There’d been some gunfire, somewhere back in the ship. That was about six hours ago. He’d shrugged and stayed put. It wasn’t like he could do anything – to help, or to stop the gunmen. Pierce was clearly still alive, and in charge, otherwise his goon in the pilot’s seat would have been replaced. Pat was in the co-pilot’s spot, where the electronics were still mostly working.
He wasn’t really complaining about the goon, either. The man was luckily as dumb as a box of rocks. The guy might have been able to figure it out if Patrick had set a course for the sun – but he doubted it. As it was, the course he’d set had been completely undetected. Even when Pierce came forward a few hours back, looking pretty sick himself, he’d taken a look out the front, seen the moon growing ever larger in the window, nodded in a self-satisfied way, and headed aft again. Probably to shoot someone, Pat groused.
Well, it would all be a moot point in about four hours. The shuttle would accelerate like mad, entering the slingshot. It would either shake itself apart and turn into a fireball, or it would sling itself off into the abyss. He’d have gone for slamming the ship into the moon, but there was always the chance someone would spot that and stop him. This way, by the time these assholes knew that there was something wrong, they’d all be passing out from high g-forces. And by the time they woke back up it would be way too late for them to do anything but cry about it.
He cut off the annoying beep. Something was wrong with one of the airlock doors. It was malfunctioning. The thing kept trying to open itself up, and then stopping before it did. Patrick watched the pattern for a few moments, thinking that there was something familiar about it. He was so tired, though. The flashing light of the alert was mesmerizing, blinking on and off, off and on. It wasn’t a steady pattern, either. He tried to think what could be causing the error – but hell, the shuttle had enough bullet holes through stuff at this point that he could imagine all sorts of random issues cropping up. At least the airlock wasn’t going to be too important.
There wasn’t much else Patrick could do to fix the bug without actually going back to the airlock and isolating the remote systems to control it. Which he didn’t have the energy to even think about right now. He left the beeping muted, the little light flashing away.
“Patrick, could I have a word?”
He looked up. It was Dr. Rosa, floating in the cockpit doorway. Patrick peeked past him, looking for his escort – but he didn’t have one. No soldier following him around.
“Sure,” Patrick said. He turned to the solider sitting next to him in the pilot’s seat. “Just keep an eye on the console, OK? I’ll be right outside. Call me if anything flashes or alarms go off.”
The man sat up quickly, looking alarmed. His eyes went to Patrick, then to the console, then back to Patrick again. “I…”
Patrick cut him off. “It’s all on auto-pilot. Just don’t touch anything. It’ll be fine. I was just in there napping, remember? Don’t worry.”
The guy still looked worried. Pat hid a grin as he flitted aft. These people were starting to get too sick to argue much. Of course, he wasn’t feeling any better than they were. And it was a grim reminder that they were all going to be feeling a lot worse, soon.
Rosa had backed away from the cockpit a bit, grabbing hold of a seat near the front of the passenger area. He wasn’t far from where Carmen had sat, on that first journey out here. It seemed like so much time had passed, but it really hadn’t been that long. Pat could almost see her sitting there… Was that just his missing her, regretting that he’d never see her again? Or was the virus already working its way into his brain?
He’d have to trust himself, at least for now. Patrick just hoped he could keep it together long enough to get the job done. He worked his way over to the doctor, who looked, if anything, worse than Pat felt. He was pale, sweating, and his breath was a little ragged. But he didn’t have the telltale raccoon eyes that meant he was on death’s door. Not yet, anyway.
“What’s up, doc?” Pat asked with a wry smile.
“It’s definitely the virus. We’ve had our first fatality back there,” Rosa said.
Like there was any doubt? “They’ve got you helping their sick?” Pat asked.
Rosa nodded. “What else could I do? It’s not like I would be able to avoid exposure anyway. I might as well do what I can to ease the suffering of the dying. I am still a doctor.”
Patrick nodded his understanding, his head lolling more than he intended with the motion. He leaned back against the cool bulkhead wall and closed his eyes a moment. Maybe longer than a moment, because when he opened them, Rosa was shaking his shoulder with a concerned look on his face.
“You’ve got a fever,” Rosa said, his voice accusing.
“We’re all going to have a fever soon,” Pat replied.
Rosa looked away a moment, scanning the compartment. When he was sure they were still alone, he looked back at Pat, pulled himself in close, and whispered, “You cannot help these people, Patrick. You must not.”
“Oh, for the love of god. I saved your life at least twice in the last couple of days,” Patrick said. “You’d think that you might trust me at least a little?”
Rosa blinked. “The last I heard, you were taking this ship back to the moon, so that this virus can kill everyone there. Including my daughter. You know damned well that we won’t be able to stop them from going inside. By the time we get there, half of these men will be suffering from brain hemorrhage and violent dementia.”
Patrick wanted to slug the smug bastard. If he hadn’t been an asshole in the first place, Pat never would have been in this situation. If Pat hadn’t tried to keep the man alive, he’d have been able to close the hatch in time, and blast off before the shuttle was captured. But no – he had to go try to be the hero, and save Carmen’s dad. No matter how much he didn’t deserve it.
