by Erin Bowman
The vent Thea was crawling through joined another section, this one running vertically. She popped her head in, glanced up and down. Everything was clear.
How many guards are you dealing with again? she asked as she shifted into the vertical vent. With her hands and feet wedged up against the shaft, she began shuffling toward Kanna7’s lower levels.
Two guards on me, each holding a collar lead. Then the guard with the hot cap trigger. He’s sitting beside the pilot. Four men total. I’ll need to eliminate all but the pilot almost immediately. How long till you reach the hold?
Five minutes or so? Maybe more. I’ll let you know when to make your move.
Thea?
Yeah?
He remained silent, but she could sense plenty. He was picturing her wedged into the vent, sweaty hair in her face. Achlys was fresh in his mind, how vulnerable she’d been in Celestial Envoy’s vents. Her abilities hadn’t fully matured yet. The infected had still sensed an opportunity in her and had tried to attack. The Kanna7 crew would do the same, and he wasn’t there to help her.
I’ve got this, Coen, she insisted. Quit worrying about me and focus on your situation.
Just be careful, he said.
This time it was her turn to smile. You know I always am.
She reached her exit point and peered through the grate. In Cargo Hold C, a lone worker was unpacking a recent shipment. No longer in the hangar itself, he’d set his helmet aside. Thea sized up the rest of the EVA suit he wore—fitted but not truly skintight. Very much like the suit she wore on Achlys. This man was bigger than her, but she would take what she could get.
She kicked the vent cover in and dropped into the hold.
Startled, the man turned toward the noise. There was a half second of confusion, then recognition dawned in his eyes. He knew she was the cause for the lockdown, the patient Burke was searching for.
He lunged at her, and all the sparring Thea had practiced with Coen kicked in.
She sidestepped the man’s attack easily. It was like it was happening in half time, maybe even slower. Thea could see the strands of his hair moving as he wound up, follow the folds in his skin shifting as he breathed out air. She blocked his next punch with her forearm and threw a punch into his gut. As he staggered, coughing, she used her left fist to drive an uppercut into his chin. His eyes rolled.
He was unconscious before he hit the floor.
It was almost too easy.
“The cargo hold?” Nova gasped as they burst onto level thirty-two. It was about as far away from Docking as they could be, the complete opposite end of the station. There was only one flight below them, a hangar for freighters delivering supplies.
Nova still couldn’t believe what Amber had done to herself in the lab. Was she going to have bloody eyes the next time she turned around? Maybe this was just another nightmare. Nova pinched herself hard, trying to wake up.
“Your friends are this way,” Amber urged.
Nova followed, hobbling now. She hadn’t walked so much or so fast since coming out of the coma. Her legs felt like they might give out beneath her.
They burst into a small room holding food rations and medicine.
Nova noticed several things at once. A large shipping box filled with supplies on the floor. The busted state of the vent cover on the ceiling overhead. A discarded gas mask and an unconscious Kanna7 crew member slumped in the corner. And Althea Sadik. She wore what was presumably the man’s uniform—a gray EVA suit with the words Shipping and Receiving on the breastplate and a Trios military seal on the bicep—and smiled at them from behind the visor.
“Hey, Nova.” Her voice transmitted through the helmet’s external mics. “Ready to get off this station?”
Nova managed a nod.
“Your chariot awaits.” Thea nodded at the shipping box. “It’s airtight, so you’ll be fine while we’re briefly in the hangar.”
As they’d ridden the central elevator down to level thirty-two, Amber had explained how Coen was already on a ship—something to do with a communication test the Radicals had wanted to run on him and Thea—and he would bring the boat to pick up the rest of them. To save time, the hangar doors would remain open after he flew in. There’d be no time for repressurizing the hold. Dressed in her EVA suit, Thea would move the cargo case onto the ship with Nova inside, and the ship would then cruise through the still-open door.
“I’m coming also,” Amber announced. “They forced me to give Nova an infusion of your blood this morning. I took it myself instead.”
