Her fingers scrabbled on the ground, seeking something. Her sword. She had dropped it. Grace didn’t know why she needed it. This new blade made it a better sword than it had ever been. The same familiar hilt enclosed future metal, forged in the heart of a Goddess. Made by a friend.
She needed air. Just a little bit of air.
Her eyes opened, like it was time for it to happen, like they’d been waiting for her all this time. Her vision went from blurry to clear. In front of her face were bright lines of a HUD, their usual cool amber marked in multiple bright spots of red. There was a paper doll — I don’t stand like that, I never stand like that, that figure does not dance — of the suit, a point highlighted on her shoulder. A breach. All her precious air, going through the hole. The tiny angel was her suit alarm, warning her she had less than ten percent of her oxygen left.
Warriors fight whenever needed. You think air is an excuse? Her father snorted, arms crossed. You should be able to fight blind. Without air. Without rest. Without friends, without love.
I always fight without love, Father. Or she had, until … now. Nathan Chevell. She loved that man. It was not a good time to realize it, lying here on the ground of an alien planet, a heavy weight on her, and running out of air. Nonetheless, she felt like it was the right thing to know, a truth that had been waiting for her to discover it. And if she died, she would die knowing love, a gentle hand, someone who had her back. Together.
Focus. She looked beyond her visor, to the weight lying across her. It was October Kohl. Her father would have called him stupid or perhaps foolish. Grace wanted to call him brave. And, if the stars aligned right, perhaps a friend. His helmet had collided with her chest as he’d knocked her over, the bulk of his armor taking the shrapnel from the explosion. She couldn’t see around the helmet to the back of the armor, but she could tell he was dead weight. Not moving, three hundred kilos of armor and a hundred kilos of man lying on her. It’d be easier to do a push up under 3Gs of thrust than to get him off. But she needed to get him off, or she would die here. She’d die knowing love, but she’d still be dead.
Not a good deal is it, mongrel? Her father seemed to frown, Grace’s eyes going out of focus. She didn’t know why he called her mongrel. He had always done it, like she was diseased, like she wasn’t his child. Like he was angry at her but angry at himself, too. It didn’t matter now. Of course it matters. To get off this rock, you need to fight without air. Without rest. He seemed to shrug. Or you will die. It doesn’t matter to me. If you weren’t such a failure … He left that trailing thought between them.
Failure? Father, I have defeated aliens. They wanted to break our world!
That was then. This is now. There is no success but what is in this moment. Anything else is history.
Grace gritted her teeth, pushing her hand against Kohl’s bulk. His frame rocked a little, easing her breathing a whisker. A slight amount, only an extra thimbleful of air. But a thimble was more than she had a moment ago. She panted, then pushed again. The sand under them shifted, and Kohl’s body slid away from her towards the bottom of the slope. She watched him go, the lights from his armor facing the ground, hidden from view. It was like watching a light fall into a pit. But as his bulk left her, her own suit’s lights flickered, coming on. Showing her the chamber they were in. She killed the alarm in her suit — thank God — and took a look around.
Kohl: at the bottom of the slope, his frame being buried by sand.
Nate: off to one side, his body on top of Hope’s. Neither of them moving. No lights. No sound on the comm.
She didn’t want to look at the tunnel mouth. But she knew what her father would say, so she looked anyway. Where there had been a smooth, round opening leading into a den of horror, there was now crumbled stone. Big rocks, blocking the way. No more Ezeroc coming to kill them. Not until they cleared the stone, or found another way out. She didn’t know if there was another way out. It didn’t matter at the moment. Grace needed to get out of this pit. She needed to get out, with her friends. Her eyes moved to Kohl. Even if they’re dead.
The suit’s lights glinted against something in the gloom. Her sword. It was stuck into the wall of the chamber above where she’d been lying. She reached up, giving it a tug. The metal — a true edge, a gift from the gods — pulled free without resistance. Sword from stone, like it was made for her hand — which it had been. She clutched her free hand over the breach in her suit, air whistling past her fingers, and looked up the walls of the chamber. Grace might have monkeyed up there with a boost, but there was no one left down here to boost her up. She hefted the sword, looking at the wall again, then stabbed the blade into the rock at her shoulder height, the flat of the blade horizontal with the ground. It slid in like the stone was a fabrication of the mind, a mosaic over butter. Thank you, Hope. She tested the blade with a hand. Would it hold her weight? Hope had said it was strong, but what did that even mean?
