Isaac stared at the group of residents standing in a semicircle at the bottom of the ramp leading down from the MEU airlock. He braced for backlash from the crowd. Jakob and Isaac descended the ramp hauling Erik, hobbling with each step.
Hushed over the radio, Jakob called out. “I’ll take care of this. Go take the sergeant down to medical.”
As they approached, Jakob ducked out from under Erik’s arm. The crowd parted to let Isaac and Erik pass as if they were being ushered by an invisible force. As Issac put all his strength into hauling the sergeant toward the stretcher at the end of the walkway, he wondered where Erik’s family was, expecting to be rushed by those within the group. But as the two emerged from the other side of the crowd, they found themselves isolated.
Instead, the civilians swarmed Jakob. Like a pack of hungry dogs, they reached and grabbed for the lieutenant’s suit in a bid to grab him closer. The hiss of Jakob’s helmet rang out over the radio and through some sort of malfunction, kept his mic hot. He turned and addressed the woman nearest him, who was asking about her son.
“Ma’am, I regret to inform you that Corporal Starkey won’t be returning.” Jacob’s side of the discussion carried over the radio. “He was killed in action during Excursion 47. The people of Lifeboat 9 owe him a great debt.” His voice was level and unwavering as he delivered the report. But Isaac knew his brother too well to not hear the tinge of pain and regret in his voice.
From behind Issac, desperate wails filled the interior of his suit. The crowd riled as the woman’s cries echoed off the walls of the cavernous, nondescript white throughfare walls. Over her ceaseless shouting, the rest of the crowd shouted over each other, demanding to know the fate of their kin. Without hesitation, Jakob addressed each family member in the group, identifying the deceased rank and name while delivering the same status with a measured tone.
With a weak arm, Erik slapped his wrist and triggered his helmet visor to retract away from his face. Then his helmet collapsed back over his head and into his suit, exposing his head. Limping and wincing with each step, the marine contorted his face into a scowl.
“He’s out there all alone, left to the wolves.” The sergeant puffed with a weak voice.
“Who?” Issac raised his arm with the suit’s control panel, over to the opposite holding Erik up, and retracted his own helmet with an extended index finger. He worried that the sergeant was growing delirious.
“L.T.” Erik spoke with exasperation about Jakob. “I got to get back there with him.”
“You’re going on that gurney.” Issac jutted his chin forward to point at the medical team only a few steps away from them and closing. He wasn’t going to entertain doing anything other than making sure the marine didn’t die.
“What, now you’re taking orders?” Erik half-snarled, his eyes drooping from blood loss.
Isaac ignored the verbal assault. Not only his pain but hunger must have been tearing at the sergeant’s sanity. Not only that, but he just lost his friends and comrades not long ago. Isaac looked over his shoulder and felt immense guilt. In the face of the overwhelming emotion pouring out behind him, regret that of the only three that returned from the excursion, one was him and the other his brother. And grateful that his brother was still here, even if their relationship was tenuous at best.
Then remorse filled Isaac’s heart, that he was such a coward. Jakob’s words lingered in his mind, how everyone on this lifeboat was depending on Isaac to keep the power on and everyone alive. But being out there on that spacewalk, if Jakob didn’t make it, he wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t have just submitted himself to the void. Genuine solitude, of going it alone terrified him.
The medical team approached and snapped Isaac from his thoughts as they rolled the stretcher before them. Without wasting a moment, the medic bounded around the gurney and waved a handheld mediscan gun at Erik. After capturing his vitals, the paramedics behind him pulled up tablets from their belt-mounted medical tools and started sifting through the sergeant’s med sheets. The medic began scanning Issac.
“No, I’m good.” Issac flicked his wrist in a bid to get the medic to stop his scan.
The foreboding of the mediscan’s square eyelet and the green laser projecting a judgmental fine grid pattern over his suit spiked Isaac’s anxiety. The last time he got scanned, the med team discovered he’d taken borderline lethal doses of radiation. It was unavoidable, from trying to keep the power going on the lifeboat. Despite his attempts to explain this, they quarantined him. Considering his latest spacewalk, he wasn’t looking forward to the results. There was no way the readings weren’t worse than last time. And then getting berated by Sola, the lifeboat’s captain for needing to intervene and bail Isaac out.
