by Melissa Good
“I’ve locked out pretty much all the systems under my code. Not much going back to be had from here.”
“Gotcha.” Jess caught hold of the ceiling grid. “One of your kids just came in.”
It was the TeeGee out of breath. “I found you!” she said. “Comps down. You were right about the transmitter. I found the lock out. Dev, they did it on purpose.”
“Yes.” Dev looked up briefly then went back to her scanner. “All kinds of incorrectness.”
“Talk to you later, Doc,” Jess said. “Wish us luck.”
“No luck needed, just a Drake,” Kurok said, gentle affection clear in his voice. “Check in when you can.”
He clicked out.
“Glad you found us,” Jess told the TeeGee. “’Cause things are heading right for the crapper.”
The TeeGee turned to stare at her.
“Sanitary unit, rudimentary.” Dev forestalled the question. “KayTee, is it possible to achieve supplemental power to the mech comp?”
The KayTee drifted over to the comp access and peered at it. “It seems dormant. I will review the interlock.”
“Jess, I have comms with the shuttle,” Dev said, half turning. “But it’s only text flash.” She showed the screen with it’s blinking data. “They’re damaged. Said they were hit by the other shuttle on its way out. “
“They’re drifting.” The BeeAye observed. “They can’t dock?”
“They can’t dock they need assist,” Dev said, typing on the screen. “Rotation’s down. There’s no way to guide them in on auto.”
“We could manually dock them,” the TeeGee suggested. “There’s two exosuits in the lock right on the other side of that hatch.”
“What does that get us?” Jess asked.
“Power,” Dev said. “We can draw it from the shuttle and regen the systems. And,” she added, “they have a transmitter.” She started to drift toward the lock hatch. “I will go with you, TeeGee.”
“No.” Jess hooked her arm in mid air and pulled her back. “My job.”
The TeeGee regarded her. “I’m afraid the suit won’t fit you, Agent Drake. It’s made for someone my size, or a bit taller.”
“A bio alt,” Dev said. “It’s dangerous.”
“All the more reason. I’ll figure it out,” Jess said. “You see if you can get the widgets twirling.” She pushed herself toward the hatch.
The bio alts watched her with deep interest. “You would go in NM-Dev-1’s place?” the TeeGee asked. “You could be made dead, Agent Drake.”
“Absolutely,” Jess said. “I’d croak for Dev in a millisecond. She’s the brains in this outfit.”
There was a little silence. “That’s really excellent,” the KayTee finally said. He looked at Dev. “You were right. I’ve never heard a natural born say anything like that ever.”
Dev gazed affectionately at Jess, reaching out to catch her arm and give it a squeeze. “I told you Jess is amazing,” she said. “But really, Jess, the hard suits don’t stretch.”
“I will go,” the BeeAye said, joining the TeeGee at the hatch. “I have programming for the shuttle, anyway.” He bumped the TeeGee through the opening and slid after her, shutting the hatch before Jess could get herself loose and prevent it.
The KayTee seated himself at the console and opened the front of it, looking inside. There was just enough emergency power to see, and he removed a probe from his jumpsuit pocket and poked at things.
Jess felt the blush fade, and she turned to look at Dev. Dev’s eyes lifted and met Jess’s, and for a long moment Jess just forgot what the hell was going on around her.
If someone had come in and shot her, she’d have just exploded into bits. It felt bizarre. Then Dev gently pressed her knuckles against Jess’s cheek, and she found she really just didn’t care.
Really just didn’t.
It just felt so insanely good to see that look in those eyes focused totally on her. Who the fuck cared if the entire world was blowing up.
“You really are amazing, Jess,” Dev said softly.
“Devvie,” Jess rumbled softly. “We should be doing something useful.”
“Like what?” Dev turned and looked out the thick plex. “We’re lucky we found a spot that has atmo, right now, and a small amount of power. We really cannot do that much until they dock the shuttle and release the grav wheel.”
