Around the room the miners put the shot into their arms. As they did, Mara noticed the large storage bins at the rear of the vehicle. She left the miners and walked near one of the bins, looking down into it. She saw fragment after fragment of the once beautiful structures strewn around the floor and piled high in the storage containers. Chunks of raw diamond filled some of the collection boxes from floor to ceiling. The larger sized pieces of diamond were the size of footballs.
It was a depressing sight. The vision of greed and waste churned her stomach. Centuries… millennia worth of the diamond structures were reduced to rubble, stacked high in storage, and for nothing more than monetary gain. There was no interest in anything else. They no longer had any other value, not to the humans, and not to the creatures. No information would be recovered from these broken diamonds. Unknown discoveries and untold beauty lay in those bins, lost for all time. She looked away.
“Deliver the boosters, check Hanson, get him on the rover, get back to the Hab.” She repeated the line to herself again. Mara walked into the cabin of the large crawler looking for Hanson. She grabbed him and turned to leave, but just as they began to exit Larue and Morrison began convulsing on the floor nearby. They were seizing, and their bodies had contorted into ugly versions of themselves. The spasms overtook them, some of them so strong it broke their bones and their backs.
Hanson knelt and tried to hold them down, but it was no use. More men tried to help secure them to the floor. The men were rapidly succumbing to the mysterious microbes. Fever was elevating their brain temperature. The situation appeared dire, and the men began to worry both for their friends and for themselves.
“You told us the boosters kept you safe from the microbes?” Johan said as he gazed frighteningly at Mara. “Are you trying to play me again?” he asked furiously.
“It may take some time for them to take effect. Johan, I’m telling you to get these men back to the Zephyr,” she said. She was having a hard time containing her anger. “This is your fault!” she said, pointing at the sick men. “You realize all of you have this infection? Finish the boosters and hope it’s not too late!”
The men looked down at Larue and Morrison who were at the edge of death. They could no longer be held and secured to the floor. Their bodies twisted in anguish as their muscles turned against them. Screams filled with intense distress erupted from deep within them. It was suffering beyond the mere word. The miners could only watch, horrified, and their friends died a horrible, excruciating, agonizing death. When it was done, their mangled bodies lay on the floor, and parts of their flesh were falling from their bones.
Johan’s face turned as he watched. It was the personification of horror. The grotesque images had shattered his resolve. It was obvious it had impacted him deeply. He was concerned and worried… finally understanding what Mara had warned him about. His face gave away his feelings. He was frightened into action. He turned away from the dying men and began to fumble with the controls to the crawler. He grabbed quickly at the communicator.
“Crawler two, we’re going back to the Zephyr,” he said. “Drop the heads and leave immediately.”
Mara turned to Hanson. It was time to go. “Hanson, there’s nothing we can do here. We need to get you back right now!” She took a quick look at the men in the room, none of whom seemed to be getting better.
She considered briefly that whatever booster she had given them may not help fend off the microbes. It may be too late. Or, there might have been something different here, another type of microbe at work. She suddenly worried for Hanson that much more.
Mara looked him over. He was weak, beginning to stammer, and sweat was forming on his brow. “Why wasn’t the booster working? She helped Hanson exit the large driving machine.
Mara and Hanson went down the stairway and made it halfway across the surface to the rover, but it was too late. She felt a tremble in her legs. Her boots were sending pulses of shockwaves into the soles of her feet and her body.
She turned and looked at the ground near the fissure. It was shifting. The ice was giving away to gravity. The damage had been done, and now the material that was torn away below was beginning to affect the surface.
The ground tilted and heaved violently. It was oddly quiet. There was no medium for the fracturing ice and massive reverberations to make their way to the miner’s ears. They could feel shockwaves going through their bodies, but nothing more. Slowly, silently, and without warning, the ice shelf began breaking towards the ocean below.
A solid shudder to the crawler sent the crew turning to look through the windows. They gazed upon the devastation approaching them. Mara looked up just in time to see their faces through the glass. The row of men were looking helplessly past her with their mouths wide open. They were horrified by whatever they were seeing.
She turned just in time to see it. On the far horizon she saw huge portions of the fissure breaking and collapsing into the abyss. She looked out across the landscape, and she could see the mass of destruction coming their way. Pieces of ice the size of city blocks were breaking free from their hold, surrendering to gravity, and falling the impossible distance downward. The destruction was complete, and it was rapidly approaching. One by one, huge portions of ice were disappearing into darkness.
Mara grabbed Hanson and scrambled across the ice to their rover. Running was difficult on the constantly shifting ground. They stammered, and when they couldn’t stay on their feet, they crawled.
She turned to check on Hanson and noticed that Johan had followed them outside. He had taken a seat on Hanson’s rover not far behind them. Johan had ordered his men to bring the crawlers back to the Zephyr, and then he had left them for the much faster rover. It was all happening so fast, panic had overtaken him. He began to work the controls to the rover but was having difficulty.
