Zero-G

by Rob Boffard

  This isn’t the first time Prakesh has been in danger. He was abducted by Oren Darnell, nearly lost his life. And he and Riley have been in plenty of other scrapes. But something about this is different. Maybe because it’s his own techs holding him hostage – people he worked with, people he trusted. Whatever it is, it’s enough to make cold sweat break out across his back.

  “So this exit,” says Julian. “Tell me about it.”

  Prakesh has to hunt for the words. Then he has to work his swollen mouth hard to try and form the words. “Wall of the Food Lab.”

  “I know that.” He sounds bored. “Where does it lead?”

  “Out into the ventilation system.”

  “OK.” Julian digs the stinger barrel into Prakesh’s back. “And where does the ventilation system get us? Where’s the nearest exit point?”

  “The water point on Level 2. Near the hospital.”

  Instantly, he realises his mistake. Julian stops dead, then grabs Prakesh’s shoulder, spinning him around and jamming the gun into his cheek. “You’re sending us to a hospital? Where do you think the disease is? I don’t feel like dying today.”

  That’s when Prakesh sees them.

  There are five – six – Air Lab techs, crouching behind one of the algae pools that run alongside the trees. They’re armed: Prakesh can see fire extinguishers, metal rods. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been following Julian’s group for, but it’s clear what they plan to do. They’re going to attack. And even if they succeed, not all of them will make it. Julian won’t hesitate before shooting them, just like he shot Yoshiro.

  Julian’s stinger is still in his face. He speaks as fast as he can. “You won’t get infected,” he says. “I said it’s near the hospital. You can just go the other way. Besides, for all we know they could be containing it right now.”

  Julian looks around, as if hunting for support among the others. Prakesh looks over his shoulder, over to the algae pools. He can just see Suki’s terrified eyes looking over the top. Prakesh gives a very gentle shake of his head, desperately hoping that Suki understands.

  He doesn’t get a chance to find out. “I say we use the cutter on the main door,” says Iko. “I don’t like this one bit, Jules.”

  Prakesh can see Julian thinking. He closes his eyes. If Suki and her group attack, if Julian doesn’t lead them into the Food Lab, then this could go very badly. He looks at the gun, held tight in Julian’s hand, now pointing slightly away from him. I could take it, he thinks. He feels a sudden urge to reach out, pulls it back just in time.

  Julian shakes his head, then spins Prakesh around again, putting the pistol in its accustomed position in the small of his back. “Let’s go,” he says.

  They resume their march towards the Food Lab, the doors looming large. Prakesh knows what’s beyond them: a dark, soot-stained hangar, filled with scaffolding and building equipment. Construction stopped a few months ago – they need building materials from the asteroid, the one the Shinso Maru is bringing into orbit. The ship might be ancient, barely functional, but it’s still got enough juice to bring an asteroid back. Once they’ve got that, they can start rebuilding.

  Assuming we’re still alive, Prakesh thinks.

  Julian pushes him over to the doors. There’s a keypad set into the wall. Prakesh set the code himself, months ago – another part of his plan to keep the Air Lab secure. He punches it in now: 0421. Riley’s birth date. Easy to remember.

  Prakesh pauses for a moment before hitting the final number. He would do anything right now to be back in his hab with Riley. He doesn’t care about their fight any more. He just wants to hold her.

  “What are you waiting for?” Julian says.

  Prakesh shakes his head, and hits ENTER. With a hiss, the doors to the Food Lab slide back into the wall. There’s nothing but darkness beyond them.

  “We’re going to need some light,” Prakesh says. He glances at Julian. “They turned off the power couplings. Overheads won’t work.”

  “Oh, we got light,” says Julian. He looks at Iko, who lifts the hooked nozzle of the cutting torch. He flicks a switch, and the end of the nozzle sparks to life, a point so bright that Prakesh has to shield his eyes.

  Julian shoves Prakesh with the small of his hand. “You’re in front,” he says.

