Samuel found the mic and pressed the broadcast button. “My name is Doctor Samuel Gordon Chase, I am a physicist from New York. I traveled here with a group of survivors.”
There was a brief silence of unmistakable shock. And then the astronaut replied back, “This is Mission Specialist Graham McTaggart. Where are my commanding officers?”
“We are all that’s left.”
“What do you mean survivors?”
Samuel went on to tell Graham the horrors that had befallen planet Earth since he left. He spent a great deal of the night explaining everything that happened to the world and his own story of survival and loss. Samuel even told Graham about Rebecca and patient zero. It wasn’t until Samuel got to the part in Savannah when he lost his son that Graham was finally compelled enough to tell Samuel just exactly why he was up there to begin with.
Graham McTaggart and his satellite were both a product of the little remaining NASA resources. Graham led a team to retrieve raw material mined and returned from the Titan moon of Saturn. Its substance was thought to be indestructible and, if properly deconstructed, a potential clean energy source. Graham explained to Samuel that there was a malfunction during the re-entry procedures and he chose to stay back so his team could safely return home with the raw material.
“That selfless act is what saved your life,” Samuel said, attempting to make Graham feel better.
“What’s a life worth living now that the world is what you say it is?” Graham remained un-shook in his hopelessness, “there’s no conceivable way to get me down from here.”
“But is it possible to get off the ground?” asked Samuel.
“Possible, yes. Likely? No.” Said Graham.
“If I can reset the clock, all of this can be avoided. It’s our best chance,” said Samuel.
“I need you to check something for me first,” said Graham.
“You want me to locate the raw material from Titan,” replied Samuel, rather than asking.
“Yes.”
“I help you with this now and then we begin planning the launch,” said Samuel.
“You got yourself a deal, Doctor Chase.”
“Do you have any identification tags I can search for in the main database?” asked Samuel
“Try Cronos Cache.”
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“I’m bringing up the last couple of entries,” said Samuel. “The material was transported to a storage bunker just a click north in a retired Launchpad. I’ll go retrieve it and bring it back for you.”
“Negative.” Graham looked away while still remaining anchored to the camera by his arm as his body dangled in the air. “The piece is way too big for one person to transport. It’s probably the size of that bunker. Just go get eyes on it, confirm that the mission was accomplished and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“I’ll see you in an hour or two.”
“Good luck, Ground Control. Alpha station out.”
Samuel took his coat and got to his transport. The cape was so flat and paved he could see miles around in every direction. Most of the island was clear of zombies, but not completely abandoned. He pulled into the bunker that was left open. Samuel was thankfully for that. The curved building was massive, wide, and mostly empty. He drove around trying to look for the material. And then he remembered what Graham said about it and had an inclination to look up. Above Samuel was a dark matte crystal slab of extra-terrestrial metal. He got out of the truck and walked over to a point where it was being mounted on the floor. There were no hazmat precautions around the sample. So Samuel thought it safe enough to touch with his bare hand. Always a scientist, Samuel was weighed on the explorer pioneer side of science, never one to side with safety and caution. After all it had cost him. Samuel just couldn’t help himself.
Samuel felt a chill run up his arm but the slab did not feel cold to the touch. He felt the smallest of vibrations and wondered if they were rooted in something, perhaps a core. Samuel smelled it. It smelled like smoke, like a fire burning, but then he realized that was not the space sample, that was the bunker they both occupied. Suddenly, an old helicopter from the gulf war era ignited and blew fire and shrapnel all over the bunker. The fire spread to Samuel’s truck causing it to end up just like the helicopter. The truck explosion threw its burnt shell directly at Samuel pinning him under the metal from Titan.
As the fire grew around him and burned the bunker down, Samuel kept his hands on the space slab. No matter how hot the fire got the slab remaining room temperature. By dawn the entire bunker was now ash around the slab. Heaping mounds of it almost cutting Samuel completely off from the outside world. Samuel waited for the sun to break the dark sky and show him the way out. He would first have to let the ash cool and then try to dig his way through from under the slab.
How did this happen?
Samuel couldn’t help but fall asleep while he waited. When he awoke the ash was cool enough to put his hands through. Slowly, he moved piles of debris and ash under the slab and burrowed a way to freedom. The Titan metal shifted while Samuel was digging and cracked straight down the middle. Samuel panicked. Graham said it was supposed to be indestructible.
Samuel tried a couple more times to move the ash and the giant slab cracked enough from the mounted point that a chuck fell on top of him. Samuel had already expected this to happen and immediately jumped out of the way. He knew he could not dig through the ash anymore. But it did not matter. The damage was done. The crack in the massive slab of interspace metal branched in too many directions to remain in one piece.
Hiding spots were running few and far between for Samuel as he dodged the raining chunks. He was rapidly running out of options and air. Just then a fallen piece revealed a path out that Samuel could crawl to. He dragged his elbows and knees through the shaking ash and broken shards to daylight. Just out of reach the breach was closed again by debris. Samuel was exhausted.
The time had come to accept his fate. After all of this he was going to die because of a marooned Astronaut’s final request. Samuel closed his eyes, ready to let the next rock that fell from above kill him. And it did soon enough, gliding effortlessly down to the ground ready to squash Samuel like a bug.
The core chunk of the slab falling right on top of Samuel was stopped by someone’s arm. It cracked in half like a walnut shell and then snapped again, revealing a different shade of Titan metal, a sharp sliver still being held by Samuel’s savior.
“I got you,” she said, pulling Samuel clear while using the Titan sliver to shield them both from the rest of the falling debris.
Samuel crawled out of the ash-heap bunker and turned around to find Rebecca holding a space sword from the Titan moon of Saturn with both the sun and the smoke from the after-burn rising from the horizon behind her.