All I Want: Space Heater by Kris P. Kreme
Anna Morgan and Jonathan Shaw work well together in the cold depths of space, aboard a research satellite orbiting the moon in the not-so-distant future. Despite their vast differences, they have managed to get along for months.
Jonathan Shaw is the brains behind everything though, leading to the younger Anna Morgan feeling like little more than a glorified tool.
But will making a wish on the Santa Star to be more useful and essential have Jonathan using Anna more than a girl has ever been used before in the isolation of an orbiting satellite where there is little else to do?
Space is cold and silent, but All I Want Space Heater is anything but.
It’s Christmas time back on earth, but Anna Morgan hasn’t seen earth in months, one of a two-astronaut crew working a research satellite orbiting the moon in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately for Anna, there are days she feels like little more than a glorified tool in space, working alongside the brilliant highly educated adaptability science genius Jonathan Shaw.
But with a view like none other of the celestial yearly visitor quaintly nicknamed the Santa Star, Anna may just find out what a versatile tool she can be.
The silence is something Anna never really adjusts to, the brilliant up-close view of the moon below as their little tin can home orbits nothing short of amazing. It’s the silence, and Jonathan, a man twice her age who often seems to have a chauvinist air about him from the occasionally demeaning comments he makes or assumptions about her more feminine habits.
But no one can deny that Jonathan Shaw is exceptional, adaptability his specialty as he can take anything and repurpose it for an urgent need at hand. It’s the primary purpose they are here, her to assist and do the grunt work on the satellite, him to study the surface below for future terraforming actions needed to provide a future permanent settlement from earth.
In the past century they’ve finally started to work on repairing earth’s damaged ecosystems, cleaning up the space junk and more that seems the messy trait of mankind. But just how adaptable can Jonathan Shaw prove to be when dealing with the ever-constant threat of micro-meteors damaging their satellite, their home for a year long mission?
After coming in from a tediously lengthy spacewalk to repair micro-meteor damage, Anna is just in time to take her bubble helmet off for what Jonathan has taken to calling the view… their first orbiting view of the Santa Star.
It’s as mysterious a space visitor as earth ever had, so many stories, urban legends, myths about making a wish on it. The timing alone is worthy of study, and scientific minds are always fascinated when the Santa Star shows up like clockwork every December for 25 days. But nothing can beat the view.
While looking up at it through the porthole windows of the modern satelite living space, Anna can’t help but make her own wish, a wish to be a more essential part of the mission and not a useless tool.
When nearly right after her wish alerts go off and red lights begin flashing, the satellite may be facing the most dire situation yet, micro-meteors having somehow struck both the environmental controls and their liquid food stores, jettisoning them off into space.
Jonathan Shaw is able to silence the alarm and deal with the emergency as only a genius could, but with it taking up to a month for home base to have a repair crew dispatched, with the temperatures inside unregulated and dropping fast, how can they possibly keep warm? Worse, with no liquid food stores left, how could they survive?
The answer to both may just be the granting of Anna’s wish, but will she ever be the same becoming under Jonathan’s skilled scientific mind little more than a Space Heater? One thing is sure, they may not hear you scream in space, but that doesn’t mean Anna won’t be screaming in an all new passion for their shared mission to benefit all mankind.
For the first time ever, the 12 Days of Krismas floats into the Kosmos with a futuristic space tale.
Next… Beware the Elves at Krismas…
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