All was lost, or so he thought, so he sought Allah's Mercy with the surest and fastest means and started recitation of Darood e Tafrijia (1) under his breath.
"O Allah, send a perfect prayer and complete greeting of peace upon our master Muhammad — the one by whom problems are solved, and anxieties are relieved, and needs are fulfilled, and aspirations are attained and good endings are received, and by whose noble face the clouds give rain — and upon his Family and Companions, with every glance and every breath, by the number of everything that is known to You".
With calming mindset, and a full belief in Allah's Mercy, he gently moved in pitch dark towards his space suit with it's emergency breathing system. His sense of touch told him that he had reached it. In the small room, suit was always stored nearby in case of emergency. However there was a ctach. Suit's main PLSS (2) had become faulty during the crash and he was evacuated using it's emergency OPS (3) only.
He was able to wear it in 5 minutes, groping blindly. It was urgent, as the sealed room had air only for a limited time, after which carbon dioxide would start poisoning him and kill him in a few minutes, making him delusional first. He turned on the emergency lights in his suit. The Room was again lit by his suit's emergency light. He had air and light for one hour in the suit, but to ensure that it lasted this long, he had to remain calm and control his breathing carefully.
Next decision was to open the room door, which could send all the oxygen in space, if there was a leakage in the containment system.
He took the risk, and tried to close it behind him as quickly as possible, still the whoosh of escaping air was unmistakable. The area outside was not having a full atmospheric pressure. However he did not feel any rushing air outside as well, through eerie stillness and dust particles floating in his suit's field of vision.
The scene outside the door was a strange one. Three tunnels, going in different directions, and a circular pathway going up, probably towards the Rock's surface. Robots were nowhere to be seen. They could be anywhere, busy in their chores, if they were set to continue in fully autonomous mode. This was a big question. Mostly Wania controlled them using her parallel processors.
Since only robots operated there, so oxygen supply was not guaranteed. He had to continue to use his space suit to move in this area. Any oxygen levels were low, and could get exhausted in minutes.
He decided to move towards the tunnels first. He had to find the robots, as any dealing with radioactive materials could become messy. He had to be very cautious.
He started to move toward the first tunnel. It was a mostly smooth path with excavated raw material lying on the sides. He could identify the different metallic ores stacked neatly in the dug out side shelves of tunnel. He had to praise the work under Wania by robots.
The tunnel was long. He kept on walking for hundreds of feet, and started to sense that it was going back , turning slightly. After 10 minutes he found himself back at the start.
This mostly cleared the two larger openings. He started the 3rd opening , which was narrower, and more difficult to navigate for him. He had to stoop and move side ways.
He kept on walking. There were not metallic ores stored in this one. After a few more minutes, once the walls really started closing in, he saw something yellow in his suit's light. It was Qiṭmīrr, standing motionless at the end of tunnel. Behind him, he could sense some metallic surface, but the path was too narrow for him to come any closer.
He tried to voice activate him. Using his voice commands, he repeated his voice command override code to it and waited. The dog did not move. How was that possible?. It was the standard protocol. In case of disconnection from server, the robots could be activated using either voice commands or manual override. Voice override failing, he now needed physical access. Currently it seemed impossible due to space constraint.
He wondered what the dog was doing at the end of a tunnel, as it's face was towards outside, and not inside away from him. It almost seemed that it was guarding something. He did not have time to think over the situation. Precious seconds were quickly ticking by.
He hurried back, retracing his steps toward entrance.
At the start again, he had the tunnel going up looking ominously at him.
He started to climb the stair rungs, and found himself facing a closed hatch at the end. It was logical, the area had to be completely sealed to prevent the precious air from escaping a confined space.
He tried to open the hatch, it did not budge. A drop of sweat started to moved over his forehead.
He carefully looked at the hatch. They could not have built it here. Looking closely he remembered it as part of the de-pressurizing chamber of the drive. So he was looking directly at the Drive emergency entrance. But where was the manual override lever?.
It looked like that the drive crash had resulted in the emergency hatch burying itself into the softer Rock surface. Then the robots had simply started digging down. They were indeed lucky. Really lucky, once he thought about it.
To open the emergency hatch, he had to find the lever, which was buried in the nearby earthen material. He produced a large multi-tool from his side pocket, looked carefully at the door signs, and started to dig frantically in the general direction. This was causing too much loss of oxygen, as his heart beat and oxygen use were going up dramatically.
