“Maybe I’d deserve it.”
Liam knelt back down and dug at the cables with the scissors. Finally, a few lengths frayed apart and Phoebe was able to wriggle free. She jumped up, shaking feeling back into her hands.
“Okay, we have to put on the space-grade suits and then get back into the station.” She darted into the main cabin, yanked open the closet, and pulled out the suits. She handed him one.
“Why these?” said Liam. “Won’t they just slow us down?”
“Just trust me, okay?”
Liam glared at her. “I already am trusting you, a lot.”
“I know.” She reached back into the closet for two stun rifles and handed one to Liam. “You’ll need this, too.”
Liam gripped the cool plastic, a bolt of fear shooting through him.
“And you have the Phase Two data, right?”
He felt his pockets for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Yeah. But what about our parents?”
“They’ll be safe here. Barro and Tarra will be more concerned with the data.”
“So what are we going to do, run?” said Liam, thinking back to Saturn’s rings. “They’re not going to fall for that a second time.”
“That’s why you’re taking me hostage.”
A rumble grew outside, and the whine of slowing thrusters.
“They’re here.” Phoebe plunked the large helmet over her head. “Come on!” She punched the controls on the airlock and stepped through the inner door. Liam put down the rifle and started tugging the suit over his thermal wear. He got it up to his waist and then paused, looking down at his Dust Devils shirt. He grabbed the bottom and yanked it over his head.
“I understand if you want to trash it,” said Phoebe, looking back at him.
Liam frowned. “No.” And now he wanted to put it back on, or not; oh, whatever! Either way there wasn’t time, so he balled it up and threw it in the closet. He shoved the helmet on and was just sealing it up when Phoebe popped open the outer airlock door without bothering to close the inner door. She leaped out as the cabin depressurized and a torrent of wind swirled around Liam. He grabbed a wall handle to steady himself, picked up the stun rifle, and stepped toward the door, but then, after checking to see that Phoebe was out of sight, he doubled back into the cockpit and yanked the dampener off JEFF’s head. He hurried back to the airlock, stowing the device in a pocket. He shut the inner door, hit the closing cycle on the outer door, and jumped out too.
The moment he landed, Liam had to throw himself to the ground. The air roared with light and heat. He rolled onto his back to see the sleek silver side foils of the Comet lowering right above him. Its landing gear crunched against the black rock. Liam scrambled out of the way and vaulted after Phoebe, who was bounding toward the station. It was harder to run in these bulky suits, but Liam could still cover many meters with each step in the low gravity. Behind them, the Comet’s engines cycled down.
They ducked through the half-open door, and Liam slowed as his thick sleeves scraped against the sides. A suit tear now was not an option. They ran down the dark, frosted halls back into the wrecked casino. Phoebe led the way straight toward the baths. The airlock windows glowed bright orange. As the doors slid open, a massive cloud of gelatinous steam burst out. It froze on contact with the air, instantly creating delicate folds of ice that shattered against them. Phoebe pushed her way inside. Liam followed, and she shut the door behind them.
Their suits began to hum, cooling this time, instead of heating up, and the outsides of their helmets were immediately covered with condensation. Liam wiped it away with his thick sleeve. To either side, the bubble-like glass walls had fogged up, and the baths had filled with the purplish vapor, roiling and folding in heavy billows. Here and there, it jetted through the cracks in the containers, clouding the hallway.
“Now what?” he asked, following Phoebe as she hurried through the steam.
She stopped midway down the hall, at the control panel beside a clear door that opened into one of the baths. This was one of the containers that had cracked in a few places around its curved wall. Steam hissed out of the jagged fissures. Standing this close to it made Liam’s link flash: WARNING. UNSTABLE ATMOSPHERE. USE CAUTION.
“First we’re going to crank this up,” said Phoebe. She pressed the touchscreen temperature dial for the bath and raised it to maximum. There was a loud series of hisses and the steam grew thicker inside the bath. Phoebe pulled open the door and steam clouds tumbled out, the viscous consistency making a slippery hiss across their suits.
