Time to Breathe

"...Ma'am?"

But she was already asleep.

It was a tedious cycle Patel established. Wake up, void bladder or bowels as needed, wash up as desired, drink a half liter of water, search for an undocumented command with increasing desperation for a few hours, then take another sedative and go back to sleep until it wore off. Repeat. Every twenty-four hours they broke the monotony with a protein bar and a sit-rep broadcast.

After forty-eight hours, Jones recalculated that they needed to drop the oxygen ratio to fifteen percent in order to stretch the remaining O2 past ninety-six hours. At sixty hours, it would drop to thirteen percent.

"We've tried literally thousands of combinations," Patel gestured at their notes that covered almost every writable surface. "The ideas we're trying now are ridiculous. Maybe there just isn't a command to adjust the air mixture. Maybe we found it hours ago, but we mistyped it. Maybe there's a bug in the software... Maybe the transmitter is broken and no one even knows how much trouble we're in."

"...We're not giving up, are we, ma'am?" Jones asked.

"I don't know," the Commander sighed. "Can you tell if sleeping has done us any good at all?"

Jones checked the pressure gauge on the O2 cylinder. 10.8 bar. What was the reading when he'd done the original calculation two days ago? He recalled rounding it to twenty-five. That meant they'd used... about two thousand thirty-two liters of air between two people over two days.

"Well, the good news is we've only used five hundred thirty-three liters of air each per day instead of your original five fifty assumption."

"How much has that stretched our survival time?"

"Working it now, ma'am..." Jones typed the numbers into the computer and winced at the calculation. "A little over two and a half hours."

"So if we stick to our current regiment and project that forward thirty-six hours, how much does it help?"

"...Another two hours."

"Still leaving us ten hours short of our rescue estimate... Alright, we're done trying to guess the secret command," Patel decided. "We're both sleeping now. As soon as you wake up, void, drink, and take another sedative immediately. We'll conserve as much oxygen as possible and reassess at seventy-two hours."

Jones wanted to ask if there were any risks in taking so many sleeping pills, but the risk of not taking them was obvious, so he kept his mouth shut and slept.

***

The clock showed eighty-five hours and twelve minutes since the pod ejected. They had exceeded their initial life expectancy by about three and half hours already, and the needle on the O2 gauge still pointed at 00.3 bar over normal atmospheric pressure

After sixteen nap cycles, Jones was loathe to take another sedative. While Patel slept, he disobeyed her order and ran all of his calculations on the computer again. Nothing changed.

The click of Patel's harness buckle startled him.

"Ma'am!" he blurted, turning so quickly in the air that his momentum propelled him all the way around, and he had to awkwardly turn back to face her. "I was, uh.. just wanted to..."

"Forget it, Jones," she yawned. "What's the prognosis?"

"A little over an hour left, ma'am."

"Fuck."

"Uh... Yes ma'am," Jones agreed.

Patel pushed off her chair and floated to the viewport where she looked out into the void.

"We'd be able to see the glow of Lewis's ion engines braking towards us by now, wouldn't we?" she asked over her shoulder.

"If they were coming from that direction ma'am... but we don't know which direction the window is facing."

Jones crossed the cabin with one jump and joined her next to the viewport.

"We could use the thrusters to turn the pod," he suggested. "Take a look around and see if Lewis is out there... might get tangled in the parachute though."

"At this point Jones, wishful thinking just might be more useful than facts."

When she accepted a commission in STAR Alliance, she knew that dying in the cold vastness of space was a very real possibility. Better to die pushing humanity forward than in a hospital bed, old, feeble, stoned on meds or without any memory of the life you'd lived. That's what she'd thought then. Now, not so much.

Now it seemed like being surrounded by family and friends would be a better way go. Now that she didn't have the choice. The grass is always greener.

She laughed mirthlessly at the idea. "I'm done, Jones. If these are our last hours, I'm not going to sleep them away. When the oxygen runs out, we'll pass out anyway and that will be it. No point rushing it."

"Yes ma'am," he smiled sadly, uncertain what the protocol was in this kind of situation.

It didn't feel like he was going to die. He thought he should be anxious, or frightened, or upset, but really he was bored by the whole thing. He just wanted it to be over.

"Come sit down and talk to me," Patel suggested, pulling herself back towards the acceleration chair that she thought of as 'hers'. "You're American, right? Or Canadian? Tell me about where you're from."