Time to find out.
Grace released the breach on her suit. She put a hand on the hilt of the sword, resting weight there, then skipped her feet up the wall. Her weight transferred from her legs to her hand as her body went horizontal. Her knees bunched closer to her chest, the blade flexing under her, threatening to spill her off.
No child of mine would fall from such an easy perch.
“Fuck you, Dad,” hissed Grace, holding herself in place — one hand on the sword, flexing under her, feet against the wall. The sword didn’t break. Grace reached out her other hand to the wall, got her feet underneath her, and then rose — nice and easy, nice and easy — to look up over the edge of the pit.
Nothing there. Just the entrance room, the vaulted roof of the pyramid above her. She put hands on the edge and hauled herself out. She felt a pang — her sword was down there, and here she was on an alien world without even a blaster. Not that she was any good with a sidearm — even if she’d had a blaster it wouldn’t have changed that displaced feeling. She needed her sword, but she couldn’t have it until she got her friends out.
My friends. I have, for the first time, actual friends. One of them laid his life down for me.
The feeling coursed through her, a sense of belonging she had never known she needed. Even mongrels could find a pack. She keyed her comm. “El.” Her voice cracked, and she tried again. “Tyche. This is Grace.”
“I hear you, Assessor,” said El. “I’m almost there. What’s up? You’re all very quiet.” Grace left her fingers over her comm controls, not sure what to say, or even where to start. “Grace?”
“I’m here. I’m … the only one still up.” She coughed, some stray external atmosphere in her suit through the breach. No time to worry about that now. “They’re … stuck. We need a winch, or something to get them out. I … my suit’s holed.”
There was a rumble through the floor, in the air around her, and the sandstorm outside the pyramid was disturbed by the bright landing lights of the Tyche. Grace could see El in the flight deck, saw her wave. “I see you, Grace. Look, we don’t have a winch. Like I told the Cap, this is a starship, not a tractor.” There was a pause while the Tyche hovered on its Endless negative space field. “Idle Q though. If we had a hypothetic winch, what would you want it for?”
Grace pointed to the pit behind her. “They’re down there. I guess about four meters. There’s no ladder.”
“How’d you figure on getting out in the first place?”
“Boost,” said Grace, her fingers finding the breach in her suit, trying to keep a little more air inside. “Everyone was … awake then.”
“Huh,” said El. “Well, that’s an easy problem to solve.”
“It’s … what?”
“Easy problem,” said El. “The hard bit will be getting the Tyche in there. Tight fit, near as I can tell. Look, can you go find cover? I’m going to open the door up some.”
“You’re what?”
El’s voice softened over the comm, and Grace could see the Helm hunching forward. “The door here. It’s
not big enough to get the ship inside. I figure I can fit in there if I hug the dirt, but I need to, I don’t know, sort of remove this wall.”
“The wall?”
“That’s right.”
“Won’t the roof fall in?” said Grace.
“It might,” agreed El. She shrugged up there in the flight deck. “But it’s the solution I’ve got on hand.”
“Do it,” said Grace. She looked around for a place to hide, but there wasn’t one. Back down in the hole. She’d been so pleased about getting out, but she didn’t want to be flensed by flying debris. Keeping a hand on the breach in her suit, she moved to the edge of the pit, jumping in. “Good to go.”
“Copy that. This will get a little loud.”
A little loud was an understatement. Grace had heard — and felt — the Tyche’s fury once before, when they’d been on the crust of Absalom Delta. There had been Ezeroc closing in all around, and the ship had come in, PDCs hot. A hundred rounds a second from each cannon had turned the Ezeroc into little more than airborne chum. Those same PDCs opened up now. Grace hunched down, the sound almost a physical presence, the hammering like a second heart. She felt a rumble as pieces of the pyramid broke away to fall on the ground above her. Chunk, chunk, chunk. Then, silence. “You done?”
