The Exploration by Shane Shepherd

Author:Shane Shepherd [Shepherd, Shane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

***

Kevin

The Orion

I yell into the comms. “Can you read me?” I curse under my breath and feel the urge to punch a hole through the damn door. The knowledge that I’d be doing myself no good keeps me in line. Nadia is holding a small cutting torch to a spot on the door. After a couple of moments, she stops and huffs in frustration.

“Nothing is happening,” she says, and examines the door a little more closely. “How high can its melting point be?”

Chen is tracing the edges of the door that has separated us. It’s black and artificial, but completely blends in with the rest of the wall. It looks like it’s made of the same material as the outer hull.

“I don’t think it’s metal,” Chen observes finally. “And it’s definitely not rock either.”

“So what is it, and why is it jamming the signals?”

Chen shrugs. “Maybe carbon composite or something. Your guess is as good as mine.”

I nod at Nadia. “You got anything better than that?”

“The portable hatch probably has a better chance than this,” she replies.

“Do we have a spare?”

“Yes, but it’s on the Nexus.”

I sigh and slap the door twice, hoping I’ll get a response. I wait for a while, but there’s nothing. Resting my helmet on the door, I listen for a response but there’s still nothing. I activate the external speakers in my helmet.

“Hello?”

“Commander, is that you?” June replies, her voice low.

“Oh, thank God.” I increase the volume on the external audio device. “We’ve tried to melt through but it has been ineffective. We’ll return to the Nexus to get the spare breach kit.”

“No, you can’t do that,” June replies.

“Why not?” I ask.

“We would be wasting too much time. Let’s try to find a way around instead.”

“I’m not ready to take that kind of risk.”

“Being here in the first place is a risk. And I think we still have about fourteen hours of air; we can always come back here if we don’t find a way.”

“I don’t want us to split up.”

“We’ll actually cover more ground with two teams.”

I take a deep breath and consider her suggestion. “Okay. You’ll have to find your way back to the Nexus in six hours. If you can’t, get back here and the breach kit will be ready.”

“Copy that, setting the timer now.”

“Good luck, Thriller.” I step back to set my own timer, but I hear static hiss in my ear. It’s Chen’s voice.

Nadia winces. “I… th…” The sound almost blows out my eardrums, and I deactivate my comms.

I point to the external audio pickups. “External audio, guys.”

“Another hostile move, Commander,” Nadia notes as soon as she switches the comms.

“We don’t know that for sure,” I respond, and she huffs in frustration, clearly unconvinced. “Let’s keep moving. With our trackers on, we have a chance of linking up with June and Luke at some point.”

“And what if we don’t run into them?” Chen asks.

“That’s why we’re set to meet on the Nexus II in six hours.”

“I guess that means we have only six hours to explore.

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