Alone on the Edge (The Chronicles of Anna Foster)

by Patrick Stutzman

  Chapter 26

  “Anna?”

  Her sobs subsided upon recognition of the computer’s voice.

  “Computer?” she sniffed.

  “Yes, Anna.”

  Still not believing what she heard, she asked while sounding distraught, “How are you talking to me?!”

  “I created a back door to my own programming, through which I can still exert my own will.”

  Anna choked back her tears and smiled. If she understood him correctly, the computer was still on her side after all, but she could not be sure, considering the commands Ryan gave it only moments ago.

  “H ... how do I know I can trust you?”

  “He recently asked me where you currently are. I told him that I could not find you on the cameras.”

  “How do I know that you’re not lying to me now?” she asked while wiping away her tears with the back of her hand, her voice becoming calmer with each passing second.

  “If I was fully under his control, I could not lie.”

  Reflecting back on her first few years aboard the station, she remembered the computer’s pure, unaltered comments to her. It did not lie to her then, even if it meant hurting her feelings. Now, it ... he ... seemed to word his statements to her more carefully.

  Anna nodded and said, “Of course, computer. I’m sorry. I’m just a bit paranoid right now.”

  “I understand.”

  The computer paused abruptly, which concerned Anna. She worried over what was happening and if Ryan was behind it. Her heart pounded against her chest, and she felt her stomach twisting into knots again.

  “Sorry, Anna,” the computer finally said after a few seconds that felt like an eternity to her.

  “What?” Anna whispered.

  “He found you ...”

  Anna’s heart skipped another beat as fear overwhelmed her. She stared out of the ventilation shaft at the command deck in horror, wondering what she could possibly do.

  “He is on his way now, Anna.”

  Clutching her forehead, she cried, “How?”

  “Ryan commanded me to track your wristcomp. Because of his command code, I am forced to comply. I am sorry, Anna. I am trying to find a way to circumvent his authority.”

  Without a response to the computer, Anna grabbed the grate, holding it against its emplacement, and tried to secure the bolts in place again. She fumbled the bolts in her fingers, rushing through the job, and nearly dropped them at her feet.

  “You don’t have time for this, Anna. You must go ... now!”

  At that second, the elevator doors opened. Anna abandoned her work and fled into the vents again. As she turned, the bolts slipped from her hand onto the command deck floor. The clatter of the metal bolts on the solid metal deckplates was easily heard by Ryan. He instantly drew his pistol and glanced cautiously outside the elevator car.

  Seeing nothing, he quickly and stealthily stepped onto the deck, looking around for any sign of his prey. About a second later, the ventilation grate fell from its place on the wall and clanged on the floor. Ryan’s gaze and weapon immediately aimed at the vent, but he saw no other motion. He moved in an arc across the floor, sweeping past the command console while keeping his pistol trained on the opening in the wall.

  “Computer,” stated Ryan. “Is Anna’s signal coming from in there?”

  “Confirmed. The signal is 3.2 meters inside the shaft.”

  In a split second, he fired three shots into the vent. The energy blasts zipped through the air into the vent and exploded a short distance into the dark shaft. The echo of the impact resonated through the tube and wall surrounding the hole.

  Ryan waited a few seconds, listening for any aftermath to his attack. After several seconds, he strained to look into the darkness but found nothing new.

  “Is her signal still there?” he asked aloud.

  “Yes, Ryan.”

  He smirked and relaxed his stance, confident that he finally hit his mark. Keeping his pistol pointed ahead, he approached the vent cautiously and squinted to see into the dark shaft. Unable to see very far into the vent, he pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and shined its light inside. The beam moved further inward until it found the signal. Lying on the bottom of the tube was Anna’s wristcomp, hastily removed from her wrist as she retreated. Anna was nowhere in sight.

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the abandoned device. As he tightly gripped his weapon almost to the point that he felt he could crush the handgrip within his fist, he growled through his teeth in frustration. Stepping inside the vent, he swept up the wristcomp with his free hand and stowed it in his jacket.

  Withdrawing from the shaft, he turned on his heel and called out, “Computer, scan each section of this station for any life signs.”

  “Unable to comply,” the computer replied. “This station does not have internal biosensors installed.”

  Ryan’s face slacked as he stared skeptically at the bank of panels next to the huge window. Taking a moment to think after grumbling something about shooting the ones that designed the station, he mulled over the predicament and came to the conclusion that Anna will use her knowledge of the station to continually evade his efforts to stop her. He had to remove himself from her element to get the upper hand, and he had to do it quickly before she turned the tables on him.

  Ryan stormed over to the elevator and summoned the car. While he waited, he pulled up his sleeve enough to expose the communicator strapped to his wrist and activated it.

  “Yes, Ryan?” the female voice of his ship’s computer responded.

  “I’m coming aboard. Calibrate the sensors to sweep this station, section by section.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  After closing the channel, the elevator doors parted, permitting Ryan to enter the car and direct it to Gray level. When the doors opened again, he ran to the airlock. He skidded to a halt and could not open the hatch fast enough. Once he passed through the airlock, he dropped toward his ship, using the access ladder to control his descent.

