“Okay Nix,” Ashla said. “Luna is powered up and ready to go. All you have to do is get to your seat. But it might be easier to do so if you shut off the gravity in the pod.”
Nix nodded, though Ashla wouldn’t be able to see it. “Yeah, good idea, doing that now.” After that, there was only one thing left to do.
Nix swallowed again, hard. He took a deep breath, then another. Why did his breathing feel so strained? Why didn’t he feel like he could fill his lungs? Nix shook his head. It had to be his imagination.
“Okay,” he said. He took another few big breaths, then sucked in a huge breath and imagined he was filling his body with air down to his toes. He tapped his link to seal the helmet, then tapped the button to vent the lift cage. His helmet sealed. His link flashed “No O2 Supply.” Nix ignored it, stuck it in his pocket.
The screen flashed a big red message: “Are you sure..?”
Nix gritted his teeth and smacked the “Yes” button. Red lights flashed, and an alarm sounded, muffled by his sealed helmet, and then dying out as the air in the cage vented away. As soon as Nix got a green light he swiped to the next screen and hit the button to open the doors. The gray door opened, this time making no thump. The green door slid a quarter of the way, went cockeyed and stalled.
Nix was about to exhale another forbidden obscenity, then caught himself. Air was on short supply. He tapped the open doors button again. It didn’t budge. He smashed it. Nothing happened. Nix ran to the door and pulled at it with all he had. He began to perspire. It might as well have been welded to the station in that position.
He tried fitting through the gap. He dropped to the floor where the door was open maybe an inch wider than at the top and tried to crawl through, helmet first. To his surprise, his helmet went through with little trouble. It was, after all, one of those close-fitting helmets and didn’t have any extra gadgets attached. His lungs kept asking for air, the temptation to breath became more and more tempting, but he might have two full breaths of air in the helmet if he was lucky. Then he’d be breathing dangerous levels of carbon dioxide.
Pushing, shoving and wiggling he tried turning so his shoulders could fit. Maybe he should have cut the gravity in the lift cage too. As it was he could get his shoulders through but then didn’t have the leverage to push himself through.
He grunted. Sweat continued forming on his face, sticking to his skin like glue.
“Nix? What’s wrong?”
“Door’s stuck. I can’t get through.” Nix gave up on holding his breath. He released the rest of his air in a loud exhale, then sucked in as full a breath as he could. It left him feeling as empty and choked as ever before.
“Hold on! I’m coming!”
“No,” was all Nix could get out before his head started swimming and his vision went narrow and dim.
Chapter Thirty-Four:
To Die is Gain
Cel could manage little more than walking in place. Her cell was blacker than usual with the ceiling lights all turned off. The air was frigid. She guessed it was somewhere around five degrees Celsius and she was sure it wasn’t higher than ten. Her fingers tingled. Her arms shook. At first, she responded by wrapping them around her. She thought about the old childhood trick of pulling her arms into her shirt and hugging herself that way, but her shirt had no sleeves.
Instead she moved her arms again. Bicep curls, overhead presses, rows, chest presses. Under normal circumstances she would often use weights approaching twenty-five kilos. Now, just lifting her hands burned. Likewise, Cel was given to long runs interspersed with fast, powerful sprints. Today she walked.
Her muscles burned and ached. That was a bad sign. She expected a vigorous workout to get her muscles burning. She expected some aching the day after if she missed her regular after-workout vitamins. But burning and aching meant her muscles were maxed out.
On top of that was the weakness from deepening malnutrition. They fed her, but not enough for her to keep up the rigorous routines she needed to avoid severe hypothermia. She was shivering, which, if she recalled her last first-aid course, meant she was still in the zone of mild hypothermia. Her physical activity kept her body heat from dropping too low, but how long could she keep that up?
Not only that, but she was exhausted. She got some sleep in the rare hours where they would turn the heat up to sunburn levels and she would make a controlled fall to the floor and pass out in whatever position she ended up in.
