Destiny Earth

by Tony Mazzarella

  “Head for the communication tower on the far side and look for the airlock,” said Daniels.

  “Will, I know Jonas is your friend but—”

  “He’s not just my friend, Ileana. He’s my brother.”

  Ileana knew he was speaking figuratively, but the point was made nonetheless. He could no more leave Jonas to die than she could leave Inando to his fate on Earth if there was even a chance to save him. Ileana nodded and quickly returned to piloting the ship.

  “Jonas!” shouted Will into the com.

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “Is there an airlock near you?”

  “I’m looking out the window of it right now.” said Jonas.

  “We’re coming! Get ready!”

  He looked down at Oria, now smiling hopefully.

  “They’re coming! My friends are coming!” said Jonas.

  Oria returned the smile as they both now realized the man was getting closer to them. Jonas wasn’t sure they had the time.

  “Oria, grab anything you can find and start throwing it down. Hurry!”

  They both looked around and found various objects such as bolts and small metal plates that were left over after construction of this part of the station. They both began throwing them down at the approaching agent to slow his ascent. Jonas could now see the approaching ship through the window.

  “Will, I see you. Please hurry.” shouted Jonas into the com.

  “We’re almost there. Hang on!”

  They continued throwing anything they could find down at the agent, who had now sped his ascent. A small metal plate hit the agent square in the forehead, opening a large, bloody gash. Stunned, he stopped to regain his senses while wiping the blood from his head. A few seconds later, he started back up the ladder. Jonas heard the thud as EC2 docked with the airlock. The jolt caused Oria to lose her footing, and she screamed as she hung by one arm, trying desperately to regain her hold on the ladder.

  “Oria! Hold on!” Jonas screamed, as he grabbed her hand, and helped pull her back to safety. He then saw that Will had opened the outer door of the ship, and Jonas quickly pulled the release to unlock the inner door.

  “Will!”

  “Jonas, hurry! We have to get out of here right now!”

  The asteroid was now bearing down on the planet, no longer a distant object.

  Jonas helped Oria climb past him, and Will took her hand and pulled her into the ship. Relieved, Jonas then started to crawl through the airlock and suddenly stopped as Will tried to pull him through. He screamed in pain as the agent thrust his knife into the back of Jonas’s calf as he tried to escape.

  “Now you die!” shouted the agent coldly as he hung onto the knife’s handle, still in Jonas’s leg. Jonas continued screaming as he was being pulled back in the station through the airlock. Will struggled to hold on to him, but the agent was much stronger and now had a grasp of Jonas’s other leg. Will was thrown backward as someone pulled him into the ship. Ileana slipped past him and looked down the maintenance shaft as Jonas screamed and barely hung on with two hands. Ileana looked past Jonas, seeing a man she recognized as a government agent. He also recognized Ileana and smiled, thinking he was now among friends. Ileana raised her pistol squarely at Jonas’s head. He froze in fear and turned, closing his eyes. The agent started laughing, waiting for Jonas to be blasted from the ladder. Ileana then aimed the gun at the agent, adjusting the power to full. His expression changed to fear as she squeezed the trigger. The agent was blown into pieces from the power and proximity of the blast. His remains fell down into the darkness as Jonas looked up to see Ileana reaching out her hand.

  The hatch above swung open as the second agent looked down. Ileana, without hesitation, fired, hitting him in the face and causing him to fall past them screaming until he was silenced by the floor below.

  “Jonas Crouse, move your ass!” commanded Ileana.

  Jonas and Ileana crawled back into the ship and sealed the door.

  “Daniels, go!” ordered Ileana.

  Daniels fired the ship’s engines, swinging it around the tower, and began to climb away from the station at full power. The engines whined loudly as they fought the pull of the planet. Will looked out the rear window to see the immense asteroid impact the surface. He thought of Edena and felt despair as the shockwave began to engulf the planet. His com rang out, and as he opened it, he could see Lars Stanzic ushering Janie and Edena down the secret entrance to Abysson. He turned the com toward the entrance where Edena stood. She looked up as she took several steps down the stairs of the secret entrance. Tears rolled gently down her cheek as she spoke.

