“You want to have space sex!”
Her cheeks as red as strawberries, Yifei shook her head. “Don’t be stupid.”
Dash enjoyed the giggles, the silliness of just being friends for a moment. “Do I know him?”
Yifei launched herself down the hall again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m serious! There’s no one.” Yifei protested.
Dash let out a happy sigh. “Well, strike while the iron’s hot. We only get one more shot at weightlessness. After that, we’ll be on Mars. I’d do it, but...”
Yifei glanced at her friend. “Hey, as long as you don’t judge me for being horny, I won’t judge you for being devout.”
“It is a major sin,” Dash admitted as a smile spread across his lips, but something in the distance caught his eye.
“Look!”
They stopped and stared down the metallic corridor, lit by red lamps. Dark spheres floated out of an open hatch.
“What’s that?” Yifei wondered. “Someone spill some coffee or something?”
Dread slid up Dash’s spine, but he pulled the flashlight from a pocket and thumbed it on. “Come on. Let’s take a look.”
Three hundred lumens of white light cut through the dark crimson hallway and played over the floating globes.
“Oh God...” Yifei whispered. “That’s...”
“Blood.” Dash finished the sentence.
Judging from the number and size of globes, someone had lost a lot of blood. Whatever they found in the compartment, it wouldn’t be good. The pair floated to the open hatch and peered inside.
A man floated, nude, in the room, surrounded by more globes of blood and tiny white spheres. Dark red gashes on his wrists said everything about how he died, but an eerie mask of tranquility covered his face.
“What are the white balls?” Yifei asked.
“Tears,” Dash murmured.
“Poor man,” Yifei said.
Dash nodded. Another death, not the first in space but the first one humanity couldn’t afford.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s alert the captain.”
“All hands, secure for spin-up.” Bruce’s voice boomed over the intercom.
It was the afternoon of the sixth day after launch. Ahead of schedule, the astronaut team had secured the two ships and retrieved the various cargo pods from the LONGHAUL launches and secured them to the flight deck. Once completed, everyone endured another pounding ride as the tandem ships accelerated into their Mars insertion trajectories. The red planet was far out of place for an optimum rendezvous, but they had no choice.
Now that the Orion engines were secured, the two vessels could spin along the axis of their enormous chains, ending their time in zero-G.
Dash, Yifei, and Taber sat at a galley table, waiting for the return of gravity. Captain Onsurez and her two children sat with them, holding onto the table to stay in place. The boy looked to be ten or so, the girl eight.
“Excited?” Onsurez asked her children.
Her son, Jorge, threw a shy glance at Yifei, then nodded.
“I’m not.” Jessica, Onsurez’s daughter announced. “I like being able to fly!”
“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but this boy is ready for a hot shower,” Taber announced. “Wet wipes just aren’t enough.”
“God, yes!” Yifei’s head bobbed.
Dash thought of the ticket in his pocket. Day two. “So, you won the lottery?” He asked.
Onsurez had brightened the hearts of everyone aboard after announcing everyone could have a single shower once artificial gravity was established. They’d be Navy showers—just two minutes of hot water apiece—but after a week of cleaning with wash cloths, the entire crew buzzed in anticipation.
Taber winked. “And how! Day one, first group.” He chuckled.
Yifei all but pouted. “It’s not fair. I’m on day three.” She turned to Onsurez. “What about you captain?”
Onsurez sighed. “Last group—day four.”
“Damn. I thought the captain would at least get her own shower,” Taber said.
“Initiating spin.” The intercom crackled once again.
Everyone grinned and held on tighter.
“Normally, that’s true,” Onsurez explained, “but I had the head in my quarters removed and an extra bunk installed for Jorge here.” She ruffled his hair.
Jorge blushed and looked away.
“Will we have a hot meal tonight, captain?” Yifei asked.
“I’m sure the galley is raring to go,” Onsurez said. “I bet they’ll be in here two minutes after gravity grabs us all.”
