by RJ Johnson
"Why is that?" Emeline wondered. "I work hard so I can make enough to retire nice. Now I'm wondering if it's worth all that. What's the point of working so hard if you can't enjoy yourself along the way. What happens when you get older? Do you keep working cause that’s all you’ve known? And does it really mean anything if you die before you get a chance to enjoy it?"
Meade nodded. "It's why I do what I do."
"Why you play poker? Fight in those barbaric Zero-G fights?" She laughed, "I always wondered why you didn't just get a normal job like everyone else. Probably why I insisted you get your PI license."
"I didn't want to live my life on anyone else's terms." Meade said thoughtfully. "I disliked the idea of working in the ORI mines barely scraping enough together credits together for a decent meal, or sitting in some office wasting away as I stared at the clock while I pretended to be busy when my boss walked by. I always had a larger vision of my life."
"What sort of vision?"
Meade shrugged. "When I was 17, I thought I'd be competing in professional Zero-G fights in five years, with at least one or two belts by the time I was 25. Now..." Meade looked around him at the desolate waste of the asteroid surface, "I'm here. Never thought I'd see this."
"You regret where you are?"
"Never." Meade decided. "Well, I mean, I regret being poor, I regret not traveling a bit more, but that's just money. There are far more important things in life than money."
"Like what?"
"Like freedom. Like the fact I've always done everything I've ever wanted to, 'cept for traveling. I can tell you that's gonna come to an end after this little job." Meade said firmly looking out at the brilliant stars above them. Off in the distance, Jupiter shone brightly in the sky, more brilliant than anything he had ever seen in his life, more beautiful than even seeing the Homeworld set over the Martian plains.
"With what Sinjakama's paying me - us - I should say, I'm gonna take a long vacation and finally go see Olympus Mons. Maybe stake out a claim on the Martian Plains and mine for a bit of ORI just to see if I can, or hell, maybe I'll finally visit the lunar colonies and see the Homeworld up close for myself..." he paused and glanced up at the engines. They didn't look any closer than they had a few minutes before, but he knew they were making progress.
Emeline laughed, "We'll have to survive this first for you to do anything like that. I'd say saving the Homeworld will be a nice bonus."
"Well, a man's gotta have hope, because without that, what else do we have?" Meade wondered aloud. Meade felt Emeline's hand go limp in his and he looked back. She had fallen unconscious.
"Goddammit Em!" He cursed. He opened her ArmBar and checked out the oxygen levels in the suit. It was completely empty. They were out of time. If he couldn't get her back to the interior of the engines soon, it would be too late.
He picked her up and began carrying her, their combined mass harder to move. It was ungainly, but he threw her over his shoulder and began talking to her.
"I take that back, I have a lot of regrets." Meade told her limp body desperately. "I regret never taking you seriously. I regret ignoring how beautiful you are. I regret telling myself just because I was hurt by another woman that I didn't deserve to meet anyone new. I regret..." he looked at her, she was completely unconscious. "I regret never telling you I loved you."
Her ArmBar began beeping and he looked at the display. He cursed. Her life signs were failing. There just wasn't enough time. He began to jump and push hard, hoping that the longer jumps they were taking would get them to the engine room in time. It wasn't enough.
"Dammit Emeline! Don't you die on me!" Meade pleaded. He searched through the ArmBar looking for a program that could help him move faster. Flipping through, he seized on the magnetic pulse program that he had used to keep them from tumbling into space. He moved next to a protrusion out of the asteroid, jumped, and pushed himself as he held Emeline. They floated a few meters off the surface and he pushed himself off the ledge, using his legs to create the momentum to move forward.
He aimed his ArmBar at the engines and fired the magnetic pulse. The beam took hold of the engine casing, the force of which pulled them closer faster than they had been moving until they came down for a rough landing on the ground. Tumbling, he nearly lost his grip on Emeline's suit until they came to a rest. The magnetic pulse was too erratic. It wasn't going to be enough. They needed something more. That's when he laughed. The solution was so simple, it was quite literally right in front of them.
He held onto Emeline tight and unloosed the Rattler he had confiscated from the security team, holding it tightly against the midsection of his body. He checked the readout on the Rattler. Not a lot of power left, but hopefully it would be enough.
He jumped as high as he possibly could, pushing his and Emeline's body off the surface. He turned opposite the engines and fired the Rattler, its high energy ions flowing out the narrow barrel of the weapons.
Slowly, he began to accelerate. He aimed the rifle at a downward trajectory keeping their bodies off the ground as the laser chewed up the ground below. They moved faster and faster, the ground becoming a blur. When he felt like they had gained enough speed, Meade shut the rifle off and turned his body towards the engine compartment. They were close, only a few hundred meters away. Meade aimed his ArmBar at the engines and fired another magnetic pulse, the beam locking onto the structure.
