Quincy

Part III

The team spent the majority of the next day packing up equipment and personal belongings. The second day they spent talking about going home and who would be waiting for them. Quincy, having no family remaining on Earth that was awaiting his return, stood looking out the observation window at the vast ice shelf with Queen Alexandra Range about twenty kilometers away. “How cold and isolating this place looks,” Quincy thought. “Mountains on one side and unforgiving, endless ice on the other.”

About an hour before the transports were due to arrive, there was a crash from one of the labs. Everyone ran to see what happened. Mark was on the floor, blood flowing from a gash on his head. A shelving unit had fallen over onto a table in the center of the small room. The table had kept the shelving unit from falling on Mark, which saved him from further injury. Beside Mark was an open metal box, the kind of box that a small piece of equipment, like a camera or microscope, would be in. As Sari checked on Mark, Quincy and Leo put the shelving back into its proper place and secured it. Janet, in the meantime, had picked up the box and set it on the table. She looked stricken. Like someone had given her some bad news. Quincy asked her what was wrong.

“It’s broken,” she said as if that explained everything.

“What’s broken?” asked Quincy.

“The remote detonator,” she replied. It was Quincy’s turn to look stricken. He understood Janet’s reaction and what it meant.

With the constant threat of Earth First, ISA had tried to keep the station secret. Somehow Earth First had discovered the existence of the research station, but not the coordinates. With so many such stations in Antarctica, they had been unable to verify which station they were looking for. The roof was camouflaged to look like any other snowdrift on the southernmost continent to safeguard it. However, ISA had reported that EF had deployed drones to locate the facility. With the mission accomplished, ISA had decided that the lab was to be scrapped as soon as the team had disembarked and traveled a safe distance. ISA had provided only one remote detonator, which now lay broken on the table in the small lab.

Janet contacted ISA about the situation and to ask about options but did not receive any help from her superiors. The treaty that allowed access to Antarctica forbade the use of weapons, such as missiles. The only recourse was a manual detonation. The station had been built with a self-destruct system, which was hardwired into a closed circuit. Two keys were required to arm the system, but only one person was required to input the final destruction code. Without the final code, the system would remain in standby mode indefinitely. Normally, the final code was input through the remote detonator which worked on a unique frequency. Without the remote, someone was required to manually input the final code. There was no delay in the system.

So, Quincy sat waiting for the signal that the transports were far enough away to safely detonate the lab. He had stood at the window, watching as the caravan had slowly rolled out of sight. He had walked around the station on a sort of goodbye tour. He had sent a message to his siblings, telling them not to be upset, that he had chosen to give his life so that others could live. The others had families waiting for them to arrive home. He also told them that he was at peace with his decision because he believed he would see Arthur and their parents, again. He said that he loved them and was sorry that he hadn’t gotten to see them off when they left for Mars. And, then there was nothing left to do but wait. So, he sat in a bloody uncomfortable chair and waited.

Quincy must have dozed off because he suddenly jerked awake. “How could I have fallen asleep in this chair,” he wondered. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the terminal in front of him. There was a light blinking on the console. The caravan was out of the danger zone. There wasn’t any concern about the explosion causing damage to the caravan, but the ice, which had been thinning for decades, would certainly send cracks in the ice out for miles from the detonation.

There was a message on the terminal from Janet. She had received word from ISA that their departure from the station had been discovered by the EF. There was no doubt that they had already dispatched an acquisition squad to secure the station. She had asked, again, if there were any other ways to destroy the station. There simply wasn’t enough time, and ISF refused to violate the treaty. Tensions were already high because the EF was continuously trying to create an incident to force a crisis in the global government. So far, none of the regional governments had been able to locate EF’s base of operations.

“I’m sorry to have to put all of this on your shoulders. You shouldn’t be there. We shouldn’t have left you behind. If anyone should have stayed, it should have been me.” Janet paused as she tried to get her emotions under control. “We’re all very grateful to you, and you will never be forgotten. Thank you,” Janet concluded.

Quincy acknowledged her message. “Janet, please understand that I am honored to take this responsibility. All of you have family awaiting your return home. I don’t. The only thing I ask from all of you is to enjoy every moment you have with your family. Treat each one as a precious gift. Thank you for allowing me to do this for you.” Quincy sent the message and sat back down to collect his thoughts.

“It’s time,” he told the empty room. He stood and walked over to the control panel. He punched a few buttons to unlock the hardwired detonator. Looking out the window, Quincy lifted the cover and paused a moment before typing in the final code.

“What a beautiful place,” he said as if it was the first time, he’d seen the landscape surrounding the station. Maybe it was. He had often looked out the window without seeing the beauty of the landscape. Suddenly, the mountains looked like a majestic beast from some forgotten past rising out of the ice. The ice, no longer hard and forbidding, was now a happy reminder of the ice skating he and Arthur enjoyed during the winter months.

As the seconds ticked by like minutes, Quincy felt the weight lifting. His grief-stricken heart fluttered like the first time he saw Arthur. He noticed the light growing brighter around him…wait the light wasn’t coming from the ceiling. As Quincy turned toward the source of light, he felt the deck buckling from the explosion beneath him. In that last moment, a smile crossed his face. “At last,” he said, “at last.”