by MB Panichi
“I’m glad it wasn’t you, Morgan.”
She looked up, managing a weak smile. “Thanks.”
Vinn took another sip of his coffee, set the mug carefully back down, and regarded her with gentle eyes. “What that fellow Rogan told you,” he said quietly, “is a true thing. You’re alive, and it’s a gift. It may be hard for you to see right now, but for some reason it wasn’t meant to be you in that suit. It’s not your time. Somebody out here still needs you. I do. Other people do. You need to be strong for the people who still need you.”
Morgan couldn’t meet his concerned gaze. You were strong for me, Dad. You were there for me even though you were falling apart too. I’ll never be as strong as you, but I’ll try to at least keep my shit together without freaking out on everyone.
Vinn asked, “Did they give you a couple days off?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Spend it with your friends. Relax.”
“I’ll try.”
He squeezed her hand. “You’re gonna be okay, kiddo. Just give it some time.”
Chapter Five
Shaine Wendt strolled through the wide glass doors into the personnel office of the Mann-Maru Maintenance Facility. Several rows of linked chairs lined the lobby. A handful of techs stood in line at the reception counter at the rear of the room. Others congregated in twos and threes around the perimeter. Muffled voices, the hum of office machinery, and the smell of coffee permeated the air.
She headed for the counter when a rangy, dark-skinned man waved her over. She greeted him with a smile. “Hey, Raj, how’s it going?”
“It goes, it goes,” he returned easily, typing into his terminal. “Looks like they finally gave you a permanent crew assignment, Shaine.”
“No kidding? About time.”
He gave her a rueful look and added apologetically, “With Derek Strom’s crew. To replace the guy who got killed a few days ago.”
She let her equipment bag slide off her shoulder and drop heavily to the floor. “Great. This oughta be a treat.”
“Sorry, man. Let me grab Derek. He can brief you.”
Sighing, she leaned against the counter to wait.
A few moments later, Raj led a mountain of a man to the reception counter.
Her new crew chief stood about Raj’s height, but his muscular build dwarfed the thin clerk, and his voice rumbled low in his chest as he held out a massive hand. “Derek Strom.”
She shook his hand briefly.
He motioned her through the swinging half-door at the end of the counter. “Come on around. Got some paperwork first, then we’ll head down to meet the gang.”
An hour later, Strom led her down the hallway to the separate crew ready rooms. Despite his reassurances, she wondered if she’d made a mistake accepting the assignment. Strom had reiterated what she’d heard in the news, that Drygzinski’s death was an on-the-job accident. She didn’t believe the story for a minute. After six years in the inner circle of Mann-Maru Security operations, she knew a cover-up when she heard it. Hell, she’d written a dozen herself. Whatever killed John “Digger” Drygzinski hadn’t been an accident.
Strom said his people seemed to be handling the situation all right. Shaine thought about her experiences in Earth Guard with buddies killed in the line of duty. Some guys accepted what happened and moved on. Others reacted with anger or depression. A few freaked out. She had been one of the angry ones.
The crew chief led Shaine into the ready room assigned to his crew. To her left, she saw an entrance to the shower room, from which emanated the faint scents of soap and disinfectant. Equipment lockers and benches lined the side walls. The sealed air lock hatch was on the back wall. A row of vacuum suits and a rack of helmets hung on one side of the air lock.
Two women and a man in the midst of changing out of their street clothes stood by open lockers. Shaine caught her breath, immediately recognizing them.
Strom addressed the group with easy familiarity. “Morning, people. We got a new crewmate. This is Shaine Wendt.” He pointed to the man on the right. “Ben Knight.”
Shaine held a hand out as Ben finished tying his hair into a long ponytail. He grasped her hand firmly with long, strong fingers. “Hey, how’s it going?”
Beside him, a feisty-looking woman with bright blue eyes and a blinding grin introduced herself. “Hi, Shaine. I’m Charri Anders. Welcome to the crew.”
