{"id":12649,"date":"2023-04-28T01:04:03","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T01:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=12649"},"modified":"2023-11-26T16:12:27","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T16:12:27","slug":"time-window-by-doug-dawson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/time-window-by-doug-dawson\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Window by Doug Dawson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cUnited Space-Service ship USS-4271 calling \u2026 Mayday \u2026 Mayday \u2026 This is Space-Patrol astronaut John Plantain \u2026 we are in low orbit around IO, we have meteorite damage, Auto-Nav\u2019s not working and we have less than forty minutes before our low orbit causes Auto-Ignite to fire and with no navigation control that takes us \u2013 God knows where. I know there isn\u2019t much time, but please send help if you can \u2026 I\u2019m broadcasting our co-ordinates.\u201d John had no idea his communications system was out, along with the ship\u2019s guidance system and that his messages weren\u2019t reaching the local space station, any other ship that happened to be in the area, or the astronaut effecting repairs just outside the ship. John spent a few minutes perusing the ship\u2019s operator manuals, hoping to find something \u2026 anything to help them.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This job better go quick,” offered Walt, John\u2019s co-pilot and fellow astronaut. “I won’t last long out here.” The Local-Com in his space suit cut out, though Walt had no way of knowing that John could no longer hear him. \u201cHow can I work out here with freezing hands and an Auto-Temp regulator that\u2019s on the fritz?\u201d he mumbled to himself, as his hands ran over tiny holes in the ship\u2019s skin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re under thirty-two minutes, Walt \u2026 but at least you\u2019re protected in that suit,\u201d announced John, to no one at all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDamn micro-meteorites,\u201d Walt mumbled, loud enough to be heard by someone else \u2013 if he had a working coms link. But there would be no excuses – he either completed the job on time or he didn’t. His heart sank as he surveyed the damaged area. The tiny rock had punctured the ship\u2019s outer skin and left the guidance system inoperable. Walt had seen what such impacts could do to intricately ordered arrays of wiring and Navi-Com boards before – like what a cigar burn did to the woven threads and carefully applied dyes of a silk scarf. He unlatched the self-contained Accu-Torch from his tool belt and tested the Flexi-Tether – it felt secure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you doing out there?\u201d asked John.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDecaying orbits are a bitch,\u201d said Walt, \u201cThey’re like bad dreams where you know you’re in one but you can’t wake up. They keep accelerating and they’re final,\u201d as he thought of the forty-minute time window he\u2019d started out with. The cold and the terror he felt kept him talking, so as not to feel so alone. \u201cIt\u2019s okay if you don\u2019t talk, John \u2026 I know you\u2019re listening and don\u2019t want to interrupt my concentration \u2026 better this way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHurry up,\u201d said John, sounding almost as worried as Walt. \u201cYou keeping eye on your Holo-Watch? Walt \u2026 are you there? Never mind \u2013 I know your mind\u2019s on the job, so let me do all the talking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Walt\u2019s mind wandered as he imagined the death spiral he might very soon find himself in, then snapped back to the task at hand. \u201cI know what Compu-Star\u2019s saying. John. Time-Task-Management, my foot \u2026 I still have this job to do. Forty-minutes before ignition, it tells us \u2013 that was how long ago? And we\u2019ve got how much time left? Then Auto-Ignite fires \u2026 what a life \u2026 what a job \u2026 what a universe.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKeep going,\u201d said John. \u201cDon\u2019t let your mind wander; there\u2019s not a second to lose. If you\u2019re still out there when ignition commences, the ship will lurch up \u2026 I hope it\u2019s up \u2026 your tether will snap \u2026 you\u2019ll be left in this orbit. If you don\u2019t get the damage fixed Auto-Nav won\u2019t know where it\u2019s going \u2026 we could end up in deep space or heading straight down into IO \u2026 or \u2026or \u2026 Jupiter. Wish I was out there to help you, buddy,\u201d his last statement sounding less convincing than anything he\u2019d said in a long time. \u201cYou know I want to switch to manual,\u201d he announced \u201cand I\u2019d do it for you, buddy \u2026 save you from Auto-Ignite \u2026 give you more time, but we could end up ….\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Walt imagined himself gradually spiraling toward the moon below. \u201cI found the hole, buddy \u2013 no telling what else I\u2019ll find.