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Post by kaliszewski on Jul 8, 2007 4:48:49 GMT -5
Usually I don't start a fic thread unless the fic in question is finished, but what the heck: I've had bits and pieces of a pre-"Pod" story kicking around in my head for a month or so, and I might as well post 'em. Explanations and excuses: Again, just because I like thinking the phrase, this is a pre-"Pod" tale. Rated PG-13 for salty language, naughty implications, and a smattering of gore. Alright, here goes: FLARESome days they staged contests. Nothing silly, nothing dangerous. Just things to jolt the dust from the same, same, sameness. Today’s contest, on this the four hundredth and sixth day of their journey to the sun’s nearer side, was to see who could first complete his or her maintenance checklist. The prize was an extra fifteen minutes in the comms room. The time was at a premium: they’d been hitting windows of silence in the last few weeks, stretches during which their transmitters were failing to launch clear messages. Harvey had found a pattern to the muddled periods but was having trouble, help from home notwithstanding, diagnosing the problem; for now he and the others had settled for timing their messages for the clearest sending periods. Like the one coming in twelve minutes. Whitby took the prize. Mace had edged her, until Kaneda, double-checking Mace’s maintenance list-- they took turns cross-checking each other-- had found one tiny shorted-dark lightbulb in a suit closet, the bulbs tending to take a beating from the suits’ heavy, clumsy bulk, and announced that the extra comms time was now Whitby’s. For some reason, it irked Mace. The contest over, he was heading for the galley and a cup of coffee, and Corazon was with him, and Whitby was ahead of them, she and Capa, heading toward Comms, and it was itching under his skin like a hot powdering of fiberglass insulation. Corazon, who could read his moods, said, simply: “Mace.” She’d seen him looking after Whitby, the long bones of their substitute pilot in gray t-shirt, multi-pocketed trousers, the boots she had continued to wear long after the rest of them had informalized to sneakers or sandals. Not a look of undressing, though Whitby, despite tending toward hardness, wasn’t unattractive: more a sizing-up. She and Capa were talking quietly as they walked, and Whitby had just managed to spark a smile from their generally inexpressive young physicist, and Mace was openly scowling now-- “You checked his list, Corry, right?” he was saying. “How’d you even understand what to look for--?” “Look, all I know is all his lights were on.” Corazon smiled wryly. She glanced over at him. “And someone was home, too.” “What--?” They were at the galley. Corazon ruffled his hair. “Ease up, kiddo. You’ll get your turn.” “Sure.” Mace nearly smiled back. Then, impulsively, he turned back to the corridor and called sharply after Whitby: “Still trying for ‘Mother of the Year,’ huh?” Whitby stopped. Capa took three more steps, then stopped, too. Sometimes social realities took a moment to register with him. He looked from Whitby back to Mace even as Whitby turned and, more than that, stalked back to Mace, right up to him, and countered with that old classic (which would have been so even in Brainiac’s Guide to Detached Living): “What did you say?” “ Nice, Mace--” Corazon muttered. “Shut up, Corry.” Mace focused on Whitby. “Got something to say, Pilot Whitby?” What he’d hated about her getting the extra comms time-- or at least even now he was trying to persuade himself of it-- was what she wanted it for: she had a kid back home, a boy named Pete, something like seven or eight years old, and it was the little shi[t]’s first communion or something like that, people like Whitby still believing in that crap and, worse, having to infect their kids with it, too, even from fifty million miles away, and she wanted to send him an extra message (“Welcome to the cult, honey!”, or some d mn thing)-- and then, even as Mace realized just how irrational and stupid he was being, Whitby was there, four or five feet away--
“I think you’re out of line, Lieutenant,” she said quietly.
To which he replied, before he could stop himself: “What? Didn’t catch that.”
“She’s right; you are--” Capa was with them now, too. “Mace, you’re wasting time. Whitby needs to get to the--”
“Up yours, Brainiac. Bi[t]ch has something to say; let her talk.”
Whitby went pale. “Alright, that does it--”
She took a step toward Mace. Corazon reached for him as he tensed; he shrugged away from her. Then Capa got between him and Whitby--
“Whitby, don’t. Mace, come on--”
Adrenaline burned Mace’s veins; the words seemed to say themselves: “You’re sticking up for her? Like those flygirls, don’tcha, Brainiac?” He smirked at Capa. “What-- you banging her now--?”
