This is absurd. I feel like laughing. “So you’re pulling parts from the computer core and dragging them through this crazy funhouse.”
“Yeah. We could use your help. Where are you?”
“Sure.” I unstrap the PBC component from my spacesuit. It clatters loudly back down the corridor. “Let me find a fucking sign or something.”
“Which airlock did you enter through?” she asks.
“A yellow one.” Maybe I don’t feel like laughing. Maybe I feel like crying. What’s the difference?
“Evan—”
I switch off the radio.
I should be happy. Ellie’s still alive. She knows how to fix the ship. The X-4s are helping her do that. We’re almost out of this crisis.
Except I didn’t get what I wanted. I didn’t get to punish the bad guy.
It shouldn’t matter this much. But it does. Why am I doing any of this, if we can’t catch the villains and make them pay? What’s the point of saving this ship if Wachlin and Sakraida can just run away and do it all over again next month?
When do I get to fucking punch someone in the goddamn neck?
I take two steps forward, toward a T-intersection with another hallway, and stop. I turn to the wall, tilt my helmet down, and thump it against the wall repeatedly.
“It’s not fair,” I mutter to myself. “It’s not fair. It’s. Not. Fair.”
Emily Wachlin and Crewman Xiao are dead. Alan Wachlin is going to get away with murder. And I’m probably going to puke inside this spacesuit pretty soon.
I slam my head against the wall one last time and hold it there.
It’s not fucking fair.
I realize that I’m still hearing a rhythmic thumping noise coming from somewhere, and it’s not me hitting my head against the wall. I push myself back and start looking around just as another spacesuited figure comes charging into the intersection.
The other person skids to a halt. I stumble backward. I see his face through the helmet—it’s one of the standard cruise ship suits, with a clear bubble dome—and I recognize his eyes. Just his eyes. Why do I know his eyes? Why not the rest of his face?
No fucking way.
I blink my left eye into radiation scanning mode. The center of his chest lights up with an unmistakable purple glow.
“Alan Wachlin,” I say out loud.
He can’t hear me, of course. But he can see that I’m wearing an X-4 spacesuit. He charges me before I can raise the assault rifle clipped to my chestplate.
Wachlin slams me backward. We both go flying just as the ship changes rotation again. We crash headfirst into the ceiling and tumble over. He’s trying to yank the rifle off my suit. I get my feet between us and kick him away. He rolls back into the intersection.
“The hijacker’s here!” I shout before remembering my radio’s off. I unclip the assault rifle from my suit and fumble with it. I don’t recognize this model.
The ship lurches again. Wachlin launches himself at me. He uses the ship’s rotation to his advantage and sends us careening down the hallway. He raises one arm and brings a metal baton down on my helmet. The faceplate cracks, and my HUD blinks out.
I yell something that probably isn’t words. My arm is pinned to my chest. I can’t find the trigger on my weapon. My faceplate crunches and spiderwebs as Wachlin strikes it again and again.
What the hell is he doing? He must know he can’t smash through this helmet with a puny baton.
Then I realize: he’s blinding me. Or trying to, anyway.
He doesn’t know about my eye.
Another spin change. My back slams into the wall, or maybe the floor. I blink my eye into wide scan mode. Wachlin appears as a blotchy outline of colors.
He raises the baton again. I grab his baton-wielding forearm before he can bring it down again.
“That’s enough, asshole.” I wish I could see the expression on his face.
The ship rotates. I turn his arm into the same direction we’re flung. He emits a muffled shout when we hit the wall, and I feel something break in his hand. The baton falls out of his grasp.
I jerk my right arm up and use the length of the assault rifle to pry him off me. With my left hand, I yank the emergency release on my helmet. Both the helmet and Wachlin fall away and smack into the wall directly in front of me. Wachlin grabs a handhold just before rotation changes again, and the helmet tumbles off down the corridor.
