Jump Point magazine Issue 01.01 (n°01), December 2012 | Page 23

She shuffled over to the strongbox and kicked it open. Kherium. Already
extracted and carefully wrapped. Sweet relief drifted through the
exhaustion.

The respiratory functions on the back were damaged. The fall in the
crater must have done it. It bashed up the feeds and she was getting
too much oxygen. The headaches, nausea, and fatigue . . . even that
voice. Even though it chilled her still. They were all probably just hallucinations and reactions to oxygen poisoning.

“Thanks guys.” Tonya gave them a quick salute. “Sorry you aren’t here
to share it.”

Probably.

Something flitted across her IR window.

Tonya set a course back for the Shipping Hub in Barker. She had goods
to sell, true, but even more right now, she wanted to be around people.

Tonya snatched up her shotgun and aimed. It was gone. Her breathing became rapid and shallow as she waited. Her finger hovered over
the trigger. She pumped the gain on the external mics again and
scanned the hall. The whole time, telling herself to calm down. Calm
down.

She wanted to be around the noise.
Back in the decontamination chamber, the tiny Hadesian carving sat on
the floor.

Every movement of her suit was amplified a hundred times in her ears.
She tracked the rifle through the tunnel, looking for whatever was in
here with her. Something came through the static. Close.

THE END

“Welcome home,” it hissed.
Tonya fired into the dark. She spun behind her. Nothing down there.
She racked another round and blasted anyway. The shots blew out the
speakers in her helmet.
She grabbed the strongbox and ran.
Ran through the slippery, sloping tunnels of pitch black. Now in total
silence. She passed the intersection, where the Hadesian still raised its
arms in terror. She kept looking back. She could swear something was
there, just beyond the range of the IR, watching from the static.
Tonya sprinted up a rise to see the grim overcast light of the exit, now
just a pinhole. Her legs burned. Her arm killed. All she wanted was to
go to sleep, but she wasn’t going to stop. If she stopped, she knew she
would never leave.
She pulled herself up the rope and pushed through the blasted forest
back to the Beacon. Thirty seconds later, the thrusters were scorching
earth. One minute after that, she broke atmo.
As Hades II drifted away, she tried to steady her nerves. Her environment suit slowly twisted on the hanger in the decontamination chamber.
She noticed something.

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