by K. Gorman
Then they were running.
“Can we get it back out?” Karin sucked in a sharp breath as she stumbled. Pain flashed up through her toes and shins. “Hit it out, maybe?”
“It’d just come back in. Maybe even blast the doors. You said it could do that, right?”
They jumped forward into a sprint as another electricity charge shot toward them. It went wide and hit the hall.
Closer than last time. And, already, her muscles were burning.
Pulling ahead of her, Soo-jin’s stance was alert and upright. Her eyes narrowed on the entrance. “We have to shut the door, or we’re going to have bigger problems. Keep it off me. I gotta find a welding kit.”
As Soo-jin broke away and sprinted for the side, Karin found her jaw slackening.
“How?” she said, mostly to herself.
How wasn’t the problem. As the ball paused again, and the blast marks on its front turned in Soo-jin’s direction, she jerked forward and waved. After a few seconds, it turned back and followed her.
No, the how wasn’t the problem. Keeping it up… well, she couldn’t run indefinitely. Already, the shot from earlier was wearing in her blood, and her legs had begun to drag with each step and her breath came in heavy gasps. She swung her gaze back to the ball, and a surge of adrenaline took her forward.
This time, the ball of electricity missed by only a meter.
“We have just under seven minutes until Marc shows up and this place becomes a vacuum.” With a grunt, Soo-jin hauled an old solder gun out of a trunk at the side of the hangar. A vintage faceplate flashed briefly in Karin’s direction as she dumped it on the floor, hurrying to pull the rest out. Something clanked inside as she grabbed a matching welder’s facemask.
“That’s great.” Karin’s breaths came fast and hard as she rounded the opposite end of the hangar, careful to keep the ball moving away from Soo-jin. “What about our friend?”
Electricity sounded, and a spike of panic drove through her shoulders in warning. She threw herself into a ragged roll over the metal floor that bumped every vertebra in her back along with her hips and knees. As she came out of it, able to lurch upright only because some faint, distant part of her remembered Nomiki’s escape-training, her joints gave a dull, ringing ache. Sucking her breath past her teeth, it took her a few seconds to be able to speak again. “And you realize we’ll be in here when the vacuum hits, right?”
“Christops won’t authorize a door opening unless he sees us safe. The suits are in the corner. If we can find some rope—Karin! Watch it!”
She dove again, this time less like a somersault and more a full-bodied downhill steamroller. As she scrambled back to her feet and sprinted off again, she bent down to scoop a crowbar from the floor. “That still doesn’t take care of our friend.”
“I’m working on it. Just keep it off me.” Soo-jin jammed the welding helmet over her head and dragged the equipment to the door. Sparks shot from the door as she fired the gun up. Karin veered away, shifting just in time to miss another shot from the ball. An arc of loose electricity bit into her arm as it passed, making her hiss.
Keep it off her. Right.
She flipped the crowbar between her hands, eyeing the ball. It floated closer, no variation in its speed. Beyond it, a red strip glowed in the doors’ middle seam. Meant for use in the vacuum and underwater work, the solder gun worked fast in the oxygen environment.
Electricity crackled again. She dove—forward this time. Gritting her teeth together, she yelled as part of the charge swept over her arms. The world turned around her, breathless, momentarily isolated in the tumble. The crowbar clattered against the ground.
When she came up, she grabbed it and swung.
The bar clanked off the middle. A chink appeared in the metal surface, right under the warped scorch of a blaster burn. The ball bounced a foot to the right, stuttering on whatever mechanism it used to float. A low-pitched whining strained within.
She sprinted away. When she heard the next crackle, she threw the crowbar ahead and dove right.
Electricity swept overtop, centimeters from her leg. She yelled as it caught her knee in a loose discharge, the muscles locking up. Dragging in a breath, abdomen heaving, she turned her next yell into a hiss and rolled back to her feet, limping.
Fuck, that was stupid.
