John Karr - Detonation Event

“Thanks for the morale booster,” Devans growled, angry at the tears forming in his swollen eye and in the good one. “Don’t tell me. You let a young female pilot charm you out of your pajamas for a little space ride?”

Smiles from the others in the bridge.

The old comrades were beyond the fist bump. A raised handshake was followed by a cross-armed hug, followed by back slaps. Devans could tell the other man was holding back a little, which was good, as he felt each slap all the way into his spine.

“Mars worked you over pretty good,” Fres said, withdrawing but leaving a hand on Devans’ shoulder. He sidestepped and motioned down the stairs to the meeting table in the nose of the ship. The shields were pulled back, allowing a surrounding view of the stars.

“You see the other guy?” Devans said, shivering. “Gushing lava all over the place. That’s one pissed-off planet, son.”

“Blanket’s not cutting it,” Fres said. “We got coffee.”

Trent Wagner, Shannon Burroughs, and the guy from the transition room, Norquist, sat around the meeting table in the nose of the bridge. They stood and greeted him warmly as he stepped down.

Trent placed a steaming mug before an empty chair at the glass meeting table. “Boom. Hot coffee, Cap.”

“Nice. Anything with a kick to mix with it?”

“Not yet.”

Trent sat, took a swallow of his own coffee, and swiveled toward the bridge. “How the hell did you find us, sis? Titanium sweep?”

Gwen Wagner spoke while she manipulated the holo controls. “Tried, but came up negative. Evidently coating titanium with radioactive lava alters the imprint.”

“Maybe that’s why the other shuttle couldn’t find us.”

Gwen nodded. “ PS-10 was landing in Columbus Bay when we took off. Helena tried to dissuade us since they didn’t find anything.”

“Glad Helena wasn’t successful,” Devans said, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He sipped water from a bottle and then the coffee.

Fres sat across from Shannon Burroughs and smiled. “Need anything, hon?”

She blinked wide eyes and smiled back. “No, I’m good now. Thanks.”

Devans put his hands around the hot coffee mug and frowned. “Don’t try your old man moves with my navigator, you fossilized wolf. She’s probably still in shock from all this. I know I am, and that’s just from seeing your face.”

“Ha, have you seen your own?” Fres said. “Besides, she’s my daughter’s age, ya barnacle.”

“Exactly.”

Alicia Hamilton walked down to the meeting table and stood at Devans’ right side, holding an ice pack. Fres smiled.

“Same goes for my security officer,” Devans said.

“I can’t help it if you’ve got attractive crew members.”

“Her husband would agree,” Devans growled.

“My wife would agree!” Fres said.

“Did I miss something?” Hamilton asked. “Fres is practically Uncle Fres to us, Cap. We’ve been heading out from Columbus Bay for almost two years now.”

“Creepy Uncle Fres. Wait until I tell Renee on you, son.” Devans sipped the coffee and glared at Hamilton’s ice pack. “Here I’m just starting to warm up again. I’ll pass.”

“Did the steam of that shower cover the mirror and your senses? You need to wear this off and on until we can get proper medical on MOS-1.” Hamilton placed the ice pack gently to his right eye and forehead. “Hold that a sec.” She wrapped gauze around his head to secure it in place.

Shannon Burroughs turned. She shook out four pills from a bottle that had been on the table beside her. “Oops, too many.”

Devans’ hand grabbed all four. “No, it isn’t. This is just baby aspirin, and I got more than a little touched up down there. Tell her, Fres.”

“Truth.” Fres leaned over the table with a small flask in hand. He poured an ounce of booze into Devans’ coffee cup. “More medicine.”

Devans downed it and rolled a finger for more.

“Not so fast, son,” Fres said. “You want to pass out?”

“Half my crew died and after I blew up my own ship. Way I see it, there’s seven or eight more of these to go.”

“ PS-9 was in overload, Ry.” Fres offered the flask to the others, but they declined. He took a sip and put it away.

“Yeah, it was. Why is another matter.”

Nobody had an answer.

“Toss in getting banged up, swallowed, and barfed out of Mars in a life pod, evading lava and almost suffocating in an atmosphere as strong as a flaccid balloon. Yeah, I’d love to pass out.”

Norquist came in with a cooler. “Who’s up for more delicious water?”

“Okay, but surely an Aussie’s got a stash of beer somewhere?” Devans said, reaching for a water bottle.

Norquist glanced at Gwen Wagner, was about to respond.

“Hydrate first, Captain,” Hamilton said, saving him from a vocal admission of contraband on the shuttle.

Norquist nodded up and down in the affirmative, even as he proclaimed, “Absolutely no beer here, Captain Devans.” He set out water for everyone.

“Thanks,” Trent said. “Who’re you again?”

“Will Norquist. Engineer. Crew with Gwen, uh, Captain Wagner.”

“You flew with sis here into a Martian crap-storm? You got guts, bro.”

“Yeah, well, things were gettin’ a little dull. Plants germinating in space is vital, but not exactly exciting, ya know?”

Trent looked up and over at his sister.

“What?” Gwen said. “We’re the same crew.”

“Where’s Cricks?”

Gwen shook her head. “Wasn’t up for it.”

Trent stood, took a long guzzle of water as he walked up the stairs. He plopped down in the copilot’s chair across from Gwen. “Can’t really blame Cricks, right?”

“No.”

“Glad you came, sis.”

“Glad you were still breathing.” She smiled, then eyed their path on the holo toward MOS-1.

Norquist took the empty cooler and strode for the exit. “Let me see if there’s any, uh, replacement hydration.”

“I like that guy,” Devans said, head and eye bandaged and gazing out at the stars around a shrinking Mars.

Trent took a gulp of water and another of coffee as he leaned on the pilot operations console. His elbow nudged the framed picture of Gwen, himself, and their mother. “You never said how you located us, since the titanium scans didn’t pan.”

“Oxygen sweeps.”

The bridge fell silent.

“What if those had been negative?”

“Infrared was crap thanks to the lava. We’d hunt by link and visual, but most likely Mars would have been your grave, because SCONA wasn’t sending anybody else to look for you.”

MOS-1, Meridian One, Sick Bay Quarantine, post-rescue.

A glass partition separated Ry Devans from the white jumpsuited healthcare workers who passed back and forth. Beyond the sick bay were the hallways, stairs, and elevators navigated by the general populace, and Devans was keen on getting out there.

The ground squad at T2 and the crew of PS-30 had all shared this suite for forty-eight hours. Devans was the only one still in this suite, since his lungs and skin had actually made contact with the Martian atmosphere. But since the others had been exposed to him while on PS-30 , they had also been considered above-average risks. The health staff administered a sequence of tests for the newly discovered Martian microbe M274S34, the requirements and enzyme formulae having been sent across the void by Acting Director Dr. Karen Wagner, Trent and Gwen’s mother, from the NIH Lab on Lunar One.

Dr. Wagner sent him a private mindtext invitation to link via holo. At first he hesitated. He was friendly with the Wagner “kids,” but she was NIH, and he didn’t need the government on his shoulder, too. But when she added a line of thanks for saving her son, he sat on the chair in front of his computer and let it broadcast his image across a relay of satellite accelerators that spanned millions of miles of space.