I don’t feel bad about any of that.
The timer in my HUD flashes. “Two minutes, thirty seconds,” I say. “Air’s gone.”
“Copy that,” says Jemison.
I wait a few more seconds, just to be sure, then close the pocket and prepare to open it again on my side of the bulkhead. Now comes the tricky part.
Let’s see what you’re up to, asshole.
One of my emergency gadgets is an omnidirectional spy camera, designed and built by Oliver. It looks like a casino betting chip, but hidden in its edge are multiple lenses feeding into an imaging array. Activate it by squeezing, then flip it up in the air like a coin. Accelerometers inside detect the spinning motion and turn on the cameras, capturing still images from all angles as the chip turns in midair. Catch it when it comes down, and you’ve got a panoramic, bird’s-eye view of your surroundings.
Doing this completely blind, and in zero-gravity, will be a little different.
I think of a poker hand—five very specific playing cards—then open the pocket and push my hand through the barrier to grab the camera chip. I squeeze to turn it on, then flick the chip away from me. I’ve switched my left eye to EM sensing, so I can see when the cameras activate. I watch the chip tumble away for a second, check its speed, and then close the pocket.
Now I’m going to open the portal rotated around the chip and on the other side of the bulkhead, inside main engineering. The compartment should be airless now, so I can open the pocket without the barrier and not worry about the chip getting sucked back into the portal. Throw it in the front door, let it fly out the back door.
The trick will be making sure the portal is far enough from the bulkhead to give the camera chip a good view of the compartment when it comes sailing out to do its reconnaissance, and making the portal big enough to catch the chip after it bounces off the bulkhead at some random angle. I can control how I use the pocket, but it’s not like I can dial in specific numbers. I just have to guess at what feels right.
I press my head up against the bulkhead and visualize the card backs of the same poker hand as before. Then I open the pocket, rotated, on the other side of the bulkhead. I count to ten with my fingers crossed and close the pocket again.
“Mission accomplished,” I say. “Ready to—”
Something clangs behind me. The vibration ripples up the shaft on the left side of my body. I press myself against the opposite side of the shaft and tuck my chin down so I can look back along the crawlway.
The circle of light from my headlamp flashes across what looks like crumpled, dark blue cloth. The noise changes to a scraping, shuffling sound. I tilt the headlamp to the side and see a face—smeared with something dark, but still recognizable. I can’t believe it.
“Ellie?”
She blinks and squints at me. “Evan?”
“Say again, Rogers,” Jemison says in my ear. “It sounded like you said—”
“Ellie’s here! Chief Engineer Gavilán! She’s here in the crawlway!” I move the lamp so it’s not shining directly in her face and shimmy backward toward her, stopping when my feet reach the junction she emerged from. “How did you escape? What did—”
She shakes her head. I realize the smudges on her face are dried blood. “Not now. You’re on comms with Andie?”
“Yeah, but—”
“The hijacker is Alan Wachlin. He’s not dead.”
“We know,” I say.
Ellie blinks. “He’s overwriting our system software. Tell my guys to kill the network and run a full diagnostic on rack ten in the computer core.”
I repeat her instructions to Jemison. “They’re on it. Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” Ellie frowns. “What the hell are you doing in here? No, tell me later. We need to move.”
“It’s okay.” I’m almost close enough to touch her. “I just sucked all the atmosphere out of engineering. Wachlin’s suffocating even as we—”
Ellie grabs one sleeve of my jumpsuit. “You what?”
I smile. “I took away his air.”
I hear a high-pitched humming noise.
Ellie says, “Oh, shit.”
My entire body seizes with pain, and then the world goes black.
* * *
I wake up zipped into a Sickbay bed. Jemison is on my left, tapping at a tablet. Fritz Fisher is on my right. I don’t recognize the patients in the other beds, but they look like a mixture of passengers and crew, most with minor scrapes and bruises.
“What happened?” I ask. My mouth feels like it’s been wicked dry by cotton balls and then scraped out with steel wool. “Where’s Ellie?”
“We don’t know,” Jemison says.
I’m not sure I heard her right. “What do you mean, you don’t know? She was right in front of me. I talked to her.” She touched me.
“Calm down.” Jemison stares at me. “Was she hurt?”
“There was—” My mission recorder’s been going since the hijacking, but I don’t want to review the vid right now. “There was blood on her face. Dried blood. I don’t know if it was hers.”
She was alive. She was alive! Did I just get her killed? But we didn’t know, I couldn’t possibly have known—
“Did she say anything else?” Jemison asks. “Other than what you relayed on comms?”
My head is pounding. “She said shit.”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“No, she literally said the word ‘shit,’” I explain. “I told her we’d sucked all the air out of engineering, which should have been good news, right? But she said, ‘Oh, shit.’ Then I blacked out. What happened?”
“The crawlway walls double as electromagnets,” Fritz says. “We can electrify them to clean out any loose metal debris or stray equipment.”
“Wachlin figured out how to turn on the power and keep it on,” Jemison says.
That would explain why I feel like I’ve been hit by a personnel stunner at close range. “But you didn’t find Ellie?”
