Outer Bounds: Fortune's Rising

by King, Sara

  Milar eyed the cockpit warily. “I don’t think I’m gonna fit.”

  “The volume calculator put you at a hundred and nine liters. Volumetrically speaking, you’ll fit.”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “You rather stay here?” Tatiana demanded.

  Reluctantly, Milar unbuttoned his pants and pulled them off, then stuffed them into the storage compartment. “Can I keep my underwear this time, squid?”

  She had to grin. “Sure. Now as soon as I’ve got the tube in, crawl in after me and get your knees up on either side of me. It’s the only way you’ll make it in here. Once you’re in, I want you to grab the air hose leading off the mask and take that knife and to cut yourself a little air-hole. A little one, mind you. You sever it and it’s game over.”

  “I don’t think this is gonna work,” Milar muttered, leaning in to eye the roof of the inner shell. “That thing’s tiny.”

  Tatiana was beginning to feed the hose again, then stopped. “Oh, and we’re leaving the EMP wand behind. No way in Hell is that thing coming onboard with me.”

  “What about the knife?” Milar asked.

  “Throw it in the cargo compartment, if you can. If you can’t, we leave it.”

  Tatiana fed the hose up her nose, gagging as it slipped down through her sinuses and into her stomach. She wasn’t as proficient at it as her technicians, and it left tears in her eyes as she prodded and scratched it into place.

  “You all right?” Milar asked, leaning forward into the cockpit, looking concerned.

  “No, dammit,” she muttered. “Now stop asking questions.” Then Tatiana positioned the clip over her nostrils and clamped it down, making sure she couldn’t inhale stabilization fluid through her nose if her mask became displaced. Then she took the operator mask from its hook.

  The operator mask, unlike that of freestyle pilots, had no window for her to see what lay beyond the mask. It wasn’t necessary. She was supposed to be seeing with her soldier, not with her eyes.

  Looking at the black faceplate, Tatiana’s stomach started to churn as she remembered what was to come.

  “No wonder you don’t like this,” Milar muttered. He was eying the mask like it was some strange toxic weapon.

  Tatiana tapped the air line. “Cut it,” she said.

  Reluctantly, Milar leaned in and grabbed the line approximately thirty centimeters from where it entered her mask. Then he hesitated. “If I cut this, and I can’t fit in with you, then you’re not going to be able to get out of here, are you?”

  “Hurry.”

  Muttering, Milar cut a notch into the hose, then threw the knife into the cargo hatch and locked it shut.

  “Here goes,” Tatiana said. “Any other questions before I seal up?”

  “Couldn’t we find a better way to do this?”

  Tatiana slid the faceplate and its accompanying air tube in place, bit down on the air regulator in her mouth and, making a seal along the outer edges of her face, she began touching the AI mechanisms that tightened the mask into place. She motioned Milar when she was ready.

  Still, Milar made no move to enter the pilot chamber.

  Tatiana slapped the stabilizing gel near her neck in aggravation.

  “All right,” Milar said, sounding very unhappy, “Fine, squid. Fine.” She felt him stick his legs in first and, placing his shins on either side of her shoulders, eased himself in with her. Careful of the lines, she thought, itching to rip the mask off and see if he was going to tangle anything. She felt him slide forward and down.

  She heard displaced cushioning gel begin to ooze out of the pilot chamber, dripping with wet plops on the floor of the hangar, and suddenly Tatiana found her knees mashed up against the colonist’s chest. By the way she could feel something touching the side of her mask, Milar had had to duck his head down and to the left as he finally got his body crammed into the cockpit with her.

  “I’m gonna have one hell of a neck-ache in the morning,” he muttered, right next to her ear. “And hell, I can’t move my arms. Can you pass me the air line?”

  Tatiana wiggled until she had a grip on the air hose and, tracing it backwards until she found the notch, stuck it into his mouth.

  “Thanks,” he said. Then, around the tube, “You better know what you’re doing.”

  In reply, Tatiana gave her soldier the command to shut the hatch.

