The forcefield corridor emptied out on a set of double doors that connected to a pair of rooms. One was clearly for sleeping, since it was made up of bunk beds like the ones in the kids room at her parents' house. The other had couches for sitting and a video screen, probably to provide some level of entertainment. Everything was encased in a layer of synthetic material that reminded Miranda of plastic, but it felt softer and less porous somehow.
“There is a shower in the bathroom off the cabin,” said the pilot, Rycer. “You may use it to get changed.
“Thanks,” said Miranda. As she rose Oscar got tangled in her legs. She stumbled forward. Eric caught her by her arm and steadied her before she landed on the floor. Miranda ducked her head and headed for the bathroom.
The shower was pure heaven. Back on the farm they just had a wash tub that was used for animals and humans alike. There had been a shower room a generation back, but the reconstitutional pump had gone out back between the birth of her aunt Mary and her Uncle Maximus. No one had ever seen fit to pay for the replacement.
This was the first time in her life she’d ever washed in a true shower. The steam hit her first, warming her to the bone. It cleaned out her nasal passages and crept into every corner of her body. Then came the cold water. It poured over her like the holos of waterfalls on the pleasure planets in the corridors of the Empire. Back where the senators and other high officials took their Holy Days to commune with God.
The torrent of water scraped every part of her clean. For a moment she felt like she might drown under the pressure of the water. Then it stopped and a warm heat filled the room. Just warm enough to lift the water from her skin and hair, but not warm enough to be hot or make her sweat. As she exited dry and clean of all the dirt and blood that had clung to her, the shower spritzed her with a light jasmine scent. Like her mother’s favorite tea.
“Thank you for your service faithful friend,” she told the blue dress before sticking it into the recycle container. Her arms went to give it a hug, but her nose stopped her. Now that she was clean, the smell of death from the dress overwhelmed her. No wonder Cash didn’t want to get anywhere near her. She would have run from her, too.
She quickly braided her hair. Then she twisted it into a tight bun on her head, securing it with the bracelet she carried on her wrist for this purpose. Then she changed into the uniform she’d stashed in Oscar and made her way back into the hanger.
She walked in to find the three of them in a heated conversation. They must have heard her because when she got close enough to hear all three stopped talking.
Eric coughed. They all turned her way. Cash’s eyes widened and then narrowed into a frown. Miranda wondered what Cash saw that upset him. Rycer whistled.
Miranda pulled at the vest. It was tight holding her all in.
“I didn’t know that med showers could turn a terran stellar,” Rycer joked. Eric and the other Ironside remained still, their expressions unmoved. Cash grimaced.
“Not cool man,” Cash said. “Not cool at all. Some of us are terran born.”
Miranda kept walking. She did not like the way they stared at her.
“Come on, Stellar, take a seat next to me; I’ll be your creche Pop,” Rycer jeered. Miranda slumped past, trying to make her body as small as possible. “What? You only got eyes for the Irons, Sweet Cheeks?” he continued on. Miranda glanced back. Rycer slapped his lap as if he wanted her to sit on it. She kept walking.
“I said, not cool,” Cash said, slapping Rycer upside the head.
“Get your dirty terran hands off me,” Rycer said back. He shoved Cash.
“Cresh you,” Cash retorted, shoving Rycer back into his chair. Rycer lunged at Cash, tackling him to the floor. Miranda watched as the two men rolled around like her brothers. Fists flew. A spray of blood splattered the floor from where Cash’s elbow hit Rycer’s face.
“Enough,” Eric said. Both men stopped mid swing. They separated from each other, preferring to back away. Rycer wiped the blood off his lip. Cash’s eye started to show signs of swelling. The two men sat on either sides of Eric. Rycer’s arms were locked in from of him; Cash’s were open in a ‘Come and get me, I dare you’ pose.
Between the shower and the fight, they were one hour down with many more to go. Miranda made the decision to spend it sleeping. She hadn’t gotten a good rest since the morning she’d chased Oscar up the mountain. Now felt like the best time to do just that.
