Galaxia

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “Ed. I am so very disappointed in you,” Pierce said.

  “I did everything you asked!” Ed replied. He crossed his arms over his chest, the picture of righteous indignation spoiled badly by how green his face looked. The man was space-sick.

  Pierce wasn’t. He’d probably been smart and given himself a shot before they took off. Patrick doubted that Ed and his people had been given access to any anti-nausea medications.

  “Well, you took the shuttle, yes,” Pierce said. “But you killed the kid. The one we needed to make a cure? Yeah, he’s dead.”

  It was impossible to miss the menace building in Pierce’s voice. Ed hadn’t missed it, either. His fingers went creeping toward the pistol holstered at his side. But if Patrick had seen that motion, what was the chance that a trained soldier like Pierce hadn’t seen it?

  “That wouldn’t be so bad, Ed. Because there’s no virus on the moon,” Pierce said, his voice silky-smooth and deadly as a cobra’s hiss. “But then you brought it up here with us!”

  He didn’t give any warning. Pierce simply drew his pistol and fired, timing the shot with the last word of his sentence. Ed saw the draw in progress and tried to bring out his own weapon, but it caught in his holster, and Pierce’s shot sent him tumbling. Big round balls of blood spilled from Ed’s chest and back. He tumbled feet over head, spinning around a full circle. Still bleeding, he managed at last to draw his own weapon.

  Pierce saw the threat and fired twice more, blowing two more holes in the man. Ed managed to return fire with only a single shot that zipped by a foot from Pierce’s head.

  Pat tried to cover Rosa as soon as the gunfire erupted, shoving the old man out of the way against a bulkhead. “Pierce!” he shouted. “Are you insane? Shooting the wrong thing in this shuttle and you kill all of us!”

  Pierce chuckled. “No worries,” he said, waving his pistol in the air. “Frangible rounds. The bullets will break apart if they hit something. I’m not going to punch any holes in your precious hull.”

  “You’re not,” Patrick said, pointing a finger at Pierce. Then he jabbed it at Ed’s body instead. “But what about him?”

  Pierce blinked and looked over his shoulder, glancing to see where the Ed’s round had impacted. Patrick almost went for the man then, but Pierce still had two guards standing by. There wasn’t much point in trying to fight them three against one, not when they had all the weapons.

  “Shit,” Pierce said.

  Pat didn’t like the sound of that. And Pierce wasn’t coming back aft toward them, either. “Stay here,” he said to Rosa. Then he pushed off, heading toward the cockpit. One of Pierce’s guards looked like he might try to stop him, but he was already in motion, gliding down the center of the corridor, and these land-huggers were clinging to bars on the walls. Patrick remembered how daring Carmen had been, even in those first hours in space. She hadn’t needed to cling to the walls – she’d instinctively tried to learn to fly. It took a special sort of person to do that. In his experience, most people clung to something solid, just like these soldiers.

  Maybe he’d known Carmen was something special right from the beginning, then.

  He reached out and used a rail to stop his forward momentum, coming to a halt a bit behind Pierce. He didn’t want to startle the man – he’d already proven willing to use that pistol. Patrick didn’t want to give him an excuse.

  He didn’t need to get closer, anyway. From where he was, he could see into the cockpit over Pierce’s shoulder. And what he could see looked pretty bad.

  Pierce was checking the pulse of his pilot, who was slumped forward against the console. Pat could already tell that there wasn’t going to be a pulse. Huge balls of blood floated near the dead pilot, and more oozed out of a wound in his chest. Ed’s round had done damage after all. Pat scanned the cockpit window for cracks or a hole, but it seemed intact. The exit wound from the front of the pilot’s chest was said that the bullet had to have gone somewhere, though. Into the console? He couldn’t see to be sure.

  “How bad is the console?” Patrick asked, in as calm and non-threatening a voice as he could muster.

