Neon Zero_The Neon Series Prequel Read online

  Franghorn walked past me, tapping me on the shoulder. “You in?” he called back over his shoulder. “Because if you’re not, let them end it for you now.”

  I guess I was in.

  Fire

  “We’re going to die, we’re going to die,” repeated the twins.

  “Can you not lose it right now? Please?” Jax wasn’t angry – he wanted to join them on the steps and sympathise, embracing.

  Not while there’s still a chance.

  “What?” asked Scarlett. “What can we do?”

  “We’re trapped,” he said, speaking through their tears. “So priority number one is getting the ship’s shielding online.” Slowly but surely the inside of the ship had heated up – no doubt the walls would be warm to the touch. The cavern ceiling may have protected them from the worst of the previous flare, he thought. Sweat trickled from his hairline. He wiped it with the back of his hand, about to shake the girls from their grief, then they held hands and stood, wiping tears away.

  “What do you need us to do?”

  “Okay, I need one of you in the cockpit to relay readings.”

  “No problem,” said Lani, “but you need to show me what to do.”

  Jax nodded, and started to climb up. Lani began to follow but Scarlett kept hold of her hand, face pensive. He watched them exchange a look – telepathic thoughts for all he knew – and finally Scarlett let go. She stood, alone and lonely, arms crossed. “Be quick.”

  He directed Lani to the forward chair and helped her in. After buckling her in – “To be safe,” – he prompted the boot sequence and pulled up the holo-gauge for the shielding. “This needs to be green to activate. If you see it go green you immediately flick this switch,” he pointed to a toggle switch to their right. “If that fails then the digital override may still be active, in which case I’ll need to activate it at source.”

  “And where will you be?” With her hair hanging back towards the ‘floor’ and out of her face, Jax noted the nebulae of freckles across her brow and wondered if they’d match Scarlett’s.

  Then the ground rumbled slightly.

  More rock fall.

  Her breathing quickened and she closed her eyes until she’d regained composure. While her eyes were closed her took her left hand and moved it towards the comm system in the arm rest.

  “We can still talk using this,” he said.

  “If this has always been here why are we only using it now?”

  “I’d never get any peace!” he smiled, then began the climb back down. “You press that button when it goes green and you save our lives.” He looked up at the silhouette of the chair, stray hairs dangling from the top.

  “Hey,” echoed her voice around him. “Testing.”

  “Working great,” he said, and dropped to the floor below. Metal clanged. His shirt felt clammy in the small of his back. Across the room, Scarlett waited just as he’d left her. “Right, let’s go.”

  She followed in silence; each dropping down level by level using his makeshift laddering. He spoke as they descended. “I need you to go right to bottom, to cargo, and find haulage container H23. Which container?”

  From above, a quiet voice repeated “H23.”

  “In there is two, three hundred metres of cabling – I want you to bring that up to me in the engine room.”

  “To the engine room, got it.”

  “Good,” he jumped down to the floor above cargo. Beyond the end of the room it would be dark, so he drew his torch from his belt, ready.

  Scarlett landed beside him. “You’ll be down there, right?”

  He nodded and opened the hatch to cargo. “H23. It’ll be heavy, so roll it out. I only need you to bring me one end.”

  “One end, okay,” she said, climbing down.

  He turned, alone again; another bout of incredulity hitting him as he made his way towards the engine room. Why now? He passed the table and chairs he’d eaten dinner at for the past few months while running calculations; his notepad lay scribbled to death where he’d left it – equations exploring the possibility of flight. Tea rings overlapped on the table, and among the pillows on the floor in the corner where the girls played, stray clothing held their scent as he passed. He supposed his scent permeated everywhere else – he just couldn’t smell it.

  He pushed through the door and turned on the torch. Faint neon lights bloomed where walls met ceiling, but he’d diminished the power allocated to lighting in this area a few months back. It amounted to a long corridor; he had to dodge the ladder rungs at his feet that would have been used to climb up and down had the ship been the right way up. A hatch at the end opened into the engine room.

  Here, it would be tricky as he hadn’t properly repurposed the layout to make sense of orientation. He entered and walked down the wall, aiming his oval of light left and right, and up, towards the front end of the engine room. He called it the engine room but it didn’t house any engines – a series of cylindrical generators attached to both floor and ceiling were arranged above his head. From here, a variety of systems could be accessed and analysed and power distributed to them. It would normally be an automatic function of the ship’s controls, but the generators were down and he hadn’t fixed them. Instead, he’d set up a series of relays connected to the native storage cells of the ships. Incredibly, they hadn’t been drained dry when he first discovered them, diverting their charge to power simple ship functions, like disposal. He could still remember the whoosh and crack of the skeletal remains entering the recycler system – the bones of the previous crew. Eight in total. Cracked skulls for some and broken limbs for others, from what must have been a difficult landing. Two had died down here near the doorway, and every time he entered he could still picture the inert ribcages, remembering how he mistook them for moulded manikins briefly before common sense kicked in.

