Enjoy this sci-fi short story about bad weather—and how to deal with a bad attitude…

It rained methane again.

The first droplets splattered on my spacesuit’s faceplate as I scanned the dim, ochre sky. Darker bands clawed from the ever-present clouds, as if to snatch our drilling rig from the ice.

Once more, Titan showed its frigid love. The feeling was mutual.

“Beautiful winter.” Sunil’s sing-song came through the comm link. He bounded alongside, gesturing at the bleak vista. “Smoggy as Delhi, without all the people.” He thumbed aft. “Think our moon-buggy failed its emissions test?” His smile appeared to push his helmet’s confines.

“Wish I’d failed the flight physical.”

“And miss the chance to do Titan pushups?” Sunil dropped his tool bag and fell forward, slowly, under the one-seventh gravity on this frozen rock. Strengthening drizzle rolled off his life-support backpack. Then he rebounded from the crusty, orangish soil strewn with pebbles worn smooth by the elements.

I caught his elbow as he wobbled backward. He was an eager rookie. But he’d yet to experience failure of his gear. A torn glove, a dinged pack, a windblown ice shard that nearly sliced through the helmet’s neck seal…

I’d seen that and more these two years. Another year before I’d rotate out. It had been winter when I’d landed—leaving behind the majestic sight of Saturn for this dismal haze—and would be winter when I left. Titan’s dreary seasons lasted seven years.

My season of trial had stretched a decade.

I snapped from my reverie as Sunil tapped something against my visor. “Got you a special souvenir, C.B.” He held a stone between gloved fingers smeared with ruddy clay. The whims of geology had shaped the five-centimeter sample into a bulbous heart. A hairline crack bisected it.

“Just another rock.” I leaned into a gust. The storm would wallop us soon. Even in our bulky suits with crampon boots, we’d be like tumbleweeds in the fierce downdrafts, defenseless from flash floods.

With utter disregard for personal space, Sunil stuffed the gift into my forearm pocket. “Keep it, my friend.”

I grunted. Trudged toward the drilling rig. It resembled a lunar lander from last century’s Apollo missions. Four anchor legs spread nine meters apart. Its tether pulley rose seven meters. Like open flower petals, six radiators for the radioisotope thermoelectric generators—RTGs—oscillated in the wind.

I’d nicknamed the balky contraption Murphy’s Rig, because it found every possible way to break. Usually at the most inopportune time.

Like right before a massive methane storm.

Heather always complained the appliances conspired to break just after I’d deployed. It had been the fridge when I’d shipped to Guam at the outbreak of war.

More than leftovers had spoiled when I left her for Titan.

“Sunil, double-check the anchors while I inspect the tether.” He acknowledged, static from the charged atmosphere hissing over comms. I’d never witnessed lightning on Titan—but why not today, while atop a metal structure?

Rain drummed against my helmet. I activated the headlamp. Diagonal streaks danced in the beam. I ducked out of the downpour and illuminated the tether winch. It had stopped unspooling its cable when the drill probe, seven kilometers underground, reported a malfunction. Loss of power and communication from above.

The story of my faith.

Suddenly the rig’s frame vibrated. Stopped. Quivered again.

I clenched teeth. Another Titan-quake?

Last time, a nearby fissure had vented a super-chilled slush into the sky. And where better for another eruption than where we’d drilled a pilot hole for Mother Nature? The fluid pressure would carve through our suits.

“Tightened up two anchors,” Sunil said. “Love that impact wrench.”

I released a held breath. That had been the source of the vibration.

“Tell me beforehand next time.” I poked a red button to manually reboot the cable software. Moments later, my headset chirped, indicating an incoming message from our home base on the crater rim.

“Commander Browne,” said our AI, Marcie. “Flash flooding is likely for Selk Crater and northwest Shangri-La.” Whoever had called our region Shangri-La had a warped vision of paradise.

“Copy.” The weather gods cranked the methane shower to full blast. Sunil joined me under the rig’s structure. “Just checking the pulley and we’ll return to base.”

“Understood, Command—” Marcie’s synthetic voice cut out.

Great. Bad weather plus bad comms. That added up to a bad attitude.

Sunil must have caught my scowl. He lightly punched my shoulder; surveyed the leaky roof. “Good news. We have this ten-billion-dollar tent.”

I stomped the damp ground. “With a dead probe that hasn’t found liquid water.”

“Yet.” He raised a finger. “Who knows when breakthrough to that marvelous ocean will happen. But we must trust it will.”

I sighed. Turned to the drill shaft, rolling my eyes. “Trust won’t fix this darn machine.” My headlamp lit the first few meters of the hole I’d babysat all these months. We searched for life, for tiny Titan critters frolicking in their hidden swimming pool. It would be a monumental discovery, embossed with my name for the ages.

So why did my present life feel so insignificant?

“C.B., staring into that dark hole won’t fix anything, either.” Despite his lighthearted tone, I grumbled at my partner’s impertinence. I’d been here ten times longer than him. Suffered the eight-day-long Titan nights, space-cabin fever, atrophy of muscles and relationships. And Sunil? He still enjoyed remnants of chikki peanut brittle he’d packed for the expedition.

My only treats were aquaponic tomatoes. I’d never eat another after Titan.

Straining against the rainstorm, I pushed an overhead hatch open. Using arm strength alone, I yanked myself up a ladder, like a yeoman scaling a sailing ship’s mast in a raging sea. If Sunil had secured the rig’s anchors, it didn’t feel like it. The ladder rocked in the tempest, and the chatter from the unfurled RTG radiators intensified.

