“Looking good,” joked Scarlett. “Make sure your pants don’t fall down.”
“You can go back now. Join Lani and report the time remaining over the comm system, and if you don’t see me again, I’m sorry.” The background hum of the air conditioning halted as the systems caught up. “It’s going to get warm; if you can work the controls, once the shield is activated you can turn the air-co back on.”
“What do you mean ‘if’?”
“Just ‘if’. Now go, every second counts.”
“We’re no good here without you, so you make sure you’re okay,” she said, giving him a hug. The words lead his mind to the baby – What would happen to her should he die?
“Go,” he said, turning away to climb the rope ladder. One foot, then the next, swinging away from the wall where it wasn’t pinned down. Where were the zero-G rungs in here? Scarlett’s steps retreated until they were gone and he was alone, his thoughts chasing the oval of light before his face. The baby. The twins. The CME. The shielding. His impending death.
There would be enough time.
He went as fast as he could now, hand over hand and boot over boot, the coarse fibres of the ladder grazing fresh blisters in the meat of his fingers.
He passed the control console and considered activating the emergency beacon – perhaps even trying the external comm system. How long would that take? How much power would it take?
Too long and too much, in all likelihood. The growing heat pressed in on him, and his head returned in kind with a dull, rising headache. He rarely ever got headaches – the physical and mental strain must be paying its toll. If he got through this it would be interesting to assess his bodily and psychological reaction to the stress – I guess getting through it would be strong evidence for continued genetic engineering measures.
The cable around his waist hit the ‘wall’ then swung away, hit and swung away.
He considered for a moment how fortunate it was that he’d installed the ladder, starting at the bottom and unrolling the rope as he ascended, firing the steel staples into the metal every metre, and then he was at the active power cells. The storage cells inside were now powering the shielding lattice, but more would be needed. He unhooked a socket cover and then, very carefully, untied the cable from his waist. He inserted it and then flipped a clip to hold it in place. Finally, he switched to manual override and he was set – just the small matter of connecting the other end.
“I’m with Lani again,” Scarlett said over the comm. Jax startled. There really should have been a warning beep of the comm being open.
“Good, strap in and hope for the best.” The static of the open line ceased and he was alone again.
Going down was a lot easier than going up as he could skip entire lengths, gripping tightly. At the bottom he pulled the belt and torch from his head and immediately felt a relaxing of the stress pressing down on him. He then picked up the trailing cable and fed it through his hands as he walked to the exit. He pulled on it, making it as taught as possible; it would trail around the contours of machinery above his head but he needed every inch he could get. At the hatch he looped it around a hook to fasten it in place, and then walked on, continuing to feed it through his hands. The light bounced around and he kicked stray items that scuttled across the floor to the edge. Jogging now, he was quickly at the exit and in the adjoining room, and then dropping down from there into the cargo hold. The cable led to the box in which it was coiled, so he toppled it over to find the other end. He then unclipped the box next to it and pulled at the end of the transfer cable inside there.
Two cables. It’s all we have and hopefully all we need.
He connected the two cables and then placed them next to each on the floor, hauling them from the boxes in sections – everything at once was too heavy. Then he looked across to the rad suits hanging on the wall.
Sweat dripped from the edge of his eyebrows and he guessed it was about 35-degrees Celsius and rising. Practically arctic compared to outside. He peeled his clothes off and left them in a pile in the middle of the hold. Beside the rad suits were towels – he quickly dried off and then stepped into a yellow suit he knew was at full power and full oxygen. Small cells of compressed oxygen ran across the top section of his back; a noticeable weight as he shucked it over his shoulders. Weight that would add to his own.
“What are you doing, Jax?” asked Lani. Her voice came in stereo; from the room comm and the suit comm.
“Powering the shielding unit, Lan.”
“It’s hot.”
“It’s going to get really hot.”
“We’re scared. Scarlett said you made it sound like you wouldn’t be back.”
He double zipped the suit and lifted the helmet over his head. The helmet was clear reinforced graphene, solid and allowing for 360-degree views. So light it barely had weight. His fingers appeared in the graphene gloves built into the suit, thin and allowing for full dexterity. He wiggled his toes in boots that were too big for him.
“Jax?”
“I have to go outside, but I’ll be back in time.”
“Outside? Are you crazy?”
“It’s the only way. How much time left?”
“Twenty-four minutes.”
“See? Plenty of time.” He turned on a light built into the helmet and looked around. Twice as bright as the torch – it was almost blinding. Least I’ll see it coming. “Whether the power is at full or not when the CME hits, you hit the switch. It won’t last long but it might be long enough.” Delay death for all of two seconds.
“Oh, Jax.” He heard sniffles; listened to their quiet sobbing. Wished he wasn’t the reason they were here.
“I need to conserve suit power,” he said. “I’ll have to deactivate the comm. We’ll speak again when I’m back.” He blinked at the heads-up sound display shown on the inside of his helmet until it muted and the white noise of tears abruptly ended. And took a breath. The back of his eyes stung.