  45

  Riley

  The blackness is total. There isn’t even any light coming from under the door to the outside. The whole hospital must be down – I can hear confused shouts from somewhere in the corridor.

  I expect the emergency lighting to come on. It doesn’t. I yank at the restraints again, as if the velcro was somehow only strapped shut because of the power. It doesn’t give, and I slam my head back on the pillow in frustration. There’s hammering on the door, and I yell at them to let me out, but then I hear running footsteps, getting fainter. Doesn’t matter – not to me anyway. I’m still stuck here. Still dead.

  I hope Han Tseng feels really shitty afterwards, I think, and surprise myself by giggling. It’s a weird sound, tiny in the darkness. I shut my eyes; apart from a few muffled voices, somewhere in the distance, the hospital is almost completely silent. I could be lost in space, drifting further than any human has ever gone.

  There’s a noise above me. A grinding sound.

  My eyes fly open, but I see absolutely nothing. Just pitch darkness. My breath has caught in my throat – I imagined the sound, I had to have. But then it comes again, directly above me. A sound like metal on metal, as if someone was—

  Pushing back the plates in the ceiling.

  Whoever it is chooses that moment to drop. One of their feet takes me in the breastbone with the force of a meteorite impact, sending a huge shock wave of pain slamming through me. I yell out, half in surprise, half in total agony. My attacker’s other foot has landed on the mattress; they’re off balance, and their arms windmill as they fight to retain it.

  The foot digs into me, jabbing hard. “Who the hell is—” I manage to say, but my next word is swamped as a hand clamps over my mouth.

  I whip my head from side to side, trying to shake it off, grunting frantically, even trying to open my mouth so I can bite down on one of the fingers. Right then, there’s a voice, next to my ear.

  “If you don’t stop thrashing around,” says Carver, “I’m going to suffocate you with a pillow.”

  I’m breathing hard through my nose. Only when I’m completely still does he take his hand away. He does it slowly, as if I might start yelling again. No chance of that – I’m still working out what I’m actually going to say to him.

  I finally settle for “What are you doing?”

  “Practising my landings.”

  I feel his hands moving along my right arm, until he finds the cuff. He rips the velcro away. I start on the other, while Carver works his way round to my feet. Halfway there, he knocks his shin on something and swears loudly.

  “Carver, why are you doing this?”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you ask far too many questions?” he says. I feel tugging on my right ankle, hear the rip of velcro. “I’m getting you out of here.”

  “But what happened earlier. With Kev…”

  “So what, you don’t want me to get you out?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I still don’t understand what happened to Kev. But I’m not letting it happen to you, too.”

  He keeps working on my cuffs. “We all agreed that if you tried to contact anybody, we’d get you to come in. It was just luck that you got through to Anna first, really. I don’t think Royo would have managed it – he was never very good at asking nicely.”

  “Luck? Anna betrayed me.”

  “Don’t start with that, Riley. She did what she had to do. And I still can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me what was happening to you.”

  I try to make my reply strident, strong, but it doesn’t feel that way. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I had to handle this myself.”

  “How’d that work
out for you?”

  The last cuff falls loose. I stand carefully, putting my feet on the floor as if the bombs will trigger from the slightest impact.

  “They tested your blood,” Carver says. “You and Anna are both immune to Resin.”

  “What about you?”

  “Same thing,” he says. “They’re not sure why. We’ve got the right antibodies, but they don’t know why, or how to replicate them. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Tseng’s not letting anyone leave.”

  “He thinks if we can hold Apex, we can save the station. That about right?”

  “Uh-huh. But, right now, we’re the only ones who could get anywhere – any stomper with a respirator wouldn’t make it ten steps before being killed for it.”

  I hear another sound from where he’s standing – like liquid in a small container being shaken.

  “Furosemide-nitrate compound,” he says. “Single dose. Got it from one of the labs. If this Knox person is real, and if you really die when he dies, then it’ll buy you some time.”