Yifei glanced around, then leaned closer. “We’ll have rice, though, right? And vegetables?”
Enterprise and Kennedy spun around each other, faster and faster, until they reached the desired speed and centrifugal force.
“Whoa!” The artificial gravity pulled at Dash’s body—a comforting sensation. His arms dropped to his sides.
The intercom crackled one more time and Bruce’s voice announced, “All hands, we have reached our target spin speed. We’ll stay like this for the duration of the flight. You are clear to unbuckle and move about the ship. Oh, and the restrooms are officially open for business. Gentlemen, don’t forget that you must sit at all times. Any man caught relieving himself in an improper fashion will clean the heads by hand!”
Jessica and Jorge leaped up from their seats and dashed across the galley, burning up a week’s worth of pent-up energy.
Onsurez turned to the others. “How are you holding up?”
Yifei and Taber nodded. No one looked delighted—the world was about to end, after all.
“I’m doing all right,” Taber said. “Now that we can do proper exercise, I bet I’ll feel much better.”
Yifei nodded. “This has been incredible experience, but I can tell most people need to move, to burn some stress off.”
Onsurez turned to Dash. “And you?”
Dash considered his answer for a moment. “There’s so much we need to do still,” he said. “I’m still coming to terms with what we’re doing, but from what I’ve seen, most of us are grappling with guilt and grief.”
“Sure.” Onsurez nodded as she rubbed her chin. “Would it surprise you to learn that most of us didn’t learn the whole truth of this mission until a few weeks ago?”
“Really?” Dash shook his head. “But all the work, retrofitting the ships, planning the launches—how could people not know what they were doing?”
“Compartmentalization and misdirection.” Onsurez shrugged. “Of course, people would figure out what modifications we were making to Enterprise. Project ORION was public knowledge decades ago, but if we could hide the reason for the work, that might be enough to forestall public panic and prevent the collapse of civilization.”
“What’s the cover story right now?” Yifei asked. “I mean, fourteen ships, launching into space at the same time. All those rockets… What do people think is going on?”
“There are competing campaigns of misinformation. Half of the people believe there’s an alien vessel on approach to Earth. Our ships are going out to meet them and do battle if they prove hostile.” Onsurez said, using her hands to illustrate. “The other half don’t know what to think because none of it makes sense.”
“And they’re all looking in the wrong direction,” Dash added. “Erebus is approaching from high in the southern sky.”
“Precisely.” Onsurez glanced at her children when Jessica shrieked, but relaxed as the girl giggled as she evaded her brother’s grasping hand.
The captain’s flight suit buzzed, and she retrieved her phone and answered the call. “Yes?”
Enterprise had a large internal wireless network, to which everyone connected with their phones, laptops, and tablets. Few people had received calls, however.
The color drained from Onsurez’s face and her eyes fluttered shut as she sighed.
&nbs
p; “Captain?” Taber asked, concerned.
Dash’s stomach dropped as he realized the truth. “They know.”
The captain nodded once. “I’m on my way.” She stood up. “Taber, if you don’t mind, take my children back to my cabin and stay with them.”
“Of course,” Taber said, his voice soft.
“Is everything okay?” Yifei wanted to know.
Dash almost rolled his eyes. Anyone with the slightest intuition and understanding of body language and facial cues could see the captain’s fear.
“Yifei, return to the broadcast center. You’re going on the air soon. Dash, you’re with me.” Onsurez whirled around and left the galley at a fast walk.
“Aye aye, captain,” Dash replied, leaping to keep up.
In the CDC, the news was grim.
Reports of Erebus leaked to the internet, then to major media outlets. Within a few hours, enough people with telescopes and network connections confirmed the terrible truth. The bright dot in the sky that grew larger each night wasn’t a star.
On the screens, chaos played out across the planet. Families marched past an endless line of stalled cars on freeways. Tearful people crammed into Saint Peter’s Square, praying for deliverance. Cities burned.
