Oxygen Series Box Set: A Science Fiction Suspense Box Set

by John Olson

  The Martian bacteria was a big surprise—a real sock in the gut. Nate ought to be mad at Josh and the crew for lying about that Antarctica archaebacteria for a month, but what was he supposed to do? Take them to court for lying? Oh right. Like he’d never told a fib himself. Anyway, according to Valkerie, they had a handle on it. Antibiotics nailed it pretty quick. As long as Valkerie was being honest—and she sounded truthful—it shouldn’t be a big problem.

  So despite the Mars‑bug thing, NASA had decided to bring the crew home. They had an obligation to their astronauts, and they were going to honor that. He was going to announce it to everyone Friday morning at the All‑Hands Meeting in the FCR.

  And best of all, Josh was off the hook over the de‑orbit burn with the ERV. Free and clear. Just like Nate had known all along.

  So the two of them were going flying this afternoon. They had earned a break, and they were gonna take it, because you never knew when the next storm was gonna hit.

  It was a great day to be alive.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Saturday, May 9, 12:30 a.m., Mars Local Time

  Valkerie

  VALKERIE FLUNG HERSELF ONTO THE lab stool and spun around in a tight circle. She was getting married tomorrow—no, today. Was it really going to happen? How could she be so impossibly happy? It was all so perfect—like an early morning dream. She swallowed back an uneasy feeling—like the dream would grow shimmery and insubstantial and then dissolve into the ragged shadow world of hollow reality. She could already feel the longing, the sense of deep loss as the phantoms faded into another day of hard work. Unreasonable expectations. Senseless tasks. And no end in sight.

  But this wasn’t a dream. Valkerie slid a pallet of soil out from under a grow lamp. Only eleven more hours and she’d be Mrs. Valkerie Kaganovski. “Valkerie Kaganovski.” She couldn’t help laughing as she said the name aloud. It was the worst name she’d ever heard. Maybe she should go back to being just Valerie—or maybe even Val. Val Kaganovski? Great. It sounded like a medical procedure—for removing plaque from collapsed arteries.

  Valkerie grabbed a water bottle and squeezed a few drops on a scrawny pansy—the only plant from that particular pallet that had managed to survive the harsh Martian soil. A small, curling bud peeked its head above the sickly green foliage.

  “It’s okay. Don’t be shy. Come out and say hi to Mrs. K.” Valkerie wrinkled her nose and stroked the tiny bud. If only it would open for the wedding. She already had two blossoms from the pansy she had transplanted, but three would make the bouquet so much more ... well, bouquet‑like.

  “Come on. You’ve worked so hard to get this far. I’m sure you’ll be the most beautiful of them all.”

  A burst of laughter floated down the stairwell.

  “Don’t listen to them. They just don’t understand you.” Valkerie slipped off the stool and started toward the stairs, but stopped at the door of the lab.

  No. Let him enjoy himself. Splitting a can of grape Nehi with Lex and Kennedy wasn’t much of a bachelor party. But when you were two hundred million miles away from Earth, you had to find normalcy wherever you could. And brides did not belong at bachelor parties, just like guests did not belong on honeymoons—even on Mars.

  Valkerie tiptoed through the corridor to the airlock and spun open the inner hatch. Crossing through the airlock chamber and ducking through the outer hatch, she stepped into the rover. “Just Married” and “HoneyMars Bound” had been clumsily painted on the insides of the rover’s windows with bright white paint—her mother’s paint. Lex had used more than Valkerie expected, but she had a feeling her mother would have approved.

  She stepped farther inside and wrinkled her nose. The rover reeked of cleaner fumes and air freshener. Bob had spent the last three nights cleaning it out. After a month of Kennedy treating it like a latrine, Valkerie had been hesitant about using it for a honeymoon trip, but Bob had insisted on privacy and cleaned the rover so thoroughly that every surface sparkled—even the plastic surfaces that were supposed to have a stippled grain.

