Karl's last flight, Part 1

Karl's last flight
(c)2006, Basil Sands

Sweat ran off his face in late afternoon sun.  The heat was dry, burning his throat and lips with every inhalation.  How in the world did he let this happen?  He was a professional after all, not some rookie, some new guy going up for the first time. 

StrataCorp pace Flights had flown so many missions to take rich business members into near space that everything was basically routine these days.  Karl was an experienced astronaut with over 70 StrataCorp flights under his belt, not to mention 25 shuttle missions with NASA before that.

He wasn't in it for the money, he had plenty of that.  He could have retired a couple years ago. Karl simply loved these short space flights and had decided to keep going as long as his health held out and he could stay certified for missions, but maybe he'd change his mind now.

Misfortune had found its way into this journey from the beginning, and one little mistake after another compounded itself until he found himself here in the desert,  stranded and alone. 

To start off, his craft had been hit by something shortly after launch.  It may have been a bird or some debris carried by the wind, maybe even some kind of meteorite that just happened to find its way into his flight path.  It was small, but he hit it hard enough that it visibly creased a side panel.  Then, his client got airsick and puked in his helmet before they got out of the atmosphere. 

These two events alone were not terribly concerning at first.  The creased panel was high on the side of the ship and not on a surface that would make contact with the high friction of re-entry. The puke filled helmet situation was also curable as there were airtight bags to put the messy helmet in and he always kept a spare helmet for just such a contingency.

The real problem started when his airsick client tried to rinse his mouth out.  

Spitting in zero gravity is not easy.  You cannot just spit like you would on earth, as the spittle will simply float around until it comes in contact with something else.  There are special vacuum bags made for this.  These are technically urine bags, but work equally well for any liquid.  The bag is to be held tightly to ones face prior to release the liquid from your mouth, then sealed up before the liquid can escape.

The passenger had forgotten this part of the pre-flight training and instead of sealing the bag to his face, held it out several inches from his face and spit the vomit flavored water as if he was standing over a sink.  The result was that the liquid sprayed out and away from the bag floating in a droplet cloud around the cabin. 

Before Karl realized what had happened he felt the wet droplets hitting the back of his head.  He turned just in time to see the passenger waving his hands through the cloud of droplets trying to  dissipate them.  Instead of making the cloud go away though, he was pushing them farther out, towards the control panel around Karl.

"Stop!" shouted Karl "Just sit still, you're pushing it into the panel!" 

But it was too late.  His eyes followed a sizeable grouping of water droplets as they headed directly into the navigation computers ventilation grate above his head.  His heart jumped as he hurriedly reached for a clipboard  hoping to block their entry into the computer.  His hand smacked into the edge of the front panel causing him to grunt in pain as the clipboard drifted away.  The water droplets found their way into the grate like an invading army.  A blinding flash sent sparks flying out of the computer and a section of lights went out on his control panel.

He grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the sparking electrical fire.  The acrid smell of  burnt wires now filled the small crafts cabin.  The passenger, a millionaire actor from Hollywood, started to panic.  As he was crying out in terror he suddenly started gasping for air.   Karl thought he was hyper-ventilating and tried to get him to sit in his chair and calm down. A moment later the man grabbed at his chest, gave out a squeaky kind of wheeze, and his body went limp, floating just above his chair.  Karl looked at the instrument panel, which had a bio-sensor readout for the passengers space suit, he was flat-line.

He jumped out of his seat to start CPR on the passenger.  Before he cleared the chair, there was another flash of light and sparks from the panel and the craft took a sudden turn, knocking him sideways.  More of the water must have gotten into the main panel.  He looked back and saw that his computer terminal was flickering on and off.  Pulling himself back into the seat, he strapped in as the craft immediately began an automated re-entry sequence that was programmed to land the ship in the event of major system failures. 

There was no way he could try to save the passenger now as the craft descended to the earth at 25,000 miles per hour. 

Karl tried in vain to resume control of the ship as it hurled toward the surface.  The atmospheric friction brought a bright yellow glow to the outside of the ship as it shook its way down, bouncing through the air.  The crease in the side panel must've been deep enough to ruin the aerodynamics of the ship. 

This was the hardest re-entry Karl had ever been in.  He felt as if he was one of those little beans being shaken around inside a maraca. The rattling in his head made him dizzy. 

As the craft passed through the clouds, he could make out land beneath, but had no idea where they actually were.  The ship automatically leveled itself out, still moving at an incredible rate of speed.  At some point he blacked out.  When he came back to consciousness the ground seemed to be only inches away.  He braced himself for impact as the craft violently skidded across the surface at  several hundred miles per hour. 

The brake chutes deployed automatically, causing Karl's body to press hard against the straps of his seat as the ship instantaneously slowed down.  The passenger, now certainly beyond resuscitation, was thrown violently against the back of Karl's seat, making the terrible sound of bones and flesh breaking from the force of impact behind him.

The craft came to rest on a dry and hard piece of ground in some dessert, somewhere.  Karl sat there for several minutes before opening the emergency hatch. 

Air rushed in with a loud hiss as the door seals released the pressure in the cabin. He breathed deeply. 

Shakily climbing out of the craft,  he tripped on the edge of the hatch, still dizzy from re-entry, landing on his face in the hot, hard sand. 

Raising to one knee Karl surveyed the area he was in.  There seemed to be mountains in the distance.  But he couldn't tell how far, their fuzzy edges wavering in the blazing desert heat.  He would wait here.  Help should be on the way soon.  The control guys hopefully tracked his descent.

A small lizard scurried into the shade of the craft as a light, hot breeze blew across the desert landscape. 

"Maybe Fiji" he pondered aloud, startling lizard, "Fiji sounds like a good place to retire."

Click a link below to go to the next chapter or a previous one

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21