  At the far end – the ‘floor’ – he put the torch between his teeth and climbed the rope ladder he’d erected to reach the power distribution unit.

  “Hello?” called Lani’s voice from the comm.

  “I’m here,” said Scarlett from her position.

  “I don’t like being left alone up here.”

  “I’ll swap ya,” grunted Scarlett, and the comm when quiet.

  When Jax reached the console he twisted around and sat where he could find purchase, jaw aching. If he dropped the torch now he wouldn’t be happy. Five or six metres below was all darkness. He unbuckled his trouser belt and removed the belt, then rethreaded it and put it around his head, behind his ears. Then he positioned the torch between the top of his skull and the belt and pulled it taught. Good, he thought, it would hold. Torchlight followed the angle of his head.

  He dropped back down to the rungs and wrapped the rope around his bicep, pivoting around so he could activate the console display. The only reason it was off was to conserve energy. Its ambient green and orange glow filtered across his face as he scanned the readouts; all but one of the large storage cells were empty, as expected. He dove into the subsystems and began taking all non-essential systems offline; lighting, power sockets in all rooms bar the laboratory, front and rear lighting, air con, doorways. It was about to get very warm. Then he brought up the shielding unit – situated some one-hundred metres above his head with lattice threads weaving from it, woven into the hull system – and allocated remaining power to it.

  The power gauge rose, from 0% to 3%, his heart fluttering as it did so. When it stopped – as he knew it would – he still couldn’t hide his disappointment. He hit the console, as though it would wrench another drop of charge free. And then depressed a comm button. “Lani – is it green yet?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, hold fire. Scarlett – are you near?”

  “Just coming to the engine room.”

  “I’ll aim my torch to where I want you,” he said, and climbed down while looking down. He put thoughts of pain and ache from his mind, for there was a lot more to come and this would seem like nothing. Scarlet
t’s footsteps began to echo from the metal walls, and torchlight joined with his beneath him.

  He dropped down and looked around.

  “You’re right, it’s heavy,” she said. “Is it long enough for whatever you need it for?”

  If Jax’s calculations were correct, and he’d run through them twice, then the answer was “Just about.” It would be tight was the truth. He took the transfer cable and tied it around his waist.

  “Looking good,” joked Scarlett. “Make sure your pants don’t fall down.”

  “You can go back now. Join Lani and report the time remaining over the comm system, and if you don’t see me again, I’m sorry.” The background hum of the air conditioning halted as the systems caught up. “It’s going to get warm; if you can work the controls, once the shield is activated you can turn the air-co back on.”

  “What do you mean ‘if’?”

  “Just ‘if’. Now go, every second counts.”

  “We’re no good here without you, so you make sure you’re okay,” she said, giving him a hug. The words lead his mind to the baby – What would happen to her should he die?

  “Go,” he said, turning away to climb the rope ladder. One foot, then the next, swinging away from the wall where it wasn’t pinned down. Where were the zero-G rungs in here? Scarlett’s steps retreated until they were gone and he was alone, his thoughts chasing the oval of light before his face. The baby. The twins. The CME. The shielding. His impending death.

  There would be enough time.

  He went as fast as he could now, hand over hand and boot over boot, the coarse fibres of the ladder grazing fresh blisters in the meat of his fingers.

  He passed the control console and considered activating the emergency beacon – perhaps even trying the external comm system. How long would that take? How much power would it take?

  Too long and too much, in all likelihood. The growing heat pressed in on him, and his head returned in kind with a dull, rising headache. He rarely ever got headaches – the physical and mental strain must be paying its toll. If he got through this it would be interesting to assess his bodily and psychological reaction to the stress – I guess getting through it would be strong evidence for continued genetic engineering measures.

  The cable around his waist hit the ‘wall’ then swung away, hit and swung away.

  He considered for a moment how fortunate it was that he’d installed the ladder, starting at the bottom and unrolling the rope as he ascended, firing the steel staples into the metal every metre, and then he was at the active power cells. The storage cells inside were now powering the shielding lattice, but more would be needed. He unhooked a socket cover and then, very carefully, untied the cable from his waist. He inserted it and then flipped a clip to hold it in place. Finally, he switched to manual override and he was set – just the small matter of connecting the other end.

  “I’m with Lani again,” Scarlett said over the comm. Jax startled. There really should have been a warning beep of the comm being open.

  “Good, strap in and hope for the best.” The static of the open line ceased and he was alone again.

  Going down was a lot easier than going up as he could skip entire lengths, gripping tightly. At the bottom he pulled the belt and torch from his head and immediately felt a relaxing of the stress pressing down on him. He then picked up the trailing cable and fed it through his hands as he walked to the exit. He pulled on it, making it as taught as possible; it would trail around the contours of machinery above his head but he needed every inch he could get. At the hatch he looped it around a hook to fasten it in place, and then walked on, continuing to feed it through his hands. The light bounced around and he kicked stray items that scuttled across the floor to the edge. Jogging now, he was quickly at the exit and in the adjoining room, and then dropping down from there into the cargo hold. The cable led to the box in which it was coiled, so he toppled it over to find the other end. He then unclipped the box next to it and pulled at the end of the transfer cable inside there.

