She put the business end of the laser against her chest and pressed the button. Red light ignited at the point of contact and vaporized ceramal flared away in an orange fog. Any moment now she would be through. There would be sudden pain, then quick death. The laser broke through, but there was no expected pain. The explosion slammed at her chest and flung her hand away. As she hurtled back, she saw the laser tumbling through space on a trail of glittering fragments.

‘Oh, fuck you. Fuck you!’

Fifteen minutes of air left, and the display was still heading down. She had achieved the end she required, though not by the expected method. She knew exactly what had happened. The sealant had hardened on exposure to vacuum. The laser had cut through it and then it had broken under the air pressure in her suit. But it went further than that, which was the reason these old suits had been replaced. The epoxy-based sealant, once hardened, lost its flame-retardant properties. Under the blast of air, white-hot epoxy had exploded.

‘Goodbye, John,’ Jarvellis said, and thought that perhaps the shadows she was seeing at the edges of her vision were due to the sudden drop in air pressure. Abruptly she realized this was not so, she was seeing a framework of structural members silhouetted against Viridian, a second before she slammed into a wall inside the ring station. As the counter dropped to zero, and she gasped on nothing, she had enough humour left to appreciate the irony of it all.

21

21

Antiphoton Weapon (APW): In this case the term ‘antiphoton’ is a misnomer attributable to the propaganda core of the Jovian Separatists (either that or hopeful thinking). The beam projected from this weapon is a proton beam, the protons having been field-accelerated to near-light speed. The distinctive purple flash or beam, is not, as some fictional sources would have us believe, the fabled ‘darklight’. It is fluorescence caused by proton collision with air molecules. In pure vacuum the beam is invisible. The aforesaid fictional sources would also do well to remember that the firing of a proton weapon is a serious matter, the usual result of which is isotope contamination. The bad guys don’t just disappear in an elegant purple flash.

From How It Is by Gordon

Mika was watching a screen showing a view down the shaft towards the artefact. In the picture Cormac recognized the rear view of Carn, Cormac himself, Gant and Cento. The guardian creature was coming up the shaft.

‘Jesus!’ yelled Gant.

Cormac waited for his shouted instruction for them to ‘Hit it’. Mika froze the picture at the point when the creature was in fullest view. Cormac’s recorded shout was stillborn.

‘I downloaded this copy from Aiden’s memory,’ said Mika, without turning.

‘What do you make of it?’

‘Terrifying, fascinating.’

‘All of that,’ said Cormac dryly.