She eyed the door. The slanted red streak meant that Soo-jin had finished the seam. She’d moved to the base, attaching both doors to the floor. The smell of hot metal tinged the air, mingling with the scent of burning electronics. “Hey, you think that thing’d work on the ball?”
Soo-jin grunted. “Give me a second and I’ll try it.”
Her jaw stiffened as the ball floated toward her. Already, sparks arced across its front, readying for another attack.
She planted her leg.
I don’t have a second.
As the ball’s discharge shot forward, light flashed in her hand. She leapt away, turned her momentum into a staggered spin, and threw the light like a net.
It glommed around the ball like some sticky, half-melted marshmallow.
The ball halted. Ignoring a surge of nausea, she pulled her fingers into a fist, focusing on the light around it. It must have other ways of finding them; otherwise, it couldn’t have tracked her back on Enlil, but she hoped its weapons tracking relied on some kind of motion-sensing light-meter.
It’s not like she had anything else she could do.
She swallowed hard, focusing on the ball. The air went still, quiet. Only the sound of the ball’s internal whining, the hiss and heavy breaths of Soo-jin working in the corner, and the rasp of her own breath, roaring loud in the silence, occupied the space.
For a few seconds, it seemed to be the only thing she could hear.
A ball of energy crackled out—in the spot she’d stood in a minute ago.
A smile tugged her lips as it slammed harmlessly into the pod bay’s front doors.
It was working.
In the corner of the room, Soo-jin finished the line across the other half of the door. Without a word, she picked up the equipment, hauled it over her shoulder, and made for the ball as quietly as she could.
The smell of soldering metal drew closer. Halfway across, Soo-jin dropped her equipment and, helmet still on, darted to the trunk at the side. A thick pair of insulated gloves appeared in her hand. She half-crept-half-jogged back to her solder rig, picked it up, and approached.
The gun’s point hissed when it touched the ball.
Karin’s light jerked. She cried out a warning—too late. The discharge rippled into the solder tip. Arcs of energy shot out. Soo-jin gave a brief, sharp yell as it touched her arms, and her entire body stiffened. Shoulders shaking from effort, she leaned in as the muscles jerked in her arms, keeping the tip of the gun on the ball.
The thick, angry line of solder cleaved Karin’s light like a volcano track.
Two seconds later, the ball fell to the floor with a clang.
Soo-jin chased it down as it rolled, following it with the solder. “Karin, there’s a laser knife in that trunk. Get it for me?”
She hesitated. “The light—”
“Don’t need it now, I think. Go grab it.”
The room swayed as she stumbled away. It didn’t right itself as her light re-absorbed into her skin, but she felt more whole. Swinging her leaden legs toward the trunk, she nearly ran into it. The metal edge dug into her palm as she spotted the knife and leaned in to grab it. Straightening, she gave her head a shake as she turned back.
“Awesome,” Soo-jin said as she handed it over, brows furrowed in concentration. The welding mask lay on the floor beside her. She kept one glove on and studied the ball. “Let’s take this apart, cut some wires, and examine it later. We can put it in one of the mag-trunks when Marc comes in.”
Each trunk alongside the rim of the hangar had come with the ship. When the hangar bay opened, an electro-magnet in each would keep them on the floor during depressurization. An
old, crude design, but it still worked.
“If you’re still feeling perky, you can grab us those space suits.”
Karin followed Soo-jin’s glance to a locker. Several suits hung through a plastic-glass window, the lights on their individual units glowing green. Giving a brief glance to Soo-jin’s metal ball surgery, she started over.
Time was not on their side.
They worked in silence, shimmying into suits and tying themselves down to two embedded storage anchors in the floor. Karin’s fingers fumbled over the edge of the helmet, slipping over the catch, and Soo-jin leaned over to fasten it for her before putting on her own helmet. The world hushed, quieted. Stilled. Suddenly, it was just her and the squeak and rustle of her suit. Lifting her arms up, she stepped into a loop Soo-jin had made in a set of cargo straps. Her breath caught as the she slid the strap over her shoulder and pulled it tight. A moment later, it washed back over her face, rebounding off the inside of her helmet.
