The L.S.C. Project

Tearing Barriers

They rose bright and early the next morning. Or, rather, morning cycle.

Put on your suit, go through the bathroom cycle (a very complicated but interesting cycle), eat the nearly tasteless breakfast from the storage, take shifts monitoring the controls. The lights were always at the same brightness during the 'day' cycle hours, then almost diminished during the 'night'.

It almost seemed normal.

Almost.

The food they ate came from freeze dried foil packages. The water they used had been recycled over and over again through the year and a half. The artificial gravity felt unnatural, the way their feet barely stuck to the floor. If you dropped something, it almost seemed to fall in slow motion. Unnatural was just the word for it.

The days passed by in the same order. Alexi bossed everyone around while speaking as little as possible. Preston acted like his sidekick, almost never leaving his side. He gave the most verbal commands. Alexi had a spine- chilling glare that he used often. Jayden was always carrying tools. He was reclusive most of the time. But during the 'evening' he went over that day's statistics. He had a kind smile. Josi was like Eva's mother figure. She kept an eye on her when there weren't any physics problems on board, which wasn't very often. Preston refused to give Eva any tasks that she was proven capable of doing, calling her 'too little' and 'not mature enough' for the simplest of tasks. She was on kitchen and monitoring for a long time.

That's how it was for a while.

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Three weeks passed.

The time had come to refuel at the farthest asteroid mine known to man.

"Count off!" Preston called out.

"One!"

"Duex!"

"Three!"

Alexi nodded. "This is very dangerous job. Act seriously."

They looked at what they called the 'suit bay', where the spacesuits were stored.

No words were spoken while they geared up.

LOADING HATCH THREE. OPENING HATCH THREE.

The latches that attached them to the asteroid fuel mine clicked shut one by one. The door slowly opened and out Preston and Jayden went. The coldness of the vast cosmos surrounding them sent chills into their bones. Once the bay door opened they were submerged into the full effects of zero gravity.

Let's just say the training on earth barely compared to this feeling of weightlessness.

Eva turned to Josi, something like fear dancing in her young eyes.

"We're gonna be fine, Eva. Just relax." Josi said with a smile.

They both deeply exhaled. Right, this was going to be fine. It's gonna be fine.

A huge, thick clear tube shot out above them.

/CRACK/

It's gonna be fine....