I bolted out the bridge and headed to the nearest access hatch.

  Petrov shouted for me to stop. But I didn’t. Every second waiting was a second Buzz was still in that burning wreck.

  Each access hatch had a rack of suits. When Petrov said they didn’t have the gear for a space walk, he meant a routine, full EVA. We had suits. Plenty of them. Just none were rated for spacewalks. They were meant for last resorts, like life vests on a boat.

  I was pulling one down when Gilley rounded the corner.

  “Don’t try to stop me.” I said.

  “I wont,” he said, grabbing a suit of his own.

  God damn, I could have kissed him.

  We worked fast, expecting any second Petrov, or Reynolds, or the Captain to come and try to stop us.

  I checked the reading on the O2 tank and strapped it on. Before strapping his on, Gilley slapped the tank, as if he didn’t like the number he saw on the gauge.

  We each grabbed a fire extinguisher (there’s one every few meters), and headed for the nearest airlock.

  FreightMax ships were built for bad landings. Every airlock was actually four, arranged on the wall, ceiling, and floor. That way, no matter how bad the ship lands, one of the airlocks would always accessable. I told you FreightMax’s were great ships.

  We climbed through the inner hatch and into the airlock chamber before our helmets were even sealed. Jules was on the headset in our comms.

  “They’re telling you two to stop,” she said. “But I know you probably wont.”

  Through the hatch’s port window, one of the few on the ship, I could see Buzz’s probe. It didn’t look good. Twisted metal and on fire. I had no idea what we would find in that wreckage but I pushed the thought away and went back to the door’s lock.

  “Candy,” Jules said. “Listen.”

  “I am,” I said, turning the hatch wheel.

  “We don’t know anything about what you’re about to step out into.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “There could be pressure. Enough to flatten you two into burgers.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed.

  Petrov’s hand slapped on the airlock’s doors. We couldn’t hear him through the closed airlock. Gilley pointed to his helmet. The international sign for, I can’t hear you in here.

  We couldn’t hear him, but we could tell by the color of his face that he wasn’t happy with what we were doing.

  I stopped turning the wheel. “Hey Jules.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You able to get a hold of Buzz?”

  Silence. Then she said, “he’s not responding.”

  That was all I need. I took one last look at Gilley. His big bobble-head nodded and I finished turning the lock.

  In any other circumstance, there would be hundreds of tests to run. Tests on the atmosphere, on the amount of pressure, and radiation, and even temperature. Probes existed for a reason: our bodies are soft and weak, not built for space exploration. But in the end, it all came down to time. And there just wasn’t any of it. Buzz needed our help.

  If we stepped out and were squished into a hamburger patty, as Jules put it, well, at least they’d know the pressure was high— really, really high.

  I stepped out and started running. I looked back once to see Gilley right behind me. We weren’t hamburger patties, we weren’t ignited in flames, and we weren’t floating. The suit was just as heavy and cumbersome as it had been in the airlock.

  Already, we knew a lot: there was gravity, it wasn’t so hot that we burned alive, and there wasn’t deadly pressure. There was also some sort of atmosphere, since there was O2, a requirement for fire. What the exact mixture of O2, I didn’t know. Enough to sustain our breathing? I wasn’t going to be the one to find out.

  We got to Buzz’s pod. It was worse than it looked back through the airlock and had been broken apart in two. On the ground were deep skid marks from where it crashed. I ran to the further most part, where the cockpit would be.

  Gilley had followed and was dousing the flaming wreckage with the fire extinguisher.

  Jules was in my comms. “Do you see him?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Not yet.” There was too much fire and I also had to spray the flames with the fire extinguisher.

  “What’s that on your left?” Jules asked.

  I looked to my left, saw the cockpit. The pod hadn’t broken into two parts, it had broken into three.

  “It’s the cockpit,” I said and lumbered toward it.

  I had forgotten the suits had cameras built into the helmet— they were watching all this back on the ship.

  My heart sank. The door of the pod was gone and the pilot seat was empty. I started pulling at the debris, plastic paneling, and twisted metal. Bracing myself to find Buzz’s ruined body.

  Gilley was combing through the wreckage with me. Most of the fire was out and Buzz’s pod looked like a giant trash spill.

  Gilley lifted a piece of carpeted floor board. He knelt down, picked something up, and showed me— an empty sneaker.

  I took it and turned it over in my gloved hand.

