The Belt: The Complete Trilogy

by Gerald M. Kilby

  Goodchild and Olaf were holding onto Bezzio, who appeared unconscious. “You go ahead—I’ll bring Bezzio.”

  Goodchild gave a nod; she looked to be in too much shock to speak.

  “Don’t worry,” said Scott, “we’ll be out of here soon.”

  They piled into Miranda’s shuttle as she made a beeline for the pilot’s seat and strapped herself in. “Okay, everybody buckle up. We’re getting the hell outta here.”

  “Wait!” Scott was floating by the airlock, looking back down the tunnel.

  “What?” Miranda sounded angry.

  “Some of those bodies were Dogg’s crew.”

  “Yeah, I think they were trying to do a runner,” said Cyrus.

  “With Aria?”

  Cyrus gave him a look. “Probably. Maybe they thought they didn’t need Tiber after all.”

  “Scott, close the goddamn airlock. We gotta go,” Miranda shouted.

  He looked back out the airlock tunnel again. “Just wait, Miranda. I’m going to check Dogg’s shuttle.”

  “What?! No, Scott—we don’t have time.”

  “Well make time, then.” He pushed off into the tunnel.

  “Shit, shit, shit. Has he gone crazy? Why is he so infatuated with that QI?” Miranda was definitely pissed off now.

  Cyrus unstrapped himself from the seat. “I’m going after him.”

  “Cyrus, no.”

  But he was already out and down the tunnel. “Scott, hold up! I’m coming with you.”

  Scott slowed himself down and turned around. “No, Cyrus. I can do this.”

  But Cyrus was moving toward him with speed. “Sure you can. And believe me, I’d rather not be doing this either, but who’s going to watch your back?”

  Scott smiled. “Come on, then.”

  Ahead of him he could see that the airlock door to Dogg’s shuttle was wide open. He pulled himself forward as fast as he could and went sailing straight into the cargo hold. There, strapped to the shuttle floor, was Aria’s core. He came to a stop beside it, and Cyrus coasted to a halt just inside the door.

  Scott looked over at him. “Told you we’d find it here.”

  “Great. Now let’s get it out of here quick, before Tiber’s men arrive.”

  “I don’t believe it. How are you guys still alive?”

  Scott swiveled his head and looked straight at Dogg. He was slumped against the cockpit bulkhead, his upper torso burned and charred, his face streaked with blood. He leveled a plasma weapon in Scott’s direction.

  “Hey, Dogg. Easy now. It’s over, okay?”

  “It’s not over, you miserable bastards. I should have killed you back at the research station. But no, I got stupid. Thought I’d be nice and let you die slow. Well, no more.” He fired.

  But his aim was way off, and the bolt hit the back wall of the cargo hold in a blinding flash of searing plasma. He fired off a second shot, but it, too, missed its target.

  Scott now found himself tumbling backward, out of control. He grabbed hold of a handle to break his momentum when a third shot exploded, but this time it was Cyrus who had fired. His aim was true, and a burning blue ball of plasma slammed into Dogg’s face. His head exploded.

  Scott felt something splatter on his cheek.

  “Ho-ly crap.” Cyrus looked at his weapon. “What the hell is this thing?”

  “Who cares.” Scott wiped the spatters off his face. “I’m just glad you decided to watch my back.”

  “My pleasure. Now can we please get out of here?”

  Scott was already unstrapping Aria’s core and moving it off the shuttle floor. He looked up though the open airlock and down the access tunnel just as two mercenaries floated into view from the docking bay. Unfortunately, they saw him, too.

  “Shit. Cyrus, close the door! Close the door.”

  “Wha…” A plasma bolt hit the side wall of the tunnel. Cyrus reacted quickly and shut the door, spinning the locking wheel just as another bolt hit the far side. He jolted back. “We’re too late—they’ve broken through.”

  Scott was moving toward the cockpit, past the headless Dogg. “Let’s detach and hope this bucket can still fly.”

  Cyrus floated into a seat and started working the controls. The console came to life just as another plasma bolt hit the airlock door.

