Not Yet

Niri set the auto-injector into a slow spin the air in front of her. She could use it now or wait. Either way, the result would be the same; dead is dead.

She checked the readout on the console. Her orbit was in a steady, slow decay. At the current rate, short of using the injector, it was a toss-up as to which would do her in: gamma radiation from the accretion disk leaking through the shielding, toxic buildup of CO2, or being shredded by passing through the accretion disk.

It was meant to be a simple job; two weeks her time, two and half months to those on the station. Do a fly-by of the black hole and give a boost to the probe on the way by to keep it in orbit outside the accretion disk. She’d just boosted the probe and was in the perigee of the maneuver when an unseen piece of debris slammed into her forward radiation shield, vaporizing itself and enough of her shield to slow her.

The impact damaged multiple systems, including the cameras, and knocked the external main thruster off the ship. Three of the maneuvering thrusters were still operational, and she was using them to keep the most intact part of the radiation shield between herself and the accretion disk while the Geiger counter let her know just how much was leaking through.

She’d watched the probe pass by her twice now, higher the second time. Based on the probe’s speed and orbit parameters, she’d estimated her speed and from there, figured out her orbital decay. Probably not the most encouraging use of her remaining time, but it had kept her mind occupied for a short time.

She’d sent a distress call right away, but with the increasing time dilation the nearer she got to the black hole, she had no way of knowing how long ago it was in their terms. Not that it mattered either way. They all knew this was a possibility every trip…thus the injector.

“This is Niharika ‘Niri’ Cullen. I’m in a declining orbit around 1S-MU4-A2. The Explorer 4 probe has been boosted into a stable orbit above me. As I said in my last transmission, my main thruster is offline — actually, it’s probably in the accretion disk by now — and a large portion of my radiation shield has been vaporized in a collision with a fast-moving meteoroid of approximately three to five millimeters.

“I’m not certain how long it’s been for you, but since my last transmission, it’s been…uh…about an hour. I have the injector out, but I’m not ready to check out just yet.

“I’ll be getting into the vac suit for the added radiation protection, and when the CO2 gets too high, I’ll button up and use up the oxygen from the suit.”

She let out a short laugh. “I’m taking every second I have. I don’t know why I’m prolonging it, I’m just not…I don’t want to die. Just…not yet.”

She keyed in the command that would compress the voice message and transmit it as a burst package. Niri left the injector floating in the cabin and squirmed into the IEVA emergency suit. Once in the suit, she attached the injector to a lanyard. There was no way to inject it through the suit, but she would deal with that issue when it came up.

Niri floated to the command chair and strapped herself in. She called up the specs for the maneuvering thrusters along with how much fuel for them remained. Based on the last positioning burn, she had a good estimate of the craft’s new mass, now that it was minus part of the shield and the external thruster.

“Orbital dynamics,” she said, “I can figure this out.”

She approached it as if it was a university assignment. Trusting the suit for radiation protection, she stopped using the thrusters to keep her shield aligned in order to save every gram of propellant.

At one point, she turned off the Geiger counter as its steady noise was a nuisance. She thought she had come up with a workable plan and had a moment’s jubilation before she reminded herself to double-check her work.

Working through it from back to front gave her a ridiculous result. Once again, she worked the problem front to back and realized that she’d assumed all four thrusters being operational.

She picked up the mic again. “This is Niri again. It’s been a couple hours since my last broadcast. I almost have enough propellant for the three working maneuvering thrusters to put myself into a very long slingshot. Almost.”

Niri sighed. “The best I can do is extend my stay in orbit by another few hours. By that time, the CO2 scrubbers will have failed, I’ll have used up all the ship’s oxygen, and I’ll be running out of oxygen from the suit’s PLSS. I’m going to do it anyway. Every second I can eke from this killing bastard I will.”

She programmed the burn into the positioning computer, set to fire at the perigee of the shallow, elliptical orbit to take advantage of the Oberth effect. “A few more kilos of propellant and I’d be out of here, but you’re not killing me yet,” she said to the black hole, its accretion disk represented by the arc of red at the edge of the navigation screen.

