John Karr - Detonation Event

He clamped his teeth around the sponge rod once more and pushed it slowly back. The inside of his face shield had a bloodstain, so evidently the pod had taken enough of a hit to rattle his head against the side of the shield. But while there was ample neck support to the rear, you could turn your head all the way to the sides and bend forward without your head contacting the helmet. So what the hell—

He turned a little more to see with his left eye. The right side of the face shield bulged inward and was spider-webbed with cracks, yet had remained intact.

“Yay for engineers,” he said, with true awe.

He considered the dirt at the bottom of the pod. The visible floor was up about ten feet. Jagged metal grinned at him, curved inward like teeth. Evidently the chem rocket and titanium buffers had given it their best shot but ultimately had been no match for the eruption force of hot gas and lava. Where there should have been more floor panels, now there was dirt and rock on a sloping pattern inside his pod.

He spotted the barrel and forward grip of the atomizer jutting from the dirt. Not a big concern since these were rugged mining tools, after all. He pulled it out and brushed it off, raised it and checked its display, found it shattered. He tried firing it at one of the rocks.

Nothing. No juice.

He swallowed. There goes Option A.

“Okayyyy, something to dig with, then.”

Life pods do not come equipped with shovels. But there was a curved section of steel paneling from the console that he was able to break off.

Boom. Shovel.

But judging by the porous basalt rocks that were probably as old as dinosaur fossils on Earth, he’d also need a leverage tool.

Several control rods were bent and pinched. He twisted one back and forth and finally broke it off. Now he had a makeshift crowbar.

Panting from the effort, he tried not to make any facial contortions, but it was difficult.

The more dirt he moved, the more sifted down and inside. The pod couldn’t be too deep; the surface in this region was firm, not soft like desert sand, which is why SCONA had chosen it for a core tunnel. He hoped he hadn’t landed in a lava pool like a stone in a puddle. According to his computer sensors, some of the stones were warmer than the surrounding soil, which meant they could have been jettisoned in the explosions.

Or touched by lava.

But if lava was in the direct vicinity, he should have picked up an extreme temperature spike.

He hoped that was true, anyway.

The personnel hold of the pod was large enough for four upright individuals in space suits against the walls, a slender lavatory, and about twenty feet of floor around the center console. A space traveler did not want to occupy one of these vessels for long. Pods were meant for survival at short duration, not comfort.

Two of the suit’s microphones were dead, according to his forearm computer. The other two were partly damaged but managed to pick up the shffft! and bangs and thuds of his panel-shovel as it bit into dirt and collided with rock. He banged a couple rocks free with the engine rod turned crowbar.

He contacted one rock that wasn’t cooperating. He had to thrust the rod alongside and pry, but it was stuck hard. He thrust the pipe against it, chipping it into sections, groaning each time it made jarring contact.

The banging mixed with his heavy breathing and the pounding in his head as he worked methodically for his survival. He pushed through the pain as long as possible before having to take a break. He counted eight shovelfuls before he had to pause. Then he started again. After several sets of this, he stood on the new dirt floor and straightened to give his back a rest.

His head throbbed with his pulse. He put a hand to the side of the helmet, as if that were any comfort.

Bang, pause. Bang, pause. Bang.

Outside…!

He dropped the panel shovel, grabbed the rod and banged on the hull. Each strike echoed inside.

An onslaught of bangs in response.

A light in his peripheral vision. Mindtext! He opened it with a blink from his good eye.

Cap! What’s your status? This is Wagner, Hamilton, and Burroughs.

He was slower to work the letters with just the vision and blinks of his left eye. Need a can opener, not a law firm. You guys okay?

Let’s go verbal. Can you link to zero three? We’ve hotspotted our suits.

Devans glanced at his arm computer and saw the available link blinking in the corner of the display. Frowning hurt, but he did it anyway. “Thanks for letting me know,” he said to it.

He pressed the pulsating hotspot icon.

“This is Wagner for Devans. Wagner for Devans. You there, Cap?”

“Yes!” Devans replied.

Hamilton and Burroughs jumped in with whoops that mixed with Trent’s.

“Banged up but okay,” Devans said. “Pod sealed and no power. Floor got ripped and has a hole. Trying to dig out through the bottom.”

“Yes!” Burroughs said. “There’s some hanging metal we can break off. We’ll dig down to you while you dig up! Hurry, everyone!”

“Watch your suits,” Devans said. “Not like we can run to the shuttle for safe harbor. How far down is this tin can buried?”

“The top third is visible,” Hamilton said.

“The rip is underground, then,” Devans said. “Six feet under. Well, it ain’t gonna be my grave.”

“What about the atomizer?” Wagner said, his voice strained.

“I have it but it’s inoperable. Display’s wrecked.”

“It’ll work without the display! The bursts can be mechanically controlled by the trigger. Remember the lettering I carved in Low Ridge in Gusev Crater?”

“Yeah, you carved your initials on a boulder.”

“E equals MC squared are not my initials.”

“You were saying?”

“The display got busted when that chunk of rock broke free. It was still operational, though. Maybe that one is, too!”

“Good thought, kid, but the energy pack’s also depleted.”

The ground shuddered, knocked Devans on his ass. Grunts from the others through the suit transmitters. Hamilton swore.

“Here,” Wagner said, from outside the pod.

“I don’t need a hand up, kelp head!” Hamilton said.

“Ugh. I’ll take it.” Burroughs raised her arm.

“What do we—”

“Crap!”

Pause. Followed by more cussing.

Devans sucked in air and stood again, fighting back against his head injury. “What’s going on out there?”

No reply. He banged the exposed hull with the pipe several times.

“Keep digging, Cap!” Wagner finally said, his exhalation rapid.

Hamilton’s voice came tight. “I’ll get a trench going. Trent, help me. Shannon, keep digging for Cap.”

Devans got back to his feet and kept digging. “What’s happening up there?”

No one answered, so he knew it wasn’t good.

“Dig faster, Ry!” Burroughs said breathlessly.

“Status…!” he said. Heat spike warnings went off from his suit.

“We have to dig faster!” Burroughs said. “The lava…”

Devans’ head had kept up a steady drumbeat. Now it pounded like the rock pulverizers in the water extraction factories on MOS-1. Breath came in gasps. He sweated despite the suit’s auto-thermostat. More dirt kept sifting in. “You three get the hell away from here!”

Muffled responses as the ground quaked again.

“…overflowing the trench!”

“Hold it, hold it!” Hamilton said. “Captain, stop! Try the hatch again! Lava’s above—”

“Stop digging!” Burroughs pleaded. “Ry, stop digging!”

“Suits!” Trent Wagner said, through growing static. “Cap…!”

Devans silently cursed. Was he going to damn die here after all? Talk about pulling the rug out from under someone.