Jack gave the thumbs up to the astronaut and then quickly announced to the passengers that a rescue ship had arrived just in the nick of time. Raj smiled broadly at Jack as they listened to the raucous cheering and rapturous applause coming from the passenger cabin. The relief on board was palpable, although Raj thought that he could still detect a glimpse of sadness in the back of Jack’s eyes. Out in the passenger cabin Jill hugged Ewan and swore that she loved him to bits.
“Oh, Ewan, ah love you - ah love you - ah love you!”
Ewan joked that the feeling in his foot must be getting better as Jill seemed to be standing on it. Jill joked back that it must be something else because how could Ewan feel her weight on his foot in zero gravity. They both laughed and cried at the same time with utter relief. Jack floated past them on the way to the main air lock and he gave them both a thumbs up which they gladly reciprocated. Ten minutes later Jack returned through the passenger cabin with the spacewalking astronaut, who turned out to be the Oh Two’s co-pilot Verne Andriessen. Verne and Jack were mobbed by cheering passengers floating around them, welcoming them like returning heroes. Jack had to firmly remind everyone that the oxygen supply was critically low and that at present everyone needed to conserve their energies. Jack and Verne joined Rajeev in the cockpit and after much back slapping they sat down to listen to Verne’s account of the tale of Xi Xhu Pan ignoring orders from Mars Control to give up the search. Then Verne related that they had received Jack’s SOS just as they were about to be forced back to Mars. Jack nodded sagely.
“Ma ole pal Xi Xhu. Ah trained him well.”
Jack detailed that it was critical that they started transferring the passengers as soon as possible to the empty Oh Two as there was now only two per cent oxygen left on the Oh LII. Verne outlined that the two ships were cruising parallel to each other at five thousand miles an hour on the same course for Mars, sitting four hundred metres apart. Xi Xhu was arranging a space tender on the Oh Two to shuttle between the two ships and it could carry twenty five passengers on each trip. The whole transfer would take a good few hours to complete, which should leave more than enough oxygen on the Oh LII in order to complete the rescue mission. Verne would stay on board the Oh LII to co-ordinate the transfer. Once they had finished discussing the plan in detail Jack announced to the passengers to get fully suited up for their imminent transfer to Xi Xhu’s ship. Initially, the able-bodied women would be transferred in batches of twenty five, then the men would follow and finally the injured, the medical staff and crew members would be last to transfer. Rajeev was assigned to select the groups for transfer. Jack would continue to maintain the ship on a parallel course with the Oh Two and Verne would organise the transfers through the air lock on to the space tender. Jack looked purposefully at Raj and Verne.
“Okay, let’s get the job done.”
About half an hour later Jill was selected to go in the first group of women on the space tender which had docked safely and was connected to the main air lock. She protested to Rajeev that she wanted to transfer with Ewan who would be in the last group of injured passengers. However, Ewan with his quiet Highland manner insisted that his new wife and baby must go on without him and Jill tearfully relented. Jack also assured her that Ewan would soon be joining her. Reluctantly Jill disappeared through the air lock and stepped onto the small cramped space tender. Once Raj and Verne had initiated the transfer process the space tender was able to do a round trip in about fifteen minutes. In about three and a half hours most of the passengers had been safely transferred. Verne had switched back to steer the Oh Two and Xi Xhu had come over to oversee the last transfer from Jack’s ship. When Xi Xhu had stepped on board he and Jack hugged each other like long lost brothers. Jack could not thank him enough for saving his ship and especially his passengers.
“You would’ve done the same for me, Jack Crossan!”
The final transfer would consist of about ten of the most seriously injured passengers, including Ewan. Followed by Dr Maqbara, three nurses, four of the remaining cabin crew, Rajeev, Xi Xhu and lastly Jack. As Ewan was passed carefully through to the space tender Jack offered him a handshake.
“You look after Jill for me, Ewan. You’ve a great wife there.”
Ewan looked at Jack quizzically as he entered the air lock.
“Hey – Jack – you can – help me – look after – Jill too. See you – in few minutes?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure Ewan.”
When Ewan was placed safely into his seat in the space tender a strange thought occurred to him. Ewan slowly thought back to the night of the friends’ End of Days last supper at Lex Kosloff’s house in Robindale Drive in Houston. A dawning thought struck him about something that Jack had said. Jack had said he would rather stay on 3R with his two boys. An involuntary tear ran down Ewan’s cheek. As the last of the injured patients were being transferred on board the space tender Dr Maqbara quietly pulled Jack aside. One of the injured patients had taken a turn for the worse with certain fatally rupturing internal injuries. Maqbara told Jack that the man was unlikely to survive more than an hour or so and certainly not the four week trip to Mars. The dying man had asked to speak to Jack. Jack went over to the field hospital area where the young man, obviously in agonising pain, still lay strapped on a bed.
“Hey there young fella – an’ what’s your name?”
“Jorge Mendoza, Commander –“
“Jorge, just call me Jack. So ya wanted to speak to me, Jorge?”
Jorge squirmed and grimaced in pain and a trickle of blood came out the side of his mouth, which Dr Maqbara wiped clean.
“Y-yeah, Jack. You see - I’m not going to – to make it – to Mars –“
“Whoa there Jorge, don’t talk like that. Sure ya are – issat right doc?”
Maqbara surreptitiously shook his head almost imperceptibly from side to side to indicate that it was in the negative. Jorge carried on speaking through the pain barrier.
