by A Keuser
Boudri leaned over, clutching his stomach, as they continued down the corridor as fast as she was willing to go. His unsteady gait looked as though he was moments from falling face first into the flooring.
"We’ll find a place to rest," she offered. “We’re too exposed here.”
Shaking his head, Boudri pointed toward the far end of the corridor and set a new pace. Hoping he knew what he was doing, Nala followed.
The room they stepped into was about the same size as the one they’d been in before, but this one was empty, and its domed roof was peppered with triangular view ports.
“Goes to show I still don’t know everything,” she said between long inhales. “I never thought I’d set foot on lunar colony three.”
Boudri puffed out a laugh, “You mean after your bomb blew up half of the facility?”
Nala cringed. The destruction of LCIII was one of the first events that had pushed her toward “retirement.”
Boudri leaned back, keeping his hands on his hips as he breathed in deeply. Between breaths he said, “We’ve always known this colony was partially operational, it’s used for storage by Four and Five, and I know some were considering fixing the other half of the colony now that it would be easier. You saw the pictures of what it looked like when the bomb blew.”
“Thanks for not calling it ‘my’ bomb.” She used the heel of her palm to wipe sweat from her brow and then said, “We need to find some place to lay low. Diana and Eri probably know this place better than we do. One or the other's bound to come through here sooner rather than later."
Boudri nodded and glanced to the two passageways that led away ahead of them. "What's behind door number one?"
"Do you think it will be better or worse than door number two?"
Boudri shrugged. "Probably not, but two has a higher chance of looping back around to where we were in the first place."
Nala didn't know if that was right, but she didn't want to waste time arguing.
They ran again through the halls and Boudri finally picked a hatch – that it was the only hatch they’d seen in a while did not escape her.
Inside, the dark compartment had only one speck of light – a console that Nala went to immediately. If she could turn on a few lights, maybe they could get their bearings. She dropped her bag by the console and got to work.
“It’s the old botany lab – where the colony’s food would have been grown.”
Nala didn’t argue, Ethan would know better than she would.
The computer system was old, but none of the program files were locked. Unfortunately, control commands were buried under routine files that bogged her down. If there was an easier way to turn on the lights, she would have loved to know about it.
“God, it smells lovely in here,” Boudri said from behind her.
She snorted as she typed in the controls, executing the proper function and….
Too many lights came on, one at a time, illuminating the dome-like compartment. Its contents, the source of the pleasant odor teasing Boudri’s olfactory senses, shivered under the flow of the ventilation tubing.
“Wow, this is beautiful,” Boudri said as he stepped forward.
The compartment was full of lilies. Nala was frozen, her brain still trying to process the sheer number of flowers in front of her. The same lilies Diana had placed in her apartment days earlier.
“We need to get out of here, right now,” Nala said when her brain reconnected and she backed away from the light controls.
“What’s wrong?” Boudri looked at her like she was insane.
Glancing back at the flowers, she shook her head and said, “Just go.”
There wasn’t any time to explain, and with the dome lit up like this, there was no way they could use it as an effective hiding place.
As she turned, reaching for Ethan, he flew away from her as Diana dropkicked him.
Boudri rolled to avoid another impact from Diana’s boot and came to a stop against a reel of irrigation tubing. He let out an unfortunate gurgle, then he lay still.
Nala didn’t have time to check on him as Diana climbed to her feet and stalked toward her.
“You should have died in that sky walk. This is all your fault. You weren’t good enough as Verity; you had no hope of being worthwhile as this pathetic person you’ve created. You brought about the destruction of Six, and I’m going to kill you and find a way to make sure everyone knows it was your fault!”
Nala didn’t say anything. She took a couple of cautious steps backward.
“You’re running away again. You’re always running away. Is it because you know you’d die if you stood your ground? You’re a weasel and you don’t deserve the admiration so many gave you.”
Nala couldn’t keep the incredulous question from escaping her lips. “Admiration?”
Diana lunged.
Nala dodged away, but it was a moment too slow.
Diana’s fingers dug into her throat. Smiling as she strangled her, the woman’s laugh was low as she leaned in close. “Your mother was so disappointed in you. You could have changed the fate of the universe.”
Nala kicked down sharply, raking the heel of her boot across Diana’s ankle and as Diana let go she shoved. “How the hell do you know my mother?”
Diana laughed again, “How did I know you were Verity? Someone had to pick up where you left off. Your mother was delighted to have someone who wouldn’t disappoint her.”
“So that’s where you got the scars? I guess you weren’t as good as me.”
Shrugging, Diana smirked as she said, “You couldn’t figure out my bomb outside the skywalk.”
“It didn’t go off,” Nala said as she knocked over a stand of lilies and took off across the lab. She wouldn’t be able to make it out of the lab, but she could put a little distance between them.
Diana dove at her and caught her around the legs and they both tumbled to the dusty floor. As she struck the ground, Nala felt a pop in her chest and then searing pain.
Struggling to break free, Nala had nothing she could grab hold of except the unstable pots.
Diana stood and dragged her to her feet.
“She always thought you’d come back to her, you know. Yet another way you’re a disappointment,” the crazed woman said.
Nala twisted out of her grip despite the pain shooting up her ribs and fell backward into the flowers – the pots keeping her from hitting the ground again.
