by M. D. Cooper
She needed help and he needed to get her out of there. Winter turned back to the false wall and slammed his bloody fists against it, screaming for help.
It seemed like he raged against the wall forever, then suddenly his fist swung out into hot air, the wall was gone, and someone reached down to pull him out.
The room was filled with smoke, but he could make out figures in flamesuits moving through the haze.
Winter coughed. “My sister!” He gagged as strong arms carried him past the fire and out into the cramped corridor.
He was placed on a gurney. “We’re going back to get your sister. Hang in there, but don’t look to your left. You hear me?” The man didn’t wait for an answer before he ran back into the burning apartment.
Winter coughed into his fists and told himself not to look, the man had said not to look. Even then, he was always doing things he shouldn’t have. He turned his head and saw a gurney next to him, a body bag laying atop it. A few workers blocked his view but then one moved, and he caught sight of red and purple hair, and he knew who it was.
Momma.
Winter hopped off the gurney and ran over to her with outstretched hands. A woman caught him and pushed him back, but not before he saw Momma’s bloodied face, swollen like some John had used her body as a punching bag.
Then lit her apartment on fire to hide the evidence.
“Momma!” he screamed. A moment later, his eyes flew open and he was back in Chimin-1. A grown man, but just as terrified as ever.
EXPRESS
STELLAR DATE: 11.05.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Chimin City Hospital
REGION: Chimin-1, Hanoi System (independent)
“You saved me, thank you.”
Cristofer, the former hostage, was sitting up in his bed. He had a small private room one floor up from the ER. His arm quivered as he extended it to shake Kylie’s hand, as if the simple gesture took concentrated effort.
Kylie shook it and smiled back at his warm, kind eyes. It wasn’t every day someone thanked her for something she had done. “I’m glad to see that you’re going to be all right. One of the nurses said you have some information?”
Cristofer leant his head back and gazed up at the ceiling, struggling to keep his eyes open. “Yeah, you seem like the only person doing anything to stop this mess.”
“When were you captured…taken…whatever?” Kylie asked.
“Just three weeks ago.” He gave a rasping laugh. “I know, I look rough for just three weeks. But the work-load was constant. Little food and barely anything to drink. They didn’t let us fall asleep—not for very long, at least. There was always a price…a painful price.”
His words trailed off and his breath slowly evened out. Kylie had questions—more pressing ones—but she felt bad about pressuring him, even if he was the one who’d called her up. “Just a few more questions, please. Lives might be at stake.”
Cristofer nodded, his eyelids narrowed to slits.
“Did you know what you were working on?”
“No,” his voice cracked as if with a painful memory and tears welled up in his eyes, “not at first. We knew the chemicals were dangerous, some were from the farm, some they brought in. They were using an oat malt for the stuff to grow. Never smelled anything so bad before and I’ve been around, let me tell you. I’ve worked ore mines, gas mines, I’ve been around the system like a comet.”
He paused to take a breath, gathering his thoughts. “They were always wearing protective gear and we got none. The first time it spilled, the gas spread everywhere. Felt like it stuck to your lungs, like pudding. People were passing out left and right. The ones closest to it…well they never recovered.”
“They ever say anything? About who they were making it for? Where they planned to use it.”
Cristofer licked his lips. “Sometimes,” his voice crackled through his dry lips, “I heard them mention Coalesce.”
Kylie’s eyebrows furrowed. “Who?”
“Local system militia. After what happened to Hubei and after the Rhoads ships left, there’s been a lot of fighting for control. Out in the middle of nowhere, no one cares about us. Coalesce wants the exact opposite of what your father wanted. They are fighting for a blended human and AI society. These guys who had us prisoner…they view that as absolute sacrilege to the human spirit.”
It sounded dangerously familiar.
“Do they have an antidote for this stuff?” Kylie asked.
Cristofer slowly shook his head. “When this stuff sinks into you, you’re done. Nothing anyone can do to save you once the eyes start to go.”
His final words gave Kylie the chills. She thanked him as he leant his head back—clearly Kylie had taken up enough of his time. Walking out of the room, she gave the man a parting glance, feeling the depth of her guilt for what had happened here and to these people.
She needed to focus. This place, these people weren’t her mission. The longer she stayed here, the further Paul ventured away from her. She might never catch up to him at this rate.
As she walked through the hospital corridor, she gazed at the sick in their beds and saw many covered up with sheets.
Once again, Kylie walked out of the hospital. She had kept an eye out for Nicole, but the ER doctor was nowhere to be seen. With a long-suffering sigh, Kylie reached the lift and mashed her finger into the manual call button. Then she hit it again, and again.
Kylie’s lips twisted into a scowl. She wasn’t a fan of waiting. Finally, the doors slid open and Marge called out
Kylie pivoted on the heel of her boot, throwing one arm up high to block a blow from an armored fist, then backpedaled to place distance between them.