  “What about Miranda and the others?”

  “They’ll be okay. We need to look after ourselves.” Scott felt a thump as the shuttle detached from the station. It drifted in space for a moment as Cyrus tried to prime the engine. Another bolt hit the shuttle. “Where did that come from?”

  “Look.” Scott pointed out the window. The craft was twisting as it drifted and the docking bay came into view. “Miranda’s detached.” He could see her craft power up its engines and move out from the station. “They got away.”

  Another bolt hit the hull. “What the…?”

  “Tiber’s men are outside in EVA suits, firing at us,” said Scott.

  The engines finally burst to life, and they were flung back in their seats. Several more bursts of fire hit the craft, and the engine faltered, then died.

  “Damnit, we’ve lost power. No, no.” Cyrus scanned the console readouts.

  “Can we get it back?”

  “What the heck do think I’m trying to do?” His hands worked the controls at a frantic pace. “Come on, you tin bastard. Fire.” He slammed his fists on the console, and the engines fired again.

  Scott looked over at him. “Good work. Now let’s get back to Miranda’s ship.”

  Cyrus didn’t reply; he seemed focused on some readouts on the console.

  “What is it?” asked Scott.

  “Eh… that might not be an option.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve lost steerage. I can’t change course.”

  “Great.” Scott stared out the window. In front of them was the SN-Alpha asteroid—one hundred kilometers in diameter. “Cyrus, we really need to change direction.” He pointed out the window.

  “Oh gee, really? You don’t say.”

  The main engine died again. “No, no.” Cyrus slammed a fist on the console, but the engines remained dead.

  A proximity alert bleeped, and Scott tapped an icon on his display. “We’ve got company.”

  “Miranda?”

  “Nope. It’s Tiber’s shuttle.”

  “Do me a favor, Scott.”

  “Sure, anything.”

  “Just shut up.”

  “Okay.”

  22

  Crash Landing

  As the shuttle hurtled toward the asteroid, Cyrus tried desperately to get some control back. Scott didn’t want to distract him from trying to save their asses, so he started investigating the cargo hold. He was hoping to find some serviceable EVA suits. Seeing as how they were more than likely going to crash, being encased in an EVA suit might make the difference between life and death.

  He started opening lockers and checking storage compartments. “Bonus. We’re in luck, Cyrus.” He glanced over at the engineer, who gave him a disgruntled look. “Okay, maybe that’s a poor choice of words. But there look to be three suits here.” He started to check them out to see if they were functional.

  There was a sudden change in the shuttle’s momentum, and Scott grabbed a handle to steady himself. Cyrus called over to him. “We’ve got retro-thrusters, so I’m slowing us down, and hopefully narrowing our angle of descent.”

  Scott floated back to his seat, this time wearing a very battered EVA suit. He brought another one with him. “There you go. Looks like it’s got enough resources for around an hour.” He nodded at the suit he had dragged up for Cyrus. “This one is about the same.”

  Cyrus adjusted some controls and unstrapped himself from the seat. “Try not touch anything.”

  Scott raised his hands. “I’ll try.” He glanced down at the main monitor. It showed their position in space, set for a radius of around a thousand kilometers, in a kind of simulated 3D. Ahead of them was the asteroid SN
-Alpha, a hunk of dust and rock. The screen projected their track through space; he could see that Cyrus was trying to reduce the angle at which they would hit so that they would skim across the surface rather than impact it directly. He could also see the flashing marker signifying Tiber’s shuttle, which was approximately ten or fifteen minutes behind them.

  He reached over and tapped an icon to zoom out a bit, and a new marker started blinking.

  “Cyrus, look at this.”

  By now the engineer had finished encasing himself in the EVA suit, and floated back to his seat. “What is it?”

  “The Perceptionp. It’s chasing us down—moving fast, too.”

  They looked at the blinking markers for a second or two. “She must have returned to it after detaching from the station. What’s she up to?”