  My heart plummeted into my stomach. I had been working with Buzz for the last eight years. We spent God knew how many hours together, how many rounds of Tekken? I didn’t even know it had been the last time I played him.

  “Oh, Candy,” Jules said. “I’m so sorry.”

  I shook my head.

  It was a just an empty sneaker. Hell, it wasn’t even bloody. This meant nothing. Knowing Buzz he probably just took his shoes off to get more comfortable in the pod.

  There were still more places to look.

  I jogged over to the next pile and started lifting a slab of torn metal. It was heavy. Gilley came over and helped me lift it.

  Petrov was on the comms, telling us to get back into the ship. We ignored him and kept on digging through the wreckage. This subordination would get us fired, but a job doesn’t even compare to saving a friend’s life.

  We worked our way through the smoldering wreckage in a widening circle, lifting what we could, dragging aside what we couldn’t. We found twisted panels, insulation, broken components, but not Buzz. No blood, no body, no second sneaker.

  Where the hell was he?

  I stopped and looked around for the first time. This part of the hanger (if that’s what this was?) was mostly dark. The suits built-in lights illuminated most everything where we stood. The two probes, Bull and Moose, sat on either sides of the missing USC probe. Several meters beyond them was that strange, giant pea-pod thing. And beyond that, were those columns of lights leading off to God knew where.

  “What are you thinking?” Gilley asked over the suit’s comms.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  I tried to picture Buzz alive and well. He’d just crashed in some alien hanger, his pod on fire. What would he do?

  Why wouldn’t he have hoofed it back to the ship?

  I hit the speaker button on my wrist console and started yelling for Buzz.

  Gilley headed for the USC probe. I followed still calling out for my friend.

  The probe didn’t look right.

  “Oh shit,” Gilley said. “You guys seeing this?”

  It was the Captain that responded. “We’re seeing it,” she said.

  The USC probe wasn’t a probe. It was a small manned spacecraft, unlike anything I’d ever seen.

  “It looks like a cryo sleep chamber,” Cho said on the comms. Then added, “it’s old.”

  It must have been old. They hadn’t used cryo sleep in a hundred years, I’m told.

  “A cryo sleep chamber, inside a pod?” said Gilley. “Maybe its a escape pod?”

  None of this mattered. I kept yelling for Buzz.

  Gilley had gone over to the giant pea-pod.

  “I knew it!” Lucy2 shouted in our ears. “I knew it!” I winced and dialed the headeset volume down before she could ramp up again.

  “It’s a spaceship,” she continued. “Look there. Under it.” Gilley knelt down so his camera could get a better angle. “That’s landing gear.”

  There was some commotion on the line then, Rondo was saying “We don’t know anything for sure, dear.”

  “And that open seam,” Lucy2 was saying. “it’s nearly identical to our own access hatches. Just plant-ier.”

  It was like a party on our headsets. I could only imagine how furious Petrov was just then and that made me feel a little better.

  I was drifting off towards the column of lights. Would Buzz really go down there?

  Jules cut in over the racket. “Hey, Candy. What’s that on the wall over there?”

  I swung around. There was something there. Either the helmet cams were better than I thought, or Jules had a good eye. Probably both.

  I went to the wall. I could barely believe it.

  “Egyptian hieroglyphs?” said Cho. “Here?”

  I wasn’t a expert in ancient Egyptian history, let alone hieroglyphs, but it did look Egyptian.

  Figures, those iconic profiles, marched along the wall. They held spears and swords. It was depicting some sort of battle? Or preparing for one? I couldn’t tell. I really wished Buzz was here. He loved this stuff. I listened to hours of him rambling on how aliens had—

  “Egyptian,” I breathed. “Buzz loves this shit.”

  My mind imagining him stumbling out of his crashed pod only to come face to face with a carved Egyptian mural. That would one hundred percent draw him down.

  “Buzz!” I shouted. I was running. Following the mural as the figures marched down into the dark.

  “Slow down, Candy.” Jules said. “You don’t know what’s down there.”

  “He’s here somewhere,” I said. “I know it.” I shouted his name again. “Buzz! Buzz!”

  The floor sloped upward. I stumbled, caught myself, and kept going.

  “Candy,” Captain Abega said. Her voice was calm. “You need to come back to the ship. This is an order.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Not without Buzz.”

  “If Buzz is down there, we’ll find him,” she said. “We’ll all do a full search. I’ll even go out to help. But I need you back at the ship. Right now.”

  I didn’t answer. I kept going. Then the floor gave away and I was falling.