The habitat was destroyed. Ron was standing on the ice outside, watching the somnibay burn while he tried to figure out what to do next, but he couldn’t shake the fire from his mind. It feels just like the house…

  From what Allan had told him, a meteor had come crashing down on the garage, decimating everything in the immediate area and setting fire to what remained. Thankfully, the somnibay was on the opposite side of the habitat, so it received only minor damage in comparison to the devastation near the impact. The room was mostly intact, but the fire was eating through the air that hadn’t already been expelled from the rest of the habitat, so its air supply was limited.

  “Allan, what are the chances I can patch the somnibay up and wait for rescue?” Ron asked.

  “Sorry, Ron. Even if you managed to patch all the holes and put out the fire working its way through the insulation as we speak, the habitat’s oxygen gatherers were both destroyed in the initial blast. Aside from that, my short and long-distance satellites are both down, and you’ll suffocate long before your suit’s comms unit can cut through the radiation.

  “Normally, sitting tight and waiting for rescue would be the optimal choice, but in this case, it would just be a slow death by suffocation or blood loss.”

  “Damn. And here I was hoping to keep breathing and stay at home. ‘Have your cake and eat it, too,’ I guess.”

  The somnibay’s emergency suit had two tanks, which should last something like eight hours normally, but one of them was punctured. It lost most of its pressure before I sealed it, so I probably have somewhere around four to five hours of air. If I ration that and avoid strenuous activity, I should have nine-ish hours. Hopefully that gets me somewhere I can get help with this damn pipe.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Ron looked down from the fire to a spot on his suit. The small piece of copper had lodged itself between two of his lower ribs, and wouldn’t come out, so he decided to saw the rest of the pipe off and seal the wound rather than waste time attempting to remove it himself. Damn it all.

  “What do you suggest I do, then?” Ron turned away from the dying blaze and looked out at the wastes. “Where do I go? We still don't know if this meteor was by itself or part of a shower.”

  Allan’s voice rang out through Ron’s suit as he listed out options, “Your best chance is Habitat Alpha-7 in the north. It’s approximately one hundred thirty-four kilometers out and had increased shielding implemented because it needed to house two researchers rather than just one. There’s also Alpha-6a to the southeast, but that habitat was never strengthened like Alpha-7.”

  “…how far is 6a?” Ron asked.

  “One hundred thirteen kilometers.”

  Ron considered the difference for a moment before he spoke, “…yeah. Not risking it. Direct me to 7.”

  The suit’s HUD flickered for a split second, then a small compass with a yellow circle marking his destination appeared at the top of his visor. At the same time, the words ‘Only 134.1k to go!’ blinked into view on the right. The words flashed twice, then disappeared from the glass.

  “The nav system still works?” Ron asked. “Shouldn’t the AGPS be down?”

  “This isn’t the actual nav system--it's a weak recreation based solely on the known location of Habitat-6a relative to 6b. I can’t show you a map of the area, but your suit should give me just enough information to process the relative locations of you and the habitat based on movement, then display the direction you need to travel.” Allan said. If Ron didn’t know any better, he would think that Allan seemed proud, but he knew it was just what the voice wanted him to think.

  “But it should work mostly the same, right? Just walk to the dot?” Ron didn’t want to walk halfway to what he thought was where he needed to go, just to find out it was something else entirely.

  “Yes, but it won’t guide you around any obstacles, and the more you move, the less accurate it’s going to be--not just in direction, but distance, too. Your suit doesn’t have many sensors closely related to movement, so the accuracy is unreliable.”

  Ron sighed and looked towards the yellow dot. “It’s also the best I’ve got,” he muttered.

  “That’s correct,” Allan said.

  [6] hours and [17] minutes