He kept on going at it for a very long thirty minutes. He was sweating profusely, once the lever became visible under the dirt and relatively soft layers of rock. One last effort and he moved the lever, opening the hatch inwards.
He was finally inside the drive, rather inside the emergency exit. Another hatch was facing him, but he was clear of unfamiliar surrounding now. It was his own ship.
He employed the emergency lever, opened the 2nd hatch and flew into the main Drive area.
Robots had been moving in and out with dirt, rock and debris, so the squeaky cleanliness was replaced with mounds of loose earth materials. But he was lucky that nothing was afloat at the time. He moved in the corridors to reach the control room of Drive. Everything was controlled from there. He found no sign of robots there.
With power off , he should first go to engineering area, housing the reactor, and possibly the robots.
Moving over the ship, he found all the structures in great shape, no visible damage, no gaping holes to account for air less environment, no bent surfaces. Ship was as good as new. He was surprised. There should have been some indication of a crash, that had made him unconscious for 30 months. He made a mental note to find and document the structural integrity issues of Drive with Wania, if they survived.
He thought for a second, and looking at the battery levels, found only 5 minutes of battery time left. Suit was not meant for hours of battery operation, only short excursions, especially the OPS. He was a prisoner in this suit who could not move out for long.
He left the caution to the wind and rushed ahead, holding the wall holds and propelling himself in zero gravity, expertly. His years of space training paying off.
A fleeing glance during his move towards engineering showed a sealed door with a very small Bio Hazard sign over it. He had no time to think it over, but he did not remember any Bio Lab in Drives' various areas. He moved on. Maybe he saw something else in the shadows, his mind was playing tricks.
Outside the Engineering he found both the Atlas robots standing still. Voice commands met no response, so with trembling hands and a mounting sense of urgency, he started to strip open first robot's override panel, looked at the battery level at two percent, looked at the robot, and stopped.
It was now or never. He had too little time to activate the robot, order it to inspect the Nuclear Power Source and find any issues through him. At the same time, plunging into a nuclear repair area without precaution was also suicide.
He took a deep breath, reciting Darood Tafrijia under his breath, opened the engineering door, geiger counter in hand.
No alarm, there was no unsafe radiation. He jumped right in. Inspecting each element carefully, he found no anomaly at first. Then found the coolant too low. The reactor was heating up, it's cooling system had failed, causing it to shut down in emergency mode, causing the wormhole to collapse, causing the electricity to fail, causing a total breakdown of everything. But why sensors had not reported the heating?.
He looked at the sensor array, and found the temperature sensor wiring cut clean off. He looked at it, traced the direction of cut, and found a very small hole, passing right through upper instruments, nearby Drive wall and even beyond. Something had hit with such a velocity that everything in between was just cut clean, making a small, clean hole from end to end. He found the other end in the floor, it must have lodged itself into the Rock. Looking at the dust particles, he found the already thin atmosphere leaking outside.
One minute left, suit alarm was going crazy, begging to be plugged into a power source.
He connected the temperature sensor circuit with trembling hands, and gave emergency restart to the cooling system, it would take ten minutes to start operation, and hopefully start generating electricity without any errors. Next he took some duct tape from his pocket, and tried to close the hole using that. It was crazy, but he had nothing at hand, then jumped out of engineering, closing the hatch after him, sealing the area shut, preventing atmospheric loss from rest of ship.
The battery died. Oxygen pump operation was cut off. He had only oxygen in his suit to live. He could not use the one in his pack, even if it was there. Holding his breath, he took hold of one robot and took it along towards the control room. His years of swimming experience was paying off. His long dives in Multan Garrison Swimming Pool with his friends, his deep diving experience in Karachi sea. He barely opened the door, his strength failing.
Once inside with lifeless robot, he tore open the helmet, there was no air, he sealed the door, removed his oxygen tank, and cut it's pipe with a deep gash from his emergency multi tool. Had it been full, air pressure would have caused an explosion, but oxygen levels were pretty low. Remaining oxygen rushed into the small control room. He could breath now, for maybe five more minutes. However, after first rush of oxygen, he stopped the rest with pressure from his hand.
Hurrying, he used the multi-tool screwdriver to open the robots override panel, turned the switch to Manual Override & Verbal Command Mode and restated the robot's operating system. It came back after 10 seconds thanks to the ultra lean PakOS linux (4) running it's internal core.
