Sarge

Sarge seemed outside himself in those awful days. He wouldn't speak, and didn't even blink as the rocks bounced off the side of the fuselage. Strapped tightly by the window he casually watched them approach from afar, analyzing each one as the universe spun gradually around him. He would try to predict the exact time and place of impact with calculated dispassion, like counting the red teeth from inside the mouth of a starving lion. The crew questioned his sanity, but feared him enough to know that mutiny was not an option.

We had lost all power weeks earlier, and were now turning on some haphazard axis from the battering. Several had struck us, altering our spin and trajectory. We were frightened, helpless, and alone, living on borrowed time. Pending another impact we huddled in the dark boarding module, assuring each other that everything would be okay. There was an irrational hope that our companions were ignorant of their near-certain fate. We could persist by living through them vicariously. Then, we acted foolishly so that they could join us. It was a strange way of convincing ourselves that death would not be painful, or that we could escape it. All along, deep down, we knew it was the surest way to encourage it.

Sarge conditioned himself to absorb the impacts over time, and even seemed to welcome them with relieved acceptance. Some would call it a trance, others a coma. Whatever it was, it allowed him to concentrate as the technician's screams were drowned out by the powerful hiss of oxygen from one of the main titanium arteries. His hands fluttered on his keyboard, engineering some hack for the auxiliary support systems. It kept us breathing as we tried to forget the giant purple orb drawing us near. What was he saving us from? He wanted us to survive the loss of atmosphere today only to be scorched to a crisp during entry tomorrow. What are the motives of a man delirious from exhaustion, pushing for moments of extra time under conditions of total futility? Is it some base instinct? Habit? Conditioning?

I could not confuse his glossy stare with apathy, much less with laziness. His accusers suspected him of both. They said he wanted to die. I knew he was the only one of us who actually could.