Except Sandler wasn’t firing at me. A bright white light burst into my vision, and then the entrance to hole closed. I was stuck inside the black hole with no way to get out the way I came in. Artemis rolled, and I hit my head on the floor. Pain overwhelmed me. Finally, everything went black.
I woke to the sound of Artemis’ alarm blaring. Every single part of my body hurt and tears pooled in my eyes. I rubbed my temple. Even that small movement hurt like hell. I was probably concussed, and when I tried to pull myself upwards, I threw up. Yes, I was certain about the concussion. Damn it. Finally, I managed the task. I made my way over to the comm. I was fully in the black hole. Closing the other side created some kind of vacuum, sucking Artemis toward the other exit. I wished I’d studied more black hole physics. I’d always sworn I wouldn’t find myself back inside of the passage and had no need for the material. What did it matter if I understood the specifics, really? The laws of space and time didn’t work the same in the hole. End of story.
Even in the fog of my pain I knew one thing, I would eventually come out the other side whether I wanted to or not.
The machine in the medical bay would fix my head. Then I could think things through. I wasn’t dead, and if there was a chance in any universe of getting me home, my family would figure out how to do it. Assuming they weren’t dead. Why had none of the monitors in the station worked?
Sabotage …
I hated the idea.
****
Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. All things considered, Artemis moved pretty quickly through the hole. It had taken her eight years under the direction of my Uncle Wes to get to my mother and me the last time he’d taken the ship through. Then again, he hadn’t had the benefit of what seemed like a wind tunnel pulling me along. If I was correct, I’d be through the other side any day. Of course I might be wrong. I was wrong about a lot of stuff.
Five years passed on our side of the black hole when they’d come to their eight-year journey. Trying to understand the Space-Time-Continuum sucked big monkey balls.
I laughed at my own joke and planted another small orange tree. Artemis still had seeds galore in her storage units. Some of the plantings were dead, but some had been salvageable, and a little know how—thank you Uncle Cooper—had allowed me to get to work at feeding myself. It was a really good thing I liked kale. Or I could, at least, pretend to.
“Okay, Diana. Time to run the ship.” I talked to myself as much as I could. Lately, it was less and less. The first days I’d been temporarily mute; violence always did that to me. I’d come around to speaking to myself quite a bit. The Artemis computer had an extensive reading library, and I read aloud anything and everything I could find.
I spoke to myself about everything before I did it. And then how it went after.
I was sick of the sound of my own voice.
Jogging the halls was the best exercise I could do, and I forced myself to do it every day. When I wasn’t working on feeding myself and staying healthy, I fixed Artemis. Machine by machine, room by room. The fuel cells were holding up beautifully, and as long as I didn’t tax her too badly, I could make things run smoothly.
The only things I couldn’t create were bombs. I’d set off the last one, and I didn’t know how to make more because I’d downright refused to learn.
I put the music Asher had scribbled on the day we’d been attacked into the computer and I let it play. The sound had become an old friend keeping me company.
Finally, the ship and I came through the hole with a giant groan. The thick space shot us out and into a spiral. I wasn’t going to hit my head again and stayed put in my chair, holding on for dear life until the ship righted itself. I sat an extra minute just to be sure and then laughed at my ridiculousness. The computer showed no ships around, and even stretching the scan I couldn’t find any.
Space was really dead out here.
I didn’t want to hide by the black hole forever. Like it or not, at some point I was going to need more fuel if I kept flying. I wasn’t sure where to even begin to find any. With no other choice but to figure out my surroundings and how to survive, I’d set Artemis down on a remote planet, set the beacon on the ship to transmit a signal my father would think to look for, and wait.
I even had an alarm to tell me when it was most likely that my family would come for me. I’d done all kinds of calculating in my head and confirmed with the ship’s computers that I wasn’t entirely off base in my math. How long the battle would take. How long it would take Wes to reopen the hole. How long the ships would need to get through. Time moved slower over there than it did over here. I needed to account for the difference. All in all, I’d decided six months. In six months, assuming they didn’t hurry and surprise me, they’d be here.