  Valkerie stepped carefully around the makeshift bed that Bob had set up on the floor. Two NASA mattresses wide and two mattresses high, the pallet was only half the size of a normal bed, but after a year and a half of sleeping on a six‑by‑two‑foot cot, it looked huge. She crouched uneasily by the bed and reached out a hand to touch the clean white blanket that covered it. Lex’s blanket, fresh from the bag. She’d been saving it for months. It was a wonderfully self‑sacrificing wedding present, but somehow it made her uneasy. Nervous.

  Valkerie didn’t know the first thing about being married. They hadn’t been to marriage counseling, nor had they read any books. They hadn’t even dated. Not really. At least no dates that didn’t end in disaster. What was she doing? Had she really thought things through?

  The pine‑fresh air pressed in on Valkerie from all sides. She felt sick, dizzy. Stumbling back through the airlock, she shut the hatch behind her and spun it tight. How well did she really know Bob? He certainly couldn’t know her—not the real her. All he knew was the work Valkerie. The emergency‑mode Valkerie working under life‑and‑death pressure. First it had been an accelerated ASCAN training program. Then a crisis‑filled trip to Mars. Then the race to find life on a hostile planet. None of that was normal life. She couldn’t even picture Bob in a normal situation. What would he do if he didn’t have a life‑critical subsystem to fix? What would they talk about? Would they even know how to talk?

  Sure, he was attracted to her now—when she was the only available female within a hundred million miles, but what would it be like back on Earth when he was a hero? When thousands of beautiful women were throwing themselves at him? If not in real life, at least on television commercials. How was she supposed to compete with that?

  Valkerie wandered over to the base of the stairs and poked her head through the hatch.

  The radio blared out the raucous cheers of the flight control team in Houston. Lex’s laughter tinkled down the stairs like a bamboo wind chime.

  Lex had always been one of the guys. She was close to Bob in a way Valkerie would never be. What if Lex hadn’t turned out to be married? Would Bob have preferred Lex? There was no way to be sure. How could she be sure about anything? It was all in the future, happening to people who didn’t even exist yet.

  Valkerie climbed up two steps and stopped. The most important decision of her life, and she didn’t have any data to base it on. Sure, she had some data points that she could extrapolate from—feelings, instinct, shared experience. But nothing solid. Why was it that the most important decisions in life had to be based on faith? What was it about relationships in particular that made trust so critical?

  Footsteps upstairs. Parting words.

  Valkerie looked at her watch. Almost 1:00 a.m. The party was finally breaking up. She turned quietly and crept back to the lab, picking her way through the zucchini plants that crisscrossed the hallway. She’d have to wait until Bob and the others were asleep. Technically it was her wedding day. And even though they were all living in a tuna can, she was not going to let Bob see her before the ceremony. It was bad enough that she was going to have to wear a pink dress ...

  Skeeeeerunch!

  The deck lurched beneath Valkerie’s feet with the piercing shriek of tearing metal.

  Valkerie tumbled to the floor and covered her face with her arms.

  Pallets of dirt rained down on her. Footsteps sounded upstairs, shouting voices.

  Valkerie tried to climb to her feet.

  The Hab shook with a loud crash. The curved exterior wall of the Hab bent inward with the scream of buckling metal.

  Valkerie hit the floor hard and rolled under the lab bench.

  A metal shelving unit crashed down next to her.

  “We’re being attacked!” Valkerie’s scream exploded in her head. “Get to the rover!” She crawled out from under the bench and tottered into the hallway, tripping over the planters that littered the floor.


  “Don’t just stand there! Help me pick her up!” Bob’s voice rang out from the stairwell.

  Lex! Valkerie ran for the stairwell. Bob and Kennedy came barreling through, carrying Lex between them.

  “She fell down the stairs and hit her head.” Bob backed through the suit room and waited as Kennedy spun the wheel of the airlock.

  A red light flashed out a warning.

  “The outer hatch is open!” Bob pulled Kennedy away from the airlock. “What happened to the rover?”

  Kennedy let loose with an eruption of oaths. “Something’s out there. Same thing as attacked me before.” He pushed his way past Valkerie and threw open the door of his EVA‑suit locker.

  Bob shook his head. “That’s impossible. Nothing’s out there. It was probably just a—”

  Another crash shook the Hab. This time the whole base seemed to twist under them.