"Canadian, ma'am... A little speck of a town called 'Lazslo' in Saskatchewan." Jones pushed himself towards his own chair, caught hold of the harness, and swung into the seat with practiced ease. "Not much to tell, really. It's flat and it's empty for a hundred kilometers in every direction. It's pretty, but it's dull."

"It's sounds lovely. I grew up in Kolkata. The buildings are cramped and the streets are teeming and the parks are all crowded. In the most wide-open spaces, you can't see more than a kilometer. When you look up at the sky at night, it's blank and orange like a ceiling... I bet you could see the stars in Lazslo."

"Oh yes, ma'am. Millions of them."

"We're off duty," she laughed. "Call me 'Tamanna'... And tell me, why are you here instead of at university? You're obviously very bright."

It was hard to listen to the words she was saying instead of the way she said them. The allure of her accent was distracting. The sounds flirted around in his mind for a moment before he realized they were a question.

"Oh, uh... to piss off my brothers mostly, I guess," he shrugged.

"Ah! Disappointing family is something we have common then. Tell me." She tried to lean forward in anticipation, but the harness held her in place.

"My two older brothers, they didn't think I needed college. They figured Mom could teach me all the accounting and paperwork for the family ranch and I'd take over from her someday. That way they could just cowboy around doing what they called the 'real work'.

"That wasn't the life I wanted, but they didn't care. They said I owed it to the family.

"So I took the STAR Alliance qualification test online, enlisted, and while everyone was at my high school graduation, I was getting on a bus to Houston... They were, uh... they were pretty sore."

"I know how that can be," Patel consoled. "My parents were not happy with me when I joined the Air Force instead of marrying... They came around, eventually. Your brothers will too."

"I dunno. We haven't spoken since I left... Now I guess we never will."

Patel let the morbid truth hang between them for a moment before trying to redirect the conversation.

"So I'm guessing there was no girlfriend back in Lazslo."

"Oh, no ma'am," Jones blushed. "There were only eight of us in my whole graduating class, and five of us were boys... I was a... a short, fat, sweaty nerd that all the teachers liked. I, uh... I never really stood a chance with girls," he grinned sheepishly.

"That's hard to believe!" Patel objected. "You're certainly not fat anymore. If you were a bit taller, you could be an American movie star." A bit of an overstatement perhaps, but a kind one.

Jones blushed again. "Basic training sort of whipped me into shape, I guess... And then some of the engineering crew are real gym rats. I've been working out with them since we came aboard Clark... Movie star, eh?... Nobody ever said that before, ma'am."

"Please, call me 'Tamanna'. If there's even a small chance that you're the last person I ever talk to, I'd like you to be my friend and not my subordinate, ok?... What's your birth name?"

"Oh, uh... They named me after my grandfather," Jones replied with obvious discomfort. "It's, uh, 'Herbert Earnest'."

Patel wasn't familiar with either of the Anglican names.

"Everyone back home used to call me 'Herbie'," he admitted. Patel winced. Even to her ear, the name sounded diminutive and emasculating. "I actually like being called 'Jones'."

"Alright, 'Jones' it is then. "

"Thanks, um, Tamanna... So, uh... How long have you been with STAR Alliance?" he asked, making an effort to contribute to the conversation distracting them from the inevitable.

"Oh, it's coming up on fourteen years now. That was after three years in the Air Force. I started out at the clinic on Gagarin Station at the top of the Nairobi Elevator back when the Armstrong-class ships were still setting up the mining stations... And the first Aldrin was still under construction."

"They shipped me up on the Bogota Elevator. Is Gagarin any nicer than Tereshkova?"

"I don't know about 'nicer'. The designs are identical, but Gagarin definitely has more of an eastern influence... and better curries. Tereshkova has better cheeseburgers though."

"Huh... I had the cheeseburger on Tereshkova. I kinda have to wonder if you know what a cheeseburger is supposed to taste like."

"I suppose that's fair," Patel laughed. "Perhaps is was the company more than the food. I was seeing an Australian at the time, and he said the cheeseburgers were very good... He might have been teasing me."

"Or, maybe their burgers are made from kangaroo instead of beef... That would actually explain a lot," Jones considered.

