The C5 cellar, which according to the cargo manifests was filled with spare parts for graphene screens, was consuming 3,000 percent more than its nominal allocated power. The experiment was there and judging by the electric power consumption, it was active.
He left the bridge cautiously and walked with his magnetic boots to the central staircase. Now that he was alert, he could see the gravity was increasing slightly as he approached the cargo areas. It was a rather strange sensation.
He decided to enter through one of the ceiling trapdoors so as to not be an easy target for anyone waiting for his arrival; and at the same time gravity indicated that the right place was in that direction.
He opened the trapdoor only a few centimetres, and instead of a cargo hold full of containers, it looked like a research facility. Heavy cables converged in clusters towards individual devices, capacitors perhaps arranged in a circular way over the floor of the cargo hold. He heard a hum, but didn't see anyone around. He opened the trapdoor entirely and hung gracefully, softly travelling the four meters between the ceiling and the ground. He expected a chaotic gravity, but once on the ground he found himself inside an artificial gravity bubble of a normal intensity, as in any part of the station. He stood up and took his gun. Approaching the experiment just a little to try to see where the controls were.
A nervous voice called out behind him:
“Don't move! I'm aiming my gun at you. Turn around slowly and raise your hands.”
Puntshó ignored him and turned slowly without raising his hands, hiding the weapon behind his body.
“Raise your hands!”
A man dressed in a white robe and with scruffy hair was pointing a gun very similar to his. He didn't have much time to do anything. He tried to sound sure as he said:
“You won't shoot, doctor. You won't risk damaging your experiment.”
“You're a fool, chief. It's already working and the magnetic fields it generates will divert any shot it receives. But you would be greatly damaged. You've hurt us a lot, Chief Blade.”
“Who are you? I don't know you.”
“You can call me Dr. Sanders... Now raise your hands or I'll kill you right here.”
Puntshó made a small gesture of raising one empty hand, showing it to his adversary, and instantly fired the weapon he was hiding behind him, falling to the ground as he did. The energy pulse struck the side wall with a roar and without warning, as a frightened Dr. Sanders shot toward where Puntshó had been standing a second before.
Like a cat, Puntshó got to his feet and ran behind the only containers in the room, as the doctor's energy pulses hit the walls of the room without much precision. He thought the entire room would be protected with magnetic fields and high-energy particles, or it would've made a hole in the hull. Although none of these protections were effective after several shots. He tried looking over a container to where his attacker was, but didn't have the time. The container received one discharge after another and Puntshó was thrown against the wall and fell on the ground. His weapon had fallen a few inches away, but Puntshó didn't move.
The shots ceased and the doctor approached him to check if Puntshó was unconscious or dead. With great caution he approached Puntshó's defenceless body, and calmed down when he saw he didn't move.
When he was about fifty centimetres away he touched his chest with his foot to make sure. Puntshó reacted immediately, twisting the doctor's foot and forcing him to the ground. Puntshó picked up his weapon, aimed it at Sanders, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon was off and it'd take a couple of seconds to restart. He hadn't thought about it and threw himself on Dr. Sanders like a beast fighting for his life. Puntshó had combat training, but Dr. Sanders still had his weapon and showed no fear. He tried aiming it at Puntshó but he had enough time to hold the doctor's wrist while he, desperately, pressed the trigger filling the room with rumbles and testing the containment fields.
They fought fiercely and Puntshó recognized that the man was defending himself with brutal determination, which somehow made up for his lack of dexterity.
The shots inside the cargo hold were repelled by the powerful magnetic fields that guarded the hull inside and outside. A security measure in case an energy weapon was accidentally fired inside the compartment. Only this time, the amount of discharges and the lack of attention to such an emergency, was overloading the field generators and two of them started working intermittently.
Puntshó maintained one hand tightly holding his opponent's while the other was being held by his adversary, as both twisted and shouted trying to get rid of the other to end that vital struggle once and for all.
They didn't notice when the doctor's weapon's light beams shot at the walls and the equipment, blowing screens and doors through the air. Puntshó's weapon, which was in his hand, still hadn't restarted, though it was useless in that close combat, unless he could rid himself of the doctor's desperate grasp to use it as a club. It was a life or death fight and adrenaline played an important role. The lights began to flicker alarmingly, but neither of them would stop trying to end each other's lives. They fought on the ground and Puntshó thought he'd underestimated Sanders as he wasn't an easy rival to beat.
The computer's voice sounded persistent and urgent. “Imminent hull breach. Explosive decompression in process. Leave the ship”
Puntshó saw the increasingly brighter reflection coming from one end of the room. The experiment had turned on without him being able to reach it in time to avoid it, and now, amidst the fight, he had a second to wonder why this man had fought so hard to activate that machine. He was distracted for a moment when he understood that the ship was vibrating sensibly and a realization crossed his mind in a millisecond: “This damn ship is about to explode!”
