52:03

A burst pipe is the beginning of the end. Something so small, so inconsequential at first sight, suddenly broke our fragile life on Mars.

The irony is that a good plumber could have averted a lot of what was to follow. But plumbers are hard to find on this planet. Bastian is a mechanic, and while he's pretty good with everything that needs fixing, there are some things even he can’t fix. Like a bomb attached to the pipes delivering oxygen to all parts of the station.

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IT’S THE FIRST TIME since the virus that the alarm sounds, blaring through the remnants of my dream. I’m cuddled up against Jordan; Will left us at some point during the early hours of the morning. The two of them like to share, and who am I to say no to that. It makes our schedule a little more confusing, but it’s worth it.

At the beginning, we tried it without a schedule, but that led to jealousy and even some heated arguments among my men. Now, we have a timetable, looking just like the one I used to have back at school, and unless there are special occasions like birthdays, we don’t change it. It’s my birthday in a week, actually, and I know exactly that I want to change the schedule for that – the guys just don’t know it yet.

“What’s going on?” Jordan mutters sleepily. “This isn’t the fire alarm.”

We have regular fire drills and training exercises, so we’re used to that sound.

“No,” I reply while jumping out of bed, pulling a hoodie over my sleep shirt. “That’s the master alarm. Something is seriously wrong.”

I check my comm bracelet.

>>Meet in the control room immediately<<

Bastian has sent the message, but I’m confused why he wouldn’t give us the reason for the alarm. It’s still echoing through the room, the entire station, most likely.

Fear is beginning to run through my body. This isn’t just a drill, this is real.

“Let’s go,” Jordan says. He’s put on some loose jogging trousers, but his chest is bare. There are some faint scratch marks on his abdomen; I must have been quite wild last night.

I follow him through the dark station, walking at a brusque pace, almost running. It’s 6am, way before the time I planned to get up. I stayed up late, first because of work, then because of Will and Jordan.

It’s usually quiet at this time, but right now, I can’t even hear the sound of my own footsteps because of the alarm. I wish Bastian would switch it off, surely all of us are awake by now.

When we enter the control room, everybody else is there already apart from Will. He was planning to work in the greenhouses this morning, and they’re the furthest away from the centre of the station.

However, as soon as we’ve taken a seat around the large table, he arrives, breathless, mud staining his cheeks.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “And fucking switch off that alarm. I can’t hear my own thoughts.”

Bastian presses some buttons on the touchpad in front of him and the alarm goes quiet. Finally. It still echoes in my mind though, the sound almost as loud as it was in reality. My ears are ringing, and it takes me a moment to adjust to the sudden silence.

I don’t usually come to this room, even though it’s the heart of the station where all the computers keep track of the systems. Right at the beginning, I managed to connect my comms bracelet to most of the important alerts, so I could communicate with Earth on the go and didn’t have to come to the control room. And for meetings, we usually convene in the common room where we can have drinks and snacks while discussing and planning our work... and our survival, occasionally.

“There’s a bomb,” Bastian finally says into the silence.

Nobody answers. It’s too outlandish. There aren’t any bombs on Mars.

“What?” I ask when nobody else seems to want to speak. “Explain.”

“A pipe burst, I checked it out, I found a bomb hidden behind the pipe. It’s intact, and there’s a timer. That’s the short version.” Bastian runs a hand through his dark brown hair. A few small strands are stuck to his forehead, glued there by the tiny pearls of sweat that are covering his skin.

“And what’s the long version?” I prompt. “When does the timer expire?”

“Two days.” He checks his watch. “Fifty-two hours. And it looks like the bomb has been there a long time. It was covered in dust and even a bit of rust. Maybe it’s even been there from the beginning, who knows. I’m not an expert in this kind of stuff. It’s in a really clever location though. Not somewhere I’d usually check, hidden deep within our maze of pipes and cables. It’s a miracle really that we had the pipe burst this morning, or we’d never have found out until it was too late.”

“Anyone of you ever disposed of a bomb?” Jim asks, his voice dripping with a mixture of sarcasm and fear.

“I’ve watched the Hurt Locker,” Tobias offers unhelpfully, resulting in an irritated glare by Bastian.

I frown, trying to get my head around it all. “Why would anyone put a bomb on a Mars station? It’s not really a terrorist target, especially not now that Earth is busy with the Drowning. They have bigger problems than sending bombs here.”