  Pierce still startled, his hand venturing close to the pistol he’d re-holstered at his side. Patrick held up both hands, palms facing Pierce. “Whoa. Just here to help,” he said.

  “The console?” Pierce asked. “How the hell am I supposed to know? Get me a medic!” he roared over his shoulder to the men down the hall.

  “I think it’s too late for a medic,” Patrick said. He could smell singed electronics. A short? If it was still sparking, it could start a fire. He needed to get in there and take a look.

  Pierce yanked the dead man free from the seat, sending globs of blood floating around the compartment. “Gah. Hate this no gravity shit,” he said.

  “The air scrubbers will clean most of it up,” Pat said. He helped ease the body backwards down the hall, out of the compartment – out of his way. Once it was clear, he slipped forward to check the panel. It had a hole in it, and he thought he could see the tiniest wisp of smoke drifting from the hole. Possibly still a short, then. He yanked out an emergency kit and opened it, digging inside for the screwdriver set.

  “You’re a pilot, right?” Pierce asked. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Taking off this panel before the short in the console ignites the whole thing and we end up with a raging fire in the cockpit. All right with you?” Patrick asked, trying hard to scrub the irony from his tone. He didn’t think he’d done a very good job, but it seemed like Pierce didn’t mind, or was too distracted to notice.

  “Fine. But when you’re done with that, you’ll take over flight duties,” Pierce said.

  “And why would I help you?” Pat asked, breathing hard while he lifted away chunks of the console. It was weightless, sure, but it still had mass. Moving it around was a pain. Pulling the panel out without bashing it into any of the other delicate bits in the cockpit was proving challenging.

  “Because if you won’t help me, I don’t really need you alive,” Pierce said.

  Pat found the bullet, lodged in a tangle of wires. The thing must have shorted out half of the controls. This wasn’t going to be an easy repair. He could still fly the shuttle from the other panel, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

  “If the doctor is right, we’re all dead anyway,” Pat said.

  “I find myself too attached to my skin to give it up quite that quickly,” Pierce replied.

  Pat looked up at the man. He was clearly scared, and out of his depth. He’d taken some insane chances, seizing the shuttle. Pierce must really believe in his gut that this virus spelled the end of everything, or at least the end of civilization as it had been. He was a fanatic. Nothing Pat said was going to deter him from his course. And hell, even if he refused to fly the shuttle, Pierce might get lucky, land safety, and infect everyone at the moon base. Kill all of them. Kill Carmen.

  Patrick gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let that happen. And there was only one thing he could think of which might prevent it.

  “Yeah, I’m attached to mine, too. I’ll fly for you,” Patrick said. He reached out his hand to Pierce. Pierce took his hand and shook it – gently, so they didn’t go spinning.

  “Welcome to the team then – pilot,” Pierce said.

  * * *

  Carmen paced back and forth. Everyone in the lab was staying away from her, giving her some space. She couldn’t blame them, and felt a pang of guilt at the thought. She’d nearly chewed the head of one of the lab assistants. Metaphorically, thank goodness, but it still wasn’t going to help her win any popularity contests. Why did everything have to take so damned long, though?

  She had to wait to get results of their tests. She had to wait to hear from Earth about what was happening on the shuttle. Worst, she knew which of those two waits was worrying her more, and she felt guilty for putting Patrick above the rest of humanity. Which didn’t stop her from worrying more about what was happening to him than she did ab
out the cure they were working on.

  So when Jacob’s voice came over the PA: “Carmen Rosa, please report to the control room,” she could sense but not quite hear the sigh of relief around the room. She didn’t want to leave – but she had to find out what news Jacob had gotten. She looked up and saw Dr. Farmer nodding at her. Vigorously.

  “But...”

  She didn’t a chance to finish before he cut her off. “Young lady, I’ve been doing this work since you were in diapers. You showed us where to look, but you’re responsible for the whole base now. Go do your job, let us handle this one.”

