“Hold on, Mara,” Johan told her. “You aren’t going anywhere. Larue and Morrison are sick. We need your immune-boosters. I’m keeping Hanson here with us until you bring them to us,” he said.
“What do you mean Larue and Morrison are sick?” she asked. She glanced around at the miners in the crawlers. “None of you is wearing your masks! Are you insane? You’re bringing up those materials and you aren’t even protecting yourselves?”
Johan laughed. “Never thought I’d meet a girl that was allergic to diamonds,” he said. The men behind him began to laugh with him.
“Johan, there are foreign microbes all over those diamonds. They are incredibly dangerous. I was extremely lucky to survive exposure. You need to…”
“Bring us the immune-boosters and I’ll consider letting Hanson go back with you when you get here. And don’t think I’m forgetting how much those mining heads are going to cost you,” he demanded.
“Johan, you need to leave now!” she pleaded. “We don’t have time to explain! I can give you the immune-boosters when you get to the Zephyr. Get your team back here!”
“I’m not leaving here with half-filled crawlers and sick men who can’t work. We’re sending more arms down. When you get here with the boosters, you and Hanson can go,” he said.
“I’m not going out there,” Mara said. “If you want the boosters, you’ll have to come get them yourself.”
Johan stared intently into the monitor, grinding his jaw. He was losing another stand-off to Mara, like he had at the rail-guns. He backed away from the screen and began picking something up from behind him. Then Mara watched as he did something unthinkable. He turned to Hanson and motioned for two of his men to grab and hold him. Hanson struggled as they held his arms to his side. He tried to fight, but he wasn’t going to be able to get free.
“Hanson!” Mara screamed. “Let him go!”
There was no response from Johan. He approached Hanson and opened his visor. “This will get you out here with the immune-boosters,” he said. He held up several large pieces of diamond to the camera, then he tossed them into Hanson’s helmet and closed it, trapping them in his suit.
“Shit,” Mara said, watching in disgust. “Son of a bitch,” she said to herself. She was straining to watch through the monitor. She pounded her hand down upon the console and looked over at Reese, who was already guiding the sub back to the drill chamber. She flipped the communications off with a smack of her hand.
“I’m going to get him,” Mara told her. She moved quickly from the console and went straight to the medical room.
Reese was concentrating on the controls but turned quickly. “You do not have time,” she said. “Look at those signals,” she reminded her. “Those miners are… they’re dead already.” She shook her head, finding it impossible to believe that Mara could go out to the fissure and make it back in time.
Mara ignored her. She pulled open one of the cabinets in the med-bay and gathered handfuls of the immune-boosters, leaving only a few, and she stuffed them in the pockets of her bio-suit. She flipped her visor shut while Reese helped her out of the airlock. She knew by even going to the fissure she was playing into Johan’s game.
“Mara, before you go, I want to make sure you see what the monitor is showing,” Reese motioned. “We discussed this… Don’t over-extend yourself.”
Mara took a good look at the monitors on the wall. It was the loudest, brightest, most intense warning sign yet.
“You don’t have much time,” Reese told her. “Get back quick.”
Mara nodded. “Reese… No matter what happens, make sure the enzyme gets off the moon. It’s the whole mission…”
They locked eyes for a few seconds, and Reese nodded to let her know she had heard her. Then her expression changed. “You’re coming back, right?” she asked.
Mara slipped silently out the door, intentionally not answering the question.
“Mara!” she yelled, but it was too late.
Mara closed the airlock doors and jumped onto one of the rovers, fortunate that she had the chance to ride one of them previously.
She began talking herself through the rover controls again. “Stick, accelerator…” she mumbled to herself as she was reacquainted with the vehicle. She turned the lights toward the horizon and forced the rover to maximum speed, spinning the wheels on the icy surface. She had no idea how much time she had, only that leaving without trying to save Hanson wasn’t an option for her.
Then a voice came over her comm-link in her suit. “Mara, this is Stenner. We’re expecting an imminent geological event. You understand that max tides are only a few hours away?”
“Yes, Stenner, I know, but I can’t just leave them out there!” she said.
“Mara, we’re preparing the return capsule for launch. Julian and Dr. Aman are filling the tanks right now. We will launch when ready. You realize that, don’t you? You were warned about this!”
“Yes, Luis was very clear, but I’m not leaving without Hanson.”
“Mara, turn around. You don’t have time to get there and back! You need to leave them!”
“I’m going to bring them the immune-boosters and bring Hanson back, and you are not ordering a launch of the capsule until I am done.”
“Mara, this is an order! The return capsule is only designed for the four of you. There isn’t room for Hanson. Think about what you are doing!”
Mara didn’t answer him. She reached down and hit the accelerator. She didn’t want to hear about the dangers involved or her chances of surviving. She had made up her mind. She was done letting things happen to her. Her fate would be in her own hands this time, and there was no going back.