The leaders of Russia, China, and the United States announced their plan to deflect Erebus with nuclear missiles, each leader flanked by somber generals and admirals.
Religious leaders appeared on almost every channel, appealing for prayer, calm, and restraint.
Too many scenes showed bloodied bodies, victims of panic or violence. Three dead girls, garbed in colorful clothes, prompted gasps of horror from everyone watching.
Dash studied the officers and crew in the control center. Tears streamed down some faces, others looked pale and ill. People spoke in somber tones as their eyes flitted to the various screens showing scenes from Earth. Yifei’s face appeared on one screen.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “This is a special report to the crew of Enterprise. News about Erebus has reached the general public on Earth. We’re going to share these feeds with you, but suggest parents secure their children’s’ devices and anyone easily upset not watch.”
Yifei waited for five seconds, then continued.
“The story appears to have broken in Chile, where an astronomer on the Very Large Telescope, in the Atacama Desert, transmitted images of the asteroid...”
Twenty-Nine
DASH SAT IN THE CROWDED NASA compartment, which not only had the usual complement of controllers and directors, but many other observers tonight.
Faris Murad and a priest Dash hadn’t yet met stood beside Commander Bruce, talking in hushed tones. Next to them, Captain Onsurez listened to McConnell and William Hong, who refused to make eye contact with Dash. McConnell and Hong spoke, making big gestures. A sharp-dressed man, wearing an actual suit, stood next to a woman, who had also eschewed the issued flight suit for a pantsuit. Dash didn’t recognize them but noted their distance from the others. Yifei, standing next to Dash, fidgeted with her video camera.
The operators at their desks spoke in calm, detached tones, but that added to the somber dread that filled the air.
Erebus was about to strike the Earth.
Onsurez had ordered Dash and Yifei to cover the event, recording it for posterity. When he’d gotten the assignment, Dash flashed back to a teenaged memory of the photo taken of Barack Obama in a briefing room, surrounded by laptops and officials, as they watched the assault on the bin Laden compound in Pakistan.
The setting tonight looked almost the same.
In the bin Laden photo, everyone looked tense, but also eager. Bin Laden’s death represented a major moment in the War on Terror. The faces crowded into that photo reflected that.
Everyone assembled tonight looked as if they awaited their own executions—only it would be worse.
“Erebus acquired,” one controller announced.
The largest monitor on the wall flashed and changed to show a slice of the Earth across the top of the screen. Below, a pea-sized dot raced toward the planet.
“Yifei, start recording,” Dash whispered as he stood up and activated his own imager in the AR goggles.
She nodded and pressed a button to activate the viewfinder, then panned around the room.
There were no monitors or receivers tuned to Earth frequencies in the NASA compartment. The communications room, on the other hand, recorded terrestrial transmissions since Enterprise reached orbit. Most of the early messages sounded curious, puzzled by the massive launches of ships. A few panicked inquiries came, demanding to know about the alien invasion or first contact.
That changed when the news about Erebus broke to the world.
Most of the transmissions turned ugly. Those left behind cursed them for cowards, weeping in anguish and despair. Several African states demanded that at least one ship return to carry some of their people off. The Iranians howled at the fact that the United States had sold an aircraft carrier ark to the Saudis, but not to them. The Canadian government seemed shocked that no one offered to save part of their citizenry. The US government tried to calm people by pointing out that they had stayed behind, too.
Ugly quickly grew worse.
The communications staff no longer listened to the recordings to protect their mental health. Several specialists had to be given anti-depressants, but they couldn’t do anything else for them. There could be no vacations from Enterprise, nor were there places to hide from the truth.
“Two minutes to planetary interface,” the controller said.
Interface sounded so clinical to Dash. Almost harmless. Interfacing meant to come together, which usually meant communication or some sort of embrace, not an extinction-level event.
“Play our message,” Onsurez ordered.
Bruce spoke into his microphone, then nodded. “Transmitting, Captain.”
