A drama in space

As she had been trained, Elara systematically checked the integrity of her spacesuit and its comms one last time before starting the airlock sequence. "I'm ready, John," she informed the station commander. Colonel John Wood, a veteran Air Force pilot and experienced astronaut, had served as the International Space Station commander for the past year. John had spent more time in space and zero gravity than anyone else on the space station.

"You're clear to go," John replied, watching her movements on his monitor 40 meters away in the command center of the International Space Station.

"Thank you, John," Elara said, starting the airlock sequence. The inner door of the airlock hissed open, revealing its cramped and claustrophobic chamber. Hesitantly, Elara stepped into the small space, which barely fit her bulky spacesuit. As a new crew member at the International Space Station, this marked her first solo spacewalk—a milestone in her career as an astronaut. Some of the station's solar panels had sustained damage from high-speed debris, likely space junks orbiting Earth left from previous space missions. Her mission was to inspect the damage, assess it, and make repairs.

She stepped into the airlock chamber and manually closed and secured the inner door. The locking mechanism engaged with a reassuring clunk. With a flashing orange light, the airlock began its programmed depressurization, making a gentle hiss as air pumped out of the chamber. As the air was drawn from the chamber, the hiss gradually faded until it stopped, coinciding with a green light illuminating, indicating that all the air had been vacated. It was now safe to proceed with opening the chamber's outer door. But before that, Elara peered through the small porthole of the outer door. Since the porthole faced away from Earth and into the vastness of space, she saw nothing but blackness. The daunting darkness planted a seed of doubt in her mind and quickened her heartbeat.

"Are you okay, Elara?" John's voice came through her comms. 

"Yes, I am. Why?" she replied sharply as if John had questioned her ability to perform the spacewalk. 

"Nothing; I just noticed your heartbeat is elevated." 

"My heartbeat?" she retorted. 

"Don't worry, Elara. I always feel tense before a spacewalk. It's natural to feel nervous." 

"I'm neither tense nor nervous," Elara retorted.   

"I mean excited," John altered his statement. 

"Yes, I'm excited," Elara responded, then tethered herself to the chamber, released the outer door lever, and pushed the door open. She instantly felt intimidated by the vast blackness sparkling with distant, tiny stars. From her viewpoint, she could see the space station's habitation module, their living section, and part of the solar arrays that provided the electricity to sustain the station's life support system. The station appeared small and fragile, a speck of dust against the immense emptiness of space.

With adrenaline coursing through her veins, she leaped outside. The sensation was overwhelming and immensely satisfying. She skillfully manipulated the controls of her Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), activating its tiny jetpacks, and spun around until she faced the Earth. Although she had seen the planet from the station's portholes, viewing it from outside the station, floating about 400 kilometers above sea level, was mesmerizing. "My God, it's so beautiful," she exclaimed involuntarily.

"It's a breathtaking view, isn't it?" John said over the comms.

 "Yes, it is," she replied, filled with awe.

"This view of Earth never gets old. I wish the industrialists who are actively destroying our planet for a little extra profit could come here and see it from this perspective—to understand how fragile our beautiful planet truly is. Earth is our home, the only place we can live. Yet, for personal gain, we are actively harming it," John said while monitoring Elara's movements.

Elara replied, "I see your point, John."

Elara was on duty and had a job, so she reluctantly turned her gaze away from the mesmerizing swirl of the emerald green and deep blue marble-like globe, navigating toward the solar arrays using her MMU's controls. With John's help, she quickly located the damaged solar panels and began her meticulous assessment. Although the space station was orbiting the Earth at a staggering speed of 28000 kilometers per hour, Elara felt as though she was utterly stationary, suspended in the silent void of space as she focused on the damaged solar panels below her.

Three individual solar panels, each measuring one square meter, were severely damaged, likely due to a collision with high-velocity space debris—probably discarded technological junk from previous human space ventures. Two additional panels showed signs of partial damage caused by debris as small as grains of sand. Despite their tiny size, the incredible speed of these particles, combined with the motion of the space station, allowed them to pierce the solar panels with the force and precision of bullets smashing a car's windshield. To evaluate the extent of the damage, she initially concentrated on the panels with less damage, carefully assessing whether they could be salvaged or if all the panels needed complete replacement.

