Free Fall (Space Truckin' Book 1) Read online

  He put his discomfort out of mind as he went to his work, using the metal arms to fix the hole. It wasn’t that hard. The controls felt intuitive and, in a strange way, he rather liked using them. Hell, it gave him something to do. Better than the nothing he did nearly every day. This was actually a nice distraction away from all the rest of it. He finally had a purpose.

  He finished with the first “bandage” and looked at it. The silver of the space tape was bright compared to the dull gray of the aging metal around it. Would it truly hold once they started the reverse burn and this part of the ship went from being the control center to being the caboose that had to slow everything down?

  It just wasn’t in his nature to trust one piece. While he enjoyed being out there, having a purpose, he didn’t want to be doing it again any time soon.

  He pulled another stretch of tape from the roll and made another line. Then he pulled a third, placing it on the craft.

  Better.

  He smiled, looking at his work. That should definitely hold up. If the space tape did its job, this would work. He just had to believe those space scientists knew what they were doing when they developed the stuff. He didn’t want to find out it was just duct tape with glossy metal backing. He might never go back in space if that were the case.

  He pulled his hands out of the gloves so he could tap at the controls on the screen below the window in his box. It took only a few taps for him to bring up the status of the rig. The system no longer flashed danger, but the alert icon was still on the screen. He tapped it and the little dialogue box appeared.

  System fault. Course warning.

  Below the brief message was the little box he had grown so accustomed to over the years. He tapped the “Okay” button, but wasn’t ready for the jarring shock immediately afterwards.

  Around him, the space seemed to blow up, the metal exterior of his ship shaking. Everything seemed like it was on fire, and the internal sensors of the suit flashed with the growing familiar red warning.

  Exterior temperature warning. Shutting down.

  He could feel it, too. Suddenly, the suit no longer was the comfortable controlled temperature to which he had grown accustomed. It radiated heat, the gel around him growing increasingly hot.

  Wait… What? Shutting down?

  Just what was shutting down? If the suit shut down, how was he supposed to control it? How were the thrusters supposed to get him back inside the ship?

  He fought to pull in breath. The air felt as thick as syrup and was getting hot. The moisture evaporated inside his mouth, and the hairs in his nose felt like they were burning. He tried to blink, but his eyes were stuck open as the warmth got more intense.

  Just what was going on?

  He tapped on the touch screen, but nothing happened. The screen was frozen, the “Okay” button the only thing left on the screen. Everything else had blurred and was impossible to read. He kept tapping on it, then slammed his fist on the pad as hard as he could. The sweat on his hands blurred the screen further, then it went black.

  “Come on, you damn piece of…,” he grunted, his teeth clenched. The gel around him was getting hard, as if the material was losing its elasticity. It was becoming solid…and shrinking, giving him room to move. But when the box shook, it slammed him into the sides. It was getting hard to move against the different directions the box seemed to want to go. It really was turning into a coffin. He was dying here.

  You have to do something. Come on. This damn tablet… Why did every damned thing in this box have to run from the damn tablet?

  The gloves didn’t, but what the hell could the do with those? Grab something? Like what? He couldn’t even see anything through the screen. It was all just white noise out there. Everything was too bright. Even with his eyes nearly closed, he couldn’t make anything out. Was he going blind? Was this what it was like? He had always imagined going blind like everything just went black. Was it just the opposite?

  He knew of one other occurrence people claimed to see white. Could he have died?

  That didn’t explain the heat, and he didn’t care how much of a heathen he could be. He did not feel like he could be going to hell. That just didn’t fit. He was a good person.

  He put his hands back in the gloves. They no longer had the suction as the lining had stiffened, now fighting against his motions. He had to use them, but would he be able to find something to grab onto?

  The coffin slammed against something, sending him hard against the far wall. Even in the thermal protection suit he was wearing, he felt the searing heat, like he had fallen into an open flame. His skin felt as if it were melting. Was the suit even still there? It didn’t feel like it, the heat scorching him past the point he could even feel the heat any more.

  He was no longer sweating, his body no longer possessing the ability to cool itself.

  Can I really survive this?

  He felt some resistance in the gloves, the hands closing into a fist, forcing his own hand closed. Had something just slammed into the robot arm outside, or was the glove no longer operating?

  Pushing against the sensation, he tried to force it open. The glove resisted and he pushed harder, but it didn’t respond. He was sure it was wedged against something, or maybe shattered.

  Suddenly, there was intense gravity. He felt the coffin spinning wildly, slamming him against the back wall. The gel seared into his back, the heat setting it alive. It felt like second-degree burns all across his skin…and that was being optimistic.

