by Rob Boffard
Hannah is about to interject when she stops. She’s not nauseous any more, and the panic feels like a distant memory – like the cockpit is on a different ship to the rest of the Panda.
“Also, sometimes, to make a point, you need a story,” Volkova says. “It’s like putting a foundation under a building. If the foundation is not there, the building falls over. Bang.”
She leans back in her chair. “Your story … it is not good. It’s boring, like mine before I joined the navy. I grew up in an apartment block in Nova Petersburg, and my father planned for me to study accounting. I told him no. I wanted to fly. To make my own story. You’re very young, maybe you haven’t had a chance yet. This is your chance. Build a foundation. Make it strong.”
“But—”
“And this is the point, Guide: sometimes you don’t have a choice. You be the commander, or all the soldiers die. You take the line, you make the decision.”
“But you’re the captain,” Hannah says.
She gets an eyeful of smoke as Volkova exhales. “You’re not listening. OK, so I be the commander. I tell the passengers what to do. Then in an emergency situation, when I have to pilot the ship, they still expect me to give orders. Not good. But if you are the commander …”
She leans in closer, jamming the cigarette back in the corner of her mouth and putting her hands on Hannah’s shoulders.
“You will be fine, da? You can do this. You take care of everything inside the ship, and I—” she gestures out of the viewport. “I will take care of everything outside. We must work together. As long as I am here, we will be safe, and you can do your job. You can command the passengers. Besides,” she says, leaning back and pointing at Hannah’s chest, a sardonic smile on her face. “You’re wearing a red shirt. Commander colours.”
Hannah half smiles, then stops. Something pulls her memory, something she’s sure they talked about in one of her college seminars a couple of years ago. Something about the Battle of Bellatrix.
She almost has it when a sound pierces the cockpit. It’s a warning noise – a muted, high-pitched beeping, something that couldn’t be considered good news in any circumstances. Hannah’s mind immediately leaps to the Colony ship, its orange slashes filling her mind. She scans the window, sure that it’s come back for them, that she’s about to see one of those metal spheres coming right towards them. There’s nothing but the darkened remains of the station, silhouetted by the Neb.
“Captain,” says the AI. “I’m detecting an anomaly in our automatic suppression systems.”
Volkova leans around the pilot’s seat, silencing the alarm, scrolling through screens so fast that Hannah can’t keep track. What she stops at is a ship schematic, a segment flashing bright red.
“Huh,” Volkova mutters.
“What’s happening?” says Hannah.
Volkova tries to smile, can’t quite manage it. “Remember I said you must be the commander?”
Chapter 11
“How the fuck …”
Jack pulls open another cardboard box, not bothering to finish the sentence, staring in glum fury at the plastic-wrapped serviettes inside. He’s on his knees, head bent below the counter. The boxes are stacked under the bar, a dozen of them tightly wedged beneath the countertop, and he’s had to work hard to winkle them out. The two mini-fridges behind him sit empty, the bare shelving visible through the glass doors.
The first box held cans of JamFizz, presumably to fill the fridges behind Jack. Every one after that contained bar supplies: serviettes, extra glasses, those stupid little plastic cocktail olive skewers shaped like miniature rapiers. Jack pulls open another box, pulling at the tape with his bare hands. It bunches and twists, and he has to resist the urge to go in with his teeth.
He gives a final yank and the tape comes free. He flips the box open to find that it contains tiers of napkin rings, each one with the Sigma Destination Tours logo printed on it.
“How the fuck,” he says again, completing the sentence in his head: How the fuck does this place not have anything to drink?
The Red Panda’s bar is below the cockpit, down a set of stairs from the main deck. It’s a narrow room, with a long, scratchy counter running along one side, set a few feet from the wall. There’s a metal basin and a rack of glasses above the two fridges. An icemaker sits alongside the rack, dry and empty.
The stairs are on his left, with a unisex bathroom underneath them. The airlock is opposite the stairs. Although there are a few chairs and tables in the bar, they’re bolted to the floor on the far side, creating a clear path between the stairs and the airlock.
