Virus

by Bill Buchanan

  Space Station Freedom

  Standing inside the debris which was the reconnaissance bay, Scott inspected her cumbersome twin-beam flamethrower. When working properly, the weapon could accurately throw a thin beam of fire up to one hundred feet and simultaneously diffuse the second beam into a wide cone of atomized fiery spray. The downside of this weapon was that it kicked like a horse. Wide-open, it kicked like a team of horses. The term flamethrower was accurate in one respect, but the expanding gasses created an enormous reverse thrust. The weapon was more accurately described as a portable liquid fuel rocket engine with a handle and throttle for a trigger. The weapon contained fuel pumps which fed twin combustion chambers an explosive combination of high velocity oxygen and gasoline. Checking the fuel cylinders, fuel pumps, trigger, and safety, everything seemed operational.

  Scott focused on saving herself and her crew. Gutting Centurion was the only way. The black box alternative, blowing up Freedom, was suicide and only made sense if all else failed. It wouldn’t. One thing was clear in her expression. Nothing would stand in her way. She leaned forward, ran her fingers over the trigger, then spoke to Mac and Pasha.

  “It ought to work.” She paused, temporarily secured the weapon to the wall, then slid a bulky Kevlar flack jacket over her head covering her EVA suit. “We’ll be back in four hours. Sooner if this thing jams.” She motioned toward the flamethrower. Looking at Gonzo, she continued in a no-nonsense tone. “We’ll clear the corridor like we planned.” The red corridor extended from the face, past the oven to the core airlocks.

  Gonzo nodded agreement while loading the Kevlar curtain, extra oxygen, some flares, and a spotlight in his toolbox. Once his packing was complete, he strapped a massive tripod to his EVA backpack and was ready.

  Pasha sat upright and conscious in his EVA suit, loosely strapped to Mac’s seat. He seemed to be improving, progressively coughing up less blood, and his vital signs were stable. His helmet was removed, the cabin now free of smoke and toxic gasses. An electric pump clipped to the wall forced small measured amounts of a fluid mixture into his body through a vein in his neck. Scott interpreted the rapidly decreasing amount of intravenous fluid as a good sign. She hoped she was right. Until they cleared the way into the infirmary, that’s all they could do for him. She leaned forward near Pasha’s ear and spoke in a low compassionate voice. “Hang on. We’ll get you out of here.”

  He spoke softly, touching her gloved hand. “I have faith in you, my friend. I know this machine better than 1 know my own children.” He paused. Memories of his family filled him with an unyielding will to live. His tone of voice changed. It was stronger. “It can be done and you can do it. Go for the jugular.” Freedom's jugular was its energy source, the four power plants feeding power to each face.

  Scott turned toward Mac and ran her hand carefully over his engorged leg. “Swelling feels pretty bad.”

  “I can move around when I have to.”

  “You sure you don’t want any medication?” she asked pensively. The size of Mac’s leg made her wince.

  Mac looked over at Pasha, smiled, and shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks. Better off without it. Someone’s got to stay alert.”

  “Take good care of him, Mac. Pasha’s children are depending on us.” Her eyes flushed with tears—but she couldn’t think about that now—focus on survival. She mentally reset, putting her emotions on hold.

  Scott passed her weapon and spare fuel tanks through the overhead hatch leading to the cockpit. She climbed through the hatch and set her equipment inside Hell Fire's tiny airlock. As Gonzo passed through the hatch behind her, Scott reset the countdown timer on the black box beneath her seat. She lowered the twin handlebar grips to their original position, and the black box immediately responded over the intercom. “The self-destruct system has been deactivated.” After the lights on the black box cycled through a red-yellow-green reset sequence, she lifted the handgrips once again into the armed position. She heard the black box speaking as she approached Gonzo in the cramped airlock. The detached tone of voice sent a chill down her spine. It spoke as if it had nothing to lose. “The self-destruct system has been activated for detonation in six hours.”

  Scott and Gonzo squeezed themselves and their equipment into the airlock and sealed it shut behind them. The airlock hissed as Scott vented the atmospheric gasses into space. Once they and their equipment were outside, they moved in unison toward the red corridor, an enclosed tube which connected the red face to the oven and core. Their Aqua-Lung propulsion thrusters worked exactly as they had in practice. Scott took some comfort in that. The simplest equipment, the propulsion thruster, was the most reliable. She’d remember that in the future.

