Ghosts

Space is a big place.  Big and very empty.  Unless you have a firm counter to a dread and despair so deep it would make an existentialists head explode, the very last situation you want to find yourself in is floating through dead space.

Unfortunately that is the position I am currently in.  I've been floating for hours now, drifting silently through inky blackness.  My suit will continue recycling fluids and gasses for weeks.  Survival instinct will insist I keep drinking the water and breathing until some other part of my equilibrium fails.  But until then I may have an eternity in the void.  Can't rely on empty space to kill me.  Was a time when people thought space would just freeze you solid.  Problem there.  Heat transfer requires something for the heat to transfer TO.  Space has nothing, so radiating away heat is actually quite the problem.

Course, I could get lucky.  Some errant screw from a cargo hold, blasted to speeds of millions of miles an hour might come by and slam through my skull like a rail frag through a nice pat of warm butter.  In fact, things are looking a bit up, I seem to be drifting into a debris field.  Perhaps some piece of bulkhead will shear me in two.
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Well a guy can hope right?

It's not looking like it'll happen though.  Debris in the field is moving to slowly in relation to me.  That's another weird quirk about space, it really brings relativity into finer focus.  I might be travelling a hundred million miles an hour compared to Earth right now, but that's all moot, cause Earth is too far away to matter.  The debris however, seems to be floating softly by.

I miss Earth.  I've been twice.  Ever since the disasters got so bad that offworlding was the only real choice even for the stubborn hillfolk, access to the planet had been restricted.  Even after the geoengineering and the terraforming brought it back in line with the glory it once had.  Even after the Deimos College of Botany and Biology reintroduced the species that had been preserved from the late 21st century and the entire planet was essentially turned into a nature preserve.  Now only a few million people could ever be planetside at a given time, and they were all carefully monitored.

What am I, reciting my memoirs to myself?  I thought it would take at least a full day or two before I we-

WHAM! PSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHUCK!

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Ow.

Hard to say which is worse, floating through the empty majesty of space freely, or having your suit maglock itself to a hunk of space junk.

Alright, so, where's that damn switch.  If I'm going to be fixed to something I at least want to be able to look at it.

Just... need... to reach... my be-

PHSHUK!

Alright, gloves and boots.  That I can work with.  Time to see what I'm...standing...

I am not this fucking lucky...  I just ejected from a ship that was going critical so far from traveled space my nav system just said "you are somewhere" and I landed on an intact-fucking-ship!?

No way this thing'll fly, but if I can get in it maybe I can rig some comm equipment to send a broadcast to civilization.  Least I should be able to find whatever weird alien shit the original owners considered a porn stash.

HAHA! If my guts are correct, and that's usually the way they vote, then that little protrusion ought to be an airlock.

Alright, relearning how to space walk.  Whatever you've seen, walking without any gravity, even with sticky boots, is a trying exercise.  Doable, certainly, but very unsettling.  You can't even worry you are going to fall flat on your face because... well... how could you? no gravity.

Okay... controls... um... keyhole?  kinda big for a key... deep too...  Alright, flashlight... hmm, should be able to get a hook around that... pull and-

PSSSSsssssssssshhhhhh.

Bingo.

Alright, now the real question, can whatever made this ship support human environs...  Door resealed.  Touch screen controls, Excellent!  But... nothing on the screen... is it not working?  WAIT!  go back, show me that again!

THUMP THUMP

Back damn you.

YES THAT!

No!

YES!

okay... spectrum adjustment?  You have got to be shitting me.  The controls are made to shift visible spectrum?  Either this is the craziest damn cruise liner I've ever been on or the makers of this machine went out of their way to make the controls accessible to as many species as possible...  Why would they do that?  Almost no interplanetary relationships are positive.  Sure, some species like growing on things they meet in space, but they don't bother catering to their food...

Right! Distractions... think about the freaky people you are about to meet in a little bit, for now, figure out the controls.  I have no idea what those symbols mean... buuuuut... okay, that's good.  Chemical symbols.  I can work with that.

atomic representation, oxygen... yep need that, nitrogen, lots of that thanks, and... argon, why not.  just a pinch.  nice pie chart... but how the hell do I figure out what a one percent slice looks like?  Screw it this looks pretty close... I'll try it, worst that happens is I get the death I was praying for a few minutes ago.

Um... engage?  yes that's my selection, make work now... I guess, when in doubt, try the ominous red button.

ssssssssssssssssss.

Excellent, atmosphere, now I can hear more than just what reverberates through my suit...  Time to check this baby out.