It’s a lot louder without my helmet, and the air is foul. The contents of the Barsoom Buffet must be covering just about every interior surface by now. I’m sure other foodstuffs have emerged from the stomachs of many a passenger over the last half hour.
I have a clear view of Alan Wachlin. I’ve found the safety on my assault rifle.
My boots lock to the floor. I aim the weapon at him.
Nobody will question why I shot and killed this man. There are no witnesses here. And even if someone did see an X-4 spaceman gunning down a terrorist? Just part of the job. Oo fucking rah.
So why aren’t I pulling the trigger?
I step forward. I have the rifle pointed at his head. He’s yelling now, his face red and contorted. I can’t hear him through the helmet. His left hand grips the handhold on the wall. His right arm is limp and flopping at his side.
Good. I want this guy to hurt. I want him to suffer.
But that’s not why I haven’t fired yet.
He’s a murderer. He’s dangerous. But he didn’t do this on his own. He couldn’t have.
Wachlin’s just a pawn. And you don’t kill pawns.
You capture pawns, on your way to bagging the king.
I move closer. Wachlin stops yelling for a second. He looks confused. His lips start moving again. I’m not paying attention. I’m looking at the life support readouts on his spacesuit’s chest monitor.
Six hours of air remaining. More than enough.
I swivel to my right and squeeze the trigger. A burst of bullets tears into the wall next to Wachlin. He totally falls for it, flinching and releasing the handhold. Now he’s floating in space, untethered.
I think of a stubby black chess piece and open the pocket.
I open it without the barrier, directly behind Wachlin. I make it as wide as the corridor is tall, so the event horizon touches both ceiling and floor.
The expression on Wachlin’s face as the void sucks him in is priceless.
I lean forward with the air rushing into the pocket. The breeze cools the sweat on the back of my neck. The man in the spacesuit tumbles away, shrinking until he’s just a dot in the middle of a yawning black emptiness.
“Welcome to Waypoint Kangaroo,” I say. “Don’t enjoy your stay.”
I close the pocket.
My mouth is dry. I feel lightheaded. The edges of my vision start to blur. Yeah, that was a larger portal than usual. And right after those two fifteen-meter jobs? Plus all this additional stress lately? Probably not a good idea.
I’m just thinking I should sit down when an X-4 spacesuit sails into view. The spaceman kicks off the far wall and flies toward me. Impressive, considering the ship is still spinning wildly. The suit stops half a meter away.
I see Kapur’s face in the helmet. I smile and wave. Her mouth is moving. Were they worried about me after I went radio silent? How touching.
“Wait one,” I say. I turn away from her before throwing up. Then I pass out.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
I wake up in the medical bay of the X-4 transport, strapped into a bed and surrounded by blinking lights and soft beeping sounds. There’s an IV cuff around my left arm. Amazingly, my splitting headache is not accompanied by world-class nausea. That must be thanks to whatever pharmaceuticals the IV is pumping into my bloodstream.
I raise my right arm to scratch my nose and almost punch myself in the mouth. No gravity. Are we in orbit?
A flicker of light off to the left catches my eye. I turn my head and see a tablet attached to the side of an open drawer, playing a silent newscast. Th
e vid shows the familiar bulk of Dejah Thoris with a swarm of other ships covering her cargo section, their engines glowing white-hot. The headline superimposed across the bottom of the screen reads LIVE: MARTIAN FLEET STEERS DISABLED CRUISE LINER OFF COLLISION COURSE.
But that can’t be right. The timestamp is just minutes after waypoint zero. They couldn’t possibly have repaired the engineering controls, shut down the RCS system, gotten the Martian ships into position, and also moved me back to the X-4 boat that quickly. Am I dreaming?
I pinch myself, and it’s really painful. Okay, not dreaming.
The tablet screen blinks to black for half a second, then plays the same vid segment again from the start. It’s a recorded loop.
Oliver. He couldn’t just leave a note like a normal person. I laugh until tears shake free of my eyes, drift away, and get sucked up by the ventilation system.
