Suri’s Sure Thing – Chapter 14

“Everyone strap in,” I direct as I power up the escape pod.

Escape pods can jettison at a moment’s notice, but not until a ship leaves spaceport. With no one at the helm and the ship not fully functional, the escape pods have only a few functions to get us out of here. I’ll have to do some things on manual control. Fine. I can do that.

Erik secures Tsuki back in the webbing before strapping himself into one of the side chairs.

“Can you fly this thing, Suri? I thought you were a quality assurance specialist?”

“I am a quality assurance specialist, but I’m not just a quality assurance specialist if you know what I mean.” I smile as I flip the main power switch. The life support powers up first, followed by propulsion, communications, and on and on down the line, just like I observed last week when I was checking this pod. “It’s a good thing I was working on escape pods for the last two weeks. Before that, I was testing bathrooms, and before that, it was solid waste systems.” I wait for everything on the list to hit one-hundred percent status.

“I’m beginning to think my life as a project manager is really dull,” Erik says.

Once everything comes online (in the space of forty-six seconds, not bad), four options appear on the screen: planetary descent, low orbit, high orbit, and three thousand meter distance. There is also a manual option in the bottom right corner, kinda tucked away. It only should be used if you know what you’re doing. Which I do not. So, I won’t touch that for now.

I know from testing that once I make a choice, I can override the controls at any time, and a new option can be chosen as well. The engineers made sure there could always be a way out. I tap the ‘three thousand meter distance’ option. I want us to move away from the ship but not be too far to be found.

A checklist shows up on the screen next: detach, emergency beacon, accelerate, decelerate, hold. When the status clicks over to ‘detach,’ I leave the controls and cross the cabin to Erik. Strapping in next to him, I try to put on a confident smile. He’s the newbie here, and I’m the experienced spacer. I need to be calm and easy for him.

“We’re going to move away from the ship and sit about three kilometers out until help comes.”

“Do you think that’ll be far enough?”

“I hope so, but maybe the danger is already over.”

The escape pod turns, and the Shōnagon comes into view. I love seeing it from the outside. It’s such a beautiful ship and so different from the Murasaki that will take people to the Hikoboshi system in less than a week. The Murasaki is an older ship, retrofitted and refurbished from the Earth Exodus thirty years prior. When it brought people to Orihimé from Earth, it was full of hibernation chambers because the engines could only do shorter hops, and everyone on board had to sleep for years. Now, our technology is better, and the jumps are longer. It won’t take but a few weeks for our team to arrive in the Hikoboshi System. And the Shōnagon has even better engines than the Murasaki. If the Murasaki has a problem on its mission, the Shōnagon can be there within a few days.

“Suri, Suri, what is that?” Finn asks, his eyes directed out the window.

“The spaceship we were just on, buddy.”

“No. That,” he stresses. Oh! I catch my breath at the beauty of our world once again. The view never ceases to delight and inspire me.

“That’s the world we live on. That’s the ground… under the sky.”

“Wow.” His eyes take it all in, but we pivot, and Orihimé disappears from view.

I gasp as we circle up over the top of the Shōnagon. Debris litters the space around the ship, and there’s a giant, gaping hole in the side where there should be a bulkhead. That’s not good.

“Do you think anyone died in that?” Erik asks, leaning forward to get a better look. He grasps my hand in his.

“I hope not.” I squeeze his fingers.

“Suri…” He sits back in his seat. “This is probably not the time nor place, but… Are you really going to move away from me, to Izumo?”

I sigh and press my lips together. “I don’t know. You and I both know that apartments are scarce in Yamato. We’re at almost a hundred percent capacity. Most buildings have lotteries for their available units. There are more places to live in Izumo.”

He strokes the back of my hand with his thumb, then lifts my fingers to his lips. My heart breaks to see him be so sweet to me. He always has been, but this little romantic beat feels so right, yet so final.

“Maybe…” My chin shakes, and I clear my throat to keep it in line. “Maybe it’s just not going to work out.” I shrug and try to calm my shaking chest. “Maybe we waited too damned long to get here and —”

“No,” he interrupts me before I can spiral down into negativity and denial. “No, you should move in with me.”

I burst out with a laugh and roll my eyes. “That’s not the solution.”

“Like hell it is.” His voice is stern. “You’ll share in my space, sleep in my bed, with me. We’ll eat the same foods and spend all our time together. Nothing in this world… or in space” — he waves his hand — “would make me happier.”

“But, Erik, my family will have an absolute fit over that.” I can already imagine my father losing his mind over me living with Erik outside of being married. He’s so old-fashioned. I’m sure this would give him a heart attack.

“Your family threw you out of your only home. Don’t do that, Suri.” He squeezes my hand. “Don’t let them rule you. You make the rules. Not them.”

A blinding flash of light outside the escape pod makes me jump.

“No,” I breathe out, but my chest is so still, I can’t breathe back in.

A new explosion rips a hole along the seam between the two main corridors. Debris hurtles out in every direction, tumbling pieces of metal spiraling into the vacuum abyss.

Except for one piece, heading right for us.

The escape pod beeps, and an alarm sounds. The onboard computer flashes the screens with red text. “Incoming object. Estimated time to impact, forty seconds,” the automated voice says.

“Shit shit shit.” The obscenities tumble from my lips as I unlatch and float forward to the controls. “Uhhh, oh no. I don’t know how to move this thing.”

