2084 The End of Days (32 page)

“This is Commander Crossan speaking. Ah have to announce that total impact is now imminent. Ah know many of you would like to watch and ah will put a view from the E2MSN up on the seat-back monitors. For those of you who do not want to see it ah would advise you to look away now.”

Jill just mouthed to Ewan, oh my God! Moments later everyone watched the immense flash as their beautiful blue planet exploded in a massive nuclear fireball. Huge concentric rings of gas and debris rapidly expanded outwards with the explosion carrying the shock waves rippling out into deep space. Earth was no more.

*

Marsdate: 14:25 Friday May 26, 2084 (Capitol Base Time) - CBT

Everything and everyone that the passengers and crew on the Oh LII had loved and cherished, and also those of the survivors on Mars and those still travelling there in the second fleet, had been completely and utterly obliterated. Blown into eternity. Billions of years of the evolution of life on Earth had been snuffed out in an instant. In human history this certainly ranked as the most significant of events, but the random thought occurred to Jack that life was probably being extinguished and reborn on millions, even billions, of Earth-like planets throughout the universe. Probably even throughout the multiverse if indeed it did exist. However, the enormity of this apocalyptic catastrophe was too much for most of the passengers. There was a great deal of hysterical screaming and wailing. Jack, who had to fight to control his own nerve, now had a ship full of grieving souls to steady.

“Uh, this is Commander Crossan again…”

His voice had a partial calming effect on most of the passengers, although many still sobbed bitterly.

“What we have just witnessed is truly such a terrible event that none of us could ever have imagined happening in our wildest dreams. But now we have a fight on our own hands. In about forty eight hours it is likely that we will have to face being hit by the shock waves of the blast. When ah give the command everyone has to be fully strapped in an’ everything has to be completely battened down. Anything that cannot be fixed or is deemed superfluous will have to be jettisoned into space. Everyone on board needs to follow my commands to a T or else they could seriously jeopardise the safety of this ship and everyone on board. Ah trust that ah have made myself crystal clear?”

Jack’s old colleague Xi Xhu Pan had been languishing in ‘rest and recoup’ on Magellan, the old ‘Rust Bucket’, which had been pressed back into service. MGals 2, 3 and 4 had been overstretched, being utilized to process the incoming immigrants on the first fleet and there was no room left at the inn for Xi Xhu and his crew. Xi Xhu had also watched his beloved planet being vapourised, blown into oblivion. Almost immediately after the terrible event Xi Xhu and his crew were ordered to take a space tender and transfer over to the empty Oceanus II and await further orders. Xi Xhu guessed that Jack Crossan must be in trouble. About two hours after the demise of Planet Earth, Oceanus II was given clearance to leave Mars orbit. Commander Xi Xhu Pan had obtained permission from Mars Control to take the empty ship along with his skeleton crew on what was effectively now deemed a rescue mission. With any luck Xi Xhu would be turning back in less than 48 hours when Jack radioed through that the LII had made it safely beyond the blast zone perimeter. However, the signs did not look good and Mars Control felt that the Oh Two should set sail immediately as it could take up to four weeks to reach Jack’s ship. God only knew what Xi Xhu would find if and when he got there.

