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Chapter 32
Nicolas Carver: 2030
As he emerged from his new office, Carver remembered how he had gotten there. For a month, he’d hardly been able to sleep, eat, or function in any significant way.
Because of Victor.
Victor, Victor, Victor.
Carver still felt the shock that forced his legs into motion, carrying him to the roof’s edge to determine Victor’s fate. He spotted Victor’s body crumpled and twisted far below, lying in an ever-expanding pool of red. His ears picked up the piercing screams of those closest, the pounding feet, the calls for ambulances. He couldn’t catch his breath. The world spun around him.
He had stepped back abruptly, collapsed next to the ledge, and rubbed his eyes while he tried to comprehend what had just happened. Victor was dead. And Carver had killed him.
It was self-defense, though, right? Victor pushed him first—all Carver did was shove back. If anyone questioned him, he would explain that he had been defending himself.
Carver went on autopilot, stumbling through the roof exit and down the stairs while everyone else was distracted by the mess in the courtyard. Still numb with shock, he returned to Wilford and ordered him to lock the cryobay before the colonists went under. He would have to deal with what happened to Victor, but he also couldn’t ignore what was happening with Quinton and the Gateway. Wilford had questions but eventually gave in to Carver’s insistent commands. One click of a button, and that was it. The cryobay was locked, inaccessible to anyone without explicit authorization from Mission Control. The colonists would never return to Earth. They would die on the Gateway, and the Red Plague would die with them.
Over the next several days, Carver sequestered himself in his house, staying away from OSE and even skipping Victor’s funeral. He felt like all eyes would be on him, even though nobody knew he was the reason Victor was in a casket. The incident had been written off as a suicide. Nobody suspected any foul play. There were no witnesses, nothing that could link Carver to the time and place of Victor’s death. As far as anyone else was concerned, Carver was dealing with his grief in his own way. It wasn’t entirely untrue. Whenever Carver closed his eyes, Victor’s face was the only thing he could see: the look on Victor’s face as he lost his footing and tumbled over the ledge.
Carver wondered why he wasn’t as disturbed about what he had done to the colonists on the Gateway. After all, he was just as responsible for their deaths as he was for Victor’s. There were hundreds of them—that surely should have haunted him more. And yet, for some reason, it didn’t. Maybe it was because he and Victor had been such close friends. Carver may have disagreed with him sometimes, even reviled some of his decisions, but a friend was a friend. Plus, Carver had killed Victor directly, with his own bare hands. With the colonists, it was less personal. There was a distance to it, literally and figuratively. He wouldn’t see it happen. He would never witness the expressions on their faces as they took their last breaths. Technically, he wasn’t even the person who closed the cryobay—even though it had been on Carver’s orders, Wilford was the one who had sent the final command.
Despite his guilt and grief, Carver couldn’t deny that some good would come from Victor’s death. With Victor and the colonists—specifically Quinton—gone, Carver had assumed the role of head of OSE. Control of the agency meant Carver could finally devote all their funding to a solution to the solar flares. The real solution. With Prescott in the past, the agency could move forward with MagRes, his project for restoring the magnetosphere.
“Carver!”
Carver was broken from his memory by a voice behind him. He turned to see Wilford approaching quickly with a panicked expression. It felt like history repeating itself.
“What’s the matter?” Carver asked.
“One of the Gateway’s dropships activated,” Wilford whispered quietly enough that no one else could hear.
Carver scoffed. “That’s impossible.” Quinton had claimed that, without cryo, the colonists would be dead in two weeks. It had been a month. There was no way anyone was alive up there… unless Quinton was wrong. Who would be left then?
Could it be Quinton? If so, Carver would be fucked. Quinton was the only person—besides Wilford—who knew what Carver had done to the cryobay. Who knew what he’d say? If he had somehow survived, Carver would be finished. No, it had to be a malfunction. “Relax,” Carver said with a calming gesture. “Something must have caused the dropship to disengage from the Gateway. A software glitch. Or a mechanical systems failure. Something—”
Wilford shook his head insistently, interrupting Carver. “No, you don’t understand. The command is from the dropship itself. It was activated manually. Someone’s alive up there.”