Capa’s eyes flashed. He shoved Mace-- the little bastard had plenty of wiry tough push in him-- and Mace swung back a fist-- and then Corazon was grabbing for him while Whitby, shock breaking through the anger on her face, was grabbing Capa, and then a man’s voice barked: “Mace! Capa!”
The four of them froze. Harvey was approaching from the direction of the comms center. Whitby and Corazon stepped back; he focused on Mace and Capa.
“Seam duty. Both of you. Be prepped in forty-five minutes.”
*****
To be continued....
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Post by Amanda on Jul 8, 2007 16:27:02 GMT -5
OMG, MACE. Way to be a thingy. Oh, Kali! I love this... Can't wait for the rest.
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Post by nimue on Jul 8, 2007 23:13:52 GMT -5
Ooh. Is this a Mace/Corrie fanfic? *hopeful*
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Post by voiceofreason on Jul 8, 2007 23:46:04 GMT -5
WOW!!!! Great start, just don't make us wait too long. The film doesn't really touch on how the team had to be going stir crazy during the trip.
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Post by kaliszewski on Jul 9, 2007 7:07:50 GMT -5
Amanda, VOR: thank you! But wait: there's MORE. Might buff and polish it later; then again, maybe I won't.... And nimue: Don't know if I'd classify this exactly as a Mace/Corazon (Marazon?) piece. Moments, sure, but... we'll see! So... MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH: ***** If those aboard the Icarus II had had a guide to handling immature behavior, one would have found “seam duty” under the heading “ Do we need to separate you two?” At this point, the two in need of separation were together at the suit locker outside the Icarus’s main airlock. Mace tugged hard at a storage harness, stepped aside as the golden armored body rumbled clear. Two tiny green lights on the chest plate: two full tanks of air. Locker to the right: Mace took out a pressure vest, zipped and buckled himself into it while Capa popped the seals on the suit. “I could go, Mace,” he said. Mace glanced over, saw Capa looking at the suit, saw the quiet fear in the younger man’s face. Brainiac hated going outside, and that was a fact. “Don’t be stupid, man. You’re the one who’s indispensable to the mission. I’m just a dumb tool.” He looked toward the ceiling cam. “Right, Whitby?” Your phrasing, not mine, Mace.“Bi[t]ch,” he muttered. From the wall speaker came the voice of Icarus: Say again, Mace?“Nothing. Disregard, Icarus.” Yes, Mace.No, really, Mace. Whitby’s voice, as sweetly neutral as that of the ship. Say again. Please.Harvey’s voice, now on the feed, irritated: Always room for one more on that detail, Whitby.My apologies, Mr. Harvey.Mace grunted, shrugging into the suit, shifting the helmet into place. Capa threw the locks, and Mace waited through the dogpitch whistling as the suit’s seals seated and its systems came fully on line. Grid visible, Mace? Whitby asked. “Yes, Pilot,” Mace replied, watching the schematic of the ship’s hull fill the air before his eyes. He didn’t know why he called her that: it sounded impersonal, somehow insulting, without re-crossing the line to “bi[t]ch.” Thinking too much into it: if Whitby heard his contempt, her voice didn’t reflect it. She spoke again, on the feed, evenly: Tools in hand, Capa?Yes, Whitby.Go to it, boys. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.Mace entered the airlock. As the inner door closed, he thought of giving Capa a thumb’s up. Then he thought the idea stupid. He checked the belt on his toolkit and his tether line; he faced the outer door and waited for the vacuum, the palpable blackness outside. ***** Seam duty. Checking key points in the ship’s hull for structural integrity, a painstaking, awkward process that involved one person inside, a second person immediately across the bulkhead outside, making and comparing measurements with digital scanning micrometers. Anything falling outside spec on the measurements received spotwelding, handipatch, or a segment of interior or exterior tiling. The ship couldn’t scan herself as thoroughly as two humans with handheld equipment could: Icarus could “see” herself structurally only where her makers had installed sensors. And it was logical in more ways than one for Capa to be the one who stayed inside: not only did it make no sense for him to risk himself unnecessarily, but he was much more suited than Mace, with his lean, wiry