“And you look ridiculous when you do,” Annister said. She stopped walking, stopped flapping her arms and turned towards him. He flashed her that charming, mischievous smile he always used back when they were younger, when she thought she was in love. It didn’t occur to her to wonder why Annister was visible when she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face.
“Not as ridiculous as you did the day you...” She blinked, and he was gone. She looked around but found no one there with her. Annister couldn’t have been there anyways, glowing or not. He was dead.
“Aw, Jin.” If she was hallucinating, she was in big trouble.
It started with her lungs. They jittered, hopped and then sobbed. Then she felt hot wet tears threatening to burst. Cel could remember the last time she had cried. It was perhaps the most vivid memory she had.
She was seven years old. Kuan Mok, a boy in her class had been pushing one of Cel’s friends around and making fun of her. Cel had tried to intervene, first with words, then with actions, and she had failed. Kuan ended up holding her down on the bare floor of their classroom. His hands held her shoulders, his knees her thighs. Once done all he did was laugh, taunt and call her a weakling girl. All the other boys in class laughed along with the vicious glee only children and psychopaths can muster.
Cel wasn’t weak. In fact, aside from her utter humiliation keeping her down there, big hot tears running down her face and pooling on the carpet, she might have pushed Kuan off her.
Eventually the teacher returned from wherever she had been and did it. The rest of the school day was patchy in her memory, but went clear when, after dinner, her father sat her down on his lap.
Andros Numbar was built like a Gorlo. He had huge, broad shoulders, thick arms and legs like the big support columns that ran down the middle of the corridor outside her home. And all of it was muscle, like steel cords running through his body. Cel had gotten her eyes, her hair and most everything else from her mother. But her strength came from Andros.
He didn’t push. He didn’t prod. Her father wrapped his thick, muscled arms around her and said, “Tell me what happened, Celly.” And Cel did, bawling through it all. When she was done Andros replied in his uneducated but deeply wise way.
“Celly. Never be bothered when you find yourself not as strong as someone else. Never be bothered when you’re not as anything as someone else. There’s always somebody stronger, smarter, better. Be bothered when you find yourself lending your strength to the wrong purposes. I would rather fail at doing the right thing, than succeed at doing the wrong thing.”
Seven-year-old Cel thought this over during the next few days and brought her conclusions to her father. “Papa? Wouldn’t you most rather have the strength and do the right thing?”
Andros smiled. “Of course, Celly, but that’s not always the way it works out.” Cel had decided for herself, that she would make it work out for her.
But now here she was. She had succeeded in doing the right thing so far. She had gotten Ashla to safety. But that safety was in growing jeopardy. If Cel gave in, if she gave Anatheret the location, even if Ashla and Dothin had moved on since then, it would give him a huge head start to catch her. But that’s what this prison was for: to drain her will away until she begged to tell him the truth.
Anatheret had been wise. He knew she’d had extensive torture resistance conditioning from the Meritine guard. So instead, he had to play the slow game. Wear her down over time, psychologically. There was no way out. There was no escape. And no one was coming for her or plotting to s
et her free. She was thoroughly alone, making the temptation to give in inexorable.
“Thank you, Cel,” Annister said from behind, “for protecting my girl.”
Cel smashed her fist into the cold floor. “Shut up!” she screamed. “You’re dead!”
“Who’s dead, Ms. Numbar?”
The ceiling flashed to life. Cel cried out in shock and squeezed her eyes shut. Still they felt as if they might burst into flames. She tried blinking to better adjust her eyes to the light, but saw nothing. Instead of being surrounded by a void of darkness she was now surrounded in a void of blinding white light. The temperature in the room rose. The swelter that usually followed the icy cold would be a blessed relief. Instead the heat seemed to settle around room temperature. None of the goons wanted to sweat just to bring her daily meal.
Cel continued blinking and found strange stringy shapes in her vision. She took them to be illusions created by her overworked eyes but they had shape, form and, also, sound. As her eyes adjusted she saw a pair of snakelike metal appendages protruding from the ceiling. Before she could react the two appendages latched onto matching circular shapes in her wrist cuffs. They clicked and locked into place, then retreated towards the ceiling, dragging her upward.
