J Mauldin - Final Solution

I sucked in a breath and prayed.

Half of the power core’s wall was missing, nothing but twisted bars and bits of poly alloy collected around a gaping maw. I approached the opening, seeing the river of a red world rushing beneath us. Griffin was out there, falling slowly towards the planet below. She was shaking, hands scrabbling at her cracked helmet. I reached out for her but she was too far away, traveling several meters per second opposite the ship. It was the most helpless I’d ever felt. All I could do was watch her die, watch her suffocate in the void, another death to weigh down the scales. I searched for anything that could help. It would take too long to get an EVA rig out to her, and Liberty needed me here.

“Griffin,” I hissed into the com channel.

“ David ,” she whispered, a frantic twist to her voice. “ I gotta get out of this. I don’t wanna go this way. I don’t wanna die like César. ”

“I don’t want you to either.”

Suddenly, I was flung away from the opening, a solid object crashing into my shoulder. I tried to recover but flew into a breaker box, its edge catching me in the ribs. I glared back at the opening and saw someone with broad shoulders leaping from the ship into open space. Steadily, the newcomer’s suit floated towards Griffin, arms out wide. As soon as they’d closed the distance, they clamped down, embracing Griffin in a crushing bear hug.

“Pull us in, hot shot,” Brix said over the com channel. “She won’t last long. Her suit’s leaking like hell.”

“Brix! Hot damn!”

I looked down and saw a tether clipped to the floor. I drew them back in. Despite being in microgravity, the rotation of the ship made their bodies’ mass feel greater than normal. I strained as I might drawing a stone from a lake. Momentum soon took hold and the task became easier.

“Thanks,” Brix said as he set foot back inside the ship. “I’ll take her to Med 1.”

“Griffin? You alright?” I asked, putting a palm against her cracked, fishbowl helmet.

She raised her right hand and held up a weak thumb. Not today. Hot damn, not today.

“Captain,” I said, taking a visual inspection of the power core. “It’s just me now. Griffin got spaced, but Brix brought her back in. She’s not in good shape.”

“Shit,” Liberty spat. “Get back into—”

Rosaleigh: “Another shot, incoming.”

The shot took us across the top of the ship in relation to Mars, ripping off a rail gun and sending its wreckage spinning into one of the PV arrays. My watch’s alarms screamed like mad, informing me that critical systems were either damaged or offline. We had main power, but that wouldn’t last.

As soon as I was back at the controls I switched to our secondary railgun. Our only weapon. I loaded another battery, checked the rest of them and gave the okay. Just before I said, ready, music began to bleed in over the com channel. “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpions. I gave a grim smile.

“Here I am, you sons of bitches,” Liberty growled.

I watched the display, our ship flashing with focused energy as the projectile was hurled from our railgun. A moment later, a flash of white gas, and a glittering line of metallic dust shot out the ass end of the Razor’s image. The projectile had gone through the front and out the back. We’d pierced their can right through the pull tab.

“Direct hit!” Rosaleigh shouted over the com, heavy metal guitars and crewmembers cheering us on.

“Take that you assholes.” I shook a gloved fist above my head.

The Razor began to free fall into a hard spin, its fat, backend spiraling quicker with each rotation. I could see their railguns flashing white and black in the display. Tiny jets of air attempted to slow their spin. The lights aboard the Vindicator dimmed to brown.

“Oh, shit, don’t do this to me now.” Power was failing, lights flickering. Our backup batteries were terminally leaking fluids. “No, no, no, no!” I hurried to the power core and inspected the damage closely.

“Goddard, sitrep,” Liberty said.

“It’s going down, damn it. The power. All of it. There isn’t anything I can do in the time we have. We’ve lost half our photovoltaics. The backups have been gutted. And…” The display showed a positive power line running into our secondary rail gun at zero voltage. It had been severed.

“ Can we fire?” Liberty asked, lowering the music’s volume to a soft hum. “Can we?”

I frantically searched for an answer. There had to be a way. I glanced at the storage cabinet beside the breakers, back to the hole in the side of the Vindicator Griffin had been sucked out, and then over to the power distribution box on the wall. I turned to face the hole in our ship.

“Maybe. I have an idea.”

“David, I know that tone of yours. This is going to be stupid.”

“It is stupid, but it’ll work. I think.”

I slung open the storage cabinet’s door and reached inside, producing a braid of heavy gauge insulated graphene cable one thousand feet long. It was flexible and thin, but even in low-g it was heavy, making it a challenge to keep balance. Thank God I was in shape. I wasn’t sure if the cable would carry enough current, but it was all I could think to do. Without both the positive and negative end of the circuit on the secondary rail we had no hope of firing back at the enemy. Other power concerns were almost inconsequential in light of this. I was sure I could fix the original line, as well as main power, but we had no time for that. We had to fire at the enemy while they were limping. It was our only hope. We had to put this rabid dog down before it snapped and chewed our other leg off.

I fastened the end of the graphene cable to an open connection in the power distribution box, uncoiling half a dozen feet while edging closer to the gaping maw at my back like I was rappelling. I had to guess at what length I’d need. Over my shoulder Mars swung past every few seconds, the hab of the Vindicator spinning round and round. I took in a breath and focused. If I failed, we’d be dead. If I succeeded, we might still be dead. But I wasn’t giving up. I’d ride this bitch to the ground if I had to, throwing rocks at the enemy all the way.

“Here we go.” I disengaged the magnetic boots and hurled myself back through the hole. The ship continued to spin downward from my perspective as I rose. The edge of the breech slammed against my length of tightening cable and tossed me forward. I held firm to the cable as the ship spun and drew me in like the line of a winch. My fingers slipped for an instant and I gasped, but I clamped down with all my might and renewed my hold. Once I was close enough to the hull I reengaged the boots and clumsily found magnetic purchase aloft the ship’s exterior. I was safely outside, feet planted on a rotating can of death.

I held my sigh of relief.

“Still alive,” I called into the com.

“Be careful,” Liberty croaked.

As the hab continued to rotate I began to feel sick. Mars appeared just over my head, sliding down before my eyes and vanishing beneath my feet every few seconds. I squinted and focused on my target, the massive Nuclear Battery Ring ahead, trying not to think of the disorienting view repeatedly swinging past. I felt tiny as I trudged forward like a fly through honey. The ship seemed massive standing on the outside.

“The Razor, they’re turning around,” Rosaleigh reported, voice resonating in my helmet.

I risked a glance over my shoulder to confirm. A glint of light heralded the position of the Razor .