by A. R. Knight
"Things are about to get real crazy," Merc said.
"Like they aren't already," Cass replied.
The frigate, almost as large as the two Karat intakes together, swept in close, lasers firing freely. The front end vanished into the intake, glowed as the frigate's shields absorbed the initial impact, and then everything blew to hell. A chained orange explosion rippled along the frigate, broke up through the Karat, and splashed over the Viper's shields. Merc could only see orange for a moment, licking flames blocking out the universe. And then they were gone, replaced by a cloud of shards, smaller fires that winked out as fast as they formed, and the silent disintegration of the Karat as the impact shattered its way through the ship's decks.
"Hey, you going to move?" Cass said.
Oh, yeah. Merc brought up the maneuvering jets. Coasted the Viper up, down, and to the side of metal chunks, ice diamonds, and the pieces of humanity that had been on those ships but were now permanent residents of Neptune's outer orbit. In between every juke, Merc flicked his eyes down to the scanner, hoping to see something, anything that would show Viola was still alive.
57
Falling Apart
The console blew up in her face as Yuan pulled Viola back. The screen shattered into a thousand jagged edges that cut slits into Viola's turning head. Alarms blared in different frequencies, cadences, each one sounding another critical system on the verge of collapse. It was overwhelming, maddening, but Viola held onto the last thing she'd seen on the scanner. That blip, the frigate, merging with the Karat and vanishing.
"They're gone," Viola said as Yuan pulled her towards the bridge exit.
"We will be too, if we don't hurry," Yuan replied.
As if agreeing with Yuan, the Karat shuddered, a snapping sound crackling up the inside of the ship and sending the two of them to the floor. Viola pushed herself up, brushed hair out of her face, and felt her hand come away bloody. A cut, or maybe hitting her head. The reason didn't matter. The rush of destroying the frigate was siphoning into panic. She didn't know where the escape shuttles were. If the Karat even had any that were still operational. And how long did they have?
"Focus," Yuan said, standing up beside her. "And run."
The captain took off, dashing towards and through the door out of the bridge. Viola followed. Calculations ran through her head, problems she'd done for her engineering classes. Fail-safes ships like the Karat would have built in, the kind Galaxy Forge, her father's company, would require.
The frigate came at Karat towards the intakes, from beneath. The cargo hold would have plenty of barriers between it and the rest of the ship, a necessity for the section that opened to vacuum and dangerous materials most often.
"Down!" Yuan shouted in the hallway ahead as a series of pops shot through the ceiling. Viola dropped and a moment later the ceiling panels fell a meter. Struts snapping, residual failure from elsewhere tracking its way up here. Viola pulled up to a squat and kept moving.
After the cargo hold, the most damaged area would have been the crew quarters. The side facing the frigate as it came in spewing laser. Viola tried to remember the Karat's layout. The opposite the crew quarters would have been the sampling area, where cargo taken on was analyzed, cleaned, and readied for sale.
Yuan made it out from underneath the collapsed panels and looked back as Viola continued her half-run, half-crawl.
"There's a pair of shuttles just up here, next to the cafeteria," Yuan called back.
The cafeteria. Viola made it out from under the panels and ran after Yuan. Most ship designs put the cafeteria near the crew quarters. Made sense from a logistics perspective. Fewer steps to that late-night snack. A wave of heat, source unknown, washed across her face. The tingling smell of burning circuits filled the air as they approached the ruined space that'd once held the meals for the crew. Parts of the floor had collapsed, leaving sections that looked like islands in a metal ocean. The elevator doors were locked half-open, looking into an empty shaft.
"Which way?" Viola said.
"Straight across," Yuan replied, taking a running jump to get across a collapsed section.
Viola looked at the meter of floor in front of her, then at the gap Yuan had just leapt. Longer than she was tall. But to her left was the hard wall, to her right was the burning ruin of the Karat's kitchen. A likely victim of a power surge as the Karat's own regulators burnt, letting energy run free throughout the ship. The same thing would've torched the console on the bridge. She took a deep breath, Yuan looking at her with a mix of expectation and worry on his face, and took a couple running steps.
