Chapter One: The Five Meter Dash

“Recruits!” Drill Instructor Takes commanded. “Stand up!”

Jahenna Malnix shot up from where she’d laid down to rest on the cold metal deck and snapped to rigid attention with the rest of her training regiment, ready for instructions.

She was battered and filthy. Her uniform, a nearly form-fitting pressure garment the color of dried-up olives, was coated in an assortment of lubricants, oils, and other assorted industrial horrors—and that was just over the past seventy-two hours. The rest of her hadn’t had a shower in over a week; dirt and grime covered her darkly tanned face, while clumps of grease and mud hid beneath the few remaining strands of her short-cropped brunette hair. 

She was exhausted, beaten to the very brink by the cadence of her regiment’s training. 

That was by design, of course.

Everything in Espatier recruit training was survivable; it was enduring it that was the challenge. 

“Today,” she listened to Sergeant Takes orate, “you space monkeys get to run the ‘Dash.”

Jahenna whooped automatically with the rest of her training regiment, channeling her own anxieties with theirs into one singular, fanatical voice.

“Prep for zero-g!” Sergeant Takes ordered.

In a unified motion with the rest of the regiment, Jahenna kicked the backs of her boots—first her left, then her right. An alarm tone sounded in the background as the sensation of “down” began to shift to the side, then faded entirely as the compartment’s gravity spun down, leaving anyone without magnetic boots floating in free-fall. 

Still standing on the deck with his own set of magnetic boots, Sergeant Takes allowed himself a small grin before continuing. 

“Listen carefully to the instructions I am about to give you,” he began. “There are numerous ways to die during the ‘Dash. If you do not heed my instructions, you will end up going home in a bag, do you space monkeys understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Jahenna recited in unison with the recruits, though she felt a palpable amount of tension form in the air around her at Sergeant Takes’ admission. 

In the Espatiers, it was exceptionally well understood that space could kill you. 

Violently.

“You are going to advance into one of these airlocks,” Sergeant Takes said, motioning to the five compartment doors behind him. Several Corporals stood waiting to the side of each door, each ready to distribute the contents of a blister pack. “As you advance forward, you will receive one self-guiding syringe full of oxygen saturated blood plasma from the Corporals at the door. You will keep this syringe on your person, and then close and check the seal behind you to ensure you do not space the entire compartment. Failure to execute any of these instructed actions will result in an automatic wash-out.”

“You will then brace for rapid decompression by expelling all of your oxygen,” he continued. “Failure to do so will result in a rather painful death by way of rupturing internal organs as the atmospheric pressure is vented,” Sergeant Takes added, leaving his words open for healthy contemplation among the recruits. 

“As the oxygen is ventilated, your eardrums will rupture and your eyeballs will boil,” he said. “This is normal. As this is happening, you will move as far away from the outer door as possible, gripping the railing along the side of the airlock as you do so, before it cycles open. This is to insure you do not get blown out into space, where you will die a very lonely and painful death from exposure to vacuum…among other things,” he added with a cold finality that sent a chill up many of the recruits—Jahenna’s as well.

“After the atmosphere has been fully expunged,” the Sergeant continued, “the outer door will open. You will egress out of that door by kicking off of either the inner door or the same railing you held onto during decompression, and move ballistically five meters through hard vacuum, where you will then enter an open and waiting airlock on the other side.”

“Midway through your cosmic voyage,” Sergeant Takes added, taking well practiced steps with his magnetic boots to one of the Corporals next to the doors, “you will inject yourself with the aforementioned self-guiding syringe. This is to ensure that your brain will not become hypoxic. Let me make this abundantly clear: if your brain becomes hypoxic, you not only risk death, you risk brain damage.”

In a ventilation duct somewhere above her, Jahenna heard a fan begin to move air; it was deathly silent as the Sergeant issued his instructions—an omen to be sure, Jahenna thought.

“Do not forget to inject yourself,” Sergeant Takes reiterated. “Medical teams will be ready to receive you on the other side when you arrive.” 

“…one last thing,” Sergeant Takes added quietly, “your uniforms are rated for pressure loss—you are not. Keep your cool, remember to jam your needle, and you will be fine. This is the last place you want to lose it, so don’t. Thousands of Espatiers have endured the Five Meter Dash, and before the end of the day, so too will you.”

The frankness of his words hung suspended in the air like diamond-tipped daggers.

“…now,” He said, his voice returning to the familiar booming, authoritarian voice she’d heard endlessly in her sleep over the past six months of training, “do you space monkeys think you have what it takes to be an Espatier?!”

The chorus of recruits was unanimous, Jahenna’s among them: “SIR, YES, SIR!”

