Golgotha
by J. Brandon Barnes
Copyright 1998, 2016 J. Brandon Barnes
Chapter 1
Twenty anxious minutes had passed since contact with the prison camp below ceased abruptly. As the small space station orbited high above the massive asteroid’s surface, several workmen inside peered through hazy portholes, scanning its rough terrain for anything unusual.
The only features visible below were a few deserted mining camps. The prison site would not crest the rotating horizon for several minutes, so they instead looked for any sign of the evacuation shuttle.
“Over there,” pointed a dockman, leaving a greasy fingerprint on the window.
“No, that ain’t it,” said another. “Look for a red flame moving over the surface.” The two continued jockeying for the best position at the window while several other men floated nearby.
On the other end of the cylindrical, boxcar-sized module, station manager Roger Cory gripped the radio’s microphone. “Can anyone down there hear me? There’s still no sign of that shuttle. If you don’t get it up here now, we’ll have to leave the passenger behind.”
No reply.
He slammed his fist on the comm console. “What’s going on down there? Don’t they understand there’s no time left?”
Cory spun around to face the rest of the crew, accidentally dislodging a large wrench from a magnetic tool strip on the wall. It tumbled through the air until it reached the meaty hand of the lead tech, Ramon Torres. He had just entered the module from the long central shaft at the station’s core, and closed the hatch behind him. He secured the wrench in an elastic strap on the hip of his coveralls and moved toward a cluster of his crewmates.
“Cory, man, you want me to check on those air recyclers in Module D?”
A burly dockman named Jackknife jerked a newly lit cigarette from the corner of his mouth. “You’re one crazy Mexican, Ramon. We’ll all be dead in a few hours, and you’re worried about maintenance?”
“Nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen.”
Jackknife’s face twisted with disgust. “Those paper pushers in Operations say they don’t know for sure ‘cause they don’t want to tell us the truth. We’ve got a comet the size of a small moon headed right for us, Ramon. It’s probably a thousand times bigger than the one that killed the dinosaurs on Earth. Even if it misses us, it'll hit the sun and cook us with radiation.”
“That’s enough, Jackknife,” snapped Cory. “We can do without hearing all this again. The official story is that we’ve got a 20% chance there won’t be an impact.”
“And that’s exactly what it is: a story. We all know it. You’d better believe this station, the bases below, and everything in sight is gonna go up in one giant fireball.”
“Then until it happens,” Cory said, “if it happens, I’m in charge, and I’m telling you guys you’d better all cool off and give each other some space. We’ve spent the last year working together like friends. We’re not going to die together fighting like enemies.”
He shot an accusatory look at Jackknife and a nearby dockman, both of whom bore bruises from a nasty scuffle earlier that day. “You’ve always been a bunch of hotheads anyway, so you’d better just back off and let everyone deal with this in his own way.”
Cory put a hand on Ramon's shoulder. “You can spend your time doing whatever you want, so check those recyclers if you must. But I’d rather you stay here and help me keep an eye on things until we locate that shuttle.”
Ramon nodded and assumed a position at the comm panel while Cory launched himself off the wall and sailed to the module’s aft window. Jackknife withdrew in disgust and returned to the solace of his stale cigarette, daring anyone to mention he was breaking station rules.
Cory studied the landscape for several minutes before finally spying a tiny form lifting above the surface. “There it is. See if you can make contact, Ramon.”
Before he had a chance, the radio came to life on its own. The transmission, they soon realized, wasn’t from the shuttle below, but from the last evacuation transport still docked outside the station.
“Fellas, this is Norm Casper. We can’t wait much longer for that shuttle of yours. If we’re going to get away from here in time, we’ve got to leave now. Otherwise, all 58 people on this transport will die anyway.”
Jackknife swooped down on the radio, and wrested the microphone from Ramon’s hand.
“Hey, Ab-Norm,” he sneered, “Jackknife here. Explain it to me again. Why was it that you get to live and we get to die? You know how us lowly dockworkers are. We need things told to us real slow and simple-like. Maybe you ought to come back inside for a few minutes and explain it again—just you and me. I promise I’ll give you my full attention.”
He shared a malicious grin with the men around him. Everyone in the room looked his way, waiting for Norm’s response.