“That was how long ago?” Thea asked.
“Five minutes. Maybe ten?”
“We’ll keep an eye on how things progress. If you can host it, you should start feeling the side effects in about twelve hours. But if there’s been no nosebleed yet, you’re probably one of us.” She shot a crooked smile at Nova. “You’re one of us, too, Nova. Don’t worry. We were never going to leave you behind.”
“And here I was thinking you were only saving me because you needed a pilot you trusted.”
“That might have something to do with it, too. Now, in the box.”
Nova eyed the airtight container. It was the length of a coffin, but perhaps twice as wide. She and Amber would fit easily, and it was already halfway filled with rations. “How are you going to move that thing?” Nova asked.
“Superhuman strength, obviously. Also, this plate?” Thea stomped a boot on the floor. Nova noticed a seam that ran around the entire crate. “This lowers into the hangar. Hydraulic lifts and conveyer belts are big in shipping and receiving. Now get in so I can give Coen the go-ahead.”
Nova didn’t need to be told twice.
As soon as he received Thea’s signal, he reacted.
Coen dropped to the ground hard, knowing he’d be fighting the tug of the collars. He swiped with his leg out, knocking both the guards from their feet and causing their holds on the leads to slip. Just like that, Coen was loose. Without so much as a breath of relief, he was diving at the man in the copilot chair, bracing for the blow of the shock cap.
Nothing could have prepared him for the pain. As he collided with the copilot, it was everywhere, all-encompassing, white hot and brutal. Perhaps the only thing to save him was the fact that he was already mid-dive. Coen’s limp body crashed into the copilot, knocking him to the floor. The remote was dropped in the scuffle.
Coen batted it away, managing a tiny grin as it skittered beneath the flight dash and out of reach. He sensed the pilot zeroing in on the commotion now and threw a punch into the man beneath him, then reached for the latch beneath his own chin. As soon as the cap was off, Coen was truly free. The men stood no chance. The two guards and the copilot were unconscious in under five seconds.
Coen turned on the pilot. The man held his arms up in surrender, shaking.
Coen imagined he looked quite terrifying in the moment. He was breathing hard from the brief fight. One of his knuckles had split open. The pain had been fleeting, but he felt the wetness of the blood against his skin.
“Please don’t hurt me,” the pilot gasped, eyes on Coen’s knuckles. “I’ll do anything.”
Coen felt blindly along his neck, finding the two collar leads and releasing them from the collar. They clattered to the floor at his feet.
“Please,” the pilot said again, and Coen could feel his fear. Smell it, even. The man’s pulse jackhammered. “I just want to go home.”
Coen felt a moment of kinship. It was all he wanted, too. Through the bridge window behind the pilot, Coen could see Kanna7, spindle-shaped and dark, massive even from the ship’s current distance.
Ready and waiting for you, Thea said. Inside the hangar, she’d already guided the shipping container down a series of conveyer belts and started the depressurizing sequence. Opening the air lock would send alerts to Central Command, so she’d wait until Halo’s approach was visible through the windows. It was time to put Kanna7 behind them.
“Keep your hands away from the comms and
fly us into the hangar,” Coen said to the pilot. “If you do everything I say, I might let you live.”
Halo was approaching fast. Through the hangar’s air lock windows, Thea could see it bearing down on the station, a beacon of hope against the free stars. Now floating in zero g, she toggled the controls. The doors parted and the transit ship coasted inside.
It was a militarized model, small, but armed with artillery beneath both wings. It spun about so the rear faced the shipping container holding Nova and Amber, and hovered there as the gangplank lowered.
Thea’s heart leapt at the sight of Coen at the top of the ramp. Like her, he now wore an EVA suit, his tan skin glowing behind the illuminated visor. She hadn’t realized how desperate she was to reunite with him until the moment was upon her.
You can get sentimental when we’re free of this damn station, he teased, and pushed off the edge of the ship to float down to join her.