  “Daddy, I love you. I’ll miss you.”

  Will tried to absorb every detail of her face, knowing that this was the last time he’d ever see her. He wished he could stop time and live forever in this one last moment together.

  “I love you too, Edena!” Will cried out.

  The image now began to get fuzzy as the interference from the impact began to disrupt the signal. He watched, as Edena continued below to what he hoped was safety.

  Stanzic then turned the com toward his own face, and Will could see him smiling triumphantly, not saying a word, with his silvery hair blowing wildly in the wind. He’d done the greatest thing that any human being could have ever done for another. He’d saved his daughter and given him one last chance to say good-bye and see that she was safe.

  He could see Stanzic look off in the distance, and his facial expression now changed from joy to dread. He set the com down on a rock, and Will could see the sky growing red in the distance as the shockwave approached. He watched Stanzic climb down and seal the entrance as the shockwave rolled over his position and the com image went black.

  “No!” Will screamed, holding the com to his forehead.

  He ran to the window to see the shockwave gradually consume the planet. The lush green beauty of the Folands, far below, was overtaken by the red wave that now engulfed it. The impact was turning the entire surface from a sandy gray color to a dull red as it spread across. He saw a red glow fill the atmosphere, and it was now bearing down on them.

  “Nigel! Hurry up. It’s coming,” shouted Will.

  Ileana took the seat next to Daniels and began working the controls with him.

  “Can’t this damn thing go any faster?” Daniels barked.

  Ileana hit several buttons that caused the large gun turrets to detach from the ship, lightening their load as they tried to escape the pull of the planet and the shockwave.

  “We won’t be needing those,” said Ileana as she continued working the controls.

  In the distance, Daniels could see his station disintegrate as the shockwave hit. He shook his head in sadness as he thought about his station and his two sons.

  “Everyone, brace yourselves. Get strapped in!” yelled Ileana.

  Oria helped Jonas to a seat and strapped him in, as he was still in excruciating pain from the wound to his leg. Ileana looked back at Will, who was still watching the surface as it was overtaken by the impact. Her voice was now softer, as she understood his emotions.

  “Dr. O’Neil…Will, you have to brace yourself. Please!”

  Will looked up, still in shock, and tried to fasten his safety harness, but it was too late. Everything went black as the wave impacted.

  21

  ESCAPE

  Larsen listened on the main com channel as Will’s message was broadcast. He cut off all other communications to the rest of the ship so his crew wouldn’t be able to hear Will’s message exposing his treachery.

  “Commander, we’re cleared for launch, but I’m still getting a fuel system warning light. I suggest we wait until—”

  “Prepare for launch, Mr. Tercelli.”

  “But sir—”

  “Prepare for Goddamn launch!” Larsen shouted. “or I’ll relieve you of duty before we even leave the ground!”

  Tercelli looked at his crewmate sitting next to him and reluctantly continued his prelaunch duties.r />
  “I have one thing to tend to before we leave. This ship will lift off in fifteen minutes, not one minute later. Is that understood?”

  The crew nodded in acknowledgment, even though they all had their doubts about their commander’s behavior over the last few weeks. It was also highly irregular for him to be leaving the vessel for the control room at such a short time until launch. Larsen proceeded across the access tunnel that led to the control room in quorum launch facility. The launch director stood in front of him, looking furious.

  “It’s true, you no-good coward. You’re trying to escape, and you could have told us.”

  “Yes, it’s all true. As usual, O’Neil has put a damper on a well-laid plan, and once again, I have to deal with it. Is it really better to know? Are you glad now that you only have minutes to live? My way would have been better for everyone. Surely you can see that.”

  “All I see is a lowlife standing before me, and at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ll die here as well.”