“So that’s what kicked off the floating again? They didn’t damage this thing, it just stopped because they are bumping around out there?”
“Yes,” Dev said. “It’s for safety.”
They heard the hatch cycle, and then the two exosuits came out of the front of the airlock, guided by gentle jets from the rear of the units encasing the two bio alts inside.
“They are brave,” the KayTee commented. “That is very dangerous.” He turned to look at the two dark clad forms. “But you also did brave things, NM-Dev-1. I saw on the vid Doctor Dan showed us.” He smiled a little. “It really scared the proctors.”
“I didn’t think of it that way at the time.” Dev said. She pondered. “I think I was just too busy. It was my first mission and a lot was going on.”
Jess chuckled. “You never do think about that when you’re in the zone. It’s only when you see yourself on vid afterward that you throw your hands up and say—what the hell?”
“What’s a hell?” the KayTee inquired.
Dev held up a hand at Jess. “Don’t.” She turned to the KayTee. “It starts with some story about a hole in the ground and then it will turn into all kinds of things about asses and really, KayTee, you do not want to know.”
Jess’s laughter was a fun, surprising sound in all the danger around them. She reached out and put her arms around Dev and pulled her close, hugging her while they drifted in mid air, watching the station rattling itself apart.
“PUT THAT CONSOLE up against the wall,” Doctor Dan instructed, holding on to a support bar with one hand as the bio alts around him swirled in reaction. “Quickly please.”
The lab, as it were, was something of a bunker. He’d had it built that way, casual, gentle suggestions at this time and that time, adding a layer here and a layer there, but it wasn’t designed to survive the entire station coming to pieces.
“Please have care,” a KayTee said, welding torch clutched in one hand. “I must make this area very hot.”
In a wan, kind of catastrophic way, he was so proud of all of them. None of the sets were panicking, they all moved around doing whatever they could to keep others safe and stabilize the area of station they were in.
Could you program courage? “That’s right.” Doctor Dan nodded. “Yes, right there, KayTee. Tack it in place.” He glanced behind him to where Tayler was turning somersaults in the null, the motion so much like Jess’s he had to smile.
Sometimes it was inbred. That light, bold lack of caring about personal safety and security and ability to live completely in the moment that was expressed as courage, but really was more about just not caring about the future.
Justin would have loved the null.
Kurok sighed and studied the entryway that had been reinforced as best he could manage it and now was protecting the several hundred bio alts who had come at his calling and were prepared to share whatever fate it was he’d arranged for.
“Doctor Dan, the shuttle is trying to lock on,” a BeeAye said, studying the console they were in front of. “There is danger.”
“There is.” He floated over and looked at the screen, bare wiremaps driven by the emergency power supply to the lab.
The sounds outside had faded a little, but he still heard the sound of steel cutters in the outer hall, an insanity in the fragile spider web of station supports. He tapped the comms in his ear. “Jess?”
“Here.” The warm, slightly burring voice came back at once. “Shuttle said they’ve got damage.”
“Are you trying to dock it?” he asked. “That could be something catastrophic.”
Jess responded c
almly. “Dev said the thing has power and a transmitter, though. She thinks it’s worth the try.”
“Mmm.” Doctor Dan shifted the basic scan. “Other shuttle’s gone?”
“The other shuttle’s particles. That’s what this one was aiming at.”
Ah. Unexpected. Usually the shuttles maintained a kind of space brotherhood kind of idiocy, respecting each other regardless of side. Perhaps the pilot had a history. “Okay.”
“Doctor Dan, there is penetration,” a BeeAye yelled out, pointing at the wall.
“No rest for the weary.” He sighed. “Thanks, Jess.” He cut off the comms and drew the blaster from the small of his back, checking the power setting on it. “Everyone please get clear.”
Kurok wondered if he should tell Doss he had nothing to worry about, since the shuttle with all the witnesses was toast. Would that make him stop shooting at them? He retuned the comms from the secure point to point link with Jess. “Hello, Randall? Randall, are you there?”