  I feel myself smiling. It’s a tiny chink of light in a very dark world, but it’s there.

  “We’ll have to force the door,” I say, stepping my way around the debris.

  “Actually, if I have my timing right, we can use the handle.”

  There’s another loud click from above. The room is flooded with dim red light – the emergency power, finally kicking on.

  Carver’s face, hair and stomper jacket are streaked with sticky, oily dirt from the ducts. “Deactivate the emergency backup, smash the main power coupling, slip into the ventilation system before they arrive,” he says. “Easy.”

  He slips past me to the door and tries the handle. It doesn’t move. His brow furrowed, he tries again, rattling it harder.

  “Problem?” I ask.

  “This should be connected to the emergency power, right?”

  “It’s a manual door, you moron. They all are.”

  “Yeah, I see that now, thanks. What do we do?”

  I think for a moment, casting my eyes around the room. In the corridor outside, I can hear running feet and urgent voices. How long will it be before they check on us? No way to tell.

  My gaze falls on one of the units lined up against the wall. It’s about chest-high, the metal shelves stocked with pill bottles and plastic containers filled with viscous liquid. I step towards it, pulling it away from the wall on its casters, struggling to keep it straight. “Help me with this,” I say to Carver.

  He’s shaking his head. “If you’re trying to reach the ceiling vent, it’s no good. It’s too high up.”

  But for the first time in what seems like a year, I’m smiling. “Better idea. There’s a guard outside the door, right?”

  He nods, confused. “There should be. Why?”

  I point to the unit. “Just help me. Then get on one side of the door.”

  Puzzled, he complies, pulling the unit over to the door, then pressing his back to the wall on the right. I take the left. “Ready?” I say.

  “Ready for what?”

  “This.”

  I put one foot on the unit, and shove. It topples over with a colossal crash, sending bottles flying across the floor. Almost immediately there’s a startled cry from outside. The door flies open, and a stomper runs into the room. He’s got his stinger out, but before he can turn around I hit him in the back of the neck, right in the pressure point.

  He goes limp on his feet, and I shove him to the floor. He turns his face up to the light, his eyes clouded, and just before Carver pulls me out of the door I recognise him. Sanchez – one of the guys from Big 6.

  There’s no time to feel bad. He’ll live, and that’s good enough for now.

  The corridor is bathed in the red emergency lighting, turning it into something from the depths of hell. There’s a strange buzzing sound, like the power cables are frying in their rubber insulation, cooking the entire hospital.

  “How did you know there was only one stomper outside?” Carver says over his shoulder.

  “I didn’t.”

  “You could have told me.”

  “You had a better idea?”

  “Not really,” he says.

  As the words leave his mouth, two stompers materialise in front of him, stingers out. I see their eyes widen above their masks, see them raise the stingers. Carver drops to his knees, skidding along the corridor.

  I know what he’s doing. It’s a move Amira taught us, years ago, and I wasn’t even aware that I’d remembered it until now. I take off with one foot, planting the other firmly on Carver’s back and launching myself upwards, going so high that my forehead taps the roof of the corridor. I fling my legs out in front of me, as if I’m sitting in mid-air.

  My feet hit the stompers at the same time. My left foot takes one of them in the throat; his gun goes off, the bullet slamming into the floor somewhere behind us. My right foot hits the other stomper square in the face, the heel smashing into the faceplate of his respirator. I hear it give under my foot with a crack.

  They’re both down before I land. I barely manage to get my feet under me before I do, but as I make contact I see the one I smashed in the face try to rise. Carver jams a fist into his neck, sending him sprawling. Then we’re both up and running, charging down the corridor.

  The buzz in the walls is louder now, like the hospital is angry at us for overcoming its guards. We don’t see any more stompers – wherever the rest are, we seem to have slipped past them. We sprint out into the hospital atrium, heading for the exit. The atrium has high ceilings, going up at least two levels, with balconies clustering around it – another one of those vastly impractical designs that our ancestors seemed to specialise in. There’s an admissions desk in our way, between us and the door, a chest-high slab with overturned chairs scattered before it. We vault over it in unison, landing with a bang on the other side, no more than a few strides from the doors.

