Free Bastion Saturn by C. Chase Harwood Page A

hatch seal, making certain that he brushed off as much dust as he could. Satisfied and feeling light-headed, he gently pulled the door shut, hit the locking button, and was rewarded with an amber light. The moment the light went green he popped the seal on his helmet and took in a breath of rank air. Even though it was off his head his helmet kept chiming away.
    Jennifer, with a drying bloody gash on her forehead, opened the inner door and said, “There’s no air in here, dude!”
    Caleb pointed behind him. “There ain’t any out there, either! I see you breathing!”
    “Not for long. Why didn’t you go for help?”
    “How about, ‘Holy shit, Mister Day! How did you survive crashing on the surface of a moon wearing only your exosuit?’ I went for help, but I found dead bodies and an open outer airlock door—not even a welcome mat. Two ships out there. One of them a cop’s, but they’re locked. I figured trying to save you was better than nothing.”
    Jennifer stood awkwardly on the angled deck. “So save me.”
    Caleb pointed at the hibernating passengers, who were still miraculously strapped to the wall. “Are they alive?”
    “I can’t tell.”
    “And they stayed like that through the crash?”
    “Dave and Rob were ripped free. I strapped them back.”
    Caleb stepped over to Rob and looked inside his visor. “Jesus.”
    “What?”
    Caleb popped the clasp on Rob’s helmet.
    “What are you doing?”
    Caleb pulled off the helmet, and Rob’s head gently fell back on his neck at an impossible angle. Unfazed, Caleb opened up the dead man’s life support pack.
    “God. Rob.” Jennifer took an awkward step back. “Now what are you doing?”
    “Unlucky Rob. Lucky me.” He glanced at the stats inside Rob’s discarded helmet. “While he’s been hibernating, taking little sips of air, he left me with a bit still in the tank.” He pointed at her suit, which she had cast off in a corner. “Put that back on. We have to make another go at the station. Something is really wrong there, but we have no other options.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    She shrugged, pointed at the suit, and said, “I released my air from there so there would be air in here. The airlock was sealed shut, so I figured I’d wait for a rescue. When I saw you coming in alone, I knew I was screwed.”
    Caleb pulled the air pack from Rob’s suit. “Check David.”
    “No.”
    “What do you mean, no?”
    “It’s ghoulish.”
    “Seriously?”
    “If he’s dead, I don’t want to know.”
    Caleb rolled his eyes. “We should check all of them.” He pulled David’s helmet off. The man appeared to be peacefully comatose, but his pallor was whitish blue. Caleb lifted one of his eyelids. The eye was a deep color of red, full of blood. The other the same. Jennifer only mildly protested when he gently unzipped David’s suit. The chest cavity was crushed inward. Jennifer let out a soft whimper. Caleb said, “I’m sorry. Were you close?”
    “Close enough.”
    “Good thing you were strapped in. These others really rode it out strapped to the wall?”
    Jennifer nodded, tears and snot getting ready to let loose.
    Caleb did a quick inspection of the others while Jennifer pulled the air pack from David’s suit and installed it into her own. He said, “Incredible luck that two died.”
    “Luck,” she said as if uttering a curse.
    Ignoring this, Caleb said, “I’m sure there’s only one shot at this. Gravity’s almost nothing. A little extra weight will help you walk. We drag the living with us and beg for mercy.” He strapped his nerve disrupter and his laser pistol to his hip and thought about what little effect they would have on a hardened airlock door. The disrupter was little more than a fancy Taser, and the laser was designed, for safety reasons, to only fire at living flesh. Then he remembered the breaker. It was a standard issue piece that he had been given five minutes of training to learn how to use. The device