  “Hard to know, Cyrus. But it looks quite a distance away, and it can’t land.” Scott didn’t say it to Cyrus—he knew the score just as much as Scott did—but they first needed to survive the landing. If they were still alive after that, then there was the minor matter of Tiber’s shuttle landing after them and probably disgorging a small army of mercenaries to retrieve Aria’s core. There really wasn’t much Scott and Cyrus could do. Even if the Perception entered orbit and Miranda descended in the shuttle, what could she do other that maybe scrape their bodies off the surface of the asteroid?

  “Better buckle up.” Cyrus shifted in his seat. “Time to crash.”

  Through the front window, Scott could see the dark, rocky terrain of the asteroid racing beneath them. Cyrus had managed to narrow the angle, but they were still moving fast—too fast.

  “Try to pick somewhere soft.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “We seem to be making a habit of crashing into asteroids.”

  “Yeah, maybe we should make it into a hobby.”

  Scott laughed. “Or a business. You know, charge an entrance fee.”

  Cyrus reached for his helmet and slotted it over his head. Scott did likewise. “Ready?”

  “Are you seriously asking me that?”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  With that, the retro-thrusters fired, and they were slammed forward against the seat harnesses. The shuttle dropped suddenly, and the gray, dusty surface was noticeably closer, speeding beneath them in a blur.

  “Hang on.” Cyrus ignited another retro burn, and again Scott felt the seat harness cut into the thick EVA suit as it strained to hold him in position.

  “Cyrus!” He pointed out the window at a fast-approaching rocky outcrop. He gritted his teeth as the shuttle grazed a sharp pinnacle. The craft juddered and began to drift sideways as it scythed its way down toward a dusty crater. It hit the surface sideways, sliding along for a second or two before bouncing free again. Scott lost all orientation, and the outside world spun and twisted out the front window. They bounced several more times, and Scott thought it would never end. When it did, the nose of the shuttle had gouged out a trough in the dusty regolith and buried itself deep in the ground.

  Scott blacked out.

  When he came to, the cabin was dark, lit only by the eerie illumination of the console displays. Alerts flashed and beeped, and there was nothing to see through the front window except blackness.

  “Cyrus?” He reached over and shook the engineer’s shoulder. “Are you still with me?”

  Cyrus’s head lifted, and he groaned. “Yeah, still breathing.”

  “We’ve got a hull breach. We’re losing atmosphere.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Scott examined the readouts. “Looks like we’ve got around fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll make a note of that.”

  Scott undid the harness, clambered out of his seat, and checked on Aria. The core was still strapped down and looked unharmed by the impact.

  “So, what now?” Cyrus was checking the console display.

  “Try to hold out as long as possible, I suppose.”

  “Okay, the good news—if you could call it that—is we still have electrical power, so we won’t freeze to death just yet.”

  Scott clambered back into the seat. “Can we still see our position?”

  “Negative.”

  “Comms?”

  “Same—no joy. However, I think we still have one or two of the exterior docking cameras working.” Cyrus tapped some icons and a dark, grainy image of the exterior surface materialized on the main monitor. He panned it around the desolate, dusty crater.

  “There.” Scott pointed at a bright orange tail high up over the edge of the crater. That’s them.”

  They watched in silence as the shuttle slowly came into focus, fired its thrusters, and came to a stationary hover a few hundred meters away. It gently lowered itself onto the surface in a cloud of dust. For a few moments nothing happened, and then out of the fog several mercenaries emerged like ghosts.

  “We’d better get ready.” Scott grabbed his weapon and checked it. Cyrus reluctantly did the same.

  “How much charge do you have left?”

  Cyrus gave him an apologetic look. “I’m out.” He shrugged.

  “Great. I’ve only one shot left.”

  Cyrus said nothing. What was there to say?

  Instead, they watched the horde advance across the crater toward their shuttle. One central figure moved like none of the others. He bounded forward in great leaps, a feat only made possible by an exoskeleton. He also carried a formidable weapon, big enough to blow the side off their shuttle—which was pretty much what Scott and Cyrus reckoned he was planning to do.