“Look, Jackknife, we can’t go over this again. How many times do I have to say it? I’m the only one who can fly this transport and maybe save the lives of the people onboard. Nobody else has both flight and medical experience. If you or anyone else did, I’d consider stepping aside to take my chances here with the rest of you.”
The men began to clamor and Jackknife quickly fired back. “What chances? All us are dead! There ain’t no chances about it.”
Norm continued, angrier now. “I’ll remind you, again, that our odds are slim at best. We’re so low on oxygen that everyone but me has got to be sedated to conserve air. I don’t even know if we’ve got enough fuel to outrun the shockwave. I’ll have to burn everything we’ve got just to get us up to speed, and then coast all the way to the Golan station. There won’t be anything left to maneuver or stop, and I only hope they can send out tugs to grapple us and bring us in.
“And I’ll say it again, that’s if we can make it. If we don’t leave now, none of us will. I don’t know who we’re waiting on to come up from the surface, but I say we leave without him. We can’t afford the time, the weight, or the air.”
Ramon snatched the mic back from Jackknife. “Good thinking, Norm. Throw a priest off the transport for good luck. You think you’re gonna make it then?”
“Priest, baker, or mailman—I don’t care. Just get him on board within twenty minutes or we’re leaving without him. Twenty minutes and not a second more.” His tone was final, and when the radio’s carrier signal light dimmed, it was clear they had heard the last from him.
As Cory continued tracking the shuttle’s progress up to the station, several crewmen joined him at the window. They watched outside impatiently for a while and someone finally asked, “How long, Cory?”
“Shuttle flights usually take about 15 minutes. I’d say it’s got about 12 to go. Ramon, are you having any luck contacting that shuttle yet?”
Ramon made another attempt, but couldn’t establish a signal lock. “No luck, man. Their radio’s busted or something.”
“First we lose contact with the prison, and now the shuttle? I don’t like it. Keep trying.” He pushed off the wall and sailed out the door, heading for the shuttle docking module.
The dozen remaining crewmen fell silent for a while. A few strapped themselves into seats at the tables that ringed the room’s perimeter. Others floated limply, lost in melancholy thought. Two or three, following Jackknife’s example, produced cached cigarettes from hidden pockets in their coveralls.
Eventually someone spoke up in a somber tone. “Don’t you think we ought to at least say goodbye to the Babe?”
“Yeah, let’s hear her one last time,” said another.
Ramon, still at the comm console, selected the audio channel designed for visitors taking the shuttle flight down to the base camp. A warm female voice filled the room.
“The Golgotha asteroid w
as first mined for its rich iron and oxygen content, both precious resources in deep space. Years later, it also hosts the first penal colony outside our solar system.” Her voice was soft and smooth, conjuring alluring images in the minds of men too long in space.
“The prison is located some 20 kilometers from the mining base camp,” she continued, “and is reserved for the most hardened of criminals. In its 15-year history, it has never had a single escape, due in part to a no-landing policy. All arrivals and departures are ferried through the small space station circling the asteroid. Each shuttle is auto-piloted, effectively eliminating the chance of escape. All mining is prohibited within three kilometers of the prison, further separating inmates from the mining companies that share the asteroid.
“When checking in at the security desk, please have your bags ready for quick processing, and don’t hesitate to let us know if there’s anything we can do to make your stay more pleasurable…”
The men listened intently for several minutes more, occasionally smirking at each other when something she said could be construed as suggestive. The end of the recording was followed by deep silence. Ramon cut his nails with a small pocketknife. Jackknife took deep drags on his cigarette and slowly blew smoke spheres that rolled through the dank air.
One of the electricians spoke up. “Ramon, you say it’s a priest on the shuttle?”
Always eager to find fault, Jackknife quickly jumped in. “Only Catholics have priests, Ramon. He’s a minister. Don’t you know anything?”
“Shut up, redneck. Rabbi, preacher, whatever. He’s a holy man, okay?” Ramon turned back to the electrician. “You know, he’s the one that held that big crusade on Mars a while back. Been making the rounds to all the colonies for a year or so.”
“How come you know so much about him?” Jackknife asked.
