Impact

by Rob Boffard

  I’d give anything to have Harlan and Eric here. The seaplane could give us a way out. But thinking about them hurts too much, and I make myself stop. Even if they’re alive, they have no way of knowing what’s happening on the ship.

  Ahead of us, the corridor opens up into a mezzanine level, with railings on the left. I can see a set of stairs leading down from the railings a few feet into the room, but it’s only when we sprint through the entrance that we see what’s in there.

  It’s some kind of storage hangar. Planes–the same as the ones on the ship’s deck–are parked wingtip to wingtip, with their noses angled diagonally towards us. Close-up, they’re enormous, at least fifty feet long, with cockpits like huge eyes. Puddles of old oil and grimy tyre tracks dot the floor beneath them. Huge rolling pallets rest up against the plane wheels.

  There’s an enormous roller door on the far wall of the hangar; it’s hard to imagine these planes flying in here, so there must be an elevator platform beyond it, something to get them to the deck. The railing on my left has a thick coating of dust on it, and the whole place looks like it hasn’t been touched in years.

  “Over there,” says Koji, pointing. I can make out the opposite end of the hangar, six planes away. It’s identical to ours, with its own mezzanine.

  “That get us to the boats?” says one of the workers. It’s the woman who was trying to lock the door–somehow, she survived the assault. Even scored herself a rifle.

  “Quickest way,” Koji says, resting his hand on the railing. “Once we get there, we need to—”

  The bullet ricochets off the railing next to his hand, burying itself in the wall. Another goes wide, pinging off the wall below us. The workers scatter. The woman with the rifle tries to fire back, then hurls it away when nothing happens.

  I can see figures running across the floor, using the planes as cover. There’s nowhere for us to hide–not up here, exposed, with nothing but railings between us and guards. Carver and I share a split-second glance, then in one movement, he and I hurdle the railing, bringing our legs up to our chests. We land on the closest wing with an enormous bang, hitting it so hard that the plane rocks in place, tilting on its three wheels.

  They want to use the planes as cover? Then so will we.

  The jump to the wing wasn’t high enough to need a roll. I take a second to catch my balance, centring myself on the metal surface. Then I take off, sprinting up the plane’s body. There was no time to explain what we were doing to Koji and the other workers. I look back over my shoulder, and, as I do so, I hear the voice in my mind again, speaking the same words it did when Harlan and I were hanging off that cliff near Whitehorse. Leave them. They’ll just slow you down.

  But Koji has already jumped, crashing onto the wing, sending shock waves through the metal. Two of the others follow. I keep moving, pushing into a full sprint, leaping over the plane’s body. The gap between the first and the second plane is no more than five feet, and I land easily, momentum carrying me forward. I see a guard, his face hidden by the body of his rifle, and only just leap across to the third plane when he fires.

  The bullet passes above me, but I can’t stop myself ducking. The movement pushes me off balance, and it happens right when I hurdle the plane’s body. I land awkwardly, try to correct it, nearly manage, and then my feet tangle and I crash onto my side onto the third plane’s wing.

  At the last second, I turn my body so I’m sliding feet first. It’s just enough. I tuck my body as I come off the wing, rolling, smacking my shoulder on the floor. But the momentum’s on my side now, and I use it, angling my body forward as I come up to my feet, going from a roll to a sprint in half a second. Somewhere, deep inside me, my heart is pounding hard enough to shatter my ribcage.

  Another gunshot. No telling where the round went, or where any of the others are. I start zigzagging–it slows me down, but that’s better than a bullet in the back. There aren’t any guards on the floor in front of me, and I don’t dare risk looking over my shoulder.

  I spread the zigzag, sprinting between cover on the floor, using the tool pallets and wheel struts as cover. I’m at the fifth plane when one of the guards, smarter than the others or maybe just more controlled, gets a real bead on me.

  He must have been tracking my movements, looking for where I’m going to be instead of where I am. I dive, skidding on my stomach across the floor into cover, just as the space above me fills itself with gunfire.