Phoebe motioned across the walkway. “Go do the same thing with that one.”
Liam moved to the other side in a single leap. He found the temperature dial on an identical panel and slid it to max; then he pulled open the door. The gelatinous fog thickened, and their suits chirped complaints about the worsening conditions.
Phoebe was blinking rapidly and tried instinctively to rub her eyes, her hand hitting the glass of her helmet.
“The heat was getting to you before, too,” said Liam, feeling sweat beading on his own forehead, despite his suit’s best efforts.
Phoebe nodded. “If I’m right, those two will read the Delphi atmosphere and come after us in simple pressure suits. They won’t—cough—be enough in here.”
“What do you mean?” Liam checked his link. “It’s really hot but not, like, lethal.”
“You’ll see,” said Phoebe. “Go in there.” She pointed to the bath he’d turned up. “When they come in, you call them toward you on your link. Cough. They’ll track you to the bath.” She held up her stun rifle. “I’ll make sure they end up inside with you. Then you stun them, too, and while they’re out of it, we’ll pull off their pressure suit helmets and lock them in.”
Liam looked up and down the hall. “Why would they fall for that? They’re going to see that we’re in different places.”
“If I’m right about them wearing pressure suits, this heat is going to make it hard for them to see and hear. And I’ll turn off my link completely so they can’t track it.”
“And what if they’re in their space suits?”
Phoebe shrugged. “Then we’ll need a new plan. Cough. Trust me, this will work.”
Liam almost protested. Trust her. . . . But it was too late to turn back now. He had made his choice, and she was all he had, for better or worse.
“Okay.” He waded through the gelatinous fog and ducked through the door into the bath container. The strange steam pressed against his suit, which hummed at max power. He grabbed the inner railing and stepped down onto the rounded inside. The far side was barely visible.
He half walked, half swam to the other end, then turned and leaned against the curved wall, breathing hard, the stun rifle in his gloved hands, his palms slick with sweat.
“Liam,” said Phoebe over the link.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going dark. Cough. Watch for them.”
Liam checked his link settings and saw Phoebe wink out. He peered out of the tank, at the blurry chambers to either side, at the hallway. Steam jets hissed all around him, but otherwise there was silence.
He crouched there—
But then he slipped again in his mind, and found himself back in the skim drone. The great boiling sun far too close, tossing its flares in a tantrum. A fear crept up inside him that he’d be too late, that he was going to miss something. And now he was opening the canopy top of the skim drone as it hurtled through space, strange flashes of light all around him. There was so little time! And yet it was almost like he wanted to get closer to that inferno—
Back in the tank. Liam had fallen over on his side. What was happening? That weak point the chronologist had mentioned: maybe it was still affecting him. His head swam but he shook it off and righted himself. He checked the watch. It had started blinking blue.
His link was also flashing. Liam saw a familiar name on the screen: Simon Onatu. This was the name that had appeared back at Saturn, when Barro had
tried to board the cruiser. It was from a stolen link, presumably the owner of Barro’s last ship. Liam’s heart raced. He breathed deep and tapped the name.
“Hey there, kid,” said Barro. His deep voice sounded like he was always grinning. “Fancy seeing you on this rock.”
Liam didn’t answer. He wanted to shout something, as mean as he could. At the same time, he also wanted to ask Barro about Phoebe.
“Not feeling chatty? All right, I get it. So, we’re doing this again, huh? You’ve got the data and we’re supposed to come find it?”
Liam swallowed hard, shaking all over. “I’ve got Phoebe, too. I know she’s working with you and I’ll kill her if you don’t leave us alone.”
“Well, I have a hard time believing that, and yet it would certainly be a very human thing for you to do. When in doubt, just kill ’em! Yee haw! Sorry, had some time to kill on the flight here and finally watched that show that Phoebe was always talking about, Raiders of the Lost Planet. Space cowboys and explorers and all that. Pretty fun stuff, I have to admit.”