  We’re almost there when we hear a shout from behind us.

  “Hale!”

  It’s Royo. He’s standing by the desk. His respirator has been ripped off, hanging on his chest, a tangle of black tubes and straps. His bald head is shiny with sweat under the lights.

  And the stinger in his hand is pointed right at us.

  It’s only when he fires that we stop. We’re nearly at the doors, and we skid to a halt. Carver nearly tumbles, his feet catching under him. Royo fired upwards – a warning shot, buried in the ceiling.

  “Next one finds its target,” he says.

  His gun hand stays steady, but there’s something in his eyes. Like he doesn’t quite know where he is. We’re too far away to jump him – and too close to run.

  I shake my head. “We’re on the same side, Cap.”

  “And what side would that be?” he says.

  “Yours,” I say. “Outer Earth’s.”

  “No. No, no, no, no. You and Janice Okwembu. You’re all in this together. You made the virus. It was you.”

  Carver steps in front of me, his hands held out in front of him. “Put the gun down, Captain.”

  Royo takes a step forward, the stinger aimed right at Carver’s chest. Above and around us, the darkened balconies stare down. “You’re helping her, Carver? Can’t say I’m surprised.”

  A tiny flash of anger crosses Carver’s face, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he says, “Whatever’s stopping Riley and me from getting sick, they can’t build it in a lab. There’s nothing more we can do here.”

  “You’re wrong. We have to hold the sector.”

  “With who?” Carver says. He raises his arms, pointing to the empty balconies. “Where’s your backup? How many stompers have we lost today?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Cap, listen to me,” I say. I can feel the stitches in my legs burning, like lit fuses. “Everything you heard me and Anna talking about was true. If I don’t do this, I’m dead.”

  “It’s the Shinso Maru, isn’t it?” he says. “That’s your plan. Kill as ma
ny people as possible, then capture the ship.”

  “Captain … Sam…”

  “You’re trying to go back to Earth. Finish what your old man started, all those years ago. Okwembu got in your head, just like she did with your crew leader. You shouldn’t have listened to her, Hale.”

  His words aren’t true, aren’t even close to being true, but they cut deeper than they should. I’m about to say something very stupid when I freeze. What I see stops the words in their tracks, cutting them off as effectively as someone grabbing me round the throat.

  A line of thin black liquid has started to run from Royo’s nostril. It reaches his lip, moving almost imperceptibly. He coughs, reaching up to wipe it away almost absent-mindedly. It leaves a black streak on his face.

  “We’re going now, Cap,” Carver says quietly.

  Slowly, he turns, and starts walking towards the doors. After a moment, I turn and follow. Behind us, I hear Royo take a step forward. “Don’t make me do this,” he says.

  Carver jabs at a button by the doors, and they slide soundlessly into the wall.

  “Is this how you want it to end? With a bullet in the back? Hale, I am your commanding officer, and I am ordering you to stop. Now.”

  And then another voice speaks, from the shadows. “Put it down, Captain.”

  Anna Beck steps out, One-Mile raised high, her fingers clenched around the steel bearing in the cup. She walks towards us, never taking her eyes off Royo, tracking him with the slingshot.

  He lowers the gun, just slightly. “So it’s like that, huh?”

  Anna nods. “It’s like that.” She’s at our side now. I can’t look at her. I want to tell her to stay away, that I’ll only get her killed. Instead, as one, we turn and start to make our way out. Our walk turns into a jog, then a run.

  “Dammit, stop.”

  Even without looking round, I can tell that Royo has raised his stinger again. Anna isn’t aiming at him any more – she’s moving with us, away from Royo. Then we’re into the corridor, the lights in the ceiling whipping past above us, the passing struts in the walls punctuating the beating of my heart.