“I’m done,” said El. “Wait one, I need to get inside. Hell, I hate reversing.”
Reversing? Grace was tired, and she was no doubt suffering from a concussion, but no one reversed a starship. She put her hand on the sword again, boosting herself up and over the edge of the pit. She saw the Tyche turn in space, presenting the twin fusion drives to her. The apertures were glowing with remembered heat, their fires were banked for the moment, the ship running on the Endless field alone. The ship came close to the deck, then moved backward. Holy shit. She is reversing a starship into a cavern. A cavern that is so small any sane pilot would just laugh and fly away. The belly of the Tyche scraped a fallen rock or two, the grinding of metal loud, but nothing broke off. The ship continued to back until it hovered above the pit. Grace could see the stylized, winking face above her. That wink said I’ve got you, Gushiken. I’ll always come for you. Grace wanted to laugh.
“Okay,” said El. “This is where shit gets real. I’ve got a negative space field going above the ship so I’m floating, you with me?”
“Yeah,” said Grace.
“I’ll generate another one under the ship. I need to amp up the one above me so I don’t get sucked onto the surface by it. Anyway. Doesn’t matter. But that should lift everyone in the pit out. What I’ll need you to do is kind of knock ‘em so they float sideways.”
“Sideways.”
“Sure,” said El. “Because then when I turn off the Endless field, they won’t fall back into the pit. We’ll do it a bit at a time. I figure enough joules through the field will lift the cap and Hope. I’ll need a few more to get Kohl out, because he’s a monster. Also, that armor’s got to weigh some.”
“It does,” agreed Grace. “So should I…?”
“Y’all get in the pit, and I’ll suck you out too. Then you can knock them aside, and I’ll drop you back in. You with me?”
“This is crazy.”
“I can leave again if you like. I mean, if you want to try hauling ‘em out yourself.”
“I said it was crazy, not that I didn’t like it.” Grace hopped into the pit, then moved to stand near Nate and Hope. “Go.”
The feeling as the Endless field came on above her was like having two downs. The down above her wanted to make her fall … up. But the planet below her didn’t want to let go. The Endless field’s strength increased until Grace floated. She giggled as her feet came off the ground. Sand particles in the pit had already swirled up past her to hug the belly of the Tyche. Nate and Hope’s bodies drifted up, which stopped Grace’s giggle dead in her throat. Kohl’s form remained at the bottom, a free arm being tugged upward but that’s all; there wasn’t enough force to lift his heavy armor.
Grace and the other two cleared the edge of the pit. Grace put a foot against each of them and pushed. They floated away, just like zero G, as she went in the opposite direction. “Okay El, they’re clear.”
“Cool as ice,” agreed the Helm. “I’ll let you down nice and easy and we’ll do the same thing with the bison.”
El reversed the effect, Grace returning to the ground. She hopped back in the pit, then snared her sword from the wall, sliding it home into its sheath. It was a good sword, and she wouldn’t surrender it to the grip of this world. She grabbed Kohl’s armor, wincing as she saw the blood seeping from the back of it where chunks of shrapnel had impacted him. “We’re good.”
The pull of the field was stronger this time, hoisting her up. She held onto Kohl, then realized that trying to hold him was like trying to hold 300 kilos of weight under her. She scrambled around his form, gasping for breath, the Endless field holding them close. Her visor pressed against his. His eyes were closed. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. Either way, she wasn’t leaving him here. Grace was sure that Nate wouldn’t either. Together. They wouldn’t leave anyone behind. Not today.
As they cleared the lip of the pit, Grace felt herself starting to breath heavy. The sensation was like having Kohl on top of her again, his weight pressing against her. Down was up, all over again. “I’m having trouble,” she admitted over the comm.
“You should try flying a starship inside a pyramid while manipulating Endless fields,” said El. “We can swap if you like.”