  Scott entered the corridor through the external airlock on the surface of the red face. As they expected, the corridor airlock was open. The corridor’s interior looked narrow, dimly lit, and ominous. It was a long and dangerous hike to Freedom's central core.

  Gonzo removed the distance measurement meter and laser reflector from his toolbox (the digital equivalent of a long measuring tape). Reading the distance meter, Scott paced off the distance to their first demolition site as Gonzo steadied the reflector.

  “We’ll set up here.” Scott spoke into her low power transmitter. Gonzo acknowledged. She jammed a stow hook into a vertical slot on the wall then secured her thruster and EVA pack. Together, they set up the flamethrower on its tripod mount, securing the tripod through slotted holes in the floor. Scott looked down the dark corridor but could not see the blunderbuss. She lowered her night vision visor and locked it into place. Looking through the infrared light amplifier, she still couldn’t make it out. Everything in the corridor was the same temperature so the low-light visor didn’t help. Clenching her teeth together, Scott motioned for Gonzo to take cover behind the Kevlar curtain. Scott couldn’t see the blunderbuss but after some thought she decided she didn’t need to see it. It was there. It had to be. She aligned the weapon in the general direction of the blunderbuss, locked it tightly into position, and covered it with the protective Kevlar cover used by the boomer. After attaching a pair of ignition wires to the flamethrower, she carried the loose ends behind the Kevlar curtain and attached them to a remote throttle. All was ready.

  “Get down.” Scott signaled to Gonzo. Depressing the ignition switch, she pushed forward gently on the throttle.

  Nothing.

  Again, this time hard forward on the throttle.

  Nothing.

  Scott shot Gonzo a cautionary look.

  “Damn high-tech gadgets,” Gonzo muttered.

  They slowly raised their heads over the Kevlar curtain but couldn’t see the weapon without a light. Grabbing the spotlight, Scott went to take a closer look.

  Leaning forward, Scott ran her finger over the trigger and weapon grip. “Bingo,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. Flipping a switch on the grip, Scott removed the safety then took cover behind the curtain.

  Scott’s gloved finger convulsed on the ignition switch as she brought her flamethrower to bear. A fiery quivering light illuminated the dark corridor and the floor trembled. She eased the throttle one quarter the way forward. The floor shook violently beneath them as the flamethrower twisted and tore at its three-point moorings. From the outside, the tube-shaped corridor glowed a dull red-orange in the vicinity of the flamethrower’s exhaust plume. For a few moments, the length of the corridor was transformed into a fiery hell, a torrid frenzy of expanding superheated exhaust gasses. Suddenly, they saw the Kevlar curtain pounded back as the first salvo of blunderbuss pellets slammed into the curtain.

  Scott began easing back on the throttle when the second salvo of stainless-steel pellets smashed into the curtain. Due to the searing heat from the exhaust gasses, a second blunderbuss detonated further down the corridor followed moments later by another.

  Scott eased back on the throttle and extinguished the weapon.

  For the first time in a long time Scott smiled and cocked her eyebrows at
Gonzo. “Three with one blow.”

  Gonzo returned a thumbs up, grinning ear to ear. “And two to go!”

  Strapping on their EVA packs, they left the smoldering inferno and returned to Hell Fire, allowing the corridor to cool.

  Hope, 12/2512014, 1016 Zulu, 3:16 A.M. Mountain Standard

  Time

  Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

  General Krol burst into the conference room with Colonel Napper. Their news wouldn’t keep. Colonel Napper spoke first for both of them.

  “Things may be looking up, General!”

  General Mason looked at them wearily but did not respond. His eyes remained unfocused, his mind on Freedom. After a few moments’ silence, Napper’s words finally registered in Mason’s brain. “Good news?”

  “Could be, General,” Napper replied. “Our data is incomplete, but we believe some of Hell Fire's crew are alive.”

  Mason quickly sat up straight and leaned forward in his chair.

  “Yuri spoke with Kaliningrad. They’re overrun with messages from Freedom. They haven’t sorted the details yet, but every message has to do with failures on the red face.”