And jumped.
As Viola went into the air, she felt the pull on her boots slacken, the Karat's internal gravity failing and sending the ship into near zero-G. Viola careened forward, over the gap but still moving, shooting straight for the far wall. Turn. Viola swung her body around and struck the wall with her feet. Viola tried not to push, to sink as much as possible into a squat so she didn't rebound. Then she pushed off, towards the near exit, the one Yuan pointed out. Her hands, outstretched, wrapped around the corner and swung Viola around. As she moved, Viola caught a glance of lettering pasted onto the wall: Crew Quarters.
Yuan shot past her, rocketing along the hallway, towards a shuttle likely already destroyed. Housed in a section of the Karat demolished by the frigate's fire. The lights that way were flickering, impossible to tell what waited for them around the next bend. Only, if Viola's hunch was right, that entire side of the ship was about to fall apart.
“Yuan!” Viola yelled. "Turn around!"
The captain caught himself on a broken part of the hallway side, looking back.
"The shuttle is just ahead!" Yuan called.
"But—”
The hallway behind Yuan illuminated in a yellow sparkle, a great wrenching went through the Karat and, suddenly, the stars were visible behind Yuan. Part of Neptune's teal disc showing. Viola was looking into outer space. The Karat's defense mechanisms struggled into action and slammed a door shut, nearly bisecting Yuan as he launched himself back towards Viola.
"Is there another way?" Viola said when Yuan reached her, both of them taking a second to breathe.
"The other shuttle is on the opposite side. Through there," Yuan pointed to the elevator shaft. "It's next to the cargo hold."
It was an impossibility that the cargo hold was still there. No, Viola shook her head slightly. The intakes bore the impact. The cargo hold might be breached, but something on the other side of it's large, empty space might still be there.
"We'll need suits," Viola said, and Yuan nodded.
"There's an emergency set near the entrance to the hold," Yuan said. "In case something goes wrong."
"I think this qualifies," Viola said as they launched themselves towards the elevator shaft.
They flipped down the black inside of the elevator shaft, the only light coming from sporadic flickers along the sides. Cracks, rumbles, groans and the occasional roar of vacuums created and cut off echoed in Viola's ears as they floated down. Yuan hit the top of the elevator first, pressing an emergency release that popped the lid off the top of the elevator. The force sent Yuan flying back up the shaft, but Viola caught the captain as he went by, using her momentum to push them both into the elevator and through the doors into another hallway.
The cargo hold to the right, Yuan's emergency lockers to the left, where the hallway ended in a manual-release door. Most of the Karat's portals opened and closed through electronic panels, Yuan opened this one the old fashioned way; turning a handle. Inside the locker were four suits and accompanying oxygen packs along with a bunch of other first-aid gear. After a couple minutes squeezing themselves into the suits, something Viola wasn't the most experienced with, they stepped back out of the locker and went towards the cargo hold.
The suit fit snug, wrapping Viola in technology that shot her temperature, oxygen rate, and a full diagram of the suit itself in front of her eyes. A smaller diagram appeared a few se
conds later, showing Yuan's suit. They'd instantly see if something happened to one another.
"These are really good," Viola said as they walked along. "Galaxy Forge doesn't have anything like these."
"The Karat is," Yuan paused. "Was Eden's showcase. A test of new technology."
"You'll get to tell them how well it worked," Viola said.
Then the lights went out. The entire hallway dashed into dark as a shaking crack, louder and larger than the others came from Viola's left, towards the intakes. Sensing the lack of light, the suits powered on their headlamps, and Viola saw a different world. Formerly, the bright-lit hallways were boring, safe walks of metal. Now, with shadows playing between the arcs of the lamps and those walls buckling, breaking, Viola found her eyes scanning everywhere, her hands sweaty. Breathing fast.
They would make it. Viola whispered the words to herself as they went. And then the hallway tilted, twisting as though grabbed by a child and turned on its side.