“I love your daughter,” Patrick blurted out, a harsh whisper. “You asshole. Do you really think I would let anything happen to her?”
That seemed to take Rosa aback. His jaw gaped, his eyes got wide.
“You really never considered that I might actually care for her?” Pat went on. “She’s an amazing woman. Why would I not?”
Pat smiled. He’d actually rendered the man speechless. Thank god. Maybe he’d think a little bit now. Pat knew Rosa wasn’t a stupid person – quite the opposite. He was just crazy over-protective of his daughter. A little protective, Pat was used to. And agreed with, even. Any parent wanted what was best for their kids. For whatever reasons, Rosa had just taken it farther than most folks would.
Patrick turned away from the man. It was too late to worry about it, anyway. Too late to get mad about it, too late to salvage a relationship, and too late to do anything but make sure this shuttle never got anywhere near Carmen. Ever. He reached out for one of the hand grips, to pull himself back into the cockpit. Not too much longer until they hit the point of no return. After that, they could do whatever they wanted to him. He was already a dead man walking – infected with a virus that was going to kill him soon enough. What could Pierce and his men do that was worse?
“Wait,” Rosa said, placing a hand on Pat’s shoulder with a surprisingly gentle touch.
Pat turned back, surprised to see the old man’s eyes wet with unshed tears.
“I have, perhaps, misjudged you. You’ve saved my life,” Rosa said. “And now you tell me you are saving Carmen’s, too. I cannot ever repay you for that.”
“You don’t need to repay me,” Pat said.
“I disagree. But it’s too late now for that, I fear,” Rosa said. He fished into his pocket for something, found what he was looking for and fished it out. “Perhaps I can help you, at least.” He handed a small packet to Pat.
The packet contained pills. “Tylenol?” Pat said, smiling at the memory of how he and Carmen met in the first place.
“Something like that, but a good deal stronger,” Rosa said. “Take one every three or four hours. They should hold the fever at
bay, long enough for you to…long enough, anyway.”
Patrick slid one of the pills out of the paper packet and dry-swallowed. It went down hard, but it did go. Hopefully it would help as much as Rosa thought it would. He could feel the lethargy and weakness getting stronger. And he still needed to be on his toes for at least a bit longer.
“Thanks,” Pat said.
“Thank you,” Rosa replied.
“For saving her?” Pat asked. Then, feeling especially daring, he added, “Or for loving her?”
“Yes,” Rosa said. He smiled, and reached out a hand.
Patrick took the offered hand and shook it.
* * *
Carmen’s pacing brought her back into the control room. The place was almost empty, far from the busy hub it usually was. Jacob was still sitting there, trying to work some magic with the systems in an attempt to contact the shuttle.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“Yes and no,” Jacob replied. “I’ve managed to patch into some remote system controls. But there’s no sign Pat or anyone else aboard is actually understanding anything I am sending.”
Carmen pulled up a seat and slid it over next to Jacob. “How are you sending the message?”
Jacob made a face. “I’m using the malfunction alert system to send Morse code. It should show as flashing lights on the pilot’s console.”
Carmen frowned. That wasn’t the most reliable tool in the world.
“I know,” Jacob said, seeing her expression. “But it’s the best I could come up with.”
“No sign that they’re getting the message at all?”
“None.”
She leaned back in the chair. It wasn’t a hard message. All Jacob had to do was get them to hear one word: cure.
They’d found it about six hours before. It hadn’t been that hard, once they knew what to look for. OK, that was a lie. It had taken nonstop work from everyone at the base, plus every asset on Earth that Carmen could tap into, for them to solve the puzzle. All they had to do was find the right molecule to bind to the virus and keep it from leaving the cells. Carmen lost track of how many variations they tried before they figured it out. No one had stopped to take a break – every member of both teams worked together tirelessly to find the cure.
It turned out that a small tweak to an old drug – oseltamivir – worked pretty damned well. Like the original drug, it would likely work best if given in the first day or two of symptoms, but it should help the body’s own immune system overcome the virus. It was still early to know for sure, but it seemed like it was working in the rats they were using to test the drug.
She’d already sent all their information back to Earth via an encrypted communication. Other doctors would look at the work, maybe improve on it a bit, do some live testing with humans who were already infected, and if it worked put the stuff into mass production. They were certainly going to need a lot of it.
The base crew was having a holiday. They’d earned it. Carmen figured most of them were already sound asleep, trusting her to deliver the cure to Pat and her father. There were two problems with that. The first was the armed gunmen on the ship, but frankly she was pretty sure if she could get the shuttle to land, she’d find them absolutely willing to turn themselves in as prisoners in exchange for the cure she had.
No, the bigger problem was the radio on the shuttle – which still wasn’t receiving anything they sent. She figured Pat probably had bigger things to worry about that fixing the radio, but it would have been a lot easier to tell him he didn’t need to send the shuttle off into space if she could talk to him!
Jacob had tried everything he could think of, and none of it was working. Which meant it was up to her. She took a deep breath, trying hard to calm her nerves and convince herself that this wasn’t crazy. Instead, she thought about Patrick, dying slowly up there of a virus that she’d cured, when she could have saved him.