We came for each other.
Two planets looked promising, but I quickly narrowed that down to one. I wasn’t sure what happened with the atmosphere on the one I’d almost picked, but it kept changing. Weird. I’d never seen anything like that before. I made a note in the log. But the second one had the right breathable air and almost no population. Five souls seemed to be making home in a large pod which occupied miles in the most landable area. Otherwise there were hordes of some kind of wildlife moving here, there, and everywhere. The temperature itself was unappealing. Most of the planet remained in a constantly iced-over state. Still, it would be okay. I’d stay on Artemis, and she’d keep me warm until my family came.
I smiled at the thought as I set her down, keeping the shielding up so the pod population wouldn’t notice me. I was a woman alone. That wasn’t a great state to be in on my side of the universe. I really didn’t want to be found on this end where, from all accounts, it was much worse. I wasn’t my mother. I’d never make it through.
The landing went smoothly, and I cloaked the ship in the base of a mountain range where I would hopefully not be seen. The ship’s computer, still loaded with data from when it had been used here, said the planet was some place called Orion. Once upon a time it had been an oil haven for Ochoa, the ruling planet where my Uncle Cooper’s family had reigned over the populace. That had all gone to hell, and we’d left.
What had happened to the population of Orion? The cities were gone.
Who were the five people in their pod?
I would probably not find out, ever. Six months to hide, and then my family would come for me.
Chapter Two
Greetings.
The animal life I’d thought I’d seen on Orion before I landed proved to be not animal at all. A few days of studying and running tests from the computers confirmed what I’d suspected from the first minutes on the planet—the Zombie virus Uncle Dane was trying to treat on the other side of the black hole was rampant on the cold planet where I now hid in my spaceship. The animals were people, or they used to be. They were now Zombies.
I chewed on my carrot stick and made notes. The scary, infected souls made me nervous, and I rubbed the goosebumps on my arms. I didn’t know what I’d do if they overtook my ship. The good news was they roamed in large groups, almost herds. So far, not one of their gatherings had moved anywhere near the mountainous location where I’d set down Artemis.
The other surprise for me was how vastly cold Orion was. The computer had underestimated exactly how low the outside temperature got, particularly at night. I didn’t have any gear that would let me go outside. I was going to have to stay in the ship and hope the fuel cells held on long enough for me not to need to exit. Otherwise I was royally screwed.
I turned on my microphone. “This is Diana Mallory. Day 21 on planet Orion. So far, so good. The Zombies are three clicks away at least and headed in the other direction from me. Good news, indeed.” I cleared my throat. I would be lucky if I managed to talk for ten minutes today. “As for the other inhabitants, they also seem unaware I’m here. I continue to believe there are five other human souls here. Well, alive ones. That’s it. I’m going to see if I can get some of the armor fixed.”<
br />
It wasn’t really broken, but I needed tasks. “That’s it. Thanks. That’s all for today.”
Not even ten.
I walked to my comm, finishing the carrot. Once a day—okay maybe three to four times a day—I checked on the others who lived here with me. They didn’t know I existed, thanks to the armor, but I knew them quite well. Or at least bits and pieces of their routine. At first I thought there were only two of them and that the computer had miscalculated like it had the planet temperature. But as time moved, I’d gotten glimpses of the other three. Artemis hadn’t totally misread everything. Something with the atmosphere seemed to really throw off her sensors. I needed to investigate more.
I’d think about it after I did my daily observation. I’d given the souls I silently watched code words so I could keep them straight in my head.
At nine in the morning, the one I thought of as Black Coat always came outside dragging double bagged garbage with him. I could see the two bags as one of them always stuck out higher than the other one. Not that the garbage particularly mattered. He was meticulous in bringing it out and didn’t let his gun wielding companions fool with his task, even shoving the other men’s hands off the garbage once when they had tried to help.