Shaine returned Charri’s smile.
Strom nodded at the bank of lockers on the opposite side of the room and the woman facing away from them. “That’s Morgan Rahn.”
Morgan was stripped down to boxer shorts and a spaghetti strap tank top. An image of a scruffy, jersey-clad grav-ball player flashed through Shaine’s brain when Morgan glanced over her shoulder. For a second, Morgan regarded her with a guarded expression, then turned away without a word.
Shaine stared at the flowing lines of tattoos ranging over Morgan’s smoothly muscled body. Vibrant colors cascaded across the back of her left shoulder, a depiction of explosive flames dancing behind a darkened asteroid. The asteroid was engraved like a headstone “RIP 2.23.2234.” A wildly colorful winged dragon swooped up from the back of her left calf. Shaine wished she could see the rest of it wrapped around the front of her thigh. Intricately woven black tribal bands wound around Morgan’s left bicep.
Shaine was impressed by the painstaking, colorful detail. Inking those had to have hurt like a bitch.
Strom’s voice pulled her out of her reverie. “You’ve got the green striped vac suit, Shaine. Give it a try today. If the fit’s funky, we’ll find you another one. Take the locker next to Morgan.” He waited for her nod of confirmation and added, “Morgan, take the black suit.”
Morgan’s head snapped around toward Strom. Startled surprise shifted swiftly to anger. She bit off a curse and glared at him. Strom shook his head with a pained frown.
Shaine crossed to her assigned locker and set her bag down on the bench. She pressed her thumb to the sensor on the locker to open it. While methodically moving her stuff from her bag and changing, she considered the situation. Ben and Charri seemed okay, friendly enough. Pretty much the opposite of Morgan Rahn. Well. Not like she expected to be greeted with open arms by a crew who had just lost one of their people.
She glanced over at Morgan, taking in the stiff, closed-off way Morgan moved and held herself. For a brief instant, Morgan turned and met her gaze from beneath a shock of black bangs. She felt herself caught by a stormy gray ocean of emotion.
She swallowed and looked away, focusing on pulling on her bio-wired suit liner. There had been so much pain in Morgan’s eyes. I’m sorry. This really has to suck for you.
* * *
Morgan closed her locker, took a deep breath and gritted her teeth. The room was empty without Digger’s usual morning grumbles. Ops had wasted no time assigning a replacement. She had expected it would just be the four of them today and maybe the rest of the shift cycle. She didn’t want someone taking Digger’s spot on the crew. Not yet. It was too soon. She wanted time to get used to his absence.
She moved around the bench to the vacuum suits hanging in an orderly row, helmets and gloves lined up on the shelf above. Her boots remained attached to Digger’s suit from when she had worn it last week. She didn’t like that their equipment had been set out as though nothing had happened, that someone else had been checking out their things, putting everything back in place. She felt violated by the intrusion, even more so because she didn’t know or trust the hands that had handled her gear.
Her stomach roiled uneasily as she regarded the black striped suit and helmet. Christ, what if this suit is rigged now? What if it wasn’t random and it was really me they were trying to kill? What if they decided to try again? For a second she saw Digger’s ruined face behind the shattered helmet, saw him staring at her with dead, empty eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
She shot an angry glance at Strom. What the hell was he thinking, making her wear Digger’s vac suit? How could
he so casually throw that order out? Take the black one, she thought acidly. Did he really think she wouldn’t care? Couldn’t he have just gotten her a different one? Gritting her teeth, she lifted Digger’s suit off the hook. Just put it on and get it over with.
Stepping into the legs, she worked her feet into the attached boots, then twisted to pull the bulky torso over her shoulders and push her arms inside. By the time she got the suit-liner leads plugged in, Ben had joined her to slip into his own suit.
