City on a Hill by Michael J. Findley

Author:Michael J. Findley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hard sci fi space colony Christian persecution
Publisher: Findley Family Video
Published: 2022-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

Seven

The 5,000-kilo shuttle landed next to the antenna array building and a specialized coupler attached. In less than fifteen minutes, the shuttle bay door dematerialized and the first shuttle left for LMC-II.

The rescuers had to force open non-functioning doors, work around several ruined shuttlecrafts, search through wreckage, and avoid the injured and dead being loaded into the remaining shuttles.

Jonathan Newton landed with the initial shuttle, worked feverishly until the entire colony was evacuated. He piloted the last shuttle out, carrying the last of the survivors.

“I know we wanted to make a point, Jon...” groaned Mike Connors, pushing aside the medical corpsman checking his splinted arm, “but I didn’t think it would go this far.”

“The company’s replacing us, Mike,” Jon murmured.

“Can’t say I blame ‘em. But the place is such a wreck that I’m not sure it can be repaired. We can’t even get to the agricultural section; the control panel for the nuclear reactor is inaccessible; door controls don’t function...”

“Maybe they’ll let some of us stay on. The new guys will need help.”

“They might shoot us all, too, Jon. I’m not sure we don’t deserve it.”

“What happened, anyway?”

“Shut up, Mike,” said Joe Miller. He apparently had not been injured.

“You shut up, Joe,” snarled Mike. “I’m sick about this. Someone closed the secondary steam valve to the main generator and when it blew, the steam took out the auxiliary power system. We had to use every battery we had.”

“What do you know about it, Joe?” Jon demanded.

“Nothing! It was just another accident.”

“Sure it was,” said Jon. “Who closed the valve, Joe?”

“What difference does it make now? Nobody was supposed to get hurt. That part was an accident.”

“Tell me who did it.” Jon persisted.

“You’re a traitor, Jon Newton,” said Joe. “You’d tell the company to make yourself look good, wouldn’t you?”

Jon Newton never took his eyes off his controls, but his voice commanded the attention of everyone in the shuttle. “Who’s a traitor? The guy who almost killed everybody in the colony, I’d say. Money’s not worth killing people over. I wish we’d never started all this.”

“Jon,” said Mike, “maybe we could make up for this if we try to help the new people.”

“They can’t just fire us!” squalled Joe. “We have a contract!”

“I think it’s been slightly violated, Joe,” snorted Jon. “And we’ve already been fired. These troops came to clean us out. It was just incidental that they happened to be here to help rescue you. I hear tell they want to put families up here. That should be interesting.”

“Families?” asked Mike. “Guys bringing their wives and kids up here?”

“We’ll see about that,” grunted Joe.

*****

Enrico Sanchez stood before the LMC board with only two note cards. Everyone had arrived at least ten minutes earlier. They watched the digital clock change to 9:00 am EST. Sanchez cleared his throat and began.

“In view of our desperate circumstances, Mr. Solte, I’d like to propose a group of families we’ve been investigating. They have a rather strong religious code which some people have called

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