Jupiter's Halo Book Two: The Fall

Chapter 13

The door to the link stair was ahead and coming up fast. Stopping to open it would cost time, a few seconds only, but still time he didn’t have to spare.

The first attempt had been a long way off; nearly forty seconds short of his own personal best and Dalton had told himself and Blist it was just a warm-up. She'd given him a look which indicated her disbelief and worse, that she knew even he didn't believe his lie.

The chrono in his visor ticked steadily down toward zero as he bolted up the last flight of the stairs, arms pumping, legs burning and knowing he still had the fullness of the three primary levels to traverse before he was even close.

The timer ticked past one minute as he dived for the door. A precious second passed in his scramble to wrench it open and Dalton barreled into the wide corridor beyond with Blist’s panting laughter filling his ears. She was close behind, only a few steps, but he knew she was struggling too. She wouldn’t admit it, never. That would strip her of the fun she was having taunting him for the second attempt they both knew he had already failed.

“Shut up!” He panted as the long bend of the main corridor peeled away in front of him.

“You know how far off you are?” She replied with glee and Dalton growled as he tried to dig up his reserves and pushed to move faster.

His booted feet banged loud on the tiled floor. No stealth considerations made here, an aspect of the attempt Finsa would certainly consider lacking if she saw them. Dalton didn't care right now. All he could think of was the route he ran and where he could shave a second, a half-second, anything. Running the length of the station a third time wasn’t going to result in anything but a worse time than he’d managed already.

The first entrance to the loading bay rushed past and he could already see the second further ahead. Once he passed the bay it was up into the second level, through the Mess and mostly empty offices before heading to the first level and skirting around the edge of the labs. Then he just had the last section of the link stair to bring him onto the bridge.

Fifty-six seconds on the chrono. Not enough time.

"You're not going to make it," Blist sang out behind him and he couldn't help thinking it might have been better if Finsa hadn't insisted she join in. At first, her mocking had been verging on funny, then it had become a source of inspiration; the prospect of proving her wrong spurring him to try harder. Now it was nothing more than an irritation and she knew it.

Dalton liked Blist, hell he loved her in a strange kind of way. Like a sister. And like a sibling, she knew exactly which buttons to push when it came to making him angry or frustrated.

“Want to quit now and just start all over?” She called as they emerged onto the second level and Dalton dived into the first set of offices.

“Never give up,” he shouted back, the breath coming hard.

“Never look back,” she replied.

“Never ask why!” They shouted together.

The words were second nature. The rhetoric of the LSS; the creed they were trained to live by. Shouting them and seeing the shock and fright of the few crew members as they thundered past, brought a smile to Dalton’s face and he found an extra reserve to dig into. He urged his feet to move faster, rolling across desks, scattering their contents and leaving angered cries in his wake.

Forty-two seconds to go and he was nearly through. He reached out as the last door of the level's internal maze came up, grasping it with fingertips to pivot and turn through ninety degrees without slowing. He burst into the main corridor on the far side of the level, seeing the access to the next one ahead and hearing Blist exit the offices close on his heels.

Five seconds to reach the next level and fifteen to get around the labs. Call it twenty and another ten to make it up the final section of stair. The mental arithmetic came easy. He could make it. He was going to make it. Thirty-five seconds stood between him and a personal best. The thought was energising. It should have been meaningless, but he’d swallowed his pride throughout so much of the friendly rivalry and he was too full to take anymore. Competitiveness was built into the psyche of those the LSS came looking to recruit. If you didn’t want to be the very best they had no use for you. Dalton wanted his moment of triumph. He wanted it more than anything in that shining moment of hope.

He pushed to speed up again, taking the few steps between the two levels in bounds of three at a time. He could save five seconds in the labs if he kept up the pace. He could do it.

The scene that met his eyes as he passed onto the first level of the station’s primary section caused his feet to falter. The clear glass walls of the labs were obscured. Filled with white smoke that billowed down from the ceiling. He stepped closer, just able to make out the darkness of figures inside.

“Run out of steam have yo- oh!”

Blist came up alongside him. Dalton glanced at her, his question obvious and written plain across her face too.

“What the f**k is happening?”

She spoke without taking her eyes from the pale smoke that filled their view.

Dalton’s mind kicked him with the answer.

“It’s the halon system.”