  Instantly, Milar went stiff as the hydraulics began to whine and the light from the hangar began to cut off.

  Hold on, she prayed, as the lid sealed and left them in darkness. Milar’s chest was heaving against her knees, and he was sucking more air from the line than it would provide.

  “I’m beginning to have second thoughts, squid,” Milar said.

  The worst is yet to come, Tatiana thought. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Just calm down and trust me.

  “Hatch locked,” her soldier told her. “Pumping stabilizing gel.”

  Milar’s body jerked when the stabilizing gel began to ooze into the chamber. “Oh, fuck this. Let me out, squid. Let me out right—” His last was lost, since the gel inched past her ears.

  It was obvious Milar was not happy. He made this evident by the way he squeezed her hand until she thought something would break. He was jerking it back and forth as best he could in the close quarters, basically the same as, I want out. Right now.

  By the way he was sucking down on the hose, though, Tatiana knew he wasn’t starved for air. He could deal with it.

  Chapter 33

  Magali’s Choice

  The first thing Joel said when Magali came aboard his ship was, “There was a Coalition ship snooping around a few miles up the Snake. This is gonna be my last haul.”

  He had brought Magali aboard and locked the doors behind them to talk. Now, alone with her, he waited for the response he expected.

  Okay, Joel, get me out of here.

  Instead, like a true Landborn, she said, “There’s still three hundred and seventy-one people out there.” Her hair was clumped with sweat and she oozed an aura of stress and frayed nerves. She kept twitching to look over his shoulder at the viewfinder, which showed the empty cavern entrance. “We need to get them to safety.”

  “Three hundred and seventy-one?” Joel asked, amused. “You’ve been counting, huh?”

  “Yes,” she said, with no hint of humor. “You need to keep going.” Her words held the taste of a threat.

  She reminds me of her father. Joel gave her a bitter snort. “What are you gonna do, Magali? Force me to fly with a gun to my head? You think that’ll improve my concentration somehow? They pinpoint where I’m coming and going—which I’m pretty sure they’re trying to do right now—and every single person we’ve ferried out of here will be lined up and shot. It’s time to cut our losses and go, before they figure out they’ve been had.”

  Magali swallowed, hard.

  “So,” Joel said, leaning back into Martin’s huge leather chair. It had actually kind of grown on him, especially the lumbar support. His old chair had been as flat-backed as a board. “What do you say, Magali? You launched this little project. You wanna come with me or you wanna go down with your ship?”

  “You can’t leave,” Magali babbled, the determination that had reminded him of David Landborn falling away, leaving in its place a scared little girl. “The Nephyrs will find us. Please.”

  Joel laughed. “So? The eggers got a bit unruly. Happens all the times in the Yolk mines. They expect things like this to happen. All part of the game. You can’t keep people in those kinds of conditions and expect things to be just gumdrops and lollipops. Besides, you ain’t killed anybody they care about, and they still got plenty of time to grab a few nodules outta there before end of Harvest, so they’ll just whack everyone we leave behind on the ass and send them back into the mines. Hell, maybe those Nephyrs will even go in and start picking nodules themselves, to save face. Couldn’t admit to their overseers they let a couple thousand eggers slip out from und
er their noses, could they?” He grinned, imagining the glittering circus clowns on their hands and knees in the slime, plucking nodules. The image delighted him.

  Magali had flinched and grown increasingly pale as he talked. “What’s wrong?” Joel asked, his smile fading.

  “I killed fifteen of them,” Magali said.

  Joel went utterly still. “Fifteen of who?”

  His world collapsed when she said, “Guards.”

  Oh Aanaho, Joel. What the Hell have you gotten yourself into? His gaze fell to the gun in her hand, then out at the entrance to the cavern, expecting Nephyrs to boil out of the darkness at any moment. “Please tell me you’re joking,” he said.

  Swallowing hard, the Landborn girl said, “They sent guards in to check on us. I killed them. Then I killed the Nephyrs that came to check on the guards.”

