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It felt stuffy, Lily thought.
It didn’t really make sense; the air recirculators were functioning, but some time ago she noticed she was sweating.
“What’s the temperature in the pod?” she asked again.
The readout appeared in her HUD; 25.8 celsius. It was warmer than it should be.
“What is relative humidity?”
It only showed 30%.
Letting out a frustrated growl, she walked across the pod to peer in at Davyyd.
He was still breathing, his chest moving in an alarmingly fast and shallow way.
She knew that was not good; it could be from pain or a sign that he was dying. She was not sure.
The medical drone was charging, but she went over and connected to it.
“Why is he breathing hard?” she asked it softly.
“Cheyne-Stokes breathing,” it replied. She’d never even heard of that, and as soon as she saw the definition she regretted it.
“An abnormal breathing pattern of progressive faster and shallow breathing followed by an apnea.
“Frequently associated with heart failure, brain damage, or inhalation of certain toxic chemicals. Noted as occurring shortly before natural death in some individuals.”
Her head swam and she stepped back.
Davyyd was dying and she couldn’t do anyting about it.
A message came in and she jumped.
“Ms. Brogan,” it began. She recognized the clipped translated voice of a Bicet immediately. “Require that you check certain aspects of pod health. Instructions have been sent along with message – follow instructions and report results immediately.”
She saw the appended file. It was a simple text file – and there were ten copies. She wasn’t sure why until she attempted to open the first one and got a corrupt data error.
Six of the ten had the issue, and she realized that the data streams must be dropping packets. It was a common issue for drones, and she kicked herself for not realizing it earlier.
Playing back the message, she noted that the audio had a static to them that suggested the dropped data.
It made sense why they were having her check, then. If her radio went out, they’d have a hell of a time rescuing her.
She sent back a confirmation.
“I’ll check right away,” she said. “Please come help soon – we’re not doing great. Davyyd, he . . .”
She looked to the man, wondering how aware he might be. She had best not say too much.
“. . . he’s in a lot of pain. Please. Come soon.”
Sending it off, she looked at the text file.
Getting the pod’s toolkit, she found the panel indicated and opened it. There were several brackets and pipes she had to adjust to reach through.
It was clearly not well thought-out for this sort of servicing she thought as she skinned her knuckles trying to reach in for the releases.
This was drone work, she mused in annoyance. Ironic.
As she took out more and more, she noticed a strange white build-up on some of the pipes. It had no odor, but it was not a kind of build-up she’d seen before.
Getting the part cleared, she popped loose the panel, pulling it back – and gasped in terror.
She could see space.
There was no rush of escaping air, and she realized that it was not just an open port to space, but an optical panel; there to allow workmen to see parts beyond without having to actually expose the inside of the cabin to the vacuum.
Stepping closer, she peered out.
The stars beyond were white dots, solid and unchanging without a planetary atmosphere to make them twinkle.
There should have been outer hull between this panel and space. She should not be seeing these stars.
Whatever damage had distorted the thruster port must have also stripped off at least part of the outer hull . . .
Another message came in.
“Your plight is known to us, Ms. Brogan. I promise – we are seeking the best option to aid you. Please hang on. Your pod is rapidly moving away – if your search into cabin condition finds damage to outer hull, we recommend immediate termination of engines. This will aid recovery. Cutter out.”
Staring out into the stars for just a moment longer, she then hurried towards the main control panel.
The system was ready to kill the engines. Once she did it, though, she would no longer be able to restart them.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed the button to kill them.
Other Terrestrial 