J Mauldin - Final Solution

“Go, David, go,” I told myself, moving as quickly as the magnetic boots would allow. It wasn’t fast enough. It was a bad idea to do an EVA on a rotating hab in a soft suit without personal propulsion. Our false gravity worked against me, attempting to hurl me off the hull into space. My brains threatened to go flat against the top of my skull. I clung to the extending cable. Its connection inside the power core was all that could save me if my magnetic boots decided to give out.

Liberty: “David? Do we have power yet?”

“Working on it. Almost there.” I reached the trussed latticework of poly steel connecting the battery ring to the ship. I tied the coiled cable in a loose knot at the bottom, allowing me to control direction as it unspooled. I disengaged the boots. The rotation of the hab hurled me outward, up and towards my goal. I let the graphene cable slide through my gloves as I ascended. My hands became warm as my heart stuck in my throat.

Reaching the top I kicked open an access panel and shoved the cable’s end into an open, positively charged high voltage connection that was part of the ring’s power control center. After it was securely twisted in place, I let go and drew myself up, hand over hand back towards the ship along the trussing. I no longer had the safety of the cable to cling to, only my own handholds. The flexible, unfurling line of the cable whipped in the open space over my shoulder.

Climbing back to the ship was harder than I’d ever considered. Gravity worked against me full tilt. I strained and pulled, muscles screaming, knowing that if I let go I’d be in for a slow death. One hand over the next.

Ten feet to go.

“Come on, David. Come the fuck on, you stupid asshole.”

Five feet.

Two feet.

I reached the bottom and spun around, putting my boots flush against the hull. They clicked into place and allowed me to hiss a sigh of relief.

Rosaleigh: “They’re firing back.”

I winced at the report. It wasn’t as if I’d be any safer inside the ship with a projectile ripping through us at half the speed of light, but it was a natural reflex to get down.

The Razor’s projectile skimmed laterally across the ship and opened us up like a split can of tuna. Showers of metal flew past towards the aft end. The red world loomed beneath, then above, our home so close, yet so far away. An alarm beeped in my helmet. Air was jetting out from my hand.

Beneath the shadow of the battery ring I rushed for the arboretum’s emergency airlock, dodging the glittering debris of our ship. I punched in my code and threw myself inside. From the cramped space I unclipped my tablet and made a few remote commands, rerouting the positive power flow to the cable’s port. Green lights appeared.

“Captain, we’ve got power,” I said while patching the hole in my glove with a strip of bonding tape.

“David,” Liberty hissed through my watch, having taken herself off the main channel. “We only get one more shot at this.”

“I know,” I said, steeling myself for what was to come. “I—I just want to say…”

“Me too, David. Me too.”

I returned to weapons storage and control, following the usual routine. “Loading weapon. Powering up rails. Aim well, Liberty.”

“I’ll see you at sunset,” she said, her voice ponderous.

“See you at sunset.”

Rosaleigh: “Ma’am, the Razor, she’s firing again.”

I knew it would come to this. It always came to this. An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

I closed my eyes and Liberty shouted, her battle cry so fierce it made my eardrums bleed.

“Fire!”

A native to the Magic City, J. Fitzpatrick Mauldin has always lived with one foot in a world of steel and concrete, another in that of imagination and futurism. He is the product of a micro-biologist father and engineer grandfather, both obsessed with history, who have always challenged him to think harder. J. Fitzpatrick Mauldin has lived many lives from electronic music producer and DJ during the early 2000s to an entrepreneur in promotional products, and is now an administrator for one of the world’s largest real estate brands. He is married to a book addicted wife and has a mad genius daughter, the latter of which might one-day rule the world. Aside from the madness of the day to day, he dreams of returning to his second home in the Pacific Northwest, where he can continue to write his own brand of sci-fi and fantasy which teeters upon the edge of hard science and speculation.

To read other stories by J. Fitzpatrick Mauldin, visit: www.jfitzpatrickmauldin.com

Follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jfmauldin

And on Facebook: www.facebook.com/jfmauld

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2018, Cosmic Entanglement Media

www.JFitzpatrickmauldin.com

Second Edition