Patel laughed again. It was a musical sound that lit the corners of his mind and pushed back the encroaching shadows just a bit. "I think they must use kangaroo for the sushi too," she smiled.

"Really? I've never had sushi... I thought it was all fish," he responded with a quizzical look.

"Yes... that's why the joke was funny," she explained dryly.

"Ah! Right," he grimaced at his own naivety. "...Sorry. I get it now... So you like sushi?"

"Oh, I love it. Back in the days when you were limited to four months at a time in orbit, I was stationed in Tanegashima for my dirt-side months and I dated a sushi chef who made the most incredible... Oh, if you haven't tasted it you really can't understand, but it's like... edible artwork. Imagine if you could perceive beauty with your tongue."

He'd always mocked sushi growing up, but now that he'd never have the opportunity again, he kind of regretted not trying it when he had the chance. Commander Pa... Tamana certainly made it sound appealing.

"Wow... I always thought it was just raw fish." The regret was obvious on his face.

"So, you got to travel some with STAR Alliance, right? Houston. Bogota. Did they send you anywhere else?" Patel asked, trying to turn the conversation back to him and the things he had done instead of the things he hadn't.

"Yeah, Darmstadt for Plasma Technician School," he answered perking up a bit. "The weather was a lot better than Houston... And the beer was really good, I guess. And the sausage... have you ever had currywurst?" Patel shook her head 'no'. "It's really good. Oh, and the strudel... I was afraid I was going to gain back all the weight I'd lost in basic," Jones laughed.

"You know, I've never been to Germany... Lots of pretty blondes, I imagine," she teased.

"Oh, uh, yeah... I guess."

"Oh, Jones... You didn't have a girlfriend in Germany either?"

"Eh... PT School is competitive," he explained. "Almost half my class washed-out... And besides, I didn't really know how to talk to girls... I guess I was kind of nervous and shy and it was... just easier to stay in my quarters and study."

This wasn't the sort of thing he usually admitted. In the camaraderie and bravado of the rest of the engineering crew, whenever women were discussed, he'd usually just smile knowingly and pretended he wasn't the kind to kiss and tell. But it was easy to open up to Tamanna. He found himself confessing things that he wouldn't dare share with any of his friends.

"What about when you got to Bogota? You had two days on the elevator ride up, and nothing else to do."

The orbital elevators were notorious hook-up spots. Anything to pass the time. Come to think of it, she'd met the Australian on the elevator.

Jones shook his head sheepishly. "Didn't seem worth it when I knew I'd be leaving the planet for almost a year."

"Have you met anyone on board Clark, then?" STAR Alliance had rules about shipboard romance, but they knew better than to prohibit it altogether.

Fireman Gigi Martin was one of the engineering gym rats, and the real reason Jones spent so much time in the gym. He had wanted to ask her out ever since he met her in Bogota, but the time never seemed right. And he always thought there'd be more of it.

He shrugged 'no' in response.

"So..." Patel hesitated. This was really much too personal a question to ask in casual conversation. But then again, what could be more personal than dying together? "...have you never been with a woman, Jones?"

"...Kinda," he admitted, looking down at his socked feet.

That sparked her curiosity. A defensive "yes" or an embarrassed "no" would have satisfied her, but "kinda" meant there was a story.

"Oh, you have to tell me more than that," she urged.

Jones face flushed, and he scratched at his head nervously. "Grade twelve... Kim Gardner offered to give me a blow job if I wrote her big end of term paper for her."

"Ah... you did?"

"Yeah... " he admitted reluctantly. "Yeah... She was the prettiest girl in school, and I kinda had a crush on her... I sorta hoped that... if things got started... if she spent some time with me... maybe she'd like me... maybe there'd be more."

Patel remembered that type of girl from her own school days. "There wasn't, was there?"

"She didn't even take her top off," Jones scowled. "Still..." he hesitated to confess this part. But what was the point of keeping it a secret now? "...It was the best fifteen seconds of my life," he japed with a sad smile.

"Ooo!" Patel cringed. "That's tough."

"Yeah...That... may have been another reason I wanted to get out of Laszlo," he confided, unable to look her in the eye.

Life had been good for Patel. She had run away from home and experienced more than anyone in her family had dreamed of. She had been to every continent and two other planets. She had a career and authority and respect. She'd shared her bed with a dozen men—and two women. She had eaten foods and listened to music and seen things that she never could have imagined at nineteen. STAR Alliance had been good to her.