*

Marsdate: 14:10 Sunday May 28, 2084 CBT

About ten hours ago Jack had recorded in his log that they were no longer receiving any further transmissions showing the destruction of Earth and the evolving resultant gas cloud that was all that remained of the planet. Joanna Cespao was able to calculate and report that this was almost certainly due to the destruction of Midway Island, which had been left deserted but operating on minimal autopilot. The shock waves were on their way. Jack had noted about half an hour ago the first signs that the shock waves from the Armageddon blast were rippling out towards them and he estimated that they were still about three hundred thousand miles short of the blast zone perimeter. The Oh LII had started to demonstrate a slow bobbing pitch as if a once calm ocean now had low rhythmic waves beginning to rise and fall beneath its hull. Over the last 24 hours he had ensured that everything deemed crucial to the survival of his passengers had been tightly screwed down, such as oxygen supplies, medicines, food and drink. If it was not critical Jack had it jettisoned. This included all flora, fauna and the small amount of livestock and animal feed the ship was carrying in its hold. Jack even had to make the decision to ditch Marcie Venter’s last despatch of human DNA, which had been designed to make up for the losses incurred when the Oh XIII exploded. Jack felt bad about it, having known how much work Marcie had put into her project. To appease Marcie’s memory he had the refrigerated DNA containers jettisoned away from the Sun on a bearing heading out towards the Kuiper Belt and on beyond the solar system. Maybe, he thought more in hope, that in the eons of time the DNA might land on some life-supporting planet somewhere out there in the Milky Way and that evolution may once again take its course. It was the best he could do for Marcie. The bobbing motion was now beginning to pitch the ship quite vigorously and he ordered Rajeev and Joanna to strap in as tightly as possible. The passengers had been strapped in with full space gear on for the
last two hours. Jack had Rajeev personally inspected all five hundred. Jack found the sight of all of those fear-laden eyes totally gut-wrenching. When he had come to check on Ewan and Jill he had given them a less than confident thumbs up. Jill’s hands were lain protectively across her womb and a single tear rolled down her cheek as Jack had carried on with the check. Back in the cockpit Jack sealed on his space helmet and double-checked that he was fully strapped in. He switched on his mic for a final announcement.

“Okay, everyone. This is it. Get ready for the Big Dipper ride of your life. Good luck and God speed!”

A few minutes later and the ship was caught in the first big shock wave and it began to pitch and toss violently. Jack looked across at Rajeev and he could see that they were both straining every sinew in their bodies trying to handle the controls. Many of the passengers were screaming wildly but there was nothing Jack could do for them. Initially, Jack had fought hard to keep the ship on a direct course for Mars. However, he felt that this was putting too great a strain on the ship and it was almost impossible for him and his co-pilot to control. He shouted an order through his mic to Rajeev.

“Ride the waves, Raj! We can’t fight them!”

Initially, riding along with the waves seemed to Jack to be helping, but then the next big shock wave came slamming into the ship. If the first wave was huge then this one was a veritable tsunami. The G-force pressures were painfully severe and Jack clenched his teeth tightly. The ship creaked and groaned under the enormous pressure and she bobbed out of control in space like a tin can in a hurricane ravaged ocean. Lights and circuits were exploding and popping in the cockpit and also out in the passenger cabin. A small fire had started in the hold but it was quickly controlled by the automatic fire safety system. The monitors, indicators and controls were going haywire and Jack had no idea which way the ship was heading. It almost felt to him as if the LII was rolling down the side of a near vertical wave like an out of control surfer. Then it seemed as if the wave had momentarily passed over them and Jack and Rajeev fought hard to stabilise the ship.

“No – idea – which – way – headed – Raj!?”

Before his Indian co-pilot could even venture a response an even bigger tsunami-like shock wave crashed into them. The pain from the G-forces was
incredible and Jack could no longer bear it as he cried out.

“AAAAARGH!!”

Jack heard Joanna Cespao screaming behind him. He turned round with great difficulty to see that Joanna’s helmet had cracked open under the pressure and blood was spurting out into the zero gravity cockpit in crazily floating red globules. Joanna slumped over. She was dead. Jack looked across and saw that Rajeev was also slumped in his seat. He was either dead or unconscious. Jack thought, this is looking bad. Smoke from the burning circuits mixed with Joanna’s floating blood made visibility in the cockpit increasingly difficult for Jack. Another catastrophic crash collided into the groaning ship and which caused the fusion drive engines to cut out completely. The ship went into freefall and it felt to Jack as if it must be spinning like a top. His head felt as if it was ready to burst. He tried to look around, but it was as if he was moving in slow motion. A dark shadowy figure appeared to be floating towards him as if in some sort of terrifying flashback.

“Mom - Mom! Pop! Come quick! There’s a man in ma room with a gun.”

Then, blackness.

