by C. A. Wilke
Then she remembered what Mr. Collier had told her about the project. Deep space, interstellar communications.
Her eyes shot open. “Holy shit. Collier was right… Derrick found something.”
Scarlett twisted her body one direction. Her broken rib stabbed into her lung, taking her breath away. Pain shot through her chest and side, but she climbed to her hands and knees anyway.
Her hand planted on the sapphire-glass window. Her palm slipped at first, leaving a streak of red. Beyond the window she saw the massive blue orb that was her home. “Jesus, Derrick. What did you find?”
Scarlett tried to stand. Every muscle in her calves and thighs quivered. More tears streamed down her face but she kept pushing up.
Finally climbing to her feet, she looked at the world below again. She had to get the data to somebody. Someone needed to see what Derrick had been up to.
Scarlett turned and limped for the door. More explosions came, each one threatening to knock her to the floor again.
Back in the main hall, the walkway was nearly empty. A few staff in uniforms and researchers in white coats ran by. Scarlett figured they were heading for escape buoys. She staggered after them.
A trickle of blood ran from a small cut on her head down into her eye. She wiped at it and kept repeating in her own mind that someone needed to see what Derrick had been doing. Someone needed to find out why he was willing to kill to keep the project secret.
Scarlett’s feet shuffled across the metal floor. She nearly tripped when the voice on the intercom changed.
“Scarlett? Hello?”
She stopped. “Dax?” Her voice was a cracked whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Dax?”
“Scarlett! Oh thank god.”
Jules was crying in the background.
Reflexively, Scarlett turned toward the ceiling. “Dax… How did you find me? How did you even know I was still alive?”
She waited a long moment without a response. A whiff of smoke drifted to her. Oh shit. She started shuffling down the walkway again.
“Scarlett? Can you hear me?” Dax’s voice cracked with static.
“Yes, what the hell’s going on?”
“The virus we infected the station with… It’s out of control. It’s corrupting the station’s vital systems. Whole sections of the station are losing power or exploding. Don’t know how long we can keep this connection.”
The smell of burnt plastic and hot ozone grew stronger. She glanced over her shoulder and saw grey puffs starting to collect on the ceiling at the far end of the hall.
“What do you want? I’m trying to get out of here.” She knew she wasn’t going to make it.
Jules said something, but it was too quiet for Scarlett to hear.
Dax cleared his throat. “I will. I’m trying. Scarlett, you have to get to an escape buoy.”
“No shit.”
“Alright, I need you to trust me for a minute, okay?” His words came out faster.
Scarlett stopped again and glared at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ, Dax. Just tell me what to do.”
“Okay… you have to go back the other way.”
She looked back down the hall. “There’s fire that way.”
“Not yet. There’s only smoke so far.”
“Um…” She rolled her eyes. “Generally where there’s smoke there’s fire.”
“Dammit, Scarlett. Trust me.”
“Fine, but if I die of smoke inhalation, I’m going to kill you.” She turned and shuffled back the way she had come.
“Okay, good. Now, we’re going to lose contact here in a second. Thirty meters straight ahead past Derrick’s office, there’s a hatch in the floor. You’ll need to go down there and—”
The intercom fizzled and his voice was gone.
Scarlett slouched her shoulders for a second. “Mother Fu—” Her broken rib poked at her lung. “Ow, dammit.”
She looked back the way she was originally going, then back to where Dax told her to go. He said to trust him. But she didn’t know if she could trust only half the information. Do I have a choice?
Scarlett fixed her eyes on a spot on the floor just past Derrick’s office and willed herself to get there. A minute later, she saw the hatch handle embedded into the floor.
A flicker of yellow pulled her attention from the floor to the curve of the hallway ahead. Flames licked through the doorway of the side rooms. Thick, black smoke billowed out of the open hatch, creating a moving wall of choking death. The acrid taste of the burning station coated her tongue.
Scarlett pulled herself along faster, ignoring the pain. She reached the hatch and dropped to her knees. Finding it unlocked, she flung small trap door open. A ladder descended down into a dark shaft.
She looked at the coming wall of smoke and crawled down into the shaft, closing the hatch behind her. In the dark, she groped for handholds. She descended one rung at a time until her feet hit a solid floor.
Her hands fumbled along the wall, finally brushing a flat panel. The panel beeped then lit up along with a series of blue arrows on the floor. To her right was an airlock. Two words emblazoned on the airlock door made her cry anew—Escape Buoy.
* * *
The docking clamps released, sending a loud thunk through the hull of the buoy. Scarlett watched through the small window on the hatch door as her buoy sped away from the station, leaving only the fading reflection of flashing red and blue beacon lights. She glanced down at the sliver of wood embedded in her side. I can’t believe I made it.
Attitude jets fired and the small ship altered its course. From her new angle, Scarlett could see pieces of the station exploding. Flames filled most of the windows on the station.
Dozens of other escape buoys of various sizes raced away from the burning station, their blinking lights creating cascades of color across the black of space. Scarlett hoped everyone was going to make it. She’d seen and caused enough death. She didn’t think she could handle knowing she was responsible for so many innocents dying. Only two people on the station deserved her wrath. One of them was dead and the other was likely in his own buoy. Just as she thought of Neil, a ship undocked from the central spire. The snub-nosed shuttle arced away from the station and turned toward the Earth. She watched as the ship faded into a tiny speck before entering the planet’s atmosphere.
Behind her, the communication terminal turned on and hissed with static. “Escape buoy four-seven-niner, this is Earth Command. Rescue vessels have been deployed to your location. Please confirm your status.”
She mentally went over her wounds. Fresh blood continued to pour over the crusting bits surrounding the chunk of wood in her side. Her hand reflexively went to the blisters behind her damaged and deaf left ear. The motion made her wince at the broken rib spearing into her lung.
Scarlett felt her heart rate begin to slow. The last of her adrenaline rush was fading. She turned to the communications console. The lights on the touch screen panel swirled and her head swam.
She reached for the blinking button to open the comm channel. No matter how far she reached, the panel moved farther and farther away.
Son of a bitch. Darkness pressed in at the edges of her vision.
Scarlett found just enough energy to mumble to herself. “Well, at least everyone else is safe. And Derrick is dead. Someone will find the data core. I’ll take that as a decent trade.”
The console squelched again just as the blackness closed in on her.
“Escape buoy four-seven-niner, this is Earth Command. Rescue vessels have been deployed to your location. Please confirm your status, over.”
She struggled to keep her eyes open, but they closed anyway. The copper taste of blood returned as she forced out one last word. “Alive.”
Other works by
C. A. Wilke
(as Christopher Wilke)
T
wisted History
Twisted Nightmares
Coming Soon...
Room 427
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br /> Tales of one extraordinary hotel room.
Stay up to date with C. A. Wilke’s works at WriterWilke.com
