Angry Moon

Chapter 12a

Paul was jerked out of his sleep by the howling of the alarm. "Emergency!" cried the recorded voice from every speaker. "Emergency evacuation! Emergency! Emergency evacuation!"

"What's going on?" he demanded as he struggled free from the elastic webbing. He threw open the curtain of his cot and climbed out to float in the middle of the module. He swam through the air, dressed only in his nightclothes, to the command module where Lauren was having an urgent, almost panicked conversation with ground control. "What's going on?" he demanded again.

Lauren looked around at him, her eyes wide with fear, then returned her attention to the monitor screen. "How long have we got?" she asked.

"The first particles could be arriving at any moment," the face on the screen replied. It wasn't someone Paul recognised. An elderly man with a neatly trimmed grey beard and wire frame spectacles. "We don't know if you're in any danger. This is purely precautionary, but we want you all on the ground within three hours. Put the station in ASCR mode and leave in the Colibri and the emergency re-entry modules. Immediately."

"Roger," said Lauren above the sound of the alarm. She reached out a hand and turned it off. Silence fell except for the distant voices of the other crew members asking each other what was going on. Lauren's fingers were already tapping on the touchscreen in front of her, bringing up the option to put the space station into Assured Safe Crew Return mode, in which it would operate automatically until another crew could be put back aboard, when the emergency was over. "ASCR mode activated. Prepping the re-entry craft for departure."

"Lauren!" cried Paul, growing increasingly alarmed. "What's going on?"

"There's another Scatter Cloud," the station commander replied, struggling to remain calm as she unbuckled herself from the seat. "A much bigger one. Heading right for us. The station could be holed. We've been ordered to evacuate."

"Shit!" Paul looked down at himself, still dressed only in his thin, cotton underclothes. Station protocol specified that, in an emergency evacuation, clothing was unimportant and that everyone should get to their assigned evacuation vehicle dressed in whatever they happened to be wearing at the time, but he still toyed with the idea of pulling on his shoes and jumpsuit. It would only take a moment...

Lauren saw the thought in his eyes, though. "Get to the Colibri," she snapped. "Now!"

Paul nodded and grabbed hold of a support strut to turn himself. Then he kicked himself away, back through node five and towards the Rotterdam module, to which the European shuttle was docked.

There was a 'Zing!' sound, simultaneously to his left and to his right. He froze in alarm, but nothing else seemed to happen. "What was that?" demanded Benny from the entrance to node two.

"Nothing," said Paul. "We'll look into it later. Let's just get off this station first..."

"Air pressure warning," said the station's computerised voice. "Air pressure drop in the Rotterdam module. Close all airtight doors immediately and follow puncture repair procedures."

"Ignore it," said Benny. "It'll take days for the pressure to drop dangerously low. Leave it for the next crew."

Paul nodded and began to move towards the airlock, but the computer voice spoke again. "Air pressure in the Rotterdam module has dropped to nine hundred millibars. Close all airtight doors immediately and follow puncture repair procedures. Air pressure in the Rotterdam Module is now eight hundred and eighty milibars. Close all airtight doors immediately and follow puncture repair procedures."

"Shit! It's falling fast!" said Jayesh, who had also just arrived. He closed the hatch he'd just come in through. "Must be a big hole. And the others aren't here yet."