She tried to count down the time to the burn in her head and was surprised when it kicked in while she was at four. The ship spun as the three thrusters worked to both increase its speed and keep it from an inward trajectory.

The spin was more pronounced than she’d expected, but the thrusters sputtered to a stop after only ninety-four seconds. The induced spin gave her a very slight pseudo-gravity toward the port side. She forced herself to look at the display. Part of her wanted to believe that she had done better than hoped for, while another part was worried it was far worse.

The monitor told the story. She had extended her time outside the accretion disk for nine hours and seventeen minutes…give or take. The console notified her that the burn was complete, and her updated trajectory had been sent in burst transmission as it did after every burn.

Niri spent the next hours trying to think of any way to escape her fate. Wild plots of waiting until the door was in just the right position, holding on to it, and blowing the emergency bolts. A quick bit of math on the console told her that wouldn’t be enough.

She began to find it hard to breathe, panting, her heart racing; it was CO2 poisoning. Niri put on her helmet and buttoned up. The fresh oxygen from the suit was a welcome relief. The O2 readout on her sleeve said she had two hours and four minutes oxygen remaining.

She keyed the mic in her suit to record another message. “I’m buttoned up in the IEVA suit and on the PLSS. Ship’s systems are out of oxy, and the CO2 scrubber is done. I have two hours and three minutes of air left. When it gets down to the last, I’ll use the injector. Even if I’m not ready, I’m going out on my terms, not those of this bastard black hole. This will be my second-to-last transmission.”

Niri sent the burst transmission and worked on taking slow breaths. She was surprised how easy it was for her, given the circumstances, to remain calm.

She sat, not focused on anything, the lights from the console a blur. She thought about every happy memory she could dredge up. The unhappy memories came along with them, but she accepted the price.

Finally, she checked the O2 readout on the sleeve of her suit. Six minutes remaining. She keyed the mic. “I guess this is it,” she said, tears hanging in globules on her eyes. “I’ve only got a few minutes of air left, then I’m going to cut open the suit and use the injector. I just wish the cameras still worked so I could look this bastard in the eye when I do. I…uh…I guess I love you all, even if I don’t like you. Funny what it takes for that to sink in.”

She swallowed a sob. “This is Niharika ’Niri’ Cullen, signing off for the last time.” She sent the burst transmission and heard a beep from the terminal.

Niri switched the inbound from the terminal to her suit and keyed in response to the beep.

“Niri, come in. Hess here, on a rescue mission.”

“Lunchbox! Where are you?”

“I’m plotting my fly-by now. I’ve been enroute for the past week. They sent me as soon as they got your initial distress call.”

“The ship’s banged up, and we don’t have enough time to transfer fuel for another burn.”

“I got that. That’s why you’ve got to go EVA and kick off from the ship. I’ll be deploying the DCS for you. How much air does your suit have left?”

“Four minutes.”

“Looks like this is a one-shot trick. You need to get out now. You’ll see me coming. The tethers will wrap you up and drag you in automatically.”

“Wait, you’re using the drone capture system…on me?”

“It’s the best we could come up with in the time we had. It’ll probably hurt, so I apologize in advance.”

“Heading EVA now.” Niri opened the door, hanging on while the stale air rushed out, then climbed out onto the ship.

She positioned herself so the edge of the accretion disk was “down” and kicked hard against the side of the ship to separate herself from it. As she floated away from the ship, she looked down, her face shield darkening as the glow from the accretion disk lit her up.

“It may be a murdering bastard,” she said, “but my god, it’s beautiful.”

“That it is. Coming up on you know. Prepare for impact.”

Niri looked at the O2 readout, that had been flashing a big zero for at least a minute by then. “I’m out of air, you might be too late,” she panted. She saw the tendrils of the drone capture system splayed out behind Hess’s ship. As they neared, she swung her arms to turn her back to it and went limp.

Two of the tendrils made contact and whipped themselves around her, jerking her into motion behind the ship as her world went dark.

She woke inside the ship, with a worried Hess standing over her, holding an oxygen mask to her face. “Lunchbox, you’re still skinny as hell,” she said.

“I thought we lost you,” he said.

Niri coughed and groaned as she sat up. “Not yet.”