Murmansk-13

The control panels were designed to make an overload impossible, placing overrides after overrides so that reckless commands could not be received. The idiom of garbage in, garbage out seemed to apply to the Iban race, just as it did with humanity. If circumvented, the reactor would simply be neutralized with poisons and the central mass injected with ultracold neutrons, reducing the drives kinetic potential. It would black ball and become an inert mass like a dead star.

That wouldn’t serve, while the station would lose its gravity anchor and breach its geostationary orbit, a black ball reactor could be re-fired. Perhaps even before the total degradation of centrifugal gravity. To create a truly catastrophic failure, Nielsen had been forced to breach the circuitry allowing him to speed up the central mass far beyond its operating capabilities. He doubted such a feat would have been possible with an Iban original.

Now the coruscating indigo light intensified behind him as he watched the blast doors part centimetre by centimetre. Gravity in the outer ring was at 1.2G, the thrusters would be working overtime to maintain position even in the null point. As the speed of rotation increased, Murmansk-13 would cant into an ever more eccentric angle. With added gravitational mass on the outer ring, the centripetal force would begin to destabilize the stations centre of gravity. Soon the thrusters would begin to aggravate the situation further still, their programming overcompensating, placing further stress on the stations structure.

At 1.3G’s the reactor would reach critical mass. It would either shut down through overstress and catapult Murmansk-13 into the lightless void, or the station would disintegrate around him.

Nielsen knew he would experience neither. In circumventing the reactors failsafes he had retained the final most safeguard. The meltdown foam would flood the reactor chamber as the drive was submerged in the coolant swirling beneath the gantry, preventing or mitigating a fire or explosion. It would give his remaining crew a chance to escape, if they still drew breath. He, however, would be entombed in concrete hardened polyurethane foam.

Nervously Nielsen eyed the dial. 1.25G’s. Mummified limbs began flailing through the blast doors. Almost parted, the stench of decay commingled with the sweet essence of ethylene glycol emanating from the old coolant. He wished he still had his pistol, not that he would be able to take more than a few out before they were upon him, but he could have saved himself the pain.

That small mercy had been Pettersson’s though and there was no pushing through the throng of infected to retrieve the gun, the final round still chambered.

1.28G, soon. Nielsen backed away from the controls. He watched one of the wretched infected pushing its snarling, mummified face through the powerless blast doors. The flesh had peeled away from the skull leaving a sinuous network of parched muscle, it screeched as the gap widened the jaw hyper-extending. Dry eyeballs hung like fetid baubles, pulled back in their sockets and shrivelled; serving no apparent purpose. Nielsen could see countless more behind the creature, some spattered with Pettersson’s blood; dark, fresh claret coating shattered and yellowed teeth and strips of old jumpsuits wafting like cerements.

Above him he could hear the foam tanks prime, could hear the central mass within the reactor spinning up violently to his rear, eddying – the outer plates stalling out.

With a sepulchral moan the infected breeched the blast doors. Nielsen pressed himself against the reactor as their harried, spastic steps clattered across the grated walkway. For a moment he toyed with the white gold engagement ring on his finger as the distance closed. Behind him the reactor was preparing to dump the central mass, he heard the base plate opening.

The first infected was on him, Nielsen roundhouse punched the figure away taking care to avoid the distended maw. The figure stumbled back, obstructing the following pack on the narrow walkway. Further back one of the infected tumbled into the coolant, forced from the grated platform.

Premature droplets of foam began tumbling like giant snow drops that froze on contact. The stunned infected loosed an inhuman wail and charged again. Nielsen tried to push it away this time, then grabbed its shoulders. The implacable figure would not fall away. They braced, Nielsen could feel his already stretched stamina draining away, couldn’t believe the power of such a gnarled, emaciated shell of humanity.

As the creature drew close, the stench of putrefaction was overwhelming. Death breath wafted like a fetid zephyr from its mouth. The odour of rotted organs. Nielsen could feel his arms scissoring backward. Smashed teeth clacked, inches from his face. Nielsen could hear his own struggling grunts as if listening to someone else, far away.