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Analarmblaredthroughthe hot engine room. I looked up from the busted air recycler I was replacing at the overhead hatch, only to see the light flash from green to red. A heavythudshook dirt onto my goggles as the emergency bolt slid shut above me.Fuck. Condensation dripped down the walls, and my gloves slipped on the rungs of the ladder as I climbed to the hatch, my heart in my throat.
I placed my hand on the wheel to unlock the door and…nothing. Frozen shut. The alarm kept blaring. My breaths grew shallow. I scrambled to the com panel and punched in the code for help. Still nothing. Not even a static buzz. I hit it again.
“Somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on!” I screamed into the void.
I have my tools. Everything will be all right.As long as I have my tools, I can get out of any mess.
Despite the heat, a chill ran down my spine as I crept back down the rungs. I zipped my coveralls up to my stubbled chin, sat against the rounded wall and toed the tool bag at my feet—a small comfort. The noise had to end sometime. I’d wait it out. Not that I had any other choice. On the verge of panic, I tucked my head between my knees and adjusted my hearing protection.
Nothing muffled the piercing wail, not even the constant grind of the huge gears turning overhead or the ductwork’s rattling. The steady drone and flashing red lights consumed my senses, blocking out reason. I pressed the heels of my hands so hard against the hearing protection that the hard plasmasteel beneath the cushion dug into my ears.Please make it stop. Despite how squeezed my diaphragm was in this cramped position, I curled into an even smaller ball. If I focused hard enough, I might will this horror away.
When I stirred awake, joints stiff and eyes swollen, I was alone. That in itself wasn’t unusual. The engineer position I’d occupied for less than a month kept me isolated for most of the day, or rotation, as the locals would say. It had taken me forever to wrap my head around days being measured by ten suns and ten moons instead of hours. But with the constant buzz of the research station’s AI in my ears—instructions, systems checks—I’d never felt lonely.
I checked my wristport. Twenty hours ago, I’d been sealed inside the engine room. Fuck!
I stood and stretched my arms toward the low ceiling, then twisted my head from side to side. My nerves prickled. Something had changed.
The quiet.
It should’ve been a relief, but instead, a sense of doom pressed in on me from all sides. This was the bad kind of silence. The calm before the storm. The haunting lack of sound that left a person questioning all of their life decisions. Like accepting a position at a remote research station on anotherplanet. All so I could be respected for my brain, not the superior genetics I’d been born with. This had been my chance to escape everyone who’d only ever used me for my body. I mentally kicked myself in the ass for not listening to my mother and all her scare tactics.
Maybe my need to escape, to be more than a breeder, had made me a little reckless. But I’d been jacking off into jars since I was sixteen.
Who cared if my DNA had tested in the top ninety percent for strength and height? Earth’s Special Forces Western Division could suck it. It hurt my heart to think of all the soldiers created with some part of me in their chemical soup. Plus, if I had to jerk it to breasts of any shape or size ever again, my dick might shrivel up and fall off.
That didn’t mean I wanted any part of this eerie loneliness.
Station C shuddered, and I cried out. Tern was a stable planet. My research had shown no history of earthquakes, but the whole damn research station was built into the side of a volcano—shaking was not good.
Any thoughts of loneliness scattered as adrenaline pumped through my veins. Widening my stance, I raised my hands over my head on instinct, attempting to hold up the thirty levels above me that might come tumbling down at any moment.
A loudswooshsucked all the air from level thirty-one, the lowest level of Thermal Station C, and the vents sealed in quick succession. One too many vampire movies had my imagination working overtime as I pictured myself in a coffin, choking on my last breath of air while mountains of soil buried me alive.
What felt like a lifetime later but was probably only seconds, the station settled. I shook out my numb arms and brushed at the dust that had fallen into my sweat-dampened hair, cautiously peering around. The air recyclerI’d just replaced clunked and started up, and the temperature rose within seconds.
“Shit, the external coolers must be down.” I coughed, clearing the dust from my throat. The temperature wasn’t exactly balmy, but level thirty-one practically sat on top of a river of magma. I’d handled a lot worse. This was nothing. I unzipped my coveralls halfway and tied them around my waist. It didn’t make a lick of difference in my sleeveless tank. Then, I picked up my toolbox.
Time to see what the hell’s happening.
As I climbed each ladder rung a second time, I prayed the lack of alarm meant I would finally be free of the cramped engine room. The hatch wheel was cool beneath my fingers as I spun it. On the third rotation the long groan of the bolt releasing was music to my ears. For a moment, I closed my eyes, then I stepped back onto level thirty-one. Not a soul in sight. I rushed to the terratherm hub, where row upon row of blinking notifications streamed down the monitors. Fingers fumbling over the screen, I began to scan, and within moments my attempt at bravery failed me.
9:00 Suns: Thermal bacteria mutation at -20?
My arms began to tremble, and I braced my hands on either side of the display.
9:05 Suns: Massive spore dispersal detected / Alarm activated
9:06 Suns: Containment unsuccessful
9:10 Suns: Spore infiltration of ventilation system
9:10 Moons: Repeated attempts at air purification unsuccessful
What? Ten hours had passed.
9:11 Moons: Independent ventilation activated on each level / Secondary ventilation systems now evacuating outside Thermal StationC
