Lifeline

Chapter 59

KIBALCHICH—Day 72

Karen punched at the intercom controls, trying to get anything to work, to open up the control room. She ran through different combinations of buttons on the tiny panel. No response.

“{{NUCLEAR DEVICES INTERLOCKED, READY FOR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DETONATIONS. AUDIO OVERRIDE NOT REQUESTED, COUNTDOWN PROCEEDING. ONE THOUSAND SECONDS TO DETONATION. ANNOUNCEMENTS WILL CONTINUE AT INCREMENTS OF ONE HUNDRED SECONDS UNTIL THE FINAL ONE HUNDRED SECONDS.}}”

Karen kept pounding at the panel; still nothing. She pleaded into the intercom.

“Anna, please don’t do this—you can stop it! Think of all the people who are going to die. Think of how that’ll harm the future of the entire human race. You’re someone who looks toward the future. Don’t you believe anymore? We can all work together and make our dreams real.”

Karen fell silent for a moment, then continued, this time with an angry, exasperated tone in her voice. “That’s right, don’t answer me! If you don’t respond, you don’t have to justify your actions. Just stay locked inside there and hide. That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it, Anna? Hiding! When the War happens and things look grim, instead of trying to work with the rest of us, you and everyone aboard the Kibalchich just go to sleep and wait until somebody else solves the problem. If you hide under the covers, maybe it’ll get better all by itself. You’re a coward!

“What about your Mars colony? I know that’s what your work was about. It can be more than a dream if all the colonies come together. Don’t throw everything away!”

The intercom remained silent. Anna Tripolk ignored her. Karen looked wildly around. What else can I do? Come on, think!

Were there any other access doors? Was there another master control panel, or a hidden air vent? She swept her eyes around the curving walls. There was nothing. The command center remained sealed.

In the command center, Anna’s eyes widened at the appalling stupidity of the Americans. She couldn’t speak in her astonishment, but then everything broke through and she screamed into the intercom speaker.

“This is the Mars colony! The Kibalchich itself!” Anna sucked in a deep, gasping breath. “How could you be so blind? All the sleepfreeze chambers were here for testing and deployment! As soon as we were certain they worked, all two hundred of us were to go into hibernation, except for Commander Rurik and a few monitors.”

She pounded her fist on the arm of the command chair. “The warheads we carried were supposed to be used for thrust—detonated against the shield to accelerate us out of Earth orbit on a long, slow journey to Mars! Why else would we prepare for such a long period of isolation? Or strengthen our equipment for lateral accelerations? Think!”

The words rolled out. She had always loved talking about her dream, but now the words wounded her as she spoke them. “When we got there, an initial team of colonists would be awakened to set up base camp on the surface. Our reflecting mirror was designed to detach and go into Mars-stationary orbit, where it would focus sunlight onto our colony and down into a power substation. We were going to revive more of us as rapidly as the colony could handle them.”

She laughed. “It was beautiful, beautiful! All the while, the rest of you thought we were just a research station here. Mars was going to be ours.”

Anna realized she had begun sobbing. At least Langelier had stopped talking. “But now, that will never happen. You have stolen our sleepfreeze chambers. You are ganging up on us. Even my own people had other plans for the Kibalchich—as a weapon against your colony! And now I have no choice but to use it, to save the future.”

Anna drew in a breath and closed her eyes, shivering with the cold in the room. Orbitech 1 held seven times as many people as the Kibalchich … but numbers held no weight. If the death of two people in the yo-yo would pave the way for her dream, then how was Rurik’s situation any different? If one death is justified, then why not two? Three?

Or even more? What makes the measure of an ideal, a lifelong dream? Her mind crunched through the rationale, sounding like a different voice in her head. Can a true dream be measured by any number of souls? And how is one death any different from a thousand? But she was only going to stop the Phoenix.

It would be on the Barrera boy’s conscience then. It was his fault the others would die—not hers.

Anna’s head pounded. Her throat felt raw. Her breathing came faster. She was hyperventilating. She was a doctor; she should know what to do. But her vision grew fuzzy with the crushing weight inside her head.

“Computer, display Orbitech 1 from exterior monitors.”

Once again the holotank flashed. Orbitech 1 appeared as a wavering blob, blurry. Anna wondered if tears had ruined her vision, but after knuckling her eyes she realized the image itself was distorted.

Something big blocked the view.

“Computer, focus! Center on any debris between the Kibalchich and Orbitech 1 that might cause a visual distortion. What is it?”

The holotank blur grew sharp, showing a long dark green object like an old Havana cigar but with stubs on the side, expanding out to a translucent matte that extended past the holotank’s edge. The computer drew back the view. A vast cluster of sail-creatures, like leaf butterflies, all hung together, gracefully settling down into the center of L-5. She saw dozens, connected in a mosaic pattern, immense and graceful.

She had never seen anything so awesome, so beautiful.

So fragile.

And as they drifted between the Kibalchich and Orbitech 1, directly in her line of fire like an impossibly delicate shield, they seemed to stop, to break apart.

Tears streamed down her face as she let out a moan, trying to block the nightmarish vision from her memory. Her lips trembled and she whimpered Rurik’s name to herself. She collapsed back into the command chair, shivering, and squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing herself in blackness.

“{{NINE HUNDRED SECONDS TO DETONATION.}}”