Floating

Ever so often you need to take a moment to appreciate the small things. I heard it, you heard it, but what does it truly mean? The two of us are trapped in a lunar station on one of the Red Moons, but no space ship could take us home, help didn’t seem to be arriving and that impending doom seemed to be setting in. What would you do?

We found in peace in the idea that we would die. At least, she did. I don’t know about me, but she accepted her death. I could see it in her eyes, that deep funk of depression. The empty feeling that could cripple me if I didn’t do something about it. Cold way of looking at it, but my mission was to escape and helping her was the only thing that felt like a step in the right direction.

Working at the engineers table I outfitted the distress signal booster to the communication line. If it was working as it should the signal should boost twice as far. I wondered to myself if that would reach enemy territory, which would be worse, but I rested on the idea that we were too deep in ally territory for them to make a move anyway.

When I turned to look back, she was missing. When I was working on the booster she was simply standing there watching.

“Anna?” I called. No response.

Without calling a second time I marched into the main corridor and saw her figure in the distance. I began the jog to catch up, but Anna heard and began to speed up. No way I was going to let her be alone for so long, so I took the opportunity to really stretch my legs.

I soon caught up with, each bound covering more distance she could in double the time.

“What is it?” Anna muttered. Her face was sweating strangely and she was trying not to look at me.

I had no time to be gentle; clutching her arm, I twisted her body so I could see her face clearly. The eyes were red and it seemed her skin was becoming puffy.

“What did you take?” I asked.

“I didn’t take anything!” Anna snapped, pushing me away. “You need to get yourself checked if you’ve never seen someone cry before.”

“So, you haven’t fallen as far as you said,” I smiled and she stared back with narrowed eyes.

“How is crying not falling?”

“You still have something inside of you, even if it’s sadness. Crying helps according to study.”

“Yeah, well I don’t feel any better.”

Watching Anna a moment longer, I was unable to find a response that would comfort her. I believe she found my cold side overwhelming, so I tried to use as much of my human in response.

“Wait here,” I told her, marching away.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Anna murmured and leaned back against the wall.

With great speed, I soon reached the command centre. With a few buttons and vocal orders, a screen turned from green to orange. With that it, a flick was switched and everything grew lighter. I heard yelling from the tunnels and immediately went to investigate.

I reached Anna before she reached me. I found her floating in the air, her face no longer sweating or meek, but wrought with fury.

“What are you doing?!” Anna yelled.

“You never did zero gravity training?” I asked.

“No, that wasn’t my field!” she muttered. “I fix things while having my feet firmly planted on the ground.”

I reached down my side and pressed a small indent on my hip. There was a short buzz and my magnetic feet disconnected from the ground and I floated up with a small push. Reaching upwards I grabbed at her arm and centred her properly in the air.

“I believe it is time you learnt,” I told her grimly. “As far as I am concerned, this is something that every ranger needs to experience at some point in their life.”

Floating gently towards one of the walls, I grabbed the nearest rung and pulled myself towards the intercom connections. It didn’t take much fiddling to get my system connected to the speakers that filled the space station.

With a quick scan through the system I soon found what I was looking for. As I watched Anna struggle in the air, I wondered how someone like her got qualified to be in space. Her experience was minimal and the area of space we were in was incredibly dangerous.

I believe it was her who damaged the life support after the incident. However, the damage she did was not enough to jeopardise the station or cost her life. The people she lost were enough to damage the heart, but not enough to let this station fall into disrepair.

I believe that Anna will learn to accept what happened as a work related accident, something out of her control. However, until then, it was time for some mental and emotional repair.

Music began to play through speakers, classical music to set the tone of playfulness. It seemed by choice was perfect, because for a moment I saw her smile.

“Are you mocking me, J7?” Anna asked me.

“Not mocking in anyway,” I told her. “I believe this song, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, was used quite often to reflect the grace and wonder of something magical. I think it will suit you in this scenario.”

I don’t know how my words worked so well, but her heart rate rose in that instant. Anna’s mood certainly improved that day and I believe with a few more lessons on zero gravity she will be fit for work in space. However, that is beyond my authority.

For now, the two of us my survive in this station with some measure of hope that someone will find us. Some people escape this situation with barely anything to help them, but we had a distress beacon and supplies that could keep fifty workers going for months on end. For Anna, it was more than enough to keep her going until help arrived.

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