Gabriel

by ~reido

The first thing I should probably say on this thing is that I’m going to die.  And nnnow that that’s out of the way…

I don’t like to think of myself as a hero, but people’ve called me one; I don’t know what’s so heroic about being an astronaut.  The things I do, the things I’ve done… I’d like to think that anyone would do them.  Anyone with a bit of bravery, at least.  But it ain’t bravery that makes people heroes.  I know that I’m brave, though; I don’t see that as much of a brag, to be honest.  Anyone can be brave.  Bravery, matter of fact, usually comes right along with stupidity; now, that’s something I’ve got in spades.  I mean, it… Well.  I want you—whoever finds this and listens to it, if anyone…  I want you to know that I regret nothing.

I don’t regret the beginning, ugly as it was.  The day I decked Brandon Maxwell, in fact, but that’s got nothing to do with why the day was ugly.  That was the end of the year of Portia Shiloh; she and I’d been living together for that whole year, off and on.  That was the day I decided what I was going to do after flight-school.  I’d always dreamed of going up into space, since I was a kid, since I watched Armstrong hop around on the moon like a trampoline, only slower—and Portia was scared.  Too scared.  She didn’t want me to even try and she said she didn’t want to lose me that way.  So, she handed me an ultimatum.  Ezra Gabriel, drop out or get out, she said, sounding entirely too much like my ma.  So I walked right out of there.

And then I walked down that aisle and graduated, and decked Brandon Maxwell in the face, ‘cause he was there with her—the day I’d walked out—the very day!   I couldn’t blame her, of course—he’d just swooped in and tried to make her feel better, she said, and probably believed herself.  But then, Brandon Maxwell was always a jackass, and he was probably doing it just to get my goat.  He barely knew Portia, anyways.

He’s back there, all cooked and curled up.  With Robbie.  Them and Alex, all dead.  I… I should r-record the names of the dead, in case it ain’t soon that you find this recording.  That’d be protocol, I think.  My crew on this mission con-consisted of three others:  Brandon Maxwell, Roberto Mia, and Alexandra Dumas  

Huh.  I guess if the year of Portia Shiloh was the year that this whole thing started, this whole, crazy astronaut thing, then it’s gonna end on the year of Alexandra Dumas.  She was my co-pilot on my first shuttle mission, and on this one, too.  Alex was a level-headed lady, and I might’ve loved her.  That was why she saw this whole thing coming.  Said to me, no more than a couple hours ago, this isn’t a shuttle you’re flying, Ezra.  It’s a lot bigger, and a whole lot faster.  Which makes sense, of course.  I mean the damned thing was meant for long-distance travel.  We weren’t going that far, though.  This was just a test run.  It was supposed to go smoothly.  Out away from home, to the moon and just as far past it.  But… Roberto saw it on the scopes: random debris, floating through space on a trajectory towards us.  He warned us the instant it showed—which gave us like… an hour or so before we had to do anything about it.  We were saving fuel, and figured on moving again just about when it was supposed to arrive, so it was kinda convenient.  An hour or s-s-ssso.  That was when she told me that I wasn’t flying a shuttle—and I knew I wasn’t.  But Brandon was giving me a hard time.  Made some stupid-assed crack at me.  Got me all riled up.  

So… Our hour was up.  Alex was in the c-co-pilot’s chair, smiling at me, reassuring, and I did love her but I’m such a moron sometimes, and I’m sssmiling r-right back at her but I’m pissed off at that jackass Brandon, I’m so pissed off that I’m not thinkin’ clear and I k-k-k-kick in the turn thrusters to push us out of the way and the ship whips around ‘cause I’d p-put too much oomph into it and this random piece of sp-sp-space ssshhhit that doesn’t even mean nothing in the grand scheme o’ things smashes rrrright in-in-into engine five ‘cause I’d put us in the way and the damned thing explodes and fire’s ru-ru-ru-rushing through the back of the cabin and I c-c-can hear R-r-robbie screaming and B-brandon’s shouting at me but then they’re both cooked dead strapped down in their seats and Alex and me are pulling on our helmets as fast as we can ‘cause we hear the ship cracking open back in the sleeping quarters and the thin sheets of metal that kept us separate from the nothingness out there rip and then the vacuum sucks out the oxygen and the fire right before it reaches us and it s-s-sucks Alexandra’s helmet right out of her hand right as I get mine on and it’s gone and there’s nothing I can do now but watch her suffocate and then—… And then I was alone with three corpses, because they were all strapped down, and didn’t get sucked out into space.  And I’m spinning off in some random direction thrown by the explosion and the air rushing out and I can see Earth zipping past as I spin, over and over, a little bit smaller each time.

My suit’s gonna run out of oxygen soon.  So… th-th-then, this recording is going to end, because I’m going to die, and there’ll be no one left to tell you what happened up here.  Put it in the records:  due to pilot error, at 19:53 (the clock’s stopped) on January 13th, 2012, a piece of debris of unknown origin struck the fifth engine of the NASA Odysseus long-range space-travel craft, rupturing the fuel-lines and causing massive and immediate decompression in all compartments and on all decks; the ship was out of radio range, and power was lost during the collision, preventing any transmission back to Earth.  

But I want you to know that I regret n-n-n-nothing.  I don’t regret c-coming up here.  I d-don’t regret sssstuff with Alex.  And I d-don’t regret ha-ha-hating Brandon.  Though…

Though I regret killing us.  Alex, Robbie… Brandon… I’m sorry.  This whole damn thing is my fault.