The monotony was interrupted by a peculiar sensation that made her mind flurry. Soft as a whisper, a gentle, barely perceptible breeze lightly brushed against her right arm, causing a slight shiver. "Impossible," she dismissed it as mere imagination. She was encased in a pressurized suit 400 kilometers above the Earth's surface, with no atmosphere capable of generating a breeze. The thought that her suit sleeve might be punctured and losing air filled her with concern. To reassure herself, Elara glanced at the digital readout on her wrist to check the oxygen level and the suit's pressure. The readings were regular, and her spacesuit's integrity appeared intact. She once more dismissed it as mere imagination and returned to her job. But the sensation intensified as if she had held her arm before a spinning fan. Her breath became shallow, echoing loudly in her helmet. She quickly checked the readout on her wrist again, which showed nothing unusual. "Is this monitoring device faulty?" The thought crossed her mind, triggering a wave of panic. If her spacesuit were leaking, she could lose pressure and die in a few minutes, if not seconds.

Before she could say anything, John came on the comms and asked, "Is everything okay, Elara? I noticed your high blood pressure and heart racing dangerously fast."

"I can't breathe!" she nearly shrieked.

"Why's that? I don't see any pressure drop. Your suit's pressure is stable."

"The life signs monitoring device must be faulty. I feel a constant breeze against the skin of my right arm," Elara said in a voice filled with panic.

"Abort! Abort the mission, Elara," John shouted over the comms. Although his monitor didn't indicate any issues, it was better to be safe than sorry, so he asked Elara to abort the mission.  

Overwhelmed by panic, Elara pushed herself away from the solar arrays and attempted to return to the airlock. However, with her impaired concentration, she lost control of her Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), which made her spin around violently, intensifying her panic. "I can't do this!" she yelled desperately.

"Elara, calm down. You can do this. You've trained for situations like this," John replied. 

"I'm losing air. I'm going to die," she said, her voice barely intelligible. 

"Elara, if you're losing air, it's not that serious; otherwise, you would have already died." 

Elara's sobbing was audible through the comms; she was experiencing a panic attack.

"You can do this, Elara." 

But Elara wasn't in the right mental state to hear him; panic clouded her judgment. 

"Lieutenant, take a deep breath and regain control. This is an order," John said with authority, understanding that soldiers in shock would respond better to commands than rational conversation. Their intensive military training aimed to condition soldiers to follow orders. 

"Yes, sir," Elara replied weakly. 

"Lieutenant, listen to me carefully. Take control of your MMU and return to the airlock ASAP. This is an order."

"Yes, sir," she said. After several failed attempts, she regained control of her Manned Maneuvering Unit and slowly but steadily moved toward the space station hall and the airlock. Seeing the hall grow bigger through her helmet's visor boosted her confidence. "I'm getting closer," she said joyfully.

"Keep going, Lieutenant, you can make it," John said authoritatively.

Elara involuntarily laughed as her hand touched the airlock handle. It was a great relief; she was saved.

"Lieutenant, slowly push the lever down and open the airlock's outer door."

"Yes, sir," she said, pushing the lever down.

Standing in the airlock chamber boosted her confidence. She wasn't going to die alone in Earth orbit. The hiss of air filling the room was the sweetest music to her ears, reassuring her of her safe return. When the inner door of the airlock opened, John, the station commander; Martina, the Italian astronaut and biologist; and Sergey, the Russian cosmonaut, were there to help her. Until then, the readout had shown no faults in her spacesuit. They quickly assisted her in removing the suit and carefully checked it. It appeared intact, but a pressure test would be needed later. Martina handed her a warm drink and said, "Please drink this; it will make you feel better."

"Thank you," Elara said, happily sucking the warm drink—hot chocolate—from the container's nozzle. 

When they helped her remove her undergarment, Martina discovered a spider in the right sleeve of her dress. "Where did this spider come from?" she asked. 

"This is a space spider," Sergey teased. 

Martina quickly grabbed the spider and transferred it into a sealed glass container. "On the previous mission, the crew researched spiders' ability to produce silk webs in zero gravity. This one likely escaped from their container."

"So, all this drama is caused by this ugly spider?" Elara asked. 

"It appears so," John responded. 

"It felt like a breeze brushing against my arm," Elara said. 

"The station should be bug-free, so you didn't expect a spider to be in your suit, which is why your brain interpreted the sensation of the crawling spider on your skin as a breeze—like a breeze brushing against your skin," Martina explained.