Safety Zone (Lunar Colony VI #1)

by A. B. Keuser

anti-colonization movements would latch onto any disaster they could.

  Shaking away that thought, she looked back to the door behind her.

  Depressing the comm button again, she asked, “How’s it looking out there?”

  “We’ll have you out of here in no time whatsoev—” The pause stretched into eternity before a faint static told her he was back on the line. She waited for him to answer the question she wouldn’t ask. “Small hold-up, but I promise you we’ll have you out in a jiffy.”

  Angela shouted in the background, noise filtering through the speaker.

  The line cut out again, and Nala stalked back to where she’d dropped her bag. Squatting down on the floor, she dug through its contents again and looked out to the black.

  Glittering through the industrial haze, the star field appeared exactly the same as it had yesterday. And the day before. How could the stars look the same… so close to death?

  Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, she sucked in a long breath.

  And let it go.

  Stars were nothing more than plasma and gravity… they had no capacity to care.

  “You still with me, Cowgirl?”

  Boudri’s voice crackled through the comm and she dropped her head back against the curved window, cursing. “I swear, Boudri, if I get out of here in any condition short of a body bag, I will make sure you never have kids.” He knew she hated when he called her that.

  The short walk back to press the button felt like a death row march. Her finger mashed the red circle labeled “talk” and she puffed out a quick sigh. “I’m still here.”

  “While Angela works on getting to the bomb on this side, you and I are going to try to get you through the access panel.”

  She gaped at the metal box bolted to the wall in front of her for a full minute in disbelief before she snorted and ran a hand over her face. “I’ll never fit through that,” she said, turning to look at the all-too-small panel to the right of the door.

  “Humor me.”

  Pulling the necessary tools from her bag, she knelt beside the access hatch. Four bolts later, she pried the panel from where it clung to the wall, finally giving way with a slurping pop, as the seal formed by decades’ old dust and grease broke.

  She hefted the half meter square of painted metal from the bulkhead. It dropped against the floor with a gentle thud and she bit her tongue. The pain coursing through her mouth was the only way she knew to keep herself from muttering epithets. Whoever had been foolish enough to call them access panels should serve time in a hard labor camp. Inside the wall, the access narrowed to a single square foot – an artery clogged with the plaque of conduit and cabling.

  A matching string of curses filtered through the cramped space and kept her from making a snide “told you so” remark.

  As she lay on the floor, looking through the tiny opening to freedom, she caught a glimpse of Ethan among the wires. Round face contorted, his jaw locked in a grim but determined frown as shadows danced over his midnight-dark skin. She watched his amber gold eyes as they searched the too-small escape route for a solution. Macabre humor made her bite back a laugh. Boudri always loved having a difficult problem to solve. She considered asking if that was why he liked her when she caught his eye for the briefest of moments.

  Then he was gone.

  Nala wasn’t about to sit around and wait for The Face to kill her, or for Angela to save her. Pushing herself to her feet, she snatched up her loose tools and her bag and jogged across the expanse of the skywalk.

  There were six locations The Face could have placed the second bomb to be sure of the sky walk’s destruction. Two of those were places she wouldn’t have discovered during routine maintenance. Two of the remaining four were on the other side of the Tower B door, and one would require a walk outside. If Nala had been the one to place the bomb, she would have chosen the option only accessible from within the skywalk. The likelihood of trapping the incendiary specialist inside was slim.

  But it was The Face….

  With a hard tug, she tore away the threadbare carpet. Changing out the head on her multi-tool, she snapped in a hex driver and pulled out the bolts holding the floor panels in place beside the Tower B door. The space between deck plating and bulkhead ran through with large tubes of conduit and piping for the colony’s environmental systems. Tucked between those was a too-familiar package.

  Lifting it gingerly out of the small space, Nala set it on the floor. Careful to keep her hands far away from the antenna, she pulled her smallest set of tools from her bag. The device was compact. Initial damage didn’t need to be as spectacular as it did on Earth where the atmosphere did not play into a bomb builder’s favor.