The mining crew abandoned the crawlers and began to follow their captain onto the ice. They had no rovers to get onto. They lost their footing on the unsteady surface and began to fall at the foot of the great crawlers. There was a mad scramble by the men to get whatever distance they could from the ledge. Arms flailed and bodies twisted to maintain their balance. Several of the men stood up only to fall again. It was impossible to make it any distance from the oncoming destruction.
Mara jumped in the driver’s seat and pointed Hanson to the passenger side. As he was getting in, he had a chance to turn and look at the collapsing fissure behind them. His friends continued to jump free of the crawlers, abandoning the valuables inside in exchange for their lives. They began running, as if they could stay on their feet, but they tumbled to the ice immediately. Few made any distance from the ledge. The massive scale of the oncoming destruction drove them into a state of panic.
“Run,” Hanson yelled, but nobody could hear him.
Mara pressed the accelerator as Hanson climbed into the passenger seat and they hurried away from the crawlers. Hanson turned around to his friends and watched them. They were leaving them behind. He couldn’t bear watching. There was little to nothing he could do for them but hope they got away from the destruction.
Johan followed them on the other rover. Mara thought he was trying to chase them down, but she realized he was merely trying to survive the destruction by outrunning it. They continued as fast as the rovers would carry them, and Johan quickly shot ahead as a single rider.
Hanson watched his captain pass them, and then he turned to check on his friends, still attempting to run for their lives. It was a mad scramble, and then he saw something he couldn’t believe… The ice under the two large crawlers slipped below the lisp of the fissure, fell in one giant surrender, and took the entire crew with them. They dropped out of sight and were… gone.
The weak gravity pulled them downward at an excruciatingly slow rate. Hanson felt like he could reach for them, grab them, and save them. It all happened in slow-motion. He realized he had extended his arms t
oward them, trying to catch them and keep them from falling, but it was to no avail.
“No!” he cried as he watched his friends falling. He heard nothing but his screaming voice in silence as they slipped away into the blackness.
Hanson jumped from the rover and tumbled along the ice and startled to his feet. Mara braked immediately, sliding to a stop, unaware of what had just happened to him. She looked back for him.
Hanson had to see for himself. He walked as close to the approaching edge as he could and peered into the depths. The ground remained shaking around them. Large pieces of ice were falling from the opposite side. There was no sign of his crew.
He thought about Larue and Morrison, and the other men that had likely been exposed to the same microbes. He hoped that they had been spared a more gruesome death this way. He hoped it would be quicker. He kneeled at the edge for as long as he could, but then Mara grabbed him by the collar and turned him around.
“They’re gone!” she cried. “We need to get you to the Hab. You need another immune booster now! Move it!”
Hanson snapped out of his state of disbelief. Mara had turned him at an angle, and he saw a glimpse of Johan. The captain of the Zephyr was racing ahead of them. Johan’s only thought was saving himself and the rig.
Another jolt from the ice below shot through their legs. From below them a stronger and more urgent surge of energy coursed through them, through the very bones in their feet, and it went deep into their bodies. It knocked them down onto the ice and forced them to crawl away. This was the end, they thought to themselves. Another massive chunk of ice was about to fall to the depths below, this time with them on it.
Hanson attempted to find his bearings. He lowered his gaze into the fissure and saw the unimagineable. Deep below them was a steady stream of raging water, foaming, alive with the anger of the planets and the Gods. Out of the distant parts of the fissure it came bursting out of the deep and to the surface.
The geyser of water was massive. It began filling the entire fissure from side to side. Kilometers long, and as wide as the fissure, it carried the force of a thousand volcanoes. It was powered by the massive tidal forces created by the monster planet nearby, and the raw power was awe-inspiring and terrifying at once.
A roiling head of water surged through the fissure near the horizon and tore away the edges of ancient ice and glaciers as it came upwards. It quickly launched itself high into the sky, towering over them in the distance. It was immediately obvious they were in the direct path of this expanding eruption as it started approaching them.
The geyser barely slowed down as it reached colossal altitudes. Hanson and Mara watched the spectacle, frightened out of their minds. The erupting fluid was working its way towards them. They would only have minutes.
They forced themselves on the rover in the heaving ice and drove across the uneven surface. Mara drove recklessly over cracks and icebergs and boulders of frozen water. The slightest delay or mistake would mean certain death.
Chunks of ice the size of cars began to fall around them as the geyser tore the fissure to pieces, depositing the leftovers of the destruction around them. Ice fell away and into the fissure all around as the massive eruption continued. It was pure luck that a chunk of the massive ice did not land on them, killing them.
Mara drove, and the surface ice fell away immediately behind her, chasing them. It forced Mara to take chances she otherwise would not have. She guided the rover hazardously over icy debris and crevices. She steered the wheel rapidly around what she could, plowed directly over debris, and jumped several small cracks. The impulse to flee the approaching destruction had become nothing more than a primal instinct, driven by an animalistic desire to be spared the horror of falling several thousand meters into a dark and unknown abyss, then crushed by the pressures inside the depths of the moon. It was as frightening as any nightmare could be.