  The launch director turned and reached for the abort button, which would cut all power to the Sirocco. As his hand reached out, he felt a cold sensation in his lower back. Larsen twisted the dagger, and he fell to the ground dead. Larsen locked the door to the control room where shortly there would have been a dozen people overseeing the launch, but everyone had abandoned their posts with the news of Mars’s destruction. He looked at the monitor where there was an outside view of Manikar Park, and he could see people massing in anger, trying to gain access to the quorum building entrance. They were throwing rocks and smashing windows, and he was sure they were coming for him. He quickly disabled the abort controls and did his best to barricade the door with several large equipment cabinets. As he ran back through the access tunnel, he hit the manual control that removed all but the critical tethers that held the Sirocco to the launch pad. As he scurried through the tunnel heading back to the ship, he checked the time to see that impact was just about ten minutes away. He wondered how he’d allowed the launch to be cut so close, but it didn’t matter now. He would survive.

  He ran to the command deck, no longer hiding his sense of urgency.

  “Start the launch cycle now!”

  “Launch cycle started, sir. We have a fuel system overload warning!”

  “Override and continue the launch cycle.”

  Tercelli reluctantly hit the override and continued preparing for lift off. The ship began to shake as the engines roared to life. The Sirocco was a large vessel and required enormous power to lift it into orbit. The angry crowd in Manikar Park stopped as they felt the shaking and looked up to see the ship emerge from the giant eye of the Space Quorum launch facility. Larsen snapped on his personal viewer to see the crowd below.

  “I win,” he said under his breath as he smugly snapped off the viewer.

  “Oh my God! Look!” shouted a crewmember. The image of the asteroid filled the view screen as it burned through the atmosphere in the distance.

  “Sir, what is it?”

  “It’s the end of the world. Engines to full power!” screamed Larsen.

  The Sirocco’s engines roared as they powered to full and fought the pull of the planet. The ship shook violently as one of the giant engines exploded and caught fire.

  “Commander, we’ve lost engine three, and it’s on fire. We have to abort!” shouted Tercelli.

  “Abort? There’s no world to go back to. We make high orbit now or we die. Adjust the fuel system to compensate for the loss of engine three!”

  The remaining engines glowed brightly, as they tried to propel the lumbering spacecraft into orbit. Larsen once again snapped on his viewer to see the asteroid impact the planet. He watched as the planet was quickly overwhelmed by the fiery impact. He knew it would happen soon, and he also knew it would be close.

  “Commander. We’ve reached orbit, shall I power down so we can repair engine three?”

  “Continue climbing at full power!” commanded Larsen, knowing they weren’t to safey yet.

  The Sirocco gained speed as it left a trail of fire and smoke behind it. The shockwave impacted the ship, sending it into a tumble.

  “Compensate quickly! Turn us about!”

  The ship rolled several more times until it finally righted and once again began to escape Mars’s gravity as the shockwave dissipated.

  “What’s our condition?” demanded Larsen.

  “We appear to be OK. Engine three is totally burnt up, but it would appear that whatever hit us also put out the fire that was burning.”

  “Sir, what was that. What happened to the planet?” asked a crew-member as she looked at what was left of Mars on the view screen.

  “It would appear that a massive asteroid has destroyed our world. As our luck would have it, we timed our launch perfectly. I also just found out that Dr. Will O’Neil knew about this for some time and chose to save his own skin aboard Collosum instead of warning the rest of the planet. As irony would have it, that station was in a much lower orbit than we are, and would have been destroyed.”

  Tercelli and the rest of the crew looked at each other, not fully believing their commander, as his behavior had been that of a man desperate and obsessed with departure from Mars. They wondered quietly if this had been the reason.

  Edena’s hair blew in the cool gentle breeze as she swayed back and forth on the swing. She loved this place, and Will had often taken her to play for hours as he just watched. As she’d gotten older she had less interest in such things, but it was a memory he cherished.