“That’s why I think it’s been here for a while,” Bastian explains. “Remember the anti-space movement, the fanatics who wanted the resources spent on Mars missions be used to help people on Earth? Maybe it was them.”

I shake my head. “Even if it was them, how did they get a bomb here? Every tiny piece of cargo is recorded and measured, scanned, whatever. Us settlers got exactly one standard sized crate to fill with our personal belongings. I don’t know how big that bomb is, but I barely managed to fit my favourite books in there.”

“They took out some of my seeds,” Will mutters. “If they check seeds, they’d definitely find a bomb, even if it’s in tiny pieces.”

Bastian sighs. “Right now, we don’t need to know how it got here. We need to dispose of it, and quickly. I’ve not examined it properly yet, I wanted to let you all know first, but it looks like it’s attached firmly to some of the most important pipes and cables, including our oxygen supply. If it blows, our life support systems will fail.”

“What kind of bomb is it?” I ask. Not that I know much about bombs. I’ve seen films, watched some documentaries about bomb disposal in Laos, but that’s about it. Once they found an unexploded World War Two bomb close to the apartment complex I used to live in, and we all had to evacuate for the morning while they disposed of it.

Bastian shrugs. “It’s got a timer, lots of cables and a container that I assume contains explosive material. I don’t know shit about bombs. And it’s fused to some very important hardware. I need more time to explore it, but you needed to know first. If this goes badly... well, two days. That’s it.”

Silence meets his words.

“I wish we had internet up here,” Toby mutters. “Or a connection to Earth. It’s been nice to have our peace and quiet from them, but right now, it would be helpful to speak to an expert.”

“No use wanting something that we can’t get,” Jordan says. Of course, he’s the one to stay fairly rational. “Is there a way to separate that part of the station from the rest, so that not everything is affected if the bomb blows? Surely there are ways to make a part of the station self-contained in emergencies?”

Bastian nods. “Yes, we do have that option. The station is set out to have three compartments that can function on their own if needs be. However, the bomb is on the border of two of them. If it blows, we only have a third of the station left for us. And we’ll lose the greenhouse.” He sighs again. “Even if we’re in the self-contained part, we won’t be able to survive for long. We don’t have the resources.”

“Fuck.” Will vocalises what we’re all thinking. We’re so screwed.

“Is the bomb connected to our electricity?” Jordan asks. “Then we could just switch off the power in that part and it won’t be able to detonate.”

“It doesn’t look like it,” Bastian explains. “And even so, maybe switching off its power supply might set it off.” Suddenly, he slams his right fist on the table, making us all jump.

“I’ve never felt so helpless,” he admits quietly. “I’m used to being able to fix everything, but now it seems we have a problem I can’t fix.”

He looks so distraught that I can’t help but get up and give him a hug, wrapping my arms around him while standing at the back of his chair. It’s an awkward position, but I stay bent over, putting all the warmth and love I have for him into the embrace.

“You’ll find a way,” I whisper in his ear. “We’re all together in this, and we will find a solution. Right, guys?” I lift my voice and look around the table.

“Of course. We should make a plan,” Han says, already pulling up a virtual notepad on the table.

With a final squeeze of Bastian’s broad chest, I stand up straight and return to my seat, before addressing the guys. When we make plans, it’s always me who leads the discussion, and this won’t change just because there’s a bomb involved.

“Han, you’ve got deft fingers“- he chuckles at that and I feel myself blush – “take a look at the bomb with Bastian and see if you can help him. Toby, I need you to check our resources, food and water especially. See if we can bring them all to the part of the station that will be safe, and how long they’ll last us. Will, if we lose the greenhouse, we need to salvage as much as possible from it. Harvest everything we possibly can in the next two days. Jordan, Jim and I will look through all the books and files we have. Maybe we can find something about bombs, explosions, more detailed plans of the station, that kind of thing. And Bastian, if you need any of us, give us a buzz. Same goes for Toby and Will. The three of us will be on call for whatever you need.”

I take a deep breath. “Everyone okay with that?”

Jordan leans over and presses a surprise kiss on my cheek. “Clear and precise as always, darling.”

I give him a tense smile. I wish I could hug them all, give them and myself the reassurance that everything will be alright. That we’ll survive, just like we always do. But the cold fear wrapped around my heart prevents that from happening. This is bad, really bad.

