As she came round she realised she was falling down towards the Earth, tumbling in free-fall, falling in space. The tumbling wasn't too bad and she could feel the space suit kicking out an occasional blast of propellant in an attempt to right it's self. It was working; the tumbling was lessening as the computer got the hang of the corrections necessary to bring the suit into a nice sensible orientation.
The disorientation she felt; caused by the spinning? or was it the after affects of the explosion? She wasn't sure she knew. She was relived to note the suit medical facilities were giving her something for her nausea, as the last thing you wanted was to be sick inside a space suit!
She was surprised at herself, she was surprised that she wasn't screaming insanely at the prospect of falling to her death but she felt she had been here before? Not like deja vu, the feeling was more like a memory of a real event, but she just knew it hadn't happened before?
As she's randomly spun she could see the damaged ribbon pod above her, receding in to the distance as she fell. The ribbon pod and the ribbon tube it clung to, the ribbon tube a massive tower somehow disappearing in to space. Being close to it Anne had the impression of being by a massive cliff face, a cliff made of nano tubes and two dimensional carbon nano sheets combined together to form this most impressive structure, the largest greatest structure ever conceived of and built by man (well, nanobots), a tube, a tether, a "space elevator" (some would unkindly call it) between the earth and space. At this point the tube was one mile in diameter and if that sounds impressive just imagine how impressive it looked at the space terminal where is expanded to 10 miles in diameter! The one and only space port, constructed from nano materials by nano robots. A symbol of the new age of nanotechnology, technology heralding and enabling man's conquest of space.
She inspected the debris cloud she was falling in, looking at the individual pieces trying to guess how much damage had been done by the explosion. She could see some shapes which could be bodies. Now that would be serious, deaths would result in an investigation probably months or possibly a year or more long would be started and ribbon pod use would be restricted to transporting cargo and military personnel.
Seeing the bodies triggered a sense of relief in her as she realised that she should probably be dead too! If it hadn't been for the dream, the premonition, then she probably would be dead. No time to worry about what could have been what might have happened, the important thing was to get rescued!
Rescue should be automatic, once the suit detected that she was in danger it would have summonsed a life guard bot which she hoped would be on its way. It would not be an easy task for the lifebot because of the debris, it would have to calculate a route working out the trajectory's of all the major missiles. However the lifebots AI would lease with her suit AI calculating a trajectory the two could follow to a rendezvous.
She realised why the suit hadn't immediately positioned her in the emergency recovery position, its AI had computed the necessity for preserving propellant for life saving manoeuvres in the debris field. Well there was nothing she could do now accept admire the view.
An LED flashed indicating a com connection. She connected, it was Jeff the pod security chief. Hi Anne he said. .. Not good news I'm afraid, said Jeff, that dam terror bot got the escape pods as well. How? Said Anne... Unbelieving. ...knowing that the 50 escapes pods were an independent foolproof system. We're not sure but the only way it could have been done is EVA... Said Jeff. So your not kidding, there's no life bots? Well I've got 3 crews out now, seeing if any bots can be fixed, but we don't have much time, your not far from re-entry. I have checked to see if there are any maintenance bots in the area but there aren't any, I have arranged for a high speed pod which is on its way up here from the next shuttle down, but it'll never get here in time. I just don't know what to say or do Anne. Your going too slow and too steep to bounce off the atmosphere, but your speed is great enough that it will be unlikely you will survive re-entry.
Anne knew Jeff was right.
As if to reinforce of notion that this was it, she saw a couple of brief flashes as the faster falling debris started to hit the atmosphere. The number of flashes increased and took on the appearance of a firework display. Anne couldn't help feeling slightly amused at the prospect she was going to go out in a blaze of glory as it were.
She could feel the heat gathering in her feet, and the sense of deceleration was incredible, thankfully she felt herself blacking out before she would have to decide which was worse. Then she found she wasn't?
"She" hadn't passed out, but "she" was passed out, the real her the one falling... was.... She "as her consciousness" was separate and looking at her physical body falling.
It was as if time stopped but strangely the heat glow from her feet looked like a moving living flame.
She sensed that things were coming to an end she sensed that she didn't have much time here in this limbo, but what should she do?
Ann's consciousness tried to move again, she felt she couldn't move but then she noticed that she had moved, she had moved a tad back towards the the ribbon pod. She concentrated and found she could "will herself " to move closer to the ribbon pod. But something else! Her "real self" moved with her... and... looking closely she could see that the image of her real self rewound as it were, like watching a movie on rewind. Fascinated she found herself moving in closer to get a better look. She watched her lips and could see that she was talking to Jeff.
As she moved in closer she felt a force grab her and pull her in towards her real self. And then snap she was back in her real self she could feel her lips moving, she was talking to Jeff! As her mind integrated back into her real self the confusion caused her talking to stutter to a stop. "Are you all right?" said Jeff concerned. " I love you Jeff" she said " goodbye" and then she felt the same experience again, the heat, the deceleration, the dissociation with her body, her removal from her body and then again she was back outside looking back in.
She wondered for a second if this was hell, if she would recycle through her last moment again and again. But she was also excited! what if she could move further up? What if she could join herself at a point before the explosion! What is she could go all the way back to her childhood?
Then she knew what to do.... entering her consciousness again the same as before, but this time she interrogated Jeff. ...
