Red Zone - 10

A Novel

7

They slid down the tube, with Kiesha shunting them to the final destination: the lower loading bay, which was the terminal south. It was rough-hewn out of rock originally, with vast slabs of naked concrete-ceramic matrix, that had a cool beige surface that was more reflective than mere stone. It sparkled slightly from the fine mesh of metal, which was in complex swirls to give resilience to it. However, some years back, a woven set of tubes, white with transparent metal panes, had been placed over it, with infrastructure for power, liquid hydrogen, and environmental. This was approximately the time the mass drivers were put in to move larger volumes of ore, and processing was moved to the equatorial region. The entire chamber was filled with the vast roar of that rock being piped upwards under super-pressure.

There hole chasm was 25m high, and in a semi-circle, it was nearly 100m long.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Wait, I didn't hear that, it must be a memory.

“No suits. No passenger vehicles.”

Kiesha pointed at the cargo tube. It was human-sized, but not meant for humans. For one thing, it wasn't pressurized, so a person would be frostbitten and unconscious within moments.

The Jovians piped up. “I can handle that for you and me. I'm assuming the lady is good with the miner suit.”

Kiesha nodded and pulled a hood over her head that rapidly inflated to a transparent sphere, silvery tendrils wove their way through it to give it more structure and rigidity.

She pulled white gloves from her belt.

The Jovians pulled out a series of small objects. Venky didn't recognize them as a collection.

“Those are?”

“Emergency life containment. Hope you don't mind wearing a cap and plug.” He offered five small objects to Venky. One was meant to fit over the mouth, nose, and eyes. Two were earplugs. I remember this from emergency training now.

It was not without some discomfort that he inserted the objects, but it wasn't bad. Before he could get adjusted, the Jovians pulled up a small nozzle and pointed. It was meant to apply a very thin film to the rest of the exposed surfaces. Finally, the Jovians pulled out the injector.

He wrote in the air, “This will scrub your blood.”

The problem of course was this already felt like he was suffocating. His mind knew better, but he was already reaching a point of discomfort trying to breathe in, a feeling as if he were sucking in air through a fluid. He knew the active membrane was absorbing oxygen and pushing out carbon dioxide. He didn't feel light-headed. But there was a wave of dizzy nausea that curled in the pit of his stomach. He straightened up, stiffened his lip, and got ready to stock himself into the open cylinder that would carry him to the other side. Into the sled.

They shot for it, in an ancient game of scissors paper stone, he took scissors, the Jovians took a stone, and promptly waved him into the tube first. Kiesha watched amused at the display and then slid in, sans a capsule, relying on her suit to protect her. She was gone. The outer circle spiraled around a red light that went green when ready. Venky was in and felt a slamming pressure of acceleration. His insides felt like they were churned, his head felt like it was rammed into his ribs, and he blacked out briefly. 12g. It took less than 10 seconds of that to take him to just subsonic speeds.

He was local Mars Mach .95 and woke up sliding down the tube, levitating on a magnetic buffer.

The passing through the tunnel was deeply hypnotic, with white greys that glowed as the lights of the sled hit it. They shimmered with thin twisting ribbons of color, that were a breath, an accent, on the turns and swirls. Ya, they didn't grow this but pushed the ceramic through under pressure.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Wait, I didn't hear that, it must be a memory.

Through his earplug, he could hear Kiesha, but only barely because of the roaring speed. The cold was already biting through, his fingers were numb and his head was heavy. “It is only 6 minutes until deceleration. H-o-l-d o-n.” He felt his teeth grind, and he was suddenly warm and floating, swathed in comfort and light. The sense of clinging fell away, the bite fell away. There was a moment of darkness as he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again there was the wobbling whistle rushing past his ears, the tangle of struts and machinery all around him. He was wearing his tank commander insignia, and a drop suit, and standing on the deck of his drop tank. One by one the tanks of his unit were lined up to drop downwards. In a reversal of human intuition, it was brighter below, a white molted cloud deck, with bright blue from the water below, and only patches of green from the land. Even that was feathered with the white of smoke and fog.

“Drop 23 Lt. Venkatesh.” The words were coming out of the mouth of the controller, who was lining up cables that would rip the tanks off one by one. He was helmeted, with a dark visor, his jumpsuit covered with unit ids of those he had dropped.

“Drop 62 Woet Vasser.” He climbed on the rider position of his drop tank and pulled the shell over him. It created an asymmetry to the aspect of otherwise sleek hard-edged angled lines. The tank was hard to see because it's meta-material skin warped the light.

The warrant officer shouted: “Rip!”

Venky spoke into his communicator: “Go! Go! Go!”

He saw the restraints fall away from the lead tank, his cutter, commanded by his second in command, and probably the best tanker he'd worked with. It almost looked like it was drifting down, slowly falling through the entrance, and rippling as it passed the magnetic bubble under the carrier. The edge of space was above them, but most of the earth was below them. The tank fell away and grew small, and his own smoothly fit into position, and he gave a thumbs up. They were falling only a second later, and the darkness of the carrier fell away, and he was bathed in hot daylight. Even through the tinting of the shell, and the darkness of his hood, he could feel the heat and light rain down on him.

This was a high jump, over the range of missiles, over the range of anything handheld. Two minutes of free fall.

Slowly the earth grew larger, and suddenly he pierced the clouds, and they seemed to disappear. Moments later, he was throwing them, tangles of vapor and compression behind him. He looked down and saw one softened rectangle below him, venting a contrail. He saw a string above him. One. Two. Three. Four. “Five. Decel1 starting now.” He shook his head, and all he could see were waves and swirls of the edge of the cargo tube. The voice was Kiesha's as she read off the time until breaking. He could feel a gentle, for his experience, push. It was only 3g, it would take less than 30 seconds to slow to a stop.

For a moment his lungs panicked under the cold, and he had dry breathing heaves. He swallowed and swallowed again, and swallowed again. The spasms subsided and he placed his hand calmly against the front of his vehicle. The slowing was hard now, and then it stopped. His body felt like it was still hurtling through space.

But it wasn't.