The marine being snatched away and the med team retreating broke Issac’s concentration and he found himself suddenly standing alone.
“Call a code 114, we need a radiation quarantine setup, stat.” The medic spoke into a shoulder-mounted radio. “Patient is critical.”
Issac cursed under his breath. He must have bled off radiation on Erik. Isaac felt more like a liability than a benefit to everyone else.
“I need a team down here. Now.” The medic demanded, into his radio.
Isaac winced, remorseful. The paramedics secured Erik to the gurney and rushed him off. The medic stayed behind in a standoff with Issac.
In frustration, Issac slid his gloved hand down his face and groaned. “How bad is it? Last time they grabbed me over 0.9 grays.”
“Are you confused; do you know where you are?” The concerned medic started scanning Issac again, bewildered by the readings and retrying repeatedly.
Last time Issac got in trouble for being overly sarcastic, so he decided to play along for the sake of not causing problems. “I’m on the deck of Lifeboat 9, deboarding from an MEU.”
The medic continued to stare at the display of the handheld scanner, his eyes wide from shock. “Do you feel any stomach problems, aches or pains?”
“I’m on the verge of starvation.” Issac spoke the truth, flatly.
The statement broke the medic’s concentration, and he looked through the device in his hand. “Aren’t we all…”
“So, what’s the damage this time?” Issac demanded, not looking forward to the coming discussion with the captain.
“Two thousand.” The medic looked nervous.
“T—two thousand what, rads?” Issac swallowed hard, realizing that was dead-man-walking territory.
“Grays.” The medic took a step back.
A sharp chill washed over every inch of Issac’s body that was 200,000 rads. There’s no way. That’s the zone where instantaneous death occurs within an hour.
“There has to be some mistake.” His tongue went dry, and his stomach leaped into his throat. “I—I had contact with a hot reactor but not for that long…”
From down the hall came a pair of quarantine paramedics clad in metal-shielded protective suits sprinting toward Issac with a stretcher in tow. Issac felt pins and needles roll across his skin from head to toe as the chill wind of death washed across his face. His breathing grew rapid and he began sweating.
“W—what was his?” Issac motioned down the hall. “The marine, Erik.”
The medic looked down at the scanner and swiped his finger across the display, then read for a moment. “0.15 grays, normal for a short spacewalk in this sector.”
That didn’t make any sense. They both were in the same reactor vault. Near each other in space. It wasn’t possible for something like this to happen.
As the quarantine team closed, Issac turned to his brother to see how he was doing. Through the radio, Issac heard Jakob still giving his reports to each of the family members. The crowd grew more still with each reading, hope was being sucked out like a ship section venting atmosphere. And Issac felt like he’d just got spaced.
“Two thousand grays, confirmed.” One of the quarantine crew called out, with their own handheld medscan brandished at Issac.
Issac wondered how Jakob would take the news. How would it even be reported? Idiot reactor tech didn’t know how to do his job and nuked himself. He was burden on Lifeboat 9, good riddance. Considering how cold and distant Jakob was since joining the marines, would they even bother him with the news?
“Sir, please come with us.” The muffled voice of the masked quarantine paramedic startled.
Issac took a long look at Jakob and mentally said his farewell, deciding to forego causing any more trouble. He didn’t have the guts to say anything over the radio and considering what his brother was going through, Issac decided it was better to leave in silence. With a sluggish turn on his heel, Issac climbed onto the gurney, and was hauled out of the throughfare and into the ship proper.
The lifeboat itself was a self-contained section of the Endurant which broke away when the infection hit. The Endurant itself was a colony ship, a minimally defended capital ship which typically cruised in groups protected by other military craft of various sizes. Gen 2 ships were designed for survivability against threats like raiders and the Phage. Each living quarter was isolated between sections on the greater ship’s hull frame. Most of the people on the lifeboat, including Issac and Jakob, were those who lived and worked in section 9 of the Endurant. When things went south, section 9 broke away from the main hull and became Lifeboat 9.