  She killed Nephyrs? Joel could barely think. Was she joking? No one killed Nephyrs. “How long ago?”

  “An hour for the Nephyrs. Almost two for the guards.”

  More than a dozen trips ago. “And you let me keep shuttling and didn’t tell me?” Joel screamed.

  “I’m sorry,” Magali cried. “I didn’t think you’d keep flying.”

  “You’re damn right I wouldn’t have kept flying!” For the first time in his life, Joel wanted to hit a woman. He even balled his fist, rage coursing through him so hotly that his jaw ached. Instead, he whispered, “What did you do with the bodies?”

  “Over the cliff,” Magali said, staring at her feet. “I thought we could get all of us out of here before they sent in a second batch.”

  Joel closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. “Mag, all Coalition troops are fitted with these nifty little things called lifelines. All they’ve gotta do is get the camp computer to review their last movement patterns and they’re gonna have a map right to your hideout.”

  Her face went wan. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. And she looked sorry, too. Joel didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He was looking at a dead woman.

  “Listen, Mag,” Joel said, “Nobody kills Nephyrs. That’s like kicking a hornet’s nest. Shit, no wonder I was getting pinged out there. A computer registers a four-thousand-foot drop on a lifeline and it’s gonna know something’s up. Shit. I’m getting out of here. Right now. Before the camp computer can fry my line. You can either come or stay, but either way, you’re as good as dead. Everyone in that cave is as good as dead.”

  Magali glanced at the groups of eggers huddled against the walls through the viewscreen. He watched the guilt work its way through her, the misery. “Dead?” she said.

  “They’ll kill everyone in that cave, then they’ll hunt down everyone who was involved. They’ll sic the entire Coalition Army on you, if they have to. Nobody kills Nephyrs and gets away with it.”

  She took a deep breath and held it, tears glistening on her cheeks as she looked out at the eggers she had killed. Softly, she said, “Take the kids.”

  “What about you, Mag?”

  “Just the kids,” Magali said. “I’m going to stay here.”

  She’s insane, Joel thought. Just like her father.

  But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. “Fine,” he said, powering up the ship again. “Get the kids in here. Just don’t tell anyone it’s the last trip or you’ll have a riot on your hands.”

  If she heard or understood him, she made no sign. She simply turned and left.

  Joel felt sorry for her. He knew that, whatever the Director and her glittering friends had planned to do to him for his lifetime of thwarting the law, it was going to look pale in comparison to what they did to Magali for slaying their brothers.

  Poor girl, he thought, as the first passengers began filtering into his cargo hold. He hoped she had the good sense to shoot herself before the Nephyrs found her.

  * * *

  “He’s just taking the kids this trip,” Magali said, trying to avoid the eggers’ gazes, feeling her shame right down to her very core. “Everyone else can wait for the next trip.” She gave Benny a gentle shove toward the ship’s ramp.

  “Now wait a minute,” the starlope hunter said, hefting the rifle he had taken from one of the guards. “You’re telling me that, all of a sudden, the smuggler just wants to take the kids? Why?”

  Magali felt her face heat. She’d never been good at lying. That was Anna’s forte, not hers. “He just does.”

  “‘He just does.’” The starlope hunter glared at her, then at the ship, where Benny and the other kids were climbing up the ramp. “Bullshit.”

  Other men and women had started to gather around him, watching her with curious expressions. Several carried rifles or knives from the fallen Coalition forces they’d killed.

  Think, Magali, she thought, panicking. Think! What would Anna say? She didn’t know. Some lie, no doubt. But as she stood there, watching the man’s expression grow darker, no lie would come to her lips.

  “He ain’t coming back, is he?” the starlope hunter asked, after she’d been silent for too long.

  Magali felt the lump of dread in her gut tightening into something worse. “Please,” she whispered, before she could stop herself.

  “Oh fuck this,” the starlope hunter snarled. He turned and wrenched Benny off the ramp. Holding the terrified child out between them by a shoulder, the starlope hunter shook the boy and said “Who you think the Nephyrs are gonna kill when they get here, little Deaddrunk hotshot? The kids? Or the guys and gals who shot their pals?” He gestured to the men and women holding the guns they had stolen from the guards.

