Murmansk-13

Tor felt the inner suit swaddle him as the zip closed, then the bizarre sensation of swelling which came from the outer suits encumbrance. Where his earlier movements had been fatigued, now his muscles fizzed. Tor tried to coordinate his movements, compensating for his new bulk, his skin buried under layers of rubber, aluminized Mylar, nylon and Teflon. Tor had forgotten how heavy the suits were, or had not realized how weak he’d grown with age and administrative inactivity. His paunch ground against the velveteen inner suit fabric. “If you know how to shoot, be my guest, take it.”

“To hell with that, I’ve been firing rifles since I was a kid,” Mihailov puffed out his chest and stood over the tiny Filipina. “Eighteen months a conscript in the Bulgarian Land Forces, Thirty-First Mechanized Infantry Battalion.”

Tala stood unfazed and unimpressed, her left hand on the rifle barrel, right on her hip. Mihailov dwarfed her by over a foot. “You shoot as well as you play cards?”

“Children, children,” Tor stepped unsteadily from the wardrobe, trying to address his balance. “With any luck, and with all probability, nobody will be shooting a damn thing, particularly if the environment over there is pressurized.

With that said, Tala, I want your hands free, because I damn well know you can look after yourself better than Mihailov here.”

Tala handed Mihailov the rifle, grinning. Mihailov sneered back, playfully.

Tor was glad of the exchange, they seemed oblivious to his doddering across the Evac Suite and falling into the benches.

“Are you okay, Captain?” Peralta asked discreetly, grabbing Tor’s arm and abating his descent.

“I will be, Bose, just been a while,” Tor replied. Peralta smiled knowingly in response and ushered Tala and Mihailov to the escape airlock.

Tor had always prided himself on his exploits, an ageless jack-the-lad. Now he felt suddenly old and feeble. Becoming a Master had put him behind a desk, had it been so long since he was a youthful gadabout? With the exception of Dr. Smith, when was the last time he’d not paid for sex with a younger woman?

He watched the ease of movement of his three crewmen and realized that even his nostalgia had grown old and fragile. The image he held of Tor Gjerde was based on cheques cashed a long time ago.

Tor sighed, surprised how impotent the EVA suit made him feel. It had been too long since he asserted himself, too long pushing pens. He pushed himself upright against the table, fingers bedding into soft padding and followed his recon party into the airlock.

☣☭☠

The sensation of claustrophobia that overcame Tor as the bosun finished affixing his fishbowl helmet was overpowering. Metal couplings cinched together and his demand valve clicked open. Immediately, Tor was conscious of each individual breath he took. Erratic breathing gradually depleted his oxygen supply that would, unabated, be consumed much faster than the three recommended hours.

He tried to think of something else, anything else but as the water coolant system began to circulate within the membranes of his suit, Tor could only fixate on his need to piss.

Peralta tapped him on the helmet and gave him a thumbs up. Tor reciprocated with an additional pasted on smile. I’m going to suffocate to death, covered in my own piss. He kept that thought to himself as his visor fogged up.

The internal intercom fuzzed with white noise. Peralta’s voice sounded tinny and distant. “Activate your pressure regulators.”

Tor fumbled for the control on his breast, he’d just begun to reconcile his balance when Peralta had added the portable life support system to his back. Now 4.3 pounds per square inch of pressure stiffened the suit further. He felt as if he’d been cast in stone, his body overbalanced forward. He held his breath as the pressurization pushed against his chest.

“Any leaks, any signs of venting?” A shrill robotic voice crackled from his helmet mounted speaker. Mihailov.

“No.” Tor gasped, trying to focus on his pressure indicator as he fumbled between it and his oxygen gauge.

Tala and Peralta also confirmed to the negative. Tor tried to shuffle further onto the scuffed yellow and black striped deck markings. Peralta hit the control panel and Tor sensed the cast aluminium doors close behind him, the airlock became dim. Disorientation weakened his knees, his breathing ragged.

“Thirty seconds,” Peralta said, then hit the purge button.

Yellow warning beacons began strobbing, an alarm warbled as if underwater. Tor grasped at the high tensile buddy line that linked himself to Mihailov, resisting the inexplicable urge to pull all the hoses from his chest. He shouldn’t be here, not with Falmendikov missing. He was the ships commanding officer and his second-in-command was absent, what if something happened to him?