Gen 2 life was a far cry from what things were like on the old Gen 1 starships, judging on what Isaac saw on the expedition. Gone were the expansive, rolling cityscapes embedded in each deck, traded for close-quarters hallways, stacked bunkhouses and military-style canteens with the occasional unceremonious recreational room. Halls were lit with oppressive halogen overhead strips. Bunkhouses had off-white, wall-mounted LEDs. Most people slept in stacks; bathrooms shared. He wondered what it was like living in an expansive living like that, or why they built such exorbitant ships. The sudden thought of his own mortality sparked whimsy and he imagined a carefree life among the stars in a Gen 1 ship, with his own living quarters and innumerable places to roam among such a massive vessel.
As the med team passed by the deck’s canteen and the noise broke Issac’s concentration. Large groups of people huddled inside the room, waiting desperately for their next meal as they huddled, restless. When the lifeboat jettisoned, biomass was low. After taking in survivors from other lifeboats, that lack grew greater. And biomass wasn’t the only problem.
The only reason Issac was out on that excursion was because District 9’s reactor bank was in the middle of maintenance when they had to break away. It’s one thing to do upkeep when there’s power coming in from elsewhere on the hull. It’s another when maintenance is cut short and you’re down to one active cell. Likewise, without anyone else with reactor experience on board, Issac needed to keep the cells from dying out while keeping the lifeboat powered, all alone. Sleep and food were in short supply for Isaac. So, coupled with power issues, food processing facilities couldn’t run at full output even if there was enough mass to keep everyone fed. Issac hoped that this cell they found would provide everyone with a measure of relief.
The medical team closed in on the medbay. As they did, Issac noticed an open bunkhouse door. Within, there were more signs of desperate people laying around and waiting for the inevitable. He turned and stared up at the light strips overhead and began to understand why people gave up. Waiting for death was a painful experience, even if there wasn’t physical pain yet. At first, he resented those who would just roll over and accept their fate. Now he understood why: fate had a funny way of nabbing those who fought against it first.
As they rolled into the medbay, the team hurtled past the triage unit and into a small clear glass containment room within the intensive care unit. They locked the gurney in place and transferred Issac to a bed before pulling off his suit using an emergency kit to rapidly disassemble the hardpoints and disconnected the breathing apparatus. Within moments, he was in his stained gray jumpsuit, unable to recall how long he’d worn it. They cut that off him and wrapped him in a gown after dowsing him in cleaner and hosing him off.
Before he could have feelings about the matter, the team had disinfected him, gowned him, and evacuated the cell. Then an overhead vent drew air out and vented in sterile oxygen. Now locked in a clear prison a bit bigger than the area around an ICU bed, the panic of realizing he was about to die set in. But it was absent terror. There was a strange serenity washing over him that he hadn’t experienced in a long while. The pressure from being responsible for everyone on board was fading and he was finally able to just worry about himself. He relaxed and his breathing slowed.
Beside the bed was a large upright health monitor, which displayed his heart rate and other vitals. Slightly lower than it was when he entered, but not abnormal. He was cold, but considering he’d been working either in a sweltering reactor control room or running from ancient death machines, it was a welcome reprieve.
Issac stared at the overhead lamp as he listened to the beep of the monitor indicating his slowing heart rate. From his training, he understood such a high dosage was probably the least painful way to die from radiation. A lower dosage would have slowly shut down his organs and immune system. He would have gone out delirious and been consumed by common infections. But at this dose, it was going to be a sudden blackout. Like falling asleep suddenly.
It could be worse. He could have been ventilated, like Ivar. Guts vented all over the floor because there wasn’t enough plastimend to go around. Or like Arne, who hugged a walking chainsaw. And then guilt set in. Their lives were lost for nothing. Despite their best efforts and sacrifice to keep the lifeboat going, the unforgiving void consumed them, a meaningless sacrifice. And the same would soon take Issac as well. Then shortly after, the rest of the ship as the reactor cores would go extinct from lack of upkeep and no one with the knowledge to safely integrate the newfound core.
Overwhelmed and distraught Issac couldn’t bear the thought, closed his eyes and awaited the swift embrace of death. But instead, he found a slow relaxation, like drifting away into a gradual, peaceful dream. But his surroundings suddenly changed, and Isaac found himself in darkness but still wide awake as his eyes shot open.
