, it already started at Amy, drawn to the noise.
The crawling mass stopped short of reaching Amy and, instead, seemed distracted by the open door. It slowed down significantly, resuming it's sun-like form and drifted in that direction as it if had no interest in the other three life-forms in the room at all. Joe came to his senses.
“We can't let that thing out of here!” He said, clutching his shin which had burn marks in place of missing clothing. Nat thought quickly. There was a smaller capsule floating just by the side of her, so she sent it flying towards the door, knocking it just enough to leave a half-inch gap.
“Not with us inside!” Screeched Amy, who was separated from the other two by the thing. From outside of their view, however, Joe had already managed to pull the freezer chamber it emerged from off of the ground and was hurdling towards it, presumably in an attempt to catch it. The thing, without any warning, stopped exactly as it was. As Joe got closer, it started expanding, fanning it's self out thinner, like a net. It was going to catch a twenty-something male, and successfully. It wrapped around to form a hollow husk around Joe, who couldn't stop himself in time, and it started closing in. In the gaps between the tentacles, Nat was certain she was about to see her friend die.
He punched his hand out, and pulled it back just as swift, as if touching something burning, and in doing so, he pushed the container. The cold rim touched the creature, forcing it to retract. It reacted violently, thrashing out, soundlessly. But by the time it started to grow again, the three had already raced to the door and shut it inside. It pressed itself up flat against the little window of the door. From the outside, it just looked like a lightless room. Though if you looked closely enough, you would see the oddly oily shimmer of a thousand maggoty cilia. Nat shuddered, Joe had severe burns on his hand and leg and Amy just stared at the porthole window. After a fair few seconds of shock, a sound knocked them into action. A feint hissing sound.
“Is it... burnin' through the door?”Amy asked.
“I don't want to wait to find out.” Joe replied, and what followed took just under an hour to prepare. Nat went to the infirmary, to confirm she was correct in assuming it was where the space suits were. She got them all out, found ones that would kind-of-fit all three, packed the extra oxygen tanks and figured out how they worked so that she could show the others. Joe went up to the main cabin to find out exactly how the capsules worked. They only had two, so it was important to figure out if it were possible to do. Amy mainly stayed in the communications room and occasionally checked on the 'alien' to make sure it hadn't melted out from storage. What turned out to be fifty three minutes and a hissing door later, they were ready. Time was tight, so they had to decide.
“The bad news,” Joe began. “Is that the switch has to be pressed from the outside first with one capsule at the front of the launcher. That means two people in the first one, and someone on their own.”
“I'll do it,” Said Nat without hesitation. “I'll be fine.” Joe wasn't about to question her, she knew he would prefer to be with someone else considering he would get claustrophobic anyway.
“Okay. The good news is the second one will follow afterwards on a timer, giving you time to get in and ready before.” They all nodded at this, and Nat prepared the capsules. Amy got inside first, suited up, with two bonus oxygen tanks and slid down, what now seemed like, the missile. After Amy was secure, Joe got in, lining up his face with the thick window hatch, which Nat left open from the outside.
“Remember, you each have eight-ish hours of oxygen in there. I don't know how long this will take, or if we will make it.” She looked over at the more imminent threat in the storage room. “But it's a damn sight better than staying here. Even when your oxygen runs low, stay calm. Fucking calm. You'll make it eventually.” And with that, Joe nodded. Nat pressed a few buttons and gave herself a one and a half minute timer afterwards. Amy and Joe were slid forwards and then they were gone. Nat took one last peer at the blackness behind the door, and secured her helmet, stuffed the oxygen tanks below her and got in, closing the lid behind her. She too, left open the little hatch, so that she could see outside. It scared her to think about seeing so much space, but it was vital to know if she was going to hit the atmosphere or not. She couldn't help but think how little room she had to manage her oxygen tanks, she was trapped fairly tight. She was tensing all of her muscles and the next thing she felt was herself drop. She had been been launched.
* * *
After a few hours, space was surprisingly peaceful. She figured out she needed to use her feet to drag up the oxygen tanks, but she could just about manage it. She had no concept of how far away she was from Earth or if she would even make it in time. It seemed very likely, given the speeds of things, and quick assumptions in her head.
All she could see out of the window, between her condensing breaths on her helmet, was the infinite darkness of space, scattered with a handful of stars. It was during what she thought was the third hour, when her capsule span in view of a large satellite. In the unhindered view of the structure, she spotted a single fat tentacle pressed against the window.
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