  “Riley!”

  Carver has made it to the other end of the hangar. He’s got hold of one of the wheeled pallets, and is pushing it towards me, using it as mobile cover. I flatten myself to the floor, crawling towards him. We meet at the edge of the fifth plane, and I squirm into position behind the box. There’s no telling where Koji is–he could be on the planes, or he could be bleeding out somewhere.

  “I’ll go left, you go right,” I say to Carver. “Now!”

  Open floor. Gunfire. Shouts. Stairs. Railings. Mezzanines. Stumbling. Almost falling. Running. Koji has made it–he’s standing in the door, waving us in. I get there half a second before Carver, skidding into the passage, and then Koji slams the door shut. He and Carver spin the valve, locking it tight.

  The noise from the plane hangar vanishes, replaced by the thrumming sound of the ship. Carver leans against the wall, breathing hard. Koji looks like he’s about to throw up–his face is ash-grey.

  “What about the others?” Carver asks.

  He shakes his head, and Carver kicks the corridor wall in a fury.

  The corridor we’re in is wider than the others. It’s a hub, with several other passages branching off from it. The choking smell of gunpowder has made it out here, and I can see dust motes caught in the light from the bulbs in the ceiling.

  “We need to keep moving,” I say, turning to go. “We don’t know if they can open the door from the other—”

  The guard is fifteen feet away, calm and ready, squinting down the barrel of a rifle. It’s pointing right at me, and I can see him starting to squeeze the trigger.

  I can’t close the distance between us. Not fifteen feet, not before he squeezes the trigger. I don’t have a single thing I could use as a weapon.

  Then I see Prakesh, sprinting out of one of the side passages.

  He’s wearing a ragged pair of overalls, identical to Carver’s, and there’s blood streaming down his face from a cut below his eye. He looks exhausted and terrified but in that instant I don’t care because he’s alive.

  I see him look towards me, see the disbelief on his face, see his mouth start to form words.

  I see the guard’s surprise, see him swing his gun around, hunting for the movement.

  I don’t see him pull the trigger. But I hear the shot. And I see Prakesh stumble, his hands reaching out towards me. Then he’s on the ground and I can see blood and all I can do is scream.

  71

  Riley

  Carver crosses the fifteen feet in an instant, driving a fist into the guard’s face.

  The man crumples, his legs collapsing under him, his gun clattering to the floor. I barely notice. I’m already past Carver, skidding to my knees next to Prakesh.

  I can’t see the bullet hole. There’s too much blood. Prakesh looks at me–there’s a momentary flare of recognition, and then his eyes close, and they don’t open again.

  I fumble for his hand, gripping it hard, willing him to squeeze back. Nothing. I can hear footsteps around me, more than just Carver and Koji, and the corridor is suddenly filled with voices. But I can’t look up. Carver has his hands on Prakesh’s chest, hunting for the wound, trying to put pressure on it.

  And that’s when the voice inside me speaks.

  I don’t want to listen. But the voice is everywhere now, filling me with white-hot light, the anger burning away everything else.

  This isn’t just about the man who shot him, it says. It isn’t about the people on this ship. It’s about the chain of events that led you here, to this exact spot. There’s
someone at the start of that chain of events. She’s responsible–for everything. And it’s time for her to pay. Not tomorrow. Not later on. Now.

  Slowly, I get to my feet.

  “Riley, what are you doing?” Carver says. I glance down at him. His arms are red from fingertips to elbows, pushing down on Prakesh’s chest. I should help him. Prakesh is dying in front of me, and I’m standing here, just looking at him.

  You can’t save him. Just like you couldn’t save Amira, or your father, or Royo or Kev or Yao. You can’t save anyone. The only thing you can do is avenge them.