frame, to weaseling his way into tight corners of the ship. He could even go under the floor plating if need be. And really, Mace didn’t mind going outside. He found it calming, a chance truly to be alone. He re-ran the scene outside the galley with Whitby and Capa, saw his fault, resolved to apologize: a simple process of repair, methodical. Then, as he made his way along the dirty white tiling of the hull to the first checkpoint, he found himself comparing Whitby to Cassie. Whatever Cassie’s reasons for leaving had been, he wasn’t able to blame her; further, they had in Whitby a fine pilot. Still-- “Do you ever think of her?” He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Capa’s voice said over the feed: Think of who, Mace?“Cassie.” Yes. “Miss her?” Yes. But I’m glad she’s not here.“Me, too.” Would’ve been... awkward.“Yeah.” Though I can’t help but-- I suppose it’s only natural: after all, she was my first--“Your first what?” A pause. Nothing, Mace. Forget it.“You said it. Your first what...? Oh, no. Oh, no no no. Don’t tell me she was your first--” Yeah. “You’re kidding. You are fu[c]king kidding me.” No. “You’re telling me-- Capa, come on: you’re a good-looking-- I mean, you’re not exactly an ugly guy. What the hell were you doing all those years?” Research. Science. I just never-- It never really seemed like a priority--“Did she know? Cassie. Did she--” I think she-- I think she had a pretty good idea.***** On the flight deck, Trey stared at a display near Navs. “My God--” He wasn’t tuned in to the discussion outside; if asked, he wouldn’t have considered himself privy to anything resembling current revelations or potentially embarrassing confessions: he was watching the readings from the ship’s external sensors, and he was seeing something frightening. Terrifying, even. “Captain--” Kaneda rose from the co-pilot’s chair, joined Trey at Navs. “What is it, Trey?” “Spike in radiation across the board, and it’s rising, sir.” Trey was fighting to keep his voice steady. He was nearly succeeding. “I think it’s the leading edge of a flare.” Asked Kaneda, calmly: “Time to peak intensity?” “Five minutes. Maybe six.” Kaneda turned toward Comms: “Mr. Harvey, all channels: all hands prep for radiation lockdown. This is not a drill.” “Yes, sir.” They all went into action, Whitby, Kaneda, the others inside, offlining the ship’s systems, activating spot-shielding. Searle checked in from Medical; Corazon responded from the Oxygen Garden, where they’d be sheltering once the Icarus’s basic computer systems were masked. The ship itself, her metal and plastic and glass, were built to withstand the radiation of a solar flare; flesh and blood and bone, plant matter, were not: the effect on an exposed human body would be akin to extremely high-wattage microwaving. Trey was the first to finish his portion of the systems-wrapping; Kaneda sent him to help Corazon check the shielding in the Oxygen Garden. From Comms, Harvey said: “I can’t raise Capa or Mace.” “Did they hear the warning?” Whitby asked. “I don’t know.” Kaneda asked Whitby: “What was their last reported position?” “Moving on to section sixteen.” “I will get Capa.” Kaneda headed for the door. “Finish shielding your station and get clear, Mr. Harvey.” “Yes, sir.” “What about Mace?” Whitby asked. “Sir--” Kaneda paused at the doorway. “He heard.” “We don’t know that--” Harvey began. “You have less than four minutes to get to the shelter, Mr. Harvey.” Kaneda glanced from him to Whitby. “You, too, Loinnir. Do not be late.” ***** Static, then silence, on the feed. Capa, wedged tightly into an unlit corner, his torso twisted between a support beam and the floor plating as he wrangled a piece of patching, didn’t immediately notice. Then he got to thinking things unrelated to arguments or patching or physics, and he felt his cheeks and ears go hot there in the dark, and he said: “Mace-- I was kidding. About Cassie being-- umm. You know I was kidding, right--?” Silence. Another brief burst of static. Capa tapped the earpiece of his headset. “Mace? Whitby, can you raise Mace?” Nothing. “ Icarus, test feed on channel three.” Nothing. He could feel his heart beating. “ Icarus, respond--” “Capa--!” Kaneda’s voice, sharp, behind him. Capa untwisted himself, brought himself to a crouch, straightened. Before he could ask, Kaneda was gesturing for him, beckoning, a universal hurry: “Flare approaching. We need to get to the Oxygen Garden now.” ***** Once again, to be continued....