The Sickbay door opens, and Jessica floats up to my bed.
“Congratulations,” she says. “You didn’t get anybody killed.”
Coming from her, that’s high praise. “How long was I out?”
“About forty minutes.” She grabs Oliver’s tablet, stops the vid, and taps the device against the medical monitors next to my head. “Dejah Thoris’s security chief had a message for you. Jameson?”
“Jemison.”
“Right. She said the officers and crew celebrated their safe recovery with ‘a very small bottle of red wine.’” Jessica looks sideways at me. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
I risk a smile. “Yeah. She delivered the nanobots. Let’s hope your new program works.”
“You get me a list of names and I’ll flag their medical records for surveillance.”
“How the hell are you going to get Paul to approve that?”
She taps the tablet screen with her fingers. “I’m going to lie to him.”
Fair enough. “Have you been in touch with the office?”
She nods. “Lasher’s putting our house in order.”
The audit. I can’t believe I didn’t make this connection before. “That wasn’t a coincidence, was it? Us getting investigated at the same time all this was happening?”
“No. The auditors bugged out as soon as Sakraida went AWOL. Lasher and State traced the paper trail back to Intel, but Sakraida commandeered a fighter group from Andrews and broke orbit before Ops could intercept.”
“I’m sorry, did you say fighter group?”
“Twelve birds. They entered a stealth tunnel just outside Lunar orbit.” OSS has several large, open-ended, energy-absorbing structures deployed throughout the Solar System. These “tunnels” can be remote-piloted to meet spacecraft and conceal their maneuvers. The spacecraft in question deploy their own stealth canopies before leaving the tunnel, and they’re impossible to track until they need to use their engines again. “Smart money says they’re headed for the asteroid belt.”
No-man’s-land. “So when you say ‘putting our house in order’—”
“There’s going to be some demolition first.”
“I have something that should help,” I say. “Or, should I say, someone.”
Jessica frowns. “What are you talking about now?”
“I have a package I need to deliver, planetside, in less than five hours.”
She shakes her head. “Mars isn’t exactly welcoming Earth ships with open landing pads right now.”
I grab her forearm. “I’ve got the hijacker.”
“You’ve got—” Jessica’s eyes widen. “You mean he’s in the pocket.”
“His spacesuit had six hours of air.”
“We thought you threw him out the airlock.”
“This was easier.”
I can’t read her expression. She nods. “Five hours.”
“Yeah.”
She pushes off the wall and flies out of Sickbay. The door hisses shut before I can ask her to leave the tablet behind. With my shoulder-phone fried and only the transport’s internal comms available in here, my entertainment options are limited.
The door clangs open, and two spacemen tumble into Sickbay. The one in front is Lynch, the fellow who failed his space-jump earlier. Behind him is Kapur. She shoves Lynch into the bed next to me.
“For the last fucking time, Lynch,” Kapur says, pulling restraints closed around Lynch’s shoulders and hips. He winces as she clamps an IV cuff around his arm. “You’re injured. Colonel says you stay put until we reach base.”
“But I can help—”
“You can go the fuck to sleep,” Kapur says. Lynch gives me a desperate look.
“I’d listen to her, Spaceman,” I say.
“But I need to…,” he slurs before his eyelids close and his entire body goes limp. I look over to where Kapur is tapping at a medical console.
“Man, I love sedatives.” She turns to me. “You want something to help you sleep, Major?”
“No, thank you.” I hope I didn’t puke on her earlier.
“Very well.” She checks Lynch’s restraints, then whirls around and leaves.
Peace and quiet gets boring pretty quickly. Also, Lynch snores. I’m just starting to consider disengaging my IV and wandering out to look for some so-called food when the door opens again.
It’s Ellie.
I don’t know what to say. She drifts into Sickbay, grabs a handhold, and stops herself a good meter away from me. A bandage covers the left third of her forehead. The right side of her jaw is bruised. Her left arm is in a sling.
