SPACE - Stranded

Chapter Three: Slate

In order to be an astronaut, one has to be extremely fit, physically and mentally. And this more or less described James Slate. He was an astronaut, and Julia Kenson's closest, er, only friend.

He lived in a larger city about 45 minutes away from Ruby Lake. 45 minutes away is arguably the worst distance to live from someone, because it's just far enough that you don't get to visit someone often, but close enough that whenever you do, you mostly end up sitting on the couch for twenty minutes staring at bookshelves.

Out of the entire crew on the space station, James Slate had

Been the only actually qualified astronaut out of the friend group and,

Been one out of two to be promised a spot on the next flight to the space station last minute as opposed to the first mission, which had been the plan since the station had been funded.

A level-headed man, James Slate was a perfect problem-solver. He used logic to solve solutions and was never superstitious, it just didn't hold up. He once smashed seventeen mirrors and didn't lose a second of sleep over it. He was well educated, though slightly awkward, but what really won him the position of astronaut was that, unlike many people with similar levels of intellect, he actually went to the gym. On a daily basis. Which was actually where he met Julia Kenson, when she was twelve at the school's gym at seven in the morning, running on a treadmill listening to a podcast on dark matter. She wanted to be an astrophysicist, but was also interested in engineering and rocket science as a hobby. He wanted to be an astronaut. When he told her that, she told him that she designed space stations in a computer program in her spare time. The next lunch, they met with her two older friends, Frank Watt and Alexander Farson, for lunch. And the rest was history.

On this particular day, James Slate was sitting on his couch, playing video games online with his friends, when another one of his friends joined the game and said,

"Hey Slate, congrats on getting chosen for the mission, by the way."

James blinked. "What?" He asked. "The salvage mission. To the... You know... Um... Kenson's space station. Jamieson finally managed to cut through all that red tape and they're finally going to clean up the station."

"WHAT?!"

"Judging by your tone of voice, I'm guessing that something got lost in communication."

"If by 'lost in communication' you meant 'I literally heard nothing of this until right now', you would be right!"

"Shit, man, that is rough." //See? Plot purposes.

Another friend of his chimed in. "Wow, you're all over the news. Check it out."

James opened up a news page on his second screen. "'Julia Kenson and James Slate to participate in salvage mission.' 'Astronaut James Slate selected for salvage mission along with Julia Kenson.' 'Astrophysicist Julia Kenson-' Oh, she's going to hate that one. I don't get it. Why didn't ANYONE tell me?"

Just then, there was a knock at his door. "Be right back, guys." he said, hiding in a corner away from the opposite team and running to the door.

"Hello there! James Slate, you have been selected for the salvage mission to the-"

SLAM!