“No need - to kid me, Jack – I know – I’m – dying. I – want to – stay here – and – you just – send me – home – Havana –“
Maqbara shrugged his shoulders at Jack. Xi Xhu was floating across towards the air lock gesticulating his hand in a circular motion to indicate that it was time to hurry things up. Jack indicated silently for the doctor to go on ahead. After Maqbara reluctantly moved off towards Xi Xhu and the air lock, Jack turned his attention back to Jorge. Jorge was fading fast.
“Jack – promise – me – send – home –“
“Ah promise you, Jorge, you’ll see the sun rise on Havana again.”
Jorge smiled weakly and lapsed into unconsciousness. Jack stood for a moment with a great lump in his throat. A great wave of fear and anxiety swept over him. He turned and floated slowly over to Xi Xhu who was furiously beckoning Jack to get a move on.
“C’mon, Jack, let’s go. We can’t waste any more time.”
“Poor guy over there – he ain’t got long to go, Xi.”
“Yeah, the doc told me. You going to leave him here on the Ell-Eye-Eye?”
Jack stood silent for a moment, head slightly bowed in thought.
“Jack?”
“Ah’m not goin’ with you Xi. Ah’m takin’ Jorge back –“
“Back? Back where, Jack? There is no back!”
“Back to Earth, Xi, that’s where. Ah’ve just realised that Jorge an’ me, we want the same thing in a way. He wants to go back to Havana an’ ah want to go back to ma boys an’ – an’ ma Peggy Sue.”
“Jack, you’re talking crazy talk. There is no Earth. You don’t even have enough oxygen or fuel to get you there and back safely to Mars.”
“Ah know that Xi. But me an’ poor Jorge over there – we are just gonna point ourselves at that gas cloud back there an’ we’ll just take what we find. That’s the way it’s gotta be, Xi.”
“But – Jack -?”
“Time for you to get your butt off ma ship, ole buddy. You’ve got the future of mankind to think of. You need to get your passengers back to Mars or you’ve wasted your time comin’ out to save them. So go on – get the hell outta here!”
The two old friends just stared into each other’s moistening eyes and then they hugged each other tightly for the last time. Jack unzipped his breast pocket and took something out. Jack handed Xi Xhu the Medal of Honor which had been awarded to Commander Bethan Jones saying that he had promised her father it would make it to Mars. Xi Xhu Pan took the medal and then he passed on through the air lock, which Jack engaged in the locked position. A moment later he felt his Oh LII rock slightly as the little space tender pushed gently away towards the Oh Two for the last time. He walked back over to Jorge on the hospital bed. Poor Jorge was dead. Jack wept silently over the young dead Cuban. He wept for the eight billion humans wiped out in an instant by what in cosmic terms was an insignificant mass of rock and ice - Schenkler HMM2. He pulled himself together and went back into the cockpit and strapped himself into his pilot’s seat. He squinted a look out of the porthole. Jack watched the Oh Two slowly boost up its fusion drive and begin to pull away rapidly from his own battered ship. He could tell from his long experience as an astronaut the point at which Xi Xhu had deemed to be safely away from the Oh LII. Jack could see the fusion drive power up to the maximum. The Oh Two zoomed away from him towards Mars at a speed in excess of around twelve thousand miles per hour. He saluted and wished them bon voyage. Jack stared at the glow of the engines for quite some time until the Oh Two disappeared into the black void of space.
Epilogue
Jack had lost track of time, although he was aware that a few days had certainly passed by. After the Oh Two had disappeared out of sight he had managed to use the retro rockets and turn the Oh LII on a bearing for what was once his beloved Planet Earth. There was just about enough rocket fuel left in the tanks to boost up to a fraction under four thousand miles per hour. He burned the remaining rocket fuel within a few hours and for days the ship had just been freefalling through space on a trajectory towards the Earth gas cloud, but Jack was more hopeful than expectant that the ship would remain on the correct course. Anyway, he thought, he would not be around to see it. The oxygen indicator was now sitting virtually on the empty mark and he knew that it would not be long before he and Jorge would be making the same final journey. His breathing was getting shallower and he was gulping hard to find good breathable air. His thoughts were becoming wilder and more frantic as he was being slowly starved of the life giving oxygen.
“Well, Mother Earth, ah wonder what you look like now? Just a swirling mass of gas an’ molten debris. Yeah, but to Jorge an’ me you’re still home.”
Jack was never actually going to see the gas cloud. There were no telescopes or satellites left to transmit any images from the destroyed E2MSN within what had been the blast zone perimeter. However, he began to imagine wild shapes in his mind as if he was looking through a set of psychologist’s Rorshach inkblot test cards. His imaginings kept drawing him back to an old familiar shape and which he kept trying to shake out of his befuddled brain. Try as he might the shape became more and more vivid and fixed until he felt that he had become reconciled to this shape. In his mind’s eye he was certain that this was indeed the shape of the gas cloud.
“Mighta known, Earth, that you would be the man with the gun.”
All of a sudden Jack felt a calmness within himself. He no longer feared the old vision from his childhood. In fact, he embraced it almost joyfully. Jack laughed a little too high-pitched, a little bit too crazily. He knew it was not long now. He could see Milner and Jack Junior running towards him through his lush ripening wheat field back on the Crossan ranch in Lexington, Virginia. The boys were waving and laughing and beckoning for Jack to join them. Peggy Sue was running towards him too. She was young again, like when they first met, so beautiful and so full of love for him. Peggy Sue was calling to Jack and he strained hard to hear her last lovely words. He stretched out his arms to embrace the one true love of his life. Peggy Sue called out.
“We’ll meet again in the sweet bye and bye!”
The Oh LII glided silently towards the newly formed gas cloud within the inner solar system and beyond the cloud shone the beautiful bright shining Sun.
2084 The End of Days Page 36
