John Karr - Detonation Event

“Got a plan?”

“Retreat until we can get our Cyclops back. Suggestions?”

“Deeper space.”

“What I was thinking.”

“Put time and distance between you and MOS-2. Maybe Mars.”

“Might as well,” Shakuri said. “Ry, Karen Wagner just walked in. I’ve got some sweeps to do with your security officer Alicia Hamilton and the other teams. I… regret you cannot join us. He’s all yours, Karen. Just you two on the comm link now.”

“Best, Shakuri,” Devans said. He stared at the one long beam of MOS-3 jutting into the black, surrounded by stars and illuminated by the sun.

“Ry?”

“Karen, sorry I cut you off earlier. Our time was special, I want you to know that.”

“You don’t have to do this. Fly out of there!”

“They’ll just atomize the shuttle.”

“You’ve got pods. Get in one.”

“Same thing. They’d just atomize them. This way at least the girl reaches MOS-1. Besides, Nuro and I have some settling to do,” Devans said.

“Then I’m glad we didn’t go further with our relationship.”

He had to pause as ice entered his gut. There could have been a future with this woman. “I’m sorry, Karen.”

The link went silent.

He sneezed again as he stepped into the space portal. But before he initiated, he blew his nose again and tossed the tissue to the floor.

“Are you sick or just upset?” she said quietly.

His brows rose. She was still there. “Both. Think I’ve got a cold or something.”

“Why?”

“Well, doctor, when a cold virus is introduced to the human immune system…”

“Save it. Why do you have a cold?” Karen Wagner said, more emphatically.

“Just a child of good fortune,” Devans said, sniffing.

“No adults have colds anymore. Something else is happening here.”

“Just a cold, Karen. I was in that cold ocean.”

“Fever?”

“No.”

“Probably not pneumonia, then. The common cold has been eradicated with the onset of the Martian virus! Ry, there’s a reason you’re sick. You also mentioned Scarlet didn’t look jaundiced. Really, she should be dead from the microbe by now.”

“Maybe it hasn’t worked its magic yet,” Devans said grimly.

“Or maybe you’ve exposed Scarlet and yourself to something else? None of my measures slow MS274S34, much less counter it. I’ve hit the wall for a way to fight it. But now you’ve got a cold and she’s surviving, though you said she displayed symptoms of the microbe. It might be coincidence, but still a strange deviation.”

“What are you saying?”

“You might be a carrier for something that counters the microbe. Come to us and let me run some tests. Maybe you’re the antidote we’ve been searching for.”

“No, it has to be something else,” he said. “Keep searching, Karen.”

“Goodbye then, Ry Devans.”

The MOS-1 link dropped.

Devans turned to the android.

“Put the suit on,” he told it.

The bot kept two of its arms tight against its sides, used the other two to help itself into the space suit. As it dressed, Devans took a knife, felt for the slight bump at the base of his skull and sliced the skin there, sucking air between gritted teeth. He pulled out his identity chip, glanced at it between his thumb and forefinger, then taped the bloody offering between the robot’s shoulders.

“Helmet on,” Devans said. “Sun visor down.”

Devans turned its space suit thermostat to 98.6 degrees. He handed the robot one of the spatz rifles, then had it enter the space portal. The door slid shut at Devans’ touch.

Warning lights and alarms ran for fifteen seconds, then an outer shield pulled away and a door slid open. Devans’ doppelgänger left a vanishing trail of neon blue as it jetted toward the large jutting beam at the ruins of MOS-3.

Devans was already in the body of the other suit. He donned the helmet, lowered the temperature to thirty-seven degrees, and hurried into the nearest escape pod. From the central command panel he could have raised a radar holo, but didn’t want to risk an activity sweep. The temperature fell quickly, and the shivers came with it as he entered one of the pod’s containment bays.

Nuro’s shuttle was publicly broadcasting its operation for propaganda purposes. Ry Devans linked to it and listened.

Minutes brought deeper cold. He gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering. It worked for the most part, but did little for the body shivers.

Quietly his gloved finger pressed at the keys of his arm computer. He locked the shuttle’s navigation system on Nuro’s approaching spacecraft. A red button appeared at the upper left corner of the rectangular display, and beside a digital figure of the miles between them: fifty and falling fast.

Minutes passed, and he closed his eyes and fought the temperature. When he opened his eyes again the digital readout showed only ten miles were between Nuro’s shuttle and his own. MOS-2 was in the vicinity as well. Nuro’s shuttle would arrive on one side and MOS-2 like an ominous planet on the other.

Silence and cold. Cold and silence.

Devans suppressed the urge to groan. He breathed slowly and purposely, tried to Zen himself into becoming one with the pain. The shivers actually decreased. He linked to his mechanical counterpart, issued a quick command, then dropped the link.

“Look! Devans is on the MOS-3 structure,” someone said through the comm link.

“He’s taking a hand off the rifle and raising… the fool’s going to wave?” another voice said.

“A middle finger wave.”

“Scan for human life on the shuttle,” Nuro replied warily.

The sweeps would be looking for 98.6 degrees. Otherwise they’d pick up the androids. Devans shivered and waited, his finger poised over the forearm display on this computer. A tap there and the rear engine would hyper-build and release, sending the spacecraft hurtling forward. “Nothing, sir.”

“Do it again.”

A moment passed.

Devans kept his eyes shut, breathing controlled.

One with the cold. One with the cold.

“No bio signatures, sir. We see no humans on board.”

“Ry Devans, you old bastard, you must want this rematch so bad it hurts!” Nuro said. “Okay, then! Give me that rifle and open the portal! Earth, pay attention! You are about to observe in real time the downfall of the face of the Mars expansion proponents! Hail, EFF!”

Quickly Devans removed the space helmet, raised the suit’s temperature, and brought the control and display panels of the emergency pod to life. The radar holo showed his hunches about the relative locations of the enemy vessels were correct.

The heat spread over him, banishing the cold. There was no time to appreciate the warmth as he relinked the android to his arm computer. His fingers tapped the keypad. Now the android would emulate Devans’ movements inside the pod. Devans was a marionettist, with invisible lines to his android puppet.

With the rifle raised to its shoulder, Devans turned his upper body back and forth. The android followed suit. This was another sign of life to the galaxy watching. He tapped commands into his arm computer and slid his finger over the sensor pad. The android jetted to a knot of beams, as if seeking cover.

The massive support beam beside Devans’ space-suited doppelgänger trembled, shaking the suit briefly. A cross-section disappeared as Nuro flew from the belly of the EFF shuttle, trailing a stream of ion propellant from his jet pack. The spatz rifle was at his shoulder, the muzzle glowing with snaking tendrils of hyper-vibrating lasers.

Devans engaged the robot’s arm toward the suit control, pressed the jet pack and zipped away again, deeper into the lattice of jutting beams. Nuro’s burst had sent several sections of steel spinning and tumbling away, like cogs to a massive engine. Devans had his android fire a few bursts as it flew, forcing Nuro to take evasive action.