She’s still beautiful.
“Andie said I shouldn’t come over here,” Ellie says.
It’s not the worst greeting I’ve ever encountered. “Did she say why?”
“She said I’d have a lot of questions you couldn’t answer.”
I nod. “I can’t tell you any technical details about the wormhole device. That’s classified. I can’t tell you who I actually work for. That’s even more classified.”
“So what can you tell me?”
“We’re the good guys,” I say.
“Yeah, I figured that one out on my own.”
She’s staring at me. Do I have something on my face? “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry you’re the good guys?”
“No, that’s not—I didn’t mean—” Finding the stupidest possible thing to say, that’s my other superpower. “I’m sorry I ruined your escape. In the crawlway.”
Ellie shakes her head. “You were trying to retake Main Eng. Same as me.”
“What…” My mouth feels dry. “What happened in there?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” she says.
“One more, then I’m done.” I stare down at the floor. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
She laughs out loud, just for a second, then gives me a forbearing look. “I don’t need anyone to save me, Evan. I don’t want that. I can take care of myself.”
“Look,” I say, “we’re probably never going to see each other again after this. I just want to make sure our last conversation isn’t awkward and uncomfortable.” Yeah, great job on that so far, Kangaroo. “I just want you to know. I was on vacation.”
She gives me a squint. “Like every other Dejah Thoris passenger? Not really news there, Evan.”
I can’t stand it. “That’s not my name.”
“I suspected as much.”
“I wasn’t working,” I say. “You understand? I have to protect my identity at all times. I wasn’t on a mission or an assignment or anything like that.” I resist the temptation to turn on my left eye so I can get a better read on her emotional state. “I wasn’t using you, Ellie.”
“Not even to steal a centrifuge?”
I catch myself before apologizing again. “That’s also classified. I, uh, regret I can’t tell you any more than that. Don’t worry, I’ll return the centrifuge. I didn’t break it.”
She’s smiling.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” she says.
Ellie flies across the room before I can respond. Her lips press into mine. Either she’s getting very good at kissing, or I am, or these IV drugs are severely mood-enhancing. I let my eyelids droop shut and put one hand on Ellie’s waist to bring her body closer.
Maybe I should go on vacation more often.
All too soon, she pulls back. I open my eyes. I will never get tired of that smile.
“So,” she says, “what’s your real name?”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It’s been said that “art is made by the alone for the alone,” but this book wouldn’t exist without the efforts of many people besides myself.
Thanks to my literary agent, Sam Morgan, who answered my many noob questions with a straight face, and to all the JABberwocks who helped find a good home for Kangaroo.
Thanks to my editor, Pete Wolverton, the most adorable pitbull in publishing, and to everyone at Thomas Dunne Books who helped turn my manuscript into an actual novel with an amazing cover. Any errors are mine alone.
Thanks to Janet “Query Shark” Reid, the best agent I never had, for believing in Kangaroo from the very beginning.
Thanks to my parents for making my whole life possible, and to my sister for always thinking ahead to the next meal.
Thanks to all the wonderful writers I’ve met through Viable Paradise, Clarion West, SFWA, Codex, Rainforest Writers Village, and NaNoWriMo who helped me stay on target. Extra shouts out to Charlie Jane Anders, Jennifer Brozek, Tobias Buckell, John Crowley, Hiromi Goto, Camille Griep, Jason Gurley, Randy Henderson, Claire Humphrey, Kij Johnson, James Patrick Kelly, Marko Kloos, Mary Robinette Kowal, Fonda Lee, Ursula K. LeGuin, Ian McDonald, John Scalzi, and Alison Wilgus for showing me the way.
Thanks to my numerous alpha, beta, and gamma readers, especially Chris Carlson, Stephanie Charette, Nadya Duke, Shannon Fay, Michael Hernshaw, Steve Kopka, Julia Reynolds, DeeAnn Sole, and Peter Sursi for their steely-eyed insights.
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