Chapter 25

Marsdate: 18:30 Sunday May 28, 2084 CBT

O
ver four hours had now passed since either Mars Control or Xi Xhu Pan on the Oh Two had heard anything from the Oh LII. What did not help was that the shock waves from the Schenkler-Earth collision were much stronger than Ewan and Ari’s NASA team had predicted in their computer modelling forecasts. This had caused an extra two of the satellites, which had been transferred by Gary Mackintosh’s team at NASA to the new Mars Network (MNET) from the now defunct E2MSN, to either have been destroyed or taken out of commission. This had also been causing serious disruption to the MNET and the best technicians were working hard at Capitol Base to reconfigure the system. Radio communication between Mars Control and Xi Xhu was patchy at best but still functioning. The Control Director was trying to decide whether to recall the Oh Two back to Mars. The view in Mars Control was that time was now passing and there had been no radio signals from the Oh LII, no distress signals, not even a blip. Xi Xhu was not keen to give up so easily on his old commander Jack Crossan and the five hundred souls who might still be alive out there somewhere in space.

“Oh Two to Mars Control. Request forty eight hours to continue search towards last bearing of Ell-Eye-Eye. Over.”

Xi Xhu waited the few suspenseful moments of radio silence then the Shift Controller replied through a badly crackling and hissing reception.

“Mars Control - to Oh – Two. Further – search – for forty eight – hours – sssshhhhh - !“

The radio message cut out unfinished in a hiss of radio static followed by silence. Xi Xhu turned to his co-pilot Verne Andriessen and told him with a wry smile that he would assume that meant that they were good to go. Xi Xhu set his ship on a bearing towards the last known location within the amber zone for the Oceanus LII. He could not help but notice with a lump in his throat the bright speck on his monitor on the same bearing almost thirty million miles further away. It was the gas cloud swirling and transforming in space that was once his beloved Planet Earth. Xi Xhu boosted the fusion drive on the Oh Two to full power and he set sail on a rescue mission more in hope than expectation. Even if the seemingly crippled LII was still intact it was still almost four weeks away. If it was in a bad way then it might not have enough oxygen and supplies left to last four weeks. Given that there had been no signals at all from the LII, Xi Xhu assumed that it must have lost its main fusion drive, power supplies and main computer systems. He guessed that it would be in freefall through the solar system, not necessarily heading for Mars, and therefore, it could be hundreds of thousands of miles off the course that he was currently heading for. However, he was determined to give Jack Crossan and the LII a chance. At least to give Jack forty eight hours’ grace - if he could just keep Mars Control off his back.

*

Marsdate: 10:10 Tuesday May 30, 2084 CBT

Jack’s eyes slowly rolled open and his head lolled about for a few minutes. From the dim blue lighting he guessed the Oh LII was running on emergency power only and as he slowly focussed his eyes he could see that most of his monitors were either smashed beyond repair or in idle mode. He wondered how long that he had been unconscious and strapped in to his pilot’s seat. He looked at the small monitor on his sleeve, which he noticed was miraculously still operating and looked at the time. It was still in Earthdate mode but still functioning. My God, he thought, I’ve been out for nearly two days. He looked across at Rajeev Subhinder and he was still in the slumped position that Jack had last remembered his co-pilot being in before blacking out. His navigator Joanna Cespao’s dead body was in a terrible state. Most of her visor had been ripped away and her skull had cracked open like a ripe melon, exposing dried blood, bone and brain matter. The ship seemed to Jack to be continuing through space in freefall but at least everything appeared to have calmed down outside the ship. The shock waves from the blast of Earth’s death throes appeared to have passed. Jack looked again at his sleeve monitor and it indicated that there was still an oxygen-helium mix atmosphere present in the cabin, although he could see that it was only being detected around fifty per cent levels to normal. We must be leaking oxygen badly, Jack thought with mounting concern. Gingerly he removed his helmet. He gulped in a breath and found that he could breathe normally. His body was aching badly so he unstrapped himself slowly from his pilot’s seat. He floated himself across to Rajeev and looked at his co-pilot’s sleeve monitor. It showed that his co-pilot still had vital signs. He was still alive. Jack thought it would be better not to try and move Rajeev. It would be better to see if he could find a doctor alive in the passenger cabin, although he dreaded opening the air lock from the cockpit. Would anyone still be alive out there? Jack pulled back the thick heavy door onto a horror scene from Hell. A few of the seats had been sheared from their moorings just from the great pressures exerted on them by the shock waves. With their dead passengers still strapped in they had crashed about the passenger cabin, causing tremendous damage and death. In the same way that Joanna Cespao had died, Jack could see that quite a few passenger’s helmets had exploded under the G-forces exerted on them and their dead faces were in a horrific mess to witness. It seemed to Jack on first sight that possibly all of the passengers had been killed outright as nothing or no-one seemed to be stirring. He cried out.