Miranda walked past thier gaping eyes into the bunk bed room, grabbed a blanket and pillow off the wall, and collapsed into the first open bed she saw. Sleep overtook her the second her head hit the pillow. Just like that, she was out.
“Beep, beep!” Oscar yelled in her ear. Miranda stretched. She’d been dreaming of playing fort with Michael. The two of them were Ironsides on a mission to save the galaxy. It had felt so real; the heat of the sun on her back as they chased rebel tibbers through the field.
“What do you want?” Miranda asked, her eyes still closed with sleep. She rubbed them, displacing the salt crystals that had formed around them in the night. She opened her eyes to give the little droid a good stare only to come face to face with an Ironside mask.
She sat up with a start, her head colliding with the rail of the bunk above her. Pain shot through her head. At least she didn’t say ‘Ouch’ this time. Either she was getting used to the pain or she was getting better at hiding it.
“Good, you’re awake.”
She knew that voice. A name floated up to her from the haze of sleep and pain.
“Here, eat this; as soon as I talk to the captain we are leaving.”
Miranda took what he was holding out to her. It looked like a bar of black goo. She took a bite. It was gritty, but not so bad tasting that she couldn’t swallow. She took another bite, then another until it was gone.
She noticed that she hadn’t taken her new uniform off when she went to sleep. It was rumbled but otherwise looked no different.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Come on, we all need to be in the briefing room.”
Miranda tried to pay attention. It was all so boring. She wasn’t awake enough yet. Even with whatever that bar had been, she missed the fresh farm milk and her mother’s pancakes. The smell of which could wake the dead in a good way.
“Sir, I understand that this ship is your priority, but in regard to this mission, I maintain all authority,” Eric stated.
Miranda suppressed a yawn.
“You will not leave orbit. You will not call for backup. You will maintain contact until we have succeeded in our mission.”
“I am the captain of this ship,” the captain said through his little holo image, shaking with rage. Miranda read his title along the base of his projected image. Captain Rocford J Pendelton of the ERSS Altitude.
Miranda blinked and read it again. Yep. Whoever this captain was, he was from the Pendleton system. Pendleton was one of the third ranked systems in the outer edge of the second wave of Imperial terraforming. Not so high up in the food chain to feel safe from an Ironside taking over. But not so low as to be someone who climbed the rungs of the ladder, inch by inch, from a farming community like hers. She filed that information away for later. Right now it was just starting to get good.
“And I have been given papers from the Imperial senate,” Eric said, the ice in his voice a final word.
Rocford ground his teeth. “I cannot allow my ship to take part in your suicide mission.”
“If you are done filing our paperwork, accept your orders and release my craft,” Eric stated.
“Sir, yes sir,” Captain Rocford said at last.
Chapter 11
It didn't take much effort on Miranda's part to see that it was forced words. Especially the way the Captain spit out the word ‘sir’ before clicking off the holo.
“So we're going off planet?” she asked Eric.
“No,” he said, correcting her. “We are going down to the planet.” They were already
off planet. This was a spaceship. Miranda’s cheeks reddened.
She looked over at all of the other guys. None of them looked too thrilled at the destination. Did they even know what it was? The fight with the Captain, him calling it a suicide mission, certainly didn’t help with morale.
“Okay, fine,” she replied. “But I don't get it.” Then she remembered who this mission was to protect: the crown prince. Her family had died over this.
“Rebels,” she said. He nodded his agreement.
“Why am I here?” she asked. “I’m just a recruit; I haven’t even been to basic yet!”
Eric paused for only a moment. “You speak Droid. Nobody else who can is close enough to get here in time.”
‘I’m getting nowhere with this guy,’ Miranda thought. She switched tactics.
“What's so special about this planet, anyways?” She asked Eric as they headed back through the corridor. She made sure not to touch the edges. She didn't want another shock.
