Read Chapter 23: Radiation Run

The transport cabin was silent except for the rhythmic hiss of Liang’s portable oxygen unit. Elena sat with her back against the cold alloy wall, watching his chest rise and fall beneath the thermal blanket. His face was the color of chalk dust, and the monitors Jack had rigged from spare parts blinked a steady, reassuring rhythm.

Jack navigated from the front seat, his jaw tight. He hadn’t complained once, but Elena noticed the way he favored his left leg when he moved and the controlled grunt he made every time he hit a divot in the terrain. She’d given him a painkiller an hour ago, and he’d downed it without argument. That worried her more than if he’d protested.

“Throttle’s sticky,” Jack said, not turning around. “But we’re making good time. Another twenty minutes to the base perimeter.”

Elena nodded, though he couldn’t see her. She reached out and adjusted Liang’s blanket, tucking the edge beneath his shoulder. His eyes fluttered open.

“Elena.” His voice was barely a rasp, but it cut through the hum of the engines.

She leaned closer, her gloved hand resting on his arm. “I’m here, Liang. We’re taking you to the med-bay at the base.”

He blinked slowly. “Listen to me. Before… before I blacked out again.”

“You shouldn’t talk. Save your strength.”

He shook his head weakly, his fingers curling around her sleeve with surprising force. “Marcus wasn’t a coward. The log told you about the blackmail, but not… not all of it.” He swallowed hard, a dry click in his throat. “His daughter. They threatened her. A company called TerraCore Holdings. They own the mining operations in the southern lunar craters, and they’ve been trying to discredit you for years.”

Elena’s blood went cold. “Discredit me? I was a geologist on a Mars mission. I hadn’t published anything controversial.”

“Your ice extraction research,” Liang whispered. “The phase-change catalysts you developed before Mars. They could cut TerraCore’s proprietary energy sector in half. They couldn’t bury your work, so they decided to bury you.” His eyes met hers, glassy with pain. “Their contact on base planted the evidence. Your comm logs, your reports. Marcus wasn’t trying to hurt you. He was trying to trace the data trail back to them, to prove your innocence. But they found out. They forced his hand.”

Elena’s stomach dropped. She remembered the verdict of the inquest. The classified summary had blamed “an operational error” on her oversight, and her career had never recovered. She’d spent five years believing she’d killed Marcus—her best friend, the one person who’d believed in her work even when no one else would.

“They killed him by making it look like his choice,” Liang said. “Then they made you think it was your fault. Two birds. One stone.”

Jack’s voice floated back. “And who’s the contact?”

Liang’s lips parted, but a spasm of pain twisted his face. He gasped, his fingers gripping Elena’s sleeve harder. “The fourth crew member. I told you—security. He’s been—waiting. Waiting for the right moment. The message from Earth, the industrialist, they’re all part of the same cell.”

“Who is he?” Elena pressed. “Liang, tell me his name.”

“Kessler,” Liang breathed. “Raymond Kessler. He was the one who set the original reactor fault. He sabotaged the cooling loop on your relay, too, and probably the others. But the detonator at Relay 7… that was a trap. He wanted me dead. He wanted you two dead.” His eyes closed, and for a horrifying moment Elena thought he had stopped breathing. Then his chest hitched. “They don’t want witnesses. Anyone who knows about TerraCore’s involvement, they’re putting on a cleanup list. You, Jack, me.”

“We already knew that,” Jack said, his voice tight. “What we don’t know is how to stop them.”

Liang’s mouth twisted into a ghost of a smile. “You can’t stop an operation backed by that much money and reach. But you can expose it. Get the evidence to the UN Council directly, not the Earth-side regulators. TerraCore owns them. The Council doesn’t answer to corporate pressure—at least not yet.” He exhaled, sweat beading on his forehead. “That’s why we need the med-bay. To keep me alive long enough to testify.”

Elena sat back, her mind reeling. For years she’d carried the weight of Marcus’s death like a stone lodged under her ribs. She’d questioned every decision, every data point, every late night spent obsessing over the extraction catalysts. It had all been a lie. A corporate hit job designed to protect their bottom line.

And Marcus had known.

He’d tried to save her—to clear her name—and they’d killed him for it.

“Elena.” Jack’s voice was softer now. She looked up and saw him peering over the seat at her, his eyes softening for just a fraction of a second before he looked back at the terrain. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said automatically.

“That’s a lie,” he said, “but I’ll take it for now.”

They drove another ten minutes in silence. Liang had slipped back into unconsciousness, and Elena was grateful for it. Her mind was a storm of new coordinates, every memory rewired. The whispers at conferences. The cold shoulder from her funding board. The way her advisor had told her to “start fresh” after Mars. All part of the machine.

“We’re getting close,” Jack said, slowing the transport. “I can see the base lights ahead. Wait—no.”

His tone made Elena’s heart seize. She leaned forward, bracing herself on the back of his seat. Through the dust-smudged windshield, the colony came into view against the pale horizon. The habitat domes glittered under the harsh sunlight, but over the main lab module, a thin gray plume spiraled upward.

Smoke.

“It’s on fire,” Elena whispered.

Jack punched the throttle. “Not just on fire. That’s a containment breach. The reactor’s venting, or someone opened the lab to vacuum.” He steered hard toward a service berm, kicking up a spray of regolith. “If the reactor’s compromised, the thermal shields will fail within hours. The whole base will be uninhabitable.”

“The med-bay’s in the same module as the reactor casing,” Elena said, her voice climbing. “Liang won’t survive a transfer to a field hospital.”

“Then we pray that smoke’s just a coolant leak,” Jack said grimly, “because we don’t have a Plan B.”

The transport shuddered as Jack veered across the rough ground, the base looming larger. Smoke curled higher now, thicker, darker.

Something had gone wrong. Or someone had made it go wrong.

Elena looked down at Liang, who was still breathing, then up again at the black column staining the lunar sky.

“If Kessler did this,” she said quietly, “he knows we’re coming.”

Jack didn’t answer. His knuckles were white on the steering yoke, and his bad leg trembled against the clutch. He had his own reasons to fear what waited in that base, Elena realized. He hadn’t told her everything about Marcus’s final message—not yet.

But the smoke rising over the colony gave them no time to compare secrets.

The base was burning, and inside, someone was waiting.