4

Safe to say John was feeling a tad overwhelmed. "Well, the good news is I avoided full impact and survived. Bad news is the survival thing might be short lived." He frowned at the screen in concern as he quickly assessed his priorities. "Communications is an issue but the loss of air circulation and lack of power to essential life support is a catastrophic issue." When he experienced a problem, he liked to talk it through rather than just in his mind. One; he didn't feel so alone and two; it was like sense checking with himself. Previous partners had found it odd when they often found him talking to himself in the kitchen or the shower but half the time John wasn't even aware his was voicing his to do list out loud.

He was running a full diagnostic to identify the main issues caused by the impact with the smaller bits of debris. It was not looking good. He whistled. "So many problems... so little time. Okay, well theoretically I shouldn't have to worry about communications now, this should have triggered some alarms at home so it's likely they're on their way. I just have to hold out and survive that long. Second problem is the arrays are knocked out – likely damaged beyond repair, I have some spares but a spacewalk right now is out of the question when I don't know if there are any more surprise's out there." He looked at gauge on his tank. "And I only have three hours of oxygen and the more energy I expend, the more I breathe…the quicker I asphyxiate." He added matter of flatly. The programme pinged signalling completion. His eyes sailed through the data, systematically skim reading what he needed at speed. John folded his arms as he drifted, coming to a difficult but inevitable conclusion. He didn't have a choice really; it was time to abandon ship. "Sorry old girl, I promise I'll be back soon to fix you up." With a sigh of defeat, he un-clipped himself. At least his actions meant there would still be a satellite to repair not rebuild. That was a small victory.

John let himself glide though the passageway, his gloved fingertips propelling him occasionally off the walls. "Also, why I prefer the gravity field on, this is simply inefficient." He groaned. His tank meter was steady for now, but for how long? He reached the escape pod, slapping his hand on the controls. There was a whir and a release of pressure as the door slid open a notch before ramming back into the door-frame. "Hey what gives?" exclaimed John as he tried once more. Again, the door started to open before slamming closed, he tried to pull it back but with no gravity there was nothing for him to brace himself against so it was futile. He swore. Un-clipping his trusty multi-tool off his belt he started to unscrew the panel that controlled the door, the electrics might have short circuited when the power conduits were damaged or the impact could have jarred the mechanism. He flipped off the panel and let it fly away, there was no way he was going to get the tiny screws back in. He gently prized the wires out assessing them one by one as he went. "Hmm…. the problem doesn't lie with you…." He placed them all back before manually crossing the two wires together to create a spark. The door bounced open briefly before closing again. "Shoot!"

The corridor was much darker now, John frowned in concern. "Oh, I wonder if power is the issue here?" He twisted around before propelling himself the short distance to the control room where he consulted the stats again. Emergency power at 34%. Well now he had no choice. He had to spacewalk and fix the arrays. I'm never going to survive this. "Don't lose faith buddy, not yet -you're getting out of here. Who knows? You may even get Christmas dinner this year that's not out of a bag." His stomach rumbled in hopeful anticipation. With renewed vigor he pulled his toolkit from the cupboard under the console and started to attach the ones he would need to his belt. "Seems Santa's not the only one doing a bit of roof climbing today." Once he was strapped up, he made his way back up the corridor to the airlock that would come out closest to the arrays. He was worried. He had no idea as to the extent of the damage out there. They may not even be repairable but without them charging up to replete his power then he wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.

He waited impatiently for the airlock to seal before the bulb above the door flared green. The door swished open. He remained tethered inside before tugging the external wire. It felt intact but he couldn't be sure it hadn't sustained damaged so he decided to use the line and his magnetic clamps that brains had developed (His boots were metallic too). He checked his gauge, just under one and half hours of Oxygen left. He had one more spare set of tanks he could use but John knew he couldn't afford to waste any more time. He clipped on and stepped out into the abyss. The sound of his breath was his constant companion.

It had been over two months since his last spacewalk, these days most of the maintenance could be done remotely from the comfort of his desk with the drones but this unfortunately would require his physical self to repair. He carefully made his way across, uncomfortably aware that there was a thirty-minute window till the debris passed over again. Unfortunately the debris would continue to pass on its own orbit every 90 minutes till it disintegrated completely or they could clear it. He would have to be mindful of the danger that posed. The steady clunk of his boots connecting with metal provided him with reassurance as he shifted along. He tried not to shiver; it was pretty cold out here but luckily his suit provided some warmth.

He gasped as the arrays came into view. A part of him had been hanging on to the hope that the arrays had simply been turned around or knocked out of position but five had been completely obliterated and that was just on this wing, he couldn't see the damage on the other side yet. This was a disaster. His shoulders slumped as he continued his approach, this was going to take a while. He began by manually adjusting the ones with the least damage, returning them to their original positions, that should at least partially start to recharge five. The rest he would have to change in sections to be able to manage the repair by himself. He twisted the handle to his left 180 degrees before shunting up the retractable door. Inside safely clipped to the frame where several new solar panels, joints and attachments. John set about removing all the damaged solar panels first. He used a magnetic webbing to trap them against the hull to dispose of them later. Satisfied, he then set about replacing a few shorn attachments before then replacing the panels. It was cumbersome, labour-intensive work that left John sweating, despite being one of the fittest in his family. He heard a beeping which signaled thirty minutes of oxygen left, he'd been so engrossed in the task he'd forgotten how much time had passed! He looked up with fear fully expecting incoming space junk but the cosmos was clear. Time to move he thought. This is why they maintained radio contact and had someone on the inside or ground control monitoring the situation externally - it was very easy to lose sense of time up here.

John cautiously trod his way back across the outer hull clipping and un-clipping round obstructions at regular intervals as he crept along. He'd just got midway with the airlock in sight when something caught the periphery of his eye. Then the hail came, or rather the husks of disintegrated satellites. "No" John uttered in horror as he pulled himself in on the line. He tried to wedge himself onto the lip of the platform, curling inwards to try and make himself as small as he could. "Ahhh! I'm going to die, this is it." He pushed his helmet into the hull and prayed to gods he didn't believe in. He thought of his family and those they'd lost already.

He felt the impact when it came, the flash of the explosion was white even behind his closed eyelids as he was forcibly thrown away from the satellite, propelled towards open space. He yelled, arms outstretched scrabbling for the line which snapped and came free just as he clutched it. he pulled on his secondary line, desperately trying to reel himself in, he wasn't going to make it. He desperately stretched out his boots trying to reconnect with metal. He was falling yet strangely in slow motion, making thoughts of his demise even more torturous as stars refracted in the glimmer of his fear-stricken eyes. His arms were still flailing in the vacuum, the more he struggled the further he seemed to drift. His yells unheard by anyone but himself.