“You know…” Soo-jin’s voice came over the suit’s comms tinny and distorted. “I bet there’s some kind of space porn about this.”
“What?” Karin turned with a rustle or her suit.
“I’m just saying,” Soo-jin continued. “I bet there’s someone out there with this kink.”
“I guess.” She glanced down, only to see the bottom edge of her helmet when the suit didn’t move with her. “I’m not sure how sexy I feel in this.”
“I can assure you that we’re both very sexy.” Several grunts came over the line as Soo-jin lifted the bulky, awkward leg of her suit up to loop the strap underneath. “Care to hold this?”
Karin leaned over and caught the end, pulling it tight as Soo-jin walked through, bent down, and clipped the strap in place, then gave the strap an experimental tug. The hook rattled in its cradle.
So long as the floor didn’t give way, they’d be secure.
A different crackle came over the comms this time. For a second, it made the sound of an old radio aerial adjusting. Nick’s voice followed. “You guys look ready. Are you?”
“About as ready as we can get.” Karin glanced toward the door, then spotted the crowbar she’d left on the floor. “Shit. We left some tools out.”
“Don’t worry. As the ship’s engineer, I can guarantee you that we’re due for some new shit, anyway. They’re probably thirty years old down there.”
“More like fifty or sixty if you check the logbooks.” Christops overlapped Nick, clearing his throat. “Nemina’s in range, and Caishen’s boys are getting kind of antsy. I’m going to open the door before Hopper shows up. Make your exit fast.”
“Gotcha.”
“And don’t forget the fuel rods. I put them in the third trunk,” Nick said.
“I saw them,” Soo-jin said. “I’ll be sure to grab them.”
“Good. Opening the doors in three… two… one…”
A clunk sounded throughout the hangar, followed by a grinding sound and a hiss of air that vanished within a second. Karin skittered off balance, flailing her arms out as the gravity shifted—then jerked to a stop as the cargo strap snapped tight. Pain lanced through her ribs at the sudden hit, and her teeth rattled together from impact.
Taking a cue from Soo-jin, she lowered herself into a squat, putting her weight behind the suit’s boots as their magnets clung to the floor. Her shins ached, and a growing bruise formed as the straps dug into her armpits. The wind pulled her head forward.
For several long seconds, it felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her throat closed up so tight, she could feel her heart beat through it.
But that was a false instinct, and her flight training had taught her better. She drew in a slow, ragged breath, then another.
Slow and steady, she raised her head.
The star field twinkled beyond the lip of the hangar, cold and distant. Her stomach dropped at its sight. The hush of the hangar pulled at her senses, making her more and more aware of the sound of her own breath, the slight hiccup in her throat. She tried to silence it. Cold brushed her skin, finally penetrating through the outer layers of the suit, and she felt a whir at the small of her back as the suit compensated.
Gravity shifted again. She lifted up, weightless, no longer pulled forward, and her stomach did a slow, nerve-wracking flip.
Oh, gods. Don’t throw up in the suit. Don’t throw up in the suit. Don’t throw up in the suit.
She swallowed it back and held her next breath. The door yawned wide.
Then the Nemina came into sight.
Part of her sagged. She had never been so glad to see any ship as she was to see her. Rising up like some kind of angular metal insect, nose tipped forward and her wings, useless in space, flaring at her side, the ion burn on her thrusters lit up bright blue behind her. It switched off a moment later, leaving her dark except for the running lights on the underside.
Karin frowned. She was coming in fast.
Memories of Enlil flashed through her mind. The lurch of the Nemina’s floor, the crack and scratch of trees against her underbelly, the sight of the forest canopy racing below her as she finally wrested control from Marc and pulled them up.
Oh, Christ. Don’t crash.
But, as if he had heard her, the Nemina braked. A jet of vapor flared as her fore thrusters fired, slowing them. Her nose tipped up. A second later, the auxiliary lights switched on, and Karin winced back at the glare before the suit’s auto-tone glass corrected.
