Frenzied communications crackled through the astronauts helmet. A dozen different voices tried to shout solutions over one another, but he ignored them all. He knew that he was beyond help.
“John, are you listening?” The voice that overrode the others belonged to Marsha. He knew he needed to answer her, otherwise she would never leave him alone.
“Of course I am,” he replied.
“Then what did I just say?” She made no attempt to hide the annoyance in her voice.
“Something about angling the thrusters on my EVA suit.” He felt that answer was correct-ish. He remembered one of the voices saying something about that.
“Yes,” bingo.
“If you adjust the angle on your EVA thrusters, it should adjust
your trajectory enough that we can get you with the shuttle.”
“I’m
not sure what math your using, but I’m out of fuel, or at least
enough fuel to do what your suggesting.” More voices began to shout
at each other over the comms. He appreciated their concern, but he
knew at this point there was nothing that could be done.
“Look, Marsha, there’s no point in you guys wasting the resources to come and get me. Sometimes you need to just take the L.”
“That is unacceptable,” she said. “We are going to find a way to get you. You should at least five hours of air. We can come up with a solution in that time.”
“If you aren’t going to listen, than I’ll just make the choice easy for you,” and with that John began to detach himself from the EVA unit.
“What are you doing!” Marsha screamed.
“I won’t let you sacrifice anyone else’s life to try and save mine,” John said. As he got his final words out, he managed to fully detach himself from the EVA. His last action was to release the seals around his helmet and let the vacuum of space come rushing in, a look of tranquility on his face as his body began to drift away into the void of space.