A female figure crouched before her in a close-fitting black powersuit. The armor shimmered, shifting between a light grey and matte black as the woman moved, something that would hide her from a regular human’s eyes, but not Kylie’s.
The figure lunged toward Kylie who kicked out, pushing her assailant back. The woman staggered for a moment and cocked her head to one side.
Then she vanished completely.
Marge called out.
Kylie saw a ghost of motion and pivoted but took a kick to the stomach. The blow shoved her back, but with her ISF flow armor she didn’t suffer injury.
Kylie swung at the invisible woman, wishing she wasn’t wearing her jacket as there was no time to pull it off and activate her own stealth systems.
Suddenly, a pair of hands clamped down on Kylie’s shoulders and tossed her into the lift. She slipped, and her face slammed into the lift car’s railing.
This was not happening. Kylie couldn’t be bested by some space babe in a cloaked suit! That was her gig!
Kylie grabbed the railing and pulled herself up as an invisible arm clamped around her throat. She’d collapse Kylie’s windpipe if given the chance. The woman squeezed harder, and if not for Kylie’s flow armor hardening, the battle would have been lost then and there.
“Bring me Liberty! What did you do with her?”
Marge commented as Kylie drove her e
lbow back into the woman’s side, then grabbed the arm around her neck. She couldn’t see it, but she could damn well feel it.
Kylie heaved the woman over her shoulder, then slammed her body into the wall of the lift.
The force of the blow caused her attacker’s stealth to fail, and Kylie dropped onto the woman’s chest.
Kylie drew her sidearm, but the woman knocked it aside, driving a fist into Kylie’s chest—which was protected by the hardening of her flow armor.
“Who the hell are you?” Kylie screamed while grabbing at the woman’s helmet, trying to pull it free.
The attacker twisted and pulled away disappearing once more.
The woman was trying to circle around Kylie, unaware that her stealth tech was doing her no good. As she drew close, Kylie lunged for her and grabbed her helmet. Summoning all her strength, Kylie twisted and ripped the helmet off, tossing it to the ground. A beautiful blonde stared back at Kylie with fierce almond colored eyes. She looked like a floating head, and Kylie unslung her rifle, aiming between the woman’s eyes.
“Think I’ll be able to see your blood when I shoot you?” Kylie snarled.
“You’ll never win. You can’t beat him, though he sends his regards.”
Who the hell is she talking about? “Paul? Are you talking about my brother?”
The woman laughed, and suddenly the lift dropped into a free fall. The rapid plunge lifted both of them off their feet, the speed of descent accelerating faster than the centrifugal force of the spinning asteroid.
The woman pushed off the far wall and crashed into Kylie, knocking her back into the wall.
“We’re going to die, you crazy bitch,” Kylie said as her armor enveloped her head.
“Oh, how nice,” the woman grinned at Kylie. “Sure we’ll die, but at least I’ll die knowing you didn’t win. I still did his work. I still completed my mission.”
“Who?” Kylie demanded. “Who!?”
Kylie shoved her blonde assailant away and pushed down on the car’s railing, getting as close to the floor as possible as the lift flew through the asteroid.
The lift slammed into bottom of its shaft before Kylie could complete her question.
SANDWICHES
STELLAR DATE: 11.05.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Platform 9, North Docks
REGION: Chimin-1, Hanoi System (independent)
With Ricket summoned for some sort of body-snatching duty, Rogers had changed his plan from watching the Winthrop for Raynes and Winter, to disabling it so that it wouldn’t be going anywhere.
It hadn’t been hard. Laura had wiped out the navigation systems while Rogers removed the emitters from the fusion lasers as well as the relays for the SC batteries.
Sure, its owners could pull it out with a tug, but then it would just be a drifting hulk.
It had been eerie being on the ship alone, even with his flow armor rendering him invisible. He’d played over a dozen scenarios in his mind, half terrified that Raynes and his crew of thugs would show up, and half hoping they would.
Wouldn’t it just take the cake if he was the one to save Winter’s hide for once?
Now back on the small platform against which the Barbaric Queen was snugged up, Rogers wished his team weren’t spread so thin. They couldn’t find Winter while protecting the docking bay and manage a half-dozen other crises. Heck, there was still a room full of some sort of deadly chemical in Facility 99 protected only by locks and the AIs monitoring it.
Rogers crept toward the security booth at the side of the platform and saw that it was empty.
So much for needing to be vigilant, he thought, a moment before the lift sounded. Rogers spun, ready to strike when he saw a tube on an a-grav platform drift out of the lift, followed by Ricket’s shapely legs—plus the rest of her too.
“You go shopping for me, sweetheart? You shouldn’t have?”
Ricket laughed as she pushed the tube toward the Barbaric Queen’s airlock. “You know me. I can’t keep my hands to myself.”
If only that were true….
Rogers peered into the tube as she approached, shaking his head at the sight of Liberty laying within. “Huh, not a box of chocolates.”