  As the gravity grew stronger, the coffin rattled vigorously, slamming him back and forth until the gravity became strong enough that he was stuck against the back wall. Even though he could smell his burning skin, there was no way he could pull himself forward to relieve it.

  This stuff was supposed to be designed so it didn’t melt and burn like this. Those damn lying scientists. Never trust ‘em. Those bastards always think they are too damn smart.

  And if you don’t start getting smarter, you are not going make it through this. Don’t be getting all pissed at people who are not here. It’s not going to do you any good. Come on. Get it together.

  Remember that one time you blew a steer tire? You had to fight that bitch while she wanted to take you into the woods. You had to work it, fight with it, and just go with the flow. There wasn’t much you could do. You briefly sped it up to take weight off the tire, then just let the rig do its thing as you eased her over to the shoulder. Ease it in and let her decide when she is going to stop. Doing it any sooner will only cause it to roll and everything will to go to hell.

  So just how was he supposed to ease it in? This wasn’t like a tire blowing out. He was out in space. He had no idea just what was going on. His little tablet thing that was supposed to keep him updated was freaking out, and it was so damn hot and bright that he couldn’t see anything. It was as if he were caught in a…

  No, that couldn’t be it.

  He forced himself to stare at the little window in front of him. He could see the intense white light, but it was flashing. Because he was spinning, it wasn’t a steady light, and he had brief moments where the darkness of space could be seen.

  He was spinning next to the ship. The reverse thrust jets had fired, starting the braking process. It had started early, probably because the ship was off course and was trying to correct itself. When it had suddenly jolted because it was now decelerating rather than accelerating, it had jarred his coffin, throwing him around as the ship he was connected to had gone from being the cab of the truck to the caboose.

  Of course, he had not physically moved. Both ends of the craft were identical, depending on whether the ship was speeding up or slowing down. So the engines at what he would often think of as the back of the rig had now turned off, the ones firing on the section he was now by.

  That had to be what was going on, but how was he going to be able to stop it. He didn’t think he could get back to the access door with the jets firing as they were. He would have to
get closer to that intense heat, and with the computer system having issues, the suit having who knew what kind of damage, and who knew what else had gone wrong, he wasn’t sure it was possible. The coffin had to be venting from somewhere, and he doubted it could withstand this much longer. He knew he couldn’t.

  How was he spinning?

  If the cable was attached to the rig, it shouldn’t have been able to come undone. But then how was he spinning? He should be slamming against the trailers, not that the thought of being slammed continuously into the ice containers was all that appealing.

  So if the wire weren’t holding him to the rig, what the hell was going on?

  The box rattled and slammed again. His head hit something hard and he felt a searing pain throbbing through his temple.

  Too much more of this crap and his brain was going to go to putty. It was hard enough to think and now that throbbing… An orchestra was trying to play some crazy drum heavy ensemble piece through his head, bringing the whole marching band to accompany them. Stars were forming all around his vision, flashes of light pushing at him. When he looked away, something else caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

  He looked down and saw that the tablet wasn’t blurred anymore. The dulled screen, which had been so unresponsive moments ago, was bright, vibrantly displaying the standard home screen with its normal set of icons. He saw the engine status icon, and even though he was sure he already knew what was happening, he pushed on the glass. The screen vibrated in recognition of his touch, then faded in to display the engine status. The braking thrust had begun. His rig was slowing down, the sky around him a bright array of color as the propellant worked to slow the momentum of the beast.

  He grimaced and went to the next screen. The special icon for his EVA, although it seemed so wrong to use the archaic symbol of the old space suits on the original moon landings for the square picture. When pressed, it took him to the status of his pod, then the tablet started to flash with warnings. First was the battery flash, which he cleared by tapping “Okay”. So the tablet was now on battery power. Then it flashed with a network error connection. The tablet was no longer wired to the rig’s network and had been switched to the local intranet. He clicked it as the building dread came back to him.

  The pod wasn't as hot as it had been, quickly cooling around him. Where his skin had severely burned, it still felt hot, but the rest of him was starting to shiver a little because of the chill pushing in on him.

  The light was fading so he knew he could look out the portal if he wanted to see what was out there. He didn't feel he was ready yet.

  He tapped "Okay" and waited for the next warning. Any time now, there was going to be that message saying pod disconnected or life support warning. Something was about to tell him he was done. He had gone longer than most, survived past the odds, and had started to think of this as a regular job. He had taken for granted just how much a bitch space could be. He knew she was cold-hearted, that she came for all of them. Now, it was his turn.

  The tablet beeped, but it wasn't another warning. He was lost, drifting, slipping away into his eternal darkness. He was on the threshold, death was at his door, when he heard the familiar sing-song tone of an incoming message.