  That was still a lot to take in. In charge of the project to find a cure, that she could wrap her head around. But when Sanders put her in charge of the whole base – that was overwhelming, somehow. If things continued to go south on Earth, the moon would be humanity’s last refuge. And she was now its custodian. Carmen breathed in deeply – she was going to hyperventilate if she kept thinking down that path.

  “OK. But give me a call as soon as we have anything,” Carmen said.

  “Of course,” Farmer replied. His tone implied that was obvious, and was just the smallest bit patronizing.

  Carmen narrowed her eyes. “I mean it. Any results, I want to see them right away.”

  Farmer smiled. “So like your father, you are. Yes, I’ll call you myself. Now get!”

  She got.

  Jacob was practically hopping from one foot to the other by the time Carmen made it to the control room. He was sitting at one of the consoles, wearing a headset. Listening to what? He pulled the headset from his ears as she walked in.

  “You’ve got to hear this,” he said. He turned up a dial, and the radio started playing over the system’s speakers.

  “…Wynn, flying the lunar shuttle on approach to moon base. We have at least three people on board sick with the virus. We’ve sustained damage to the cockpit, including to incoming radio, but can still control the ship well enough to land. Declaring an emergency, we will need medical attention on arrival, and probable quarantine. Arrival at the base in 46 hours. Repeating message. This is Patrick Wynn…”

  Carmen’s first reaction was to look for a microphone, to reach out somehow and talk to Patrick. He was alive! Thank god. Even once she realized that this was just a recording, cycling over and over, she still felt a huge weight come off her shoulders. He was alive. Now, how to reach him? They’d taken damage. Patrick couldn’t receive a message from her even if she sent it. How had the ship been damaged? And the virus was on the ship! She wanted to burst into tears, torn between relief he was alive and fear that he soon would not be. It was too damned much.

  Then her next reaction was anger. The shuttle had been taken. The terrorists who’d taken it had been stupid enough to kill one of their best chances at working out the cure quickly, and then they’d brought the virus on board, too? How stupid could they be? And now Pat was helping these people land here and infect everyone else at the base?

  “I’ll kill him myself,” she growled. How dare he risk the lives of everyone here? Carmen felt a deep pang. She’d thought he was made of better stuff than that.

  Jacob shook his head at her. “You won’t have to. Look here,” he said.

  He was pointing at a screen display showing a bunch of math and the shuttle’s approach vector to the moon. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “What does it say?” she asked.

  Jacob looked startled, but then grinned. “I forget not everyone is geeky about the same things I am,” he said, amused. Then his smile vanished and he got serious again. “Pat’s lying.”

  His words sent chills down Carmen’s arms.

  “What do you mean, he’s lying?” she asked, not really wanting to know the answer – because whatever it was, Jacob’s tone promised that it was far worse than what she already knew.

  “You’re angry at him because he said he’s coming here with infected people, right?” he asked.

  Carmen nodded, amused that the tables had turned. When they’d first met, she was angry with Pat because he hadn’t brought an infected stowaway to the moon. Now she was angry because he was. Funny how fast things – and people – could change.

  “Well, you can stop being mad then. He’s not coming here. Look at the course,” Jacob said, pressing a few buttons. The expected vector of the shuttle tracked out ahead of it on the screen, projecting its path. It would reach the moon, all right. It would come almost close enough to kiss. But then the shuttle veered off away from Earth and the moon entirely – headed for deep space.

  “What does that mean? What’s he doing?” Carmen asked.

  “He’s coming close enough to the moon that he’ll fool anyone watching over his shoulder, unless they’re a pilot themselves. They’re all going to think he’s taking them right here – up until he uses the moon’s gravity to sling the shuttle away from us. With a lot more velocity, too.”

  “Are you sure? Can’t he just change course?” Carmen asked.

  “He could,” Jacob said. “Right up until he actually enters the slingshot maneuver. After that, I don’t even think the shuttle has enough fuel to brake and come back. I think he’s trying to let us know what he’s planning.”