His opponent, even in his lab coat, took advantage of this little distraction to slip one of his legs between them and lift Puntshó enough to release him from the artificial gravity pull to the ship's floor, so he flew up smoothly and crashed against the roof, bouncing like a balloon. Dr. Sanders took advantage of his freedom, and as the ship began to shake uncontrollably, aimed directly at Puntshó's chest and fired. But the hand that fired was momentarily deflected by a brutal shake, and the brilliant sheen of energy only brushed one of Puntshó's flight suit sleeves. That shot's total energy discharge reached one of the ceiling panels that was less protected by the magnetic field. An almost two meters hull section was released and flew away due to the brutal decompression, which dragged Puntshó out of the ship into the empty space. Everything happened in slow motion.
Puntshó could see Dr. Sanders's surprised face through the hole in the ship's hull as he flew away. For a single second he was exposed to the space vacuum and thought he'd die; but his suit closed in emergency protocol and the leakage in his right sleeve was sealed by an automatic foam patch by the suit itself. For a brief moment as the suit sealed up and re-pressurized, Puntshó lost consciousness. It was only for a brief moment until all of the suit's pressures stabilized, providing breathable air into his lungs; and he regained consciousness.
He was spinning slowly. He first saw the rings and then the gaseous giant and then he remembered what had happened a moment before. The gyroscope integrated in his suit, helped him stop spinning and placed him with his back to the planet, facing the Dead Parrot which moved away quickly (or it was he who was floating away). It looked like the space craft's hull was swelling up slowly in several sections.
From the cargo hold floor, aboard the batted Dead Parrot, Dr. Sanders watched with mixed feelings as Punsthó floated away, and didn't move due to the fear of also being dragged by the ongoing decompression. There was a huge hole in the hull and the inner atmosphere was leaking out violently. The remaining field generators held out for only a few more seconds and the doctor, surprised, felt the ship shake. The next thing happened so fast that he didn't have time to be afraid. The ship's hull, which separated him from the interplanetary void, opened explosively in front of him and he was dra
gged out of the ship without the protection of a flight suit. He immediately felt the lack of air and pressure on his body. The last thing he saw was the gaseous giant and its beautiful rings, spinning slowly in the complete stillness of space. He died a second later almost painlessly and with a smile-like expression on his face.
Puntshó was flying with his back to Saturn, but falling towards the planet and moving away from the ship. He was too far to worry about being caught by the giant's gravity and falling into its stormy clouds, but he knew that he was moving away from the only surviving structure he could see and that he'd die from a lack of air within hours.
From the distance, the old ship looked like a soda can someone had blown up with a firecracker. He watched as the spacecraft swung swiftly on its axis in the midst of a field of rubble; an action-reaction effect of the decompression inside its hull.
The suit that Puntshó was wearing was basically an emergency measure and would keep him alive only for a few hours. It wasn't designed for manoeuvring in space, and its emergency transmitter had lost its usefulness with the distance. A distance that now increased with every second. He was still holding his pulse weapon in his right hand, which was now loaded and ready to fire.
“About time!” he said angrily and loudly.
Epiphany
Among the rubble that had been expelled from the ship, Puntshó recognized the distant glow of Dr. Sanders' experiment, still in operation; which looked like a little twinkling and luminous star.
At one point, as he watched the bright point, it exploded, creating a growing bubble of pure and very white energy, though slightly transparent; which enveloped the rubble and the ship itself. Puntshó was far from the bubble's edge, but caught a glimpse of something inside it which bewildered him. A planetary landscape. A frozen moon that revolved around a somewhat larger planet, lit by a distant sun. And on the surface he was now seeing, he noticed a building, a small black yet bright pyramid with a strange carved symbol.
One sentence sounded clearly in his communicator: "Iktis Ayen Raploj". Or maybe it was inside his head...
Puntshó watched attentively from a distance and was able to clearly see a small capsule emerging from the bubble, leaving a whitish trail and moving away from the beautiful scenery. The capsule accelerated and he lost it within moments as it travelled in the opposite direction to Puntshó.
A few seconds of tense calmness passed, which froze Puntshó's blood. And suddenly the bubble imploded into itself, disappearing into a silent and blinding flash.
Where there had once been ship rubble, there was now nothing but empty space. Puntshó saw a very faint light wave moving away from the point where the bubble had disappeared and almost couldn't prepare for the shock wave that struck him seconds later.
He floated, turning over in the empty space, until his suit's gyroscope stabilized his movements.
He was lost, alone and away from his ship, without a decent communicator with which he could contact the station and without hope that a rescue team would find him in time.
He cursed the 'Moiras', those mythical spinners of destiny, always playing with their detestable scissors.
But he understood that there was no point in complaining. He was still alive, for the moment, and maybe a rescue team would find him. He wouldn't fight the inevitable, his fighting time was over. He had dedicated his life into carving a future to escape his present. Now he only had that moment. A short time that would soon end.