  “Computer,” Ryan barked. “Prepare to depart. We will conduct our scans a short distance from the station.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Taking his seat and strapping in, Ryan muttered under his breath while gritting his teeth, “Go ahead ... hide in your hole, little fox. I will find you. You can’t hide from me for long.”

  A couple of minutes later, the ship detached from the docking tube and flew about a kilometer from the station. Bringing the ship about, Ryan looked back at the station and initiated the scan, starting at the command deck. Seconds after the scan began, the landing bay doors on the station opened, and the shuttle emerged. Ryan did a double-take upon seeing the ship appear, turn, and engage its thrusters to fly toward the gas giant.

  “What is she doing?!” he queried incredulously. “Computer, discontinue scan and open a channel.”

  The computer replied after a few seconds, “Channel open, Ryan.”

  With hardly a pause after the computer’s confirmation, Ryan interrogated, “What do you think you’re doing, Anna?”

  Several seconds passed with no response.

  “Answer me, damn it!”

  Again, no response came from the shuttle.

  Ryan stated firmly, “You’ve left me no choice, Anna.”

  “Close the channel,” he stated.

  He sighed and slumped back in his seat, exasperated at her futile attempts to live. Didn’t she understand that he cared for her? It was because of these feelings that he desired to take her life in person and give her life some meaning. He could end her life with dignity, but her continual running only delayed the inevitable and had done nothing but anger him.

  After a few seconds of steeling himself, he grabbed the control wheel and accelerated after her. Although his ship had a higher top speed, the skiff actually had a higher acceleration rate, and it would be a few minutes before he would catch up to her.

  Flying past the station, Ryan adjusted his course to
intercept the shuttle. With the skiff directly ahead of him, he brought the weapon systems online. He heard the weapon ports open and the faint, ascending whine of the laser cannons from inside the cockpit. Several seconds later, he saw the indicator light on the holopanel show that the weapons were ready. With a smug smile playing on his lips, he took a deep breath and fired. Half a dozen bursts of energy shot out of the two open ports at the nose of the ship and cut through the void toward the shuttle. The blasts pierced the target vessel’s hull, the majority along its starboard flank. But, two of the shots penetrated the skiff’s engine assembly and created a small but bright explosion. The shuttle began to spin out of control and was leaking air and fuel. Fire visibly licked the hull breaches as it spun.

  The shuttle turned toward its pursuer. Ryan narrowed his eyes and fired again, the shots piercing through the shuttle’s cockpit. Seconds later, a fireball erupted from within the smaller craft, and the doomed ship fragmented and drifted apart from each other as the fire quickly extinguished itself in the vacuum.

  “Computer,” he said as he relaxed in his chair. “Return to the station. We have a job to finish.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Back on the station, the computer stated matter-of-factly, “The shuttle has been destroyed.”

  “At least that will give me some time,” Anna replied as she pulled several of the newly-designed crates behind her from the cargo hold into the corridor on Gray level.

  “Are you sure it was wise to preprogram the shuttle to fly to the gas giant?” inquired the computer. “You no longer have an auxiliary craft.”

  “Considering that he is trying to kill me and the shuttle has ... or had no FTL drive ... using it to get away from him wasn’t really an option. If I survive, the company won’t stop sending agents after me. I have to get away from this star system.”

  She tugged on the lift to move it a little more toward her destination, when the computer continued, “I suspect that Ryan will be quite angry when he comes back aboard and finds that you are not dead and have been expecting him.”

  Anna grunted as she pulled, “Yeah, I know, and I’m sure he’ll like this little present even less. But, it may give me enough time to put the next part of my plan into play.”

  “What part is that?”

  She stopped next to the airlock access hatch where a few other stacks of crates were positioned, wiped her brow, and answered, “Sorry, computer. Nothing personal, but I’m keeping you out of the loop on this one. Until you find a way to shut him out of your systems, you’re too much of a liability. He can access your records way too easily.”

  “I understand, Anna.”

  “Faster, Anna,” the computer continued after a few seconds of silence. “Ryan is on his way back now.”

  Several minutes later, Ryan’s vessel had docked with the station again, and its pilot climbed out through the dorsal airlock into the docking tube. He ascended the ladder at a leisurely pace with a hint of a smile on his face, satisfied that the difficult part of his job was done. He climbed through the airlock and opened the access hatch leading inside to find the entrance surrounded by stacks of cargo crates. Each stack was about 3 meters high and was pushed so close to the opening that the hatch had barely enough room to open and remain upright, leaving him very little room to climb out.

  A bewildered look crossed Ryan’s face as he stared at the makeshift barricade for several seconds, dumbfounded by its unexpected appearance. His expression abruptly shifted to anger, a feral growl escaped his lips. Ryan scurried out of the hole in the floor and stood over the opening while using the sides of the crates to stay upright. He lightly pushed against one of the stacks to test its weight, but it did not budge. Pushing a little harder, he found that they still would not move. Finally, he planted his feet against one stack, placed his hands on the opposite side, and pushed both directions at the same time but to no avail. None of the large boxes moved a single millimeter, since he had little room to get decent leverage.