Cel rose to standing but the metal snakes kept pulling. She looked down to her feet and found the same thing happening. A second pair of appendages rose from the ground and then latched to her ankle cuffs. Altogether, the restraints held her up about a half meter from the wall behind her. Her feet were suspended off the floor but she didn’t have the slack to kick her feet out more than a few inches.
Apparently Anatheret had given up on the whole ‘face to the corner thing.’ The wall in front of her opened. In came a pair of MPs followed by the man himself. Tanno Anatheret must have had a month’s supply of black suits, all tailored with slight differences of styling, design and pattern. They all looked like they would cost Cel a year’s salary.
“Welcome to my humble abode, Tanno,” Cel said. Her voice sounded swimmy and uneven to her ears. “I’d make you coffee, but I don’t have a coffeemaker. Well, that and I’m also restrained. Oh, and I’d rather stomp your sawking skull into dust.”
Anatheret smiled. His perfect white teeth shined at her. “Ah, Ms. Numbar. I will never miss your colorful sense of humor. You must have received that from your father, I would guess. Miners are known for crass behavior.”
“Actually,” Cel said, “my father never swore a word in my hearing, and I doubt he did when I wasn’t around either.”
“He must be so proud of you.”
Cel was tired, hurting, exhausted and still shivering. She let Anatheret hurt her. “I know how my father feels about me.”
The minister gave a sarcastic expression. Then he held a hand out to the MP to his right. The MP pulled something from behind his back and handed it to him.
Cel recognized it right away as a customized A-7 heavy particle pistol. Her sidearm. Anatheret lifted it to his eyes, turned and examined it. He lowered the weapon, released the energy cell, then slapped it back in and charged the weapon. Cel’s face must have betrayed some emotion for Anatheret smiled at her.
“Surprised to see this?”
Cel managed a shrug despite her position. “More surprised you know how to use it. I’m sure there’s usually thirty or forty middlemen between you and your dirty work.”
“Is that what you think is happening? You think I’m going to shoot you?”
Cel shrugged again. She was so tired. It was difficult to keep her eyes open, now that she wasn’t fighting hypothermia.
Anatheret shook his head. “Oh no, no, no, Ms. Numbar. Your only way out of here is to give me the information I want. Otherwise you will stay here forever. Even if...” Anatheret babbled on. Cel’s eyelids drooped.
She didn’t realize she had nodded off until a brilliant flash of pain in her face woke her up. An MP stood before her, hand still raised. She blinked the stars away from her sight.
“Rather rude, Ms. Numbar.”
“Sorry,” Cel said. “I’m not getting much sleep lately.”
“Anyway,” Anatheret said, now pacing before her. “What was I saying?”
“Last I heard something about how you’re a pathetic jagbrood coward who will one day die a hilariously horrible death, but not nearly as horrible as you deserve.”
Anatheret sighed. “Well, then, let’s get to business. Bring her in.”
Anatheret stepped aside as a third MP pushed Lita Tarquin into the room. The otherwise groomed and orderly woman was a mess. She was still clothed in her Meritine uniform, though it was cut, bloodied, scorched and wrinkled. A thin red line cut across her left cheek. Her hair was wild and unmanaged. She wore a similar pair of cuffs on her wrists, bound together by a flexible metal cord.
The MP kicked the back of Lita’s leg and she collapsed to her knees. Cel exchanged a look with her that spoke volumes. It said, “I’m sorry you’re in this with me.” It said, “I am proud to have served with you.” It said, “If you die today I’ll honor your memory, and please do the same for me.”
Lita didn’t even blink when Anatheret pushed Cel’s bolter to the back of her head.
“Ms. Numbar,” Tanno said in the same sing-song voice he would have used to discuss the weather. “If you do not tell me the location of Ashla Vares I will kill this woman.”
Cel opened her mouth to speak but he interrupted her. “No more witty jokes, no more pithy remarks. And there’s no use in suggesting you don’t know her or care. I have plenty of video evidence to prove the opposite. The location or she dies.”