“We'll talk about once we are in flight,” Eric replied. His tone was quiet and resolute. “ I don't want any of our mission leaking through.” Eric pointed at the cameras.
They'd been watching them this whole time. They may have not made it out of quarantine, but they were still being watched. Miranda shut her mouth. If Eric thought it wasn't safe to talk about, then it wasn't safe to talk about, end of story. She loaded herself back into the shuttle, clicked in her belt and waited. The pilot was the last to get on, making extra motions with the gear controls before lifting off the launch pad.
‘Here we go,’ Miranda thought. The ride had been so smooth, Coming up to the spaceship, the movements of the ship so smooth, her sleep so deep. She hadn't thought anything about space travel so far.
It was odd.
It felt like just being in another building on the planet. She couldn't even feel the rumblings or the sliding that kept her grounded. But when the shuttle craft started to spin, her knuckles went from her relaxed posture to seat-gripping white again.
“What were you going to say? About the mission being suicidal?” she yelled at Eric over a loud whistling sound.
Perchunk. Something hit into the side of the craft. The pilot swerved left, then right.
What were they doing going through an astro field? They were supposed to be doing a planetary landing.
“What could hit shielding this hard and not simply bounce off?” said Cash. He grabbed his gun and shot off another volley of rounds to break up the debris before contact. “Almost feels like we’re on a roller coaster, and not hurtling at high speeds towards a planet!”
“Report!” Eric shouted at the pilot.
“Interplanetary shielding, sir,” Rycer replied. “We're bouncing off of pieces of interstellar debris and old ships.” He didn’t need to add the lines that the ship had failed to dock. Everyone in the shuttle got the picture.
“I don't think we're going to make it,” screamed the pilot.
“Keep on course, Pilot,” Eric said in his commanding Ironside tone.
The pilot held on for dear life.
“Sir, it's ripping the shuttle apart, sir.”
“Did you enter the code line I gave you?”
“Sir, Yes, sir. It doesn't seem to be operational.” He turned his head back to respond to Eric. The controls shook in his hands. Another round of debris smashed into the side of the ship. “The Gate isn't opening up.”
Miranda flew six inches into the air, caught in her upper harness, and was slammed back down. Every bone in her body rattled from her teeth down to her feet. She was thankful for the arm holds now, which seemed to be her lifeline as they plummeted towards their destination. Rycer kept swerving.
“I’m gonna be sick,” said the other gunner. Miranda was right there with him.
The one galactic fair that came to their small town on a Oreilly 13 had what is known as roller coasters and wurly do's and other fast paced Interstellar technology rides. It all seemed fun, with just a touch of life threatening danger. But compared to this, they were tame.
Miranda slid, trying to release the tension that built up in her arms and neck from holding on so tight. Her nails bit into her palms, leaving little red crescent shaped indentations. They were going to make it. She knew that they were going to make it.
Eric swore. The curse echoed off the walls of the shuttle.
“What do you mean the code’s not working?”
“I said the code’s not working, sir,'' replied the pilot.
“It was given to me by the Imperial notification chain itself,” Eric said.
“I recognize that, sir,“ said the pilot. “That doesn't mean that it is operational.”
Eric somehow made his way towards the panicked pilot, step by slow step. Seconds turned into hours as the craft spiraled out of control, bouncing around like an apple in a bucket of water.
The wall seemed to be creaking in around them, pounding in from all sides. There was a sudden shift as the pilot swerved to the left, veering off course to avoid another round of volleys.
Eric slammed into the right wall, landing in Cash’s lap.
“Get off,” Cash said, pushing Eric up off him and towards the pilot. Miranda watched as he claimed the last three steps.
“Scoot over” Eric ordered. The pilot shifted as much as he could without letting go of the controls.
Eric punched something into the control panel. His hands flew from one control to the next in a pattern of movements Miranda’s eyes couldn’t follow.
“Sir,” Rycer said, looking up at him.
