Submitted for the September 2025 prompt: Terrestrial Settings

By the time Peters made it back to Ops, the rain had stopped.

 

Rain in a space station! Who'd have thought it possible? The engineer shook his head in wonderment, wincing as the motion awakened fresh pain. He glanced up at the artificial haze that blurred the banks of grow lamps far overhead. Minutes earlier, it had somehow thickened into cloud banks and water pelted down, drenching the crop — and flooding ten miles of delicate hydroponics.

 

The crop was the least of his concerns, as was the wrecked buggy he'd left behind.

 

The stench of scorched insulation greeted him as he entered Control. He was pleased to see Ericksen, Station Manager and his nominal boss, busily tracing shorts at the master electrical panel. The recent college graduate had panicked earlier, but a few kind words had settled him.

 

Too little, too late. No, that was unfair.

 

"It's time to go, Dave," he said quietly.

 

"I've almost got it reset," the manager said absently, intent on his task. "Whatever you did out there freed up a dozen power banks—"

 

"Dave," Peters said again, not raising his voice.

 

It got through this time. "What do you mean, go?" he demanded, spinning in his seat. Then he saw the older man's face.

 

"Good God, Peters! What happened to you? Here, let me fetch the kit."

 

Gone was the whiny youngster of three hours before. If he had more energy, Peters would have been proud. Just now, though, it was all he could do not to collapse. He sat heavily at a spare console.

 

"Station's past saving," he said.

 

"That can't be! We've got power back, the retros are firing, and..." The manager listed repairs one by one. Peters sat there and let the words wash over him as the younger man applied ointment. Then he spoke.

 

"Orbital stations run in fine balance. Ours was built cheap and has only the two of us: a skeleton crew. With two hundred good men, we'd have a chance. Just us? No." He shook his head sadly.

 

"But our orbit is nearly stable again! Sure, we've lost half the crop, but..."

 

"It rained, Dave. Not just condensation. Rain." Ericksen gasped in shock. "You know what that means. Free water running everywhere. There's no fixing that."

 

The electrical harness running below the surface of the farm station had been designed for humidity, not standing water. Support systems would be shorting out faster than the automatics could possibly reroute.

 

"B- but what can we..."

 

"Nothing," answered the engineer. "We're past the point of recovery. Time to get to the escape pods while we can still breathe."

 

* * *

 

In the twenty minutes they'd spent inside, the air had grown frigid. Their station was still deep within Earth's shadow, and the grow lights overhead had dimmed. Ice coated the nearest wheat stalks, and frost glittered along the narrow road. Peters maneuvered their electric buggy around an ice patch, then paused, looking both directions.

 

"Which way?" Ericksen asked from the rumble seat, where he was busily tapping on his tablet. The ops center was halfway along the cylindrical station, nearly five miles from either end cap.

 

Peters thought for a moment, then turned right. "Better light this way," he explained over his shoulder. There would also be harvester bots clogging the road, but light meant heat, which was about to become extremely precious. They'd deal with obstacles when the time came.

 

The artificial ground suddenly lurched around them, and Peters fought to keep the buggy on the unexpectedly moving roadway. Ericksen shouted something unintelligible from behind him; he caught only the word gravity.

 

A huge mass of ice fell from high above and struck the field to their right, throwing up wheat stalks and wreckage. Another hit to their left, then a third. The lights flickered wildly.

 

Peters gunned the accelerator, skidding on the slick and still-moving surface. The grow lamps are icing up! The cheaply made framework high up around the station's axis hadn't been designed for this. It's all about to come down around our ears!

 

Peters kept the buggy moving as fast as he dared, slowing only slightly for road ice in the dimmer areas. More chunks and the occasional girder rained down, one or two close enough to spray them with shards of ice.

 

Somehow, he kept going.

 

* * *

 

Near the station's end cap the chaos was far less. Here, the grow lamps seemed almost undamaged, though rivulets of water flowed freely down the matted roadway. Harvester bots had collected most of the viable wheat crop and now stood idly in ranks to either side of their path.

 

"I've patched my tablet into the control matrix," Ericksen yelled over his shoulder. "The bots won't get in the way, but the road's flooded ahead."

 

Peters grunted in acknowledgement. We'll go until we can't.

 

Runnels of water turned into standing puddles. The road material was recycled wheat stalks, chosen for cheapness and utterly unsuitable for actual weather. After one last nasty skid, Peters slowed to a near-crawl. We'll have to walk soon, he thought. Maybe another half mile. We'll make it.

 

He'd turned to inform his passenger when the power pylon they were passing shorted, erupting in sparks and flame. Heat blasted them as a week's worth of stored solar power arced to ground nearby. There was a loud sizzle, and smoke rose from their buggy.

 

Then the pylon detonated.

 

* * *

 

Peters picked himself up and shook his head. Somehow, he'd survived the blast. Where's Ericksen?

 

He found the younger man lying unconscious in the quondam mud, a large bruise on his temple. The air around them was rapidly cooling in the dim light.

 

Wearily, Peters hoisted the kid across his injured shoulders. Fixing his gaze on the exit hatch, he began walking. Muddy water swirled around his ankles, then his knees.

 

I am not going to die here. I refuse!

 

A massive grow lamp smashed into the field beside them.

 

He kept walking.