I should’ve stowed the radiators while I had the chance. They might tear free, taking the RTGs with them. No power, no drilling. Mission failure. Another mark in my ledger of missed opportunities.

Gripping the topmost rung, I clipped a safety line to one near my waist. Then my shaky headlamp played across the pulley wheel. “Gotcha.” The cable had slipped from the groove. It hung from the axle, wedged between the wheel and its support arm. Exposed wires revealed where friction had worn through the insulation.

I cussed. “Found the problem. We’ll need to splice it.” Of all the jobs to do in a storm raining flammable liquid, splicing power cables was the worst. Sure, electricity had shut off automatically, but any stray current would ruin my already miserable day. And these gloves were hardly optimum for fine-motor tasks.

“Bringing up the splice kit.” The ladder shuddered as Sunil climbed.

Heavier rain pummeled my back. I hesitated to open my thigh pocket to reach the wire cutters. Our suits were weatherproof, but if methane pooled inside any pockets, it would immediately vaporize in our warmer airlock…and might ignite.

Then another problem materialized. “We need to secure the tether cable before I cut it. Otherwise, we could lose the whole thing down the hole.” I shouted above the howling wind.

“Don’t trust the emergency brake?”

“You suppose they tested it at three hundred below in a rainstorm?” It wasn’t a question. Sunil was smart enough not to answer. “Move the buggy alongside the rig. We’ll use its winch cable.”

“Ah…good thinking, C.B. That adaptability is why you—”

“Just get the buggy.”

Sunil handed me the splice kit bag and reversed down the ladder. I couldn’t even see the vehicle until he powered it up and its lights pierced the deluge. The sheen of liquid lapping at its wheels made my eyes widen.

If this ground was already saturated…

Sunil wisely parked on the downwind side of the rig, sheltering our buggy from the brunt of the storm. The methane fell almost sideways now.

A minute later, Sunil clambered back up the ladder. Whether out of deference or the tight quarters, he stopped by my feet, extending a swivel hook in his hand. “How do we attach it?”

“Trust me.” I went to work stripping more insulation from the stuck cable. Finally, I’d exposed enough of the innermost steel strand to bend and clamp it into a loop. Then I passed the swivel hook through to make the connection. I tugged for good measure. “There. Now for the splice.”

I extracted the cutters and set its blades in place. Paused. Am I ready? I’d asked myself a similar question before snipping my daughter’s umbilical cord. Things had seemed beyond my control then; today, Titan’s wrathful pelting amplified that feeling. I couldn’t force Patricia—no, she preferred Pat now—to communicate with me. But whenever I opened my inbox, I yearned to see her name in the From column.

A warbling chirp interrupted my cut.

“…der Browne…nadic activit…” Crackles flooded Marcie’s transmission. “Again, tornadic…vicinity…”

“Did she just say tornadic activity?” Sunil sounded far too chipper. “That’s amazing! The first observed tornado on any extraterrestrial body.”

I whapped the top of his helmet. “Look around! We’re not observing anything. And we’re sitting ducks up here.” I turned back to my job, completing the first cut. “You’re too dang optimistic.”

Sunil cleared his throat. “When your first memories are of being hungry and alone, it changes your perspective.”

I positioned the cutters again. “I thought you grew up in a nice orphanage.”

“Oh, yes! They loved me with God’s love. You saw the pictures of my friends.”

Groaning, I squeezed the handles to make the second slice. “Right. By your bunk. Rugby team.”

“Kabaddi team. I was fast. Hard to tackle.”

I dug into the splice kit—then froze. That sound…like a freight train…

“Hold on!” I yelled. “We’re about to get tackled!”

Suddenly, sheets of methane slammed us. The rig shook. A radiator panel fluttered wildly, then cartwheeled into the abyss. My boots slipped off the ladder, then my gloves. I dangled horizontally like a battered windsock, secured only with my safety strap. Somehow, Sunil remained clamped to the rungs.

A screech pierced the gale. In my twisting flight, I glimpsed the source.

The buggy’s winch cable. Sunil had threaded it through the ladder. And our buggy now bobbed in a flash flood up to its windshield. Its mass tugged on the cable like a fish unwilling to be reeled in. If the ladder tore loose, Sunil and I would be dragged into the icy depths together.

“Lord, please…” The tornado’s moan drowned out my petition. I flopped at the end of my strap. The ladder shrieked in agony.

Then I saw them. Saturn’s rings, like a sparkling necklace peeking through the storm, casting thick bands of shadow across the planet. A thread of light hovering above dark stripes. Hope amidst loss.

And a hand grabbed me, pulled me against the waning wind. I snagged the ladder.

It had held.

We had held.

Sunil laughed. “The buggy! It’s still here.” And so it was, replanted on its spiked wheels, stained by the ebbing flood of methane and soil like the ring inside a coffee mug. My thumping heart needed no caffeine.

I fingered the winch cable. “If we hadn’t needed this to anchor the drill’s tether line—”

“—we’d have a long walk home, my friend.” Sunil pointed at the clearing sky. “God be praised! Another gift for my gratitude prayer.”

I gaped at the view, stuttering a breath. “Gratitude prayer?”

“Every night. A nibble of chikki…and a feast of giving thanks. You should try it.”

“The peanut brittle?” I smirked, still soaking in Saturn’s grandeur.

Sunil slapped my sore forearm. “Nice, C.B. Found your humor again.”

“Found more than that.” I pulled the heart-stone from where he’d stashed it, clenched it in my fist, and thumped his shoulder. “Thanks, friend.”

Something spliced back together in that moment. The current of God’s presence was but a trickle, yet I knew deep down—deeper than the stalled probe in Titan’s ice—it would return in a glorious flood.