I Am A Dreamer Of Dreams

I'm a maintenance tech on a ship doing runs between earth and some nameless asteroid deep out in space beyond mars. When I signed on I was amazed at how cramped my crew quarters would be but it has advantages. I guess that comes with rank It's just a life pod big enough for two (supposedly) that's jambed between two of the many cylindrical sections that make up the spinning habitation ring. Gravity is about 3/8 g. A bit higher than the moon and a bit lower than mars but enough to keep us from turning into mush while keeping costs down I guess. The location of the pod is pretty good as it's a lot more private than the bunk areas where you share a bunk with two other girls. Got off my shift and was hanging out with Purr Fect Shun. Of asian descent she was of delicate features on s small frame but as with most of us outworlders she was tall and as flat chested as me. She specializes in air reclamation. There's a blower in my pod that's making a sound and I wanted her to check it out. Kind of hoping she'd let me check her out too. We'd just gotten down to the airlock to the space where my pod is and we felt a strong jolt. Lights and alarms indicated that there was damage to the ring and we needed to evacuate. I jumped and flew into the pod pulling Purr in with me but there wasn't room face to face to close the lid. She had to be head down by my feet. As soon as she had flipped around the outer lid started to close. That by itself is unnerving as it is a thick slab of material with a sealing surface all around the perimeter. You wouldn't want your hair to be caught in it. We were pretty much in a panic and every other word started with f. Lid down the big over center latches snaped shut and the only light was from two bluish white LED lights in the pod. A small peephole allowed me to see outside. We felt a jolt as the pod broke loose and started spinning. Purr was sliding towards my feet and with no way to reach up to control her speed I was afraid she'd break her neck so I tightened my grip around her waist. Then I smelled it. "Did you?", "Yes, sorry." she replied. Not wearing an absorbant liner was sexy but at this point it was dangerous as it made my grip a bit less secure and she was uncomfortably balled up by my feet.. Attitude control thrusters fired and very shortly we were weightless. The smell was pretty bad but not much worse than most sections of the ring. She was able to get into a more comfortable position. We had enough air for a week. Power was from batteries though and with two in the pod we could hold out longer than if there was one as we were sharing warmth. The pod was well insulated but the outside temperature was a balmy -270°C. A cargo freighter was three days behind us. Strobe Lights and transponders would get attention for our recovery. How many others had survived was anyone's guess. It had all happened so fast. Too fast. There was no way to do a simulation exercise for something like what we'd gone through. The whine of the air system had become much worse. The flight system on the pods are voice controlled so we requested the power off to the blower. Purr was able to move her arms now and was able to open the panel where the loud noise was coming from. She had to reach in and feel for the blower. A blade had broken off. Most likely a bad prototyped part. She was able to twist off the end cap, extract the broken blade and snap off a blade 180 degrees from the broken one to rebalance it. That finished she put the cap back on and requested the power to be restored. Much better. Thanks!

I was going deaf down here. It was risky but had to try. If we loose air handling in zero g we'd be dead in a couple hours.

Yeah, the smell alone is making me dizzy!

The flight system initiated an anesthetic gas and the next thing we saw was the lid being opened on the rescue ship. A robotic tug had swept the debris volume and found our pod. No others had been so fortunate. The pod had kept us in the shipping lane for easy recovery. The rest of the ring was scattered amongst the stars with little hope of any rescue.