No answer.
Oh well. He kicked off the wall and sailed toward the entryway where the sets reluctantly backed off at his approach. “That’s right, friends, give me some space.”
He saw the penetration then and heard the thumps of the wall pounders behind it. He got a position with his arm through a support, holding him still in the air. “All of you get back, please, into the main area of the lab. I don’t want you all to get hurt.”
“But what about you, Doctor Dan?” one of the CeeEms asked. “We should help you!”
He looked to his left and saw them drifting toward him. “No, please stay back. They’ll be shooting at me, and I would rather not have you get in the way.”
Hesitation.
But then the square of penetration imploded inward, and he was out of time. Security came flooding in and he aimed and fired in short bursts, as he’d been taught in field school.
Head shots.
Eye shots.
Three bodies drifted, arms outflung in shock before they realized. Then they started yelling and the flood became a scramble to get back past the wall, blood flying as they scraped and cut themselves on the raw metal they’d cut.
Kurok released the spar and kicked toward them, feeling the resistance to motion that the blaster caused as it sent energy in counterpoint.
Two of them got bearings and lifted blasters, that were not even supposed to be on station, to shoot back at him and then all hell broke loose as the bio alt sets reacted, all of them pouring toward the guards with arms outstretched.
Fully willing to take shots for him. To be made dead, and by the looks in their faces, Kurok knew they knew that.
Idiots. He ducked under a set and twisted, finding an alley to shoot down as another body squeezed into the irregular square and aimed at him. A mass of bio alts arrived in a swarm of flailing arms and legs and everyone collided.
Civs. Doctor Dan shoved the blaster back into his front pocket and ducked a swipe as the guards swapped unfamiliar blasters for stun sticks and the chest mounted zappers, which they realized in short order were having no effect. “Bastards!” one the guards yelled. “They were right!”
One of the bio alts slapped him, more or less accidently, and he went tumbling off. Kurok grabbed hold of the wall support, using this firm attachment to allow him to punch a guard with his balled fist. “This way, friends!”
Eyes watched him intently, then the bio alts fell to, copying his motion as they engaged the guards, dodging the stun sticks wielded in wild sweeps since the guards were unused to the null.
Kurok twisted a stunner out of a hand and then slammed it into one of the guard’s faces, knocking him backwards into the wall.
“Hey, stop that!” a captain bellowed. “Damn you Kurok!”
Kurok laughed. “Call me DJ.” He pitched the stun stick at the man and watched it smack him in the eye. “You all better enjoy this party before the Drake gets here.” He shoved another guard back out through the opening. “’Cause let me tell you there’s going to be blood everywhere after that.”
A blast of plasma hit the wall next to him, and he closed his eyes in reflex and shoved away from it, bumping into several of the bio alts and knocking them out of its line of fire. He ducked past a guard who wasn’t so lucky.
Hands grabbed him and pulled him to safety, and then a solid, ominous thump sounded next to his ear on the other side of the metal wall.
His ears buzzed.
The station shifted, and he felt grav tug at him. “Hang on! Hold! Hold!” he shouted and scrambled for a handhold. “Bloody ass timing!”
DEV HUNCHED OVER her scanner, a frown on her face as she studied the screen.
Outside, the two bio alts in their exosuits maneuvered a manual lock over a long tube with shackles at the end that would fasten to the shuttle’s airlock and make it part of station.
Jess watched this intently, given that she was tumbling idly in null all the while. “Hey, Dev.”
“Yes?”
“If they hook that thing up, will the station start turning again?”
Dev looked up and out of the plas. “It might. The interlocks are designed to cut out if they detect something coming in that will collide, like the shuttle. That’s why we’re in null right now. “
“Yes.” The KayTee was busy with his head inside the console, a small glow light stuck to his head as he worked on the grid. “We would feel that sometimes, but they always warned ahead.” He set a switch and regarded the wires then removed another. “This shuttle is early.”