At least his last image would be of an unspeakable beauty: Saturn, a prince among the planets with its immense bright rings, turned slowly occupying the entire view his helmet would allow. He remained silent, listening to the rhythmic sound of his breathing and contemplating the beautiful show without guilt, without remorse, with an empty and expectant mind. The dance of colours, in a gentle silent movement, awoke in him something similar to joy. An intense thrill ran up his spine with a slight tingling and he remembered a phrase from poet John Keats.
At that moment and as if from a dream, a small moon rose as if it had emerged from the ring and slowly entered his field of vision. Punsthó laughed surprised and his eyes teared up. Hyperion looked beautiful and cold.
The little fluffy moon stood before him, spinning slowly. Ochre coloured and tinted with blue, it occupied his entire horizon.
As Hades's boatman, who approached the shore to take the traveller on his last voyage, the tiny moon pulled him slowly with its weak gravitational field, which Puntshó was able to feel in spite of the distance.
“One last gift before I die. A frozen sea where my bones can rest forever”, he thought grimly. And in a tremulous voice he repeated the words that young poet had written so many years before to be carved in his epitaph:
'Here lies one whose name was writ in water'.
And there, before the silent and terrible enormity of the beautiful planet and its moons, he knew he would die.
San Francisco
The European military ship "San Francisco", which had transported everyone who hadn't departed from an American spaceport; arrived at the Saturn orbital station in time to witness the A5 node explosion. They had received emergency braking orders and were keeping a safe distance of five thousand kilometres. The sixty-three passengers of the ship included some of the scientists who'd be working in the station's new laboratories and observation posts, and twelve members of the security troop sent by the World Congress, with Farman at the helm.
Everyone swarmed around the monitors that were scattered in the ship to see what the telescopes showed about what was happening at that time in the station.
They watched as the ships “anchored” in the spaceport, as well as the other ships already attached to the station as part of the structure, were released following emergency protocol. The way in which the ships moved away was synchronized, beautiful and hypnotic. For a few minutes they only saw how the central structure was left standing alone in space while its companions moved away. There was tension in front of every monitor in the San Francisco, until suddenly, a section with a size of about a fifth of the station lit up like a small sun right before them, only for an instant and then they witnessed the effects of that section's explosive decompression. A murmur invaded the ship and everyone waited for communication from the bridge, which arrived a minute later as the monitors showed a dark cigar-shaped ship light up the explosion area with powerful reflectors.
“This is Captain Timms speaking, I must inform you that there's been an explosion at node A5 of the station's central structure, we have lost the ability to communicate with the command bridge and are awaiting news from the closest ships. It looks like the emergency has passed and only that section of the station was affected. We'll soon communicate any news we have about our comrades aboard the superstructure and the next steps to take. I beg you to remain calm and proceed to the common areas to let the crew in charge work. Thank you very much.”
Farman, who had worked with Captain Timms when he was only second lieutenant and pilot of the old exo-atmospheric fighters, was on the bridge as a guest of the captain himself. He was trying to figure out the exact situation of what was happening, and as soon as the captain finished talking on the intercom, he resumed the conversation they had interrupted when they saw the explosion.
"I need to get in touch with the station right now, Captain. Chief Blade informed me of a possible attempted bombing at the station and I need to contact him urgently. After what we saw, I think he needs immediate help.”
“I understand, Deputy Chief. But as you've seen there's no way of establishing communication.”
“There are other ships much closer than ours. Could we use their transmitters as repeaters?”
“You'd need to find one that can connect with the station's internal emergency communication system. Give me a few minutes to try to send a general message. We'll see what we can find in the middle of this chaos.”
Farman thanked him and went to the farthest corner of the “San Francisco” bridge,
and there he waited with his arms crossed and eyes closed, sitting on an auxiliary chair that could be folded into the wall.
He wasn't aware of all the mess surrounding him, but he calculated that at least an hour passed. His Palmtop then flashed in his suit's top pocket and began vibrating. Farman took it out and looked at the strange icon that flickered on the screen, along with a reading of a detected energy peak.
“Oh! Do not! Shit! The singularity…”" He said in a low but very annoyed voice.
Then he heard the captain call him.
“Farman! Please come in, I think we can communicate with the station bridge now.”
“Very well, captain. Thank you.”
“I'll connect the transmission to the communication station's terminal.”
Farman nodded and stood by the seat of the lieutenant in charge of communications, waiting for the screen to show the beginning of the communication. The other ship's shield appeared, the "Asunción", which would be used to repeat the transmission.
Then Farman pressed the icon on the screen and spoke nervously
“This is deputy chief Daves Farman, aboard the military ship "San Francisco". Orbital Station Bridge, do you copy? Over.”
“Hello, Mr Farman. This is chief engineer Pachacuti. I apologize but I don't have much time right now; what can I do for you?”
“How is the station? Can we help?”
“It won't be necessary. Surely Chief Blade informed you about his suspicions of a possible terrorist attack on the station and I'm sorry to say he was right. The explosion has completely destroyed our communications section, but thanks to the Chief's efforts, we have minimized the damage and the rest of the station and almost the entire crew are safe.”
Farman immediately caught the “almost” in the chief engineer's statement.
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