There was a distant hiss. Through the sea of steam, Liam could just make out the airlock doors sliding open and a figure stepping in, wearing black—a pressure suit, just as Phoebe had predicted.
“From what I saw in those old movies,” said Barro, “before you slaughter all the helpless villagers, you’re supposed to fall in love with the beautiful girl. I’m betting that’s what’s happened to you, and you’re just bluffing about killing our dear Phoebe. Would explain her recent behavior, too.”
“Don’t come any closer, or you’ll find out.”
Barro didn’t respond. Liam ducked to get a slightly better view and saw him standing just inside the hallway. He seemed to be fiddling with his suit. He took a step and stopped again. It looked like he was rubbing at his mask.
“Man,” he finally said, breathing hard, “you humans—cough—have some weird preferences. But here’s the catch, Liam. You’re right, I’m not going to come any farther, because you’re going to come out. Otherwise, my associate, Tarra, who is currently on board your ship, is going to open up your parents’ stasis tubes and toss them out onto this icy nowhere, and then we can watch them shrivel up and die.”
“No!” Liam shouted before he could stop himself. Stupid! Of course they’d split up. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Why hadn’t Phoebe?
Or had she?
“So why don’t you bring me my girl, right now, before I give Tarra the signal. She’s not really the patient type. Might just kill them anyway if she gets bored. I’d say it’s best not to keep her waiting.”
Liam cursed to himself. His heart sank and he nearly punched the glass beside him. He peered across the way and saw Phoebe crouched inside the door of the opposite chamber. If she’d powered down, she wasn’t hearing any of this. Unless . . .
No! She’s not working with them! It was just that Barro had outsmarted them. Had JEFF had time to power back up? Even if he had, would he be any match for Tarra? Liam couldn’t be sure, which meant he had no choice now, with his parents’ lives at stake.
“You win,” he said. “I’m coming.” Liam floated across the chamber, shaking, and climbed back out into the hallway.
“Good. I’ll just—cough—be waiting right outside these doors.”
Liam caught Phoebe waving her hands furiously at him as if to say, What are you doing? Liam mouthed back, My parents! Phoebe cocked her head like she didn’t understand, but Liam just motioned to her to come along, and started up the hall. Maybe she could convince Barro to let them live.
Liam could just make out Barro’s silhoutte through the billowing steam. He’d turned and was stepping slowly to the side of the hallway, moving carefully, with his hands outstretched. When his palms hit the curved glass of one of the baths, he started, shuffling his feet and turning so that his back was to Liam. Almost like he was trying to find the door.
He can’t see, like Phoebe said. Liam looked at his link and saw that the temperature in the chamber had passed one hundred and fifty degrees. If Barro really was blinded . . . Liam picked up his pace, raising his stun rifle and readying to pull the trigger. He hadn’t ever actually used one, other than in the brief orientation his dad had given him one time at the research station, but as he remembered it, all he had to do was aim and pull the trigger.
Barro was just a few meters away. Liam raised the rifle. You had to be pretty close, Dad had said.
“Kid, you forgot,” Barro said over the link, his back still to Liam. “I’ve got you—cough—on the link screen here.” He spun around, a rifle of his own trained. His mask was completely fogged up. “So don’t think you can sneak up on me.”
Move! Liam thought, but too late. A bolt of blue energy shot out of Barro’s rifle. With his sight impaired, Barro’s aim was off, but the charge still just caught Liam in the arm, and fingers of shocking white spiderwebbed around him. Liam felt a jolt throughout his body and was thrown onto his back, his helmet banging against the floor. His eyes burned, his teeth gritting reflexively, arms and legs twitching, but the space-grade suit dispersed the energy just enough that he didn’t lose consciousness, and he was still able to see and hear, albeit through tears and a wicked ringing in his ears. And yet he couldn’t quite move, and he’d lost track of his rifle.