  “Kennedy’s right.” Valkerie crawled to the lockers and pulled her EVA suit down on top of her. “Something’s definitely out there. It put a big dent in the wall of the lab.”

  Kennedy cast a look of triumph at Bob and muttered to himself as he pulled his LCG up around his shoulders. “Told y’all I wasn’t crazy.”

  Bob looked dazed. Like his whole world was crashing down around him.

  “Come on, Bob, you’ve got to get dressed so you can help—”

  Eeerrrkkkkk! A grating sound vibrated through the Hab, like an armored dragon brushing past the outer hull.

  Valkerie fumbled frantically with her suit. Whatever it was, it was enormous. She glanced at Bob.

  He was ghostly white, but he seemed to be managing with his suit. He stared back at her with haunted eyes.

  Focus. She had to focus. Valkerie pulled on her LCG with shaking hands. Something was outside. Something was trying to get in. She stuffed her legs into the lower half of the suit.

  Ragged breathing filled the room. A high‑pitched whine. It was Kennedy, panting like an injured dog. “It’s lookin’ for the hydrogen tanks. That’s what it’s after. The tanks.”

  “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” Valkerie climbed into the upper half of her suit. “Maybe it’s gone.”

  “Not now that it knows we’re here,” Kennedy muttered to himself. “It’ll come back. And when it does it’ll go straight for the tanks.”

  “What’ll be back?” Bob demanded. “What are we even talking—”

  A steel gray claw slashed through the outer wall. Rushing air whipped around them, roaring like a tornado. Valkerie clamped down her helmet and searched frantically through the flying debris. Her gloves were gone. Sucked out into the near vacuum of Mars.

  She threw open Lex’s locker and twisted one glove at a time into place. “Bob?” She searched the room. “Bob?”

  An explosion threw her to the floor.

  She lay on her side, grasping at a white‑suited leg. “Bob?” Valkerie worked her way up his outstretched body.

  Good. He already had his helmet on. She checked his hands. What was he doing with ... Lex. Valkerie scrambled forward and helped Bob stuff Lex into the clear plastic rescue bubble. She stretched the plastic out while Bob zipped it shut and activated the seal.

  “The tank. Where’s the tank?” She looked down at her control panel and switched her comm on.

  “—to get her into the airlock.” Bob’s voice sounded over the rush of frantic breathing.

  “My hand. Help me. My hand.” Kennedy’s voice rose to a hysterical pitch.

  “We’ve got to inflate the bubble,” Valkerie shouted over Kennedy’s cries. She searched the sides of the clear plastic bag, trying to find the switch that activated the oxygen tank.

  The bubble suddenly inflated. She looked back at Bob. He had found the switch.

  “Help me! Help me!”

  A jolt passed through Valkerie’s body, rocking the Hab beneath her knees. She swiveled around, searching for Kennedy.

  He sat with his back against the lockers, pressing a gloved hand over the metal connector ring of his left wrist.

  “Kennedy! Where’s your glove?” Valkerie shouted.

  “Help me. My hand!”

  Valkerie stood and pulled a drawer from the spare suit bin. An old glove lay right on top. It had been patched several times. Had they patched it after the last leak? She dug frantically through the drawer, but there weren’t any more. It would have to do. A leaky glove was better than nothing at all.

  “I’ve got a glove!” Valkerie turned and held it out to Kennedy.

  “My hand!”

  The floor tilted beneath Valkerie’s feet, throwing her to the floor. The lockers against the wall twisted and buckled as the wall behind them was slashed open.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Bob shouted. “If the Hab collapses, the hydrogen and oxygen tanks could ignite.”

  “Kennedy, I’ve got a glove.” Valkerie knocked on Kennedy’s faceplate with the metal ring of the glove. She pulled Kennedy’s arm away from his wrist‑connector and pushed the sleeve back over his hand. Working his fingers into the fingers of the glove, she locked the connection down. “Come on!” She tugged on Kennedy’s arm, trying to pull him to his feet.

  “It’s too late. It knows we’re here.”

  The Hab shook. A pool of boiling water rushed into the room, filling the Hab with steam.

  Bob grabbed Kennedy by the arm and hoisted him up. “Come on. Help me with Lex. We’ve got to get to the rover.”

