by M. D. Cooper
When the ring airlock connection showed green and cycled open, Brit stood in the opening and realized how exhausted she was as gravity took effect. She looked at one of her trembling hands as the door opened, and she smelled the air of home for the first time in two years.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
STELLAR DATE: 09.22.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Jovian L1 Hildas Asteroids, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
Cara hugged the edge of the corridor, peeking around the nearest rib in the bulkhead. Just past the point where the passage curved away, a soldier in scraped gray armor stood looking in the opposite direction. The intruder had a rifle slung across their back with the muzzle pointed at the floor, holding a pistol in one hand as their helmet moved back and forth in small movements. She assumed they were communicating over their Link and wished she had some quiet way to listen in that didn’t require the communications console.
Everything had gone out of control so quickly she still wasn’t sure how she had ended up here. They had been in the command deck when her mom’s voice started yelling over the audio channel about a breaching team. They had been aware of the team, but thought they had gotten them all. Then the hull sensors went off at four different places around the ship, including the habitat ring. Her dad had looked at Fran, then grabbed a rifle and he’d run out the door.
“Where are you going?” Cara had asked.
“We need to shut down the habitat airlock before they can get in here. If I don’t switch the manual override, they’ll hack it. We need to buy some time while they try to cut through.”
Then he was gone. Fran was already frantically working at something on her console, so she didn’t notice when Cara ran out the door after her dad. Cara got to her room and dug the TSF pistol out from under her mattress. Once she had it, she checked on Tim, but he wasn’t in his room.
She almost started yelling for her brother before she stopped herself, realizing there were strange sounds coming from the direction of the exterior habitat ring airlock. Creeping around the curve of the ring, she hid herself inside a storage closet doorway and watched two people in tight-fitting EV suits step into the corridor.
Cara nearly screamed. Biting her fist, she stared as the first soldier pulled his helmet off, showing a man with close-cut yellow hair and gray eyes. He looked around the corridor with a flat, business-like expression, before waving two more people through the opening. There were four of them altogether, each carrying a projectile rifle with pistols and grenades strapped to harnesses crossing their suits at chest and waist.
Cara gritted her teeth. She wasn’t going to get through that section of the corridor. She turned and ran as quietly as possible back to the command deck. Without thinking to warn Fran, she slapped the emergency closure on the door and sealed it shut, locking Fran inside. Then she kept running around the curve of the habitat ring, past the empty doors of unused rooms, through the kitchen and lounge, casting her gaze about for any sign of Tim and Em. They didn’t seem to be anywhere.
That was when Cara nearly ran into the soldier she was watching now. She caught sight of the gray EV suit and skidded to a stop, grabbing onto a rib in the bulkhead and swinging herself back. She was only halfway around the ring. She didn’t think they would have got this far into the habitat yet.
The soldier hadn’t taken their helmet off, so Cara couldn’t see their face. She studied the rifle hanging on their back, trying to get her breathing under control. Her heart wouldn’t stop banging wildly.
She had to find Tim and get him into the safe room. If she couldn’t get that far, they would hide in one of the storage rooms with the flour and protein powder. What would she do about the dog? Would Em be quiet? They couldn’t leave him. Tim would never let her do that, and if Tim had a meltdown, they were getting captured.
Cara’s mind lurched, filled with the dread of realizing they might get caught, and the worry that maybe it would better just to give up. At least no one would get shot that way. But what would happen then? These people wanted Lyssa, didn’t they? That meant they wanted Dad, and they would kill him to get Lyssa back.
She fought tears at the edges of her eyes, hating how few steps there seemed to be between where she stood now and her father’s death. She couldn’t see any other path.
What would Petral do? Find a way around. If you can’t unlock the door, remove its hinges.
Think your way out of this.
If she couldn’t find Tim, she had to do something about the intruders. They couldn’t get to Fran, for now, and Fran still had control of Sunny Skies. Cara rubbed the side of the pistol with her thumb, the metal growing slick beneath her fingers as she started to sweat.
What if I can’t think my way out?
The soldiers were still wearing their EV suits, so a distraction like the spilled chemicals they had used on the M1R wouldn’t work. She couldn’t dump atmosphere because she didn’t have a suit. If she killed the overhead lighting system, they probably had some kind of infrared in their helmets.
She needed a weapon. There were four of them and only one of her, and the corridor was three meters wide so they could easily surround her once they knew she was here.
She ran back around the ring in her mind, through the lounge, the kitchen and the pantry storage area. She thought about the ton of flour in the pantry and how pleased her dad had been to see it, as though it were a lifeline. The protein substrate was great, he said, but the flour would keep them alive when tough times came.
Then he’d laughed and said, “You know flour can kill you if gets in the air, right?”
She’d looked at him as if he was crazy. “How does that work?”
“Flash fire,” he said. “It’s flammable when it’s airborne. In ancient times, grain storage bins used to explode all the time.”
Cara swallowed, gaze locked on the soldier, who was still watching the opposite end of the corridor like they expected someone to come through there. Had Dad already come back from the main hab airlock? She wished she had some way to warn him but he’d run out so fast he didn’t have his helmet and she’d forgotten to grab her headset.