***

49:14

Three hours later, I slam the book I’ve been skimming back on the table. “This is useless,” I declare, all the confidence and hope I showed in our earlier meeting forgotten. “We have several copies of 1984 and Harry Potter, but not a single book on explosives, bombs, survival, or anything else that would be useful.”

Jim chuckles darkly. “Nobody expected there to be terrorists on Mars.” He also lowers the book he’s been reading. “You’ve been here from the beginning, Louise. Do you have any suspicions who of the settlers may have put the bomb there?”

I shrug. “I got on well with all of them. I guess it has to be someone with mechanical knowledge, but if a terrorist managed to make their way to Mars, they were probably able to hide those skills from everybody else. It could have been anyone.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Jordan says quietly from the corner he’s sitting in, buried behind stacks of books. Our library is small, but we’ve managed to unearth a surprising number of books. “Maybe the virus wasn’t random. Maybe it wasn’t a Martian virus at all. Maybe someone brought it to Mars to do the same job the bomb is going to do. Destroy the station. Kill all the settlers.”

My stomach churns at the implications of that. “I always thought it was an accident. A terrible unlucky catastrophe. But if someone planned it... that’s murder.”

Jordan nods grimly. “It would also mean that someone orchestrated it from the ground. It wouldn’t have been one of the settlers; nobody would have volunteered to die in a horrific way like you described.”

“Unless they were really, really fanatic and deluded,” I add quietly. “So the bomb would be their back up option to make sure everybody is killed? But the timing doesn’t make any sense. The virus was almost a year ago. Why wait that long to detonate a bomb?”

“Maybe the virus was released prematurely,” Jim suggests. “It doesn’t make sense to not wait for us new settlers to arrive before setting it free. Maybe it was all supposed to happen at the same time. Weaken the settlers, sabotage the life support systems. A double fail safe to make sure everyone dies.”

I’m trying to get it all straight in my head, but my mind is spinning. Someone killed my friends. They didn’t die because of a random, terrible, mindless virus. No, they were murdered, a planned killing, cold and strategic. This may have been years in the planning.

“All this to stop progress?” I ask. “Just to make a point? The station had finally reached a level where we were making real progress, getting our first research results. Why would anyone destroy that?”

Jim shrugs. “If they planned it before the first mission launched, maybe they didn’t expect it to be so successful. Maybe they even thought of it as a mercy killing.”

I shudder. “All that death... And now we’re the ones alive and people on Earth are dying? How ironic is that?”

My voice quivers. It’s all a bit too much. I can deal with me being in danger, I’m getting used to that. What I can’t deal with is knowing that someone tried to kill me, and that the same monsters are now trying to kill my men as well.

“You’re not going to die,” I tell them determinedly. “I won’t let you die.”

Again, my traitorous voice trembles.

“Hug?” Jordan asks, already getting up and crossing the room.

“Hug,” I confirm, reaching up, but instead of pulling me to my feet, he sits down next to me and puts an arm around my shoulders. It’s nice, but it’s not enough. I turn and lift one leg over his, straddling him. He chuckles and wraps his arms around my waists, pulling me close until our bodies touch.

“Kiss?” he asks, his dark eyes capturing mine.

“Kiss,” I confirm with a choked laugh.

His lips meet mine, their softness contrasted by the intensity of his kiss, the way he presses himself against my body, the desperation with which he runs his hands through my hair.

His tongue nudges my lips to open and I comply with a light moan, wrapping my arms tighter around him. He’s mine and he’s not going to die.

I meet his tongue with mine, caressing his, nudging his teeth playfully, sucking in his warmth and love. Suddenly there’s an additional pair of hands on my body, fingers massaging my breasts. Jim has joined us, taking position behind me, his chest rubbing against my back. He twirls my nipples through my shirt and my brain is telling me to lean back against him while at the same time insisting that I bend forward to deepen the kiss even more.

“We won’t let you die either,” Jim whispers as one of his hands slips under my waistband. I’m wearing the most comfortable and therefore most baggy clothes I could find, and right now, it makes it easy for him to get access. Jordan’s hardness pressing against my thighs just intensifies the shivers of lust running over my skin. I almost come apart when Jim’s middle finger slides deep inside of me, rubbing my inner walls with fervour, but Jordan distracts me by cupping my arse with his hands.

These two men will be the end of me, I think as they bring me to new heights of pleasure, both of them, at once, in me, with me, everywhere.

I’m one lucky Martian.