To Infinity, and The SUFF!

What is the Suff?

It all started when Jeff Kinnard was cursed.

No one knew where the Suff came from, but suddenly writers all across substack were posting their own tales of their encounters with the Suff. These soon expanded to include historical documents showing the Suff is not a new phenomenon. It has always been around, and it always will be.

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Now, onto the main event:

Orbital velocity was 4.77 miles per second. Every second she worked on the Telecom satellite, Flight Lieutenant Gianna crossed the distance between her childhood farmhouse, and the next house over. If she slipped off the satellite, she would begin slowing at the rate of the earth’s gravity acting on her suit times her relative angle to the planet, arcing downwards towards the blue of the Pacific Ocean, falling faster as the angle increased until she plunged into the atmosphere and began to burn.

She pried a panel of the satellite’s outer shielding off and secured it to the next panel over. Then she peered inside, her headlamp glaring off the metallic wiring and reflecting back through her helmet into her eyes.

The satellite’s guts looked exactly like what a functioning broadcast satellite’s guts should look like. Except it wasn’t broadcasting “Houston this is Repair One. Visual inspection is negative on problems. I am beginning the diagnostic sweep.”

“Repair One, this is Houston, not to rush you but the Superbowl is on, and the East Coast is missing it,” a whining male voice replied.

She rolled her eyes. “Copy.

Gianna found the control panel and reached a bulky space suit arm in. She hit the buttons. Control, fine. Broadcasting, fine. RCS thrusters, fine.

“Houston, all systems are fine, and we have full power. Can you double-check broadcasting before I begin taking it apart?” she said. She checked her air. Two hours nine minutes.

“The satellite is not transmitting Repair One. My home team was up when it cut off,” the asshole on the line said with utter boredom.

“Go sports, get the ball to the hoop,” Gianna muttered through the open mic. Now she began pulling the satellite’s guts out, looking for physical problems.

The wiring unspooled slowly but steadily. After checking the wiring, she went through the power cables, computer chips, and the sleek battery for when the satellite was on the night side of the earth and couldn’t feel the sun. All intact. Until suddenly it jerked to a halt. She frowned and tugged again. Nothing budged. She’d been securing everything properly, or she thought. She looked around and saw a wire looped around her back, tangled on something on her backpack past the limits of the bulky space suit’s view.

Gianna grabbed the comms mast and pulled herself along the satellite to adjust her angle with the wires. Except they pulled taught and didn’t budge.

“Houston, we have a problem,” she said. Her heart raced, but she swallowed hard and fought down the panic. Worst case scenario she had the get out of jail free card of her rotary saw.
She could cut her way free and face the mother of all ass-chewings over destroying a twenty-million-dollar satellite.

“Go ahead,” Houston said, suddenly very serious.

“I’ve become entangled in the fiber optic cables.”

“How long do you have?”

“Two hours even,” she said.

“I’m calling the ISS to send backup over. Can you see what’s the source of the tangling?”

She turned herself until the wires snapped taught again. Her nose pressed to the glass bubble of her helmet, straining past the white horizon of her bulky gear. “No,” she said.

“Copy. ISS reports backup is twenty minutes away. Make sure your emergency option is ready,” they said.

She nodded; comforted mission control understood the problem. “I’ll sit tight until then.”

Except Gianna couldn’t sit tight. She’d never been the brightest student in her PHD program, but she’d been the most active, always doing new calculations, or going to meet new scientists for new perspectives. That had gotten her through to NASA’s astronaut program. She swiveled her bulky suit slowly, looking around. The solar panels pointed down past her feet towards the deep brown of the American southwest. The comms mast pointed out into the twinkling starscape and the blinking lights of the ISS and the other satellites.

She saw a wire snagged on the battery. The improvised ball and chain had drifted from its housing and caught on the solar panel somehow. If she could just move a bit up and diagonal, then she could maneuver.

“Houston, I’m going to attempt to dis-entangle myself. Stand by,” she said.

“Roger. Don’t suffer up there.”

Strange choice of words, she thought. Then refocused on the angle the battery was jammed into the solar panel.

Pushing with her legs wasn’t possible. She computed the angle off the top of her head and fired her main thrusters.

The entire satellite shuddered and rotated. Her mass times velocity squared pulled it into a spin. Her only concern was the battery, which strained against the laws of physics, then popped free. It drifted along.

“Houston I’m free,” she said as she caught the battery and placed it back in its restraints. The satellite kept spinning slowly, but as she was on the satellite, it didn’t spin to her. The entire Earth below and the stars around instead began a slow revolution.

“Copy. Get yourself set and we’ll stabilize the satellite’s suffering,” Houston said.

“Suffering?” she repeated.

“Hang on. Broadcasting is back. You did something!” Houston’s excitement at his precious sportsball game burst through.

“Well, that’s good. Houston I’m going to close the satellite up then go home,” Gianna said. The inside of her suit was warm and clammy with sweat. Suddenly she didn’t just want to be back in the ISS. She wanted to go home and sleep in a bed on solid ground. She grabbed the panel.

“Copy. I’m looking at the picture now, this is…”

Gianna didn’t register the silence until she’d sealed everything up.

“Houston, someone do a big play?” she said with a smirk.

“Everyone’s suffering down here,” he said.

“Injury?” she said. The satellite still spun. “I can’t disengage until you stabilize, Houston,” she said.

“Repair one, there’s so much suffering.” His voice had gotten quiet and empty. Like something else had come to the front of his mind and he was muttering words without paying attention to them.

Something winked in the sky. She saw a cluster of lights heading towards her.

“Houston, we have a problem!” she said and pleaded for an answer.

“There’s too much suffering. Look at all the people on this world now. There’s so many billions of us suffering we can’t stop suffering.”

On the next rotation, the cluster took the form of microsatellites speeding straight at her. Mission control was glitched or dead, there was no help coming.

She tensed, running through the calculations on jumping. Maybe she could go fast enough to avoid being swatted by either the solar panels or the…

“We’re all suffering down here. There’s so many of us now and we’re all suffering. Repair one, we’re suffering, suffering suff…”

Gianna cut the radio line. Then she saw the microsatellites flying straight towards her.

“We’re suffering, suffering, suffering!” his voice screamed in her head even though the radio was dead.

She slipped, panicked, and fired her RCS thrusters. The satellite disappeared as she spun away, star and planet rotating before her eyes.

“Suffering, suffering, suffering”

The Earth rose up to meet her, as the atmosphere buffeted her suit.

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For the most definitive, yet still incomplete accounting of the Suff’s history, check out The Chronicler’s full historical research and documentation.

And as always, feel free to subscribe if you enjoyed the story. There’s a new one every Wednesday.