Houston we have a problem

Submitted into Contest #58 in response to: Write a story where the power goes out on a spaceship or submarine.... view prompt

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Adventure Thriller Mystery

Beep beep beep beep beep

Like any regular day , I'm up before my alarm goes off , I usually let it beep for a while the sound energizes me to get ready for the day quickly. But today , today is different , today is launch day , a few years back Nasa launched a program to get people into Mars's orbit and well being a trained airforce pilot and an engineer I was among the crew chosen to go to Mars , that's why today is different , I didn't let my alarm beep , I immediately shut it off as it starts beeping , I feel a little bit nervous but nevertheless I get ready and head of to the launch station.

1hour to launch and I'm eating a sandwich , the mission is gonna take us about a year , so I'm enjoying some nice solid food before I leave.

5minutes to launch and the crew and I are all seated and buckled up , doing final checks , everything seems fine.

Tminus 3 ,2 ,1 we have lift off and in matter of minutes we are in Earth's low orbit , a couple more minutes and we are getting ready to leave Earth's orbit and begin our journey , we conduct another check on all systems everything seems fine , we are maintaining perfect contact with Houston and settling in for the long trip. The crew consists of me I'm a male pilot and my name is Chris , a female flight engineer Bailey , a female pilot Lucy, a male scientist Greg,

6hours in and I go to the rear window of all ship and take a look at the earth ,

Greg comes to take a look too and says "looks like a big balloon about to pop" we all laugh , I go back to the ship controls and check if the auto flight is on , after the crew and I all settle down for the night.

14 days in we have developed a routine of wake up , do some cardio with the built in treadmills , eat , do some research , take pictures of stars and space itself , send recorded messages to our families, eat , sleep.

19 days in we are in the middle of our second meal of our routine before we sleep , just before we begin eating an alarm goes off , we first all glance at each other and quickly rush to our stations to check what's wrong , as I reach my station , I look and notice the auto flight is off , I guess the alarm makes it automatically switch off , I immediately switch it back on , then from nowhere Bailey shouts 'there is a faulty wire' , she attempts to immediately fix it or at least stabilize it , we all rush to her station , but in the middle of us rushing the lights go off , everywhere becomes silent , then Greg shouts 'the whole ships gone dark , we have zero power , I repeat we have zero power. I can't see a thing , but manage to feel my way to where we keep our flashlights ,I take one for myself and go round the ship to distribute the rest , about an hour passes and we can't bring the power back on and the scary part is Bailey is missing and we can't contact Nasa , we were alone up here in the vastness of space , we tried to ignore the fact that Bailey was missing and calculate how much oxygen we would have , our calculations brought us to about 6 days of oxygen , there was immediate silence once we realized it , Greg and I decided to go take a look at the faulty wire' Bailey complained about , while Lucy keeps looking around the ship for any more problems.

We arrive at Bailey's station and notice the faulty wire , we begin trying to fix it , after about 25 minutes we managed to reconnect it and to our amazement and relief power is restored immediately but at that moment power comes on I notice a pale transparent apparition of what looks like Bailey , standing right in front of me and immediately the power goes out , I'm left speechless , Greg starts crying and Lucy shouts from wherever she was in the ship , 3 hours pass and we are all just sitting on the floor looking into the abyss of space , out of ideas , we switched of our flashlights to conserve them. Greg then says 'why don't we go for a space walk' I tell him now isn't the time for jokes , he says he isn't joking and gets up , I hold his hand , but Lucy says I should let him go , but before I can , Greg grabs my hand and breaks it , I scream in pain and Lucy shouts and asks Greg why , all he says is since we are gonna die anyways why not have fun , and he leaves into the darkness , Lucy chases after him , I'm left alone , but what I didn't notice was Greg took my flashlight , I pass out from shock and wake up from what I can only say is an 2hours later , my hand still hurts and I can't see anything and the ship is quiet I do faintly see something liquid and I feel it , I try to find out where is coming from but I hit a door and I can't open it , I sit there and wait , trying to bear the pain of my hand , 10minutes later I hear Greg shout , Chris , Lucy , run. I pass out again

When I wake up , something bright is shining directly at my eyes it's my flashlight I grab it and look at my surroundings and see the liquid clearly it's blood , I try to get up and run but the doors where I am are both locked , then Greg shouts Lucy I will miss you and I hear a what I can imagine a window breaking and immediately that part of the ship decompresses and I hear Greg and Lucy scream , I pass out once again , once I wake up I realize I am all alone , only one thing comes to mind , I get and thanks to the decompression one door is unlocked , I use to get to the changing room and where my space suit and I reach a door and before I open it , I smile and say time to go for a walk , I open it and I'm sucked into space but my suit keeps me alive , but then I pass out and this time I realize something , when the power went off I died , including Greg and Lucy , I don't know how but somehow Bailey survived , that's why we couldn't find her.

I shouldn't have switched off my alarm this morning.

September 09, 2020 17:00

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