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Post by Amanda on Jul 9, 2007 9:43:02 GMT -5
OMG. You're killing me, kali!
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Post by massiefan on Jul 10, 2007 3:02:31 GMT -5
I like this! PLEEEZE keep going!
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Post by kaliszewski on Jul 10, 2007 8:05:02 GMT -5
But of course we're gonna keep going--! Have the whole thing pretty much mapped out; just gotta spackle the cracks. That said: HEY! I'm on a roll! Here's a bit more: ***** Mace was professional military, less naive than Capa, more attuned to his surroundings. When the feed went dead, he heard the silence, knew something was wrong, and hauled himself back down the hull of the Icarus. A minute and a half later, standing in the airlock as it repressurized, he heard through his helmet the automated warning-- a siren that cried, wordlessly, Lethal radiation-- and he knew that he was dead. Then the inner door opened, and Whitby was there. ***** “Ninety seconds,” said Trey. They were all there but two: Trey, Capa, Harvey, Corazon, Searle, Kaneda, there in the Oxygen Garden, waiting for Whitby, edging toward despair for Mace. “Eighty-five.” Harvey had been the last to see her. “She was heading for the airlock,” he said. A frown flickered across Kaneda’s face as he looked out into the empty corridor. “Da[m]n it.” ***** She was a wreck diver when she wasn’t in the air or beyond it; she was wise in the ways of suits heavy and awkward. Whitby had Mace’s helmet off in seconds, heaving it clear with a grunt and letting it fall, hard, to the deck; she unclasped his gloves and pulled them away. But then she glanced at her wrist watch as Mace commenced clawing at the clamps holding his chest plate, and she said: “There’s no time. Come on.” She grabbed him hard by his suited arm and pulled as Mace stepped-- thudded, more accurately-- clear of the airlock. She hauled him as he shuffled, stumbled in his thick weighted boots. There was a two-person emergency shelter just over twenty meters away. “How long--?” he panted. “Thirty-five seconds.” “We won’t make it.” “Come on--” “No. Leave me. Go.” She pulled him along. “You’re weak.” “Fu[c]k you--” Mace growled. “Had dive gear weighed more’n these suits.” But he was right. She stopped as he stopped, both of them gasping; she looked around desperately-- A steel door, maybe three meters ahead, on the right. Whitby tugged it open, got a faceful of icy air. A food locker, set in the wall. A coffin freezer, stood upright, largely emptied since their trip began. She began pulling from it its remaining contents, jerked its shelves free, tossed them, clattering, to the deck. She turned, panting, to Mace. “Get in.” “You’re kidding.” “It’s shielded, isn’t it? Shielded for the meat.” “We both won’t fit.” “No, we won’t. Get in there, Mace.” “Whitby--” “You can fly as well as I can. I’m not the mechanic you are. Go on, now.” Not just his aching lungs, his pounding heart: something else sang a song of agony in his chest. Mace backed into the locker. Whitby smiled for him, reached for the door-- She had to smile, didn’t she--?Like she’d smile for her kid, like she’d smile for someone she loved-- “God da[m]n it,” Mace whispered. As quickly as anyone had ever moved in one of those ridiculous suits, Mace moved then. He grabbed Whitby by the torso, just under her arms, and shoved her bodily into the freezer. He shoved himself in after her and slammed the door. ***** Five seconds earlier, Trey checked his watch. “Ten seconds.” “Seal the doors, Mr. Harvey,” Kaneda said. ***** And... to be continued. Yup.
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Post by massiefan on Jul 11, 2007 2:53:39 GMT -5
Oooh, a bit of Maceby there? Hmmmm....