No questions. She’d never be able to live with herself if she didn’t at least try.
“It’s time, then,” she said to Jacob.
He grimaced. “I can keep trying a little longer…”
“I think you’ve done what you can,” she said. She laughed nervously. “Trust me, if there was another way, I’d be happy to use it.”
“But…”
“Let’s do this, Jacob. Before I lose my nerve. They need us.”
He held her gaze for a moment, as if sizing her up. “I wish I could go along,” he said.
“So do I. But I need you down here to handle the remote access on the shuttle. I won’t be able to control the airlock.”
“Someone else? Anyone else?”
“They’d all try to talk me out of it,” she said. “And Patrick doesn’t have time for me to convince them.”
He nodded, the gesture an admission of defeat as much as of her being right. Carmen smiled, feeling a warmth toward the young man who’d helped her out so much. She stepped over to him and wrapped him in a hug.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Get going,” he grumbled. But he was smiling.
She headed down the hall away from the control room. In Pat’s research lab, the little prison was still standing. She tip-toed past it without turning on the lights, trying not to disturb Amy, but the woman must have heard something. Amy started banging on the inside of the wall.
“Let me out, damn it! Let me out!”
Carmen ignored her and kept walking. Amy could get out when they had someone up here to take her into custody more properly. The last thing she wanted was that woman wandering free on the base making more trouble. She walked on through the lab, the light from the hall casting long shadows. She reached the Hopper bay at last, placing her hand on the panel. It lit up, casting a dim glow into the alcove.
“Going someplace?” a man’s voice drawled.
Carmen jumped, whirling around. She pulled the only weapon she had from her pocket – an auto-injector loaded with medicine.
“Gonna stab me to death with your needle?” Fred asked, looking down at the thing.
“Not unless I have to,” she replied. “Why are you here?”
“You’re go’in up to help Pat, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m coming with you,” Fred said. He made it a simple statement of fact.
Carmen thought about it a moment. Having someone else along would improve her odds of success. But Fred and Amy had been close friends. She jerked her thumb back over her shoulder at Amy’s prison.
“How do I know you’re not working with her?” Carmen asked.
“Because if I was, I’d have let her out,” Fred said, his voice still bland and matter-of-fact. And it was a fair answer. Carmen had one other question, though.
“The shuttle is full of the virus, Fred. I can give you a dose of my cure, but it’s not been tested on humans yet. It might not work.”
“You think it works, though. You’re sure enough to be willin to risk your life to save him?” Fred asked.
Carmen nodded.
“Then I’m in.”
She made her decision. If he was willing to put his life on the line to help Pat, who was she to say no? She put away the injector and pulled out a smaller one. Grasping it firmly, she took a step toward Fred. He shied away, holding his hands up.
“Wait, what’s that?” he asked.
“I need to give you a dose of the cure as a prophylactic. To stop the virus before it really starts to get going,” she said. She bared her sleeve, showing a mark on her arm. “See? Already gave myself a dose, too.” She stepped in close and grabbed his wrist in a tight grip. He sighed and winced theatrically as she shoved the needle into his arm.
“The things I do,” he said. “We ready now?”
“Yes.” Carmen placed her hand on the panel, which lit up again and opened the hatch. On the other side of the hatch was Hopper One – fueled and ready to go. She stepped inside and took the pilot’s seat. Fred followed her and sat down in the other chair. Carme
n put on one of the headsets resting on the console and brought the computer to life.
“Base, this is Hopper One, radio check,” she said.
“Hopper One, read you clearly,” Jacob replied.
“Base, I’ve got a passenger. Fred’s coming along. Is that going to mess with your math?”
There was a pause. “No, we’re good,” Jacob replied. “You two sure you want to do this?”
Carmen’s hands shook a little, and she wished more than anything that people would stop asking her if she was sure. Of course she wasn’t sure! She didn’t know if the cure would work. She didn’t know if the Hopper could actually link with the shuttle as it approached the moon. She didn’t know if she could get aboard, and didn’t know if they could save Pat and her father even if she did manage to board the shuttle.
None of that mattered. It was time to go.
“We’re ready, base,” she said. “Uncoupling now.” She pulled a lever and the electro-magnets holding the Hopper against the base shut off. The drifted the short distance to the ground.
“We’re on the ground, base. Handing over control to you,” Carmen said.
Fred looked over at her, alarmed. “Say what?”
“Pat’s got the shuttle coming in at top speed. We have to take the Hopper higher and faster than anyone’s ever taken one before. Jacob explained it to me by saying it’s like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet. You feel up to doing that yourself?” she asked.
“Oh, shit,” Fred said. He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes.
“Hopper One, you are lifting off in five..four..three..two…”
Carmen missed hearing Jacob say the word ‘one’. When she should have heard it, she was distracted by what felt like a huge hand slapping her down into her seat. The pressure stayed there, becoming a weight pressing down hard. Carmen had to fight for every breath. All around her, the Hopper was shaking hard, making rattling and groaning noises as the thrusters poured on more speed than the thing had ever been designed to handle. Pat had said these little bubbles were tough. Today, she was putting that to the test.
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