  Mason thought ahead. What kind of good news was The End of the Beginning this? Based on their best available information, he already believed Hell Fire had activated their black box then crashed into Freedom killing all aboard. Mason slumped back in his chair. “Then this merely confirms what we already suspected.”

  “That’s right, General, but there’s more.”

  Mason looked at Napper anxiously.

  “The beacon?”

  “No, sir, but a damn good indicator. The next best thing.” Napper looked at Krol. KroFs face showed a proud smile, his chubby cheeks glowed bright red. Napper nodded knowingly, winked at Krol, then stepped aside allowing General Krol to deliver the good news.

  “The black box has been reset.”

  Mason’s mind went into overdrive, disconnecting from his mouth. He had trouble framing a response. Before he mouthed the first word, the spark returned to his eyes, then the spark changed to a twinkle. He slapped the desk with the palms of both hands and spoke with enthusiasm.

  “Then they’ve got a chance!”

  The Oven, 12125/2014, 1607 Zulu, 9:07 a.m. Mountain Standard

  Time

  Red Face Corridor,

  Space Station Freedom

  Scott and Gonzo measured the distance to their final detonation site. Maneuvering their equipment into position, Scott moved by a side passageway. Checking her distance readout against the map, she judged the opening should lead to the oven, the interior of the red face antenna feed.

  Scott’s attention focused on the dimly lit far end of the side passageway. Holding her oxygen-fed flare overhead, she tried to penetrate the darkness. Like the rest of Freedom, the oven appeared largely intact, somewhat fossilized, and abandoned at first glance. A dim blue light at the far end caught her attention. It illuminated a form that reminded her of a traffic light. She heaved her hissing flare down the passageway. The oven walls reflected the fiery light like a house of mirrors. The oven was lined with hundreds of highly polished metal horns, each shaped like the bell of a trombone. Alongside the horns she saw racks Filled with circuit boards, many dislodged from their plug-in slots. She squinted. Below the circuit boards she saw the dimly lit form of a man lying prostrate on the floor. She approached cautiously as she lit another flare. Her pulse skyrocketed. Standing within five feet of the body, she froze for a moment, unable to move. Her eyes widened, her breathing erratic. She could see his form clearly now.

  She knelt by the body. Her fingers trembled slightly as she touched it, then steadied. Holding the flare over its face, she saw only the reflection of the flare in the helmet visor. The visor had been completely blocked by some blackish material. Probably blood, she thought. She searched for some name or rank insignia on the space suit. There was none but that was standard practice.

  This man had been dead for some time. Swelling expanded the body’s gut, legs, and arms until the space suit fit like a skin, taut as that of a balloon ready to burst under pressure. Had she lifted the visor, she wouldn’t have recognized Jay’s disintegrating face. His face had eventually exploded, blanketing the inside of his helmet with bits of flesh and fat.

  She examined the body for some clue to its identity and found the man was clutching something tightly next to his heart. Breathlessly, she touched his hand, carefully removing an old yellow piece of paper. It was tattered and faded, but she recognized it immediately as her own.

  A terrible nauseating emptiness enveloped her, a kaleidoscopic mixture of love, loss, anger, and loneliness. And the greatest of these was loneliness.

  She held Jay’s hand tightly and cried the harrowing cry of a mother who had lost her only child.

  Gonzo stood silently at the entrance to the oven. Each of them had known this time would come, but knowing didn’t make it any easier.

  Scott’s survival instinct urged her on. She began thinking about the children she had wanted, about the children this man had denied her. And then she thought about those precious pictures of Pasha’s children. Those children were depending on her to get their daddy home and nothing was going to stand in her way. Pasha’s children, the ones she’d never met, the ones she’d come to know through their father’s eyes, needed her and she was not going to let them down. Thoughts of Pasha’s children combined with the discovery of Jay’s body charged her with a relentless determination and deeply rooted anger.

  She blinked her eyes clear, stiffened her spine, and sat upright. Reaching into her sleeved pocket, she removed the lucky necklace he had given her such a long time ago. Caressing it gently, she slipped it over his gloved hand. She would remember him, remember their happy times, but she wouldn’t miss him anymore. She had prayed that she’d get over him and, in an odd sort of way, she felt relief. She felt free of the power he held over her.

  Scott stood, walked slowly over to Gonzo, and didn’t look back. Looking into Gonzo’s eyes, she saw compassion and concern for her feelings. Gonzo needed her too. She had friends and together they’d pull through.

