Short Fiction: Relay Six

 

R E L A Y   S I X

The Relays are about a light-year apart. Transports are accelerated up for half a light-year before the relay station switches the laser over to the next outgoing transport. Incoming transports are decelerated from the midway point when the sails are adjusted to intercept the decelleration beam. RELAY SIX sits near the outer edge of the Oort cloud serving as the gateway to the Centauri system.

An approaching transport was in its last hour of deceleration.

The Automated alarm sounded though no one could hear it. When it stopped the passenger cryopods began entering their day cycle. Cryopod P five three four eight nine two activated its interior lighting illuminating the face of the passenger within.

Caroline's chest burned with increased activity. Her throat felt every breath as though she was choking on some uneaten scrap of a meal. The defrosting taste of starch molecules insisted it was the baked potatoes from relay station five mixed with... she forced herself over the edge of the cryo and vomited cryo fluid missing the waste capture.

The pain in her chest had moved to become a knot in the muscle above her right lung. She would need to ask the station doctor about it.

"Holy..." The pain wasn't going away anytime soon. "...fuck."

A voice alerted the passengers: "Sorry folks... the transport was swept by a gamma ray burst from a pulsar a few years back."

"What?" Caroline was confused. The passenger transport was heavily shielded.

"Penetration was full dose." The people around her were all exhibiting signs of having lost hair. Caroline turned to look at her cryopod. There was hair in the cryopod. A lot of it."Normally you could just get treated at medical on arrival."

"Oh God..." Caroline felt for her teeth and gums. "...if we've taken a fatal dose."

"It also had sufficient force on your solar sails that you were pushed off deceleration beam." The traffic controller's voice paused to take a breath. "And because we need to refurbish the transport at each relay station we can't just put you back in cryo."

"No..." Caroline considered the scenario. It wasn't supposed to be like this. "No."

"There are special red satchel emergency meals that contain a painless poison." The voice was calm. "They are there for precisely this scenario."

Caroline stared at the people around her. Passengers embraced family members. But she was alone. A search of her personal storage and she found the red satchel. The very idea that they would commit suicide was abhorent. Terrifying. A those around her began to cry.
The cries of the others were too much and Caroline simply climbed into her personal storage and pulled the outer door shut. Her slim build allowed her to sit down and place her hands over her ears.

It seemed like hours. People crying. Screaming. Objecting with all their previously surpressed emotions. There was nothing left.

When Caroline woke it was silent. She hugged her red satchel tighter. She wasnt hungry yet. Just sleep a little longer. One more day.

"There were a lot of kids on this one." A woman's voice roused Caroline. "We should have waited for the next transport."

"I'm sorry Paula..." The voice of the Relay station controller startled Caroline. "...but we all knew this would happen the moment we acted to declare independence from Earth."

"Yeah... but there were so many kids." The voice of Paula was in tears.

"It was fortunate they took a gamma-ray burst on route as we could convince them they had nothing to live for." The Controller seemed pleased. "But when we turned off the deceleration laser there was a transport at the mid point, and a second launching from Relay five."

"And Relay five wont know the laser is down for a year."

"Neon!" Another male voice spoke over the Comms. "There is a problem."

"What is it Trey?" The Controller was named Neon? Caroline focussed on remembering the names of her Terrorists. Neon. Paula. Trey.

"We switched off the deceleration laser but the Fusion reactor ejected the instant we did it." There was an automated voice in the background saying something. "Its telling us we have twenty-five minutes."

"Fuck." Caroline tasted blood in her mouth from the radiation as she smiled at Neon's situation. "Paula... reset the cryopods in this section while I go deal with the thing that's gonna kill us."

"Okay." Paula was quickly alone and Caroline maneuvered herself into a position where she could observe how to reset a cryopod.

After a while of watching Paula reset cryopods Caroline caught sight of a man entering the transport section and approach Paula. He seemed distressed.

"Paula." Neon was very good looking for a Terrorist. "How many cyopods have you reset?"

"Two." The sound of the transport exterior hatch sealing and the transport shunted forward to launch into the Centauri system. "What was that?"

"I set the automated launch for the Transport." Neon had apparently abandoned Trey and the others. "Get in your cryopod... we are leaving."


Caroline waited for the pair to enter cryo before emerging from concealment. "Now it's my turn."

The sudden force of the launch caused Caroline to black out.