Grace wanted to laugh, but it would have been too much effort. Instead she said, “No, I’m good. Boosting off.” She bunched her feet under Kohl and kicked off. The big man drifted to the other side of the pit. Her, not so much — as she came out from underneath, she felt like she was a cork freed from a bottle. She popped out sideways, pinwheeling through the air and up towards the underside of the Tyche. She impacted with a painful outrush of breath.
“You good?” said El. “That last one didn’t sound great.”
“Fine,” said Grace. “We’re out.”
“Dropping the field. Lights are green on the board. Let’s get those layabouts onboard, hey?”
Grace was lowered to the ground, her feet touching the rock. The cargo bay door of the Tyche opened like a welcome into heaven. She stared at it for a while, then said, “I think I’m just going to sit down for a bit.”
“Grace? You can sit when you’re on the ship.”
Grace looked at her O2 levels. Zero percent. That’d be why.
You don’t need air to fight.
Shut up, Father.
“Grace?” El’s voice seemed to be coming from a long way away. So near, in the warmth and light of the ship. So far, because she was out here on the surface of a dead world. And she was out of air.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SOMETHING PUSHED NATE around. Zero G. A foot in his belly. It didn’t feel great, but hitting the ground — which wasn’t part of the deal with zero G — felt worse. He lay there for a while, listening to chatter on the comm. Something about Kohl. Something about Endless fields.
Then something about Grace. His eyes snapped open and he hauled himself to a sitting position. He took in the scene: the Tyche above him. What the fuck? Inside the pyramid. The pit to one side. Hope over there aways. Kohl’s armored form slumped to the ground, face-first in the dirt. And Grace, beautiful, elegant Grace, sliding sideways to hit the ground like a dropped sack. Nate was on his feet before he’d thought much about it. He ran to her side, checking her over. Her suit holed. He clicked through the diagnostics with his suit, taking in the damage. O2 spent. She was out. She’d be dead soon.
“El?”
“Cap,” said the Helm. “What’s going on?”
“Need a little help,” he said. “Everyone’s down.”
“I feel like I’ve just had this conversation—”
“Now!” barked Nate. “Grace is out of air. Get down here and help me.” He popped the repair pocket of his
suit open, pulling out a tube of sealant. He sprayed it over the hole in her shoulder, watching it as it set. Then he pushed her over, exposing the air cycler on her back. He popped it free — not even a wisp of air coming from the ports — and tossed it aside. Then he reached behind him and yanked his own suit’s cycler. He slotted it into place on her suit, then rolled her back over. Diagnostics from his own suit showed green from Grace’s systems, air filling her suit.
Which left just one problem: the total lack of air in his own suit.
He stood up, jogging back to the Tyche, trying for a little mental math on the way. Air in his suit, enough for a couple of breaths, no problem. The real thing that would kill him wasn’t so much the lack of oxygen — although that was a factor — but rather getting CO2 poisoning and dropping like a cold beer on a hot day. Breathing was an illusion, trapped in the shell of his suit. So, don’t breathe, Chevell. You don’t need to breathe, do you? You need to make it to the Tyche, grab some emergency air, and you’ll be fine.
Emergency air: hand-held canisters with a mouthpiece, attached to the wall inside the cargo bay’s airlock.
Cargo bay: on the ship.
The ship: no more than fifteen meters away.
Easy job.
He reached up to his helmet’s seal as he ran, working the ring around, feeling it pop. The biting cold of the planet’s air rushed inside, and he resisted the urge to take a huff. Sure, it felt like cold air, but it was full of poison, and it’d kill him faster than almost anything. On his way to the bright lights of the Tyche, he caught movement against movement: the sandstorm raging outside, a shadow highlighted against it for a moment.
The fucking Ezeroc. And here he was, with a flimsy blaster, his entire crew out, except for El, and he needed El to fly the ship. He also needed El to help him get his crew on the very same ship.
Time for that later. He made the cargo bay airlock, grabbing an emergency air canister from the wall. Nate set the breather against his face and sucked in clean, pure air. He secured the band in place behind his head. His face was hurting like he was in the seventh circle of hell, because man this planet was cold, but he figured it was better to be cold than dead. He dropped back out of the airlock, blaster clearing its holster, and pointed it at the exit to the pyramid.
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