Sol 17; Mission time — 01:31
There was no time for sleeping. Julian and Dr. Aman were just outside the Hab collecting ice. They could barely keep up with the melting process, and they would have to continue with it through the night. Julian was breaking the ice down into smaller pieces from the larger ones to feed into the pipe as fast as he could, but they were running out.
“I told you this would take too long,” Dr. Aman complained. “And we still need to run it through electrolysis. If we leave now, we can still get far enough away.” He walked to the nearby Hab and he sat down next to the exterior wall, leaning back against it.
“That’s not an option,” Julian said as he shoved the last of the ice into the pipes.
“But we need more ice,” Dr. Aman complained. “How are we going to get more?”
“Look around,” Julian said. “We’re surrounded by rocket fuel. There’s enough oxygen and hydrogen here to launch a fleet of mining rigs into orbit,” he replied.
Dr. Aman set his head back against the outside of the Hab as he rested. “Mining rigs have equipment to break up this ice,” he countered. “We do not.”
Julian was tired and needed a break. He took a seat next to the doctor. He lowered his head and let out a dejected sigh.
“This is our only option,” he said to him. “We keep going.” He turned to Dr. Aman, knowing it was going to be harder and harder to convince him to continue.
“And what about Mara and Reese?” Dr. Aman asked. “They are not even helping us. We do not even know where they are,” he complained. “We should have left while we could.”
Julian made no effort to argue. He draped his arms over his knees and slouched onto the ice, leaning against the Hab just as Dr. Aman had done. The effort just to get this far had already taken its toll on his old body.
Then he caught sight of something underneath the Zephyr. He tapped Dr. Aman’s shoulder as he had begun to drift off into an exhausted sleep. The two men watched a solitary figure climb onto one of the smaller loaders and turn the machine on.
Lights from the machine lit up the surrounding area, and two bright spotlights at the front end illuminated the ice around the great mining ri
g. The machine moved slowly at first, and then the lights turned toward them. It traveled along the walking path directly toward the Hab. They were shining directly at the two scientists, and they nearly had to cover their eyes to make out what it was coming toward them.
The machine kept coming. There was no sound, just the bright headlights. They watched the loader slowly make its way across the ice and debris. The lights would bounce up and down as it traversed the landscape, fading and then becoming painfully bright as the angles went up and then down. When it went directly into their eyes, it pierced the complacency that had set within them, and it woke them from their exhausted rest.
The vehicle came closer. There was a large loader on the front end raised high up into the sky. When it was close enough, they could tell it was one of their crew that was driving it. Then they saw Reese. She was bringing the loader. She was coming to help.
She approached closer. When it felt like it was too late to stop the machine from crashing into the Hab, Reese hit the brakes and stopped it in place. The large bucket at the front end began to lower.
“I think we have the equipment we were asking for,” Julian said to the doctor. They both stood up to welcome her.
The bucket kept lowering silently to the surface. But when the front edge reached the ice, a dozen small robots climbed out.
The men jumped. The robots scurried across the ice and began looking for the work they were programmed to do. Reese hopped out of the loader and came to the men. She was carrying Murphy’s tablet controller.
“Borrowed these from a friend,” she said as she walked toward them. Neither Julian or the doctor were able to speak. They watched the small army of robots begin to gather ice.
“Are they here to help us?” Dr. Aman asked.
Reese nodded affirmative. She turned toward the bots as they began cutting into sections of the ice all around them, and then carry the small sections to the melt-box that Julian had constructed. Some of them began placing the ice directly into the melting pipe for them.
The arms and legs of the creatures were very useful. They transformed into shapes that mimicked blades, hammers, anything that was needed to perform their tasks. They changed shape into containers, buckets, or anything else they needed to move as much ice as possible. The two men had never seen anything like it before.
A wide smile grew upon Dr. Aman’s face as he watched the robots, but then Reese saw him turn it into a concerned look. “Where is Mara?” he asked.
“I’m afraid it is just me, doctor,” Reese answered. “Mara left for the fissure.”
Dr. Aman winced. “We need her here!” he said. “We are going to launch as soon as we can. Tell her to come back.”
“I don’t think that is happening.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Mara told me to get the enzyme onboard the capsule and make sure we leave with it.” She looked down at the icy ground. “She’s not sure when she will be back.”
Dr. Aman took an exasperated breath. “Are we supposed to wait for her? We are launching as soon as the tanks are full. We discussed this…”
“She knows,” Reese said, shaking her head. “There was no stopping her.”
CHAPTER 21
Sol 17; Mission time — 01:56
The rover skidded and bounced atop unsettled masses of ice and frost. Mara operated the controls with a tight grip. The wheels would leave the ground at times and come down hard upon the surface, jostling her out of her seat and sending fractured ice about her in all directions. The low gravity made the jumps longer and more buoyant, and if she weren’t in such a hurry, she would have been enjoying them. Driving this fast and under these conditions demanded her full attention. She had to work just to keep the rover upright.
Mara replayed in her mind what her mission would be. “Give the immune boosters, check Hanson, get him on the rover, get back to the Hab.” She went over this several times in her head.