Like the main deck, the bar is lit by grimy fluorescent lights that make Jack think of hospital corridors. He looks around, hoping to spot another stack of boxes he might have missed, knowing he won’t. The whole thing is absurd. Cruel, even. This isn’t a bar. It isn’t worthy of the name. It’s completely unfit for purpose.
Rage overtakes him. Hot, blinding, pointless anger. He upends the box, shaking it, sending napkin rings clattering to the floor. Then he kicks out at them, crushing and snapping them against the surface of the nearest fridge, sweeping others aside with a swing of his arm. The way they scatter, rolling and bouncing across the floor, makes him think of the debris field outside. The thought short-circuits; for a moment, his mind is a complete blank.
When he comes back, he’s astounded to find his face wet. He plucks a tear from below his eye, stares at it like he’s never seen one before. Why the fuck is he crying? For the people on the station? He didn’t know any of them, can’t even remember the name of the PR flunkie who welcomed him off the shuttle.
He puts the heels of his hands over his eyes, makes a helpless groaning sound. As if in response, the hull of Panda creaks, the metal responding to the vacuum. He stares at the bar fridge by its feet, barely noticing the smashed plastic napkin rings.
How thick is the hull on this thing, anyway? A foot? Less? And zero shielding, outside of the thickened gravity well. One little hit, one tiny bit of spinning metal angled just the right way, and the whole damn thing’ll turn itself inside out. Pop.
He needs a drink. There must be something he missed. He starts to rise, then slumps back. Stop torturing yourself. There’s nothing there. A second helpless groan sneaks from his mouth, like steam escaping a pipe.
On some level, he knows the drinking is messing him up. There have been more than a few hangovers where he just wanted to die then and there, where he finally thought the booze would kill him. Weirdly, it wasn’t as horrifying as it should have been – and definitely not when his head felt three times its size and even the dimmest light through the window of his tiny-ass apartment on Europa made a giant bell start ringing inside his skull.
Being dead meant he wouldn’t have to think about what happened in São Paulo, and that was just fine by him. Besides, if you were gonna go, there were worse ways to do it than out of your mind on good whisky. It was the kind of death people remembered.
Oh, it’s a problem. It’s definitely a problem. It’s just that it never really felt like one worth solving. Especially not now, when he’s about to become a casualty in a war that ended ten goddamn years ago. Another chunk of bad luck, to go with the ten thousand or so other chunks that have been piled on him since he left São Paulo. And Hector.
“Can we help you out there, mate?”
Jack looks up to see Brendan O’Hara leaning over the bar. The man’s thick, blocky face is set in a sympathetic frown. His prosthetic hand grips the edge of the bar, and there’s a slight tenting in the sleeve of his jacket from the bulky metal arm. He looks exhausted. Like he hasn’t slept for ten goddamn years.
“Nah,” Jack says, letting out a disgusted breath. “Not unless you know where they stash the single malt.”
“Course. Got it right here, along with celery and hot sauce for a couple of Bloody Marys.”
Jack blinks at him. The guy’s making jokes? Now? Then again, why the hell not?
Brendan reaches out
his real hand – it’s the size of a catcher’s mitt, big as the rest of him, the skin ever so slightly rough – and pulls Jack to his feet. “Bartender’s lucky he wasn’t working today,” Jack says, dusting himself off. “I’d have something to say about the no-booze policy, believe me.”
“Not sure I’d use the word lucky,” Seema mutters. She’s behind Brendan, staring at the airlock with a blank expression. She’s undone her ponytail, the hair tie wrapped around one of her fingers, jacket off.
Jack winces. “Oh yeah. Shit. Fair point.”
He leans on the bar, arms akimbo, his fingers fanned across the grimy plastic surface. He still isn’t entirely sure why Brendan agreed with him so quickly upstairs – he’s not used to having people agree with him, something which he’s perversely proud of.