  Scott booted up his battered EVA suit and flipped the visor closed. Cyrus did the same.

  “Comm check?” said Scott, more out of reflex than necessity.

  “Check.”

  “Okay, buddy. I suggest we hole up here in the cockpit, wait until Tiber breaks in, then I shoot him,” he looked at his weapon, “with my one shot, then take that cannon he has and kill all the others.”

  Cyrus gave him a sympathetic look. “Sure.”

  A thin smile cracked across Scott’s face. “Unless you’ve got a better plan.”

  Cyrus shook his head. “Nope.”

  Scott nodded slowly. “Okay.” He reached out and patted Cyrus’s arm. “You never know—it might actually work.”

  Cyrus placed a gloved hand on Scott’s. “It okay, Scott. It is what it is.”

  The shuttle reverberated with the impact of a plasma blast. Scott huddled down behind the seat, looking past the bulkhead and into the shuttle’s interior. Another blast hit the hull, and this time the console display went apoplectic and the atmosphere rapidly escaped the cracked hull. A third blast and the inner airlock door blew in and crashed against the far wall, just missing Aria’s core.

  A bright light shone through the opening, and the interior began to fill with fine dust.

  Tiber finally stepped through and looked around.

  Scott fired.

  He missed.

  The plasma bolt whizzed a few inches past Tiber’s head. Scott tried to fire again, but his weapon just crackled and fizzled. Tiber had already raised his weapon to fire, but realized that Scott and Cyrus had no functioning weapons. He tapped something on his wrist, and Scott heard his hoarse laugh break out from his helmet comm. “Ha, ha, you guys really don’t know when to die, do you?”

  Scott and Cyrus stayed silent. Tiber lowered his weapon, moving over to where Aria’s core lay. He ran a gloved hand along its sleek surface. “You know, I should really thank you for bringing this to me. I’ve been offered a small fortune for it.” His voice hardened a little. “The Seven will pay anything for this QI, and I mean anything. I’ll make them pay dearly for their treachery.” He stopped, turning back to Scott and Cyrus. His voice was calmer now. “So, thank you,” he raised the weapon again and leveled it at them, “but it’s time to say goodbye.”

  Scott gritted his teeth, waiting for the end to come. But the shuttle was rocked by a violent blast from outside on th
e asteroid’s surface. Even inside, the light was blinding, and it took a second or two for Scott to refocus.

  Dust and debris were scattered around the interior, and Tiber had been slammed against the hull by the force of the blast. He was struggling to stand up. Scott thought he might have a chance to rush him, but he was too late: Tiber was back on his feet, shielding his eyes as he looked back out the gaping hole in the shuttle’s hull. He ran out.

  “What the f…?” Cyrus unfolded himself from the seat and looked over at Scott, who was tentatively moving out of the cockpit and into the cargo hold. It was hard to see, as a thick cloud of dust had filled the entire space.

  “I think it was a plasma cannon strike from the Perception,” said Scott, picking his way through the cargo hold.

  “Miranda?”

  “Who else?” Scott moved slowly to the gaping hole in the hull and tried to see through the fog. But it was too dense to make anything out except for vague shapes. A plasma blast from a handheld weapon ignited around a hundred meters away, then another, and another. A firefight was breaking out. After a momentary exchange, all went still again. Scott strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of anything. Slowly, a shape began to form and move toward them. He and Cyrus backed into the interior, all the way to the far wall. The shape grew in form and focus, and finally came to a halt in the broken doorway. It was Tiber.

  His suit showed the scars of battle, and he moved as if in slow-motion, slowly raising his weapon. “You bastards. You took out my entire crew.” He leveled the weapon. Scott closed his eyes again as he heard the blast.

  Yet he was somehow still alive. He opened one eye, then the other. Tiber’s weapon dropped from his grasp. His eyes were wide, and his mouth opened in an attempt to say something. He slumped to his knees, and collapsed face-first on the floor.

  A new shape formed in the broken doorway. It was Miranda.