“‘Cause I read the news, man. He came last week to visit the prison. He went to see the miners, too. Ask Biggs. He worked down there.”
“Nobody better talk to Biggs about nothing,” Jackknife said. “Soon as he lost out getting on the transport, he got drunk as a Russian skunk. A couple guys tried to talk to him about an hour ago and he threw a pipe at them. Hard. The guy's messed up in the head or something. Locked himself in the crew quarters, which is fine by me. Saves me ever having to look at his ugly face again.”
“Well, anyway,” Ramon said, “somebody like Biggs could probably tell you more than I could, since he was down there and I just hear about some of this stuff from the dudes that work at the prison. They say that the preacher went to see death row first thing. Even spent time with that guy they were going to space next week.”
“The one that killed that miner a while back,” Jackknife added.
“Yeah, that’s the one. He made a real point of going to see that guy.”
“That won’t help him now,” Jackknife said. “He’ll be spaced with the rest of us. One thing’s for sure. It don’t matter what you’ve done up to now, or what you do in the next couple of hours. We’ll all end up the same.”
After a short pause, a squat little plumber with a pronounced lisp leaned into the table. “You scared, Ramon?”
Ramon looked away. “I wish I could at least talk to my mother. It ain’t right that she won’t know until it’s over.”
The man turned to Jackknife. “I know you ain’t scared.”
“No, I ain’t scared of nothing. I’m just mad! Mad that Cory didn’t transfer me two months ago when I asked—a long time before they ever spotted that miserable comet. Mad that Ops took so long to send the rescue transports, and that we had to be the last to leave. And then ours never got here.”
“And who are you gonna blame that on?” Ramon asked. “Engines fail all the time. We’ve seen plenty of dead ships get hauled in here. It ain’t anybody’s fault, it’s just bad luck. Besides, you should be glad the one outside hadn’t left yet and there was still room for some of us. We all had our shot to get on it, man. Some of us won and some of us lost.”
“Drawing straws is a sorry way to decide,” Jackknife said. “At least we could have played cards. If it was up to me, we would have arm wrestled for seats. And who says there was only room for 20 of us anyway?”
Ramon stuck his knife back in his pocket. “Smarter guys than me and you. We don’t know about fuel and air and things like that. If they said they could only squeeze an extra twenty men on a forty-man transport, we couldn’t say different.”
Jackknife crushed his cigarette butt defiantly on the table and flicked it to the far side of the module. “Did you see that punk, Shaver when he drew his straw? He giggled like a schoolgirl. Then he looked around and saw how many of us weren’t going, and he got real quiet. I held my straw up in his face and he just looked away. He knew.”
“Knew what?” Ramon asked.
“Knew I saved his sorry life. Twice. Once when a seal blew in Module C and I pulled him out, and last month when that tanker’s engine caught fire. I was the one that dumped the halon and put it out before he roasted. And he couldn’t even look me in the face an hour ago when he climbed on that transport. If it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t even be here and that seat mighta been mine.”
“So what do you expect?” Ramon said. “You didn’t walk into the fire for him. You just pushed a button. If you’d thought it would cost you your life, you would have looked the other way, and you know it. So now you think he’s supposed to just give you his seat? You think any of those guys would? They all felt bad for us, yeah, but nobody said they’d stay behind. People don’t just die for people, and you wouldn’t either. That’s not the way it works. Not now and not ever.”
A faint rumble traced through the station, and one of the men peered out the window. “The shuttle just docked. Think Cory needs us down there?”
“Nah,” Jackknife said, “let him handle it himself. He’s just gotta take Mr. Lucky to the transport and wave goodbye. He don’t need us for that.”
The conversation soon dwindled and each of the men fell into quiet thought, wondering how the end would come. Would they survive the sudden jolt and rapid depressurization as the station broke apart? They had all heard a man could live up to half a minute in the vacuum of space. They would get their chance to find out soon enough.
The ventilation system rattled as it removed CO2 from the air and vented it into space. A water pump cycled on and off. The time system chimed three a.m..
Suddenly Cory’s voice broke over the radio. “I need some men down here on the double! We’ve got to get the preacher to the transport before it leaves. Somebody’s beat him up pretty bad.”