“Approaching for docking.” Rodney said, lining up the airlock to engage the automated alignment and connection sequence. “Is the station habitable, or do Mik’t and I need to depressurize the main cabin?”
“It’s probably safer to depressurize the cabin and filter air back in once I’m back onboard.” Monique replied, guiding a gravsled toward the door. It took a long time for the two rebels to get back to the orbital station, long enough for her to locate the main atmospheric tanks and disconnect them. From there, it was only a matter of lining up a gravsled and rolling the empty containers on top.
They had no choice. If Jean and the rebels planned to use this place as a base of operations, they would need the station. The station served as the primary controller for the planetary defense network, and if the Scaladorians attacked, they would need to use it to defend themselves accordingly. Not only was it a key location for the defense of their prison fortress, it was the only logical space to transfer from a ship capable of outer orbit travel to a shuttle designed for surface landing. Armed with that knowledge, she knew the only way to maintain control of the station would be to re-pressurize it and ensure that humans could remain on board for long periods of time.
“The pressure was that low after you restored the atmo?” Rodney asked, the mechanical sounds of the two vessels connection sequence grinding loudly in the background.
“Yes. So, I’m bringing one of the containment tanks down to the surface and hoping one of you can figure out how to refill it,” she replied, watching the airlock open to an empty shuttle cabin with rows of seating on either side. With a little effort and a lot of dexterity, she pushed the canister inside before climbing over and securing herself in one of the metal seats.
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“Wait, how big are these bottles?”
“About the size of two adult humans. I can’t read what their capacity is, but if Mik’t has a way to refill them safely, this process will need to happen at least three times.” She answered, breathing slightly heavier than normal.
“I have a way,” Mik’t’s translated voice said over the radio. “But I’m more concerned about whether you dumped the bodies of my kind in the vacuum or not. I fully support your pursuit of liberty, but that doesn’t mean I want to come face to face with the dead.”
“They’re all handled. You don’t need to worry about that one. We have too many issues facing our people in the coming months to allow the wrathful spirits of the dead to be one of them.” She said, pressing a button near her head and closing the shuttle doors.
After a few minutes, her stolen environmental suit informed her that Rodney had restored air to the cabin, and it was once again safe to breathe without it. Not long after that, the cockpit door opened, and the shuttle detached from the station. It wasn’t flashy, but it didn’t need to be.
She felt the shuttle move as it drifted away. For a normal person, this level of g-force increase would be negligible. That was not the case for someone who’d lost one of their five senses. Being deaf for so long had left her other perceptions just a little higher than the average persons, but most people wouldn’t make the trade if given the chance. The funny thing was, even if the doctors had given her the choice to restore her hearing to the way it was before she lost it a decade ago, she would refuse.
It had become her superpower. In a world where sounds constantly assaulted the minds of billions, she had silence. The doctors claimed there was no upside to being deaf, but she was convinced they were wrong. Nobody else could feel the air running across their skin. They didn’t know when a ship’s air had gone stale because they couldn’t sense the slight changes to pressure around them. She—on the other hand—could feel those changes and knew when something was going wrong.
“Cabin pressurized.” Rodney said, increasing the gravitational tug on her body once more. “We are headed home.”