She was not paying enough attention to her driving. She came upon a large gash in the surface ice. She swerved hard right, barely escaping a fall into one of the side canyons. There was no way to know which way was the shortest around the openings. She had to gamble, making her best guess which way was fastest. She didn’t like leaving things to chance. It wasn’t reliable to make guesses, not when Hanson’s life, and hers, were in the balance. She needed to be lucky.
By some good fortune, the landscape was well lit despite being on the night side of the moon. The nearly full disc of Jupiter loomed behind her on the horizon, helping to illuminate her way. The light helped Mara distinguish between cracks, bumps, and chasms while speeding along the surface. She came upon another massive crevice in the surface ice. Again, she headed around it hoping it was the shortest route, but not knowing.
Mara kept her eye on the surface before her. She began to wonder how the massive crawlers would make the trip back. The ice was far more treacherous than it had been on her trip with Hanson. The ice shelf was breaking apart.
Mara began to see a faint point of light ahead on the vast landscape. Then she could make out two. The yellow pinpoints could be only one thing. She could make out the edge of the fissure near them. The massive crawlers were sitting on the very ledge, as if the fissure had beckoned them to it. They sat on the verge of disaster, enticed by the secret bounty of the moon.
Mara ran her rover closer to the fissure, parallel to it, but sure to stay well distant from the cliff face. She was close to the crawlers now, approaching cautiously so she would not be immediately noticed.
She steered behind the crawlers the best she could, then approached the two large mining vehicles to within walking distance. She could see the dark tubes of the grinder heads disappearing over the sharp edge of the cliff and into the abyss. She imagined those tubes leading below and vacuuming up sediment, minerals, and diamond structures. She thought of the damage she had managed to do to them. A sense of satisfaction came to her when she reminded herself of the grinder heads laying at the bottom of the ocean.
She repeated to herself; “deliver the boosters, check Hanson, get him on the rover, get back to the Hab.” She parked her transport behind the vehicles and oriented it for a quick getaway. Maybe she could get in and get out without wasting too much time. She wondered if the immune-boosters would work for the men inside the crawlers.
Mara’s adrenaline was working for her. Her breathing was heavy and deep. She felt her heart rate increase. Her body was tense, shaking and pulsing. She could hear her heartbeat inside her helmet.
She located the loading steps at one of the platforms to board the large vehicles. She stepped onto the stairs and took the few steps required to peek into the cabin.
Johan. She could see him standing in front of the monitors. He was watching the deployment of two new arms from the comfort of his captain’s chair. Mara looked for Hanson, but there was no sign of him.
She burst through the double doors at the airlock and stepped in front of him, prepared to confront the entire operation.
“Ah, there’s our delivery girl,” Johan said patronizingly. “How did I know you would bring me what I needed?” he continued. There was a sense of satisfaction on his face, a slight smile that pulverized Mara’s skull when she looked at it.
“You need to stop the operation, Johan,” she said.
“No. You’re going to be paying for the damage you did to those mining heads. And you better have the immune boosters with you, or you are not going back,” he said.
“You are the ones that need the boosters, Johan, not me.” She looked across the bridge of the crawler. She saw that the men were pale, flushed, with sunken eyes. They were all suffering from the infection, and none of them had their masks on. “I didn’t bring the boosters. You’ll have to go to the Zephyr if you want to stop the infection from spreading,” she answered.
Then she saw Hanson enter from the re
ar of the machine. He was flanked by two of the larger miners. He was becoming ill like the others.
“Hanson, let’s go,” she ordered. “The rest of you can follow us if you want to live.”
“Hanson is not going anywhere, Mara,” Johan said. “He’s sick like the rest of us. You are going to give him and the rest of us the boosters that you brought with you.”
Johan signaled for Mara to follow him. They walked into the back of the cabin to the large storage bins. Larue and Morrison were laid on the floor in the back of the room. Their skin was red, sweaty, and blistering. Their eyes were bloodshot.
“It got Larue and Morrison first,” Johan said. “Give us the boosters and then I’ll let you and Hanson go.”
Mara stood quietly before the two men. She could see they were in serious peril. She knew it right then; Johan had called her bluff. The sight of the two men disturbed her to the core. These were Hanson’s friends. She knew he cared about them. She didn’t have the will to let them suffer any longer than they had to. Johan had struck at her in her weak spot.
She reminded herself that she needed to be fast. She didn’t have time for games. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the boosters. “This is what kept me safe when I was exposed,” she told them, holding several syringes in her hand. Some of them fell to the floor as she looked over the sick men.
“Johan, if you want to save these men you need to get them back to the Zephyr,” she said. “I’m risking my life here. We all are. You’re in more danger than you realize. Our crew is leaving as soon as I get back.”
“Just give them the boosters,” Johan commanded. “Don’t let them suffer any longer.”
Mara quickly handed the boosters to each of the miners. Members of the mining team helped with Larue and Morrison, ensuring they got them first. She administered one to Hanson as they were distributed around the cabin.
Diamond Moon Page 39