Diana lunged at her yet again, but Nala leaned back into the pot and kicked her away. Stumbling backward, Diana tripped over Boudri’s prostrate form. Her eyes widened as she fell backward, arms flailing as she tried to catch herself. Her fingers found no purchase in the thin air.
Nala tensed for the woman’s next attack, but it did not come. Pain burned in her chest, but she slowly got to her feet and made her way cautiously over to where Diana had fallen.
Staring up with glassy eyes, her neck at a wrong angle to her body, Diana no longer posed a threat. She was dead. At least she looked dead. A moaning sound caused Nala to reconsider.
Beneath Diana’s body, Boudri groaned.
As much as she could with her chest on fire, Nala helped pull Boudri out from under the corpse.
“Why does it feel like I got caught in some mean piece of machinery?” he asked as he struggled to his feet.
“You—”
Before she could say anything else, a full tactical team swept into the room.
“Look who’s late to the party,” she said through painful breaths.
Chadha pushed through the faceless soldiers, armed to the teeth, and glanced from them to Diana and then to the flowers behind them.
“Well, this is convenient,” she said.
“We aim to please. Now…. can we get out of here? These flowers are starting to give me a headache.”
Chadha nodded and then barked orders to the tac team regarding Diana’s body. As they left, she sent one of the soldiers on ahead to fetch a medic to deal with Boudri.
Nala led the group back through the corridors until they came to the room stacked high with crates.
Eri lay on the floor, eyes glassy and head turned the opposite direction of her body in an unnatural pose. The similarity of her condition in death to that of Diana’s was not lost on Nala. Her stomach twisted into a tightly coiled knot and sent a sickly shiver through her.
“I imagine Diana did that,” Chadha said, stepping closer to the body. “The paperwork will be uncomfortably tidy for how big of a mess this is.”
Nala blinked to force her focus off the dead woman and register what Chadha had just said. She let out a heavy sigh, “How did you know where to find us?”
Chadha smiled sheepishly and tapped Nala’s arm. “I put a locator beacon in your suit… suffice it to say I didn’t fully trust you. Until now.”
Nala looked toward where Boudri was now being attended by medics. She tried to shrug but winced at the pain. “If you’d told me that was what you wanted before you did it, I wouldn’t have objected.”
The medics put Boudri into a transport and then turned their attention on Nala. After a less than thorough check, they gave her some pain meds and let her go with a warning about a probable cracked rib and issued her an order to get a full medical check when she got back to a functioning colony.
And then they were told to leave; things needed to be sorted and cleaned up, a cover story needed to be fabricated… they would only get in the way.
Lunar Colony Twelve was in chaos. The more Nala looked around her, the worse it got. Twelve had received the bulk of the displaced colonists. And despite the visible signs that many of those from Six were attempting to be helpful, the leadership of this colony were not gracious hosts.
She and Boudri– he sported more bandages than she thought were strictly necessary – had been released after they gave yet another statement to Colony security, and after about an hour they found Angela. With her daughter in the colony nursery, Angela, like so many others, had found her way to the colony’s Partners’ Chambers to see what needed to be done. She wanted to know what she could help with… but more importantly, she wanted to know where she would end up.
The partners of Twelve had removed themselves from the general fray and guards stood to keep people out of their secluded corner as they conversed with the three remaining partners of Colony Six. None of the seven looked pleased.
Not knowing anything about Colony Twelve’s partner’s, Nala had taken to thinking of them as one collective person rather than four individuals, though the man with the bushy moustache seemed to be the equivalent of Chadha. He had not stopped gesticulating since she’d arrived.
Angela leaned in close and said, “Ever feel like you’re unwanted?”
“On a pretty regular basis.” Boudri answered so quickly Nala didn’t need to agree.
Breaking free from the other Partners, Chadha walked toward them, irritation written on her face in bold print.
She threw her hand backward and said, “They are in a dither… but they’re not asking for help, and I know how annoyed I’d be if we were still on Six and the roles were reversed. I only hope they take all the information they have into account before they make any decisions. There are a lot of innocent bystanders in this fiasco and I don’t want any proverbial babies getting thrown out with the bath water.”
Nala chewed on her tongue for a moment before she asked, “Have they been informed as to who I am?”
“No. I haven’t decided who needs that information. Turan and Elodie agree. We’ll be packed up and sent back to Earth where a committee will interview each of us and see if anyone - aside from Partner Dendrond - is to blame.” Chadha glanced at the other partners with a grimace. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve been in a situation where I was not the highest authority.”
“I bet that sucks,” Boudri said.
Chadha glared at Boudri, but didn’t comment as she made her way back to the others of her station.
With little else to do but wait, Nala settled in between Boudri and Angela and with a heavy sigh, said, “I’m going to take a really long nap once someone gives me a bunk.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When A. B. Keuser isn't trying to make sense of her own brain soup, she writes the "charmingly gritty" Flynn Monroe series and space operas that will keep you guessing. An Oregon native who's life has transplanted her in the Sonoran desert - where she's slowly desiccating - she writes to stay out of the sun and heat.
OTHER BOOKS BY A. B. KEUSER
Windthrow The Flynn Monroe Series
Enemies of a Sort
The Betrayal of Flynn Monroe
The Reformation of Tyler Harris
The Salvation of Rayna Castiq
Quick and Painless
