John Karr - Detonation Event

He struggled to push away from the instrument panel, but it was as if an invisible hand pinned him there. Then the pressure vanished. The screaming of the atoms was gone, too. He sat and tried to recover, then clawed his way back into the chair as the ship went still.

Emergency power kicked in. Then a hail of alarms rang out and flashing red lights flooded the flight deck. He inspected the outline of the shuttle on one of the monitors. The right wing of the flying triangle had been severed. Equipment and food boxes streamed out. Camera and radar showed it drifting away.

“No landing on Earth now, Ry,” Nuro chided. “I mean, that wing is gone!”

More alarms as air vanished from the passenger cabin. The flight deck, however, was sealed.

Devans stood, took a step toward the pilot’s chair, and was dropped to the floor again. Darkness descended as the ship shook and shuddered. He fought to sit upright, gripped the side of the instrument console and against waited for the end.

Talk about straight to stardust , he thought, gritting his teeth.

The screaming atoms threatened to tear his eardrums, then all fell still again.

Lights flickered, then came on at something significantly less than full power. A few moments later Nuro’s voice returned.

“We’re registering a human level heat in there! Not sure how conscious you are, but now you are wingless! There must have been quite a shake in that hull, am I right? Ry Devans, are you still awake, buddy?”

Unsure of the life support status, Devans didn’t waste air or time answering. In the glow of amber emergency lights, he scrambled toward the space suits. He donned everything but the helmet. On the console he punched in coordinates and waited for the next build of the rear engine. He grabbed a spatz rifle, found one of the flight deck cameras was still operational. He stood before it and silently stared into the camera. A trickle of warmth ran down his cheek to his jaw. He didn’t bother wiping it. Instead he donned the helmet in deliberate movements.

“Going somewhere, spaceman?” Nuro said. “Man, you are tired and old! Why don’t you take a little nap and we’ll wake you when we get there?”

Devans waited.

“Scans show that you put the girl in the escape pod. Shuttle too small for the both of you?”

“Space suits and spatz rifles, Nuro. You and me and the galaxy watching. It’s bright out there, so bring your sunglasses.” He reached and pressed a button on the side of the helmet. The sun visor lowered on the helmet, slowly masking his face. The image on the playback display from the camera feed was of a soldier ready for combat.

“That’s one way to hide your age,” Nuro remarked.

Devans stared into the camera from behind the sun shield.

“I will admit that I’m warming to the idea,” Nuro said finally. “Where?”

“MOS-3.”

“The floating debris pile that was going to be the third orbiter?”

“Surely you can get your shuttle here. Or maybe you need me to link up and take the controls. You’re probably rusty after the year in the pen. Or maybe you’re just better at sabotage and murder than flying.”

“All done now?”

“Hardly. Maybe you’re just scared, Nuro.”

“You know MOS-2 could have Cyclopsed your shuttle in half at any time?”

“Yeah, you already used the mining tool as a weapon to destroy Lunar One, didn’t you? Nothing else would have done so much damage so quickly. Probably took out half of MOS-3’s structure beams with it as well.”

“You always were perceptive on the obvious, Ry Devans. So you must know the only thing keeping you alive right now is me?”

“Leave the girl and MOS-1 alone.”

“Uh, well, that’s kind of a tall order. Why on dear sweet mother Earth would we agree?”

“Because you’d rather meet me on MOS-3. Spacesuits and spatz rifles. Just the two of us.”

Devans peered at the radar. Nuro’s shuttle had closed much of the distance and was lined up with his own in a direct vector. “Any more spatz beams from the MOS-2 Cyclops are going to take you out, too. I’m doubting all of your passengers are as… shall we say, emphatic , as you are.”

“Now who’s the terrorist?” Nuro said, laughing.

“Meet me on MOS-3. Bring a spatz rifle.”

The image of a slowly spinning nest of carbon steel played upon the monitor beside the shuttle’s space portal. Lengthwise, the dark gray metal seemed to absorb the sun’s rays. But as the bristling conglomeration turned, thousands of gleaming cuts appeared where the Cyclops atomizer of MOS-2 had severed through. Once destined to be a productive orbiter supporting thousands of lives on journeys through the solar system, all that was left now were beams jutting from a central core that was rounded on one side and sliced flat on the other. To Ry Devans, MOS-3 was like a monstrous sea urchin that had been sliced in half.

A dead monstrous sea urchin.

Devans employed the ion jets to position the shuttle closer to MOS-3. Around him, the wounded hull groaned and creaked but remained intact. He halted within easy jet pack distance of a long beam jutting from the ruins. Quickly he verified the routines he’d uploaded to the operating systems of the android and emergency pods.

Wearing a space suit but without the helmet, he paused to yank a tissue from the box he’d taken from one of the bathrooms. He blew his nose. As he did, Nuro’s shuttle appeared as a small group of approaching lights on the monitor. It was coming fast.

Fine time to have a cold or allergy, Devans thought, tossing the tissue.

He resumed the comm link to MOS-1. Shakuri was first to activate. The ex-head of security of Lunar One was assisting in the same role on the orbiter, ferreting out terrorists.

“It is good you sent the girl in the pod,” Shakuri said. “But you should have accompanied her.”

“Incentive for Nuro to leave her alone,” Devans told him.

“I understand revenge, but we could use you here.”

Devans sneezed, grabbed another tissue. “I’m pretty banged up. Maybe it’ll buy you some distance.”

“Temporarily, perhaps. They will of course pursue.”

“How long until you can get your Cyclops back online?”

“The sabotage was not fully successful, nor was it minor. The scientists and engineers are on it around the clock. I regret we cannot fire on MOS-2 or Nuro’s shuttle to provide you cover.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

“You sound different,” Shakuri said. “Stuffed up. Take a hit to the nose?”

“Got a cold or something.”

“Then that is strange. Supposedly the Martian microbe made us adults immune to the common cold, didn’t you hear?”

“Yeah, my luck keeps gettin’ better and better,” Devans said.

“Maybe you’ve got an immature immune system.”

“You can retrieve Scarlet, then?”

“The Wagners have already started out in a shuttle,” Shakuri said. “Her odds are crap with the microbe, you know that, right?”

“But she’s still alive.”

“And that’s all the difference. We’ve established verbal with her and taken the navigation over. How long have you known her?”

“Just a couple days. The EFF killed her family at the neighborhood school fields. She only escaped because she hid.”

“They won’t stop until they destroy us.”

“What’s your EFF status?” Devans asked.

“We’ve cleared most of the decks of EFF. Early on we were fired upon by the long-range spatz of MOS-2 and took damage to two meridians. We fired back with our own spatz and gave them reason to pull back, though obviously they still have capability, as we’ve seen with the shuttle you commandeered.”