by Eric S Trautmann

“Nothing ever happens on these runs, Captain,” muttered Flight Officer Jackson. “I thought space would be . . . I dunno . . . more . . . ”

“More like the holos?” Captain Harlan “Doc” Ramsey snorted. “Life ain’t a docudrama, kid. If you want excitement, sign up for military service. There’s plenty of shooting off Io these days. That ought to be a hell of an adventure.”

“I’ve considered it, sir. Cargo runs from Earth to Mars to Luna and back again isn’t exactly the kind of space career I was hoping for.”

“Then consider this, Flight Officer Jackson,” Ramsey snapped, making his junior officer wince. “Consider catching a Belter rocket in the air tank and suffocating to death. Consider a munitions malfunction that holes your suit and boils you alive. Consider being forced to kill a dozen people that are trying to kill you, just for the air in your tanks.

“Adventures aren’t fun or entertaining for the people that live them, Jackson.”

As Jackson blushed, Ramsey reflected -- for the hundredth time since the cargo vessel lifted off -- that he just didn’t understand the younger generation’s attitude about space service. Jackson endlessly bitched about the shuttle’s condition (it wasn’t a military craft, sure, but it was well-maintained and reliable), the food (standard space rations), and even, most baffling to Ramsey, the boredom. Ramsey never found space boring. Space would find all sorts of ways to kill you, he believed. The minute you stop respecting her, she cuts your umbilical, or lobs a micro-meteor through your hull, or throws at all any of a million other everyday hazards which, when added together, meant that anything less than perfection was deadly.

Shaking his head ruefully, he keyed the long-range communications array. “GigaCorp Transit Vessel Theta-1199, requesting approach corridor Baker for Lunar orbit.”

After a brief pause, Ramsey frowned. Keying the comm array controls again, he spoke more loudly: “Luna Control, do you read? This is 1199, requesting approach corridor Baker. If I miss my window, these supplies won’t get to Mars on time and we’ll all catch hell.”

A burst of static provided the only response. Damned peculiar, Ramsey thought. Maybe their comm array is out of alignment.

“Jackson, see if there’s a lunarsat we can bounce a signal off to get through this interference,” Ramsey ordered, splitting his attention between his guidance controls and the comm system. The distance before he missed his approach window was rapidly dwindling.

“Sir, piggybacking a signal like you ordered is a violation of company protocols. Someone could intercept the transmission,” Jackson replied nervously. “We could get in serious trouble.”

“I thought you wanted some adventure. Do it.”

“Complying,” the junior officer grunted, clearly unhappy. A moment later, Jackson muttered, “Nothing yet sir. It’s probably just a misaligned comm array or a defective transmitter module. Nothing ever happens on these milk runs.”

Ramsey remained silent. Something just felt . . . wrong. “Try and raise them again, Jackson. I don’t care who I have to talk to; I need to know if we have our orbital corridor or not. I don’t particularly want to play chicken with another cargo rig, do you?”

Jackson flipped some switches, fine-tuning the frequency transmitter settings. “Sir, I’m getting something. It’s faint and pretty distorted . . . but it sounds like they heard us and are trying to respond.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Static burst from the main speakers, followed by a howl of feedback. Suddenly the distortion cleared dramatically, allowing Ramsey and Jackson to hear: “Transport GCT-1199: this is Luna Control. We’ve had some kind of meteor shower. Primary comm is down; long-range detection gear is down. Repeat: traffic control is down! I don’t know if you can hear me, but break off. Dammit, break off now! Head for open space! Get out of the orbital corridor!” Static again drowned out the signal.

Ramsey and Jackson pulled themselves to their seats, as fast as zero-g would allow.

“Seal your suit, Jackson. Move it!” Ramsey yelled, slamming shut his own suit seals and belting himself in. As soon as he saw that the younger officer was secured, he flipped open the cover to the manual flight controls, and began to roll the ship out of its flight path, vectoring up from the lunar surface.

Ramsey worked frantically, rolling his craft and applying thrust, pushing the engines for all they were worth. Double-checking his course, he began mentally re-computing fuel consumption figures (an ability that had earned him his nickname, “Doc” Ramsey), and grunted with satisfaction; the diversion shouldn’t blow their rendezvous window by more than a single orbit. The shuttle had power for four more orbits, if needed.

“Collision alert!” Jackson yelled, sending a data feed to Ramsey’s terminal. On his screen, half a dozen cargo shuttles -- some from GigaCorp, some not -- were converging near 1199’s position. Before Ramsey could react, two of the shuttles collided, venting atmosphere and tumbling out of control. One of the unfortunate vessels spun off toward the sky, but the other slammed into a nearby craft, exploding spectacularly as the fuel cells ignited.

Reacting by instinct, Ramsey dropped the shuttle’s nose, plunging below the debris scattering slowly towards the lunar surface. “Jackson,” he yelled, “Reestablish contact with someone on the surface and get a military rescue ship out here. And find out what the hell’s going on!”

As Jackson worked at the comm terminal, Ramsey began to inch the shuttle back toward high orbit. Cresting a ridge of lunar mountains -- the Bradley Massif, if Ramsey recalled correctly -- both pilots blanched.

Just appearing over the horizon was the largest asteroid that either spacers had ever seen, streaking at high velocity toward Luna.

Cursing, Ramsey slammed the throttle wide open, and the rumble of the ship’s engines rattled the deckplates, drowning out the incessant beeps and chimes of the instrument systems. As the shuttle banked, Ramsey caught a glimpse of the sharp-etched, craggy surface of the asteroid passing scant meters from his craft.

In seconds, the rock was past, and Ramsey spun the ship, trying to track it’s vector. “Sweet Jesus, somebody’s in for a bad day,” he muttered to himself. “Must be a stray from the mining belt.”

Checking his data, he tried to plot the impact site for the asteroid, praying that it would miss Luna. None of the lunar colonies would withstand such an impact; the death toll would be enormous. Tasking the computer to plot the asteroid’s course, he began to mentally calculate where it would hit.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to Jackson, his breath rasping. “I think it’s gonna miss Luna. It’ll be close, but it won’t hit.”

The computer pinged, displaying the results of its calculations.

Ramsey’s relief faded as he read the data scrolling across the screen. He looked up, staring at the asteroid through the viewport.

“Oh, God.”

The asteroid was heading straight toward Earth.

It took a very short time, for such a monumental disaster. There were only perhaps a few hours to raise a warning. With primary communications on Luna cut by pieces of debris from the passing asteroid, only a few Earth-based observatories knew what was coming.

Before the people on the ground could do more than panic, the asteroid hit.

It impacted in the Pacific Ocean, vaporizing uncountable millions of gallons of water on contact. When the mantle cracked under the blow, lava burst forth, freed from its subterranean confinement. The remaining seawater poured into the impact fissure, where the lava boiled it away.

The atmosphere was converted -- almost instantaneously -- into superheated steam. Millions died as the air literally boiled them where they stood.

Millions more were killed by the earthquakes and tidal waves that swept over the planet.

Dust, steam and debris were flung miles into the air, choking the planet off from the Sun.

In a heartbeat, the Earth died.

Ramsey stared in mute horror, watching the flames and devastation ripple across the surface of the planet. Jackson quietly wept, as Ramsey thought bitterly, You wanted adventure, kid. You got it.