“Shut up and do your job,” Eric replied.
“Sir!” the pilot said again, looking ahead.
A large gate the size of a planet loomed in front of them. Steal and iron, and brobanium, shifting and clasping on the vid screen. Every sensor in the ship was screaming that there was a big metal thing dead ahead and they were flying straight towards it.
“Do not veer,” Eric roared.
Rycer went to veer left, disregarding the direct order. Eric knocked him out, took hold of the controls and centered them on the big sphere.
Miranda put her hands over her head and ducked down to her knees. If they were going to crash into whatever it was, she wanted to be in the crash position.
They flew dead center into the large, luminous object.
Miranda waited for that moment when her life would flash before her eyes. She had read about it on holos, heard about it from friends who had slipped beneath the ice, skating on the ponds and been rescued by a dry out team. She'd never thought that she would experience it. Life on O'reilly 13 was hard, but not necessarily deadly.
Well, at least it hadn't been before. Before the rebels. The rebels took a hard, but rewarding life and turned it into an impossible one. One full of danger and death for no good reason.
Instead of her life flashing before her eyes, she saw a warm table, comforting food and the work of being a farmer's wife evaporate in front of her. Everything she’d spent her life dreaming about becoming slipped into a mist of planetary debris. Then nothing.
She waited. Nothing happened. She could still feel her breath pouring in and out of her lips. She opened her eyes.
The ship was fine. Dented in places, but whole and holding. She had eyes to see it through. They glided over the planet, no longer stuck in the upper atmosphere.
“Take this piece of useless junk out of my seat,” Eric shouted back at the crew. The other Ironside slipped wordlessly up, grabbed the pilot by his shoulders and pulled him back to where the rest of them were in the shuttle. Then he strapped the guy into a seat before strapping himself in.
Eric took over the pilot’s place at the helm. Miranda smiled. An uncontrolled giggle erupted from inside her. The laughter was caught by Cash. Soon everyone in the craft was laughing uncontrollably, the tension gone.
“Shuttlecraft to base. Shuttlecraft to landing base, do you read me?” Eric said into the coms. Something dinged back.
“Welcome
travelers. Shuttle bay 6 is ready and waiting for your arrival,” said a sweet sounding voice. It had the broken gate of a prerecorded AI track, with just a tinge of inhumans that came from old system controls. Eric typed up the trajectory and started the system into the run.
Miranda watched as they descended towards the landing pad. Sludge clouds cut like butter as they moved closer to the planet’s surface. Then it parted into a dark rain. A lightning bolt split the sky, revealing landing pad 6. That’s when she noticed it: the disarray of broken pieces of shuttle craft littering the landing bay.
Eric swore. He tried to lift up on the controls to get out of the landing pattern, but it was too late. The Autopilot Landing System on the shuttle had kicked in. For the second time in less than 20 minutes. Miranda feared for her life.
Chapter 12
Miranda watched the world tear apart in slow motion.
As she turned, end over end, pieces of the craft broke apart. Shattered glass shards sprayed the air, lacerating her face. She fell forward with the motion of the shuttle. Up, then down, then forward, up and down again. Bits of crushed vid screens whipped past her head. Metal gears and tubing sprayed streams of dangerous chemicals. She leaned back enough for one to shoot past her. The green liquid melted a hole in the side of the ship.
Chunk.
The spaceship hit something, momentarily freezing the spinning wreck. Then there was a large screech that felt like it came from her very bones. Miranda hung upside down, held in by her straps. She watched in horror as the other half of the ship split in front of her eyes. Down into the darkness it went. The knocked unconscious pilot, the other Ironside, and the second gunner unit fell with it.
There was another long groan as the ship settled into its new weight. Mirand flipped back over with it as it rested on the platform. She sat back, panting,
“You're still alive,” she told herself. “You're still alive.” When she felt like she could breathe again she unhooked herself from the harness that kept her from being a pinball inside an oxandon machine.
Imperial Edge Page 8
