Note: Sorry the first chapter was so short, but that's pretty much the way I write. This chapter is where the story melds a little bit with the movie, and I admittedly took some dramatic license with it. I hate melding with the movie since it's basically stuff you guys have already heard before, and I most likely won't do it so much in later chapters.
P.S. Please review…I'm naïve in this, and I need to know if this story is worth continuing!
Chapter II6 Months Earlier
"Ok Ben, you're doing good," Reed said calmly into the microphone, guiding his friend on his space walk.
He sighed. Although conducting an experiment of this magnitude had been his dream for many years, he resented the fact that he had had to sell-out to his long-time rival, Dr. von Doom, in order to receive the necessary funding. He had also discovered that space station surroundings weren't quite to his liking; too dark, too bland. The only thing to brighten up the small laboratory was the smile of his colleague, Anna Macedon.
"How are things looking out there?" she asked him quietly, reluctant to disturb his quiet, pensive mood. She always liked those moments; he would stand there at a window, staring as if at something nonexistent, but one could tell that something brilliant or profound was happening behind those eyes.
Shaking himself slightly to return to the present, he focused his brown eyes on hers. "Very well, actually; that storm we were monitoring isn't due to hit us for another 8 hours, so there's plenty of time for Ben to finish up the maintenance."
"That's good," she commented. Looking out the window, she said, "Wow, it's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Reed agreed, even though he was more of a cityscape sort of person.
A brief silence followed, and both scientists found the quiet, companionable moment quite enjoyable, in spite of themselves.
However, little alarm bells started going off in Anna's head. She was enjoying this too much. It was time to break it off, and fast. "Umm…we've both been too absorbed in our work here in the lab…no one has been checking on the ship's vitals in the reinforced cockpit…I'd better…"
Reed nodded, excusing her from limping on with her fairly pathetic excuse. Anna backed away and made her way through the tangle of lab equipment to the reinforced section of the space station, where all of the controls and readouts were located.
That's when the actual alarms started. A readout station came up from the floor at Reed's feet, displaying a countdown: 30 seconds.
His mouth dropped open, and his jaw worked soundlessly. His calculations had been off; this mother of all solar storms was going to be here much sooner than he thought, and there was no time to get the shields charged and raised.
"Oh crap," he muttered.
A much more accurate assessment of the situation he could not have made.