Michael Chan knew he should be terrified, but in the silent vacuum, terror felt strangely distant. It was as if his fear was a muted thing, muffled by the thick layers of his EVA suit and the eerie calm of space. His breath roared in his ears, loud and uneven. Each gasp fogged a patch of his helmet visor before the suit's air scrubbers cleared it.
He clung to the comms array truss with gloved hands. Beneath him, infinite darkness speckled with cold starlight yawned open. Above, the sun's glare had grown fierce – too bright to look at directly even with polarized filters. Michael forced himself to focus on the maintenance panel before him. A tiny, drifting screw threatened to float away, and he snatched it with a quick motion, fingers clumsy in thick gloves.
"Easy," he whispered to himself, though the word only echoed inside his helmet. He could feel his pulse hammering. The solar flare warning countdown ticked in the corner of his visor's HUD. Less than 3 minutes now. Almost done.
He tightened the last bolt on the replacement circuit board. The comm array's indicator lights flickered green, a good sign. Relief was short-lived – a static burst hissed through his headset, making him wince. The interference was getting worse. He needed to get back. Now.
"Chan, status report. How much longer?" Commander Alvarez's voice crackled over the link, barely audible.
Michael pressed a control on his wrist to respond. "I… I'm securing the last panel now. Another minute, tops. Then I'll haul my ass in." He tried to sound confident. He even gave a short laugh, hoping to ease the worry he felt from the whole crew's voices. But the laugh sounded hollow in his helmet, and his hands were shaking.
He shoved the panel closed and latched it. Task complete. Almost there, he thought, picturing the airlock a short crawl along the station hull. Michael reattached his tether to a guide rail and pushed off gently from the array. His body drifted, inertia gliding him along until the tether went taut, guiding his path.
As he moved, he glanced out at the cosmic panorama. Earth's curved horizon glimmered with an ethereal halo. Normally, it filled him with awe. But right now, he only felt exposed. The stars seemed to stare back indifferent.
Suddenly, an intense flash lit his visor – the sun, flaring bright. Michael's HUD went white, overwhelmed by the burst of radiation. He snapped his eyes shut out of reflex. Through his lids, he sensed a brilliant flicker.
Instantly, his suit's radiation alarms blared, a shrill tone in his ear. Red warnings scrolled: RAD LEVEL CRITICAL – SEEK SHELTER. The first wave of the solar storm had arrived, faster than predicted.
Michael's stomach dropped. He was still several meters from the airlock. "Commander, hurry!" he yelled into the comm, unsure if it transmitted. His helmet filled with static; the flare's electromagnetic onslaught was scrambling signals.
He reached out, hands scrambling along the rail, pulling himself as fast as inertia allowed. Move, move! Training hammered in his head. Short bursts on the suit's thrusters could propel him, but in his panic, he fumbled the control. A jet of CO2 gas puffed from his backpack, sending him slightly off course.
The station seemed to wobble in his vision. His head swam; the radiation was already needling through him. Prickling heat spread across his skin under the suit, and nausea curdled in his gut.
He managed to grasp a rung near the airlock module and yank himself back to alignment. The world was a smear of flashing alerts now. His neural implant, which assisted orientation and suit telemetry, spat out corrupted data. Michael saw a flicker of double images in his HUD – a brief hallucination of another gloved hand reaching for the same rung? He blinked hard and it was gone. Just my own hand, he told himself, focus!
A sensation of splitting invaded his thoughts – a dizzy feeling as if he were in two places at once. Just disorientation from the radiation, he reasoned. He'd read about this: high radiation could induce confusion, even seizures. His heart thudded loudly. There was a sharp ache behind his eyes.
At last, he reached the airlock's exterior panel. His trembling fingers keyed the entry code on the pad. The mechanism was sluggish; the storm's interference made the keypad flicker. For a second, he worried it wouldn't respond.
Come on… come on!
A green light flashed. The outer hatch cracked open with a burst of escaping air vapor. Michael practically fell into the airlock chamber, dragging his tether behind. His boots hit the floor and he collapsed to his knees.
"Airlock sealed," he panted to himself as he slammed the close button. He hoped the system would transmit an automatic signal to the bridge that he was in. The outer door thumped shut, and blessed shadow enclosed him.
Michael's ears rang. He stayed on hands and knees as the chamber re-pressurized, feeling gravity's gentle tug from the station's rotation. Even through his suit, he felt the vibration of the pumps equalizing pressure. It seemed to take ages.
He coughed; the helmet's air tasted metallic, over-oxygenated. "I made it… I made it," he murmured. His voice sounded distant to him.
A loud clang indicated the inner door unlocking. Through the visor, Michael saw the outline of the hatch swing inward. Figures rushed toward him.
"Elena…?" he managed, but he could barely keep his eyes open now. His head felt thick, a leaden weight. Two crew members – he couldn't tell who in his haze – grabbed him under the arms and pulled him out of the airlock.
The world tilted. Michael's vision blurred as he was half-dragged, half-floated down the corridor. He caught a glimpse of Dr. Whitaker's face through her visor – they must have donned lightweight haz suits to protect from his irradiated suit. Her eyes were wide with concern, mouth moving, but he heard nothing except the thumping of his own pulse.
They wrestled him onto a gurney. Michael tried to speak, but a wave of exhaustion and nausea washed over him. His body felt like it was on fire now that adrenaline ebbed – the radiation dose was significant, he knew by the weakness in his limbs. He let himself sink back, staring up at the ceiling lights that flashed by as they rushed him to medbay. The lights seemed to streak and double, halos dancing.
As consciousness slipped, fragments of sound came back: Dr. Whitaker giving orders, something about "IV lines" and "neuro check." Someone – Devon? – saying "Hang in there, man." Michael tried to form words, but only a groan escaped.
He felt hands removing his helmet. Cool air hit his sweat-soaked hair. His eyes closed despite his efforts. The last thing he registered was Dr. Whitaker's face hovering over him, a penlight in hand, her voice calm and firm: "Michael, stay with me. Follow my voice."