23 April 2012
'Of what nature?' My lips move dryly, cracking and fluffing as my tongue flops about my throat. I can feel reality dawning, it's light penetrating my sky and the blissful dark being lifted. My senses go numb, and my ears are suffocated by the air and heat, muffled and washed.
'a small asteroid strike lasting no more than five minutes, in around an hour's time. All Shields are operational, except from over area FL2614 and SSD37. Just a quick circuit switch should do it.
Oh hell. Oh hell oh hell oh hell. SSD37 is fine: just a spare storage compartment, and completely empty, but FL2614... FL. for flora. The orchard was FL2611. if the shields aren't operational, then all manner of surrounding areas could be affected. I cannot- Will not- let that happen.
Rushing, now. Sprinting down ever more corridors, feet clattering on the grating as smells of oil and sweat run past me. Suit checks and preparation took a good half hour. The process of finding the terminal could take at least twenty minutes. I need to go faster.
My legs arch in motion, overalls stretching with each stride or leap. The external maintenance preparation room seems too far away, each door feeling like it takes a year to open, fingers shaking more with each insertion of code. Finally I reach it, tumbling through the frame and quickly sealing the door with a deep THUNK. I shove a clenched fist, side on, at the red button on the wall beside me, as orange lights start to flash above my head, and the familiar beep-beep of the airlock sets in. I grab the suit, clipping in the shoulder pads and boots with slick efficiency. The blood seems to be plummeting through my veins now, anticipation and stress bouncing off the Walls of my head. Each breath Is more time wasted, and I hit my head while throwing on the helmet, before fastening all safety-seals on the gloves and air-tubes. My throat feels scorched, and my heart thumps into my head, like pulsating sandpaper. Quicker, quicker... I pace on the spot in await of the de-pressurisation. There. Now. A clunk. A whirr. A seeping sensation. And space.
Quickly I grab the toolkit, guiding it over my head in the airless rush. I don't have much time. The suiting took longer than it should have, and now the seconds are edging away from me.
Grabbing the handrails, I pull myself along the vast metal hull, skimming it like a stone, toward the protruding box of circuits a hundred metres along. Ever closer, now, I fly, taking no notice of how my breath clouds the visor, or of how my gloves feel too tight, or of how all sounds collect like in a seashell from in here.
Finally, I reach it, clambering up it until I reach the lid marked GNRTR.2614. I unscrew quickly, glancing down at the countdown to check the situation. Three minutes till impact. The interior lights in my helmet provide me with some kind of sight, but the distant sun casts little brightness here, and my gloved hands ineptly fumble with the wires and switches. I glance to the shield generator light, which flickers half-heartedly at me.
'Fuck!'
A smaller strike must have torn through the circuit, and it's too late for any large scale repairs. I stomp a hard booted foot onto the cursed Container, taking time to delve further into the compartment in search of more wires. I glance to my wrist again. One minute. Desperately I clutch at the two shattered ends, trying to force life into them, coaxing the safe blue glow back into existence. But to no avail. I can only wait, and hope, now. I begin to feel all manner of pain up my lower legs, my back shaking in the pressure.
Eleven seconds. I feel a small tear exit my eyelid and float through the air in my headpiece, wobbling in fear. Six seconds. I see the first clump of rock, moving faster than any vehicle imaginable. Two seconds. They zoom closer, now. One second...
A shudder tears through the curved side of the ship, as a rip appears two metres from me. Suddenly, all around me, tiny little ultra-bright dots of inside start to appear, some millimetres wide and others a foot across.
None seem to hit through the orchard, those that do being destroyed by the shields and pinpoint canons. However, I do not notice what now hurtles towards the weak point in the link. Not until right when its about to hit. It takes me a couple of seconds, but when I get it, I almost cannot believe it.
An engine: a great, 30ft, gunmetal grey stardrive, newish looking but burnt beyond repair. It rushes towards me, and the planets seemed to drop out of the sky. It's just me, the orchard, and the piece of starship. No time to wonder where it could possibly have come from, no time to ponder anything. All I can do is cling to the terminal for dear life and wait...
And then it hits.
A great ripping, shredding, tearing vibration etches through my skull, my eyes clenched like fists, screaming and screaming until my voice goes hoarse. I dare not open them for what I might see, but I must. I must. I open my eyes.
Trees. Innumerable, trailing, twisting, floating trees. They glide from the rip created in the side of the damned vessel like pollen from the door. Like snow. Millions upon millions. No lilac lights, just the cold grey exterior damage floodlamps flippantly catching the last of the twining, tumbling, terrible feast of bark and leaf. A single utterance leaves my lips.
'No.'
It cannot happen. I will not let it. There must be something I can do. There has to be.
But I know there's not. I always knew
I can see more trees now, twirling in the endless vacuum, buffeted out into pressureless nothingness, and I know I must not look on anymore at the sickening directionless falling of living matter, but I can't seem to tear my gaze away. The spectacle lasts almost half a minute, ending with the last group of trunks being forced violently out of the gash. I turn: close my eyes. I always knew this trip was Bound for failure. Every part of it cried suspicion and disorganisation, and as I begin to silently cry in the limitless, stretching blackness, something catches my eye. A lone tree, caught in the gash. Too big to fit through, but with the top branches and upper trunk wedged between the torn and wrecked walls of the starship's tag. The letters of the name are almost indecipherable, but still remain strong: the UEC Columbia, with the deserted tree stuck in the middle of the 'o'. The lonely tree. My tree. The biggest thing in the orchard, and now the only thing in the orchard. While all the rest had rushed from their beds like blood from a wound, it had stayed. To guard me. To say goodbye.
I can see wood snapping, twigs from it's once great branches being pulled away from eachother in protest.
I stay a while. To wish it well. To be with it as it dies. It's just a bloody tree, I know, but it was mine. My very own. I was the only one who knew of it. Who pruned it when it grew too large. And now it's dying.
Bent double in agony, the pain of a simple loss making it's way through my veins like a poison, I trace my rungs back to the hatch, shaking in the dark. Even with no blockages, the stars seem darker from here, like we went away from them when we blasted off. Little pinpoint dots of spark and flair, so distant and so big, yet so close and so small. Like my tree. Far away from me, huge with it's structure, close in my keeping, and yet tiny compared to it's home.
I struggle with the door, eyes streaming in despair and anger, my mouth filling with hollow, thick words. My stomach feels empty of crying, losing the will to give more. Fingers, scrabbling now, twisting at the lock, pushing all visible buttons, retyping and retyping lines of password and code, but to no avail. I check the oxygen monitor on my wrist. The tiny flashing diode points to the '5' signal. Only five minutes.
My shaking hands can barely even hold to the hull, as I re-adjust my grip, trying one more time to manually open the airlock.
The diode has shifted.
The door won't yield.
I glance furtively around for some kind of help, but none comes. No form of inspiration. No other hatchway. I cannot even begin to think what suffocating must be like. I do not want to. I want to be back in my orchard with all doors closed and no Gen-E. No nothing. Just the orchard.
CLUNK.
WHIRRR.
And I feel a small hand pull me into the warmth.
Any comments appreciated :)
The Orchard Part 3 • Opuss № I