Daily Report #1

“Hello? Is this thing on?” I tried shouting into the radio. Stupid thing had always been on the fritz ever since this station launched two years ago. “Houston, this is Skylab X reporting, over.”

I messed with the controls some more, thinking maybe the radio wasn't getting a good signal. Let's see… I tried boosting the signal, switching back and forth between channels, making sure everything was properly connected. Nothing worked.

“Piece of junk…”

“Have you tried seeing if the antenna is aligned properly?” a man asked me. “This station is known to have a drifting problem.” The voice (and, frankly, the sight) of Commander Andrei Mikoyan always startled me. He looked about like one would expect a space mission commander to look: stone-faced, with a blank stare and a stern tone in his voice at all times, even during the rare occasion he was actually happy. I was fairly certain he was only here because it looked good for the Russians to at least pretend to cooperate with the other countries.

Ah, of course! Why didn't I think about the antenna alignment?

“My apologies, Commander,” I replied. “I was not made aware of any issues with the station's attitude or rotation during the mission briefing.”

He scoffed in a heavy accent, “Stupid Americans. Maybe if your government would stop slashing NASA's budget, they'd have the capability to build a better tin can than this.”

He wasn't wrong. Skylab X was meant to be our grand replacement for the International Space Station. The only problem, though, was the fact that even the aging ISS was in much better shape than this. In the race to replace the soon-to-be decommissioned ISS, every space agency and space corp just had to launch their own space station. There were by now at least eight of these things in orbit.

There were six of us floating around in this glorified tin can: Commander Andrei Mikoyan, station doctor Jun Kitaoka, science specialist Valerie Adams, and flight engineers Tom Majors, Cecilia Stewart, and myself. This was my third spaceflight, and my first aboard this station. It's been a week since I arrived.

Six more months with these people.

Commander Mikoyan might have been stern and difficult to work with, but he was principled and fine enough of a crewmate as long as we stayed on his good side. If we didn't, he was guaranteed to make our lives absolutely miserable. Doctor Kitaoka was cold and distant, with terrible bedside manners. It was a wonder how he managed to keep a job back on Earth, let alone out here. Majors and Stewart were decent crewmates albeit definitely not used to life in the cramped hallways of a space station. Those two usually made their presence known by bumbling around and nearly breaking stuff. NASA must have been lowering their standards again.

That left Adams, whom nobody really knew much about. She was the last to arrive at the station before me. Most of her time here had been spent locked away in her cabin, only emerging to perform her needed work and slink away into the darkness afterwards.

Commander Mikoyan floated towards the console at the center of the station to adjust the angle of the antenna. Just a slight adjustment was all that we needed to re-establish contact with Houston. In no time, the radio was back to functioning properly.

“X, this is CAPCOM Houston, asking for your daily report. Over.” CAPCOM was our term for the mission comms, dating all the way back to the early days when astronauts traveled in tiny capsules. CAPsule COMmunicator.

“We read you, Houston,” I answered. “Everything is running about as smoothly as it can. We launched the tardigrade experiments on schedule and without much difficulty. Doctor Kitaoka has been trying to figure out what's wrong with Adams, but nothing seems amiss. Other than that, everything has been normal.”

“Can you describe her symptoms?” CAPCOM asked me.

“She's not been experiencing any symptoms,” I answered back. “She's just been keeping her distance from everyone and only emerging from her cabin to do what's asked of her. Other than that, nothing.”

“Keep us posted if you see any changes in Adams’ condition,” CAPCOM told me. “And remember: You're doing this country and the world a huge favor by being here. The world owes you an immense debt of gratitude. Houston out.”

They shut off communications before I scoffed at them.

“I'll believe it when I see it.”

We were now alone. These days, Houston wouldn't call us very often anyways. They would usually call us to ask for our daily reports or to tell us something was once again wrong with the station. And that whole immense debt of gratitude thing? Heard that whole spiel before. At that moment, I was just wondering when the world would pay me back.

This job was not nearly as fabulous as they made it out to be in the movies. We were just floating around in space and maintaining a glorified tin can for six months or more at a time while Houston gave us constant reminders of how our country was proud of us and we were doing this great service for the space program. Presumably, this was our next step towards Mars.

We've been at this step for at least a decade now.

I gave the comms room one last quick look around before retreating to my cabin. It was, after all, almost time for my shift to end and the B shift to begin.

Once I made my way to my cabin, I made an attempt to open the door, a sliding block of aluminum alloy an inch thick. Presumably, these cabins were cabin controlled and the aluminum sliding doors were meant to keep the cabins sealed. Considering my difficulty in getting the door to budge even a little, I reckoned these doors were actually meant to keep us out.

As I struggled to get the damned door to open, I heard a faint boom in the distance. The next thing I knew, there was nothing. Knocked out cold. I've had a lot of time to think about what happened. My guess was there was some kind of explosion, and the shockwave caused me to collide with the cabin door face first.

I awoke to the sound of Commander Mikoyan shouting at me, saying “Johnson, you lazy buffoon! When I call for a crew meeting, that means everyone!”

Sheesh, how long was I out?