They hit the engine casing hard, bouncing as the magnet helped bleed off the energy he had accumulated from the rifle. Meade laughed hysterically. It had worked. Now all he needed was to find an entrance, which was easier than he suspected. The engines were covered in hatches for workers to get in and out to work on the project. The closest was only a few meters away. Meade dragged Emeline's body with him to the hatch opening it, and then dropping her inside. Meade followed her in, and closed the hatch, the airlock inside re-pressurizing as soon as it detected his ArmBar's signature.
He took off his helmet, and wasted no time in taking hers off. Her face and lips were a deep blue, so much so that Meade wondered if it was the cold of deep space that had gotten to her. He put his ear to her lips and placed two fingers on her artery. She wasn't breathing, and her pulse was incredibly faint.
Meade bent over her and began giving her mouth to mouth. For a second, he worried that he was too late.
"You've got to live Emeline." He said tears forming in his eyes, "You're the best part of my life and I never got to tell you that." He bent back over and performed mouth to mouth again, hoping to bring her back. "You were the best part of my day and the only one who ever believed in me. I don't know what I'll do without you, so damn you, you live!"
He bent back over and helped her breathe. Suddenly she coughed and Meade felt something akin to pure joy. She was going to live.
"I heard that." She said weakly. "You realize I get to hold that over you from now on."
Meade laughed and hugged her tight.
"Easy there." Emeline said pushing against him.
"Oh, sorry." Meade replied hastily. "You're gonna be OK."
"Better be." Emeline said, her voice regaining strength, "We've still got to go save the world."
Meade grinned and kissed her full on the mouth. Emeline looked surprised at first, but then returned the kiss hungrily as if she had been waiting for it for a long time.
"'Bout damn time." Emeline said as their lips parted. "But, we'll get to that later. Right now, we've got to stop these engines from firing up." She stood, holding the side of the wall for help.
"Easy now," Meade cautioned her. She waved him off and picked up the Rattler.
"Time for going easy is past. I'm more in the mood for revenge."
Meade grinned and picked up his Rattler. With Emeline on the warpath, he wouldn't want to be Rincon right around now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Meade and Emeline ran through the corridors searching for their way out of the guts of the thrusters that Sanjay Sinjakama had built. The engines
were nearly half as large as the asteroid itself - they had to be - in order to get the mass of something this large up to speed. Dank hallways, probably unseen by human eyes in months ran in an incomprehensible labyrinth. Pipes and half finished walls lined the corridors, but at no point did Meade think the engines inoperable. The constant thrumming they had heard when Meade and Emeline had gotten back inside was beginning to get louder. Whoever was in control was ramping up power to the engines.
Meade opened his ArmBar and looked at the map. It was frustratingly incomplete and if they didn't find the elevator down to the control room soon, they could be lost for days.
"If they had workers in and out of here building the damn thing, you'd think they’d have a map that made sense." Meade growled.
"I think it's this way." Emeline pointed at a faded sign with a picture of a Rampet. They ran down the corridor moving quickly towards the direction of the Tun that would hopefully take them back closer to civilization.
Finally, they found a tiny Rampet, barely large enough for the both of them to squeeze into. Meade sat in the cockpit and Emeline sat on his lap as the dome lowered on them. The Rampet pressurized and it aimed itself down into the guts of the asteroid. Meade opened his ArmBar and entered in Central Command.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
The engines were sounding louder and louder, despite Meade and Emeline retreating from the thrusters. The Rampet began to pick up speed and soon they were speeding down towards the Central Command center. According to Rincon's schedule, the revolution would be over by now with most of the elites dead or completely subjugated by the security forces.
"I really wish Suresh had taken my damn ArmBar." Meade snarled. "At least I'd be able to see if he was able to pick up Sinjakama in time before Rincon got to them."
"Why not try pinging Sinjakama?" Emeline asked. Meade slapped himself in the forehead.
"This is why I keep you around." Meade said as he opened his ArmBar and struggled to ping Sinjakama. He offered his ArmBar to her. "Would you mind?"
"Course not." She entered in Sinjakama's name and the ArmBar searched for Sinjakama's signal. To his relief it connected, but what he saw made his heart sink. Rincon's face appeared in the display, sneering at him.
"You surprise me Mr. Meade." Rincon's deep voice was calm, but the sneer in it was evident. "I had hoped you would abide by our deal."
"Killing billions of people don't sit right with me." Meade fired back angrily. "Doesn't seem like you're accomplishing a whole lot."
BOOM BOOM BOOM
Rincon laughed. "I don’t know about that Mr. Meade. Do you hear that? That is the sound of inevitability. In less than forty-five minutes, I was able to take control of a massive space station right out from under one of the most powerful nations Humanity has ever known. What makes you think I'm not capable of accomplishing anything I set my mind to?"
"Because killin' folk never accomplished anything except setting Humanity back." Meade snapped back. "If we're going by how many people you can kill, the plague in the Middle Ages and the Last War have got you beat by a long shot."