Zach Croft: 2054
“We’re not seriously talking about this, are we?” Cora paced to the window and stared at the thick storm clouds below. “I mean, Christ, Zach! Look at it!”
“We’ve got less than a day,” Zach said. “There’s no other choice.” They had spent the previous 24 hours trying to repair the power grid but to no avail. The damage was too severe, and they didn’t have the parts, the tools, or the specific expertise to fix it. The Gateway was dying. All life support systems would shut down in a few short hours. Water filtration. Heating. Oxygen scrubbers. A descent to Alpha Cen through the raging electrical storm was, for better or worse, their final option.
“Cryo!” Cora blurted out hopefully. “We can go back on ice. Wait out whatever… clusterfuck is going on out there.” Her hand indicated the storm swirling around Alpha Cen.
“The power’s going to shut down regardless. The pods will defrost. Anyone in them will suffocate.”
“Fuck, man.” Cora pushed her hair back, then massaged her tired eyes. “There has to be something we can do. There’s always something!”
Zach sat in the corner of the cockpit, his face falling into his palms. “There’s not. Not this time. It’s over.”
“The hell it is!” Cora sat down across from him and flicked his forehead. “Stop it. Let’s put our heads together and actually do something for once!”
“It’s the flares all over again.”
“Keep it together. If not for me, then for everyone else. Okay?” Zach wiped his nose, nodding. Cora continued. “Great. Now, what’s the problem? With the Spark.”
“The modules that process energy from solar. They were damaged when we fell from orbit.”
“Define ‘damaged’… what does that mean?”
“Damaged,” Zach said, lifting his fingers to make air quotes. “They were destroyed. There’s practically nothing left to repair.”
“So, what about the backup systems? Maybe there’s a way to recharge those?” Cora’s eyes lit up as an idea struck her. “Oh, my God. We can use the irogen!” Her excitement dissipated when she saw the pained look on Zach’s face. “No?”
“That’s just not how it works.”
“So? We’ll make it work. I mean, you figured out the biomining thing, and that was way more complicated. This is just an engineering problem. And this place is loaded with engineers.”
“Maybe if we had more time. But we don’t.” Zach grasped Cora’s hand. “I appreciate your optimism, Cora. I really do. But there’s nothing we can do.”
Cora pulled her hand away. “No. No, we’re not launching those dropships into a global electrical storm! It’s crazy. We’ll never make it through.”
“Maybe.” Zach stood and walked over to the window to look at the storm. “But we have to try.”
Zach Croft: 2030
The screens flickered on, and Zach shielded his eyes from the light.
A chime echoed through the intercom, informing him that the dropship was online. A prompt appeared on the screen, asking him to choose a directive. He scanned the list of commands.
[Engines]
[Fuel]
[Navigation]
[Comms]
How was he supposed to recognize any of this? He was a child—not remotely trained or qualified to operate a dropship. But his father had said Zach could do it, and Zach believed him.
“He said something about autopilot,” Ryker said. “Maybe you should check navigation?”
Zach did, and another menu was displayed on the screen.
[Manual]
[Override]
[Autopilot]
There! Autopilot. Zach selected it, watching as a map of the U.S. popped up. A red crosshair scanned the landscape, first settling on Florida—OSE had a launch facility there—then moving to Texas, then to California. The crosshair flashed green, zoomed in, and revealed a satellite image of Pasadena. More specifically, OSE headquarters.
“DESTINATION SET,” the system said. “TWO MINUTES TO DEPARTURE.”
“Strap in.” Zach moved for a seat, draping the restraints over his chest. Ryker did the same, then stopped. “What’s wrong?” Zach asked.
