I was doing a lab tour on Io. Our base of operations was shaped like a hemisphere with nesting walls. Behind the first wall was where maintenance equipment was stored and maintained, and where maintenance workers like myself were quartered. Part of the reason it was such good money was that those of us within the outer shell got hazard pay for the increased risk of radiation exposure. Within our area was a second wall behind which dwelt the mission’s most sensitive instruments and the scientists who operated them. In the central dome were stored food, water, and fuel.
The prime objective of our scientists was to monitor Betelgeuce. Its spin had become irregular and its pattern of radiation emission had become erratic in recent weeks, which could be signs of an imminent explosion. This became a certainty when the star exploded at 1:18am Earth Mean Time and the first of three highly-charged particle waves impacted us at 3:47am EMT. I watched from my bunk as the wall arcing above our sleeping quarters began to glow.
It started as a barely noticeable deep red, then increased in brightness and frequency to orange, then yellow, then green, then blue, then indigo and then the wall was gone. All I could see were the stars up above and a quarter of the sky filled with the immense, swirling bulk of Jupiter.
I tapped myself. I wasn’t wearing my suit, yet I was perfectly comfortable and able to breathe. I heard a noise coming from Flanagan’s locker area, then I saw his exosuit floating in the air.
“Yo, Flanagan! Is that you?” I called across the room from my bunk.
“You can see me, plain as day, putting my suit on. Where are you hiding out at?”
“I’m right in front of you, sitting in my bunk.”
“No, you ain’t. Now stop messing around with me and put your suit on. Can’t you see that half the wall is gone?”
“If half the wall is gone, then how are we able to breathe?” I asked him. Flanagan could lift, and drink, more than a man twice his size, but logic was not his forte.
“Io is covered in Oxygen?”
“No. The wall is still there, but it’s invisible. We must’ve got hit by some of that juice from Betelgeuse. Look. We’re invisible, too.” I stumbled towards his voice until I finally touched him.
“Oh my God!” he squealed. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” Then, less than a second later. “Oh my God! This shit is real! It’s like we’re fucking camping outdoors!”
A chime announced the end of the emergency lock and the door to our section of the hemisphere slid open.
“What the fuck?” said the chief engineer. “It looks like a fucking hole in the wall, but there is no hole. Where are the crew members who reside here?”
“We’re right here, dumbfucks!” I shouted.
“They’ve evaporated. Life signs ended at the same time as the radiation.”