In another situation she might have thrown a sarcastic comment back, but there was no time. The open hangar door was likely blipping on a dash in Kanna7’s central command, and it was only a matter of time before guards came rushing to stop them.
Working together, Thea and Coen unbuckled the shipping container from the conveyer belt and moved it toward Halo. It was sort of like bringing a treasure chest up from the depths of the ocean, except they couldn’t change their direction with a simple kick. Instead, their very first push off the belt had to be precise. It was. They mentally assured it together. And then once in motion, they just held on to the case and coasted into the ship.
Once inside, they floated until bumping into the far wall. Thea grabbed hold of a service ladder to stop their momentum, pain flaring briefly in her shoulder. Coen scrambled over the container, floating back to Halo’s controls. Once the gangplank was raised, the ship sealed off and its hold repressurized, the container thudded to the floor. Thea fell with it, landing gracefully on her feet.
I’ll take care of the old crew, Coen said and flew up the steps, disappearing from sight. They’d be stuffed into an escape pod and dropped right into Kanna7’s hangar as Nova flew the stolen ship to freedom. That was, after Thea got their pilot onto the bridge.
Grunting, she heaved the lid of the container open. Nova and Amber blinked up at her, disoriented. “Let’s go!” Thea said, grabbing Nova’s arm. “On my back. We have to be quick.” She helped Nova from the container, and said a silent prayer of thanks that Nova wasn’t arguing. Thea knew all too well how proud and self-reliant the pilot was. With Nova riding on her back like a piggybacking child, Thea tore for the bridge.
Coen was waiting there when they arrived, towering over the Radical pilot. Thea dropped Nova in the pilot’s chair at the same moment Coen heaved the other man out. The ship shuddered slightly in the awkward transition, but then Nova’s hands were on the yoke, holding them steady.
“You’ll be lucky if you make it a dozen kilometers,” the Radical pilot grunted. “They’ll be on you in a heartbeat. They’ll—”
Coen threw a fist into the man’s side, cutting off his words. “I’ll tell Thea when they’re all in the escape pod, then we drop them and bolt,” Coen said to Nova. “Clear?”
“Crystal,” Nova answered.
Coen disappeared from the bridge, and Thea squeezed the back of the pilot’s chair, heart pounding. They’d done it. This was it. They were seconds away from leaving Kanna7 behind forever.
That was when the radio crackled.
“Halo, we read you’re in the hangar. Do not try to move the host. We’re sending additional crew to retrieve you. Do you copy?”
Nova flinched in her seat, jerking her head at something beyond the window. “The doors just closed.”
Thea looked up, heart plummeting. Burke had probably ordered them sealed as soon as he registered that Halo was in the hangar. If he put the station on a full lockdown before Thea got the doors open again, they’d never make it out.
Thea, don’t! Coen shouted. He wasn’t even on the bridge, but he’d already sensed where her mind was headed. We’ll figure something out!
But this was the only solution. Coen was still struggling to squeeze the pilot into the escape pod. It had to be Thea.
“If I’m not back in time, don’t wait for me,” she said to Nova, and tore from the bridge. Down the stairs. Toward a service air lock. She was out it as fast as possible, sealing it behind her, then pushing off Halo and shooting toward the hangar door, all while trying to avoid Coen’s mental pleading.
His helplessness and dread were cold and heavy, weighing in the pit of her stomach. But she’d made her choice. She’d made it for all of them.
The doors separating the station from the hangar creaked open behind Thea as she reached the air lock’s control panel. She grabbed hold of the unit to steady herself. Guards were surely spilling into the hangar now. They’d be slower in zero g, but they’d reach her eventually. Thea fished the key card from the breast pocket of the EVA suit—it had belonged to the man she’d overpowered in Cargo Hold C—and waved it in front of the sensors.
It blinked in confirmation.
The doors opened.
