Murmansk-13

Chief Engineer Jan Nilsen had been thrown clear across the bridge, but was already up. Diego felt a hand grasp his jumper neck, tightening the fabric around his throat and hauling him upward. Diego staggered to his feet, bewildered. Wild eyed, Nilsen screamed into his face the words a shocked jumble of English and Norwegian. Diego understood the pointing up and felt bile stinging his throat.

The concussion of the impact was still rocking Diego as he stumbled to the radio desk. The headset had been torn from the unit and thrown into the shifting shadows of the bridge, frayed copper wires were all that protruded from the jack. Diego switched to speaker and frantically tried to contact the team on the monkey island. He felt tears welling in his eyes as his futile efforts were met with dead air.

That was when Nilsen ordered Pettersson to kill the engines. That was when they were all plunged into silence.

Ten minutes would pass before Hernandez and Aidan emerged from the airlock. Diego was already helping Nilsen suit up when they lumbered sheepishly from the lock. Nilsen stared at them, each propping the other up, when Hernandez shook his head. “He’s gone, Chief.”

Diego felt his jaw tighten and he slipped into the growing darkness around the comms station. Surrounded by dead radio equipment and watching impotently.

The cadets suit was covered in tiny, glinting gold fibrewire particles, miniscule slices of metal debris jagging the external layers. He moved stiffly and didn’t remove his helmet, but his sun visor had been lifted and revealed a mask of pain. Hernandez limped, his magboots ripped in half and his face slicked with sweat. Neither asked what had happened to Diego. Diego prayed they hadn’t seen him being self indulgent in the shadows, consumed by his own shortcomings as Nilsen and Sammy helped them to the medical bay.

Nilsen returned to the bridge forty five minutes later, Diego was still sat in the darkness. Looking at the silent radio equipment, looking at the airlock, insensate and waiting. Stewart hadn’t returned, Nilsen was ashen faced. He informed Diego the hull breach had been patched by Pettersson, that the cadet had some badly wrenched neck muscles but that he and Hernandez would be OK, then Nilsen relieved him.

“Diego, don’t blame yourself,” Nilsen said as Diego departed the bridge.

Don’t blame yourself. In truth it hadn’t occurred to Diego to blame himself, up to that point the absence of Stewart hadn’t sunk in, just that he had, in some capacity, failed.

But Stewart was truly gone. Diego hadn’t much cared for the cocky Brit his superior in rank and junior in age, but his absence had been attributed to him.

Diego didn’t remember returning to his cabin, the low lit quiet of the ship was like a hazy dream. He’d stared at the crucifix his grandmother gave him as a boy, the sole adornment on the bulkheads of his cabin and found sleep remarkably easily.

Nobody rang his cabin at seven in the morning the next day and in sleep the hours slipped by. When he finally awoke it was cold, no duties had been doled out, no work to be done. It was if the crew were in a state of chrysalis. Diego took the crucifix down and felt the icy gold plating absorb the warmth of his hand.

In a loop, he played the scenario over again and again. Why hadn’t he seen the debris? Why had he lost comms with the party? Something, some failure that even in hindsight escaped him. He clutched the crucifix and tossed it onto his cabin desk. Diego spent the afternoon dry heaving and crying. Then Hernandez had knocked.

Diego braced himself, at the best of times Hernandez was volatile and this was not the best of times. Worse, Hernandez had every right to feel aggrieved, Diego was a trained radio officer, he’d had the radar and the comms at his disposal, he should have given forewarning. But he’d missed it and the people it truly cost were stood before him… or never would be again.