But it had been a death sentence for Jones. This young man in front of her—so smart and funny and sweet—was about to have his life cut short before he had really had chance to live it. And it was her fault. He might protest, but she knew it for a fact.

"Jones," she lamented, "That... that shouldn't be your best memory."

He shrugged, resigned to his fate, accepting it in his head, but still not really comprehending it.

"You had a bright future ahead of you, and maybe that's all gone now, but..." Patel reached up to her collar and opened the top button of her uniform. "There's still time for at least one experience that you deserve."

He didn't understand where the sudden melancholy in her voice was coming from, but as Jones looked up and saw Tamana open another button, the meaning of her words became clear. His jaw dropped and his brain froze and his heart hammered in his chest.

Releasing her harness, Tamana gently nudged herself out of the seat and across the cabin towards him. She opened another button, and then another. Her pulse quickened.

"I can't save your life, Jones. But if we have to die, maybe you can die with one less regret. Maybe I can do that for you." She opened the last button and her uniform hung open, revealing her breasts floating high and firm on her bare chest. It was one of the things Tamana liked most about microgravity.

Jones stared. She approached through the air like an exotic angel, her pert breasts exposed. His awe made her smile.

Catching herself softly with just her fingertips on the arms of his chair, she floated exposed in front him. "Touch me, Jones," she whispered.

He swallowed and reached tentatively into her open shirt placing his palms on her ribs. She gasped at the touch of his cold hands, but didn't withdraw. He moved his hands up her ribs until the curve of her breasts were cradled under his thumbs.

"Go on," she urged, taking hold of the armrests to keep from being pushed away by his exploration.

He filled his hands with her breasts. They were soft and malleable like nothing he'd ever felt, and her firm, brown nipples pressed into his palms. His erection throbbed against his thigh, but he ignored the discomfort. The tone of her skin between his fingers was captivating as he massaged her tits against her chest.

"Mmmm, gently... just like that," she sighed. Tamana closed her eyes and let her head roll forward. She allowed herself to enjoy the sensation, to relax into the slow, sensuous curiosity of his hands until she became eager for more.

Reaching a hand behind his neck, she pulled herself forward and pressed her lips against his. Jones's eyes went wide as her tongue pressed into his mouth. He parted his lips and pushed his tongue back against her's, forgetting to do anything more with his hands.

It was a sloppy, unpracticed first kiss, just as she expected. She teased his lips and tongue with a dozen different tricks in quick succession, showing him a variety of things he could try himself.

Jones tried to follow her lead, then remembered her tits in his hands and began to caress them again, forgetting about her lips. His inexperience made her grin though the kiss and she moved from his lips to his scruffy jaw to his neck. As he squeezed one breast and rolled the other in his palm, she nibbled his neck from his collar up to his ear.

"Oh God," he moaned, arching his neck to the side and moving one hand to her bare back and pulling her down towards him. Her body weighed nothing and he reached his other hand around to her ass to pull her down into his chest.

Her lips traced his jaw line back to his mouth and she kissed him again. As he held her, she moved her hands between them and clicked open his restraint harness. With a gentle push she propelled them both up and out of the chair. One leg wrapped behind his knee and she leaned back away, giving her fingers room to open his shirt buttons.

"You like this?" Tamana asked.

Jones opened his eyes and found her looking back at him. "I do."

"It gets better."

"I was... hoping it might," he gulped.

They drifted slowly across the cabin, Jones' hands around her waist, Tamana's leg crooked behind his knees, her hands busy with his buttons. When they reached the far wall, Jones extended a hand and with his fingertips gently nudged them back the other way, spinning slowly in space.

When the last button was released, she slid the shirt off his shoulders and he shook one hand at a time out of the sleeves. She batted the discarded garment away, peeled his undershirt off over his head, and then let her own top float away as well.

His lips found hers this time and his hands explored her back pressing her tits into his chest. The heat of her against his bare skin was luxurious and decadent. Against her thigh she felt the mass of his cock straining in confinement. She smiled in anticipation and he felt her smile against his mouth.

He moved a hand down to her ass, and she wrapped her other leg up and around his, shifting herself down his body until his erection was pressed between her open thighs.