  She stared at the screen. He wasn’t risking anyone’s lives except his own and the people on that ship. He was going to sacrifice himself to save the rest of them.

  “Is there any way we can talk to them at all?” she asked.

  Jacob shook his head. “Not if their ability to receive is broken. Maybe Pat can fix it, and talk with us. But I don’t think that’s going to be his priority up there.”

  Carmen quietly agreed. She tracked the course the computer plotted for the shuttle across the screen, each centimeter tracking the inevitable doom of the shuttle and everyone aboard. She blinked back tears. She hated being this helpless. Her father and Pat, both up there, and there was nothing she could do to help either of them.

  Or was there?

  Carmen’s mind started churning through possibilities. They couldn’t land the shuttle because of the virus. The armed terrorists on board were something of an issue, too. But the main problem was the virus. Cure the virus, and she could still save them.

  “Jacob, how long until they hit the point of no return?” she asked.

  “About forty hours, maybe forty two. Why?” he replied.

  “I need to use the PA system.”

  To his credit, Jacob didn’t blink, and he didn’t ask her why. She liked that, even if it gave her the jitters that people were starting to just follow her orders without asking any questions. He handed Carmen the headset he had been wearing, flicked a few switches, and gave her a thumbs up.

  She took a deep breath.

  “I need everyone’s attention,” she said. “Dr. Rosa and Patrick are both on the shuttle, on their way to the moon. All of you know that. What you don’t know yet is – the shuttle has been hijacked by terrorists, and they have brought the alien virus aboard.”

  Carmen took another breath. She had to make this convincing. She was going to need every single body in the base working together if her plan was going to have any shot at all.

  “I don’t think there’s a single person on this base that doesn’t love one of those two men. We have to help them. But the only way we can save them is to do the impossible.”

  She looked at Jacob. He was smiling at her, his expression rapt. If he was any indication, she ought to have everyone’s full attention.

  “We have forty hours to finish the cure for the virus, or Patrick and my father will slingshot around the moon and exit at an irrecoverable velocity. Forty hours to do this, or both of those men will die. I need everyone – all hands, every single body in the base – to report to the viral lab. I’ll assign duties there. Carmen out.”

  She took the headset off and laid it on the table. The thing felt like it weighed a ton, even though it must actually only be a couple of ounces here on the moon. Carmen sighed, straightened her back. She felt a new s
ense of purpose, and a grim determination. She was not going to let them die. Neither of them. Both of those men were too damned important to her. She couldn’t separate them from each other in her head – she wanted them both back, here, safe. She loved them both.

  That realization made her tear up again, and she shook her head to clear it. She needed to focus now, more than ever.

  “That was a good speech, Carmen. But do you really think you can do it? Cure the virus in less than two days?” Jacob asked. “I’m not trying to be a jerk, but… It sounds like a long shot.”

  “It’s possible,” she said. “We’re on the right track. I can feel it.”

  “But even if you can make the cure, how do we tell Pat? He can’t receive our messages. He’ll never even know that you succeeded.”

  “That,” Carmen said with a smile, “is your part of this mission. I need your help with something that’s right up your alley. In fact, your geeky hobby gave me the idea.”

  Chapter 15

  PATRICK WOKE UP to a beeping sound and someone poking his arm. The console was chirping at him – something needed his attention. And the guard Pierce had set to keep an eye on him was jabbing him in the arm with his toe. Pat blearily wiped his hand across his eyes.

  “I’m awake, I’ll deal with it,” Pat said. The poking stopped.

  He checked his watch. They’d been traveling almost two days, and he was exhausted. He’d only gotten two hours of sleep during that little nap. It wasn’t enough. He ached all over, and he was pretty sure that he was already running a temperature. The virus had spread like wildfire through the ship. The air filtration systems weren’t designed to stop something that small, and the virus was extremely infectious. If anyone wasn’t sick yet, Pat was pretty sure it was only a matter of time.