“We flew a cam-bot into the crawlway,” Fritz says. There’s an edge on his voice. “There was no sign of anyone else.”
“I didn’t imagine her.”
“I’m just telling you what we found,” Fritz snaps.
“We need to know what Wachlin’s doing in Main Eng.” Jemison pulls the privacy screen around my bed, with herself and Fritz inside. I suddenly realize they’re both floating. We’re in zero-gee again. “Let’s see those pictures, Rogers.”
“We’re not accelerating anymore?” I ask.
“The hijacker finished his course change,” Fritz says bitterly. “If we can’t alter our trajectory, we’ll hit Mars in just over eighteen hours.”
“Pictures,” Jemison says. “Now.”
I look at Fritz. “I’m doing this with him watching?”
“What, are you shy or something?” Fritz barks.
“The captain briefed Fisher. He knows about your wormhole device,” Jemison says. That’s right, even the pocket has a cover story. Welcome to the agency. “We need those images.”
I nod and focus. I have to use the barrier so I don’t suck all the air out of Sickbay. Five playing cards. The pocket opens. Here’s hoping I got all the variables right earlier.
I push my hand through the barrier. I don’t feel anything at first, and I move my hand around slowly. Something touches my palm. I close my fist around it, then pull out my hand before it starts freezing. I close the pocket and realize I’m holding my breath.
“You got it?” Jemison asks.
I open my hand and see the camera chip. I exhale as Jemison plucks the chip off my palm and plugs it into her tablet.
“That’s…” Fritz gapes at me. “How long have we had this tech?”
“It’s classified,” I say. It’s not a lie. “The captain did make it clear how absolutely secret this is, right?”
Fritz makes a face. “Military intelligence. Right.”
“We keep secrets for a reason.”
“Doesn�
��t mean they’re good reasons.”
“Both of you, shut up,” Jemison says. “Look at this.”
She turns her tablet toward us. The auto-composited image is dark and grainy, but it clearly shows a bulky figure standing next to a control station.
“He’s wearing a pressure suit,” Fritz says. “A goddamn pressure suit!”
“But—” I shake my head. “It takes at least ten minutes to put one of those things on by yourself.”
“He was prepared for the worst,” Jemison says. “He didn’t know if we could tamper with his life support, but he didn’t want to be caught off guard.”
“Then you removed the oxygen,” Fritz glares at both of us. “Chief Gavilán was still alive. The alarms went off, and the hijacker looked for her, but she wasn’t there.”
Jemison glares back at Fritz. “We couldn’t have known that.”
“We screwed up her escape,” Fritz says. “You realize that, right? She might have made it out if we hadn’t—”
“I’m not going to play this game,” Jemison snaps. “We can only work with what we know.”
“Fine. Let’s review what we know.” Fritz holds up a fist and extends his index finger. “We know the fucker’s in a pressure suit.” He extends another finger. “We know Ellie’s not in the crawlway anymore.” Three fingers. “We know that suit he’s wearing is insulated against electricity.”
He’s wearing a silver ring on one of his fingers. Why does it look familiar?
“If Wachlin dragged Ellie back into Main Eng, she’s already suffocated,” Jemison says. “It’s been two hours. No air, remember?”
“He could have put a breather mask on her,” Fritz says, “or shoved her into a rescue bubble—”
“I’m getting tired of repeating myself. We only work with what we know.”
“Everything he’s done so far indicates he wants to keep her alive!”
“We do. Not. Negotiate!”
All this shouting is unproductive. And it’s making my headache worse.
“Can’t we can get another look inside engineering?” I ask. “If you put me in a spacesuit—”
“Not feasible,” Jemison says.
“But you said the suits are insulated.”
Jemison looks at Fritz. “You want to tell him?”
Fritz folds his arms across his chest. “The hijacker electrified every crawlway connecting to Main Eng. The shortest path is twenty meters long. Our suits aren’t rated against that much contact with bare conductors.” He finally turns to look at me. “You’d get zapped long before you got close enough to do your wormhole stunt.”
“There’s no way to cut the power?” I ask.
“That entire section is powered directly by the ionwell,” Fritz says. “And we can’t shut down the reactor from out here.”
“So what do we try next?” I look from one scowling face to the other. “You guys did spend the last two hours coming up with a new plan, right?”
“We wait,” Jemison says.
I’m confused for a moment. Then I blink my left eye HUD over to a clock.
“The tugs,” I say.
Jemison nods. “NAVDEF is offline now. We’ve still got time to move the ship.”
There’s not much I can do to help with this part. One of the pilots on the crew will take control of the remote-controlled tugs and dock them with Dejah Thoris. Then, when they’ve been secured, the pilot will engage the tugs’ rocket engines at maximum burn, pushing the massive cruise ship off course just enough to miss crashing into the planet. And once we’re in Mars-controlled space, we’ll be able to get more assistance from other vessels.
“No,” Fritz says suddenly. “Oh, no.”
I look around. Jemison also seems confused. “Now what?”
“We’re rotating,” Fritz says, looking at his wristband. “The ship is rotating.”
“Why would Wachlin want to rotate the ship?” I ask.
“He’s going to fire the engines.”