Black Coat was called Black Coat in my mind because he wore a different coat than the others, a black one. I might not be particularly creative. All of the men wore thick fabric masks to block the cold. I pushed my video feed in closer so I could see Black Coat better. Unless something really changed, he wouldn’t come out again today, so I needed to catch sight of him when I could.
He wasn’t as tall as the others, but his shoulders were broad and he moved with the grace and steps of a man who knew where he was going. Well, I was ninety-nine percent sure he was a man. I was pretty convinced they all were. I’d spent my youth watching men and women walk around the promenade on the space station. These people moved like men.
Black Coat paused today after he dumped his bags into the compactor outside of their pod. The machine turned on, and he looked up to watch the smoke as whatever was in the machine turned into ash in front of them. He usually stomped back inside but not today. I wondered what he thought about. Why did he stare at today’s discarded pile?
He didn’t have the same partners every day, but he always had one with him. Seemed obvious he’d need backup with the Zombies on the planet.
Today, his cohort was the man I thought of as the Tall One. None of them were exactly short. Or at least as far as my stalking them from a distance could make out. Tall One could be goofy. Sometimes, while Black Coat unloaded his bags, Tall One danced around on the ice and snow. He’d fallen once and turned the whole experience into a game, actually throwing snowballs at Black Coat, who had not picked them up and chucked them back.
I wanted to. I’d never made a snowball.
Sometimes Tall One came out by himself or with some of the others. He’d carry a weapon slung over his right shoulder. He’d check the perimeter. Sometimes he ran the distance. Actually, he had been present during one of the stranger events I witnessed.
Two weeks earlier, around lunch time, Tall One and Bouncy Guy, whom I’d not seen before then, came out of the pod and started throwing a ball around together. I’d almost jumped out of my skin. First, who wanted to throw a ball with gloves and snow gear on? Second, the Zombies were ridiculously close. If I had been them, I would have been hiding. Instead, they seemed to want to draw them in. The more they threw, the closer the hoard got to the pod. That was when Two Weapons arrived. He stepped out of the pod, unzipped a side of it, and started dodging around until the Zombies made their way inside the pod.
They were either helping the creatures, experimenting on them, or doing something really nefarious to the Zombies. Why else would they bring the beings into their housing unit on purpose? Bouncy Guy and Tall One hadn’t stopped playing their ball game, and eventually Two Weapons had come out and said something that got their attention. He’d flayed his arms around in the air for a whole minute, and they’d followed him back inside the pod.
Orange Hat had been in view the least amount of any of them, and I’d witnessed him the first time with Two Weapons and Black Coat. The group had come out together one morning, following Black Coat. Orange Hat said something to Black Coat, and they’d almost come to blows about it. I think. I’m not always clear on these things, but Black Coat waved his finger in Orange Hat’s face, and eventually Two Weapons came between them. Black Coat stomped back inside, and Orange Hat stormed to the other side of the pod and re-entered there. Two Weapons remained by himself for some time outside. Before he came back in, he’d done a complete 360, checking out everywhere he could see.
I worried he might spot me but luckily the armor kept me hidden and the mountains blocked sight too. He’d have to have super vision to see Artemis.
Today, Black Coat shoved his garbage into the compactor and followed Tall One back to the pod. I slumped down in my seat. Some days they didn’t do much. Today was one of those days. I turned off the view screen, setting it up to beep me if any serious movement took place anywhere, and I got busy being busy. Six months to kill in one spot was a long while. It was good to have chores.
Or so I kept telling myself.
The days blended together. Excitement came in the completion of small tasks and sometimes fixing potential problems before they became bigger ones. I’d always wondered if I could truly go without human interaction. It turned out I could; I just hated it.
The tears I started shedding one month after I landed on Orion shattered me. I didn’t see them coming, I didn’t know I was so upset, and when I was through weeping, I fell into such a deep sleep I almost missed my daily watching of Black Coat. I scurried to the view screen and tried to make my blurry eyes work. I needed to see them like I required air. He had Two Weapons with him. They stopped for a bit after the garbage dump to chat about something. Two Weapons threw his head back and laughed. I would have loved to hear what they’d said.