“Is there anyone alive?”

At first no-one moved and then slowly one by one Jack watched stiff aching arms being raised throughout the length of the passenger cabin. He shouted that if possible to do so they could safely remove their helmets, which some of them started to do. He slowly floated from one survivor to the next, gauging their levels of consciousness and those who needed urgent medical attention. Within a few minutes he had identified two doctors and two nurses all of whom had either none or only minor injuries. He directed them to where he hoped they would find the medical supplies and commanded them to start triaging the injured and to set up a sort of temporary field hospital. He continued on floating between dead and injured passengers, reassuring those badly injured that doctors would attend them as soon as possible. Jack knew from sight that some of the critically injured would not make it and he tried to give them a last word or two of comfort. His stomach was churning at the horror he was witnessing, the crying and groaning and suffering. At least, he thought to himself, that it had been quick for Milner, Jack Junior and Peggy Sue. They would not have suffered. Moving towards the back of the passenger cabin he slowly floated towards Ewan and Jill’s seats. He could hardly bear to look. Ewan seemed to be in a similar situation to Rajeev. He was still unconscious with his helmet intact, but his sleeve monitor showed that he still had vital signs. Ewan was still alive. Jack shouted back to the medics.

“Doc, this one up here is bad! Have a look when you gotta minute?”

One of the doctors signalled a thumbs up and went back to treating his current patient. Jack moved over to Jill. She was alive and conscious. Jill had taken her helmet off but she looked groggy and she was sobbing quietly. Jack took her gloved hand and looked at her sleeve monitor. Jack was encouraged as her signs did not look too bad.

“Jill, how ya feelin’? Are you injured?”

“Ah don’t think so, Jack. B-but – what about – what about ma baby? What about Ewan!?”

“Look – try not to worry, Jill. Ewan’s out cold, but he’s alive. An’ when the doctor gets around to you an’ Ewan – well, he’ll check out your baby too. Ah’ve gotta go check everyone else, so try not to get too stressed an’ ah’ll get back to ya later. Okay?”

Jack carried on checking throughout the passenger cabin. By the time that he had gotten around everyone he guesstimated that out of five hundred cabin crew and passengers there was around a hundred and fifty dead and probably around another fifty or sixty injured to various degrees between critical, serious, severe and minor. He was assisted by some of the uninjured passengers to shift the floating separated chairs with their dead passengers. They moved them into the hold and strapped them down as they were likely to cause more damage and injury in the passenger cabin. When Jack floated back to the field hospital area he found that there were now four doctors of varying experience and six nurses in attendance. He was assured that they would do their best to get the medical emergencies dealt with as best as they could and he headed back to the cockpit. Jack knew that with the spaceship flying God knows where in the solar system and the likelihood that the oxygen supply was dwindling that his job was to somehow try and get some power and communications back up and running. As he entered the cockpit he was greeted with a welcome sight. His Indian co-pilot had come around and was sitting recovering in his seat with his helmet off. Rajeev grimaced a pain-ridden white flashing smile at Jack.

“Thank God, Raj, you’re alive. How’re ya feelin’?”

“I’ve felt better but I think I’ll make it. Poor Joanna didn’t though, Jack?”

“Ah know, Raj. It’s God awful out there in the passenger cabin too!”

