Viridian | Teen Ink

Viridian

June 1, 2011
By Jake Deutsch BRONZE, Montclair, New Jersey
Jake Deutsch BRONZE, Montclair, New Jersey
2 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Hey, captain, can you record the mission log?”
“Whaaaa?”
The captain got up with a grunt, dusting crumbs off of his space suit. He did a couple stretched and sat back down in the command chair.
“What was that you wanted me to do Viridian?” the captain asked groggily.
“I said, sir, would you be so kind as to record today’s mission log?”
Red lights flashed across Viridians suit, as if to signify his impatience.
“Look, kiddo,” the captain began,
“I know I’m supposed to record the log and all, but would you do me a kindness and record it for me?”
“Sir, I’ve recorded all of the logs for the past month. You have your duties, and I have mine.”
“Just this one more time, Viridian. Please. For me, kid.” The captain begged.
“Alright sir.” Viridian sighed.
Perking up, the captain turned to his vision screen to watch the end of a recorded sports broadcast.
Viridian walked out of the cramped command center and into the log room.
“Oh, and one more thing, kiddo.” The ship’s broadcast satellite needs fixing,” yelled the captain.
Viridian sighed.
After recording the mission log, Viridian walked into the airlock. Putting on his helmet, he felt some of the ship’s oxygen slip away underneath him as the airlock door opened. Viridian floated lazily out of the airlock and grabbed onto a bar attached to the side of the ship, just outside the airlock door.
The climb to the broadcast satellite would be a long one. Viridian slowly climbed the seemingly endless ladder to the top of the ship. It took all of Viridian’s strength to successfully reach the broadcast dish.
Once he had reached the dish, Viridian felt himself slowly drifting off of the ship.
“ My gravity field must be failing,” he thought.

Viridian grabbed his digital screwdriver and fiddled with the dish’s circuit board. He cleared some debris out of it, and proceeded to radio the captain,

“Captain, how’s the broadcast satellite holding up?”

“Great, just great, kiddo. Wolverhampton is up four goals to ze- I mean, uh, yeah Houston, I can hear ya loud and clear!”

Viridian noticed it was even harder to keep himself anchored to the ship. Looking down at the suit monitor on his chest, Viridian saw that his personal gravity field had indeed short-circuited. It was imperative that he got back to the inside of the space ship.

Stumbling down the ladder, Viridian heard the captain blare on his intercom.

“Hey kid! The ship needs refuelin’!”

“Sir, my gravity field has just deactivated,; there’s no way I can refuel the ship. Isn’t that your responsibility anyway, sir?”

“Look boy, you’re not comin’ back down here ‘till that ship gets refueled!”

“Alright sir.” Viridian said sarcastically.

However, when Viridian reached the airlock door, it was indeed shut tight.

“Sir, please let me in.”

“No can do, compadre.”

“Look, sir, I can’t even refuel the ship without going back in.”

I left a spare tank on the back of the ship, Viridian.”

To Viridian’s disbelief, there was a fuel tank tethered to the adjacent side of the airlock door.

Viridian inhaled deeply and made his way to the backside of the ship to deposit the fuel. With every rung he climbed, the more exhausted Viridian got. His head swam from the exertion of fighting zero gravity.

Viridian thought back to all of his moments with the captain. Most involved the captain’s manipulation of Viridian. Viridian even passed the captain out of flight school.

His mind slowly fading from dehydration and battling the forces of weightlessness, Viridian thought of only one thing: revenge. Using the last of his strength, Viridian crawled back to the airlock hatch and opened it. Oxygen, the ship’s lifeblood, flowed into the depths of space.

Satisfied, Viridian let the vacuum of space take hold of him. He gave a salute to the ship, and muttered sarcastically, “It was nice knowing you, sir.”

Back in the command room, the captain was woken up by a transmission.

“It was nice knowing you, sir.”

Was that Viridian’s transmission? Was this some sort of joke?

The captain looked out of a porthole window, and saw a space suit that looked a lot like Viridian’s off in the distance. He would have gasped, but he was finding it hard to breath at the moment.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.