  He saw his daughter’s face. She had sent him another message. He looked at her smiling face, that picture he had taken so many years ago, using it as her profile picture for when she sent him a message.

  That picture had been taken on a good day. It was before the fighting, before the wife from hell had started to tear into him. They had all been happy then, or he liked to remember it that way. He couldn’t remember the fights, but he remembered that smile. He remembered the roller coasters and cotton candy. The state fair with music playing at a far stage, too many people, too hot, too muggy, but there were still the smiles. Her riding on his shoulders, and that picture… She held his phone up while he held her. It was her first selfie. It would always be on his phone, and it would always be with him.

  He clicked on the smiling face.

  “Dad! I can’t believe what Mom did. She told me. Can you believe that? She lied to me, Dad! Grr.”

  He tried to figure out what had happened. It was obvious that his daughter was upset. The laptop she was talking into was placed on her desk, but she couldn’t stay seated in front of it. She was walking back and forth, running her hands through her long hair, then looking at the screen. She was so animated, her hands were a blur. She seemed to have her own sign language, but the motions were going a mile a minute and the video feed couldn’t keep up.

  He had never noticed the blurring of a transmission before, but the person was usually seated.

  “I just found out what Mom did. I can’t believe…”

  The signal glitched. He could see her moving, but the sound sputtered with only syllables coming through here and there.

  He blinked away the wetness in his eyes. It took a few times, as the moist wall didn’t want to go. Then he felt the tears drift away, but not down the lines of his face. They just slipped away, floating around him.

  He finally looked up to the portal to look out.

  “I mean, how could she do something like that, Dad? That’s just so cruel. She has to be the most cold-hearted bitch.”

  Outside, he saw the true cold-hearted bitch. It was staring right back at him. That big nothingness of space. So much out here, yet so little. Everything so far from one another. As his pod rotated, he watched as the rig he had been so used to thinking of as home came back into view. He had to be twenty feet away from the third car. He could see the strands of cord keeping what was essentially just a large block of ice attached to the rig.

  The cord that had once connected him to the rig dangled just on the outside of the portal. It floated there, free in space. He was also floating there, free from any attachment in space. There was nothing connecting him to anything back home. It was all just slowly moving past him and there was no way he could get back to it.

  The fourth car moved past him, then the fifth. He was moving away from it, and the pod was getting colder.

  “Dad, I really miss you.”

  He looked down at the screen. The video cut out as the rig got farther away, the signal getting weaker.

  Yeah, it would never be any clearer than what it was now. He was never going to see his daughter again, even in the video. He could only listen to her. She seemed to have calmed down, but there was a sadness now. He could hear her sobs, feeling his own rising up inside him.

  “I hope you make it back soon. I know it’s supposed to be another six months, but… I don’t know. Maybe your ship will break down and you’ll have to come back early. I just…”

  Her words hung there, and all he could think about was how much he wanted to be there to give her a hug.

  The eighth car passed him by. There would only be a couple more before the caboose became visible, although he wouldn’t see it. He was still rotating around. He would be facing away from the rig when the caboose finally made its slow trek past him.

  “Dad, can I ask you something?” A flicker of light made him look back at the tablet. He was surprised to see he had video again.

  “Yes, hun. You can ask me anything,” he said, the silence of the pod being the only response, but he watched as her eyes looked through the millions of miles to stare deep into his own, seeming to wait for his response.

  “When you come back, can I live with you? I can’t stay with her. And, well, maybe I can come out there with you. I know you’ve said no in the past, but I can’t stay with her. I miss you. Please, take me with you.”

  When the pod made its way around again, he could see the caboose already past him, slipping away, moving into the distance.

  “Dad, I love you.”

  He looked back to the tablet and saw that the video had frozen as she was looking at him, awaiting his answer. He wished he were on the rig, connected to a strong signal so he could send back his message. He wanted to tell her how
much he loved her, that she could come with him. He could ask for a transfer, maybe stay on Mars and keep her there. Or maybe he could go back to just driving a truck. It would be a pay cut, but he could take her on the road with him. It wouldn’t have the schools and the learning he was sure the families on Mars had, but she would be with him.

  They had to have something on Mars that he could do. He was just some driver. He had never been special. Just some road jockey who had gotten lucky enough to land this cool gig out in space. It had made his daughter think he was so cool. He was an astronaut, a space trucker, out there amongst the stars. How awesome was it that her dad got to leave Earth and travel back and forth to Mars.

  He wasn't special. He was just some guy who sat in a rig for eight months.

  Now he wasn’t even that.

  He looked at that image, his daughter looking at him through the distance, as his life left him behind.