When they left, I tried to figure out if I could make the lighting function in the hydroponics bay work better. When Uncle Cooper had run the room, it had been a growing haven. I could get it back there. I just knew I could.
The buzzing of the fire alarm startled me, and I rushed out to the main room. Something—probably my messing with the power supply across the ship—had shorted out the fuse for the star maps system. It wasn’t a real fire, just some smoke. I ran to it and quickly turned off the alarm before I got the alarm all fixed up again. The alarm was loud in the quiet of Orion, and I’d never been so grateful to shut off a noise in my life.
I sunk down on the floor to drink my protein shake. Artemis was old. I loved her. She’d been my savior when I’d been five. The ship had meant as much to me as the men who steered it, maintained it, and brought me home in it. But she was old. I had to remember maintenance was the name of the game and not innovation. I couldn’t mess with her so much simply to give myself something to do.
It wasn’t like I was much of an innovator anyway. I could fix things, sort of, when I wasn’t making things worse and getting sucked into black holes.
I had my worst nightmare ever that night. In it, Asher didn’t make it back to Mars Station. Sandler Cartel blew him from the sky. He cried for me, big ugly tears, and I tried to get to him, only I couldn’t. My family—Mom, Dad, Uncle Wes, Uncle Cooper, Uncle C.J., Uncle Nolan, Uncle Dane, and all my brothers and sisters—rounded on me with hate in their eyes. I was responsible for Asher’s death. He’d been smart, talented, and perfect. They never wanted to see me again. They were glad I was stuck on a frozen planet where they never had to see me again.
I jerked upright in the bed, sweat dripping all over my body. I’d kicked the covers off sometime during my dream, and now I was freezing. Artemis’ computers kept insisting this was summer, but the planet could have fooled me. How bad would winter be if this was summer?
The view screen beeped, and I walked over to look. It wa
s the middle of the night, usually a quiet time on Orion and the Zombies were moving, creating quite a commotion as they did. They were coming straight at me. Ah, hell. I wasn’t sure what I should do and stood silently watching, as if I could will them away with the force of my thoughts alone. Finally, I snapped out of it. I had no weapons. None, whatsoever. I’d used the last bomb following my dad’s instructions.
If the Zombies suddenly became super strong and broke through, I was seriously screwed. Where could I lock myself up to hide? Would the compartments under the floor fool them? Could they smell me?
I never got the chance to think about it. Banging started on the outer hull followed by the sound of scraping. Seeing was, in this case, better than hearing. I turned on the ship’s outside monitors and watched in horror as one Zombie after another came and banged on Artemis. I guess once one Zombie found something, they all did?
The doors would hold. I knew they would. You couldn’t scratch your way onto Artemis. I sunk to the floor watching the view screen. I’d be fine. I’d be fine. I’d be fine. I repeated the mantra over and over again hoping at some point I’d believe it.
Eventually I had such a crowd of Zombies right outside my door I couldn’t see anything else through the monitors. I shut off the view screen. I’d probably miss seeing whatever Black Coat did with the garbage.
At some point the pounding became white noise. They were there, but they were distant. Artemis was real. Everything else was … just somewhere else. I dozed off on the floor for a while, hearing the sound of the Zombies outside, when a siren outside the ship made me dash to my feet. The noise wasn’t somewhere else. That was close. And what the hell was it? I turned on the screen, but I still couldn’t see anything except the Zombies. The pounding and scratching stopped abruptly. What the heck was …
The hatch to the ship flew open, and a burst of the coldest air I’d ever felt slammed into me, stealing the breath from my lungs. I first fell backwards and then down onto the floor, gasping. I hadn’t known you could feel the cold so utterly and completely inside your very soul. Cold burned.
Crashing Into Destiny (Wings of Artemis Book 3) Page 2
