Page 84 of The End of the World As We Know It
Matt glanced at the door to the air lock. His two dead friends and crew members were beyond, wrapped up in their sleeping bags. They’d pushed them into the air lock and through to the depressurized payload bay after their deaths. Frank Mancini was from London. He’d slit his wrists, and in the tussle when they tried to stop him, Hans took a knife jab to the throat that pricked his carotid. Some of their blood was still circulating the flight deck.
“But what about Kennedy?” Gemma asked. “They’ve been working on something. They can bring us down, right? Frank was the pilot, but you can fly this thing, too.”
“I’ve said before—not without help.”
Gemma zipped her suit and sanitized her hands, shaking her head, every movement angry.
“We’re not giving up hope,” Lizzie said. She and Matt swapped a glance, and Gemma turned to face them both.
“Kennedy,” she said.
“Last orbit, there was only one reply to our transmissions,” Matt said. “Tech guy I don’t know, name of Joslin. He could hardly breathe, could barely talk. He said a few people have died in Mission Control, but most have gone home to their families.”
“Abandoned us?” Gemma asked.
“Doing what any of us would do,” Matt said.
“Except Joslin, right?”
“He said he’s stayed there because he has no family, and all his friends are dead.”
“So, you asked him about us? About what we should do?”
Matt sighed. “He’s just a tech guy, Gemma. An engineer. He had no answers. He just said…” He drifted off, remembering Joslin’s clotted voice, his hopelessness.
“What?” Gemma asked.
“He said he wished he was up here with us, instead of down there in hell.”
Matt brushed aside floating blood as he pulled himself onto the flight deck. It spread across the back of his hand, sticking in the hairs there, and he wondered whether it belonged to Frank or Hans. Lowering into the commander’s seat and strapping in, he tried to blink away the memory of their violent deaths.
Earth was visible to his left, breathtakingly beautiful and awe-inspiring as ever, only now he saw it through different eyes. InDiscovery’s payload bay was a large component for the fifth SDI satellite to be built, a multibillion-dollar venture to ensure safety and security down on earth. Their mission was secret, and their cargo even more secretive than usual. This SDI satellite was built to be offensive, with missle capabilities providing a rapid response to any attack.
Within ten meters of him were two fully armed nuclear missiles.
“Still beautiful,” Lizzie said. “You never tire of that view.” She moved forward to float above the pilot’s seat beside him, but did not strap herself in. That had been Frank’s place.
“How is she?”
“On the edge. Like all of us.”
“I’m not on the edge,” Matt said.
“Really? Your wife, your daughter? Aren’t they in New York?”
Matt stared at the Pacific Ocean passing beneath them, wondering if some of those islands might survive. Then he understood thatDiscoverywas the remotest island of them all.
“I’m mission commander,” Matt said. “I can’t be on the edge.”
Lizzie laughed without humor. When Matt looked at her, she was blurred from the tears in his eyes.
“Maybe Frank did the right thing,” Lizzie said.
“Killing himself? Killing Hans?”
“Hans was a mistake.”
“No,” Matt said. “Not the right thing. Not at all.”
