by MB Panichi
Well, if I cut a clean end here, maybe I can just go around it. She eyed the distance the patches would have to cover. Did she have enough to span the break? She dug in the pouch. One, two. Damn, I thought—oh. Okay. Three. But will it be long enough?
“They’re almost on us, Morgan!” The voice in her helmet sounded more agitated.
“I’m working on it!”
She clamped and fused the three remaining patches together and bent over the gash in the hull. She clipped away just enough of the broken lead to get a clean end and got one side of the replacement patch attached before edging over to the other end of the break.
A flicker of light off to her left caught her eye. She glanced up to see three pirate fighters closing the distance in a V formation—sleek, flat, elongated triangles with slightly raised, bulbous cockpits. Fear twisted in her chest. She clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking, knowing how exposed she was on the hull. Would she end up dying like her mom? Like Digger? Would she be just another body in a vented vac suit? She shuddered.
“Morgan, hurry!” Garren’s voice this time.
She shook her head and pulled the patch across the bent fragment of hull, breathing a sigh of relief when it crossed the breach. Quickly, she clipped a clean end on the lead and clamped the patch against it.
She was blinded by a sudden flash of light. Instinct sent her sprawling awkwardly to the hull, managing to keep the toe of one boot connected and grabbing an edge of the gash for a handhold. Her helmet smacked hard and bounced against the hull with a sharp clank.
A long, sleek shadow whipped over her. Another flash. Despite the impossibility in vacuum, she swore she felt the heat when a second shadow blasted past.
“Morgan!” Maruchek sounded panicked.
She took a second to breathe. “I’m okay.” Her ears rang from the sound of her helmet hitting the hull.
“Get in here!”
She was surprised to realize she still held the fuser in her gloved fist. “Almost done.”
She sat upright, getting one foot solid on the hull and doing a quick check of her vac suit and glancing at the wrist diagnostics to make sure all the lights remained green. Swallowing hard, her heart pounding wildly, she leaned forward to connect the other end of the patch to the damaged lead. If her repair worked, they had a chance, and if it didn’t, they were dead. Sweat dripped into her eyes. She blinked furiously at the sting of salt. Damn it!
“Morgan!”
“Shut up! Let me do this!” Her hands shaking, she managed to fuse the connection. “Reed, try it!” She felt the hull shift and the vibration of the engines powering up.
“We’re good!” Reed replied.
Maruchek broke in. “Morgan, get in here!”
Reed shouted, “EG wing incoming!”
“Go! I’m on my way in!” She struggled to her feet and started a clumping walk across the hull. She moved as quickly as she could in the too-large suit and the too-big boots. She felt the pull of the safety lines at her waist and the roll of the ship under her feet.
“Morgan, get down!”
She dropped into a hunched ball on one knee. A shadow whipped over her head, then a couple more in quick succession. An explosion lit the blackness barely three body-lengths past the edge of the hull. Debris whipped over her, pelting against her helmet and suit.
Fuck!
Rapid beeping rose to a scream inside her helmet with a matching red pulse on the diagnostic on her wrist. She stood, stumbling desperately across the remaining few meters and practically diving through the open air lock. She slapped the emergency seal when she passed the threshold. The air lock slammed shut, slicing her free from the safety lines that hadn’t reeled in all the way.
The shuttle lurched forward and up. She slammed into the back wall of lockers, her ears ringing with the impact. Stars danced in front of her eyes when her nose hit the faceplate. Red emergency lighting dimmed and flickered furtively. She managed to get to her knees.
Voices and beeps screeched in her ears. “Morgan! Say something!”
She blinked away the shock. “Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled, trying to figure out if she was still in one piece. She felt light-headed from the adrenaline and had difficulty thinking through the shrill scream of the helmet alarm.
She glanced down at her arm. One of the life-support controls pulsed red, two more flashing deep yellow. Oh. Fuck. Running out of air. Must’ve ruptured a line. Little gray spots floated in front of her eyes.