Still, if they want to hang out down here, in this shitty little bar, fine by him. Better them than the damn tour guide, or that other woman. The political consultant with the useless husband and the two rugrats. Better here than up there, with a big, wide window onto the shit-show outside. Without wanting to, he pictures the station’s PR person, a perky woman with green bangs and an expensive smile.
“S’alright.” Seema takes a shaky breath. She looks pale, and frightened. “What is there to drink?”
“JamFizz. Think I saw some fruit juice, too.”
Seema walks over. Up close, Jack can see that she’s strong – not built like Brendan, but the arms under her tight green T-shirt are thick and muscular. She’s got a tattoo on her left bicep: a band of thorny branches, circling it. It’s one of those tats with LED ink, making the green branches glow ever so slightly against her dark skin. “I’ll take a JamFizz, please,” she says.
There’s a moment where Jack thinks about rationing, about saving what they have. Then he decides: fuck it.
“No ice,” he says, reaching behind him. “Got some soychips if you want.”
Seema grimaces. “Any nuts?”
“Sure. I keep ’em right by the prime rib.”
A tired smirk makes its way across Brendan’s face. “JamFizz for me, too, cheers.”
Jack digs out three cans, then manages to find three clean glasses. The nuclear-orange JamFizz hisses as he pours it, white foam whooshing up the sides of the glass. Vaguely, he remembers that they don’t sell it on Earth any more. Something about sugar. Not that it matters now.
The three of them clink glasses and drink deep. The drink barely satisfies Jack at all – like flicking water at a four-alarm fire. When they finish, none of them say anything. Jack meets Brendan’s eyes for a moment, can’t hold them. Maybe they should have made a real toast, said something to commemorate the … the people who …
That blankness threatens his mind again. He pushes it away, although he can’t help but look down at the napkin rings, smashed and broken by his feet.
The silence is way too awkward. “So how’d you two end up here?” he says.
Seema waggles her left hand, flashing her wedding ring, and Jack shakes his head. “Sorry. Honeymoon, right?”
“Family clubbed together and bought us this trip,” says Brendan. “We didn’t want to leave the little one behind, but you know how it is with newborns. They thought we could use the R&R.”
Jack looks between them. “Little one?”
“Marcus.” Seema looks down, and it takes her a little too long to form her next words. “He’s four months.”
“You know, you can plan as much as you want,” Brendan says, sounding as if he’s forcing the cheer into his voice at gunpoint. “But life gets in the way. Not sure what went wrong. Or right, I suppose.”
“We were engaged anyway,” says Seema. “So after Marcus was born we thought … well, why not? And then my parents offered to look after him for a while so we could see the Neb.”
“Seems is an artist,” Brendan says, glancing at his wife. “She wanted to take some photos.”
Jack grunts, and takes a swig of JamFizz. “You guys from Earth?”
“Yeah. London.”
“Huh. Really.” Distantly, he wonders what the hell he’s doing. Making small talk, when the entire universe just exploded. “Thought it was pretty tough to live there after the sea levels … you know.”
“Nah. London’s been through plenty worse. Thames is just a bit bigger now, is all.”
The Thames. Jack never did get to London before he moved out to Europa – North and South America, that was it, with a couple of weekends in the Mexican Archipelago that he can’t really remember. Not that it matters now. Even before this whole thing went down, he was never going back to Earth. Fuck it. Useless planet, anyway. When you think about it, not hard to see why the Colonies didn’t exactly feel keen to send back their resources.
“Planning to move out to Titan after we get back, though,” Brendan says. “Already put a down payment on a nice little place.”
“What about you?” Jack asks him. “What do you do?”
“Her assistant, believe it or not.” Brendan nods at Seema, who gives a wan smile. “She’s a terrific artist, but she just hasn’t got a head for business. That’s what I did, back in the land of the living – data research. When her stuff started taking off, we decided that I should step in to run things.”
“Is that why we haven’t been paid from the last commission yet, Pooka?” Seema says, taking a sip of her JamFizz. Her tone is light, but her hand is shaking, just a little.