The Nemina pulled in delicately, if a bit high and angled. More thrusters fired from the top. As she moved to the floor, three ports opened in her underbelly and unfolded her landing gear.
She touched down hard enough to shake the metal plates below, but the magnets held.
The doors behind them closed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
With her instincts screaming to rush out of her suit, she barely registered when Marc and Cookie came down the ramp. Rolling up on an elbow to fiddle with the straps—gods, they must look ridiculous—her breath straining in her ears with effort, her heart gave a jump as she caught a flash of movement in the corner of her visor. Then, as Marc’s hands dropped into sight, she went still. Scratches and squeaks sounded as he fiddled for the catch. For a second, it felt like it was just him and her, isolated from the rest of the hangar in the muffled silence of her suit.
The helmet came free. Re-pressurized air flooded in, pressing against her clammy cheeks. She squinted against the sudden light—Nemina’s outboard lights were still on—and resisted the urge to grab it for herself. Following Marc’s lanky arms up to his face, she paused to give him a study.
A sheen coated his skin, making it almost gleam under the lights. For a second, she remembered back to Enlil, when he’d come out from the Nemina’s interior and away from his renovation project, shining with sweat.
This had a different tinge to it. Less a healthy strain of muscles than an unhealthy, stressed, long labor. Two lines gouged into the skin under his eyes accentuated that, combining with the puffiness in that area and the bloodshot remains of his sclera. The skin crinkled at the edges as he squinted, and traces of concern raised his brows as she saw him take a deeper, assessing look at her. The corners of his mouth pulled into a tight, grim line.
Then Soo-jin ran past, shoes pounding on the floor. “Going for the fuel rods.”
That snapped them out of their moment. Karin scrambled to shed the suit. Marc made a gesture as if to help slide it down her body, but by the time he had hesitated, she had already pushed it over her hips and knees and was hopping out.
“Get the other suit,” she said, walking to the locker.
A light pressure pounded in her head as she went through the motions. She forced herself to breathe deep and push it back. The Nemina’s ramp rang under her feet. She swayed as she reached its top, a moment of dizziness passing through her head, but she levered off from the wall and forced herself to march toward the bridge. Near the end, Marc ducked through ahead of her.
“Excuse the mes
s.”
A muggy, stale smell pressed over her as she passed the threshold. The first thing her gaze caught on was the mass of wires snaking out from under the center console and leading to three separate computers that… was that tape?
She paused, staring.
Yes. Cookie had taped his computers to the second dash, to the left of the pilot’s seat. Probably for zero grav and creative flying. Her jaw tightened at the thought, picturing lances of laser bolts shooting at them through space, the Nemina’s computer screaming in warnings as Marc strained at the controls.
Gods. Someone had mentioned fighters. Just what had she sent him into?
All screens were active. Two displayed a series of windows scrolling through what looked like data and some kind of cartoon-themed interface on one program, some of which the Nemina’s holoscreen above mirrored. The third pulled its screensaver through several images, all of dolphins.
She frowned, her gaze catching on it. Were those cybernetic augments patched along its head?
Soo-jin had said something about that, too.
The quiet pressed in on her. Aware of Marc’s stare, she pulled her gaze away and took another step in, only then noticing the nest of used bedding on the floor and the piles of empty Mess hall packages.
“It’s been cozy.” Back in his usual cross-armed stance, he stood partway across the room, near the gap between the piloting seats and the sensor station.
She tilted her head up from a crumpled pile of stimulant drink packages. “Did you guys sleep much?”
“On and off. Mostly off.”
She’d figured. It explained the shadows that tinged his features, and the blotchy outlines in his cheeks. It would also explain the sheen and the odor of the room. Cutting the secondary sani systems bypassed a line in the extended life support module. They could eke a little extra power into the system—either for thrust or shields. Cookie could have done that. Marc, too, now that she thought about it. He had worked on the Nemina for the better part of a year before finding a more competent mechanic.
“What happened with the fighters?” she asked. “Nick told us about them.”