  The corridor is packed with people. Three of them are locked in an argument with Koji. The others are in a loose circle around us–other workers, wearing the same threadbare overalls. I recognise some of them as the ones who followed us from the generator room, but there are others I haven’t seen before. The new arrivals have guns, rifles that they must have taken from the guards. And they’ve got supplies: containers of fuel, food, water canteens, as if they grabbed whatever they could on their way here.

  I look past them, and that’s when I find the source of the strange feeling: the déjà vu I had when I first arrived on the ship.

  I know these corridors. I’ve spent my entire life moving through ones just like them, using their walls and ceilings and angles and obstacles to craft the fastest, most efficient routes. That’s what I do. I’m a tracer–nothing more, nothing less.

  I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. The guards might run this place, they might have weapons and they might have numbers. But in this environment? In this warren of corridors and right angles and hard surfaces? I’m in control. I am the single most dangerous person on this ship.

  “Ry, you have to help me,” Carver says.

  “Get him out of here,” I say. My voice is as calm as still water. “Get to the boats, get off the ship. Keep him safe.”

  And before anyone can say anything, I start running.

  72

  Prakesh

  Everything comes in flashes.

  Prakesh is awake, being dragged down one of the Ramona’s corridors. Something is wrong with his chest. It’s like his ribs is made of hot coals. Every time he tries to breathe, they flare up, searing him with impossible pain. He can hear someone screaming. By the time he realises it’s him, he’s falling back into darkness.

  Another flash. He’s outside, looking at the sky. No: not quite outside. The hull of the Ramona curves above him, a black mass blotting out the clouds. He’s in one of the ovular entrances in the ship’s side, lying on his back.

  “How many boats down there?” It’s Carver’s voice. He’s alive.

  “Three. Should be enough for us and the supplies both,” says someone else.

  He saw Riley. He’s sure of it. Where is she? Is she here? He tries to speak, but he can’t get enough air into his lungs. He was shot. Why was he shot? He was on his way to find the other workers, to stop them from…

  He doesn’t know. He almost has it, but holding onto the memory is almost impossible.

  Carver appears, leaning into view above Prakesh, arguing with one of the workers. His arms are soaked in blood, streaked up to the elbows. Dimly, Prakesh realises that it’s his blood.

  “You did what?” Carver is staring at the man, his eyes wide.

  “There’s enough time,” the worker says. Sweat is pouring down his face, and a cut on his cheek spills blood down his jawline. “We put down a long trail of fuel. It’ll take a while to really catch.”

  “No way,” Carver says, jabbing a finger at the ceiling. “Riley’s still up there. I’m not leaving without her.”

  “Fine,” the man says. “Then stay. But we can’t come back for you.”

  Carver turns away, on the verge of leaving. Prakesh struggles to speak, desperate to remember. But it’s too much effort, and he feels his eyes starting to close again.

  HAARP.

  Prakesh’s eyes fly open. He has to find a way to tell them. If they let that fuel catch, the detonation will sink the ship. There’s got to be a way to stop it.

  His throat is dry as old bone. He tries again, and this time sound escapes. It’s a moan, low and weak, but it’s enough. Carver looks down at him, just for a second.

  Please, Prakesh thinks. And somehow, he finds the strength to form words.

  “HAARP,” he says. It’s a rough bark, barely a word.

  “You’re going to be OK,” Carver says, squeezing his shoulder. He’s getting ready to leave.

  “HAARP,” Prakesh says again.

  This time, his voice is stronger. Carver glances at him again, and there must be something on Prakesh’s face, because he drops to one knee next to him, concern on his face. “What’s that?”

  “There’s a HAARP,” Prakesh says. He tries to keep going, but his voice gives out, and he coughs. Pain envelopes him, and he blinks away hot tears.

  “A what?”

  Prakesh doesn’t have much left. He can already feel himself slipping back into unconsciousness. He gives it one last try. “There’s a HAARP unit,” he says. “On this ship. Climate control. Weather. You can’t let it burn.”

  It’ll have to be enough. There’s nothing left.

  “What the hell is—” Carver says, and stops. His eyes go huge.

