Deep Black Road: The Head of the Snake

Chapter 31

Ricky was safely in orbit around Mars, preparing to rendezvous with the shuttle, when his vision was abruptly flooded by a dazzling flash, and he was sent spiralling wildly towards the surface forty-five kilometres below, a fault alarm advising him that his left elbow had been damaged and shut down.

Probing with his right hand revealed that the joint had indeed been pulverized; but the black skin armour was amazingly still intact.

Okay, no problem, he thought as he shut off the alarm. I'll just stabilize myself with one hand.

After stopping the tumbling, he assessed his orbital status. The radar altimeter in the backpack reported that he was now forty-two kilometres up, and still dropping.

He realigned the pack antenna to put him back in communication with Earth, and then returned to his proper orbit, while his glow healed the damaged elbow.

"Ricky? Are you okay?" came the urgent message shortly after.

Oops, he thought. I never thought to report.

"I will be," he replied. "I got hit by a meteoroid."

"... What?! How badly are you hurt?"

"Well, my elbow got busted up pretty bad; but it'll be fixed soon."

"... Okay. We're all heaving a sigh of relief here. That was quite a scare you gave us."

"Yeah, sorry. I should've let you know right away."

"... Don't worry about it. If you feel up to it, you can proceed with the mission once you're back in the proper orbit."

"I'm on it."

<System advisory: Left elbow drive on line> <Complete>

Thank you.

Then he realized: That meteoroid could have hit a little to the right.

Just how strong is this armour skin anyway? The meteoroid smashed my elbow; but what about my torso? Is the skin able to block that kind of damage to my processor or power supply? And would the radiation shielding Dad built around the computer be any help?

I could have died. Again. This time for good.

And there's not a thing I could have done to stop it ... again.

Whatever. Thank you, God, that I didn't die this time. I sure don't want to die again—not yet anyway—because no way am I ready to meet you face to face.

#

Suzanne looked up high in the night sky at the reddish spark of light called Mars that hung silently among the stars.

So that's where you are, she thought. What happened that you were so scared, hmm? It couldn't have been too bad if all you're doing now is working.

Me, I'm down here changing the course of history!

#

Ricky stowed the last bag of rock samples from the tiny martian moon Phobos into its designated locker in the shuttle's cargo bay, and pushed himself back outside.

<User command: close cargo bay doors> <Complete> he radioed to the shuttle robot—it was, due to budget constraints, a pretty simple-minded robot; but it got the job done.