Her gaze darted to the air lock readouts at the side of the door. Had it cycled through? Was the compartment sealed? Pressurized? The light above the hatch blinked. Yellow, yellow, yellow… Her vision blurred. She blinked hard, trying to stay focused. Come on, come on, go green, you stupid fuck! Finally the indicator flashed green and the red lighting flickered to blue.
Desperately, she fumbled with the helmet. The seals released with a hiss of cool air over her face. She pushed the helmet backward over her head, forcibly releasing the rear seals and letting the helmet drop to the floor as she slumped against the wall, gulping for breath until the floor dropped away and the ship twisted hard to the right.
Morgan rolled with the movement, hitting the outside wall with a grunt. The loose helmet bounced and smacked her in the head. More colorful stars splashed in front of her eyes. Cursing, she grabbed at the helmet while trying to brace herself against the wall.
The ship settled. The inner hatch swung open, metal clanging on metal. Garren stumbled through. “Morgan! Are you okay?”
She hauled herself upright. “Yeah, fine, if I don’t bash into anymore damned walls.”
Garren grinned. “You were great! Earth Guard just chased ’em off—man, that was close!” He offered her a hand up, which she accepted.
Odd that she found it natural to think of Garren as her brother. She felt weirded out by the sense of familiarity. “Will you help me get out of this suit?” she asked.
“Sure. Man, that was nuts.”
A shudder ran through her. “Don’t remind me.”
“You do this stuff often?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t do this stuff at all, if you mean fixing a ship in open space in a firefight. I work at the Moon Base docks. Closest I get to excitement is the bars after hours.”
“Could’ve fooled me. What do you want help with first?”
She yanked off the gloves. “Can you unlatch my boots?”
The shuttle banked and shifted a couple more times before she managed to get out of the vac suit and return it to the equipment locker. She made a mental note to let Reed know he’d have to get the suit checked out and recertified. For sure, the life-support system needed repairs, and probably the helmet and helmet seals the way she’d forced the helmet off. She stowed the rest of the gear and followed Garren to the cockpit.
The pilot, Reed, anxiously tapped buttons and watched readouts. Loh had the controls in the co-pilot’s seat, and Rogan was in the third seat manning the long- and short-range scanners.
Maruchek stood behind the pilot’s chair. He turned when Garren and Morgan entered the cockpit. He smiled. “Good job.”
Reed glanced back over his shoulder with a grin. “You rocked it, kid!”
Morgan beamed, although she flushed at the attention. “No problem.”
Reed returned to his controls. “Ya got us out of a pickle. We’re in the clear now. The EG scared the rest of the pirates off.”
“The fixes are holding?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He made an adjustment on his control panel. “Starboard thruster’s finicky, but she’ll hold together until we get back to Earth.”
Garren suggested, “Why not go back to my facility?”
Rogan said, “The home compound is secure and I don’t want to risk another attack.”
Morgan stared out the front viewport for a long second, searching the stars in the blackness, trying to locate the light indicating Earth or the Moon. “Any word from Shaine?”
Rogan turned, h
is dark gaze meeting hers. “No,” he said.
Morgan didn’t look away. “Maybe,” she said slowly, “we should go see if there’s anything we can do to help her.”
Rogan tossed her an irritated scowl. “Wendt can take care of herself. We’re listening for her call beacon. We’ll go in when we get it.”
“And if we don’t hear it?”
“Then there’s nobody to get.” He turned back to the monitors he’d been studying.
Morgan glared at him. “Bastard,” she hissed under her breath and walked out of the cockpit.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It took Shaine two and a half hours to worm her way through the vent system to the Security headquarters. She shimmied toward the open louvers at the end of the shaft, careful to stay back far enough that her shadow wouldn’t be evident to anyone who happened to look at the vent on the inside wall of the room.