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Post by kaliszewski on Jul 11, 2007 8:56:44 GMT -5
Yep. Or Whace. Or Matby. All of 'em. Anway, on with the stampede o' syllables...! ***** High on the list of sounds the human torso should not make one would certainly find the deep wet crunch. As Mace threw his suited self into the meat locker, as the door thumped shut and the air went black, Whitby with the right side of her chest caught the brunt of his armored back. The suit crushed her against the freezer’s back wall, and from Whitby’s torso came that most ill-advised sound. From Whitby’s lips came a bark of shock and pain; a moment after that came a high, harsh, wheezing cough-- and something warm and wet spattered the back of Mace’s neck. “Fu[c]k--” he breathed. Not just at the cough or the spattering: at all of it. He waited for a horrible breathless second for the cooking to begin: this couldn’t possibly work, shielding-for-the-meat-my-ass, the radiation was buzzing and crackling through the door-- but silently, yes-- worming right into their organs, and they were already dying-- But they weren’t. His breathing was steadying; his heartbeat was slowing. He stared at the pitch blackness, incredulous. Then Whitby coughed again, as hard or harder. “Oh, God--” she wheezed. “Mace--” “Whitby, what--?” He didn’t need to ask; he knew: he was crushing her. Jesus. “Can you-- move? At all?” “No.” “Shi[t].” Her voice was a harsh, whistling whisper. “Think-- God, think I punctured a lung. Having trouble breathing.” “Don’t talk, then. Shhh.” He listened while she tried to calm her breathing, the air in her sounding painful and wet. It was cold in the locker. He could feel it creeping beneath the collar of his suit, chilling the sweat between his shoulder blades, on his forehead. Whitby was still wearing her t-shirt: she’d freeze in here. What was more-- “We won’t have enough air,” he said. The slightest increase in pressure against his right shoulder blade. He could barely feel it through the suit: she was resting her head against him. “Can you move your arms?” she asked. Mace tried again to move, managed only to wedge himself tighter against the rigid cold walls. “No.” “Think I can move my left--” “Bleed the suit?” “Yeah. Here--” Whitby’s breath caught as she twisted her left arm in and beneath Mace’s, her skin catching on the rough outerweave of the suit. He couldn’t feel her fingers on the frontplate. But a moment later he heard a hissing. “Got it,” she gasped. Don’t waste it, Mace thought, closing his eyes. Slow in, slow out. But he had something to say. Now, before his three-quarters tank proved unequal to the time before them. “Whitby, I want to apologize.” “No. Not now.” “Loinnir--” “Don’t waste the air.” “Okay.” Quiet. Both of them. Then he heard a hitching in her breathing, in addition to the wheezing: she was shivering. Cold, certainly. Shock, almost definitely. “Whitby.” “Yeah, Mace.” “Don’t fall asleep.” “Don’t worry.” She coughed or chuckled: he couldn’t be sure which. “Pain’ll keep me awake.” ***** But it didn’t. ***** She drifted. ***** “Mum--!” Pete’s voice, outside the shack where she kept her dive gear. And, Jesus, wasn’t it cold in here today--? Loinnir Whitby threw a glare at the space heater before she turned to see him, her little man, her best boy, shouldering through the door, with his coat, without his cap, his cheeks rosy from running down the rocky beach in the perpetually nippy air. She parked the faulty regulator on the cluttered, grease-dark landscape of her workbench, reached for a rag, wiped her hands. “What is it, Pete?” “The phone. Uncle Richie says t’ tell you it’s them arseholes from Project Dic[k]erus.” She didn’t bother chastising him for the words. You never shot the messenger, especially when the message was from Richie, more especially still when the bearer was this one. “Sure. Be right there.” No phone in the shack, and the one in the house was near-on twenty years out of date. No picture-phones for Richard Whitby and family: what was the fun in it, he wanted to know, if the person you were talking to could see you picking your nose, digging in your knickers, flipping ‘em the bird? So Whitby picked up the phone and said to the invisible caller one whole ocean and half a continent away from where she stood in Scotland: “Whitby here.” “Loinnir? Hi. Daniel Monroe.” ***** Odd she should have known what he was going to say. Or maybe not: why else would Monroe have been calling? (God, it was cold in the house today, too.)A shiver ran through her as she set down the handset. “They want me to fly the Icarus II,” she said, carefully. Mary, Richie's wife, stood in