  Magali’s face reddened and she couldn’t speak.

  The starlope hunter shoved Ben at her. To the cavern, he said, “I’m getting the fuck outta here, and I’d suggest everyone who touched a gun today does the same. When they figure out what we did, those Nephyrs are gonna—”

  The man’s words broke off before Magali realized she had her gun aimed at his head.

  “Just the kids,” Magali said.

  She heard the sound of rifles jingling against their slings around her. Absolute silence filled the cavern.

  The starlope hunter broke into a bitter smile. “There’s over a dozen rifles trained on you right now,” he said. “I don’t care how good a shot you are. You shoot me, little Deaddrunk slut, and you’re gonna have twenty holes in your head before you can scream.”

  To Magali’s horror, she realized it was true. The other men and women that had helped her kill the Nephyrs were now standing around her, their weapons aimed at her face.

  The starlope hunter’s voice was lifting in a sneer. “You were just gonna let us all die here, weren’t you?”

  No, Magali thought, her heart skipping as she glanced at the other eggers. He was going to scare them. “Please don’t do this,” she whispered. “Keep your voice down.”

  The starlope hunter laughed. “Keep my voice down? You were gonna leave us for the Nephyrs, and you want me to keep my voice down?” He gestured grandly to the three hundred and seventy other eggers left in the cavern. “Why? So nobody panics? So they all wait for their slaughter like brain-dead cattle?”

  “No,” Magali whispered.

  “Yeah, well, to Hell with that,” the starlope hunter said. “I’m getting on that ship, and those kids can just fend for themselves.” And, at that, he climbed aboard the ship. Inside, he heard yelling, and the kids that had already boarded came running down the ramp in terror. A moment later, Magali heard the starlope hunter get into an argument with Joel. She heard the starlope hunter yell back. Something heavy slammed against a wall. Then nothing.

  The ship continued to wait for passengers.

  The starlope hunter stuck his head out the open hatch. “Now, people! We ain’t waiting much longer.”

  Magali stumbled backwards as panic ensued. Where before, she had managed to instill order with logical weight calculations and calm commands, now the cavern became an echoing clamor of screaming voices and pushing bodies, all begging to be taken to safety. The one
s with the guns got in first, then the strongest shoved their way in after them. Before the hull was completely full, one of the men inside pounded on the gate release and the hatch started to drift shut. Those stuck outside began to scream and plead with those inside. One woman even thrust her hand in the lock to stop the gate from shutting. A moment later, she withdrew a stump. Her thrashing body was crushed underfoot as hundreds of eggers lunged away from the ship as its engines began to increase exhaust.

  Magali looked away, dread for what she had done weighing on her shoulders, suffocating her soul in despair. She swallowed and felt the burning sting of bile.

  The ship retracted its legs and desperate pleas became broken sobs as the eggers realized they were going to be left behind. A moment later, the glossy obsidian ship darted through the cavern entrance and was gone.

  Beside her, an old man said, “What a selfish prick.”

  Magali looked up at him, shame collecting deep in her core.

  But the old man was watching the ship disappear along the ragged edge of the Snake, not Magali. “I mean, sure, sucks to be us, but you were trying to do the right thing and he screwed it all to hell. His mother obviously potty-trained the dumbshit too early.”

  Magali realized it was the old man who had picked up a rifle and grumbled about killing Nephyrs. Lars. He had dressed himself in a dead guard’s outfit. He still carried his rifle, and he lifted it to his shoulder to watch the ship disappear through the scope.

  “Prick,” Lars said again, lowering the gun. For the first time, he turned to look at Magali. “You’re David’s kid, right? The deadeye shot?”

  Magali’s shame increased a thousandfold. She looked away.

  “Thought so. Not many people I know can put a Nephyr down like that.” He gave her a sideways look. “Sure, never met you before, but I heard of you. The resistance was real proud of David’s kid.”