Jack placed a blue plastic cover over Joanna’s upper body for the moment until her body could be taken to the hold. She would have to be moved later. He and Rajeev set about checking what power, instruments and systems were working, which were damaged and what was irreparable. After a couple of hours of checking and testing they had made some conclusions
and calculations. The fusion drive engines and drive system was beyond repair or at least in their view beyond firing up again. There was still some rocket fuel in the boosters although they would need to get vital parts of the system powered up again in order to be able to fire up the rockets. Jack also decided that they should hold the rockets in abeyance for the moment until they had established their position, direction of travel and distance from Mars. They had both roughly guesstimated that they had been probably blown about two hundred thousand miles off course by the shock waves and as far as they could establish they were continuing to travel further away from the Red Planet with each passing minute. At present they had no vital monitors or functioning computer systems and no functioning radio. Worst of all was the perilous state of the oxygen supply, which on their sleeve monitors indicated it was down to about forty nine per cent. This confirmed to Jack that there was a definite leak, which they would have to try to find and plug it. Even then Jack guessed that there was only enough oxygen for the survivors to last three, maybe four weeks. With the fusion drive out of action and the small amount of rocket fuel left there was no way of turning the LII around and getting to Mars in three or four weeks. Jack had to hope that Mars Control would have had the presence of mind to send out a rescue mission. Even if they had, Jack knew that he needed to find a way of getting a communication out on their position. With the LII being so wildly off course any rescue ship from Mars would be looking for a needle in a haystack. Rajeev could see the worry etched on Jack’s brow.

“What do you reckon our chances are, Jack?”

“Slim, Raj, pretty damn slim!”

About half an hour later the doctor who had signalled a thumbs up to Jack reached Ewan and Jill to assess them. He was the nominated lead surgeon and he introduced himself to Jill as Doctor Abdul Maqbara. He dealt with Ewan first but reassured Jill that he would check her and her baby in a few minutes. Ewan was still unconscious, however, Dr Maqbara was encouraged by the fact that Ewan’s vital signs were still reasonably strong and stable. He told Jill that he intended to move Ewan down to the field hospital for further assessment. The young Saudi doctor explained that they may need to keep Ewan in an induced coma for a day or two until they could determine any brain or internal injuries. Jill blurted out in a flood of tears.

“Please doctor – ah don’t want to lose Ewan!”

Dr Maqbara tried to reassure her that Ewan was in no immediate danger and that for her own sake and the sake of her baby she needed to stay as calm
as possible. He then began to attend to Jill and looked at her quizzically.

“How did you manage to get onto the Oceanus programme when you are well into a term of pregnancy?”

“It’s a long story doctor. Don’t ask. Ah wasn’t even supposed to be here.”

“You shouldn’t have been. NASA even decided that under-16 year olds were not robust enough to make this trip never mind a foetus in the womb.”

“D-does that m-mean ma baby - ?”

“It doesn’t mean anything yet. Stay calm and let’s have a look at the little fellow?”

Maqbara gently unzipped her from her spacesuit and thoroughly examined Jill for any signs of external or internal injury. He then concentrated on her womb and cervix and listened for the baby’s heartbeat. He then helped Jill back into her spacesuit and looked her straight in the eye.

“Well, Jill, looks like you got through the space storm injury free. You’re a very lucky girl.”

He looked around at the dead bodies all around strapped in their seats to reaffirm to himself just how lucky Jill and he himself was in surviving the shock wave impacts. It all seemed down to a matter of sheer luck. The doctor guessed that Ewan was probably hit on the head by one of the seats which had ripped free, but that Jill sitting beside him had been totally untouched. Jill impatiently tugged at Maqbara’s spacesuit sleeve to bring his concentration back onto her.

“B-but ma baby – is the baby alright?”

“Y’know Jill, it’s a small miracle. But your baby seems to be in pretty good shape considering what we all went through. A good strong healthy heartbeat. About four months along I would wager?”

Jill nodded in agreement feeling tears of relief welling up inside her.

“Jill, I would prefer to have been able to conduct an MRI or even just an ultrasound scan, but I’m afraid we don’t have that equipment available on board. You’ll need to wait until we get you down on Mars for a full assessment. But that doesn’t mean that you need to be worried. Meantime, we’ll keep a good eye on you and the baby until we get there. Okay?”