He was having some difficulty breathing due to carbon dioxide poisoning. He commanded he robot to activate the other one manually, then supervise the nuclear reactor startup and ensure power was restored.
Before going out, he looked at the control room for the last time. He had spent most of his time here, till the crash. He could not remember where he was at the time of crash. It must be here. No time to reflect.
He rushed outside, taking one last deep breath, putting his mouth to the oxygen tank pipe gash, taking it along to breath and moved quickly towards his underground room.
Moving through both the hatches, he was inside the tunnels area, hardly any oxygen there. His own supply ended then. He threw the empty tank away and rushed inside the room. At least there was enough oxygen here, for maybe two more minutes.
He opened his room door, sealed it, and sat calmly on his chair, awaiting his fate, reciting Darood on Holy Prophet (May Allah's Peace and Blessings be Upon Him).
First came electricity, room's bare walls became visible, then oxygen started pumping in, and temperature started to become normal, heat being pumped from nuclear reactor cooling process, his shivering stopped. He finally removed the suit and sat calmly.
After another two minutes, the holographic generator unit started to work and converted the room's bare walls into his room at Rawalpindi, there was a raging storm outside.
After another five minutes, Wania came back online, her operations resumed from hibernation after the last sudden shutdown. Her working took maximum processing power, and took maximum time to restart.
She looked confused. Then started to speak from her last sentences, "So you were about to tell me the Secret....", she stoped and then looked at him.
"What just happened, I can't account for one complete hour of activity, all feeds are blank", She was clearly nervous.
He laughed, but asked her to wait for five minutes. He had to offer his thanks to Allah first. His pleading to the source of all Mercy had again paid off.
He prostated in prayer of gratitude.
References
(1) Darood Nariya or Salat al-Nariya (the Fiery Prayer), also known as Salat al-Tafrijiyya (the Prayer of Relief). This all-encompassing salutation upon the Prophet ﷺ is well-known in the Muslim world for alleviating difficulties and averting tribulations.
اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ صَلاَةً كَامِلَةً ❁ وَسَلِّمْ سَلاَماً تَامًّا ❁ عَلَىٰ سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ الَّذِي تَنْحَلُّ بِهِ الْعُقَدُ ❁ وَتَنْفَرِجُ بِهِ الْكُرَبُ ❁ وَتُقْضَىٰ بِهِ الْحَوَائِجُ ❁ وَتُنَالُ بِهِ الرَّغَائِبُ وَحُسْنُ الْخَوَاتِمِ ❁ وَيُسْتَسْقَى الْغَمَامُ بِوَجْهِهِ الْكَرِيمِ ❁ وَعَلىٰ آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ ❁ فِي كُلِّ لَمْحَةٍ وَنَفَسٍ بِعَدَدِ كُلِّ مَعْلُومٍ لَكَ
(2) A primary (or portable or personal) life support system (or subsystem) (PLSS), is a device connected to an astronaut or cosmonaut's spacesuit, which allows extra-vehicular activity with maximum freedom, independent of a spacecraft's life support system. A PLSS is generally worn like a backpack. The functions performed by the PLSS include:
Regulating suit pressure
Providing breathable oxygen
Removing carbon dioxide, humidity, odors, and contaminants from breathing oxygen
Cooling and recirculating oxygen through the pressure garment, and water through a Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment or Liquid Cooling Garment.
Two-way voice communication
Display or telemetry of suit health parameters
Telemetry of an indicator of the wearer's immediate health (e.g. heart rate)
(3) An emergency backup was provided in case the main system failed, by a separate unit called the Oxygen Purge System (OPS), mounted on top of the PLSS, immediately behind the astronaut's helmet. The OPS maintained suit pressure and removed carbon dioxide, heat and water vapor through a continuous, one-way air flow vented to space. When activated, the OPS provided oxygen to a separate inlet on the pressure suit, once a vent valve on a separate suit outlet was manually opened. The OPS provided a maximum of about 60 minutes of emergency oxygen for breathing and cooling.
(4) PakOS Linux was Pakistan's First Open Source Operating System. A labour of love of just one individual. It was later adopted by a team of volunteers and used in many open source projects. It was liked for it's ultra light resource usage, useful for older hardware having minimal resources.
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