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Back in the ship John re-considered his last statements. \u201cBut I\u2019ve got to think of the ship. I can\u2019t leave us too close too close to IO to pull out of low orbit with the fuel we have left. Switching to manual\u2019s dangerous \u2026 we could \u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Walt recalled the panic when he and John realized how little time there was to repair the ship. The forty-minute time frame was back when he started, but collecting tools, putting on a space suit, getting through the air lock, finding the rupture in the hull, that all took a good part of the time he started with and now he had to survey the damage, cut through the ship’s metal skin and effect some sort of temporary repair. He knew that fixing a smashed, burned-out guidance system with hand tools and a torch was a joke. As he began to cut a hole around the charred metal, the Holo-Watch in his visor projected a 3-D pocket watch, about six inches across. It looked like gun metal and it had bright yellow markings and a black second hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-four minutes\u201d the holographic watch announced in its pleasing female alto voice, along with a chime at one of its prescribed three-minute intervals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walt didn’t sound like a name for a Space-Patrol ranger, but he’d been stuck with it all his life – funny he should worry about a thing like that now, with his life and John’s on the line, not to mention one aging United-Space-Service ship. This job was just a little too important for his mind to be wandering and he wondered why he had such trouble concentrating. \u201cMust be a lack of oxygen,\u201d he thought.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCheck your oxygen regulator, Walt,\u201d said John. \u201cWhat\u2019s it say? Space Patrol’s fault, that\u2019s what it is \u2026 nobody checks these suits anymore \u2026 hardly anybody does space walks. Our luck, all right \u2026 flying around IO \u2026 halo of meteorites … can hit you any second. Not as scary as a decaying orbit around Jupiter, though.\u201d He imagined crashing into a planetary body at high speed and thought \u201clet’s face it, dying is dying, no matter which orb you smash into \u2026 just our luck, to be spiraling into the most volcanically active moon in the solar system; perhaps we\u2019ll be hurled into the open mouth of an erupting volcano.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-one minutes,\u201d announced the holographic watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCutting a hole around the damaged area,\u201d announced Walt, sounding hopeful for the first time. \u201cYou should see this John – gyroscopes and attitude control rockets and they look okay. I can\u2019t believe our luck \u2026 only two wires and one Navi-Com board look fried \u2026 most of the meteorite must\u2019ve missed all the complicated circuits \u2026 connections \u2026 gyros. Look here \u2013 it shattered on one of the ship’s supporting beams. With a little luck I can \u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cAuto-Ignite\u2019s started the count-down, Walt,\u201d said John. That means just twenty minutes left \u2026 God \u2026 how\u2019re you doing out there? Walt? (pause) OK, I know you\u2019re working hard out there, don\u2019t have time to talk. Just keep at it, buddy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGlad John\u2019s not out here,\u201d thought Walt. \u201cJust get in the way \u2026 he\u2019s lucky he can just push buttons to pilot a ship \u2026 never could fix anything. Ow!\u201d he yelled as he felt a searing pain in his right forearm. He’d never felt anything like it before; it was like a bullet and a branding iron combined. He realized it could only be another micro-meteorite, one most likely the size of a grain of sand, but big enough to make a hole in his suit that would aggravate the freezing temperature and lack of oxygen that were already compromising his ability to function. As he held out his right arm and looked at the burned wires of the guidance system, a spray of red ice-bubbles blasted out of the tiny hole in his suit, reminding him of a retro rocket firing. The blood from his wound was being forced out by the air pressure still in his suit and instantly frozen into ice crystals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEighteen minutes,\u201d announced the Holo-Watch. \u201cThe atmospheric \u2018pressure will be out of my suit,\u201d cried Walt. \u201cI\u2019ll suffocate and freeze \u2026 before I hear the \u2018twelve minutes\u2019 warning at this rate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Walt instinctively reached over with his left hand to cover the hole in his suit but before his hand could get there the spray stopped. He stared in disbelief then realized enough blood had coagulated around the tiny hole to block it and that the pressure inside his suit held the blood in place the way the atmospheric pressure inside a ship would seal an Insta-Patch against any hull breach small enough to fix from inside the ship. There was still enough air in his suit for him to breathe and he went back to work.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Fifteen minutes.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing,\u201d thought Walt, \u201chow complex most of these … jobs are \u2026 how simple \u2026 this one … is. We\u2019ll just slide out the damaged board … plug in this new one \u2026 some soldering.