Chap 6
The four of them trudge up a long hill. The summit is a dozen steps away. John is the first to reach it. He looks out over the horizon. Turns back to the others "You're gonna like this."
Not that far in the distance, in the valley below, they can see the lab shining in the sun.
"Twenty-six months of food, water and air, gentlemen." Owen crows as he punches the air with relief.
"We're saved..." Tosh can't believe it and stumbles after the others.
They run down the hillside. For the first time they get a feeling for the .38 gravity. Bouncing sixteen footsteps. Like little kids as they come bounding down. They keep running and leaping and coming. Until the first one begins to slow. It's not from exhaustion. And then the second and the third. It's from horror.
The Hab is in tatters. Roof is gone, walls are gone. Nothing but the titanium ribs remain. They approach. The insides are not much better. It's destroyed. There's no food. There's no water. There's no air.
They search. The news doesn't improve.
"What the fuck happened here?" John asks with confusion.
"Jesus..." Ianto breathes as he backs away to crumble to the ground where he sits string at the carnage.
Owen continues to look around for a moment. It doesn't matter what happened. It's over. Shakes his head at Ianto.
"How's your air?" Tosh asks softly and the men look at their monitors.
"Twenty-two minutes." Ianto mutters and looks over at Owen.
"I'm not much better." Owen agrees.
"What the fuck..." John yells as he kicks angrily at what's left of the structure. Storms off.
It takes Ianto a moment to process it, but..."We're all gonna die, aren't we?"
.
.
.
Pitch black except for the lighted panels like flat glow sticks he's stuck around the room. He cracks another one on as he floats in his flight suit.
Jack's jumped the circuits. Multi-meters stick all over the place. Trying to reboot the entire ship. Checks his load, balances one more jumper, and throws a breaker. The Vessel sighs and flickers with life, momentarily, before it dies again. He checks a meter, changes a jumper, tries again. This time the vessel flickers, then laminates as she comes back on-line. The systems begin to come alive around him. Panels light up, turn from red to green. Lights start to come on.
Gravity returns.
Jack moves through his prison. The place is a mess. Soot and fire stains in some spheres. Smoke damage in all. Flowers destroyed. The garden is half-wrecked. He manually opens a set of valves in one room. Air pumps in from an emergency supply. He checks a meter in his hand, checks again to be sure. Folds back the helmet of his suit. Breathes.
Jack tries to bring the rest of the ship back to life. Half a dozen systems are just simply dead and have to be locked out. Things are not good. Light's beginning to come up. Moments away from entering front-side orbit. Jack opens a panel marked OBS and throws a series of switches.
Door slides open outside the vessel. A small optical receiver clears the dark side and bursts into the light.
On a large vid-screen, Jack can now scan the surface to about a one meter resolution. Searches. Starts wide, scanning the edge of the horizon as it comes into view.
Picks up the glint of the MEV. Zooms in. At first there's nothing but the crashed MEV in profile.
Then the severity of the damage comes clear. Jack tries not to react. Nothing else is there. No sign of activity or escape. The footprints are beyond the resolution of the camera. There's no reason to believe anything but they're all dead.
Jack takes a moment to grieve.
.
.
.
.
Owen and Tosh sit on rocks nearby. Not exerting themselves. Checking their monitors.
"Maybe we got what we deserved. We ignored science and truth on one planet and poisoned it beyond repair." Tosh says sadly, "Then tried to get science to save us on another. Maybe it's the inconsistency that did us in."
"That's what they call the datum." Tosh is pointing to a depression nearby, "Sea level. If there was a sea. Or when there was a sea, that's where it was. You can tell 'cause the sand was created by what's called the fluvial process where water breaks rocks into smaller and smaller pieces. We're the first men on Mars. Even if it isn't gonna last long."
She looks at Ianto who is sitting with his eyes closed, bot loking at anything except for the inside of his eyelids, "Would you rather I shut up so you can die quietly?"
"Nah, you can keep talking. It's kinda peaceful." Owen sighs.
Behind them, headed towards a ridge of rocks, we can see a lone figure making its way along.
It's Ianto. He steps around the ridge. We can hear his comms click and static sounds as he loses line of sight communication with the others.
Up ahead of him, standing on the edge of an enormous drop-off, just staring out into space, is John. His back is to us. Owen walks towards him. John still doesn't hear.
John's radio is off. Classical music in his helmet. A 3000 foot drop at his feet. It is magnificent. As Ianto approaches and John remains unaware, the scene seems less and less innocuous.
Ianto just walks right up beside him and stares out at the chasm as well. John finally sees him and lowered the volume in his helmet. They stand there silently for a moment. John has some kind of weak-ass epiphany.
"Look, I'm sorry. I owe you an apology. I've been a dick. I pick on people who are weaker than I am." John says softly to Ianto who looks at him with surprise.
It's way too little, way too late. But Ianto doesn't let on. Just nods. As if he's forgiven him. Then ha his one moment of clarity.
"Fuck you. Fuck you. I'm gonna die. But I'm gonna spend the next five minutes of my life completely satisfied knowing you die with me." Ianto snarls as he turns to walk away from the last bully he has to encounter in his fucked up life.
"I've considered these last few moments as well little squirt. No, you won't, because…" John steps of the ledge an Ianto cries out as he lunges for him, catching his hand.
Ianto stumbles back to the others. He can hear over the comms as he approaches.
"Johannes Kepler was the first to accurately map the orbit of the planet. In 1609." Owen is infirming Tosh.
"John's dead." Ianto gasps as he reaches them.
They turn. But not surprised. They just figure he -
"Chewed through his air. Huh? Told him to slow down" Owen sighs.
"He threw himself off the cliff." Ianto says with a hitch in his breath as he holds up the glove still in his hand.
"Ouch." Owen snorts, no tears for that one!
Tosh bows her head down for a moment, overcome. But it's not John. It's the bigger picture "It's not often you get to fail when 12 billion people are counting on you."
Ianto's got more pressing problems. Checks his wrist. Unnerved. "I'm at under a minute here. You guys know what this is gonna be like?"
"Hypoxia?" Owen is speaking in a dreamy voice as he settles to wait for his own feelings of release, "Dizzy. Skin'll tingle. Vision narrows. Then anoxia. Shock, convulsions, acidosis."
"Gonna hurt?" Ianto hates that he sounds afraid but sees Tosh's face mirror his fear.
"Yeah." Owen sighs.
An alarm sound on Ianto's sensor. He starts to gasp. Opens his mouth wide. Sucking in and out air that's worth less and less to his body.
He begins to claw at the air. It's not pretty to watch. Spins about seeking some release. None forthcoming. Claws some more. Falls to his knees. The others can barely watch. They know they're next.
Ianto's growing more claustrophobic and crazed. Falls the rest of the way to the ground. Still clawing at the air. It's horrible to see. And in one last desperate, angry, trapped-feeling move, reaches up and unhooks the front of his helmet and throws it back. Tosh begins to cry softly. Ianto shudders. Croaks out a faint epitaph as he collapses.
"Fuck this planet."