THE TITAN EXPERIMENT

CHAPTER 1 - Flashback

Sarah slowed a fraction and allowed Jake to slip ahead of her, pushing him along from behind, her husband having more difficulty with the reduced gravity. His body was tall and muscular—not ripped like a bodybuilder, but well defined—V-shaped from the shoulders to his lean core. Ever since they had arrived at this outpost, Jake had become obsessed with physical fitness. Since his body contained more mass, it took all he could muster to run, hop, and bounce his way forward. Sarah was lighter on her feet. She galloped, trotted, and glided through the air with precision. The reason: she had visited the core reactor room on a tour with the station chief. She had paid attention to the way the laws of physics operated in the center of the wheel. The spokes, long hallways that led from the outer ring to the central hub, were partially weightless at various locations. Closer to the hub, there was less gravity. Closer to the wheel, there were more g-forces. Now, her previous experience worked to her advantage.

Savage roars erupted further down the long hallway. There was another ear-splitting scream, and momentary silence. Then the growls intensified, and the voices fell away into desperate sobs and frail cries for help. But no help came.

A hunched back figure emerged from the red-blinking blackness. The monster leaped onto the back of a woman and sunk its canines into her neck at the base of her skull. Her flailing arms and legs went limp, her head gone from her shoulders in one bite.

Sarah's heart fluttered in her chest, pounding so hard her breath became lost to the intensity of the moment.

She lost control of her forward motion, but snagged Jake by the shirt collar, dragging him down to the floor in a near weightless tumble. With enhanced reflexes, she hauled Jake to his feet and stepped in front of him.

The creature stood between them and the escape pods.

Sarah sucked in a breath, a brief sigh of trepidation as the gasp rolled over her lips. She tried to hold Jake back with an outstretched arm in order to force him away from the source of the danger, but he would have none of it. He drew her close from behind and looped an arm around her.

She would protect him with her life. They had been through so much together, their romance starting at the bottom of a deep blue ocean on Earth, diving into the depths, filled with adventure, love, passion, reaching the stars.

"Quiet," she whispered to Jake, her eyes locked on the creature as it blocked their avenue of escape. "Stay back and don't move. Let me handle this."

Jake tensed against Sarah, his arms wrapping around her waist, gripping her tightly. He loved her, too. He would risk his life for her as well. Sarah knew this to be true, but she wouldn't allow that to happen. That's why she took the lead. Even though Jake was physically enhanced as well, she was light years ahead of him, a freak of nature, her DNA, her cells, her molecular structure more naturally attuned to the serum.

Ahead of them, illuminated by the flashing emergency beacons, oily hairs on the creature's back reflected a sheen on its hunched over form. Its jaws crunched as it fed on the woman. Sarah gasped at the sight. Loud enough to draw the demon-like glare of the savage beast.

Slowly, carefully, calmly, she removed Jake's arms from around her waist. She glanced sidelong back at him with a solemn warning in her eyes. She felt a dreadfulness deep in her chest. This might be the last look they would share.

"While I distract it, if you can get past it, get to your pod," Sarah said. "But if I die, I want you to run and hide."

"What are you going to do?"

"Just promise me, Jake. If something goes wrong, get out of this corridor, hide, and then make your way to the escape pods. Promise me."

"If something goes wrong—Sarah! Are you kidding me? We can run now, together. We can find a lab or a closet, some place to hide."

"No. There's no time. The station is shutting down. If we don't make it to the pods, we're doomed. This is the only way."

She took him by the hand. "I love you."

Before Jake replied, Sarah shoved him backwards, and then stormed toward the creature that science created, the creature that roared toward her on a collision course.

As she careened through the corridor on a mad dash, unexpectedly, the last remnants of gravity vanished from the station. Sarah floated upward, the ceiling drifting toward her. Before she made impact, she reached out and scratched at the surface, repositioning her body as her shoulders and back bumped the grated tiles above her head. Struggling, she bent over at the waist and kicked off from the hard ceiling, sending her toward the floor, the creature's snapping teeth and slashing claws flying by above her, unable to alter its course as it soared in Jake's direction.

An object in space remains in motion until acted upon by an outside force. A basic rule of zero gravity. Jake knew this rule well. Sarah didn't have to tell him what to do. As the thrashing creature streaked toward him, its path high, grazing the top of the corridor, Jake grabbed a piece of conduit that ran perpendicular to the floor.

The creature flailed past him as he clung to the metal tubing, hugging the floor, his boots rising. A claw swept at his feet, but missed by inches, its arm and the rest of its body continuing away from them.

With the creature no longer a threat, they had to hurry. They still had to reach the pod bay. Gravity was the first thing to go. Next would be the air supply and the CO2 scrubbers. After that, the climate control would go, but it wouldn't matter if it got cold, if they couldn't breathe.

"Use the pipe on the wall to pull yourself toward me," Sarah said.

Jake shook his head, his eyes turning from the disappearing creature, and focusing on Sarah's arms, beckoning him to catch up with her. With a hard tug on the pipe, he shot toward her, covering the ground between them and colliding with her, their bodies tangling in a twisted knot of arms and legs.

They were about to cruise past the entrance to the pod bay, but Sarah latched onto the door frame, halting their movement through the corridor. By memory, she punched in the code and the door opened.

With both of them hugging the ceiling, Sarah nudged Jake in, sending him toward the pods... the ones to the right, next to the outer wall of the station. As she launched herself in, the passage hissed shut behind them. Below them, countless other scientists and engineers floated in microgravity in a wild array of chaos, all attempting to reach their assigned escape pods.

Sarah and Jake's pods rested side by side.

Jake scraped along the ceiling, allowing Sarah to catch up with him.

He latched onto her hand and yanked her into his arms in a mid-air embrace. He kissed her hard, pressing his dry lips against hers—drew back—stared at her with glistening green eyes, and after a few seconds, planted his lips on her forehead. If they survived the journey home, they wouldn't see each other for seven long years... all spent in cryogenic hibernation until they splashed down in the Pacific Ocean ten miles off the coast of Hawaii where rescue and recovery awaited.

"I told you from the beginning," he said, "before we agreed to this godforsaken assignment, I'd love you on Earth, I'd love you in space, I'd love you anywhere."

"Jake, we'll make it—"

He kissed her again, a passionate moment. When their lips parted, he pulled away, angled for his pod, and kicked off. "Go now," he said over his shoulder as he descended. "There's no time."

Sarah shoved from the ceiling and reached her pod seconds after Jake reached his. She climbed in and turned to watch Jake's lid close with an airtight seal. This was it. The moment of departure. Nestled inside the narrow confines of her unit, she blew out a gust of air and then closed the hatch. She waited until Jake's pod blasted from its housing. The sound reverberated around her.

There was no time for second guessing. No time for contemplation. Her only regret was not holding Jake in her arms a moment longer.

She blinked once and then slammed her fist against the launch button, and her egg-like emergency vehicle rocketed through the metal tube like a torpedo from a submarine—into the vacuum of space.

In reaction to the g-forces, Sarah squeezed her eyes shut.

And when she opened them again, she was back on Earth.

Back to reality.

Flashback over.