Morgan grabbed her helmet—Digger’s helmet—and settled it forcefully onto her shoulders, letting the neck seals snap into place. The life support system kicked in and a breath of air fanned down over her face. The headgear still carried the lingering scent of Digger’s aftershave. She blinked hard to stop the tears. Damn it! I am not going to start crying like a freakin’ baby! Clenching her jaw, she started to lift a hand to swipe at her eyes, remembered she wore the sealed helmet and let her arm fall back limply to her side. She jammed her hands into the gloves, sealing them with angry motions, and shuffled to the air lock.
It was going to be a long shift.
Chapter Six
Morgan joined Ben and Charri that evening for dinner. Her intention had been to go home after her shift and curl up with a book, but Charri ragged at her until she agreed to go home with them. She sat on a stool at the bar separating the tiny kitchen from the living room and sipped from a bottle of beer while Charri put a pizza in the oven.
Charri set the timer and leaned against the counter. “I really didn’t think Strom would make you wear Digg’s suit,” she commented.
Morgan scowled. “I know. I figured he’d have just gotten a different one for me, instead of making me wear Digg’s again. Probably Ops wouldn’t give him a replacement.” She took a long swallow from the bottle. “I just about peed my pants when I kicked in the fuser the first time, waiting for the damned thing to blow up.”
“You didn’t really think it’d happen again, did you?”
“Why not? Get the job done right this time around.”
“Now you’re being morbid.”
“Of course I’m being morbid. I think I have a right to be.”
Ben padded out of the bedroom, shirtless and wearing loose, worn sweats. He passed into the kitchen, grabbing a beer from the refrigerator on the way. He slid up behind Charri. Long arms wrapped around her shoulders. She leaned into him with a sigh. “Sure sucked not having Digg there today,” he said quietly.
Charri nodded.
Ben gave Charri a squeeze and kissed her hair before wandering into the living room. He scooped the remote off the coffee table and turned on the entertainment center. After a few minutes, he called, “Hey, you guys should see this.”
“See what, hon?” Charri asked.
“Another mining facility in the Belt got hit.”
Morgan turned to face the screen.
A ticker ran across the bottom of the screen, subtitling the voice-over from the reporter. “—have not determined who was behind the destruction, though pirate activity is suspected. Mann-Maru Universal Industries reports nineteen workers injured, four confirmed dead. Three remain missing. I’ve just been told we will have Mann-Maru CEO Tarm Maruchek on the line shortly to give a statement.”
Scenes of the attacked complex flashed behind the reporter. Morgan recognized the wreckage of an ore processing plant. A close-up showed a conveyor belt melted into a twisted metal ribbon. Personnel in bright orange vac suits floated around the damaged site. Emergency skiffs flooded the area with spotlights. The stark outline of a construction crane with a broken boom rose out of the debris like a dead tree against the blackness of space.
Her fingers closed around the beer bottle. The destruction on screen brought back haunting memories of a similar scene. She had been in the darkness of her childhood bedroom. Clinging to the cold metal frame around the single round window, she’d held herself on tiptoe, watching the emergency vehicles move slowly around the wreckage of the mining facility where her family lived. Her father’s muffled sobs sounded from the living room. She remembered thinking she should be crying too. But she couldn’t— not right then—and instead stared out the window, feeling only painful emptiness.
“Hey.” Charri’s hands settled on her shoulders.
Morgan blinked away the visions and dragged in a shaky breath. “I’m okay. Just…remembering.”
Charri hugged her. “You want Ben to turn it off?”
“No. I want to know what’s going on.”
The timer beeped. Charri gave her a pat and said, “Go sit down.”
Morgan slid off the stool and wandered over to drop into the far corner of the sofa.
Charri joined them, pushing Ben’s feet off the coffee table and putting down the pizza before settling between Morgan and Ben.
Morgan took a slice, chewing slowly while she watched the images scroll across the screen. The reporter continued to repeat what they already knew, which wasn’t much. The attack on the mining outpost had happened the previous day. In-system emergency personnel and an armored Earth Guard division had just arrived at the facility.