Ryker ran his hands over one another, eyes widening. They moved to his jacket pockets, then to the crevices in his cargo pants. “My ring! My dad’s ring. It’s gone.” He jumped out of his seat and bolted for the exit.
“Wait!” Zach shouted. He rushed to unbuckle the restraints and followed Ryker, grabbing his arm right before Ryker reached the airlock. “Forget it!”
“I can’t!”
“We don’t have time.” No way was Zach about to mess this up. They were finally going home. It wasn’t worth risking it all for a ring.
“It’s all I have left of him.” Ryker pulled from Zach’s grasp and crossed the divide into the station. “I must have dropped it somewhere out here.”
Ryker left the docking bay and ran into the corridor. The sound of his footsteps got weaker the farther away he went. Would he be able to get back in time? Zach shot a glance at the control module. Ninety seconds until launch. “Do you need help?” he called.
A faint voice, quickly getting louder, responded, “No. It’s fine. I’ll find it.” But he didn’t sound too convinced.
In the meantime, Zach stared through the dropship window at North America: the blues and greens, the yellows and browns. God willing, he’d never see the world from this angle again. From a spectator’s point of view. Like he was an alien surveying worlds in the same way critics judged art or food. What kind of rating would he give Earth? Hmm. Compared to Mars? Five stars. Ten out of ten.
Zach tapped his foot nervously against the ground, having not heard from Ryker in over thirty seconds. They were really cutting it close now.
Ryker ran back into the docking bay frantically. “I can’t find it. It—” Something caught his eye on the other side of the hundred-foot room: a glint of metal under the farthest airlock. As he started to run for it, all the lights in the dock suddenly turned red. A siren tore through the air, followed by an urgent voice blaring from the intercom.
“EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED. CLOSING ALL AIRLOCKS. PLEASE STAND CLEAR.”
The airlock began to shut.
Ryker looked back at Zach, then at the shining bit of silver on the other side of the docking bay. The ring. He turned in its direction.
“No, Ryker!” Zach cried. “Get on the ship!”
The countdown read thirty seconds. The airlock was a third of the way shut.
Ryker sprinted as fast as he could, pumping his feet against the metal. As he crossed the room, he slid to the floor on his knees and stopped in front of the ring. He snatched it up, then turned and scrambled to his feet.
The blast door was halfway shut now.
Ryker’s legs shot back into motion, propelling him toward the dropship. Zach waved him on from just inside the ship. “Come on! Hurry!” The gap in the airlock was nearly too small for Ryker to fit. If he didn’t get there immediately, it was over.
Ryker stumbled, then regained his footing. “Wait! Don’t—”
But it was too late.
Ryker’s words fell short as the airlock closed completely. The inside of the dropship went silent. Ryker crashed into the other side of the blast door. He pressed his face against the glass, his eyes wide with terror. Then he stepped back and pounded on the door, yelling for Zach to let him in.
“Ryker!” Zach knew his words would go unheard, yet he couldn’t stop himself from calling to him. Tears spilled from his eyes. He turned and looked at the countdown. Ten seconds.
Zach ran to the command module and pressed every button he could. “No! No! Stop! Stop the launch!” He slapped his palms against the complicated array of screens and switches.
Nothing worked.
The dropship began to rumble as it prepared to detach from the Gateway. Zach rushed back to the airlock, where Ryker was still pleading for entry.
“Please! Zach!” Ryker mouthed. “Don’t leave me!”
Suddenly, Zach was thrown against a row of chairs by the force of the dropship’s launch. His head collided with a heavy plastic armrest. His vision went blurry. Zach lurched back toward the blast door, fighting through a haze of confusion. The Gateway was already receding into the distance, but Zach could still see Ryker’s face framed in the bright circle of the airlock door.
Ryker was still shouting.
Zach couldn’t make out most of his words, but even from a distance, one phrase was clear.
“Come back!”
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