Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(98)

Heinrich glares at him. “What do you mean you’re not sure? How can you bring something up and not know what you’re saying?”

“I know what I’m saying,” Terrence snaps. “I don’t have to know what it means or what we should do about it. My point stands: the crew of the Pax likely needs urgent medical care.”

James holds up a hand. “Stop. We can’t bring the Pax crew over here. It’s too risky. And even if the transfer succeeded, we’re not equipped to take them on.”

He looks at Terrence. “The point about medical needs is valid. In truth, we don’t have any more medical capacity than they have. They were issued pretty much the same medicines and supplies as we have here. If they can treat their injuries with those supplies, they probably already have. At best we could provide anything they might have used up. If they need real medical care that neither ship can provide, they need to get back to Earth.”

“If so,” Heinrich says carefully, “why haven’t they gone there? The Pax had escape pods. We know they didn’t use them to send you and Emma home. So why haven’t they abandoned ship for Earth?”

“The crew themselves gave us the answer,” James says. “They felt staying out here and monitoring the Midway fleet was more important than going home and saving themselves. But that job is done now. They’ve shown us where to go. My guess is they used the fuel from their own escape pods to power the drones. They’re marooned out here.”

Heinrich turns to Zoe, a lithe Italian woman and our ship’s engineer. “Can we transfer fuel to them?”

Zoe winces. “Technically? Yes. Practically? Not really. Not enough fuel in a short enough time. It would be a massive undertaking. It would take me, well, I don’t know—days to even figure something out. Maybe a week or more to implement it.”

“There’s a very simple solution here,” James says.

All eyes turn to him.

“Our escape pods. We fill them with provisions and excess medical supplies. We jettison them and allow the Pax to rendezvous with them. Our escape pods will carry them home.”

Space is a quiet place. For the most part, on Sparta One, there is very little noise. But I’ve never heard the ship as quiet as it is now. Instinctively, I feel that I shouldn’t speak first. I am in favor of James’s plan. It’s a good plan. A simple plan. We can execute it in the next thirty minutes, and I know it will save the crew of the Pax. And it won’t even slow us down on our way to Ceres. In fact, with the decreased weight of the ship, we’ll get there faster. And it will work. Our escape pods are loaded with enough fuel to get us from Ceres back to Earth, easily. Even if the pods expend a lot of fuel maneuvering and getting to the Pax, they’ll still have more than enough to get home.

The problem is, we won’t. The crew of Sparta One will be stranded. This ship doesn’t have enough fuel to get to Ceres and back. If we do this, we are sealing our fate. We are trading our lives for theirs. If we do this, it will mean making this a one-way trip.





Chapter 50





James





After I present my plan, a long silence stretches out. I scan the faces of my crewmates, looking for clues about which way they’re leaning. There are moments that test us, that reveal our true character. This is one of them.

I know Emma well enough to know that she is for my plan. The crew of the Pax made the same sacrifice for her and me: their lives for ours. For us, it’s an easy decision.

I know Oscar supports my plan, too. He would follow me anywhere, even to his own doom. I’ll have to do something about that someday, if there is a someday after this mission.

For the rest of our crew, well, I’m not sure. The people on the Pax are strangers to them.

But this crew surprises me. There is no discussion. One by one, around the bridge, they begin nodding their assent.

“It’s a good plan,” Heinrich says.

“I’ll start selecting medical supplies,” says Terrence. “I assume they should be distributed equally among the escape pods?”

“We should coordinate with the Pax, select a specific rendezvous point,” adds Zoe. “Then we’ll know exactly how much fuel they need to get back to Earth.”





As I expected, the Pax fights our plan. They insist all is well there. Finally, I send a message telling them that we are ejecting our escape pods and that they can either ignore the pods or use them. After a long pause, a simple message appears on the screen.

PAX: Thank you. To the entire crew of Sparta One, thank you.





They open up then and talk about their medical needs. I’m relieved that nothing is serious. Mostly old trauma wounds, the kind Emma got when the ISS was destroyed—some broken bones that have healed and scars from wounds sustained during the encounter with Beta. Everyone’s bone density is at a critical level. But that’s about it. The crew of the Pax is going to live.

As for us… well, we’ll see.

The Sparta One crew gathers on the bridge as the escape pods eject. No one says anything, but I feel that a bond has been forged between us, a shared sacrifice that can’t be undone. The ejected pods fly into the black of space, white wisps trailing in their wake, like the first shots fired in a final battle. I sense that’s precisely what they represent. If there was any doubt about this crew’s commitment, it’s gone now. There’s no turning back.