“It doesn’t matter. We can’t retreat; we can’t outrun this.” Sawyer argued his scattered logic, as Carl filled the thrusters in preparation for launch. “What are you doing? We can’t launch; it will be long past dawn before we can even attempt to fly.”
“No, she isn’t ready to leave the planet, but she can fly.”
“So, what? Even if we escape the blast, the EMP will fry everything on the planet.”
Carl stood from his station, confident sanity clearing the confusion from his eyes. “No, the electromagnetic pulse can only be distributed within the lowest layers of atmosphere; any higher to detonate and they risk leaving areas of land untouched.”
“Can she make it that high?” Wil asked from beyond the bridge, his arm propped against the arched opening to support his weight.
“Only one certainty.” Carl repeated as he left the bridge.
“So, we’re leaving?” Maverick looked to Sawyer for confirmation, his eyes filled with resentment. “We aren’t even going to try saving them?”
“We’re leaving,” Sawyer didn’t mention the probability that they wouldn’t make it far in the relic of a space craft they had available to them. He remembered the last moments before Lieutenant Pierce took his life, the fight gone from his body before he pulled the trigger. Any attempt at survival was better than doing nothing.
“Where did Carl go?” Maverick’s voice shook suspiciously.
“I’ll get him,” Sawyer’s offer held an ulterior motive beyond finding their missing comrade; he needed a moment away from the hatred filling his brother’s eyes.
Sawyer caught up to Carl in the cargo hold. “What are you doing? We need to go.” Sawyer remained at the top of the ramp while Carl stepped off into the hangar.
“Yes, you need to go,” Carl agreed, looking up at Sawyer for a moment of brilliant, cruel sanity as he continued. “Someone has to stay behind.”
“No, we all go,” Sawyer denied, taking a step down the ramp, but stopping as Carl’s hand raised in rejection.
“The door mechanism is beyond repair,” Carl glanced up to the roof over their heads, the panels of its retractable core warped and rusted. “I must keep it open.”
“Fine, we’ll land outside, and you can…” Sawyer stopped speaking at Carl’s shaking head, frustration making him sigh. “Why not?”
“You have to cut her thrusters to land. It will take time to prepare them again; more time than is available to us. You have to go – get high enough to escape the blast.”
“No, Maverick already hates me; he’ll never forgive me if I let you die.” Sawyer denied Carl’s sacrificial offer, something in his chest opening and drifting slowly to the forefront of his mind. Carl’s expression told a secret unshared with anyone beyond the moment. Sawyer’s suspicion crystalized into understanding; “You’re dying.”
“Alien Disorder,” Carl chuckled darkly at the words as if they held an ironic double meaning. He reached up a hand, pulling at the thin, brown of his hair and bringing away a clump of its length in his grasp. “Because they would rather call us savages than sick.”
“You’re not insane.”
“Meh, it comes and goes,” Carl shrugged, his eyes shifting in proof as he struggled to remain lucid. “It’s funny, all of this – all we’ve done, all we’ve explored – and still no greater mystery goes unsolved than our own minds.”
“That’s why they let you stay here, because you knew what was happening to you.” Sawyer stated, pinching away the pressure between his eyes with his fingertips.
“I was brought here to find the cause and – if cost effective – a cure. Can you imagine the effort and cost of treating so many sick minds? Our entire deep space program on hold.” Carl shook his head sadly. “Sacrifice one world to build three; ignore the sickly few to save the healthy many; contain the savages to protect civility.”
“And Flamouria dies.”
“Purge the failed system,” Carl answered coldly. “Flamouria was the closest habitable world – our salvation – but it wasn’t prepared for us. Because of us, the forests decay, the swamps rise, the crops wither, the livestock die or fail to breed, and the wastes expand; we killed this world like our last one.”
“There has to be a way to fix this; a way to make this world sustainable.”
“There’s no time now; when the cannon fires, it will destroy these lands for generations. Not even Nelumbo Noctis Ignus will bloom.” Carl shook his head, looking up at his ship sadly before moving to a panel on the wall behind him, his back to Sawyer until he reached it. “I knew it was only a matter of time until they ordered the abandonment of Flamouria, even before I came here.”
“If you knew all of this, why didn’t you tell Maverick? You said truth mattered.”
“Truth is all that matters; in its proper time and place. I never intended for Maverick to die – for anyone here to die. I knew when you returned – the look on your face – they’re all dead.” Carl’s eyes begged for ignorance. “Then, you must save as many as you can.”
“I still don’t understand why you fixed her if you never intended to leave.”
“For the same reason you take Maverick’s hate, rather than tell him all those people he wants to save are dead: hope.” Carl spoke the word simply, giving the term more meaning than if he’d quoted poetry.
“Hope,” Sawyer cleared his throat at the term he hadn’t heard in years. “That’s not something we have a lot of right now. Chances are, we’ll all be ash in a few minutes.”
“Funny thing about ash, it’s adaptable. In large amounts it can smother,