\u201d It was the kind of thing he\u2019d done in secondary school, while learning to fix the antique receiving devices called “radios” and “TV’s” that taught him basic electronics, not to mention the mother boards that taught him how early computers worked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWalt? Walt? What\u2019s going on out there,\u201d pleaded John. \u201cI put in a call for help. I sent a Mayday to anyone within hailing distance. I\u2019m using full power to broadcast, Walt \u2013 even Earth should pick it up. The space station\u2019s gotta hear it too \u2013 why the hell don\u2019t they answer us? I know – they\u2019re too far away to help us with the time we\u2019ve got left \u2026 but they could at least answer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTwelve Minutes,\u201d chimed the Holo-Watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cIt\u2019s getting dicey, here, Walt. Auto-Nav\u2019s dead and Auto-Ignite\u2019s getting very unhappy. C\u2019mon buddy \u2026 get back to the ship, will you? I can\u2019t \u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting there,\u201d said Walt, practically shouting. \u201cBurned-out board replaced, one wire soldered, tho\u2019 it\u2019s sloppy \u2026 it\u2019ll hold, I guess.\u201d Walt was reaching for the other wire when he thought he felt his Flexi-Tether cord holding him back.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNine minutes.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Walt carelessly let his Acu-Torch swing freely on its own tether to his utility belt and yanked a little too hard on the main tether. As he grabbed the torch, he turned it on accidentally and didn’t even notice it cut through a loop of the main tether, which was coiling like a whip in the middle of a lash. Walt was now connected to his ship only by the guidance system wire he held in his left hand but still managed to use the Accu-Torch to inject hot solder onto the other frayed wire. From inside the ship John could see the cut tether as he screamed \u201cWalt \u2013 your main tether\u2019s cut! For God\u2019s sake, don\u2019t let go of anything \u00a0 \u2026 grab the part that\u2019s still connected to the ship.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSix minutes,\u201d warned the Holo-Watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRepair\u2019s done,\u201d cried Walt. \u201cForget your stupid warning,\u201d he said, looking at the Holo-Watch, I\u2019ve done it!\u201d he said, with a surge of pride as he let go of the wire. \u201cJohn! There\u2019s just enough time for me to get back to the ship \u2026 don\u2019t take off without me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFive minutes,\u201d said the Holo-Watch, now counting down in one-minute intervals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSuppose this god-damned Holo-Watch is running late?\u201d thought Walt, and then he practically shouted \u201cDon\u2019t let Auto-Ignite \u2026\u201d He made a conscious effort to calm down. \u201cNo worries,\u201d he said as he turned toward the hatch and reached for the Flexi-Tether. \u201cThese tethers always have slack in them,\u201d as he continued to glide away from the ship. His eyes bulged when he saw the cut end dangling and flailed to grab it, which only made him spin, as he continued to float further from the ship. In the middle of one of his rotations Walt managed a brief look back at the ship and saw John at the port side window, standing there helpless. In his panic Walt was distressed even more by the Holo-Watch as it continued to count down in one-minute intervals.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Four minutes.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"There wasn\u2019t time for John to retrieve and enter the codes necessary to activate the Auto-Ignite\u2019s manual override subsystem, don a suit, prepare and activate a Mini-Rocket, propel himself outside the ship, locate and retrieve Walt, bring him back to the ship and still expect to save them. The whole thing would take too long – by then the time window would have expired, both ship and rangers irretrievably lost to their decaying orbit and heading for the surface of IO. Saving himself and the ship was the only thing John could do now, and even in his despair Walt knew he’d do the same thing in John’s place. In his last look at the ship Walt imagined John at the window, mouthing the words “I’m sorry,” just before Auto-Ignite fired the engines. Fortunately, Walt was far enough away from the ship and its engines to avoid being burned to a crisp. \u201cNot much of a consolation,\u201d he thought, \u201cbut better than nothing.\u201d With the air left in his suit … hell, he might live another \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

“Three minutes,” heard Walt.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his last minutes of consciousness Walt managed a few clear thoughts through his panic. He imagined his suit’s Astro-Life-Guard, monitoring his life signs and beaming them out into space. Then a less pleasant thought hit him – was Astro-Life-Guard working any better than the Local-Com that \u2013 he had by now surmised by the total lack of response from John – deserted him early on?<\/span><\/p>\n