He swung his eyes back to the shadows within. One was close to the floor, almost prostrate, the other bent double as if covering the first protectively. He could see the two figures almost distinctly, but there was nothing but the impression of others further in.

“It’s a fire retardant. Sucks the oxygen out of the air to starve flames and stop them spreading.”

“There’s been a fire?” Blist asked, still looking in as her head bobbed to try to see through the smoke.

“I don’t know.”

Dalton turned, looking along the outer corridor and up to the ceiling where the emergency lighting resolutely failed to flash.

“There’s no alarm, no evac siren,” he said as his mind turned. “The system’s automatic, but it doesn’t just come on without cause.” He looked at the unlit lights again, feeling a worm of suspicion but unknowing of its cause.

>“Commander, we have an issue in the labs. The halon system is firing but there’s no sign of the cause. Can confirm two occupants, ID’s unknown. Possibly more but we can’t tell without getting inside. Permission to proceed?”“Understood. I'm on the Bridge deck. Looks like there's been a malfunction. Consider all persons inside to be high-value targets and effect immediate evac."“Commander, can you shut down the system?”“No. The bridge crew up here say it needs to be fixed at the source, down in the substation. They’ve requested an engineer but there’s nothing we can do from here.”“Two here, both in suits. One further in,”“Can’t tell the status yet. Possibly unconscious.”“Are the others mobile?”“And moving,”“The last is unsuited. Down but still breathing. Bringing her out now.”“One alive here. One casualty,”“I’ll pull him out but he’s locked in, so it might take a minute. Follow the evac protocol. I’ll catch up.”“Would you stop telling me things I know?””And try your best not to die. I don’t need to be dragging your arse out of here too.”<

Dalton smiled at the familiar banter. He tried an override code on the panel; one every LSS member had to access any door throughout the station. The silly old fool had locked the entrance from within, for what reason Dalton couldn’t guess. It didn’t matter. If he wanted to die in some strange embrace with this young woman then that was his business. It wasn’t however, his choice. Dalton had orders. They all did: the scientific team must survive at all costs.

The panel accepted his code and the thick glass door swung inward. Dalton dived through, grabbing Bramley under the shoulders and dragging him bodily from the prone woman. His eyes opened at the movement and he stretched out his arms, reaching for her.

"Don't… you can't… " His voice was weak and his struggles weaker still. "You can't… " He repeated as Dalton pulled him back through the smoke-filled lab and out into the main corridor.

He propped the doctor as gently as he could against the outer wall. The halon gas was rolling from the shattered hole in the glass, but the space available meant it was dissipating along the length of the corridor.

"What have you done?" Bramley coughed out the words.

Dalton hesitated, about to head back in for the last of the team inside. Did this man want to die so badly?

“We’re all dead,” he muttered. “But you could have saved… “ His voice faltered into silence and his eyes closed.

Dalton caught the man as he slumped sideways, finally overcome by the rigours his body had endured. He pressed two fingers to the artery in Bramley’s throat and felt the pulse still beating. It was raised, but not by so much the old man wouldn’t recover with a bit of time and rest.

Dalton hauled the sleeping doctor onto his shoulder, putting aside his cryptic words for now. It took little enough time to get back out to the corridor where he sucked down a deep, grateful breath. The smoke was building around his legs, swirling at knee level and rising with every second. His conscience raged that he was leaving the young woman to die, but the implant smothered its call to action, steering him inexorably away from the immediate danger.

The rest of the scientists were clear. The team was larger than this, but he had to assume not all had been in the labs at the same time. Dalton scanned the area, searching to pierce the fog, knowing his implant wouldn’t allow him to leave before he confirmed none remained. He had to get Bramley out. That was the mission. The directive.

But if he left the woman she would die…

Never give up. Never look back. Never ask why.

There’d been a lot of things he’d never looked back on. Too many. Faces slipped into his thoughts and he flinched at the memories he always wished could be forgotten.

He looked into the rolling mist filling the labs. The decision was made, even though he didn’t want to admit it. There was no way to fight the instructions being forced into his head.

He shifted Bramley’s weight into a better position and turned away. The trans-terminal was only a short walk away and he made it with his eyes fixed forward.

The halon smoke wove around his feet as he broke into a jog, leaving the research assistant to her fate. Another memory to put away and tell himself he would never look back on.