She slowly put another rib between her and the soldier, then turned and ran back down the hallway toward the kitchen and pantry. Once in the kitchen, she started digging through cabinets until she found a plas canister as big as her head. In the pantry, she filled it with flour, spilling handfuls on the floor and imagined how her dad would grouse at her. “That’s a whole meal, Cara!”.
She hugged the canister and ran back into the kitchen, digging through drawers until she found an electronic lighter her dad had used for birthday candles. She fully remembered her mom saying, “Open flame on a ship is a terrible idea,” followed by Dad’s rebuke, “My kids are going to have birthday candles.”
She nearly laughed, remembering her birthday was only a few days away.
Cara tested the lighter, then checked to make sure her pistol was firmly tucked in her waistband. She grabbed the flour canister and crept back down the corridor toward the where the sentry had been standing.
When she reached the curve, there were three soldiers now. Her heart pounded in her chest as she watched them. They were still using their Links, but seemed to be arguing about something. The blonde man who had taken his helmet off was obviously in charge, glowering at each of the helmets around him.
“I told Gibbs to get up here,” he said aloud, his voice sounding gravelly and angry. “I want into that command deck first, then you’re going to cut into the rest of the rooms. This is turning into a cluster. If I was Sykes, I’d lock all the doors and then get to a safe room.”
Cara slid down next to the wall, setting the flour canister on the deck beside her. A little puff of white flour hung in the air above its mouth. She looked at, thinking about the best way to attack. There were more of them, apparently, but they must be down in the body of the ship. If her dad had managed to close the airlock between the habitat
ring and the rest of the ship, they would be cut off and forced to go back outside along the hull where Fran could—hopefully—pick them off with the point defense cannons.
Could she fire so close to the ship? Cara forced her thoughts back to the problem at hand, gripping the canister. It was thin plas, and no doubt it would bend if she dropped. But if she tried to throw handfuls of flour, that wouldn’t get enough into the air to really burn.
She doubted again that this was even going to work. At worse, she supposed, she could throw the flour and then start firing with her pistol, which seemed like a toy gun compared to the heavy weapons the soldiers were carrying on their backs.
The blonde man was pointing in different directions now, obviously issuing commands. Cara stared, worried she was about to miss her chance, or worse, be discovered when one of the soldiers came down this section of the corridor, leaving her nowhere to run.
Grabbing the canister, she stood and lifted it over her head. With a shout, swung out into the center of the corridor and lobbed the flour directly at the group of invaders.
The plas canister arced through the air. Around the blonde man, several soldiers dropped to their knees, raising weapons, as the container full of flour struck their leader directly in the chest. A cloud of white dust filled the corridor.
Cara fumbled with the lighter as flour dust floated back toward her, obscuring the everything around her. Only when she looked up did she the flaw in her plan become clear. The flour dust had surrounded her just as fully as it was the group of soldiers. She backpedaled, holding the lighter in front of her with a trembling thumb on its ignition. The dust moved faster than she could.
I have to do this. If I get burned, I’ll have saved the others.
Cara pressed the ignition and the lighter didn’t respond. Coughing and dull shouts floated through the cloud of flour. Someone must have kicked the canister because the cloud grew thicker around the soldiers. Cara could no longer see them at all.
She tried the lighter again, shaking it angrily. When it didn’t respond, she shouted, “Damn it!” and hurled it into the roiling cloud of dust.
The sound of the lighter bouncing off the wall to strike the deck reached her ears, followed by the blonde man shouting, “Grenade!”
Weapons fire burst out of the cloud. Cara threw herself to the deck, sliding against the wall, as pulse blasts throbbed over her head. Then she heard the rumbling concussion of a plasma weapon, and the flour dust exploded.
Fire shot down the corridor past her. Cara squeezed her eyes closed as heat and sound washed over her. She smelled scorched plas and burnt hair and hoped it wasn’t hers.
I’m going to be bald for my thirteenth birthday.
As the ringing in her ears faded, she heard electrical snapping overhead and wondered if the explosion had blown out some of the conduits in the ceiling. The lights were still on, though, making the smoke drifting past her head glow like spirits.
Cara shook her head. The snapping sounds changed, grew closer, and then something was breathing heavily against her face, licking her ear through her hair. It was Em.
The Corgi whimpered, nuzzling her, then turned to bark at the smoke.
“A dog?” a harsh voice asked. Cara looked back to see a woman emerging from the smoke, wearing the same gray suit as the rest of the invaders. “You’re kidding me.” The woman looked back and shouted, “They’ve got a dog here.”
“He’s mine!” Tim shouted, sprinting past Cara to hit the woman just below her belt. He was wearing one of their dad’s old EV suits, swinging its helmet in both hands. He caught her by surprise and her arms went wide, flinging her rifle in front of her as she went down. The weapon clattered as it struck the deck near Cara’s face. Em danced away, barking and growling, the grin nowhere to be seen.