  On the colony, all a bomb had to do was make a big enough hole and it did enough damage to be worthwhile.

  This one was tiny, but packed a punch. Nala would know. She built it.

  Spinning the tiny screwdriver, she removed the screws securing the wire plate and lifted it away. Hissing out a long breath, she turned it over and smiled as she ran her hands over the textured surface. Written on the interior plate in scrolling letters, she’d etched the word Verity. It seemed so stupid now.

  “Lemon and lime,” she said under her breath as she snipped the yellow and green wires. Yellow first, yellow banded with green second and green third. She’d made sure her bombs were easy to diffuse. More importantly, she’d made them in a way that was easy for her to explain how to diffuse.

  Setting the diffused bomb aside, she replaced the flooring, snatched up the cover plate and moved back to the Tower A side. “How’s it looking out there?” she called through the access.

  “Well, Angela is swearing, so… I’d assume we’re right on track. I’m pretty useless right now.

  “Is she within earshot?”

  Ethan looked to his left and turned back, shaking his head. “No, I can go get her if you want.”

  “No. I don’t want her to hear this.” She handed the plate through the small opening. “I found the bomb The Face claimed would be on Tower B’s side. It was in here, under the floor. It’s disarmed.”

  He cursed under his breath and looked up at her though the wire-crowded opening. “So they’re yours.”

  “Looks like. At least Angela will know how to defuse this side. She’s mentioned reading the message sent to all the lunar colonies after I… retired.”

  Retired wasn’t the correct word, but it worked as well as any other. She’d given up the cause when she’d realized she was wrong. And though she’d been out of the game for a decade, only a handful of people knew she was the bomb builder the media dubbed “Verity” for her use of the word.

  “Won’t it be ironic if I die because of my own bomb?

  “You’re not going to die.”

  Angela shouted something and Ethan gave her a pained smile before he disappeared from view.

  He returned before she had a chance to guess why Angela’s tone was strained. His scowl was disheartening.

  “The senior partners want us out of here. Angela hasn’t been able to get to the bomb on our side. They don’t care that one of the bombs has been diffused. They’re looking for minimal losses. Apparently they’re willing to part with you and the sky walk.”

  Nala didn’t answer. She’d expected it… but it still hurt.

  “If it’s any consolation, Dendrond fought for you. She’s resigned because of this decision.”

  “No one else cares… I guess they can always hire a new maintenance tech… promote one of my guys.” She laughed in spite of herself. “This sucks. Because there’s nothing you can do.”

  “They’re used to people bowing to their every whim.”

  Silence met her through the small space.

  The Face would do what it was programmed to do. Emergency protocols would fill the access with environmental foam and she would die. What killed her first was the only question—exposure to the vacuum, the explosions themselves, or the skywalk’s impact with the lunar surfac
e below.

  “You still there?” she asked. The silence went on too long.

  “Yeah. I’m not going anywhere until we get you out. Screw what the Partners want.”

  “Listen, if I don’t make it—”

  “There’s still time, you don’t need to confess you’re head over heels in love with me just yet.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. I want you to tell my mom something.”

  “Oh.”

  She paused, did he sound upset?

  Letting out a defeated breath, she turned back to the disarmed bomb. Her mother had always been proud of her previous profession, but then, ecoterrorism ran in the family. “Never mind. Mom would likely slap you and holler that she knew taking this job would send me straight to hell.”

  “I’m going to get you out of there,” he said as his hand reached through to her, and she took hold of his fingers. A cocktail of regret flooded her—two parts fear and frustration mixed with one part exhaustion, shaken – and filled her to the brim.

  A gentle squeeze and he was gone. She pressed her eyes shut, fingers still warm from his touch.

  The sound of the panel bolting back into place pulled her off the floor, and she sealed up her side as well. Platitudes were one thing. Minimizing damage and saving lives were Ethan’s first priority as an administrator. It did not matter that they were friends. She understood that.

  The crackle of the intercom made her flinch.

  “I’m about to do something really stupid, Nala. Just… trust me, and stand back from the door.”

  The scuffling sound of boots on deck plating and