Jess paused in her flipping. “Yeah? How early?”
“Two days. It’s very unusual,” he said. “I didn’t hear it was supposed to be early and we usually do because we help with the offloading of the supplies.”
Jess drifted down and paused at Dev’s shoulder. “Devvie, type in this sequence into your little gizmo. 35,4,2003, Graph.”
Dev obediently tapped it in and waited. “What is that?”
The screen updated. “Pineapple,” Dev read it out.
“Hhmp.” Jess looked up and watched them attach the lock. She could hear the long, grinding thump as the manual ring locked onto them. A moment later the shuttle was turning with the station, and they felt the rotation start up. “Where does that leave out? That tube?”
“There, but—” Dev felt herself shift as the station ring engaged. “What does the pineapple mean, Jess?”
“Hopefully, something good.” Jess drifted to the floor and started for the large, heavy lock that separated the mech station from the large central core. “Wait for me here, just in case it ain’t.”
Dev got up and slung her scanner over her shoulder. “I should go with you.”
Jess paused at the hatch. “Do me a favor and just hang out a few minutes?” She reached a hand out before she could really think about it, grabbed the rotating lock, and gave it a wrench. “Not sure what’s on the other end of this.”
Dev frowned.
“Just for a minute,” Jess said. “If I start yelling come after my ass.” She ducked through the hatch and slammed it behind her.
“That really is an interesting natural born,” the KayTee remarked then went back to his task. “I’m glad grav is back. These attachments kept floating away.”
Dev perched on the edge of a console and looked at the hatch unhappily. Then she stood up and went to the hatch and gave the locks a decisive spin, and the door opened. “If incorrect things start, please try to warn us, KayTee.”
“The agent said for you to stay.”
“I did not say I would.” Dev yanked the door back. “Doctor Dan gave me the programming to make up my own mind. So I’m going to. Be safe.” She ducked through the hatch and closed it behind her, dogging it shut and taking a breath of the cold, space smelling air of the emergency lock.
Peculiar smell, a mixture of ions and dust that got up into her nose and tickled it. Jess was already far ahead of her and out of sight. Dev scrambled quickly to catch up, the tube flexing under h
er steps as she kept to the center, balancing easily.
She got to a bend in the tube and brought her scanner around, tuning it as she bounced through the joint and found herself coming up on Jess somewhat unexpectedly as she heard a throat cleared in front of her. “Oh!”
Jess stood there, hands in her pockets, a faint smile on her face, just watching her.
They looked at each other for a long moment. “I really wanted to go with you,” Dev said, apologetically.
Jess reached up and scratched the bridge of her nose then she held a hand out. “Hope you always do,” she said, as Dev scrambled over to join her. “Techs are supposed to listen to us, but you know what, Dev? Do what your gut tells you and it works out most times.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Always.”
They heard a bang ahead of them and shouting. Jess broke into a run, letting out a yell of her own.
The floor of the tube flexed under their steps and they could only see a few feet ahead, but then the sound of something hitting flesh came through with complete clarity, and as they bounded around the last part of the lock they got a good look at the entryway.
The emergency lock was fastened to the shuttle and there were struts clamped onto the station structure holding it in place. Past it, the rotation ring was in motion, and a blast of sunlight suddenly lit everything up as they came around to the day side of the planet.
It made everyone blink and Jess put a hand up to shield her eyes as she fought to see what was ahead of them.
The shuttle door was open and two figures stumbled out, blasters forward, hopping over a body that tumbled limply out in front of them while a roar of sound rose at their back. The lead figure saw something shadowy approaching and lifted their blaster, pointing it.
“Hey!” Jess shouted. “Don’t shoot!”
“Drake!” The second figure said at the same time. “Don’t shoot!”
“Doug!” Dev yelped in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
They came together in a rush and heads poked out behind them. “Let me get the trash out of the way first,” Doug said. “April, get off this guy’s hand, woudlja?”