He raises an eyebrow. “Pooka?”
“Silly nickname.” Brendan wraps his fingers around his wife’s. “On the contrary, my cushla, they made payment just before we left.”
Jack has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He’s always hated cute couple names. He takes another sip of his drink, then puts it down, disgusted. He can still taste stomach acid in the back of his throat from when he threw up.
His gaze lands on Brendan’s arm, the metal hand flat against Seema’s back. The fingers are unusually long – a good inch beyond those on the man’s other hand. His wedding ring, a thin gold band, is much larger than a regular one. Thicker, too, and –
“Seen something interesting?” Seema says. When Jack looks up, he sees a dark, almost hostile look on her face.
“Oh, come off it, Seems,” says Brendan. “He’s just looking.”
Seema’s expression immediately dissolves. She composes herself. “Sorry. People stare sometimes. It’s rude.”
“I really don’t mind that much.” Brendan squeezes her shoulder. Then he lifts the arm, turning the palm face up. In the quiet bar, the servos sound a little too loud.
“Motorbike accident,” he tells Jack, looking a little less haunted than before. “Was doing a race on a trip to Mars when I came off on a hairpin. Nasty business. I was in hospital for …”
He stops when he realises that Seema is crying.
She lowers the glass to the bar, setting it down gently. Then she buries her face in her hands, shoulders heaving silently. For a second, Brendan looks utterly defeated – like he’s shrunk a whole foot in size. He reaches out for his wife, pulling her into an awkward hug. She still hasn’t made a sound.
Jack hates it when this happens. Everything he wants to say always feels like the wrong thing. All the same, he can’t even imagine what it must be like. At least the family upstairs is together. Seema and Brendan’s kid – Martin? No, Marcus – won’t even know what happened to his mom and dad.
After a few moments, Seema pulls away from Brendan. Her skin is puffy from crying, her eyes red.
“Ignore me,” she tells Jack. “I’m just … struggling a little.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
But looking at her makes him think of London. Hadn’t he watched something about it a little while back? How the floodwaters had got everywhere, dissolving the foundations. All those monuments and old buildings looked strong on top, but underneath they were crumbling.
“Anyway, how about you?” Brendan asks, as if nothing had happened. “How’d you land up on this plea
sure cruise?”
“Nothing as interesting as your story. I’m a hotel reviewer. For the Europa Central feed.”
“A hotel re—” Brendan’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Jack forces himself to drain his JamFizz, idly spins the can on the bar. Weirdly, he feels a little better. And Brendan and Seema aren’t bad – or at least, they’re not nearly as annoying as the other people on this particular pleasure cruise.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” Seema says, wiping her nose as she glances at the airlock.
“Not long, I reckon,” Brendan replies. “Not once they figure out no ships are coming back through the jump gate. I say a day. Maybe less. We stay here, we’ll be fine.” He grips his wife’s hand even tighter. “We’re the lucky ones, right? We survived.”
“Yeah,” Jack says bitterly. “It’s a miracle.”
Silence. He realises Seema is looking at him.
“What do you mean?” she says.
Jack frowns. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“You just called it a miracle.”
“Yeah, it’s a figure of speech. So what?”
“What are you on about, Seems?” says Brendan.
But Seema’s shakiness is vanishing now. She leans on the bar, arms folded. She looks, to Jack, like someone who’s just been told that there really is a way to break out of the jail that everyone said was impossible to escape from. It’s the same determination Jack saw when she gave him shit about staring at Brendan’s arm – steely, on edge, hostile.
Seema, he’s starting to realise, is strung up tighter than a model on one of the live bondage channels he sometimes signs on to. Not that he’s surprised. She’s a mom, and she’s a long, long way from her kid. They both are. It’s kind of surprising that Brendan still has enough energy left to crack jokes.
“Don’t you think it’s a little weird that we’re the only ship that survived?” Seema says. “Like, from the whole station, only one ship makes it out?”
“Come off it,” Brendan says again. “We might not be the only ones. There might be others.”
