J Mauldin - Final Solution

2030: Mars’s first small settlement is formed near the Scapareli crash site, a collection of fifty adventurous humans and countless robots under the direction and funding of NASA. Due to budgetary issues relating to an energy crisis in America, soon after setting foot on the red planet, private companies take charge of its economical burdens and NASA bows out.

2035: Earth’s space elevator is completed, making space travel far more economical. Transportation of goods from ground into space costs next to nothing, reducing cost from nearly $5,000 per pound, to less than $50.

2040: An international carbon reduction agreement is reached within the world’s superpowers, including China and India, effectively ending all coal burning, oil consumption, and strip mining worldwide in lieu of renewable resources. This staves off the advancement of climate change, and protects all human interest. A worldwide push is made to condense major cities rather than pave over wilderness during expansion. Construction soon begins on some of the world’s first “Mega Cities”, intended to help preserve Earth’s lush green forests by condensing populated areas.

2048: After raising untold amounts of capital, a forward thinking corporation formed by many of Elon Musk’s ex-Space X executives see the potential in high-carbon strip mining on other worlds, and rebrands itself as “The Brethren”. After having a lottery in several countries including Colombia, Mexico, Georgia and The United States, adventurous settlers are chosen for their skills and sent to make a better life on Mars. Thus the great migration begins, and every year settlers come to Mars to form what is now Arsia Mons, Valles Rojo, and Digton, the primary Martian settlements.

2053: The “Oil Wars” are fought back on Earth, adding to international strains connecting the Middle East and the rest of the world. After the Oil Wars conclude, two years later, the last hangers-on to traditional means of fossil fuel production are forced to cease, as other countries no longer have a great need for oil, other than in the manufacturing of plastics. This causes a new wave of instability in the region, now that these countries are no longer oil rich. Many seek to leave the region for better opportunities and safer borders.

2055: Seeing the vast potential for profit in regards to off-world mining, the Axis opens shop and colonizes Europa, as well as several other Jovian moons. At the onset of their inception, they steer clear of the Brethren politically and economically, but the reality of Earth based supply chains and cumbersome space travel soon sets in. Trade tensions begin to rise between the Axis and the Brethren, as the Axis’s production severely cuts into the Brethren’s profits.

2059: Ceres is destroyed, a blatant attack by the Axis to disrupt the Brethren’s supply lines. War is declared between the factions.

2060: The Brethren government reorganizes itself as the Martian economy tanks. Colonist rations are cut thin, unemployment is high, pay is decreased, inflation sores. Many who are out of work are set to constructing the Brethren’s deterrent fleet of advanced warships, intended only for use in mutually assured destruction against the Jupiter based (Jovian) faction, the Axis.

All this was tired, boring news. And so, I began to editorialize what I read next, filling in the details to make things a little more interesting.

2061: I met Liberty and lost my mind.

2066: Liberty stops talking to me because I’m an idiot. And I lost my mind.

2070: I join the military to run from my problems, because I lost my mind.

2072: I die in a nuclear space can by way of explosive decompression at the hands of the Razor , and can no longer lose my mind. Why, you ask? It should be obvious. I’m dead.

2073: My ghost travels back in time to tell my younger self I never had a mind to begin with.

All facts are false.

I put down the tablet and sighed. I’d found nothing on the Pan-X deal. The only thing that came close was trade tensions over supply chains, but everyone knew about those days. Could they have been exaggerated? Possible. I wanted to believe it wasn’t information censorship, just couldn’t. The Brethren controlled the narrative, and so they could rewrite history as they saw fit. Best keep that dangerous idea to myself.

I got up from my bunk and took the tablet with me into the bathroom, but before I could finish the job, a klaxon sounded. Red lights, added shortly after the previous bathroom incident, flooded the stall.

I burst back into Crew 1, frantic the alarms had something to do with myself or the target, and found no one there to greet me. Liberty’s earpiece vibrated and so I put it on, praying to God it was her on the other side.

“David?” she said, her voice muffled.

“I hear you.”

“We’re under attack, and it’s a tight one. Eighty-five percent hit probability.”

I swallowed and kept listening. There was nothing I could do to stop this.

I overheard the bridge chatter.

“Halt rotation on the solar array. Emergency burn, five second burst, negative fifteen degrees Y.”

“Mark.”

“Mark.”

Even though I knew it was impossible, I swear I felt the ship listing off to the right. Maybe it was just the sharp click of our PVAs locking into place while my imagination supplied the rest.

“Time?”

“Fifty-six seconds.”

“Projection?”

“Seventy-five percent.”

“Give me five degrees Z.”

“Sir, that’ll put us outside our trajectory. We’ll be off course.”

“What do you think being dead will do?”

“Understood. Yes, Captain.”

“That’s it. Fifteen percent. Fourteen percent. Thank G… Wait… the projectile’s split.”

“What?” The Captain’s shocked tone was a glacier cracking at the heart of winter. “Split? What do you mean split?”

“I’m tracking sixty targets.”

“Sixty!” XO shouted.

“Go go go! Maximum thrust, get us out of the way.”

“Contact in fifteen seconds…”

“Ninety-nine percent probability, sir.”

“Get us out!”

“Ten seconds. Ninety percent.”

“Harder! Damn it. Harder!”

“Five Seconds. Eighty-nine percent.”

This was it. They’d managed to somehow shotgun blast us from across the solar system, leaving no vector for us to escape.

César came rushing into the room and locked eyes with me, his hand clutching Jane’s. I don’t know how they knew, but it was clear they sensed this attack was different from the rest. I wished I was on the bridge with Liberty, but there was no time left.

“Two seconds. Eighty-five percent.”

“It’s too much.”

“One.”

A fresh set of alarms, unlike the rest, howled throughout the ship. These were the whooping cries and monotone voice of imminent danger that could not be ignored.

ATTENTION CREW: HULL BREACH FORWARD AND AFT.

I froze in the moment, awaiting my insides to be turned backwards and flee out my ass. I heard a deafening hiss from out in the hall before the emergency hatches began to snap shut. César stepped into the crew quarters with Jane and looked at his watch, the section’s hatch shutting an instant later. Jane was terrified, whereas César… he appeared, almost a little groggy.

“David!” my earpiece screamed. “Are you there?”

It took me an instant to realize that even though the ship was losing pressure, we were still alive. The leak must have been at least two sections away. There might be a chance to save us.