Alexander Smith - The Final Expedition

“Not today, Carter.” He smiled. “Come with me.” I followed him through the Destiny Lab and into the Unity node. Morrison nodded in the direction of the Quest airlock.

“Get in the airlock.” He told me. “We’re going outside.”

“What!” I replied incredulously. “I can’t do that. I haven’t had any training!”

“Welcome to Spacewalk one-oh-one.” He grinned. “Now hurry up, we haven’t got all day!” We pulled ourselves into the airlock and Morrison closed the inner hatch, sealing us inside.

“I’m going to adjust the pressure in here,” He continued, operating a control panel on the wall. “So hold your nose and try and blow out of your ears to alleviate the pressure.” There was a hiss as the pressure was lowered within the airlock. After a few minutes, Morrison seemed satisfied that the pressure had reached the correct level and turned to me. I reached for one of the spacesuits.

“Easy, Carter.” He said, pulling a book out of a small locker. “Now we wait until tomorrow morning.”

“What?!” I replied. “Why?”

“The lower pressure will help us to flush the nitrogen out of our bodies.” He replied, leafing through the pages of the book. “Helps prevent the bends.”

“Bloody hell, Wes.” I frowned, thinking of my laptop back in my sleeping compartment with all my e-books and films on it. “You might have mentioned that before you locked us in!” Morrison smiled, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

“Sorry Carter. I couldn’t help myself!” I settled myself down against one side of the airlock opposite Morrison, squeezing in next to one of the bulky spacesuits fixed in place against the wall. Looking around the confines of the airlock, I wondered exactly what I was going to do for the next few hours.

“Why me, Wes?” I asked Morrison after a minutes. “The others are all trained for spacewalks…”

“E.V.A.” Morrison interrupted, his face still buried in his book.

“What?” I replied.

“E.V.A.” Morrison repeated. “Extra Vehicular Activity – E.V.A. It’s what we call spacewalks.”

“Well, whatever we call it,” I replied a little tetchily, “Why not one of the others?” Morrison finally looked up from his book, slipping a bookmark in place before closing it.

“Everybody else is keeping busy.” He shrugged. “They all have their assigned tasks. As you said earlier, you are just running through the same mundane routine each day. I thought, I’d take you outside, let you stretch your legs, experience something new and keep your morale up. You do want to go outside, don’t you?”

“Yeah of course.” I replied nonchalantly, though in truth I was feeling a mixture of excitement and fear at the prospect of venturing into the cold vacuum of space.

“Good.” Morrison grinned, opening his book again. He fumbled the bookmark, sending it floating across the module towards me. I reached for it, plucking it out of the air and handed it back, noticing as I did that it was a photograph of Morrison wearing a navy blue flight suit together with what appeared to be his wife at his side, baby in her arms and young son standing in front of them.

“Your family?” I asked. Morrison nodded, looking at the photo for a moment and frowning.

“They lived in New York.” He said quietly, just a hint of a quiver in his voice, his mask of confidence slipping just for a moment. “I’m under no illusions. I saw the mushroom cloud directly over the city and I know they’re all dead. We are trained to deal with loss in the military, but nothing can prepare you for losing your whole family. Sometimes I wake in the morning and just for that hazy moment, I’ve forgotten what’s happened and I think of my wife and my babies and then I remember and it hits me like a sledgehammer. Other times, I wonder what if. What if they’d decided to go out of the city for the day, or what if they were deep underground in the subway? What if against all odds they were still somehow alive?” I nodded, not knowing what to say, not wanting to breathe life into the faint embers of false hope, but not wanting to crush the man at his most vulnerable either.

“Don’t get me wrong. I know they are dead.” Morrison replied, seemingly perceiving what I was thinking. “I know in my heart they are gone, but one day I will see them again and I take comfort in that.”

My stomach did a somersault as I peered through the visor of the bulky spacesuit at the outer hatch of the quest airlock. The hatch was set into the floor of the module, so we would be facing the Earth when it opened.

“You ready, Carter?” Morrison asked me over the headset, his voice calm and confident. He too was suited up in a bulky white spacesuit and was floating just behind me in the airlock.

“Absolutely!” I replied, my voice cracking slightly, my pulse racing.

“Relax Carter.” Morrison reassured me. “I’m going to be right beside you all the time and you’re tethered to me anyway, so you’ll be completely safe.”

“Apart from the fact we’re about to go out into the freezing cold vacuum of space and just a stray micrometeorite away from a horrible and painful death.” I deadpanned.

“That’s the spirit!” Morrison slapped me on the shoulder. “Right. We’ll open the outer hatch and take a walk.”

“Okay.” I replied, wondering if anyone had ever thrown up in a spacesuit.

“Mission commander.” He said, this time addressing Karpov who was supervising from the Zvezda module. “Requesting clearance for E.V.A.”

“Clearance granted, Lieutenant Colonel.” Karpov replied over the radio. “You are go for E.V.A.”

“Copy that Mission Commander.” The airlock hatch gently swung open and the surface of the Earth stretched out beneath us. I felt a sudden surge of vertigo and threw myself backwards in fear, propelling myself into Morrison, who grunted at the impact.

“Shit!” I gasped, my heart thumping in my chest.

“Just relax Carter.” Morrison said, gently pushing me away from him. “It’s okay. There’s no rush. Take your time and breathe. Remember, you are tethered to me and I’m tethered to the station. We’ll be absolutely safe.” Gritting my teeth, I gathered myself together, grabbing hold of one of the blue hand holds and pulling myself back towards the open airlock hatch. I was gripping the handles so hard, my hands were aching. Again, I peered through the yawning circular hatch opening and looked out at the vastness of the surface of the planet filling my field of vision. My eyes widened, feeling as though I was falling out, about to hurtle away from the station and freefall towards the surface the moment I emerged from the airlock.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I pulled myself back into the airlock, my heart racing and my breathing rapid. “I just can’t do it, Wes! I feel like I’m about to drop off the edge of a precipice.”

“You’ll be fine, Carter.” Morrison reassured me, his tone even and measured. “There’s no rush. Just take a minute to calm down and we’ll try again.”

“No, Wes.” I shook my head, feeling restricted and claustrophobic in the confines of the spacesuit, sucking in deep breaths and trying to stop the panic threatening to overwhelm me. “I can’t do it! I’m sorry, I just can’t!”

“Okay, okay.” Morrison replied. “It’s okay. It’s my fault. You haven’t been trained for this and it was wrong of me to just throw you in at the deep end. I’ll leave you here in the airlock while I have a quick spacewalk. I just need to check a couple of the solar arrays for damage as we’ve had some fluctuating power outputs from them. I’ll be as quick as I can.” Morrison tethered me to the inside of the airlock and released the tether from himself. He then moved over to the open airlock, connected a tether to a fixing point outside the airlock, released the tether to the inside and swung himself out of the hatch and out of sight. The airlock closed behind him, leaving me alone with my embarrassment and humiliation.