Andrew J. Morgan's Blog: Aspiration Keeps Me Alive, page 10

Chapter 20

‘Hello – is that the NASA press centre?’

The person on the other end of the line – in her middling forties by the sound of it – confirmed that, yes, it was the NASA press centre.

‘And can I ask who you might be?’ she said.

‘Ah, yes – my name is Steve Philips. I’m the foreign affairs and technology correspondent for the New York Times.’

Steve Philips was indeed the correspondent for foreign affairs and technology at the New York Times, but that wasn’t making the pretence of being him any easier. S...

Chapter 19

Grigory, as it turned out, was a very gracious host, and made Sean and Aleks’ stay very pleasant. He was a former Special Forces operative and, through patchy, broken English, had some fascinating stories to tell. He had been discharged following a leg injury on an operation, and had so far spent his retirement in the countryside, occasionally dabbling in a spot of hunting – particularly for musk deer, which were abundant in the area. It also turned out that he was a fantastic cook, and once...

Chapter 18

Sally slept unexpectedly well that night. As bleak and unknown as her future seemed at that point, the lightened atmosphere almost instantly made the station a much more pleasant place to be, and so her quarters didn’t feel quite as claustrophobic as they had done before. She could hardly blame Novitskiy and Chris for being so openly cheerful about going back, even if she wasn’t going with them. The mood of her companions was easily the best it had been since she had arrived, and after Chris...

Chapter 17

Aleks had never been in so much pain in his life. His eyes, his lips, his ribs – all at once they pulsed with white hot agony in time to his palpitating heart. The taste of blood was strong in his mouth, but his jaw ached too much to spit it out. All he could do was swallow, making his face burn twice as much under the fire of his tenderised skin.

Through the small, reinforced glass window, a bleached light began to glow. The sunrise, after the longest night of his life, brought fresh hope, bu...

Chapter 16

Everything suddenly became very real for Sean Jacob – too real. Panicking, he looked sharply about the restaurant, half expecting a squad of Kevlar-clad troopers to come crashing in through the doors to take him away. His frenzied stare was met only by the sympathetic smile of an old couple sat on the table opposite, while the few other diners hadn’t even noticed. His heart seemed unnaturally loud in this quiet, serene environment, and, for a second, he felt silly. They wouldn’t be coming for...

Chapter 15

Aleks felt sick. He had woken up that morning after a few measly hours’ sleep feeling like it – fever, nausea, the works – but he still turned up for work that evening. He drained his fifth cup of water that hour to dampen his dry throat as he pointlessly manned his station at Mission Control, but the churning feeling all the way from his oesophagus to his bowels persisted. It wasn’t because he was sick, he knew that for sure. It was because he was going to risk everything he had ever worked...

Chapter 14

While Gardner and Chris worked on repairing Progress and Novitskiy took care of the station’s day-to-day operations, Sally spent her time fruitlessly broadcasting and scanning in the direction of UV-1. Patience was a virtue of which she was blessed with in abundance, but after two weeks of literally nothing, she was beginning to tire. Coupled with a recent bout of insomnia – weightless sleeping didn’t come naturally to her save from that first exhaustion-fuelled night – and life on the statio...

Chapter 13

‘Hi, David, Sean here. Have you managed to dig up any more information with that card?’

Sean waited, mobile phone pressed against his ear, while David proceeded to knock over a pile of something loud.

‘Sean – I’ve hit a dead-end. This thing is seriously well protected. I can’t get anything off it, I can’t use it with anything – this is proper homeland security level stuff. To be honest, I’m not comfortable playing with it any more.’

Sean swore to himself and took a second to recompose.

‘No worrie...

Chapter 12

‘Are you Major Romanenko?’ Gardner asked, cautiously guiding his weightless body closer to the man. Sally followed him through the narrow hatch between the modules and drew up alongside him to see the source of the Russian accent for herself. A wiry man floated at an unfolded dining table, foil-packed meal in front of him, laden spoon held halfway to his mouth. His black, patchy beard didn’t quite meet his black, patchy hair, and the void between was filled with pale skin that glowed under th...

Section 3: Welcome to the ISS – Chapter 11

An uneasy hush lay heavy in Mission Control. The engineers, scientists, physicians, mathematicians and other experts that had gathered to see the launch through had prematurely outlived their usefulness, a collective limb severed from a body that wandered on alone. Despite the weight of a twelve-hour shift pressing down on his aging muscles, Aleks couldn’t leave. It didn’t feel right. He could quite easily and understandably take a break, catch up on some sleep, wait for the call to say that...