Barro stepped over him, his face still hidden by steam. He aimed the rifle again, not quite at Liam, but close enough, and jabbed it at him as he spoke. “You have no idea what your people have done, do you?” He was shouting now. “Just imagine—cough—when we kill your parents and then imagine it a thousand times over—coughcough—and even then you still won’t know what it felt like. What it’s felt like every day since—”
Phoebe came at him from the side. She jammed her stun rifle directly against Barro’s neck and fired. Barro spasmed, jolted briefly off the ground by the threading bolts, and was tossed a meter to the side, slamming into the flex-glass wall. He made a choking, gasping sound as he crumpled in a heap on the floor.
Phoebe stared at him for a moment, chest heaving, before turning to Liam. “Why did you move?” she said, back on the link. She offered her hand. Liam had to really focus on which muscles were which to reach her, and she dragged him up onto wobbly feet.
“He said Tarra is with my parents. She’ll kill them.”
Phoebe frowned. “I’m so stupid. Yeah, she might.”
“We have to get back.”
Phoebe turned for the door but then paused. “Oh, wait. . . .” She darted over to Barro, rolled him onto his back, and pulled his helmet off. He moaned slightly, his head lolling back and forth.
“Why are you doing that?” Liam asked.
“Because it will help keep him down. Ready?”
Liam found his stun rifle and they made their way out of the baths, back across the casino, and through the halls, emerging outside in the dark, a wicked wind strafing them with ice flecks.
“Hey,” said Phoebe as Liam started bounding toward the cruiser. “We should have a plan. We can’t just walk in there.”
Liam kept going. “We’re out front,” he said into his link, hoping against hope. “What’s the status in there?”
“Who are you talking to?” Phoebe asked.
They reached the cruiser and the airlock door slid open. JEFF appeared. “There was an intruder,” he said. “I thought it would be best to incapacitate her. Are you okay?”
Liam sighed with relief. “Thanks, JEFF.” He turned to Phoebe. “I reactivated him, in case anything happened.”
Phoebe eyed JEFF with a frown.
“It is my duty to restrain her again,” said JEFF.
Liam unzipped the pocket on his sleeve and pulled out the magnetic dampener. “JEFF, I need you to override that command, or I’m going to have to use this. Phoebe’s on our side.”
“I do not believe there is enough evidence at this point to—”
“I believe her. And technically, I’m in command of this ship, right?”
The bo
t’s eyes flickered. “Acknowledged. But in this case my protocols state—”
“JEFF”—Liam waved the dampener—“you’re not allowed to incapacitate me, are you?”
“No.”
“So . . .”
“Would the captain like me to amend my security protocols to make an exception?”
“Yes, JEFF.”
“Are you sure?”
Liam paused. Was he? But he’d just seen Phoebe stun Barro, once again choosing him over them. How much more did he need?
“I’m sure.” He turned to Phoebe. “You better explain everything once we’re out of here.”
“I will. Let’s get Tarra and take her in where Barro is. And then we go.”
“Can you get us ready to fly?” Liam asked JEFF.
“Acknowledged. But I have to say, the arrival of this Moon Racer has provided us with a very convenient fuel source, not to mention a place to salvage parts.”
Liam peered at the underside of the craft. “Same thrusters?”
“Yes, though I am less sure about their antenna.”
“Can you fix that stuff fast? We need to get out of here.”
“I can salvage the parts now, and then make the repairs once we are on the journey. Only the thruster will be a challenge during takeoff, but I calculate that we can make it, if we are not being immediately pursued.”
“Okay, get to work.”
Liam and Phoebe leaped up through the door and found Tarra lying stunned on the floor of the living area. Phoebe grabbed her arms. Liam bent to grab her legs and paused.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What is it?”
“I just thought . . . It’s really nothing.”
“Liam, tell me.”
“It was bad, but, just for a second, I thought that maybe we should kill them.” He looked up to find Phoebe’s eyes wide. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it. I couldn’t—” He was going to say he couldn’t imagine doing it, except that he had, vividly. Pictured dragging them out into the cold and tearing open their suits just like Barro had mentioned doing to his parents. Even now, the idea of it made his jaw clench and his hands close into fists. That’s what they deserved for all this.
The Oceans between Stars Page 13