“Do you space monkeys think you can actually chew vacuum like Espatiers?”

“SIR, YES, SIR!”

“You think you have the Goddamn intelligence and common sense to leap out an airlock without a hab-suit?!”

“SIR, YES, SIR!”

“Out-fucking-standing!” Sergeant Takes boomed, his voice full of pride and power. “Fall out!”

Jahenna proceeded to fall out with the rest of her regiment, her boots clanking against the deck as she pivoted to turn, and hustled to one of the forming lines. 

Here we go, she coached herself silently as Corporals began distributing the oxygen saturated syringes to the recruits as they stood in line. She palmed hers nervously as the five airlock doors began to cycle open. Looking inside, they were cavernous: long and cylindrical, with brushed metal and mesh inserts for atmospheric venting and management. 

With the doors fully open now, a recruit from each line advanced inside the open door. 

They all looked incredibly nervous and irrevocably small once inside the mammoth airlocks…yet, proud. 

One by one, each recruit engaged the controls on an internal console just inside the airlock, and the doors began to cycle closed like ominous vaults. 

The doors sealed, and the sound of muffled pumps engaging wrought a new wave of silence among the recruits as a raging, silent tempest began growling just beyond—like a storm pounding the outer wall of a mountaintop chateau.

After several moments the doors cycled open again, ready to consume another.

Another five recruits ventured inside. The doors cycled closed, and the tempest resumed. 

Waiting for one’s turn became a relentless struggle for one’s sanity. Idle chatter had begun to break out among the recruits: words of encouragement and motivation. To Jahenna’s surprise, Sergeant Takes and his staff let the recruits motivate and counsel each other…and in some cases, console each other as they waited. Jahenna herself was starting to twitch in anticipation…even though she fully knew what to expect. 

Being spaced wasn’t just survivable, it was extremely survivable—like jumping out of an aircraft or free-diving. 

…sure, you didn’t go deaf from skydiving, and you probably wouldn’t develop frostbite unless you dove into exceptionally cold water and stayed there, but the comparisons were not that different. 

The point was perception; perception was everything, and this was no different. 

To Jahenna, the famous “Five Meter Dash” was no different than the famed “Gas Chamber” from the mid-20^th century militaries of Earth: painful in its education, but survivable in its example.  

After several long moments, Jahenna was next in line. 

She watched as the recruit in front of her, a kid from Kasper by the name of Meillo, stepped into the airlock with a look absolutely riddled with barely contained panic. A tear rolled down his face as he initiated the cycling sequence, the door closing him into the airlock like a metallic tomb. 

The tempest resumed.

Don’t worry about him, she thought to herself, suddenly thinking of the thermodynamics of tears in the vacuum of space. He’ll be fine. It’s going to suck, but he’ll be fine. You’ll see him on the other side. It’s alright.

The door cycled open again…and Meillo remained inside. 

“I couldn’t do it,” she heard him mutter to the corporal that approached him. “I just couldn’t do it…” 

“It’s all right, son,” the corporal said, leading Meillo over to Sergeant Takes in the back of the room, near the main entryway door. 

She followed him longingly, as did almost every other recruit who could see him. 

They’d either give him another chance, or they’d wash him out. 

Not everyone could be an Espatier.

Poor kid, she thought to herself. 

“Malnix,” another corporal said to her, stepping up to replace the one that had escorted Meillo away, “do you still wish to proceed? Or are you having a change of thought like Meillo?” 

“Sir, no, sir; I plan to proceed, sir!” she said, her voice firm but exhausted. 

She picked her booted feet up, and stepped to the open airlock. 

It smelled like smoke and gunpowder inside, thick and pungent. 

She palmed the cycle button without a second thought, and did not look back as the door cycled close behind her.

Only one way out now, she thought to herself. Ohh…this is going to suck!

Inside the airlock, the tempest was much louder; the pumps worked quickly to remove the atmosphere around her, and before long her ears started to ache painfully. She winced as she felt them burst, then began rubbing at her her nose and eyes as the pressure continued to fall, all the while breathing out everything she could from her lungs in the process.

Railing, she thought. Remember the railing.

She reoriented herself to crouch against the railing, standing parallel to the deck so that “up” was the direction of the outer door. Kicking the magnet switches on the back of her boots to the OFF position, she started counting down as yellow caution lights began activating “above” her.

Nine…

…Eight…

At Seven, the door on the other side of the airlock snapped fully opened, and her eyeballs began to swell and boil in their sockets as the vacuum of space opened before her. 

Jahenna released her grip on the railing and kicked off, checking her orientation between painful eye blinks. 

