The Bridge: A Science Fiction Survival Story

Chapter 52

Airomem panted as she inched across the power line, every one of her movements creating reverberations that whipped down the line and back, threatening to unbalance her and cast her into space. She inched her hands forward, careful to maintain contact with the cord, and gripped tight each time a particularly violent vibration raced towards her. Then she shimmied her legs upwards, all too aware of the electrical hum trapped underneath her as her shins glided against the insulation. Then she repeated the process, her eyes glued to the other end of the ship to prevent her pupils from being lost in the blackness below, and curses streaming from her clenched jaw.

Just moments before, she had made the leap, crossing from the solid metal of the ship to the power cable, suspended in space for what felt like years. Her hands had been extended outwards until her fingertips grazed the cable and she latched on, gripping fast as her legs streamed behind. Then they arced forwards as the wire became taut under her momentum, her center of gravity swinging as she fought for control. The full load of her momentum snapped against her shoulders as they bore the tension of her swinging body until she pulled herself tight along the wire. For a moment she had paused, trembling, knowing that without the tether, one wrong move could mean death.

And now, she was slowly approaching the other end of the ship, each movement taking her closer to the midpoint. Images flashed through her mind of space debris, smaller versions of The Hand of God that would punch holes in her faster than she would be able to react. Thoughts that perhaps the wire was not secured tightly on the other side, and that she might yank it free. Or that the old oxygen tank on her back might have become defective through years without use, and that it might run out prematurely.

But with each pull against the cable, she pushed these thoughts away, forcing herself to concentrate on the next foot forward, then the next steps of her plan. And praying that she had not forgotten any of the steps in the procedures.

After ten minutes, she was halfway and she paused from her suspended position to look beyond the ship. There, reflected in the glass of her helmet was the new planet, with the burning star just beyond, its light illuminating her red hair. After hundreds of years, this was their final destination. And she couldn't help but wonder what they had left behind, and if this new world would prove any better.

By twenty minutes, she was three-quarters of the way there. And by twenty-five, the other end of the ship was ten feet away, and waiting. She would have to jump, clearing the last remaining gap to avoid the same short circuit problem that she had encountered earlier. But now, instead of her feet firm on the ground, she had only a swaying cable, and the closest handhold was thirty feet away, a tethering point just visible to the left of one of the windows.

The ship shuddered as she hesitated, and she cast a nervous glance to beyond the bridge, where the white light intensified temporarily. The longer that she waited, the more of a chance there was for something to go wrong, something she had absolutely no power to predict.

Gritting her teeth, she extended her arms forward as she arched her back. She hung there for an instant, like a string pulled tight and ready to snap, quivering under the tension. And then she launched herself forward, opening her arms wide as she drifted through space, her expression turning to horror as she streaked off target.

Halfway across the tethering point was now several feet beneath her, with the lip of the ship falling at the same pace. By the time she reached it, it would be too far to grip with her hands, and her toes would just barely graze the metal plating. She drew in a sharp breath as she saw the result of her trajectory, a beeline between two stars countless miles away, and felt adrenaline rushing just under the surface of her skin as the realization that not only would she be doomed if she missed, but so too would the Nectians.

In desperation, her hand flew to her belt where it found the coiled tether, and she whipped it towards its contact point. It sailed past the target, slamming into the side of the ship instead and skittering away, then retracting back to her side as the spindle drew it back in. She aimed a second throw, but it was too late, as the angle of opportunity for the opened hook to catch had closed, and she was now directly over the ship, the smooth top surface too flawless for her hook to catch. Eddies of the ship's artificial gravity below caught hold of her and she started to fall face first, her emotions flaring as she crashed against the metal and bounced back upwards, her fingers scrabbling along the surface but finding no purchase.

She slammed downwards again once more, skidding across the slick metal, turning a full circle as she started to slow. Ahead, the edge approached, but she was still moving too fast, the fabric of her gloves doing little to reduce her speed, now just above a jogging pace. Then the metal fell away once more, and the ship began to depart, leaving her behind in the void.

But there, on the flank of the ship and just at her eye level, was the mirror of the tether point she had tried to connect moments before. And as she drifted away, the gap between her and the ship growing larger with each second, she cocked her arm backwards for one more throw and let the hook fly, watching as it struck metal and danced around the contact.

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