"She's broken," Yuan said. "There's open space ahead."
"Can we make it to the shuttle?" Viola said.
"I don't know. Depends on what's left," Yuan steadied himself on the wall that was now the floor, then launched himself forward. Viola followed. They passed through what had been one of the Karat's vacuum doors, meant to seal off the cargo hold, but the floor it connected with had blown away. Instead, the door hung there, sideways, like a stiff flag in no wind. Behind the door, bleeding through the splintered edges, Viola saw the bluish hues of space.
The cargo hold wasn't a hold anymore. Instead it was a skeleton frame, the Karat's supporting structure now a series of long, battered beams connected only by space. Ice diamonds, shrapnel, and junk whirled around, propelled by Neptune's pull and the force of the Karat's break-up. Gripping the door, Viola looked out beyond the junk at the pure, endless nothing that lay beyond. She'd never space-walked before. Never been out here. Despite the suit regulating her temperature, Viola felt cold.
"The shuttle is this way," Yuan's voice came over the suit's short-range comms now, the captain nodding to his right. "On the outer edge of the cargo hold, but separated."
Yuan went first, pushing off the door and following the cargo hold's inner wall to the right. Viola followed, using the captain's headlamp as much as her own to grab handholds as they drifted. Behind her, Viola felt the Karat continuing to break apart, but only when she touched the wall, felt its shudder. Sound didn't carry in the vacuum, and after the endless cacophony of alarms, the silence was surreal. A little peaceful, if Viola was being honest.
Around the curve of the wall, where the cargo hold petered out of room, was a mostly intact module. It would've been underneath the bridge, if the Karat was still in one piece. Yuan paused, his head tilted.
"The door, it's already open," The captain said. Viola caught up and looked over the captain's shoulder. The black backdrop of space mashed into the steely gray of the Karat's interior as the wall they were on connected to the room and shot out to the hull, forming an L from their location. In the middle of that jog out, there was a doorway, haloed in Neptune blue, open and beckoning.
"It might've opened from the damage," Viola said. "Or the power going off."
"Possibly. Anyway, we have no choice. Either it is there and we live, or it is gone, and we die."
"I'm hoping for the first one," Viola replied.
Yuan vaulted towards the room, the open door. The captain moved fast, launching himself and heading towards the room like a missile. If he missed that door, he'd squash himself on the wall. Crazy. Viola continued to pick her way along. Yuan, arms and legs tight to his torso, shot through the doorway and disappeared.
"We're not alone!" Yuan commed.
"What?" Viola said, but the only reply was static. Not alone? There was someone in there? Viola bunched her legs and launched off the wall, aiming for the door.
Viola pressed her arms and legs in, forming as much of a needle as she could as she went through the door. Inside the room, it was dark except for a sliver that bled in from the door. And Viola's headlamp, casting around as she tried to find somewhere to stop her momentum. She bounced off a wall, then what would have been the floor before catching herself.
"Yuan?"
Nothing. Viola turned her head around the room. Racks with several more spacesuits, a stack of emergency supplies. But there was only one light, hers, flitting around the room. Yuan's headlamp should have been there too. Turning away from the door, Viola saw the room continued. Made sense, the shuttle at the bow, as far away from the engines and the likely rupture as they could shove it, down here.
"Captain? Hello?" Viola said again. There was always a chance of interference, a signal interrupted.
Viola went further, her headlamp picking up the far end of the room. An airlock, open to the interior of the shuttle. They'd be keeping the suits on then, as the shuttle wouldn't have any air for them. Viola floated towards the shuttle. Then stopped as something grabbed her.
Viola turned to the right, her headlamp illuminating another space suit, not Eden-branded, and in it, a scarred face, mouth set in a firm line and eyes staring at her. It was only an instant, looking at those eyes, but Viola felt that the burned man wasn't looking at her at all. Didn't see her except as an object, something in his way.