  It was all Prakesh could do to provide the information he did, but he can see that Carver has put it all together. He understands. They’re both scientists. He grows things, and Carver builds things, but they still come from the same place.

  The worker appears in Prakesh’s field of vision. “What’s he saying?”

  “You stupid, stupid son of a bitch.” Carver rockets to his feet, so suddenly that the man has to jump back. “This ship–it’s got bulkhead doors, right? Where’s the closest door to the fuel stash?”

  “Door 6 on C deck, I think, but—”

  “How do I close them? Tell me.”

  Good, Prakesh thinks. That’s good.

  And he sinks into oblivion.

  73

  Riley

  The fastest a human being can run is twenty-six miles an hour. Thirty-eight feet per second.

  Back on Outer Earth, the other Devil Dancers and I used to argue about whether anybody would ever break that record. I was sure someone would do it someday, even hoped I might do it myself. Yao and Carver insisted that it was impossible.

  I don’t know how fast I’m going. But right now, it feels like I’ve taken that record and doubled it. Tripled it. My legs are a blur. White-hot fury is exploding through me, acting like rocket fuel, propelling me through the corridors.

  I have never moved this fast, or this cleanly. There’s a T-junction ahead of me, and I barely slow down, leaping towards the wall, hardly aware of my own movements. I use my left foot to cushion the impact, then push myself to the side, zero momentum lost, the air roaring in my ears, my heart thundering in my chest.

  It doesn’t matter that I don’t know the way. I just have to keep moving upwards, to the bridge. Okwembu will still be there. I’m sure of it. It’s the safest place on the ship. It’ll be heavily guarded, but I can figure that out when I get there. Right now, I feel like I could blow past them before they even raise their weapons.

  I fly up a stairway, my feet hammering on the steps, four at a time. The anger inside me, the sheer rage, is like a miniature fusion reactor all on its own. An endless source of energy.

  Two guards appear in the corridor, running towards me, guns up. One fires just as I jump, and the bullet scorches the air on my right as I jump towards the wall. I use the tic-tac to push myself higher, scalp scraping the ceiling, foot landing on the opposite wall, then pushing off again and driving my knee into the first one’s face. I roll over him, taking out the second guard at the knees, and all the while the voice inside me is screaming. Faster. Go faster.

  My lungs are burning, but I take that burn and use it, pushing myself harder. At one point, the access to the level above me is gone, the stairs ripped out. I don’t even slow
down. I angle my run and tic-tac off the wall again, grabbing the ledge, ignoring the jagged metal biting into my skin. The momentum I have swings my body, and I pull it back, using it to launch myself upwards. I get an elbow on the ledge, then two, and then I’m up and running.

  There’s an entrance ahead of me, like the one leading into the generator room. The room beyond it is flooded with natural light–there’s an opening in the wall on my right, another rectangular entrance port. The hangar itself is empty, an open space big enough to hold another six planes. I lean into the run, pushing myself harder. Okwembu can’t be far, two more levels, then—

  The door at the far end starts to slide open. It’s big and heavy, moving on screeching metal rollers. There are shapes behind it in the darkness. Guards.

  There’s half a second when I think about running towards them. But even at the speed I’m moving, I won’t reach it before the guards burst through. They can blanket the hangar with gunfire. I can’t dodge bullets, no matter how fast I’m going.

  I skid to a halt, back-pedalling, then lunge for the only cover I can see: the rectangular opening. I stop myself just in time, my foot skidding over the edge. There’s nothing below me but cold sea. I can see Fire Island in the distance, dark and brooding under the cloudy sky.

  The frame of the door is two feet wide–just enough to hide my body. I’m cursing the loss of momentum, but the anger is quickly replaced by fear. There’s nowhere else to go. I can hear them, moving across the hangar, and I can tell by their voices that it’s a big group of them. And then I realise–they’re not sweeping through the hangar. They’re heading towards the opening. I sneak a look, just peeking my head around the side of the frame. They’re coming right towards me, guns low.