  He called out to her, but his mouth made no noise. He stood and began to run to her, and the harder he ran the farther she moved from his view. He was desperate to reach her and tried to call out, but there was only silence. The rope holding the swing to the large tree began to unwind as Edena went higher. Will struggled to reach her but could not. The rope snapped, and he could see her falling in slow motion. She screamed as she began to slip backward. Strange, he thought, that he could hear her but he could not utter a sound. As she slammed into the ground he cried out, and this time he could hear the sound of his own voice.

  He awoke lying in a bed in an almost pitch-black room. As he struggled to see, a door opened and the light blinded him. His eyes weren’t used to bright lights, but why, he thought to himself.

  “Boss, are you awake?”

  “Jonas? What the hell is going on? Where am I?”

  “Just sit back and take it easy. You took quite a hit, and I wasn’t sure you were ever going to wake up.”

  “What are you…?” As the words were leaving his mouth, it all came back in one agonizing moment. The dream about not being able to reach Edena, and save her from her fall. It all made sense now, and part of him wished he’d never woken up.

  “How long have I been out?” he asked solemnly.

  “Almost two weeks. I was just coming to give you your supplements when I heard you scream.”

  “Two weeks—I’ve been out for two weeks? What about Mars? Can we set down to see if anyone survived? We need to see if…”

  “Will, no one survived. We set course for Earth eleven days ago.”

  “What do you mean? We can’t just leave her, damn it! We have to try!”

  Ileana walked into the room, having heard the shouting. “Eleven days ago we made the decision to leave Mars and head for Earth.”

  “‘We’? Who is ‘we’?”

  “Captain Daniels and me.”

  “How could you just leave?” said Will, still trying to get his bearing.

  “We wanted to wait until you could see it for yourself, but your condition was so uncertain we decided it would be best to head for Earth.”

  “See what for myself?” asked Will.

  Jonas put his head down, and Will knew it was all bad news.

  “The planet is now an average temperature of minus one hundred forty degrees, and the atmosphere is one hundred times thinner than the planet we left two weeks ago. What’s left of the atmosphere
is full of debris from the impact and will be for one hundred years or more. We attempted to get back down to see if there was anything we could do, and we couldn’t. Therefore, we decided to head for Earth. I’m sorry about your daughter, Dr. O’Neil, but Jonas has told me she might have gotten to Abysson. If she made it there, there is a chance that she’s still alive.”

  “Isn’t there any way to get those people out of there?” asked Will.

  “There is not,” replied Ileana coldly. “They will have to build a new world under the surface. I am quite familiar with that facility, and I can tell you that if they survived the impact, then they have a great chance of survival. It was built for that purpose, and the men who built it had unlimited money and a strong desire to survive. How ironic that they are all dead now.”

  Will walked over to the small window that was near the room’s entrance. He looked out, pondering his future and the loss of Edena. His muscles were sore from not having been used in weeks, but he managed to make it over with no help. As he scanned the blackness of space, he saw another ship off in the distance, running parallel to their position.

  “What ship is that out there? Were there other survivors?”

  “It’s the Sirocco, boss,” said Jonas reluctantly.

  “The Sirocco! That bastard made it after all! I want to talk to him right now!”

  “I would advise against it,” said Ileana. Larsen doesn’t know you’re with us, and I suspect it would complicate things if he did.”

  “Complicate what things? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “When the shockwave hit us, we were in a much lower orbit than the Sirocco. As a result, our entire navigation system was destroyed. Without it, we have no way of knowing where on Earth we’d be landing. Commander Larsen has agreed to use his navigation system to guide us down under certain conditions.”

  “What conditions? Why would you make a deal with him or believe anything he has to say?”

  “We promised to exchange various supplies and armaments. They have things we need and vice versa. As I said before, we are working out a landing site based on your research, and he’ll guide us down with their nav system. We’ve agreed to pardon his actions in whatever justice system evolves on Earth. That means no retribution from anyone aboard this ship.”