His steps were lunge-like as he made his way back to the cables, bent over, picked up the end, and then walked quickly for the exit. The door hissed open and there was a mild backdraft of inrushing heat. He stepped out into the darkness; the suit a central blooming satellite of light that blossomed in the corners and crevices of fallen rock. Light even reached the high overhang when he looked up; rainbow auroras rippling visibly in the sky through the narrow space in which the ship had fallen.
Up.
Debossed ladder rungs stretched towards the ship’s nose where the stored solar power could be accessed. Panels stretched across the top of the ship and to the tip of the nose, but because of the way it sat, the only area that ever touched the sun was the nose-tip. The ship was meant to be both home and power source for the Robinson Family that steered it, with this exterior access and power source reserved for the subsidiary buildings erected as the community grew. It belonged to one of the very early doomed settlers to traverse the void.
He’d been meaning to hook the power source up – No better time than the present.
He couldn’t be sure of the shield’s range of effectiveness though, and began to thread the cable through the rungs of the ladder as he climbed, so they wouldn’t accidently swing outside of the shield’s field and fry.
Speaking of frying – he felt his whole being cooking. The display read an outside temperature of 63-degrees Celsius. Internal temperature wasn’t much better: 51-degrees. Bursts of Freon regulated the highest end of the scale and made sure it didn’t go beyond what a human could tolerate.
It was only a suit, though. It wouldn’t stop the flames.
He ascended, hair soaked with sweat, skin filmed with it. The inside of the suit clung to him as he climbed; a mild distraction to his impending doom. The hull was convex, so until he reached the middle of the climb he would need to lean back, hooking an elbow through a rung while feeding the cable through, three rungs at a time. Thread through three, climb three, rinse and repeat. The ship was 110 metres from tip to ster
n, and Jax estimated approximately 550 rungs in total.
I won’t have enough time.
The pain in his biceps and across his shoulders was constant now. If it didn’t get any worse he thought he could take it, though. He figured any future iterations of himself should be given heightened strength in case of such emergencies, for you never knew when the sun might want to blow you up.
The sweat stung his eyes. How did people wipe their faces or scratch an itch?
He blinked, repeatedly, in the end making do. At least I can see.
At 25 metres he stopped to rest; holding the cable with one hand while using the other to climb grew more and more difficult, and the higher he climbed the hotter he felt. The temperature gauge read the same as before, so he stared at it, fighting off the fear of fainting by rationalising that no, it wasn’t any hotter than before, and yes, strenuous work was bound to take its toll but it was nothing he hadn’t done previously.
He continued up. When the ground disappeared under the curve of the ship, he realised he had passed the half-way point. The tip – now visible – pointed at the rockface that covered them. To the side of that, the sky’s performance continued.
The climb was easier now that he could lean into the ship and let it take his weight, and the going was quick. He passed the painted palm tree of the mural he loved so much, fronds within touching distance. Coconuts about ready to fall. The frothy bridge of a broken wave passed by next. The paint was wet – The Oasis melting – after all these years it was now that the mural would begin to lose its lustre, as though it had waited for his witness. It was the radiation, not the heat. Jax hoped the suit was up to scratch.
With the end in sight he climbed the rest of the way without threading the cable, for it didn’t really matter at this point. The cockpit viewscreen passed by on the left – perhaps the girls would look to their right and be able to see him – and then he was at the socket. The shimmer of burning plasma reflected in the surface of the hull and there – glorious – was the sky above him, as close as he could he reach. He thought of a poem he’d once read when he was four:
For beauty held, for the hand that holds,
For the endless sights and what burdens told;
We are one and the only one
For whom the end is the end as the lights go cold.
Uncredited, if he recalled correctly. Right now, a few million people were witnessing this exact aurora, but he doubted any of them were outside of their domes.
This was his and his alone.
What are you doing?
Oh just wondering off on one of my tangents…
Heat slammed him and he watched the gauge rise to 56-degrees.
“Shit,” he said, making a grab for the hatch covering the console. He pried it open and it swung down on its hinges. He turned a dial to the ON position and the screen shone brightly to life. The primary gauge he looked for and found was for stored energy, which read 100%. Upon first inspection all those months ago, Jax had activated the protective shielding around the battery cells; a self-sustaining field that blocked natural cosmic radiation, and alternate radioactive sources, so that charge wouldn’t drain. He praised his presentiment and plugged the transfer cable into the socket.
He activated the comm and said “Time.”
Silence.
“Lani? Scarlett?” He called out, knowing it was futile; there was no connection showing on his HUD. The radiation will be blocking the comm. He should have started a mental countdown and cursed himself.
“Shit.”
There was nothing for it but to discharge and hope it worked.
On the control console, he searched for the OUTPUT switch and toggled it to EXTERNAL. The charge gauge dropped to 99%. He waited and watched. The countdown was intolerable. His eyes stung so bad and he wanted nothing more than to strip off his helmet and rub at them, no matter that the radiation would boil his skin black.
98%.
Thirty-seconds.
That was too long, man, he thought.
He panned through the settings, unable to find an option to speed up the discharge.
At least I’ve connected it before the time runs out.