If Earth Guard is involved, maybe they’re expecting a second go-round. Terrorist violence against the mega-corporation had been increasing steadily since Mann-Maru announced the discovery of a new ore processing technology that would give them an even greater monopoly on asteroid mining.
Morgan hated that innocent people were caught in the middle of the fight. System authorities were never quite able to stop the violence. She didn’t necessarily agree with the hard-core conspiracy theorists who believed the terrorist attacks were a political and financial ploy for the benefit of Mann-Maru, but neither was she certain there wasn’t a kernel of truth to the speculation.
The scene behind the reporter shifted to a split video feed. On the left, a continuing shot of the ongoing cleanup operations in the Belt. On the right, the camera zoomed in on a distinguished, middle-aged man in a formal business suit. Morgan recognized Tarm Maruchek, CEO and owner of Mann-Maru Universal Industries, gazing calmly into the camera through deep-set, gunmetal-blue eyes.
The young reporter straightened and focused on the camera. “This is Raston Fuller with System Forty News. I’m here right now with Mann-Maru CEO Tarm Maruchek. Mr. Maruchek, thank you for sparing us a few minutes of your time.”
“Of course.”
“Can you give us an up-to-date status on what’s happening at Facility 2333?”
Maruchek nodded. “Yes. The facility has been secured. The damage was primarily external, centering on the automated areas of the processing plant. Personnel quarters were not affected so loss of life was mitigated. My own security personnel and Earth Guard are investigating the situation. I hope to have more information shortly.”
Ben glowered at the screen. “Yeah, more information he’ll twist around to say whatever he wants us to hear.”
Morgan agreed. Never trust Corporate because it’s all about the bottom line. Always has been, always will be. Fuck the little guy. What do the CEOs care, as long as they get their profits?
The reporter continued, “We’ve gotten word of a recent accident at Moon Base where a dock maintenance worker was killed. Can you tell us anything about that, Mr. Maruchek?”
Maruchek hesitated a split second. Morgan could have sworn she saw a flicker of actual emotion on his face. He said, “Our internal security is still investigating that incident, Raston. At this time it appears to be some kind of failure of the suit’s helmet seal. We’ve never seen anything like it, to be honest.”
Morgan blinked in shock. “What?”
Maruchek continued, “We’re working with the helmet and suit’s manufacturer to try to understand what happened.”
“You fucking lying bastard!” Morgan hissed.
“Unbelievable,” Ben breathed.
“There have been a lot of rumors on the net suggesting foul play around the incident, and pointing to terrorist infiltration.”
&n
bsp; “There are always rumors,” Maruchek responded evenly. “In this case, they are unfounded.”
“Unfounded my ass!” Morgan exploded.
“The issue appears to have been a fault in the locking mechanism in the neck seal,” Maruchek continued.
“I can’t listen to anymore of his crap.” Ben flipped the channel.
Shaking her head, Morgan fell back into the cushions. “How can he lie like that?” she asked. “I saw the explosion. We all saw what it did to Digg.”
Charri looked from her to Ben with an incredulous expression. “You guys didn’t think Maruchek’s PR people were going to let him tell the truth, did you? They’re going to play it down and shove it under the rug. That’s what they always do.”
“Doesn’t make it right,” Morgan said.
“Of course not,” Charri agreed. “But there isn’t anything you can do about it, so why get all worked up?”
Morgan lifted her head and met Charri’s even gaze with a raised eyebrow. “Because it makes me feel so fucking good?”
Charri rolled her eyes.
Ben laughed and started flipping through channels, finally settling on a grav-ball game.
Morgan thought about her own team, mulling over what they were going to do without Digger. “You think Carlis will play for Digger next week?” she asked.
Ben made a face. “Next week, probably. But he won’t stick around. You guys are gonna have to find a regular.”