Then she was flying forward. He'd thrown her. Viola glanced back, saw that by throwing her, he'd pushed himself back towards the doorway. Viola reached out her hands, caught herself against the outer edge of the airlock. Where was Yuan? She scanned the room and found the captain, down in the corner, cracks splintering across his helmet, his hands trying to spread thick tape along the cracks, fixing a leak.
But the attacker was coming back. Viola caught him in her headlamp streaking towards her, flipping so his feet would impact first. Without a weapon, rupturing a suit would be hard, but a flying kick from across the room might be enough. Only if it hit her, though.
Viola gripped the inside of the airlock with her left hand and pulled, swinging herself into the airlock and through, down into the shuttle. The console was on, the shuttle warming up. Yuan must have found this guy just about ready to trigger the launch. Viola turned back towards the shuttle's entrance. She'd be trapped if he came in here, but at least it would be close. A battle of rips and tears. Whomever sprung the first good leak would win.
The burned man slid over the entrance, looked down at her. Viola floated backward, till she could touch the console. The screen reflected on the plate of her helmet, showing Viola where the burned man planned to go.
"Who are you?" The voice coming over the comm surprised her.
"Just a pilot," Viola replied. "Who are you?"
"Just a refugee," The burned man said. "Was it you who destroyed my ship?"
"You're the one who let me."
The burned man was larger than her, probably stronger. Viola didn't know the first thing about fighting up close, much less in space suits. When he struck, she didn't like her odds.
"If you knew what depended on those diamonds, you would have chosen differently," The man said.
The man pushed forward, sending himself towards Viola. Pressing her feet to the console, Viola pressed off and flew towards the burned man. Just before they hit, Viola twisted her body to the side, reaching out with her arms and pulling the burned man past her. The move shot her up, by the airlock, and as she went by, Viola slapped the small panel, still glowing through its hardwired, independent battery. Shuttles had to be launched no matter what the condition, and the launch mechanisms were always linked to their own power. A second later the airlock snapped shut, and while Viola couldn't hear it, she felt the container shift as the shuttle blasted free.
58
An Escape
A smooth gambit, if a foolish one. Bakr looked at the closed hatch of the shuttle, blasting its way from the Karat. They would be trapped there. Die quickly if the whole thing collapsed, or slowly when their air ran out. Meanwhile, he had the shuttle. Not a great outco
me, but, if the path Bakr had plotted would work, the shuttle should carry him close enough to Uranus to radio for help.
The engines kicked in briefly, turning the shuttle. The viewport behind Bakr filled with blue light. Not what he would have expected. The course would have him slingshot Neptune, use the momentum to send the shuttle back towards the sun. Bakr twisted around, looked at the console as the engines fired again. The path was different. It wasn't his.
Arrows traced from the shuttle's current position towards Neptune, ending directly at the planet's center. A simple path, a doomed one.
"The girl," Bakr said, even though nobody could hear him. The girl had changed the vector, her back to the console. The path was crude, but it would accomplish its purpose. A glance at the fuel reserves told Bakr all he needed to know. The shuttle was moving too fast, was already too deep in Neptune's gravity well to go anywhere but into it.
"Alissa," Bakr said, looking at the growing ball of blue that filled the viewport. "I'm sorry."
The burned man leaned forward, gripping the console and looking out at Neptune growing larger and larger. Bakr felt the pull on his feet first, then his fingers, the increasing tug of Neptune's gravity. The interior of the shuttle heated up. An alarm sounded, pitifully, that their descent was too steep. Not that there was any fuel left to correct it. The edges of the window glowed white as Neptune's thick atmosphere overwhelmed the shuttle's meager shields.
Bakr closed his eyes as the universe melted away.
59
Seek and Find
Guiding the Jumper through a thousand tons of space junk wasn't Phyla's favorite activity, but it beat dodging lasers. A few minutes ago, they'd docked the damaged Viper, with Merc and that raider, Cass, coming on board. The fighter pilot insisted Viola could be somewhere in here, and Phyla felt they owed the girl enough to take a look.
