The Return – Part 14

When the EMP wave hit her shuttle Kaylee had thought for a moment the verse had come to an end. The shuttle rattled and shook until she felt her brain would separated from her skull and go bouncing around inside her space helmet. After it was over Kaylee sat in the sudden darkness all alone, power gone, comms gone, and soon she’d be gone if she couldn’t find a way to get the shuttle up and running again or Serenity couldn’t find a way to rescue her, if Serenity had even survived the EMP hit.

“Oh, boy, what a fix,” she said to herself and took a deep breath, saying a small thank you to the manufacturers of the spacesuit she was wearing for designing it to run without batteries operating the life support functions, the air supply being released as she breathed in and out. She couldn’t see how much air was left on her analog wrist monitor because of the darkness. She didn’t dare take her helmet off, not knowing if the shuttle had pressurized and had atmo before the EMP hit. All the panels were dark and Kaylee knew she’d be pulling out fried electrodes and burnt out connectors for days if she and the shuttle ever got back to Earth. Unfortunately, the comms in the helmet did run off a small battery located in the helmet lining and it was fried and the helmet comms were useless now. Looking out the windows Kaylee could see she was rotating, the stars moving across her vision from left to right and then the moon was suddenly there and then more rotation and sunlight came into the small shuttle. She quickly looked at her oxygen gauge on her wrist and saw she had almost ninety minutes left. That was the first good news.

Kaylee undid her seat belt and moved slowly to the back of the shuttle. There was an emergency tool kit, flashlight, and food supply in a container on the port side. With the next rotation toward the sun she had enough light to find the container and opened it. Feeling in the darkness she grabbed the flashlight and had it on in a second. The light was reassuring and Kaylee sa