“Two minutes,” and the voice was louder now. Walt imagined John, standing before the United-Space-Service examining board, having to answer for the loss of his crewmate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTwo Minutes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Just for a second Walt imagined he saw a flash of light, coming from nowhere in particular outside his suit, probably his semi-conscious mind playing tricks on him, like one of those “out-of-body” experiences people used to report, before it was understood that under stress the brain releases chemicals which induce such hallucinations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne Minute.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This last warning was louder than all the others and it sounded final. As he began to slip into unconsciousness the last thing Walt saw was the pocket watch, now larger and spinning around in front of his face then stopping and disappearing, accompanied by the announcement:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Time’s Up!”<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in the ship, John strapped himself into one of the seats in front of the control panel as he watched the Auto-Ignite clock count down toward zero and waited for the ship\u2019s engines to fire. He expected to feel the sudden jolt of acceleration, but nothing happened. Instead, he felt a sharp bump, which came from outside the control room.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMore meteorites,\u201d thought John \u201cMuch bigger \u2026 they\u2019ll destroy the ship \u2026 I\u2019m done for.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"He felt a bump and heard a hiss from just outside the control module \u2013 something that couldn\u2019t be happening, unless an object like a meteorite had breached the outer air lock. \u201cOuter air lock\u2019s gone,\u201d he babbled, then \u201cwhat the \u2026?\u201d as he felt and heard another bump then a second hiss, which meant the air lock door was closing, the air lock itself was re-pressuring and it dawned on him that somebody was entering the ship. A minute later the control room door burst open and two Space-Tek rangers burst in, carrying Walt, causing John to unlock his seat belt and jump up. One of them said \u201cI\u2019m Al \u2013 and that\u2019s Tim,\u201d as he got Walt\u2019s helmet off, while Tim dashed over to the ship\u2019s control panel, looked at the read-outs and started working the controls as John stood aside and stared.<\/span><\/p>\n

Al reached into the Emergency-Medi-Gear kit attached to his belt and produced a syringe and a vial. He quickly injected Walt with adrenaline and other chemicals to oxygenate his blood and revive him. \u201cI\u2019m sure he\u2019s oxygen deprived,\u201d said Al, \u201cbut the body has a few minutes before any serious brain damage occurs. Hopefully we got to him in time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

John looked frantic: \u201cthis orbit \u2026 we\u2019re going to die,\u201d he managed to blurt out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tim continued to work the controls then turned to face John as Walt started to moan, meaning he was waking up. \u201cYour Auto-Ignite\u2019s not working either,\u201d said Tim. That\u2019s why the engines didn\u2019t fire up. I know we\u2019re in low orbit, but the ship\u2019s clock appears to be functioning perfectly. It just ran down a minute ago and there\u2019s always a safety margin of a few minutes before it\u2019s too late to pull out. I just put the ship on total manual control. The engines will fire in about thirty seconds, so strap yourselves in \u2013 I\u2019m going to pilot this ship back to the space station. There are way too many things broken around here to let you guys remain in orbit in this old rust bucket and who knows what else the meteorites might have damaged? Our Rescue-Rocket\u2019s securely docked onto your ship so we\u2019re all set to go. By the way, your coms are out too \u2013 the only way we knew to come out here for a rescue was the Astro-Life-Guard in your guy\u2019s suit \u2026 that must be one of the only things still working. It signaled the IO Space Station over a half hour ago and it took us that long to get here at top speed. Your ship didn\u2019t respond to any of our messages and that\u2019s how we knew you were both in trouble – now brace yourselves.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All four men felt the rush of acceleration as the ship pulled out of low orbit and headed for the space station circling IO.<\/span><\/p>\n

Doug Dawson hails from Brooklyn, New York, wrote extensively for the US Defense Dept. and as a freelancer had numerous articles and fiction published by car and trade magazines (\u201cVette Vues,\u201d \u201cCorvette Enthusiast,\u201d \u201cCorvette,\u201d \u201cThe Big Reel\u201d). He holds degrees\u00a0in music and computer science, studied fiction writing at Johns Hopkins University and has had his short stories published by Academy\u00a0of the Heart & Mind, Ariel Chart, Aphelion Webzine, Literary Yard, Scars Publications (8 stories), The Scarlet Leaf Review, Goats Milk<\/em>\u00a0and others and poetry accepted by Page & Spine<\/em> and Short-Humor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cUnited Space-Service ship USS-4271 calling \u2026 Mayday \u2026 Mayday \u2026 This is Space-Patrol astronaut John Plantain \u2026 we are in low orbit around IO, we have meteorite damage, Auto-Nav\u2019s not working and we have less than forty minutes before our low orbit causes Auto-Ignite to fire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425,372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary","category-science-fiction-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12649"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12666,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12649\/revisions\/12666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}