Turning for Halo, she had a clear view of the bridge window. Nova sat in the pilot’s chair, reluctance held in every muscle of her face. Coen appeared beside her, breathless from his run back to the bridge. He said something to Nova—probaby that the escape pod had been dropped—but his gaze never left Thea. Get back here. I’ll meet you at the service air lock, open the door. There’s still time.
But a flash of electricity had already appeared in the corner of Thea’s vision, fired by a Radical. Not just one flash, but many. Dozens.
Go, Thea said to Coen. Please.
This decision of hers had to be worth something. They couldn’t throw it away.
She never felt his resolve weaken. His thoughts never shifted toward agreement. The stubborn bond between them would have ruined everything if it wasn’t for Nova.
Thea watched the pilot’s brows dip, her expression steel. Then the ship surged forward and the discarded escape pod was propelled deeper into the hangar.
The ship had barely passed through the doors when the shock blasts hit Thea in rapid succession. She bounced against the control panel limply. When the first wave of blasts ended, a second came. Her head lolled backward.
She watched Halo streak across the stars, Coen screaming in her mind until she fell unconscious.
She slaved over the tech. She worked until her eyes burned, until she fell asleep at her keyboard. She skipped meals, grew irritable, began to make mistakes.
Sol criticized her, and though she hated to admit he was right, she could see she was overexerting herself. She was no help to anyone—especially not Thea—when her mind was exhausted.
The programmer took a week off, and when she returned to her work, she saw it with fresh eyes. It wasn’t that she was missing the solution, it was that she was physically incapable of reaching it.
Her code was perfect.
The flux drive was operational.
The issue was in the recharging cycle, and it was power holding the tech back, not her programming.
She glanced at the most recent simulation readings. They’d been holding steady since last month. Impressive, but still not enough. But she’d get it there, because she finally knew what she needed. The answer was just a short flight away.
Sol wouldn’t like it. It would be expensive and it would make Paradox Technologies reliant on the help of a second party, but he’d come around. She’d see to it. If she had to lie, pretend to feel something for him again, she would do it. Anything to get back to Thea.
The programer left the lab to hunt down Sol. They needed to talk about the tidally locked planet, Bev.
IV
The Getaway
Halo
Interstellar Airspace
NOVA HELD THE YOKE CONFIDENTLY, guiding them hard and true away from Kanna7.
“We have to go back for her!” Coen shouted.<
br />
“Nope.”
“Nova, she’s the only reason we got away.”
“And she’d be pissed if we got caught trying to save her! We need to run!”
Nova could understand her words as reasonable. Rational. Smart. And still they seemed to burn her tongue as she spoke them. Thea had been looking right at Nova when she’d made the executive decision to flee. Thea had even said “Don’t wait for me.” Why then did it feel like another betrayal? Why was Nova always damning people she cared about?
“I’m with Nova on this one,” Amber agreed.
“You would be,” Coen argued. “You barely even know her. What do you care?” He lowered his face beside Nova, leaning lightly on the dash. “Please, Nova. We have to go back.” She made the mistake of looking at him. His eyes were glossy, filled with water. He blinked, and a tear slipped free. “Nova, I am begging you. I can’t even hear her anymore. What if they kill her?”
“They’re not going to kill her,” Amber said. “They need her.”
Coen wheeled on the medic. “You were complacent about all this until your own safety was on the line. I don’t want to hear a damn thing about what you think!”
“You wouldn’t have your pilot if it wasn’t for me!” Amber shouted back.
“Seriously, Coen. Cut her some slack. I’d likely have hemorrhaged eyes and a bloody nose right now if it weren’t for Amber injecting herself with—” Nova stopped cold as the dash lit up with warnings. A half-dozen objects were now on the radar, speeding away from Kanna7 to chase after Halo. “Buckle in,” she told the others.
“Are we going back?” Coen asked.
“Just do it!”
Chances were the Radicals wanted to take the ship whole. They were after Coen, their precious host. They’d want Amber now, too. They weren’t about to blast Halo into stardust, but Nova was going to have to do some incredible maneuvering to ensure their escape lasted longer than thirty seconds.