Cara stared at the rifle for a second, a black length of plas and alloy, then rolled and grabbed it against her body. A brief moment of worry about biolocks came to mind and she hoped they were disabled for use with the EV suits. She came up on one knee with the stock against her shoulder, finger finding the trigger and safety controls. Cara aimed at the ceiling ten meters into the smoke-filled corridor and pulled the trigger. A three-round burst slammed the stock back into her shoulder. She hung on despite the pain.
Tim was screaming, swinging his arms at the woman as she struggled to get him off her, looking more confused than afraid. Her head turned at the rifle fire, and Cara shifted the rifle so she was looking down the sites at the woman’s gray eyes.
“Tim!” Cara shouted.
He didn’t seem to hear, just kept struggling.
“Tim!” Cara repeated. “Get off her!”
“She was going to hurt you!”
“Look at me, Tim.”
“Yeah, Tim,” the woman growled. She caught him by the shoulders and threw him off her with a force that seemed inhuman. His back hit the wall and his head snapped back.
“Tim!” Cara shouted.
The woman rolled forward on her knees, about four meters away from Cara, and reached for her waist. She had to be reaching for a weapon. Cara swung the rifle, breathing hard, and the woman’s body swam in the sites as a gray blob, warped by the tears swelling in Cara’s eyes.
Cara pulled the trigger. The sights jumped and she leveled the weapon again until her vision turned gray. She fired two more times.
She lowered the gun and gasped in horror. The woman’s head was gone, just a gorey stump at the top of her armored body remained.
Cara blinked, watching blood pour out onto the deck. With the rifle in one hand, she scrambled over to the woman’s body and grabbed a pistol out of the holster at her waist, as well as a grenade fixed to her suit’s harness. She scrambled away from the corpse as fast as she could, rearranging the weapons so she didn’t drop anything.
Her ears were still ringing from the explosion, making everything sound dull and far away. The feeling extended inside her, making it possible to search the dead woman’s body and touch her blood without registering emotion.
Was this what Dad felt? Somehow she knew if she allowed herself to feel terror right now, to feel sad about what she done, or what the woman was going to do to Tim, she wouldn’t be able to move. So she pushed those things away and focused on physical actions: checking the woman for weapons, slinging the rifle over her shoulder, turning to look for Tim.
Only Tim wasn’t where he had fallen. She caught a flash of Em’s white-tipped tail as he ran into the smoke.
Cara gripped the dead woman’s pistol in two hands and followed slowly, hugging the side of the corridor. The smoke stung her eyes and throat. She didn’t let herself cough. She squinted, eyes watering, and looked for movement. As she searched, Cara discovered the burning smell was from a section of wall that had caught on fire and melted, leaving a river of plas across half the deck. Exposed environmental tubing in the wall was scorched and discolored.
With slow steps, Cara pushed on, stepping around two more bodies in gray EV suits whose helmets were blackened, faceshields scorched and warped as if they had burned from the inside. There was no sign of the blond man who had been talking with them.
She passed the hydroponic rooms, and was nearing the hab ring airlock, when she heard voices around the bend in the corridor. Her dad was yelling, followed by a woman’s voice she didn’t recognize. A sob caught in her throat. Mom? The world lurched for a heartbeat, as if she had shifted into another life where her mom hadn’t left. Something about the voice inside the ship echoing off the bulkheads and not squashed over the audio channel caught her in a way she couldn’t stop. The smoke-tears became real, emotion washing over her. She couldn’t allow herself to feel. She couldn’t start sobbing. Something was happening that she couldn’t see.
The airlock came into view, and then she froze. The blond man—who had been leading the squad she’d blown up—stood in the middle of the corridor, his back to Cara. His gray uniform was dirty now, one boot burned and melted, a pistol in his free hand.
“Don’t hurt him!” Tim shouted, over and over again as if it was all he could keep in his mind. He didn’t care about his own safety, the arm choking him. Only Em.
Cara raised her pistol, body still choking with sobs she could barely control. The man kept moving, jumping out of her sites as soon as she could focus. She could barely hold the pistol steady. She didn’t know what to do.
The man had her little brother.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
STELLAR DATE: 09.22.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sunny Skies
REGION: Jovian L1 Hildas Asteroids, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
I always tell them to run and hide. If they hear the proximity alarm, run and hide.
Andy could only hope Tim had done as he’d been taught.
Before Andy could reach the airlock to the body of the ship, the hatch slid open and someone in a gray EV suit looked around the edge of the opening. He couldn’t see a face inside the EV helmet, but the black projectile rifle in their hands said everything he needed to know.
Andy pushed himself toward the top of the access tube and fired three pulse blasts through the airlock. Two hit the invader in the chest and the third grazed the side of their helmet. They stumbled back, raising the rifle to get off a haphazard three-round burst that caught Andy in his right shin. His armor took the rounds but didn’t stop the pain. He was going to be bruised deeply.
Andy grabbed at the handholds along the side of the tube and dove forward, filling the space in front of him with pulse blasts. Two more blasts caught the attacker in the faceshield. The intruder jerked, then floated in the doorway, pistol spinning away from their slack hand.
