John Karr - Detonation Event

A lot more.

Behold, Phlegra Montes.

Eight hundred and seventy miles of time-worn mountain peaks, rock formations, channels, and basins, pockmarked by the odd crater and gashed with valleys purportedly carved by glaciers eons ago. All of it silent and stoic for untold millennia.

That was the old range.

Now a battalion of volcanoes spewed magma and ash and vapors like Roman gods at a purge party. The region alternated between bright and brighter. Blasts and rumbles and rock crashes came like artillery barrages.

The peaks had been fairly modest in elevation prior to Detonation Event. But what had measured seven thousand feet a year and a half ago now breached ten thousand. And since the area was a volatile son of a bitch now, it was either going to grow some more or come slamming down in the one third Earth gravity. Or whatever factor gravity here had increased to.

Once the Red Planet.

Now the Livid Planet.

Rage on, Devans thought.

He joined Hamilton and Wagner at a lifeless mountaintop, noting the proximity to their targeted volcanic cauldron. They had a perfect view of the lava lake and the geysers that shot upward and splattered down. Marsquakes joined in to create waves that crested the sides and flowed down the sides of the mountain.

“This it, CapD?” Trent Wagner said, gesturing to the steep mountaintop.

Devans glanced at Hamilton. “Leash?”

She pursed her lips, tapped at her arm computer for some readings. “It’s got tremors, but I don’t think the whole rock’ll come down in the next twenty minutes. We could use a ledge, though.”

“For what?” Devans said.

“In case someone’s jets get tired,” Hamilton said. “Like our boys here at Tunnel Two, remember?”

Devans checked his arm computer’s countdown clock. “Twenty-eight minutes until Synch Event. We have time to clear a ledge, but the kid has stressed those jets with speed and distance. What are the odds ours just quit out?”

“If they do, wouldn’t it be nice not to tumble down the mountain?” Hamilton said.

“I got it!” Trent said, spatz pistol already drawn from its holster.

“Nothing major, kid,” Devans said, eyeing the peak and then the openmouthed cauldron volcano as it heaved the planet’s rocky bloodstream upward. “We don’t need the entire peak lopped off. Just a little slice ’n’ dice.”

Hamilton and Devans hovered behind Trent as he started. The fluorescent yellow collection of tight beams streaked out from the mining gun and sank into the top layer of mountain rock, the beams vibrating at ultrahigh speeds and releasing the atom bonds they contacted. The cluster beam was bright enough to see in full, even when the ash clouds twisted away and the sun shone directly upon it. They appeared to form a single beam from distance, but up close individual rippling strands could be discerned. They hummed a distinctive, low-key song of gentle destruction. So far, no material has withstood it in low or zero atmospheric pressure situations.

Trent Wagner worked the beams up and down and back and forth. Sections of rock separated and vanished from sight. Some slid away as rock sheets, some were completely atomized.

“Huh! Spatz isn’t going as deep as it did before Detonation Event,” Wagner said.

“Wavering more, too,” Hamilton said.

“The atmosphere is thickening up,” Wagner replied. “From an astrophysicist point of view.”

“That’s a factor from a weapons point of view,” Devans said, checking the time on his arm computer. “Let’s get this going. Our delivery is about to knock on their door.”

Trent Wagner kept the beam cluster moving.

Devans got a sense of being watched. Trent was focused on his task, so that meant…

Alicia Hamilton’s ebony eyes were fixed toward him while a massive lava cauldron and erupting volcanoes reflected on her face shield. He raised his brows as best he could give the scar. It was meant to shoo her off. But her own brow furrowed as she scrutinized him further.

Devans turned to Wagner’s vibrating laser beams, but addressed his security chief. “Got a bug in the back of your suit, Ham? Maybe our young astrophysicist here can figure a way to dig it out.”

“TWags is busy, Ry Devans, but points for ornery and mildly amusing.”

“Mediocre, but it served.”

“You guys know I can hear you, right?” Wanger said, working the gun back and forth.

“You’re doing great, space kid.”

“I’m a twenty-something now, old man!”

“Yeah, you’re ancient,” Devans said. “Keep slicing.”

Hamilton kept watching Devans.

“If you’re waiting for a sandwich or something…” he said.

They’d been on maybe a hundred missions as crewmates. She knew him better than any other woman, and they’d never been romantically involved.

He war-faced her, then winked.

The intermittent sunlight and lava glow warmed her lovely dusky face into a neutral expression, but he could tell she wasn’t convinced. To prove it, she uttered a heartwarming question. “Think you can cork your crazy until we get back to the MOS? Last time we nearly got flushed.”

Devans angled his forearm. The ion jets synched to his arm computer pushed him around in a single tight circle. “You into revisionist history like the EFF? Did I sit on the red button or something? Detonation Event came early from SCONA. Hardly the fault of your average ordinary space jock.”

“Right, but that microbe you picked up spiked your crazy reserves.”

“Oh, you mean the Martian bug that helped save the human species? That bug?”

She cracked a half smile. “Yeah, the Mrydev1. Doc Wagner needs to run more tests on you. You get to a weird place in a hurry at times now. No patience.”

He frowned. “That’s a luxury for peacetime, and we have neither.”

She swallowed and looked away. He knew she wasn’t afraid for herself, but unlike his estranged son back on Earth, Cal the EFF enabler, Alicia’s family were on MOS-1. He silently cursed himself for a frigging idiot.

“But hey…!” he said, trying to get her attention again. The scar that split his brow and ran down his cheek drew tight as he grinned. “You may have a micron of a point. I’ll buy you a bottle of the finest lab-manufactured red wine if I misbehave. How’s that?”

“Reassurance fail.”

“Life’s hard out in the cosmos, spacewoman.”

The winds brought him closer and then away from Hamilton, but not before she slugged his shoulder. Trent Wagner atomized a hunk of the rocky peak. The beam hummed the distinct sound of spatz lasers. Tools for mining before. Now they had dual use as weapons.

Plowshares to swords, Devans thought grimly.

The humming stopped as the beams vanished.

The kid turned and waved them down.

“Done!”

Wagner and Hamilton landed on the new mountain ledge and cut their jets, their free arms going out for balance. Devans joined them and walked back and forth a few paces. The tremors made him work for his balance. He did feel a pound or two heavier here on the Martian surface since Detonation Event.

He had an impulse to grab Trent Wagner’s spatz pistol in one hand and draw his own with the other, then fly around the volcanoes and carve their spines at double power, roaring and laughing as the geologic giants heaved their glowing guts out.

“Ry…?” Alicia Hamilton said as she set up the holo projector.

He blinked out of it. Took a breath.

“All good, Ham,” he lied. “All good.”

“Mmm hmm. My readings are showing your BP up high. Need you to chill like a space diamond. We don’t need fierce for the folks back home.”

“That’s exactly what they need.”

“Not in this broadcast. We want to be matter-of-fact for ten minutes, right? Your plan. Grab their attention with your outlawed face and the surrounding volcanic activity, keep their attention from wandering.”