  Bob picked up one side of the rescue bubble, but Kennedy just stood there. His breath wheezed through Valkerie’s earphones.

  She picked up the other side of the bag and followed Bob to the airlock. “Kennedy, get the hatch. Kennedy?” Valkerie searched the room.

  Kennedy was nowhere in sight.

  Holding the rescue bubble under one arm, Bob spun the hatch open with the other. The docking port was buckled and torn, like the rover had been ripped away from the Hab.

  “Do you see anything?” Valkerie shouted over the static.

  Bob set Lex down and leaned out of the hatch. “The steps are mangled. I don’t see the rover anywhere.”

  “It’s not safe. Maybe we should stay inside—”

  A sudden jolt knocked Valkerie off her feet.

  She rolled onto her hands and knees. “Bob? Bob!” She pulled Lex back into the airlock and cautiously peered through the hatch. It was too dark to be sure, but she thought she could see something moving on the ground below. “Bob!”

  “I’m okay.” Bob sounded anything but okay. “Here.” His upper torso appeared at the hatch. “Get Kennedy to help you hand down Lex. We’ve got to get away from the Hab.”

  Valkerie looked back inside. The emergency lights must have gone out. The interior was completely black. “Kennedy, get out here. We’re in the airlock.”

  No answer—only hoarse breathing. The sound of metal on glass.

  “Kennedy!”

  Something brushed Valkerie’s leg. Lex was coming to. Valkerie felt along the plastic bag and pressed her face mask firmly against Lex’s forehead. “Lex, can you hear me?”

  “She can’t hear you. She doesn’t have a radio.” Bob’s voice crackled over comm.

  “Lex, nod your head if you can hear me.”

  Lex’s head rocked beneath Valkerie’s face mask.

  “The whole Hab’s been ripped apart. The rover’s gone. We had to put you in a rescue bubble.”

  A strange vibration rattled through the floor. A flash of light.

  Valkerie turned back toward the suit room. A dull orange glow reflected off the metal walls. Had the emergency lights come back on?

  “Kennedy!”

  A dark blob pounded through the suit room. Kennedy carrying a large box.

  “Get out!” Kennedy slammed into the airlock wall, tossed the box out the hatch, and vaulted through the opening.

  “Valkerie, get out of there! Get out of there!” Bob and Kennedy’s voices screamed in her ears.

  Valkerie froze.

&nb
sp; The light was getting brighter. Lex’s face, etched in bewildered terror, showed plainly through the plastic that encased her.

  “Move! Get out of there. Now!”

  Valkerie tried to pick Lex up, but a pair of gloved hands grabbed her and dragged her through the hatch. She saw herself reflected briefly in a curved mirror of flaming orange. The next thing she knew she was lying on her side in a dune of dust and grit. A clear plastic bag, dancing with orange highlights, was lowered to the ground next to her.

  “What happened?” Valkerie crawled onto her knees and was hoisted up by two sets of hands.

  “It got the tanks.” Kennedy’s voice. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Valkerie turned to face the bewildering light. The backside of the Hab was lit up like a Bunsen burner. “What happened?”

  One of the suited figures shoved an armload of oxygen bottles at her and knelt to pick up one end of Lex’s bag. The other picked up the other end.

  “Where can we go? What are we going to do?” Valkerie spun around, searching for some sign of the rover.

  “Shhh. Don’t talk unless you have to.” Kennedy’s voice had an air of command to it. “It might be able to home in on our radios.”

  Valkerie turned back around. Bob and Kennedy had already hauled Lex several paces. She hurried to catch up with them. “What’s going on? Where are you going?”

  “The MAV.” Bob’s voice was barely audible against Kennedy’s breathing.

  “We’ve got to get off this planet while we still can,” Kennedy muttered.

  “But ...” Valkerie’s mind raced. It didn’t make sense. They couldn’t just leave. They weren’t done regenerating their rocket fuel. They still had another two hundred kilos of water to go. They needed supplies. The bacteria. She didn’t even have a biosample. She looked back at the Hab. “Guys, the fire will die down soon. We’ve got to go back for a sample.”