…Six…

She floated out the now wide-open door, and squeezed her eyes shut as the cold of space robbed her of every ounce of warmth in her bones. 

…Five…

…Four…

She peeked again with her eyes, checking that her ballistics were on point and lined up with the other airlock door. 

Everything was good. 

…slow, but good. 

She jabbed the self guiding syringe into her right thigh through the thick, layering of her uniform, and a burning sensation flooded her senses.

For a brief moment, she felt alive again.

…Six…

…Four…

Wait…was that right?

No…that wasn’t right!

She began to panic as she realized she’d lost count. 

The opposing airlock door was still a few meters away. Jahenna reflexively kicked her feet, trying to swim in through the void to the open door just beyond her. 

And then everything started to slowly fade…

…and she felt so tired, all of the sudden. 

She realized she didn’t much care anymore that her face burned like it did. 

Her eyes swelled open, and all of it felt so very, very far away now.

Let it go, she heard herself think. Let it all go. 

Jahenna’s heaving lungs, desperate for air, stopped as The Cold finally overtook her. 

There was comfort there, in the pain. 

Wait…pain?

What pain?

Why did her arm hurt?

It didn’t hurt before. 

Something distant clanked hard against her head and she felt herself tumble against—

Air hissed loudly around her, hammering her limp body against a bulkhead with an invisible pressure wave in the weightlessness. She gasped for air as her chest pulled in air as fast as her lungs could process it, and realized she couldn’t see anything but red and white fog. Something grabbed her by her ankles and pulled her into a roll. She kicked at whatever it was that grabbed her, then panicked as something gripped her wrist.

Jahenna screamed as she was pulled away by whatever horrors had salvaged her from the abyss, and struggled meekly against her captors as they wrestled against her vain attempts to flee.

She blinked several times, trying to clear her foggy, clouded vision to fight; to make sense of the threat and to understand it. 

What were they? 

What had happened to her? 

…and then realized she could see after all; two humanoid figures in white were holding her kicking feet by the ankles, while to her sides another set of humanoid figures gripped her wrists as she struggled against them.

People.

These were people pulling her by the ankles.

People trying to help her.

…Wait—

Those weren’t just people, she realized; they were medics.

She stopped struggling as soon as she realized what that meant; what she’d accomplished.

She’d done it!

Finally, after months of abuse, drills, bad food, endless safety courses, firing ranges…she’d done it.

It was practically all downhill from here, she knew; she’d have a quick stint in medical to make sure she wasn’t bleeding internally from the decompression…but after that? 

Discharge, for rest and recovery.

Jahenna sobbed with relief as she was slapped and velcroed against a bulkhead by the very people that had dragged her away, and she thought she could make out a smile on one of their faces as they left her there, undoubtedly to go retrieve the next recruit to brave the ‘Dash. 

Another humanoid figure glided through the air towards her, and pressed a pair of hands against her ears. Something wiggled against the outside of both her ears, then she felt something squirm into them. Jahenna twitched uncomfortably as artificial ear worms burrowed into her ear canal to her ruptured ear drum, where they quickly repaired it. She felt a loud pop inside her head, and she could suddenly hear a cacophony of nearby screams all around her.

The figure that had pressed its hands against her head leaned in closer to her face. “Recruit,” the figure said to her, “can you hear me?” 

“S-sir!” She bleated out meekly, “Sir, y-yes, sir!”

The humanoid shape of the corpsman moved itself to the left, and then a thin, skinny segment broke off and moved closer to her face.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” The figure asked her. 

“S-sir! I…I—” 

Jahenna stammered, blinking her eyes rapidly as she tried to focus on what was, to her, a thin fleshy-blob in front of her face.

Unexpected, blinding light poured into her eyes, causing her to wince and recoil as fingers began probing aggressively around her face and eyebrows, examining the left side of her face, then her right. 

“Get her something for her eyes,” a different voice said, and she felt the air move as someone nearby moved away.

“Here,” the first voice said, “this is going to help your vision. Keep your eyes closed. You’re alright, Spacy; Good work.”

She giggled absently to herself.

Spacy.

Her! 

An Espatier! 

The figure moved close to her face as she closed her eyes, and something soothing and cool was wiped over her eyelids. It had the texture of soft, silky sand, but smelled faintly like rancid carrots. 

With her eyes now closed, she started to say “thanks,” but thought better of it, as she felt the air move in front of her. 

Whoever it was that had helped her and already moved on to the next person. 

No matter. 

She’d be alright.  

Jahenna allowed herself an absent moment to relax, and somehow managed to fall asleep amidst the bedlam and chaos around her—a trait not uncommon in the Espatier Corps.

As she slept, she dreamed of the stars.