She peered through the shuttered opening and nearly whistled aloud. She’d been expecting a control room similar to Rogan’s. Instead, she saw a darkened room with a 3D holo map taking up a four-meter square at the center. The holo map, which was in motion, showed the Asteroid Belt. Pinpoints of red and blue and green lights dotted the map. A couple of men in Security uniforms moved within the holo field, using what appeared to be small remotes to bring up scrolling 3D data for individual asteroids.
A handful of monitoring stations surrounded the holo map, manned by serious-looking men and women wearing headsets. One of them said something Shaine couldn’t make out and the holo display shifted, zooming in on a specific area.
Shaine sucked in a breath. The asteroid coming into focus supported a mining facility. She grabbed for the mini-binocs on her belt. What the hell? She saw green and blue dots moving around the asteroid. With the binocs, she could also read the scrolling data. That’s Facility 2333. That’s Garren’s station.
A voice piped over loudspeakers in the control room. “Attack commencing.”
Sweet fuck. We were right. This is the pirate command base. If I take out the whole compound with that detonator Ellerand found, I can put the pirates out of business, too. At least for a while. But why are they attacking the same station again?
What about Charun? She scanned the area she could see, but didn’t recognize him among the other personnel. The surest way to find him was to head to his quarters and wait for him to show up, if he wasn’t already there. Still, it might be useful to remain here a while and try to gather more information.
She glanced at her wrist chron. She was doing all right, time wise. She didn’t have a hard deadline, though the sooner she was out, the better. Morgan was safe in Maruchek’s compound, so there was no reason for her to rush needlessly.
She decided to hang around another five minutes and see if she could overhear anything useful. She set down the binocs and shifted to access the small equipment pouch on her utility belt. She dug for one of the “toys” she’d brought along and removed a tiny case containing a microphone the size of a pinhead at the end of a hair-thin wire attached to an in-ear receiver/recorder. She wasn’t much interested in the automatic recording aspect, just listening real-time to the microphone—much better for distinguishing voices and suppressing background noise than her own ears.
She eased forward, setting the mic close to the vent grill and letting the wire spool out so she could stay deep in the vent. She settled as comfortably as she could in the close confines and tapped the earpiece to turn it on, closing her eyes as the voices in the room amplified in her head.
In the background, she heard doors open and shut, the hum of equipment and the random rattle of keyboards. She concentrated on distinguishing individual voices from the general group, focusing on two or three voices that seemed more authoritative than the others.
“—sandstorm’s still blowing…more hours…send maintenance out, make sure…”
“Probably just cleanup…systems down…”
“—word from New York?”
“Activated our mole…Maruchek girl.”
Morgan! Shaine stiffened and held her breath, wishing she could get more than a few words at a time.
“—reported in. Stupid bitch…dead…the girl was with them…”
The voice over the P.A. announced, “Facility breached. Mann-Maru fighter down. Earth Guard incoming.”
Shaine’s pulse pounded in her ears. What the hell? What had she just heard? Did they have a mole inside Maruchek’s organization? Who was dead? The mole? God, please don’t let it be Morgan! For a moment, all she could hear was the scream inside her head, accusing, furious and self-destructive. You’re too late! You fucked up! You couldn’t save her and she’s already dead! She resisted the need to pound her fist on the floor. Okay, shut up! Think! Get a hold of yourself and think!
What had she overheard and what did she really know? Taking a long breath, she blew it out slowly. There seemed to be two things going on. It appeared obvious that Charun’s fake pirates were attacking a mining facility. She rewound the conversation and listened again. One guy mentioned a mole, but it wasn’t clear where. He also seemed to indicate someone was dead, but it wasn’t clear who. The mole, possibly? They knew about Morgan. But was she okay?
Shaine sighed, frustrated. Staying here wasn’t going to answer her questions, and if Morgan was in danger, she needed to move. She reeled in the tiny mic and returned the recorder to her pouch, grabbed her pad and pulled up the blueprints to review the route to Charun’s quarters. The vent system would get her close to Charun’s suite at the lowest level, but not inside. The last bit she’d need to do in the open.