the doorway to the kitchen, a look of mild perplexity on her weathered face. “What’s happened to Cassidy?” Whitby shrugged numbly. “I’m not exactly-- He didn’t exactly say.” A frown ran in bits and pieces around Richard Whitby's face. Then he grinned incredulously: “That little filly’s gone an’ got herself knocked up!” Whitby focused a glare full on him. “In front of the boy yet--!” Peter, all the way out of his coat, asked his uncle: “What’s ‘knocked up’?” “Your mum’s the expert on that one.” Richie winked at him. “You’ll have t’ ask her.” “Richie--!” Whitby snapped. Pondered Mary: “If it is, who d’ yeh think--” “It’s not--” Whitby began. “Would the two of you--” “I’ll tell you who it’s not,” Richie said. “That Capa fella. Y’ask me, he’s a bit ell-eye-gee-aitch-tee in his ell-oh-ay-eff-ee-are-ess.” “Richie, for Christ’s--” Richie fixed her with his glittering eyes. “Front of the boy, Annalee--” “They want me to fly it, Richie. The mission.” Peter came close, looked up at her. “Where, Mum?” “To the sun, Pete. All the way t’ the sun.” More quietly, Richie asked: “What about McCloud?” Jim McCloud, Icarus II’s first alternate pilot. “He’s backed out,” Whitby said. “Monroe says he wants to be with his family when--” “When--” Mary said to Pete: “Give me a hand with the dishes, Peter, would you?” “Can I have a cookie?” “Yes, you mercenary. C’mon.” Whitby waited until she and Richie were alone. “He wants to be with them when the food runs out, when the power runs out. When the rioting begins.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He wants to be with them at the end.” Richie came over, put his hand on his shoulder. “It won’t end. Not like that. You’ll see to it, won’t you, Annalee?” She put her hand over his. “Aye, Richie, I will.” ***** Still just as bloody cold, even worse, as though it were infesting her from the marrow on out, the day she turned out in her new kit, and Richie was the first to notice-- “The cheap bastards--!” He laughed, pointing at the embroidered patch on his sister’s shoulder. She twisted her neck to see-- Capa. Trey. Corazon. Searle. Mace. Kaneda. Harvey. And Cassidy. Less than two months to launch. The stalwarts heading Project Icarus never bothered to change the signage. ***** On her last night on Earth, she slept with Peter, in his bed. She let him stay awake as long as he wanted, didn’t shush him to sleep. He did sleep, though, finally. She snuggled behind him, slipped her arm across him, held him close, dozed. It was the last time she could recall being warm. ***** God, it was cold.**** ... to be continued....
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Post by voiceofreason on Jul 11, 2007 17:00:57 GMT -5
Oh crud. You always know just when to break off and leave us hanging. I will call you B***h.
Amazing and beautiful ma'am.
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Post by massiefan on Jul 11, 2007 18:51:34 GMT -5
ooh, please keep going! I really wanna know who got Cassie knocked up, because I'm fairly sure that most people here think it wasn't Capa, to say the least.
*cough Mace cough*
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Post by kaliszewski on Jul 11, 2007 19:11:01 GMT -5
Ummm.... sorry, massiefan. Check out the ending of "Pod" (*ahem*).... [Then again, this here's just my own little Whace/Capsie pocket universe, yeah...? ]
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Post by kaliszewski on Jul 13, 2007 9:09:42 GMT -5
Sleep? Who needs sleep? Rrrranting along.... ***** What made it frightening was the quiet. You’d think that an external force awful enough to kill you would growl or thunder or roar like a storm. Not this killer. Not a wall of radiation rushing through the vacuum of deep space. Harvey eyed the heavy gray shutters covering the greenhouse wall of the Oxygen Garden. “How long do you think it’ll last?” “Hard to say.” Trey looked over from his spot near one of Corazon’s workbenches, where he’d set up a portable radiation monitor between two muddy green trays of seedlings. “Maybe six hours. Could be less.” “Could be more,” Corazon said bleakly. She looked at Kaneda. “Are they dead?” He met her eyes reluctantly, said what she already knew: “We’ve had no word from the auxiliary shelters.” “Comms could be down,” Harvey offered. “Emergency comms were working this morning,” Trey said. “I cross-checked your maintenance list, remember?” “Yeah.” Capa sat at an angle away from the rest of them, watching the condensation dripping onto the wash station, his elbows on the dry edge of the steel tabletop, his right hand cupped over his left, his chin resting on his knuckles. “Mace would not have had time to reach an