One
Earth is dead.
That’s not my biggest problem right now.
My family left Earth two years ago. Our team’s mission was to establish human life on a new, uninhabited world: Tau Ceti e. Unfortunately, it turns out that Tau isn’t uninhabited. It belongs to two species who have nothing in common, except for the part where they don’t want to share their planet with invaders from outer space.
Which would be us.
We never meant to be invaders. We were pioneers. Explorers.
Now we’re refugees.
Wow. It’s not often you can use the word we and mean every human being in the universe, but we’re all in the same boat now. Well, spaceship, if you want to be literal about it.
The ISA Colony Ship Prairie is the biggest spacecraft humanity has ever built. Maybe the biggest we’ll ever build, now. She’s also an unfinished prototype. The Prairie was supposed to have years of testing and redesign before attempting this journey. But “supposed to” isn’t a thing in the apocalypse.
The actual trip went fine. The Prairie survived the twelve-light-year trip from Earth to Tau. Then her computer automatically woke the crew, and they tried to bring the huge ship into orbit.
That’s when things started to go wrong.
Turns out the Prairie’s solar sails are screwed up. Without the power they provide, the colony ship can’t maintain a stable orbit. She can’t pull out of Tau’s gravity well either. If we don’t fix her, she’ll fall through the atmosphere and crash into the planet, causing a mass extinction event.
But that’s not my biggest problem right now either.
My mom knows how to fix the sails because she commanded Prairie’s last test flight. At the time, I hated her for it. Three years ago, before our team left Earth, a solar flare almost destroyed our ship, the Pioneer. Mom ordered my siblings and me to evacuate with the other kids. Instead, I figured out how we could save the Pioneer, and our families.
With my brother Teddy’s help, my crazy idea worked. We saved everyone, but it cost my brother his life. I almost died too. I was in the hospital for four months after the accident, and then I spent five more in full-time physical therapy.
Mom wasn’t there. For any of it. She took command of the Prairie and headed for Saturn the day after Teddy’s funeral. She was gone for a year. Back then, I figured she left because she couldn’t stand the sight of me. I thought she blamed me for Teddy.
I know Mom better now.
I’m pretty sure she left because she blamed herself. And we’re lucky she did, which is messed up but true. If Mom hadn’t taken that assignment, she wouldn’t know what’s causing the Prairie’s sail to glitch. No one would. Five of the six engineers who designed the Prairie died racing to make her spaceworthy in time to get the survivors to safety. The sixth, our chief engineer and my mom’s best friend, Penny Howard, died here on Tau. In my arms.
So, basically, my mom’s lack of healthy emotional coping mechanisms is going to save the human species.
The catch is, the repairs have to be done on the Prairie’s hull, and they require at least two people. Mom and I are alone on our shuttle, the Trailblazer, and there’s no time to go back to the surface for the engineering team.
That means I have to do an EVA.
As in extravehicular activity. As in go outside. In space.
And I’m afraid.
In order to save the Pioneer, Teddy and I had to eject ourselves into space without our suits. It sucked. I can’t even begin to explain how much. I never expected to do an EVA again. I never wanted to. Now I have to. The survival of my whole species depends on it, and I’m afraid. I don’t think I’ve ever been so afraid.
My fingers are shaking as I smooth the last seal on my pressure suit closed. The slippery gray fabric vibrates gently against my skin, and the suit’s internal computer whispers, “Seal failed. Please reapply.”
I’m glad Mom is still up on the bridge and not here to witness this. She’s got enough to worry about. She doesn’t need to add me to the list.
I shake my hands out, swearing quietly as I rip the seal open all the way down to my belly and start over.
I hate spacesuits. I always have. I hated them before the accident. Now I feel like this thing is a python and I’m helping it swallow me.
With a thin hiss, the suit sucks tight against the body stocking I’m wearing underneath. I breathe a sigh of relief and pull on my EVA utility harness, snapping the sturdy straps around my thighs and over my shoulders. I look like someone melted a wrapped candy bar and let it harden again all lumpy. I can’t believe my brain even has the bandwidth to notice right now. I guess worrying about my thighs is one way to avoid having a panic attack.
“Okay, Trailblazer is on autopilot,” Mom says as she steps through the interior door of the airlock and seals it behind her. “This is as ready as we’re going to get.”
She keeps talking, but I can’t hear her over the remembered roar of explosive decompression. It’s more than a memory. I’m drowning in a sound that isn’t there. Deafened, even though I know it isn’t real.
I’m so not ready.
“What did you say?” I ask, trying to sound like I’m not shaking.
“I said, ‘Cross check?’” Mom is fully suited except for her helmet. Her face is almost the same shade of gray as her gear.
“Right. Sorry.”
My voice catches on the words. Mom flinches, like I’m a sore tooth.
She looks away as she raises her arms, holding them away from her sides so I can check her seals. Then she spreads her legs so I can check the seals between her suit and her boots.
Breathing feels harder than it should, like the airlock is already venting atmosphere, which it isn’t. I know it isn’t. The exterior door is still red. The airlock is still sealed.
So why can’t I breathe?
“Check,” I say, managing not to gasp the words. “Cross check?”
Mom runs her hand over the seal at my throat, down my arms to the seals on my wrists that bond the suit to my gloves.
Her hands are shaking, too.
Fear arcs between us.
“Mom—”
She pulls me close. Our suits wheeze over each other as we cling.
Then she steps back.
“Okay, Joanna,” Mom says. “Run me through it.” Her voice, at least, is calm. Like it’s being piped into her shaking, red-eyed body from a distance.
I breathe.
In. Out. In. Out.
I can do this.
I can’t do this.
I have to do this.
“We are currently matching orbital velocity with the ISA Colony Ship Prairie at a range of twenty-five kilometers.” The words snag at each other, tangling in my mouth as I yank them into order. “We will tether to the airlock and make a controlled—”
“Skipped a step,” Mom interjects. “Sloppy.” Her tone strikes my anxiety at just the right angle, throwing sparks of irritation. I glare at her. A tiny smile flashes through her pallor.
“That’s better.”
“Fine,” I say, backtracking. “First, we tether in, then we decompress the airlock. Open the doors. Then we will make a controlled jump to the Prairie’s hull and tether to the Prairie. Once we’re secured, we fix her solar sail so she doesn’t crash into the planet and wipe out three sentient species in a single, spectacular moment of dumb.”