Carrier

by Timothy Johnson

  "Pierce is right," Stellan said. "It has to end here." He looked down to the black brick.

  "No. I can't lose you. I won't," Daelen said, taking the brick from his hand. "With this, I can fix it. I just need time, and stasis will give us that. We owe it to ourselves. You owe it to yourself to try. We made it this far. We deserve a chance."

  Stellan weighed the decision. He knew what he should do, but at the threshold of his fate, he found the will to survive overwhelming. Standing there, looking into the eyes of his beautiful, grief-stricken wife who was pleading for him to join her, he wanted to walk into that room. Still, he hesitated.

  "What's a second chance if you don't take it?" Daelen asked.

  In the end, it was something Wendy had said that made his feet move. He wasn't ready to face judgment. He wasn't ready to face himself.

  As he stepped forward slowly, Daelen pulled him gently, and Stellan fell into her. She caught him in an embrace that sped up her heart and warmed her cheeks. Knowing she would get her chance to help him, the risks they were taking, she never felt more alive.

  "There," she said. "Not so hard."

  She detected guilt in his smile.

  They moved into the room, and a small holographic display expanded over a table in the center, the lifeboat's control interface. Daelen entered the command to jettison the lifeboat and guide it away from the Apophis planet. Without a light drive, the lifeboat would not be able to reach New Earth, but it would give them a chance that a recovery team would find them.

  As the boat launched, she recorded a brief message that would go out on a beacon to be transmitted into the depths of space. Hopefully, a Council ship somewhere would find them.

  With the message stored, the lifeboat detached from the body of the Atlas and burned thrusters through the asteroid field and out to a safe distance. They undressed without saying a word, feeling freer than they'd felt in days, perhaps years. Though the thought of their lost friends weighed on them, the knowledge that they had made it meant their friends hadn't died in vain. Someone had lived. Someone could carry the beacon of hope. They couldn't offer a better tribute to humanity. A man and woman so madly in love they were willing to risk everything.

  Stellan looked around at the stasis chambers that surrounded them. He counted twenty-six, thinking about whether he should consider twenty-four failures or two victories.

  The holographic display in the center of the room showed the Atlas, now being bombarded by debris and falling to pieces. It dove down farther toward the Apophis planet, and a warning accompanied the feed informing them that a light drive event had been detected. They felt the lifeboat's thrusters push harder for minimum safe distance.

  The Atlas descended into a swirl of earth and metal, and it began to blur and phase out. Slowly, it stretched like a rubber band, pulling the debris over and around it and launching it out the back in fine dust particles. It picked up pieces of the planet that the Shiva had not touched and turned them around the ship and into dust as well.

  And then, like winking out of existence, the Atlas burrowed into the red planet, shooting through it like a cosmic bullet, turning the insides of the planet outward toward the dying red giant star, and crushing the outsides inward into a dense, packed celestial body for an instant and then erupting into a world-ending explosion.

  The shockwave rattled the lifeboat so terribly that the lights went out, and in the darkness, only the solid floor on which they stood reassured them they were not dead, floating in the black expanse.

  A moment later, the lights returned, and the lifeboat's systems rebooted.

  Daelen walked Stellan to a stasis chamber and helped him inside. He lay back, and she smiled.

  "I'll see you in my dreams," Stellan said.

  "Really?"

  "I know it."

  She closed the lid for him and then kissed her hand and pressed it against the glass. He reciprocated from inside. She stepped back, adamant that she would watch him until he fell asleep.

  As the stasis chamber took hold and pulled him down, something strange accompanied it. His body had never felt stasis, but something was wrong. His heart rate should have slowed, but it quickened and boomed. Even though the lifeboat had no light drive, he swore it rose into a swell in his ears. His instinct was to fight it, but his limbs wouldn't move. A darkness crept over him, and even as he descended into his subconscious, he knew that, when he woke, he would carry it with him for as long as he lived.

  About the Author

  Timothy Johnson is a writer and editor living in Washington, D.C., with his wife and his dog. He has an English degree from Virginia Tech, where he won the Fiction Award for his graduating class. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Carrier is his first novel. Find him at timothyjohnsonfiction.com.