  She put her arms around Gonzo and hugged him. Gonzo found strength in her affection and squeezed her— hard.

  Lifting her underneath her arms, he raised her near the overhead light. He wanted to see her face clearly. Through her visor, Gonzo could see her complexion was a blotchy red and her hair was matted down. The woman looked like hell.

  “You OK?” he asked softly.

  Scott shot a thumbs up to Gonzo. “I was a little shaky, but now I’m fine.” She smiled, then continued in a determined voice. “Pasha and Mac are depending on us. Let’s move them into the infirmary then wrap this thing up.”

  Scott and Gonzo moved out of the oven into the dark main corridor. Together they secured the flamethrower to the floor under the fiery light of a flare. Scott checked the fuel levels, replaced the fuel pump batteries, reset the weapon, then released the safety, ready to fire. Taking cover behind the Kevlar curtain, Scott depressed the ignition switch and eased forward on the throttle. At ignition, two things happened simultaneously. A long burst of flame emerged from the combustion chamber and the flamethrower tripod ripped loose from its moorings. The resultant thrust sent the fire-belching weapon hurling down the corridor at breakneck speed into the Kevlar curtain, toolbox, Scott and Gonzo. The only thing that saved them from being burned alive was the motion detector built into the weapon. Sensing its own acceleration, its safety circuits kicked in and shut down the fuel pumps. The flamethrower was designed to burn, not fly.

  Scott and Gonzo dug out from the pile of equipment. Scott’s arm was blackened and bruised from the impact, the remote throttle control was smashed, but they got off easy considering the fiery alternative.

  After some discussion, a single viable alternative became clear. Scott would manually fire the weapon. She was wearing the flack jacket so Gonzo reluctantly agreed. Once their plan was set, they anchored the tripod
once again to the floor. Kneeling alongside the weapon in the darkness, Scott found the handgrip and trigger. Gonzo covered her with the Kevlar curtain and backed away, taking refuge in the side passageway which led to the oven.

  Once he was in position, he radioed Scott an all clear. Gonzo watched in motionless horror as the blackness of the corridor suddenly blazed a radiant white. In less than two seconds, the blackness returned. Gonzo’s night vision was lost, he couldn’t see. He lit his flare and headed cautiously toward the corridor. Suddenly, the corridor blazed like a flaming inferno. He felt a torrent of intense heat as the backwash of expanding gasses knocked him down, extinguished his flare, and forced him to take cover behind a rack of equipment in the oven. He was both repelled and fascinated by the flames. This time the flame endured twenty . . . thirty . . . forty seconds, then extinguished leaving only a glowing dull red residue along the corridor walls.

  “Scotty?” His voice—anxious.

  Silence followed by a choking sound.

  “Scotty!” he yelled, bolting out of the oven toward the main corridor. He heard Scott take a deep breath then speak in a hoarse voice.

  “Corridor secure.”

  28

  The Infirmary, 12/25/2014, 1856 Zulu, 11:56 A.M. Mountain

  Standard Time

  Red Face Core Airlock,

  Space Station Freedom

  Scott entered the core airlock first with Mac’s arm draped around her shoulder. Gonzo followed, maneuvering Pasha on a stretcher. Scott’s overwhelming impression was one of stark desolation and darkness. A chill ran down her spine when she looked at Gonzo. Safety lighting shining up through the floor illuminated Gonzo’s helmet from below his chin, casting deep shadows across his face.

  Once inside, she pressed hard on the CLOSE button. Nothing. That’s what she’d expected. PAM controlled the airlock doors. Scott ran her gloved hand along the wall by the outside airlock door. The handwheel had to be here somewhere. After Gonzo moved Pasha inside, he shined a small flashlight over her shoulder and cut through the darkness. Scott grabbed the wheel and manually cranked the outside airlock door shut. Gonzo pulled a plastic bag containing six-inch-long stainless-steel rods from his EVA backpack and began searching the doorjamb for the deadbolt hole. While Scott held the door shut, Gonzo slid a safety rod in place. Once the steel rod was in position, Scott released the wheel and the door reflexively jammed hard against it. Try as she might, PAM could not force the airlock door open. Once the outside airlock door was secure, they entered the core and pinned the inner door shut.