I’m not a pilot!

I point at Erik. “Get in the pressure suit. Now!”

“Suri, you too!”

No time. There’s no time.

I could kick myself right now. I spent the last three days on solid ground wishing I was in space, and now this? This is what space is going to deliver to me? A death warrant if we’re not careful.

I press a button on the main screen and call up the manual controls. My brain freezes, looking at the screen buttons for thrusters on every axis. We have to move in a direction, but which?

Looking out the window again, the giant chunk of metal is coming up at us from underneath. So that means if I move along the Z-axis, I won’t be getting out of the way. I need to move us along the X- or Y-axis.

Gods, I hope my basic training on space flight is good enough to carry us through this alive. I press the button to thrust along the positive X-axis. Okay, that looks good, but I can’t tell for sure. I add in some negative Y-axis too.

The object is still tumbling towards us.

“Argh! I don’t know how to do this! I can barely ride a bike,” I scream as I look out the window.

“Suri, Suri, be calm.” Finn’s voice breaks through my panic. If we were at home right now, he would be by my side, rubbing his head on my leg or jumping up to lick my face.

But his voice is enough to knock me out of a blind panic.

“I’m trying to be calm,” I grunt, pressing the buttons again. We’re moving. Slowly.

“Better to have it miss us by a large margin,” Erik says, pulling the pressure suit over his head and securing it at the waist. He floats up next to me. “Shit. I think… I think —”

“I think we’re okay,” I say, tilting my head to watch the large chunk pass under us.

Clank!

Oh no. No.

Erik and I turn and look at each other with wide eyes.

Something definitely hit us. Our escape pod rolls slowly forward, and an alarm sounds. My brain zooms into disaster mode.

“Decompression alarm. Loss of air. Time to full decompression, two hours and three minutes.”

Two hours and three minutes? I slap my hand over my mouth to stop a high-pitched keen. Breathing through my nose, my brain steps down from high alert to something a little more normal. I breathe in and out, in and out, and the panels in front of me sharpen into focus.

I deflate back into my chair and sigh. “I wasn’t fast enough.”

Erik floats down next to me. “You were amazing, Suri. That was some thinking on your feet.” He looks down. “Or off your feet.” He laughs, and the sound brings a smile to my face. “We have a slow leak, and it’s enough time to be rescued. Plus, we have the pressure suits.”

I nod and try to rein my heartbeat back to a steady pace. He’s right. This is survivable. But the Shōnagon? I don’t know about it. Tears seep into my eyes again.

“Hey, hey,” Erik says, panicking at the sight of my tears. “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

“The Shōnagon, though. So much work, wasted, destroyed.”

“We’ll rebuild it, Suri. We always do. Plus, there’s the Ishiguro, and the Murasaki will be back in a few months. This is not over. These people can protest and bomb, but they’ll never break our spirit. We have to go on. We’re going to run out of space eventually.”

I sniff up and wipe the tears from my eyes. “You’re right. We have to go on. There’s just no other answer. Still, I hope everyone else onboard is okay. This is a nightmare.”

“Me too.” He leans forward and kisses me on the cheek. The gesture provokes a small smile. “Now, call for help. We can’t sit out here forever tumbling around. I’m going to prep your pressure suit, and then we’ll get the other one ready for the dogs, just in case.”

I watch him go, amazed at how he’s slipped into the positive reinforcement role that I usually play. He knows I need the encouragement, and he’s willing to give it. Leo never did that for me.

The more I think about it, the more I’m certain I was never really in love with Leo. I was in love with the idea of Leo being all these things that Erik actually is. Crazy what some perspective can do for you.

On the manual navigation screen, I pump the thrusters in the opposite direction of the slow spin and manage to stabilize us out a bit. Then I look at the data for the direction we’re traveling in and try to make us slow down too. I’m pleased when I see our speed slows even more. I guess I’m not so bad at this when I’m not in fear for our lives.

Out of the manual navigation screen, I find the communications and select an All Broadcast.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Shōnagon Escape Pod A3. We have been hit by debris, and we’re losing air. We need emergency pickup. Engaging emergency beacon now.” I turn on the emergency beacon and repeat the message to be recorded and played over and over.

But before I can initiate it, a voice breaks through.

“Shōnagon Escape Pod A3, this is Shuttle Charlie Echo Niner. We have our sights on you, and we’ll rendezvous with you in fifteen minutes.”

I pump my fist and smile back at Erik.

“Can you give us a manifest so we can be ready for you?”

Oh boy. Here we go.

“Uh, two humans — Suri Kimura and Erik Costa — and two dogs.” I wince and wait, but the line stays clear for more than five heartbeats.

“Come again. I don’t think we heard you correctly.”

“Oh, you heard me correctly. Two humans and two dogs. We had a slight stowaway situation on the way up. I didn’t expect us to be abandoning ship before we could bring them back to the surface.”

“Son of a…” This guy is displeased. I grimace and wait to hear that I’m fired. “Gotcha. Be there in about ten minutes. You should be able to see us out your front window now.”

I strain forward and spot a blinking light approaching. Okay, now I just need to get in the pressure suit and wait and hope to the heavens we’re not fired as soon as we hit the ground.

Erik smiles and holds out his hand to me.

Well, at least it looks like I have a place to stay for a while.

If he doesn’t change his mind once I’m fired and penniless.

Yeah, we’ll see about that.