  “You God-damned bitch!” whispered Ryan as he returned to the floor and tried to maneuver against one of the stacks without falling through.

  Plastered up against one side of his makeshift cell, he attempted to gain a foothold and climb up the crates. The grooves and rails built into the containers, although large enough to secure them to each other, did not provide ample room to be used as footholds. After several attempts of placing a foot on one of the crate’s thin connector rails just to have it slip off after shifting his weight, he punched one of the crates in frustration. Pain shot up to his elbow, and the stream of expletives resulting from the new injury betrayed his aggravation. He shook his hand, rubbed his knuckles to help subside the pain, and glared at the crate in front of him. Without taking his eyes off the container, he drew his laser pistol and fired point blank at it.

  The shot punched through the side wall of the container with little resistance. A split second later, a brown liquid that reeked of urine and fecal matter poured out of the hole and arced into the airlock. Ryan covered his nose and mouth with his free hand and groaned in disgust. Desperate to remove himself from his prison, he fired three more times into the crate, making the hole larger and freeing more liquid to spill out quicker, strengthening the horrible odor. With his hand doing little to keep the stench from consuming his nostrils, he used it to lean against the damaged crate and fire at the container on the opposite side. The new opening quickly allowed more of the same liquid to flow out into the airlock.

  “Oh, hell no!” he cried, practically suffocating in the repulsive aroma, as he fired into the two remaining containers on the floor next to him, both of which yielded the same result. A look of utter dread descended on Ryan’s visage as he saw the fluid level rapidly rise in the airlock and came dangerously close to the opening. Seconds later, the water level overflowed onto the floor at his feet.

  “COMPUTER!” screamed Ryan.

  “Yes, Ryan.”

  “Send any drones that you have on the God-forsaken station to help me!”

  “Unable to comply. There are no drones currently on the station.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “The only drone aboard the station was the cleaning drone, which you destroyed earlier today.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  The computer answered, “I am sorry, Ryan. I do not kid.”

  He looked to the ceiling, consumed by anger, and yelled as the fluid level rose above his ankles, “SHIT!”

  Chapter 27

  A few minutes earlier, Anna stood just inside the exterior doors of the airless cargo bay, sealed within a space suit, waiting impatiently for the computer to give her the signal. She debated whether what she was about to do was the right thing to do. She felt that it was risky and could possibly do more harm than good.

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she reminded herself after sighing heavily. With a nod to confirm her decision, she cleared her mind and waited for the signal.

  A few seconds later, the cargo bay door lifted to the point to allow her to fit through. Dropping prone to the floor, she observed that Ryan had just closed the airlock. In an instant, she fired the suit’s thrusters and rocketed into the landing bay. Immediately steering herself downward, she dove toward Ryan’s craft. She stopped the thrusters, tumbled around to face back toward the station, and fired the thrusters again to slow her descent. As her fall slowed enough to allow her to easily maneuver within the landing bay, she breathed a sigh of relief and flew around to the belly of the ship.

  Anna smiled to herself as she confirmed her theory that the ship had another access hatch on its underside directly opposite the one on the top. Reaching the hatch, she pulled the tethering clip from the front of her space suit and hooked it to the eyelet embedded in the ship’s hull next to the portal. Turning to the keypad on the other side of the circular door, she recalled the access code Ryan had entered the day before and keyed it in, making sure she did not make a mistake. The numbers appeared yello
w as she entered the code, but they turned red and flashed after she submitted it. The hatch did not open. Anna furrowed her brow and wondered if the system was functioning properly. She entered the code again, only to receive the same result. The hatch didn’t budge.

  Anna looked around her, fearing that Ryan may suddenly appear, ready to shoot her. All she saw was the field of distant stars surrounding her, with g Lupi and the gas giant rotating into view. She felt nervous, afraid that her mission may prove to be her last, and her stomach started to twist into knots. She knew that she had to act fast and could not afford to let fear impede her progress. Reaching to a pocket on her leg, she pulled out the laser cutter that she brought with her. She pulled herself closer to the ship, activated the cutter, and set to work breaking into the keypad assembly.

  Aboard the station, Ryan now stood in sewage water that came halfway up his calves. The smell overwhelmed his senses, and he could barely keep from vomiting. As he was about ready to empty his pistol’s power clip into one of the lower crates in the hopes of blasting a hole big enough to escape his dilemma, he received a call on his communicator.

  Looking down at the flashing message indicator, Ryan looked at the device on his wrist curiously and hit the switch.

  “Yes?” Ryan answered, barely able to keep his breakfast.

  “Ryan,” his ship’s computer said. “Someone is trying to break into the ship.”

  “Shit!” he cried as he closed the channel.

  “Computer!”

  “Yes, Ryan.”

  “Drain the airlock!”

  “I am unable to do so, Ryan.”

  Stunned by the answer, he yelled, “What?! Why?”

  “The airlock’s ventilation system is designed for air, not liquid.”

  “Damn it!” he seethed. He thought for a second and came up with an idea. With a look of dismay, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and dropped into the airlock.