Crapkiller: A Thrilling Science Fiction Novella (The Solarian War Saga Book 0) by Savage Felix R

Author:Savage, Felix R. [Savage, Felix R.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Science fiction
Publisher: Knights Hill Publishing
Published: 2015-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

iv.

Elfrida ran.

It reminded her of disembarking from the Sargent Shriver three days ago, running towards the rovers that had come to meet them.

This is a test, she had thought at the time, but she’d been wrong.

This was the test.

Elfrida versus Ganymede.

Elfrida versus Jupiter, the gas giant glowering down upon her, flinging out lethal radiation from its billion-year-old storms, as if in a calculated attempt to drive humanity out of its territory.

Tom the hub kept her updated on the dosage she was receiving, until she begged it to stop. She couldn’t think about chromosomal damage or lymphoma a decade down the line. She had to think about where she was putting her feet.

The ice flung from the bowels of the moon was unholy stuff, slick as hell. She scrambled over the thick blue waves, relying on the gecko grips embedded in the suit’s boots and gloves. Sometimes, she lost her grip and slid, head over heels. She was tired, dizzy, thirsty. Her suit gave her a drink of glucose solution. She promptly threw it up inside her helmet.

“Don’t fall again,” Tom the hub told her urgently, now that she was sharing her helmet with a viscous blob of vomit. “If that gets in your nose and mouth, it’s all over! You must stay upright.”

“I can’t,” Elfrida sobbed. “I’m beat.”

“You’re almost there. Look!”

Her suit painted a red circle around an object that looked like a thumbtack pushed into the ridge ahead of her.

The Sargent Shriver.

It was not on top of the ridge, of course, but on the far side. Elfrida tottered down the final slope into Neith Spaceport.

The Sargent Shriver was by no means the largest ship parked on the penedome. Cyclers the size of asteroids loomed beyond it, taking on legitimate exports of food and H2O. Normally, ships this size were not allowed to put down on inhabited rocks, but the surface of Ganymede was so awash in radiation that the normal rules didn’t apply.

Elfrida stumbled towards the ship that had been her home for the last two years. The juniors were still on board, safe and cozy within the ship’s radiation shields. How shocked they’d be when they heard her tale. Half of them would probably quit on the spot.

“Hey!” Tom the hub said. “You’re going the wrong way!”

“Going to the Sargent Shriver.”

“They aren’t expecting you! And you haven’t time to stand around out here, trying to convince them that you’re not a smuggler / panhandler / asylum seeker! The spaceport terminal is right over there. Come on. You can make it.”

A new arrow appeared, pointing her towards the igloo-shaped terminal.

Grinding her teeth, Elfrida followed it.

Vomit jiggled, obscuring the lower third of her faceplate. She fell off the side of the ramp that the rovers had rolled down on their arrival. She landed on her back, in artificial light, with her own puke sticking to her face.

She spat, coughed, blew air out of her nose.

The suit’s air circulation wheezed. Her vomit had gone into the tubes, or clogged the CO2 filtration mesh, or something like that.

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