Distracted by the falling ice around her, Mara managed to get the wheel caught in one of the grooves in the heaving ice. It grabbed the wheel of the rover and sent it careening on its side. They were hurled forward in their direction of travel and onto the surface. They tumbled several meters beyond where the rover had caught its wheel and they slid to a stop.
Mara was on her feet quickly looking for Hanson. She spotted him nearby, rushed to his side, and helped him onto his knees.
There were not a lot of options. They sprang from the ground, fearing the seconds that were lost, and they began running. There was not a second to spare, not even to recover the rover. It was left behind to its fate.
They ran, but the ground beneath them had given way. They began to fall. The section of ice they stood had lost its fight against the forces of gravity and had begun to sink into the moon. “This was it,” Mara thought. “This is how she would die.”
The ground around them began to descend into mayhem. Mara felt weightlessness. She wrapped her arms around Hanson instinctively, as if he could protect her from this place — as if she could protect him. They would die here together, in each other’s arms.
Time stopped. Hanson had accepted his fate in a short manner of seconds. He looked into Mara’s eyes, aware of what was happening to them. His fiery gaze told her what she needed to know. Their masks kept them separated. He regretted that he would not get to kiss her again as he looked in her eyes. They shared a sense of presence in their near-death that only two people in love could. Then the falling began. They felt themselves descending, and the weightless sensation overtook them both.
But with their eyes on one another came a reprieve. The falling had stopped. They were twenty meters below the surface of the icy plain, suspended on a block of ice that was caught momentarily motionless in the destruction. The erupting geyser was not yet quite near them, and the ice they stood not quite ready to succumb to gravity. It had been caught between the forces pulling it down and the rising water, and it had reached an equilibrium. They would have to wait for their death now. The moon would torture them in this final moment. It would toy with them, tease at them, and make them wait until the last shattering of ice sent them plummeting together. And there was nothing they could do about it but wait for it.
CHAPTER 22
Sol 17; Mission time - 03:08
Johan raced ahead of Hanson and Mara. He was feeling panic for the first time in his life. He wanted to be at the Zephyr where he felt safe. He wanted another immune booster. He had known long ago that he’d die in space, but he expected it to be on his terms, not like this.
He turned to check his speed against the other rover, hoping to get whatever remaining immune-boosters were at the Zephyr, but when he looked back he saw that Hanson and Mara were on their feet, running away from the destruction. The ice they were on had fallen below the icy surface. He saw the ice they were on suspended momentarily in the destruction. There were mere minutes before the eruption would catch up to them, and the huge block of ice would eventually succumb to gravity and take Hanson and Mara with it. He knew they would be on that block of ice, waiting for death to arrive.
He skidded his Rover to a stop and coughed, and the taste of his acrid blood welled into his mouth. He could feel the microbes overtaking him. The disease, the rot, the foreign creatures — whatever it was, it was close to being final. He knew this as sure as the ice was collapsing around him.
He weighed his options as he held himself in place at this spot, suddenly surprised to have more than the sensation to flee for his life. He had seen the crawlers disappear into the crevice. He thought about his crew and what he had done to lead them here. He thought about the lost crawlers, and then his speech to Hanson earlier in the week. He thought about how he’d spent the last ten years berating Hanson for making a snap decision, and now, here on this moon, he realized he had made an even bigger and more costly one.
With his crew lost and the two crawlers under the ice, he felt the shame and guilt overtaking him. He had
made this happen. This was his fault. Now he was carrying a disease that he had been warned about and had brushed off in favor of the promise of riches and wealth. It was Mara who had warned him. She had been trying to save him, he realized.
He coughed again, and he was reminded of the horror he had witnessed with his crew. He was forced to think about what things would be like for him if he did survive. Would he be placed in servitude to Astromine for the lost crawlers? Would his reputation be ruined? Would he be dishonored, if not for his apathy for the lives lost, but at the least for his bad sense to lose two crawlers? He would be shunned in the mining community for being the only survivor from his rig.
He wanted out of the predicament he had put himself in. He wondered if he could rectify the situation. He paused on the tumbling ice and wondered if he should go on, or if there was a more honorable way to fix what he had done. He knew he didn’t have much time to decide.
Johan couldn’t bear the thought of his life without the rig. He couldn’t bear the thought of how he would be treated for his mistakes. He didn’t want to be forced to think about the lives, the young lives, he had risked for his own personal gain. He was afflicted with the same disease he had seen his men die from. The guilt and shame began to overtake him. There was only one way to make things right. There was only one way to appease the feelings of guilt, or to retain any honor at all. He knew he wouldn’t have time to get the boosters if he stayed here very long. There was only one thing he could do that could provide the redemption he was seeking.
He drove his rover to the ledge where he had seen Hanson, afraid of what he would see when he looked down. He saw the two of them below in an embrace. He could see that they were helpless. There was nothing for them to do. They held each other face to face. They were preparing to die, in each other’s arms.
He stood at the edge, and the tumbling ground made it difficult to remain steady. He tried to get their attention, but they were not looking up. They remained focused on each other, on the destruction surrounding them, and on each other. He hoped by some miracle that one of them would see him. They only had seconds.
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