"Only for the next few hours Mr. Meade. Besides, look what happened after each mass die-off of humanity!" Rincon said, "The Black Death spurred Europe into the Renaissance era. The Civil War provoked the Industrial Revolution, World War II kickstarted the atomic age and Last War took Humanity further into Space and beyond everything it had ever known. Who is to say what sort of progress we can make once we cleanse the Homeworld of its corrupting influences?"
"You son of a bitch, billions of innocents will die!" Meade screamed at the screen.
"And yet, their sacrifice will not be in vain." Rincon replied. He aimed the ArmBar towards the screen. "I see on my viewer that you are coming to Central Command. Let me save you the trouble. Sinjakama has already given up the code to his father's navigational lockout. We are moments away from the final phase. I couldn't stop it now if I wanted to. You're too late Mr. Meade. I hope you manage to get off the asteroid before it crashes. It would be unfortunate to lose a man of your caliber."
The view screen winked off and suddenly the loud rumbling that had surrounded them in the hall exploded in a cacophony of sound. The Rampet leaped off its tracks and crashed into the side of the wall. Meade threw on his helmet and Emeline followed as the dome of their Rampet exploded off.
They got out of the Rampet and moved down the Tun to the nearest exit. For once, they had a bit of good luck on their side as the nearest exit was right next to where they crashed. They found themselves in a storage room of some sort, full of discarded electronic equipment and processed ORI for the engine's construction. The deep throbbing continued.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
They clamped their hands over their ears and the whole asteroid began to shake.
"Can you get me a view of what's going on outside?" Meade shouted over the din. Emeline nodded and opened her ArmBar quickly hacking into the station's surveillance system.
She shared her viewscreen with Meade and they watched as the engines positioned outside the asteroid fired up, their power undeniable. Vast columns of ion particles shot out of the rear of the twin engines as the asteroid began to shake even more violently.
"It's too much!" She shouted. "Rincon is over throttling the thrusters. The Asteroid can’t take this kind of stress."
"He doesn't care." Meade replied as he watched the columns expel billions of ions accelerated to the speed of light. "All that matters to him now is moving the Asteroid towards an intercept path with the Homeworld."
It was working. Meade could see large quantities of neighboring asteroids Rosetta had captured in near orbit begin to pass by when before they had been in a stable orbit. Large crashing noises sounded as they cratered on the front side of the asteroid.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
The thrusters' high pitched whine began to reverberate through the asteroid as they picked up speed.
"Ten kilometers per second." Emeline replied. "It works. Sanjay Sinjakama did it." She looked up in wonder from her ArmBar. "Meade, whatever happens now, it's too late. We can't stop it. He's put us on course towards the Homeworld."
"Ten meters per second will take way too long." Meade replied confidently. "By the time it even gets to Martian orbit, the Consortium will have intercepted us and destroyed the rock before it can do any damage."
"You don't understand." Emeline shook her head. "It's a constant acceleration. We're moving at ten meters per second right now, but within an hour, we'll be up to a hundred times that. If my calculations are correct, we'll get up to 20,000 meters per second within a few hours. And in less than four hours, assuming the acceleration is constant, we'll fall into the Homeworld's gravity well and crash. We'll be traveling so fast, the energy released from the explosion will literally liquify the Homeworld's crust. Nothing will survive, not even micro biotic life will make it through that kind of explosion." She turned to him as serious as he'd even seen her, "Jim, this rock is on its way, and I have no idea how we're going to stop it."
Meade was shocked. He knew it was bad, but not that bad. If they couldn't stop it, the world was literally coming to an end. And it would be all his fault.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
An hour quickly passed while Meade and Emeline made their way through the burning station. The revolution had clearly been bloody and remnants of it were scattered everywhere. Each section of the asteroid was under control by some faction of Rincon's. There wasn't an Elite left alive so far as Meade could see. Most of the security didn't give Meade or Emeline a second look. After their ordeal on the outside of the asteroid, their security jumpers looked as if they had been just as deep in the fray as they had. Battered and beaten, their faces weren't on the insurgent's frame of mind. If Rincon had issued orders for their arrest and capture, it certainly hadn't reached his soldiers yet.
The station shuddered and Meade clutched at the side of the way to keep from falling.
"What was that?" Meade asked Emeline who
held onto him for support.
"The station wasn't meant for this kind of acceleration." Emeline tapped on her ArmBar and brought up the station's schematics. Hacking into the visual database, she overlaid the two screens. "Pieces of the station that used to appear on here have ripped off - the torsional stress seems to be too much for it."
"Tearing itself apart." Meade looked over the schematics. "How long do we have?"
Emeline shrugged. "It's hard to tell. The asteroid is mostly ORI and iron which is some of the toughest stuff in the universe, but even so, at these kinds of speeds, there could be all sorts of fractures opening up all over the asteroid."
"Leaking air?"
"More than that, it's possible that Rosetta could rip itself in two, though…" She typed on the schematic and brought up possible weak points displayed in the initial survey, "Sinjakama seemed to design the thrusters around them. Near as I can tell the two weak points are the landing bay and The Pit. That's why they were chosen."