She studied the path she intended to take and finally put the pad back in her pouch.
There wasn’t enough room for her to turn around, so she snaked backward through the vent—an awkward way to go, but at least it wasn’t far to the junction where she could turn in the right direction.
After negotiating the passage she’d chosen, Shaine wriggled out of a vent in the ceiling and dropped lightly to the floor of a deserted hallway. She took a second to get her bearings before she slipped silently down the corridor. She would have preferred a less obvious route, but there was only one way to reach Charun’s suite.
She stopped at the first junction and listened for a few heartbeats. Nothing. She poked her head around the corner. Empty.
On the upside, traffic seemed nonexistent on this level of the compound, five stories underground. She held her pad in one hand with Ellerand’s favorite jamming program running. The program would momentarily disrupt any video monitors in the hallway. Her free hand moved automatically to the laser pistol at her side, touching the weapon’s grip, but leaving it holstered. She continued down the hallway toward Charun’s quarters.
She noticed a handful of unmarked doors along the way. None showed much use. The keypads and palm scanners at the sides of the doors were unmarred. She turned down several smaller hallways before arriving at the final corridor, which ended with an ornately carved, wood inlaid door with a dark-stained frame. Well, guess this is the place.
She pointed the comp pad scanner at the entrance and got a negative reading. Of course, that only meant there was nobody within about three meters of her position. Damn. I hate being this blind. She pocketed the pad. Removing a lock pick from her pouch, she pressed it against the palm scanner beside the door. She tapped a couple of keys on the device and drew her laser pistol from its holster when the door silently slid open.
Shaine slipped through, pocketing the lock pick as she passed into a short vestibule. The silence around her felt empty. The entryway opened into a formal living room, lit only by dim recessed lighting above the far wall. She padded forward on plush carpeting, practically bouncing on the springy nap. A set of double doors on the side of the living room opened to an expansive office, also lit by recessed lighting.
She peered into the gloom, the pistol held in front of her. She sensed she was alone.
The monstrosity of a desk at the center of the office
had to be nearly three meters long and almost as wide, she thought, and sparsely decorated with a couple of small sculptures, a comp pad, and a com console. An executive chair was positioned behind the desk, dark leather with leopard spots. Bookshelves built into the walls held a handful of books and a wide variety of risqué statuary carefully illuminated in backlit flamboyance.
Shaine rolled her eyes at the erotic sculptures, wondering if Charun fancied himself as well-endowed as some of the statues. Sick bastard.
She glanced around the office, searching out a place to hide while she waited for Charun to arrive. She crossed to a sliding door and opened it, peering into a storage space with what looked like a diagnostic maintenance interface built into one wall, some nearly empty shelves along the back, and just enough room for her to squeeze inside and shut the door.
How clichéd, hiding in a closet. She chuckled and leaned carefully against the shelves behind her, glad they didn’t give way. Settling in to wait, she forced herself to relax, allowing her mind to sync with the quiet around her, learning the sounds—the humming rhythm of the air cyclers and the building’s vague creaking.
Her mind shifted to think about Morgan, wondering how she was doing and if she was all right. She kept running the pieces of conversation she’d overheard through her head, frustrated. If Morgan was in danger, she wasn’t there to do something about it. She shifted on her feet and bit down on a sigh. I hate this. I hate waiting.
She closed her eyes, concentrating on the sounds around her, blocking out the darkness and the questions. With her eyes closed, she found the waiting easier to bear.
Time in the closet passed agonizingly slowly. Two hours. Three. She quit stealing looks at the chron on her wrist. Not only did opening her eyes leave her with spots in her vision, it didn’t make her feel any better. Charun hadn’t shown up. Nobody had. She briefly wondered if Ellerand had been mistaken and nobody even used these quarters. But the room looked at least marginally lived in.