Dash glanced around, then realized they weren’t going to hear the message. He cleared his throat and said, “Captain, is there anything you’d like to say to us? For the crew, that is.”
Onsurez took a breath and turned to face Yifei, who nodded as she peered into the camera.
“I’m Captain Teresa Onsurez, commanding Enterprise on her journey to Mars. Tonight, July seventeenth, marks the end of...” She faltered but regained her composure. “The end of everything. In a few moments, a rogue planetoid will strike the Earth and kill everyone we know and love. Earth is not expected to remain habitable after impact, which is why we had to leave so quickly.
“We aboard Enterprise, and the other ships, have been granted a desperate chance. We’re not just trying to save our lives, we’re trying to save our species. If we succeed, it will only be because we worked together and struggled as one people.”
Onsurez’s eyes watered.
“I am sorry that we couldn’t take more people. I will always grieve for those we’ve left behind. We ask that they forgive us and watch over us as we make our way to Mars.”
“Thirty seconds to planetary interface,” the controller said, oblivious to Onsurez’s speech.
“Got it, captain,” Yifei said in a gentle voice. “That was really pretty.”
Onsurez turned back to the monitor without acknowledging her.
Erebus shot upwards on the screen. Dash saw other screens showed different angles, different views of the event, some even closer, and realized he was watching feeds from different telescopes and satellite cameras.
Erebus flickered for a moment as it touched the farthest reaches of the atmosphere, then erupted into a fireball. It flashed the screen for just a moment before impact, which looked every bit as apocalyptic as it was. A massive, roiling fireball erupted over eastern Australia. On the night side of the screen, Indonesia and southeast Asia went black. Clouds and water rushed away from the impact point at hundreds of kilometers an hour.
No movie visual could ever do it justice. It would be blasphemous to try.
“Impact,” the control
ler said in the same monotone.
Bruce leaned over and pulled away the controller’s earphone, hissing “Shut up.”
The fireball covered Australia, Papua New Guinea, and stretched out towards New Zealand.
Tears streamed down Dash’s eyes as he imagined the horrors taking place on Earth. No matter where someone stood, an impact of that size would affect everyone on the planet. Those nearest the impact site would be obliterated by a force far more powerful than a nuclear blast. Those further away, in the Philippines, for example, the impact would have collapsed buildings and knocked everyone off their feet.
In the northern hemisphere, it wouldn’t be any better. Earthquakes would rattle all the landmasses, triggering faults around the Ring of Fire, adding more energy to the chaos. Power would be lost right away. In a matter of hours, the windblast would circle the planet, trailed closely by a tsunami a kilometer high. In a few more days, dust would engulf the globe and plunge it in to darkness.
Dash sniffled and turned his goggles to record the reactions of the others. Onsurez and Bruce both stood with their arms crossed, but they were crying, too. Murad prayed through his tears.
Onsurez stepped to the side and grabbed the handset on the wall. She punched in a code and held the device up.
“Attention all hands, this is the captain speaking.” Her voice didn’t waver. “Whatever you are doing, please stop and listen. Erebus has struck the Earth. It is, as we feared, a catastrophic event unlike the planet has ever seen. There can be no survivors and no return for us.”
Onsurez wiped her nose and took a deep breath.
“We must mark this moment and never forget it. We who make this journey are the fortunate few who must carry the burden of humanity’s survival. The people on Earth gave us a lot of help to get us this far and to keep us going on Mars.
“Whoever you were before, it doesn’t matter now. You each have vital strengths and gifts that we will need in the months and years to come. Each of us is irreplaceable, not expendable. Tonight, though, we’ll need to hold on to each other. Reach out to your shipmates and take strength from our unity.”
Onsurez took a deep breath and let it out. “We have a long way to go, but we can make it if we work together. Let us take time to mourn our loved ones and our home. All non-essential personnel are hereby excused from duty for the rest of the watch. Return to your quarters. The chaplains will be roving throughout the ship tonight. They’re here to help. So will other caregivers. Look for the red flight suits. That is all.”
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