auxiliary shelter. And Whitby wouldn’t leave him.” He spoke unsentimentally. “That’s just how she is.” “’Was,’” Trey corrected, quietly. Harvey said, in Capa’s direction: “It's a character flaw, you mean.” “That’s not what I said.” “Right. Sure. She’d risk killing both herself and him--” “Harvey.” Corazon spoke softly, stingingly. He went silent. She continued: “We still don’t know if they’re--” “Yeah, we do.” Searle, seated on the turf near a splay of ferns, parked his forearms on his peaked knees and looked up at her flatly. “They’ve been dead for-- Trey, how long have we been in here?” “Two hours, thirty-eight minutes.” “Two hours, thirty-five minutes, then. Would’ve taken about three minutes. Maybe a little longer for Mace, if he was still in the suit.” “Three minutes.” Corazon stared at him. “For them to--” “Eyes go first,” Searle said. “Boil and burst. Then the lungs, the intestines, the stomach-- Internal organs, the brain: just cook. Cartilage liquefies. Then the marrow super-heats, and the weaker bones--” Corazon cleared her throat. “Stop.” “Sorry.” Nothing but the sound of water dripping. The wall fans were still. Searle shrugged. “I was only trying to explain--” “It didn’t help,” Corazon said. The six of them went quiet. Corazon seated herself on the ground, near a tangling patch of strawberries. Kaneda sat near her. They didn’t acknowledge one another. Harvey slowly edged away from the shuttered windows. “Hey--” Trey said. He certainly didn’t shout; still, Corazon jumped. Kaneda, starting in tandem with her, reached over, rested his hand gently on her shoulder. “What is it, Trey?” “Wait--” Trey’s eyes were intent on the display of his field monitor. “Wait: it’s--” He smiled slightly as he looked out at the rest of them. “Radiation’s dropping off.” ***** The oxygen wasn’t the problem. The carbon dioxide was. Each breath Mace took felt shallower than the one before: he found himself struggling to push the spent air from his lungs. He felt himself growing heavy in the suit; his chin was dropping toward his chest, and his chest was tightening. Whitby was quiet. She had murmured for a time, softly, her voice nothing but a quavering whisper through her shivering, holding her half of a conversation with a person or persons months, maybe years, ago, millions of miles away. Now she was silent. Slipping away. Mace wasn’t about to stop her. He could hear her breathing becoming easier: whatever pain was radiating from her crushed chest, she was no longer feeling it. That was good. Wherever you are, Loinnir, just stay there.Mace smiled a slight, hypoxic smile. Then he traded the darkness around them for the darkness behind his eyelids. ***** Subconsciously, they’d expected wanton destruction. When the doors of the Oxygen Garden unsealed, Kaneda and the five with him looked out with something akin to suspicion at the unfallen ceiling of the corridor, the unbuckled floor, the walls standing firm against the vacuum. The bluish emergency lighting was still on, but it was steady and unflickering. No fire, no crackling of electrical shorts. Only-- “I smell bacon,” Trey said. The rest of them caught it a moment later: a faint, awful, acrid smell, organic and charred-- Harvey, the first one to realize what-- or who-- it had to be, nearly gagged. “Christ, Trey, show some respect.” “No, he’s--” Searle edged past them into the corridor, sniffing. “Whatever we’re smelling, it isn’t human flesh.” ***** Locating them didn’t exactly take a genius, so perhaps Capa’s arriving first at the scene was intellectual overkill. He grimaced at what he saw, not immediately identifying it: grisly lumps, fist-sized and smaller, splatters and tendrils, too, all in charcoal gray and black, all over the floor and stuck well up the walls. Pieces of plastic wrap, burst, shredded, carbonized. He stepped over a section of mesh-steel shelving lying loose on the deck and read off a charred label-- BEEF There was a stainless steel door to his left. It was tall, and it was roughly the width of the loose section of shelving. “Holy shi[t],” Capa whispered. He navigated the field of flared meat, pulled the door open, stared. Then he shouted toward the airlock, toward Kaneda and Harvey and Trey: “They’re here--!” ***** ... and, yeah, to be continued....
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Sasha
Mechanic
She Lives In A Trailer Park. Clearly She's Disturbed.
Posts: 168
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Post by Sasha on Jul 14, 2007 1:54:16 GMT -5
I dont think I've ever mentioned this, but you are a fantastic writer! Keep em coming, and an LY for you!
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