John Karr - Detonation Event

“The director of operations hasn’t come to see me yet. His flunkies have given me this ‘prudence dictated’ bull. They considered us expendable, and I want the person who okayed it to say it to my face.”

The doctor fought to maintain a neutral expression. She held a hand to signal a pause, looked to make sure no one was within immediate earshot. From her pocket she pulled out an object that resembled an old-fashioned pen. She pressed the top, and a tiny light flashed repeatedly. Devans’ eyes went wide at the sight of the audio disrupter.

“Didn’t know med workers were into the conspiracy thing,” Devans said.

“There’s always a microphone somewhere. Privacy vanished a couple hundred years ago with ancient cell phones and the primitive internet.”

The doc’s head turned slightly. Her eyes went to the corners and back. Then her hand closed around the miniature disrupter. Two nurses walked by, glancing but not interrupting them as the doctor spoke. “So, Captain Devans… we’ll lighten up on the meds even more and you’ll be planet jumping again in no time.”

“Well, that’s positive,” Devans said, almost smiling at the cover-up.

After the nurses left, the disrupter blinked again.

“What SCONA did to you and the other survivors was wrong,” the doctor said. “The company had shown respect for human life up until that moment. Word is they’re waiting until you’re cleared from quarantine before having some kind of a public forum on what happened. This insane business with Paton Schiflet and Martian microbe MS274S34 has them on edge with possibilities of microbial infection. To that point, I’ve been consulting with Dr. Wagner on Lunar One on the test information.”

“Yeah, she’s visited electronically. She seems capable.”

“Absolutely,” the doctor said.

“So far I don’t notice anything more than the ding on the head and a feeling like I’ve been flattened out.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way. I’m thinking you’re out of there in another forty-eight hours.” The doctor turned off the audio disrupter and hid it in her pocket.

“Okay, doc. Thanks.”

Devans went back to the table and his computer. He clicked a link to expand the official SCONA company bulletin dealing with Lunar One’s NIH lab director, Paton Schiflet—Karen Wagner’s boss—who had murdered the deputy director of NIH by sabotaging the Earth shuttle. The others survived in escape pods and were brought back to Lunar One, then Earth, after Schiflet’s arrest.

“Ambitious murdering bastard,” Devans murmured to Schiflet’s official employee photo.

A boom sounded. Devans leaped to his feet and turned to the glass partition.

A large man—a head taller than the socially accepted height of five foot five and more muscular by half—stood on the other side, forehead and knuckles of his right hand pressed to the glass.

Devans crossed over to the glass wall and gazed into the face of one of his oldest friends. He raised his fist and held his knuckles to the same spot as his copilot on the other side.

“Too ornery to die?” Devans said.

“Me?” Nuro said from his greater height. “Look who got crapped out of a Martian volcano and lived to tell about it.”

They laughed. The hands came down. The clear wall separated them. As with conversations with the health workers, Nuro’s voice came through speakers overhead as slightly modulated.

“So they let you out, eh?” Devans said.

“Quarantine’s a pain,” Nuro said, “but we wouldn’t want to infect Earth with any tiny aliens.”

Devans nodded. “What happened in PS-9 , brother? One minute we’re trying to keep that surfer kid out of the tunnel and the next the ship’s nuke engine goes into overload?”

“Didn’t you read my report? I sent it to your email and posted to public domain.”

“Never got one. When did you post it?”

“Three days ago.”

“I’ll look for it. Would help if your mind link was up,” Devans said. “Did you see my report?”

“Yeah, I think every human in the solar system has read it. Wild ride, spaceman.”

“You were lucky to get out, too.” Devans softly hit the wall with the base of his fist.

Nuro frowned, slowly shook his head. “Not like you, but still hellish enough. I was in the bridge monitoring you guys at the tunnel when the first alarms came from the engine sector.”

Devans’ copilot spoke of the incident in a monotone, as if still struggling to control his emotions. Engine room alarms had rung out on the bridge soon after Devans and Burroughs went out to Hamilton and Trent Wagner. Nuro had tried to hail the engine room, then called for all crewmembers to report to the bridge. Navigation became treacherous. The shuttle plowed forward through the dirt and rock of the surface then leaped into the air, excess thrust overriding both computer fail-safes and manual controls. Back and forth the shuttle swung out over the surface, shuddering and belching blasts of superheated propellant.

A roar filled the air. The walls split with metallic shrieks cutting into the noise. The temperature soared. Air was vanishing. Nuro tried to find the others on the monitors. He saw them, but they were down and unresponsive. He had to get to a life pod. With the alarms blaring and engine roaring and ship rupturing, he looped the order to abandon ship at max volume throughout the decks. The other crewmembers did not reply to his hails. Inside the pod he linked to the ship’s navigation and tried to ditch it in the dirt away from the surface crew and tunnel.

Devans listened intently, watched his friend’s face and eyes as he spoke. After a few more moments Nuro fell quiet. His thick shoulders slumped and he gazed at the floor, then up at Devans.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Nuro said.

“I gave the evacuation order,” Devans said. “There was time. Hans Klemmet spoke to me briefly. Kept saying your name. He sent that pod my way but couldn’t get out?”

“He was alive? All I saw were bodies. I had every active video link up on the holo. I saw Simms and Cramer and Thune—they didn’t make it to the space suits in time before the heat and radiation hit.”

Devans rubbed at the sore bone socket around his right eye. “Crap, crap, crap!”

“The damn walls were getting blown away or melting. No way they survived, Ry.”

“But Hans sent the life pod my way out at the tunnel mouth. He wasn’t dead!”

Nuro stood perfectly still. “I—I don’t know how he survived. The ship was breaking up, fast, ready to explode at any moment. Scans for life on the decks came back negative. It was all I could do just to keep the ship from nose-diving into the dirt.” He looked away.

“Okay, I get the ship.” Devans nodded slowly, softly tapping the wall. “But afterward? You got out and PS-10 found you. You told PS-10 we were all dead. They called off the search for us.”

Nuro’s brows furrowed. “Then you got bad intel. I said ‘I’m afraid they’re dead,’ not that you actually were.”

“They sound pretty similar.”

“Ry, I scanned and scanned from inside the escape pod. Didn’t come up with any signs of life.”

“Yet here we are.”

Nuro threw his arms up high. “YES! Thank the Creator!”

“Why wouldn’t you think radiation from the tunnel-turned-volcano might interfere with transmissions?” Devans searched his friend’s eyes. “You threw in the towel before we were knocked out.”

Nuro’s arms came down. His eyes widened. He turned away, looked over his shoulder. “We’ll talk more when you get out, okay?”

Devans watched him exit the corridor. The door parted before him, revealing other space voyagers walking past. Nuro melted into their midst. The door closed.