“But you said—”
“The tugs,” Fritz says. “He’s going to fire them at the tugs.”
Jemison curses like a sailor, yanks the privacy screen back, and tears out of Sickbay. Dr. Sawhney stops examining another patient and gives Fritz and me a curious look.
“What’s going on?” Sawhney says.
“I need to get to the briefing room,” I say, unzipping myself from the bed.
“I cannot allow that,” Sawhney says, moving over to my bed. “You are still recovering from your injuries.”
I give him what I hope is a threatening look. “Doctor, if we don’t figure out how to take back this ship, nobody is going to recover from their injuries.”
* * *
Fritz reluctantly helps me out of Sickbay and into the nearest elevator. He presses the button for the briefing room.
I suddenly realize where I’ve seen his ring before. Silver, segmented, inscribed with starbursts. It’s the same one Xiao was wearing. It’s their wedding band.
Fritz Fisher’s husband is dead.
We ride in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. Fritz’s breathing is ragged. He’s distracted, not thinking clearly. I know the feeling. But I need him to get past it. Everyone on this ship and in Mars Capital City needs his help.
“You can feel the ship moving?” I ask.
“Inertia,” Fritz says, staring at the wall. “The hijacker’s pulsing the RCS thrusters, changing the orientation of the ship. We’re floating inside it, so we can feel it.”
“You can feel it,” I correct. “That’s got to be a pretty subtle motion. And what’s RCS?”
“Reaction Control System. Maneuvering jets.”
He’s definitely distracted. I need him to pay attention. I need him to focus. He can’t think right now because he’s using all that mental energy to hold back his rage. I need him to blow off some steam.
And so help me, I think I need to talk about this, too.
“I’m sorry about Xiao,” I say.
Fritz continues staring at the display above the elevator door.
“Your husband was a hero,” I continue. “He gave his life while performing his duty. I don’t know if you’ve seen the security vid, but I think you should be proud of how Xiao protected everyone—”
Fritz launches himself off the other side of the elevator and pins me to the wall, one hand on the railing, his other arm against my neck.
“Ow,” I say.
“His name is Xiao,” he says. I still can’t hear the difference.
“Fritz—”
“Shut up,” he says, spitting saliva in my face. “I don’t care what you think.”
I hate it when people spit in my face.
I work my arm inside his reach, push his elbow away from my neck, and slap his face as hard as I can. Fritz screams and hammers his fist against the wall. I take advantage of his backward momentum, turning him to face the wall and pinning him there. His screams turn to sobs after a few seconds.
“Feel better?” I ask after he quiets down.
“I’ll live.”
He struggles out of my grip. I let him go. At least he’s not crying anymore. That might even have been a joke just now.
“How did you know?” he asks, wiping wetness from his eyelashes.
“Your wedding rings.” I point at his hand.
A smile flutters across Fritz’s reddened face. “He insisted we get matching rings. Everything fair and equal, that was his thing.”
“He was a hero,” I repeat.
“I didn’t want him to be a hero,” Fritz says. “I wanted him to stay alive.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “But he’s gone. We have to help the thousands of other people on this ship who are still alive—”
“I’m not blinded by grief,” Fritz snaps. “But I am sick of everyone assuming Chief Gavilán is dead. She’s not helpless.”
“She’s an engineer, not a soldier.” And as much as I want to believe that Ellie’s a match for Alan Wachlin—
“Eleanor Gavilán is still alive,” Fritz says. “Because if she’s not, then my husband died for nothing. And I won’t believe that.”
His red eyes look more angry than mournful now. I know how he feels. I’ve known too many heroes.
“Okay. She’s still alive.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “But best case, she’s in a rescue bubble, which means she’s trapped and can’t do anything. She’s counting on us now. She’s counting on you. So tell me. What does she want you to do?”
Fritz glowers at me for another second, then blinks and looks at the wall. “She wants us to save the ship.”
“Okay.”
“And punish Xiao’s murderer.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it.” Fritz turns back to me. “Like the wrath of God.”
I should discourage him from feeling vengeful. But if I’ve learned one thing from dealing with people, it’s that vengeance can be a powerful motivator. Maybe not the best way to live your life, long-term, but I don’t care if Fritz needs therapy next year. I want him to have the chance to worry about that later.
And I want to hurt Wachlin too.
“Good,” I say. “Let’s go smite this motherfucker.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Dejah Thoris—Deck B, officers’ briefing room
18 hours until we might die and take half of Mars with us
The briefing room is as bright as ever, with the flat lighting common to always-on command centers everywhere. But the faces around the table—Santamaria, Jemison, Galbraith, Logan, and Fisher—are dark. We’ve now tried three different ways to foil Wachlin’s plan, and been defeated all three times.
Galbraith plays back exterior camera vid alongside recorded radar displays. On the vid, a few faint points of light—maybe stars, more likely asteroids—streak by as the ship rotates, putting the approaching tugs directly behind the main engines.
The image ripples as the engines flare, lighting up the entire screen with a two-kilometer-long tail of white plasma. At the same time, the three nearest blips on the radar display disappear. The other blips veer off, but the ship rotates again, turning its pillar of flame to follow. Only one blip escapes.
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