Sacrifice

John worked quickly to free the access plate on the outside of the spacecraft. Time was critical. Oxygen was bleeding out of his ship like grains of sand in an hourglass measuring his remaining lifespan.

The team of Erika and John Piedmont had set out as the crew of the deep space probe Intrepid. They were to investigate an anomalous metallic “chunk” detected outside of the farthest reach of Pluto’s orbit, a chunk that appeared to have refined mineral signatures that did not occur naturally.

The trip took over seven years, during which time John and Erika had become more than just professional friends. They had fallen in love. This had been anticipated, each of them selected for the qualities that such a long term relationship would require.

Yesterday, they had discovered and gained access to an electronic neural net that seemed to surround the artifact. Erika had been downloading data every since, data that implied the artifact was not exactly on a diplomatic mission. Earth was in grave danger.

That same data allowed Erika to find a weakness in the artifact that could enable earth to successfully defend itself from this threat.

Preparations to turn back home were interrupted by a quark beam originating from the artifact. The tiny particles, accelerated to near light speed, had torn hundreds of small holes in the spacecraft.

“John, I can’t let you do this,” said Erika over the com-link.

“There is not enough room in the packetship for me,” John replied.

He pulled the processor core.

As his oxygen indicator slipped into the red, John launched the high speed packetship back towards earth. His love … his Erika was onboard in hibernation mode. She would reboot as the packetship approached earth.

I hope she dreams of me, was his final thought.

Word count 299