“Do you ever think about anything other than food?”
He sure did, but Rogers wasn’t about to tell Ricket what he liked to think about. “Is there a reason why you’re taking a dead woman onto the ‘Queen?”
“Not dead,” Ricket replied. “Her AI—at least we think she has one—was repairing the damage to her body before she was put into the stasis pod. Captain asked me to snatch her from the morgue.”
“And let me guess. Kylie wants to question her.”
“You got it.”
Rogers sighed happily and rubbed his chin. “You gotta love the captain. She always keeps things interesting.”
Rogers didn’t know what those methods were, but the idea of a killer who was likely to regenerate on board their ship alarmed him more than he cared to admit. “I guess if the captain orders it….”
Ricket paused and smiled warmly at Rogers. “Thanks for the save back in the grain farm. I didn’t see that guy who was on my right ‘til it was too late.”
“That’s why you keep me around.” Rogers grinned and gave Ricket a soft nudge on the arm. Her eyes sparkled and damn if that didn’t wake something up in him. Nothing they had time for—stars, this woman was an eternal tease.
Rogers changed the subject. “I guess I’d better rustle up some food for Bubbs; she’s pinged me seven times now asking for something.”
“Plus her asking about her cat,” Ricket replied as she pushed Liberty’s tube into the airlock.
“I wonder where that thing’s gotten to,” Rogers muttered as he followed her aboard.
* * * * *
Bubbs approached the prison cell where she had secured Trigg, stopping outside and leaning against the bars.
“You drew the short stick, Triggy. We win, you lose. Give up your friends. Tell me what I need to know to find Winter, and I won’t have to kill you.”
Trigg sat on the cell’s bed, arms crossed as she stared down at the floor. “Never.”
“Where would Raynes take him? Who is Raynes underneath his stolen face? Answer me and I’ll make sure you get a nice meal. Hot and tasty. We keep bacon on board our ship.”
Trigg shook her head. “There’s too much at stake here. Millions of lives. I can’t take the easy way out. Even if I want to.”
Was that a pointed statement? Bubbs chest rose as she fought through a fit of anger. “We have strawberries.”
“You’re lying.” Trigg’s jaw tensed. “No one has those anymore.”
“We have friends in high places. Want me to prove it to you? Give me a lead on Raynes.”
Trigg made eye contact with her for the first time. “Kill me if you want to, but the movement won’t die with me. It’s bigger than any one person. If it’s bigger than Peter Rhoads, it’s sure as hell bigger than me.”
Bubbs wished she had met this Peter Rhoads guy so she could’ve taken a pound of flesh out of him. Twisting people’s minds. It reminded Bubbs of where she was from, what her own people had done. Memories of war and torture were hard to leave behind.
“If you won’t talk about your organizatio
n, I’ll get authorization from my captain to kill you.”
“I know,” Trigg said, simply as if her mind was at peace with the notion. “I didn’t sign up to be a martyr, trust me, but I always knew it was a possibility. One way or another, all roads lead to death, sweetheart.”
Bubbs lip snarled. “No one calls me sweetheart.”
Trigg gave a short laugh. “The Papote Alliance will come, they’ll come for Chimin. The few people you have? It won’t be enough to stop them. If we can’t take this facility…”
“You’ll what? Take a play from Peter Rhoads and blow it up?”
“These people’s minds here can’t be changed. We tried. If they didn’t have the supplies and grain we needed…” Trigg fell silent. “I’ve said enough.”
Damn right she had. Bubbs was considering going inside to see if additional pressure would work on Trigg when she heard a noise down the corridor. She advanced down the passage and rounded the corner, GNR-38 raised and ready to fire—only to see Rogers pushing someone into a cell.
Well, if it wasn’t her biggest fan.
A lot of options went through Bubbs’ mind. She could scream at him ‘til she was blue in the face, they could fight to the death—which Kylie wouldn’t agree to—or Bubbs could just admit what was in her heart. She had made mistakes—she wasn’t fast enough, she should’ve risked more—and now Winter was lost, somewhere on this stupid rock.
Instead, Bubbs squinted at Rogers and the prisoner he was pushing into a nearby cell. “Catch a mouse?” Bubbs asked.
Rogers gave a guarded nod. “He was rummaging around below. And here I thought mousing was your cat’s job.”
Great. So, everyone knows about Mr. Fizzle Pop? Bubbs let out a long sigh until she noticed Rogers was carrying a brown paper bag. “What’s in the bag?”
“Lunch.”
Bubbs sneered her nicest smile. “Apology accepted. Did I ever tell you, you’re my favorite person, Rogers?”
* * * * *
Bubbs and Rogers had returned to the precinct’s lobby and sat behind the desk, eating peanut butter sandwiches with jelly, drinking coffee, and munching on fresh strawberries. Some of the first strawberries Bubbs had ever eaten thanks to the rations Tanis Richards had given them.