  Two cables. It’s all we have and hopefully all we need.

  He connected the two cables and then placed them next to each on the floor, hauling them from the boxes in sections – everything at once was too heavy. Then he looked across to the rad suits hanging on the wall.

  Sweat dripped from the edge of his eyebrows and he guessed it was about 35-degrees Celsius and rising. Practically arctic compared to outside. He peeled his clothes off and left them in a pile in the middle of the hold. Beside the rad suits were towels – he quickly dried off and then stepped into a yellow suit he knew was at full power and full oxygen. Small cells of compressed oxygen ran across the top section of his back; a noticeable weight as he shucked it over his shoulders. Weight that would add to his own.

  “What are you doing, Jax?” asked Lani. Her voice came in stereo; from the room comm and the suit comm.

  “Powering the shielding unit, Lan.”

  “It’s hot.”

  “It’s going to get really hot.”

  “We’re scared. Scarlett said you made it sound like you wouldn’t be back.”

  He double zipped the suit and lifted the helmet over his head. The helmet was clear reinforced graphene, solid and allowing for 360-degree views. So light it barely had weight. His fingers appeared in the graphene gloves built into the suit, thin and allowing for full dexterity. He wiggled his toes in boots that were too big for him.

  “Jax?”

  “I have to go outside, but I’ll be back in time.”

  “Outside? Are you crazy?”

  “It’s the only way. How much time left?”

  “Twenty-four minutes.”

  “See? Plenty of time.” He turned on a light built into the helmet and looked around. Twice as bright as the torch – it was almost blinding. Least I’ll see it coming. “Whether the power is at full or not when the CME hits, you hit the switch. It won’t last long but it might be long enough.” Delay death for all of two seconds.

  “Oh, Jax.” He heard sniffles; listened to their quiet sobbing. Wished he wasn’t the reason they were here.

  “I need to conserve suit power,” he said. “I’ll have to deactivate the comm. We’ll speak again when I’m back.” He blinked at the heads-up sound display shown on the inside of his helmet until it muted and the white noise of tears abruptly ended. And took a breath. The back of his eyes stung.

  His steps were lunge-like as he made his way back to the cables, bent over, picked up the end, and then walked quickly for the exit. The door hissed open and there was a mild backdraft of inrushing heat. He stepped out into the darkness; the suit a central blooming satellite of light that blossomed in the corners and crevices of fallen rock. Light even reached the high overhang when he looked up; rainbow auroras rippling visibly in the sky through the narrow space in which the ship had fallen.

  Up.

  Debossed ladder rungs stretched towards the ship’s nose where the stored solar power could be accessed. Panels stretched across the top of the ship and to the tip of the nose, but because of the way it sat, the only area that ever touched the sun was the nose-tip. The ship was meant to be both home and power source for the Robinson Family that steered it, with this exterior access and power source reserved for the subsidiary buildings erected as the community grew. It belonged to one of the very early doomed settlers to traverse the void.

  He’d been meaning to hook the power source up – No better time than the present.

  He couldn’t be sure of the shield’s range of effectiveness though, and began to thread the cable through the rungs of the ladder as he climbed, so they wouldn’t accidently swing outside of the shield’s field and fry.

  Speaking of frying – he felt his whole being cooking. The display read an outside temperature of 63-degrees Celsius. Internal temperature wasn’t much better: 51-degrees. Bursts of Freon regulated the highest end of the scale and made sure it didn’t go beyond what a human could tolerate.

  It was only a s
uit, though. It wouldn’t stop the flames.

  He ascended, hair soaked with sweat, skin filmed with it. The inside of the suit clung to him as he climbed; a mild distraction to his impending doom. The hull was convex, so until he reached the middle of the climb he would need to lean back, hooking an elbow through a rung while feeding the cable through, three rungs at a time. Thread through three, climb three, rinse and repeat. The ship was 110 metres from tip to stern, and Jax estimated approximately 550 rungs in total.

  I won’t have enough time.

  The pain in his biceps and across his shoulders was constant now. If it didn’t get any worse he thought he could take it, though. He figured any future iterations of himself should be given heightened strength in case of such emergencies, for you never knew when the sun might want to blow you up.

  The sweat stung his eyes. How did people wipe their faces or scratch an itch?

  He blinked, repeatedly, in the end making do. At least I can see.

  At 25 metres he stopped to rest; holding the cable with one hand while using the other to climb grew more and more difficult, and the higher he climbed the hotter he felt. The temperature gauge read the same as before, so he stared at it, fighting off the fear of fainting by rationalising that no, it wasn’t any hotter than before, and yes, strenuous work was bound to take its toll but it was nothing he hadn’t done previously.

  He continued up. When the ground disappeared under the curve of the ship, he realised he had passed the half-way point. The tip – now visible – pointed at the rockface that covered them. To the side of that, the sky’s performance continued.