“Not Houston.”
“Then who?”
“Seems the Chinese Space Station got ripped halfway across the universe, the same as us.”
“Tiangong Station?” Aiko perks up, swiping an obsidian lock behind her ear just for it to escape and climb above her again. “They were operational and manned. A small crew of three.”
“Manned sounds right. Unfortunately, their response was too garbled to make any sense of it. Matty, perhaps you can take a crack at it.”
The crew notice us for the first time, loitering half in the doorway, our hands still clasped together.
“Welcome back, Peakey,” Anderson greets me with a warm smile. “You had us a little worried back there.”
I can feel heat flushing to my cheeks under the group's stares. Matherson is the first to look away, her eyes quickly shooting back to Clayton.
“I’ll take a look.” Matthias takes the datapad.
“We walk over to our neighbours and invite them inside.Dioknows we need more supplies. Half of the solar array is fucked.” Luca says.
“I wouldn’t mind some fresh air,” I add.
“That brings us to the worse news,” Clayton says.
“If this was the bad news, what's the worse news?” Matherson asks.
“Tiangong Station looks rough.”
“Rough...?” Aiko tilts her head to the side.
“Like a bull in a china shop.”
He brings up an image on his datapad. A grainy depiction of a space station. Only a third has any obvious illumination from within, and even more disturbing is the back end – a T-shaped junction of metal jutting out into two airlocks designed for connecting to shuttles.Significantly more advanced than our Soyuz docking procedures.
One side looks open, the hatch hanging wide off its hinges.That can’t be right.
Beside me, Matthias is tapping at his datapad, sifting through the static on the message we received. His brows furrow as his eyes squint at the screen.
“I think I found something,” he hits play.
A deep voice breaks through the static, “This is Commander… Yang Zhu of ……. Station… In case of… death–”
Screams rattle through the speakers.
The room drops to a deafening silence.
Heavy breathing and something that sounds eerily close to bones snapping.Just my overactive imagination.The trauma of the past days lingering as nightmares in the back of my mind.
Another snap. I flinch.
A shrill scream.
Metal clashing.
Static fills the void.
Air rushes back into the room as everyone takes an audible breath.
“What in the ever-loving fuck was that?” Matherson starts.