He took one final look to the skies – For the endless sights and what burdens told – and began the descent. The final flare imminent. Even if he’d been counting mentally, he knew he would have lost count at some point, the stress like a searing compress on his skull. He had no idea if he could make it in time.
If he’d have chance to tell the truth.
Going down, he made double speed, each boot on rung reverberating in his head. He just wanted to lie down. He just wanted to sleep.
Something wasn’t right.
He went cold.
Freezing.
The hairs on his arms stood to attention and the tips of his fingers and toes tingled as though he’d been in the sleep deprivation tank in Arcadia for a few hours, only now waking. The end of his nose started to burn – ice cold. Then he noticed the external temperature: 107-degrees Celsius.
Internally, it was -40-degrees.
He turned his back to the ship and positioned his heels on a rung, and leaned backwards. He looked up. It was day. Blue-white. Yellow. Now orange. Now red. The colours shifted through alternate phases and Jax stared, mesmerised, not too displeased that this would be his final experience.
Then the sky caught fire.
Roiling flames engulfed him.
Engulfed the ship.
The visor on his helmet dimmed, to not be blinded.
Two feet in front of his face, close enough to reach out and touch, stood a wall of sun burning the very air itself beyond the active shielding. He pressed up to the ship, wishing he could merge with it, become one; get as far away from the spirals and swirling fires of death as possible. A smell erupted inside the suit and he realised he’d soiled himself, in both ways possible.
And then the ship began to topple towards its belly. He clung to the ladder as it fell, legs flying out, and it was in this movement that he became aware of the complete and utter silence on this side of the shielding. No doubt it would be deafening beyond it.
Then he lost control of his legs and watched, in utter horror, as they flew out towards the fire. This is it, he thought, closing his eyes and preparing for the searing pain as his feet decided to go for a dip.
They struck something solid.
He opened his eyes and felt sick. Simultaneously falling to the ground – still clinging to the ladder with a hooked elbow – and walking on a star. He pushed out, thighs burning, pinning himself between the ship and the shielding, and waited for what seemed like forever for the impact. When the ship finally toppled over, his legs were thrown as per gravity, slamming into the ship beneath him, yet somehow he clung on. He clung on and clung on with eyes squeezed shut, in total silence; too scared to open them. The smell of his own shit and piss choked his every breath. His shoulder stung with pain and his left arm felt dead – some part of him was conscious of a dislocated shoulder; every other part of him wanted to sleep. Maybe it was the Freon. Maybe it was blood loss, though he wasn’t aware of any cuts. Maybe he was pissing blood. Maybe it scared so much shit out of him he’d begun shitting blood.
He didn’t think so. Not really.
Confusion and pain reigned.
Finally, he opened his eyes. He saw in the reflection of the ship that the fire behind him had gone, and so he turned, and saw ash and smoke and a light above, like the sun through a heavy mist, only it was the whole sky. The ionosphere on fire.
The sky.
The rocks around them had disintegrated. The whole cliff formation gone.
Twins
“Is it over?”
Scarlett held Lani’s hand or Lani held Scarlett’s hand, same difference; their hair plastered to their head and neck, greasy and lank. Their skin newborn-red, and indeed; the maelstrom of swirling black smoke and orange embers and thick dust beyond the viewscreen seemed like Eden compared to the
birth-canal of flame they’d just endured: the whiplash as the ship toppled forward; the fear of Jax’s silence raking across their heart; the jubilation as the red bar’s numbers began to rise until the bar was no longer red, but green, and they could activate the shielding.
“Jax, Jax, are you there?” they called out, jumping from their chairs. Disorientation fuddled their brain until they realised the ship was the right way up, then they ran towards the back of the ship, taking doors in ways that were intended, seeing everything a-new.
“I’m too hot,” moaned Lani.
“We didn’t turn the air-con back on, damn it,” Scarlett said, spinning around. Lani followed, not wanting to be separated. Once the air-conditioning was reactivated the affect was almost immediate, with the hot air being sucked straight into the vents – almost as though from the girls themselves who instantly felt cooler.
“Oh, man, that was too hot.”
They returned to their original plan of searching for Jax.
Their brother – or as near as he could be. Once we’re together again we’ll call mum and dad, they thought – They’ll be worried sick.
“They’ll think we’re dead.”
“The whole of Arcadia will think we’re dead.”
“We have to alert them.”
“We have to find Jax, he’ll know what to do.” They knew he was smart – smarter than probably anyone else in the dome – and that sometimes this frustrated him, which was why they’d kept his little secret (so long as they could visit every now and then). Let him have an escape – what harm could it do?
“If he’s not dead.”
“He won’t be dead.”
Their thoughts drifted to the baby in the artificial womb. He better not be dead.
The deeper into the ship they travelled, the cooler it became until the gentle breeze prickled their skin. Hairless goosebumps rose.
“Do you know how red you look?”
“Do you know how red you look?”
They entered the cargo area where the door to the outside stood open, the transfer cable unwinding out into the murky darkness. Blinding light highlighted a rad-suit covered body sprawled, entangled in the cables.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 62