Cel squeezed her eyes shut, wished this was just another hallucination. Wished that she was dying in the frigid, void-black cell. When she opened her eyes again she could not hide her desperation.
“Okay. Please. Don’t hurt her.”
“The location.”
“If I do, you will let her go?”
Anatheret sneered. “No, but she will get a fair trial and a warm, dry, maximum-security prison cell. I’m offering life not freedom.”
“Don’t you dare, Cel,” Lita said. “Don’t you dare. My honor before my life.”
Anatheret seemed unfazed by Lita’s words. He held the gun to her head, his finger on the trigger, his eyes boring into Cel’s soul.
Cel lowered her head. “Okay, Anatheret, okay.”
“No, Cel, no! My honor before my life.”
“She’s—”
Lita leapt and spun on Anatheret. A sharp bang filled the room, filling the air with the smell of iron and ozone. A hole erupted in Lita’s back. Cel didn’t know if Anatheret fired in surprise or if Lita forced the trigger.
Lita fell limp. Her body thudded to the floor. Cel screamed. Lita’s eyes blinked, her face a mask of pain.
“Oh well,” Tanno said. “Nothing lost.” Cel lifted her eyes to him. He lifted his link out of the breast pocket of his suit coat and tapped it. Cel could see the Lunar Seed flying. Lodebar Station floated in the background.
Anatheret laughed.
“Why then?” Cel asked.
Anatheret turned and left the cell, flanked by MPs. All of them stepped over Lita like they might a pile of animal wat.
“I know where she’s going!” Cel called. Anatheret didn’t respond. “I know where she’s going. Bring the girl, to help Lita. I’ll tell you where she’s going.”
The wall closed. Cel fell to the floor as the snake-like appendages released her and then retreated into their holes. She crawled over to Lita, put Lita’s head in her arms. “Stay with me.” Hot tears filled her eyes. She didn’t hold them back. She howled at the ceiling, “Bring her and I’ll tell. Please!”
“My...” Lita tried, then coughed.
“Hang in there, Tarquin. Stay with me.”
“My honor before my life.” Lita coughed, then coughed again. Her eyes glazed. Her breathing slowed then stilled.
Chapter Thirty-Five:
Lest You be Swept Away
&
nbsp; “Nix? Nix!”
All that came back was choked grunting. Ashla knew what she had to do. She unbuckled her harness and let the shiny black safety straps float in the zero g. She knew she could get maybe a meter of slack from her O2 tubes, so she lifted herself out of the cockpit, ready to pounce at the crooked door that was holding Nix down while he suffocated.
She took one deep breath then, as fast as she could, pulled the air hose from the back of her helmet and leapt for the door. Ashla had done plenty of breathing and breath-holding exercises as part of her training. It wasn’t something she was good at, but it had helped her to maximize her air supply.
Ashla floated over Luna’s portside wing, grabbed at its edge then pulled to aim herself to the floor. In front of her Nix’s hands were grasping at the deck. He was stuck head and shoulders through the crooked door. She landed on the floor before him, bounced, then grabbed at Nix’s shoulder to stop her from floating away from him. Every second counted.
“It’s okay, Nix,” she said, releasing the minimal amount of air needed. “I got you.”
Nix shook his head. His body was trying to breath, but it was ragged and lifeless. Ashla hooked her hands under his armpits and pulled. She put one foot on the busted door, another on the frame and pulled with all her might. Nix came a foot, then another. Ashla groaned, pulled and the door released Nix. Together, Ashla and Nix flew towards the outer door of the cargo container.
“No!” Ashla looked around, searching for something to grab onto. The wing was too far below her. The cockpit was two meters away. The only way to get to it was to kick off Nix, who was suffocating. “Nix.”
Nix kicked down and caught the edge of the wing with his foot. He hissed but pulled her back from the void. Ashla spied a look at him. His face was a wince of pain and horror. His eyes were squeezed but not shut. The only thing more terrifying than suffocating to death was suffocating to death in the dark.
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