Michael Siemsen - Exigency

He supposed this was it . The end of his story, the end of Minerva’s, the end of the mission. Humans would surely come to this place again and they’d be eager to know what had happened at Epsilon C. People loved tragedy and cautionary tales. The question in John’s mind, the one whose relevance he found suspect: how much of the real story would future visitors piece together?

Why did it matter to him so much? Were these merely the long-established, conventional deliberations of imminent mortality? Meaning and purpose, impact and legacy? How dull. John had always fantasized for himself the also-well-known, though far-less-frequently-successful blaze of glory .

Blown apart on the station. Burned up on reentry or disintegrated across the surface when the parachute failed. Torn to shreds in an epic final showdown with Hynka, taking dozens with him as Minerva made a narrow escape… thanks to him. In practice, none of it sounded all that appealing. It sounded awful, terrifying. He just wasn’t the hero type, if such a thing existed outside fiction. He was a bookish scientist and engineer. The only reason he’d ended up a leader was that he wasn’t good enough at any one thing to specialize. Standard executive practice—put the generalists in charge. DNA and psych tests said he’d always be patient and paternal.

A lot of good it did him now. His last living “daughter” had flown the coop at some point last night. Now another night approached and still no sign of her. She’d left her suit and environment pants in a heap outside the tent. Wherever she’d gone— if she was still alive—was most likely more than 5K away, and she’d be barefoot and barelegged, with zero survival gear, and the overnight temp would surely dip again to -15 C. On top of all that, he reasoned that she’d experienced a full HSPD attack, and that her body would be wasted for days. On her own out there, her survival chances had actually plunged below John’s. And no one would be coming to help either of them.

His pain approached a high 7, and his reluctance to waste drugs on himself had suddenly become sad and pointless. He scooped a finger into the pouch and dropped a pill to the back of his throat. Maybe he’d take a few more in a bit. No one would ever know his weakness at the end.

They wouldn’t know anything else, either. All that data. Those hypothetical future human visitors would have to be satisfied with the last data sent home, along with whatever they could glean from orbiting fragments… or the contents of EVs found adrift in space . They’d know nothing of what he and Minerva had learned since evac. None of Ish’s flops of unreported data, or the sordid fallout of a disturbed crewmember’s missed or ignored red flags. Would the preservation of such knowledge render his life—his entire team’s lives—any more meaningful? They’d all ended up dying for this work.

John’s blaze of glory wouldn’t be as blazing as he’d hoped, but maybe he could persuade himself to die with a purpose—something more than as a convalescing heap in a tent. He had a good idea.

Forty minutes later, despite the frigid air of sunset, John sat sweating on one of the skimmer pads, his back against the panel wall. In his lap, the PCU confirmed signal establishment as the fluttering laser emitter beside him froze, casting the lime-green bar of light to a single point in the darkening sky. The pod’s homepage replaced the PCU’s control interface, and Minerva’s message filled the screen. But it wasn’t Minerva’s message.

Msg rec’d. Rally Camp est. by survivors Zisa Grafa, Pablo Birala, Thomas Meier, Aether Quintana, and Qin Shubao. 1 stcontact with native pop, friendly coop rel est. Recovery team AQ/PB/native team OB to HyCo WC 50N, ETA 95hrs. Confirm.

Chills pulsed from his very bones.

Alive.

It was posted six days ago. 95 hours… yesterday. They’d expected to arrive yesterday.

Dazed, John looked around the site. Even if Minerva were here, they were still days from reaching the coast. Absent anyone to rescue, would Aether and Pablo venture inland? John couldn’t allow it. Absolutely not. They’d made it down safe! The whole damned—

His eyes skimmed over the names again. No Angela. Couldn’t be an oversight.

Oh, Tom… Aether.

Their pain drilled into his sternum.

He reread the message. A little smile. The Threck people were actually helping his team. That was some kind of history right there! He flicked the message upward to verify there wasn’t more off-screen, and indeed, more appeared. But not from the team. Minerva’s message was essentially what he remembered Minerva telling him. He was surprised to see she’d only called Ish a “suspect” at the time.

The tips of still more letters dotted the bottom of the screen. John scrolled to find yet another unexpected note.

Zisa: You are so quick, so brilliant, and with so much heart…

John wasn’t supposed to see these words, addressed to him but intended for no one. A gaping window into a well-fortified heart. He’d never written anything so personal, not even in an offline journal.

He looked up from the screen. His bio eye began adjusting to the darkness while optics displayed a crisp, enhanced world. Orange points rose from the white plain like giant carrots stabbed through paper. Still-foreign constellations patterned the sky. A charcoal cloud wall loomed above the plains to the east. Heavy snowfall would surely come with it. It was already -2°C. Minerva was out there somewhere. Aether would scour this land until she found them, or until their fates were certain.

John pushed the PCU from his lap and slumped over on his side, reaching for the medkit. His wounded ribs stretched. Raw, budding new flesh split apart. With the destructive crawl from the tent and now this, Minerva would be furious. He slid the pack across the skimmer pad as he sat back up and rifled through the meds. In his fone, he scanned through treatments for the most severe trauma, unresponsive patients, and stopped hearts, then searched for misdiagnoses and misadministration.

The three bulb injectors sat on his palm, each sealed within its own cautionary red casing. He stuffed two into a breast pocket, trading them for one of the diclomorph tabs.

Pill down the hatch, three gulps from his suit, and he unsealed the injector case. More fearful of wasting the meds than inadvertently killing himself, John found the pulse in his neck. It was critical to stick the jugular—not the carotid. A mirror would’ve been helpful. A medical team would’ve been more helpful. A fully functional body.

He pierced his skin, believing he was on target, and squeezed the bulb.

Wow, that was quick.

His mind and body came to life. Heat ripples rolled out to the ends of his extremities, bouncing back like sound waves.

Somehow he’d expected that he would head out with one of the skimmers to find Minerva, pick her up, bring her back to the site, and promptly drop dead. Now he realized he could not only rescue Minerva, but endure on—returning to re-pair with the second skimmer, load up all their gear, and go streaking through the air, all the way to the damned coast , where Aether and Pablo would take things from there.

He gripped the bar above him, pulled himself to his feet, and powered on one skimmer. This was going to work!

Wait… the suit. She’d need her suit.

No problem. He locked in on the clothes heap, stepped down from the pad with a dull tug in his thigh, and limped to the pile, undaunted. Bend, clutch, lift, turn. Back to the pad.

He hung her suit over the main grip bar, took the controls in hand, and ascended into the brisk evening air.