DAY 116

The alarms went off in station 1.  Bobbie and Jeff were suiting up to go out.  Sharon Dart and Andrew King were getting ready to go out with them.   Heather Warren and Ari Weiser were taking over watch. Jenn was on the ground coverage. “We have a threat to station 4.  There are seven targets and missile stats are zero hits. You will have clear laser shooting for eight minutes. Impact with station 4 is in eleven. Do you have power to take the shot?”

“We can fire seventeen shots. That will leave us with less than four hours of life support.”

Bobbie and Jeff conferred. He responded.  “Fire all seventeen if necessary. Get into your suits. We have two days of survival in suits if we shut down the ECS.  The lifeboat has two more for six of us. We have to save station 4.  We will stay clear of the laser.  We need to go out.”

In the next three minutes the lasers fired thirteen times to destroy the seven missiles. Heather looked at the power monitor. “If we don’t fire any more we have about a day.”

“We need to get suited up, close off as much of the station as possible and reduce power consumption as much as possible. We have two fuel cells on line at over sixty percent each.  They are using fuel.”

An hour later they had cut the usage by enough that the fuel cells were at forty percent. They now had just over thirty five hours. As they were congratulating themselves another alarm sounded. There were five targets. They fired five times leaving reserves desperately low. They notified Jeff and Bobbie.  The response was unexpected. “Turn up array two, panel one.”

Ari flipped the switches and watched as the fuel cells dropped to under ten percent. They now had about a day. The EVA end time passed and the four stayed out working for four more hours. This was war.  They came on only when their suit consumables were exhausted.

Check the end of chapter 1 or my site for more chapters or stories by

Ralph Brandt

The Perfected Astronauts