by James Hanlon
A personal escort from Overlook Station to the launching platform? Of course, Governor. Oh, and another passenger you didn’t mention? No trouble at all, Governor. Fuming as he stomped toward the cockpit, Bill stopped at the door to strangle his anger and compose himself.
He didn't want to lose his temper in front of the Governor before they'd even begun their journey. It was important to project an aura of certainty and self-assurance around men of such stature—he didn't want Strump questioning his competence in any way. Once he was satisfied his emotions were in check, Bill entered the cockpit.
Strump turned from his seat in the copilot's chair and began pointing frantically at one of the displays while babbling, “Look look look—”
A reporter from one of the global networks was in the middle of a broadcast.
“—cause of the change in trajectory is unknown, but we do know that based on current calculations, comet 17P/Orpheus will still pass by Surface with thousands of miles to spare. Just want to stress that last point, viewers, because it is a very important one: the comet Orpheus will not collide with Surface even though its current course will bring it a bit closer to us. We'll just get a much better view now!”
The reporter, a dark skinned man with silver-streaked black hair, forced a nervous laugh before continuing with his segment. An info bar faded in at the bottom of the screen with his name and title: Chep Stanley, lead anchor.
“For more information,” Chep continued as a thin bald man appeared in a graphic beside him, “we've got a representative from the observatory which discovered the change in Orpheus's path. Dr. Gunderson, what exactly can you tell us about the change in the comet’s orbit?”
“Well, we have our theories,” Dr. Gunderson said. “But right now we're not sure about the cause of the movement. We can tell you that it's a very gradual change, and if it continues at its current rate the comet will not collide with Surface. However, now that Orpheus is passing much closer it means Surface will be moving through a portion of its tail as we orbit Lux.
“All of those dust and rock particles can wreak havoc with satellites, including the orbital station. As many satellites as possible will be gathered safely on the far side of the planet from the tail while we pass through. Unfortunately, there are just too many to save them all, so keep in mind on Surface there is falling debris predicted at the following sites—”
Bill shook his head, not comprehending. “What’s the big deal? It won’t be here for hours and we’re leaving anyway.”
“The change in trajectory is bringing Orpheus in sooner,” Strump said. “Within the hour. It's got to be them. I never thought of that—oh my stars, I never thought—”
“Who?” Bill asked, anger building with his confusion.
Strump was babbling, consumed by some private demon as he watched the report. Bill grabbed the smaller man by his shoulders and hauled him out of his seat. He shook the Governor roughly back and forth, and brought their faces together. “Spit it out!”
“The pirates,” he said. “They're using the comet as cover. It's perfect. We never saw them coming. They could hide their whole fleet with that thing. Think about it. They could never get here using our gates without us knowing. Orpheus went right past the asteroid belt on its way here. They ride along with it, just hang on to the thing with tethers—it would explain the change in course, everything. They could be doing it on purpose. Stars, they could pull it right into the planet!”
“Well I won’t stick around to find out,” Bill said. “We’re leaving.”
He released Strump and started the shuttle's ignition sequence.
“We can't, the debris from the tail—they've stopped all ship traffic. This is serious, Bill. When Orpheus passes by we're all going to be stuck over here on one side of the planet,” Strump said. “The debris field alone is bad enough, but this would be the perfect opportunity for the pirates to strike. All gathered in one place, our defenses completely disrupted—”
“We're leaving,” repeated Bill, strapping on his harness. “Sit down.”
***
Bee wasn't sure exactly why she did it. Some mixture of opportunity and reflex, maybe. Slack Dog's datapad was just dangling there loose in Silver's front left chest pocket, totally exposed. A primo pick—he didn't even notice.
The trick was a combination of misdirection and sleight of hand; when he stepped forward to force her out she went with a calculated backwards step and stumbled, catching herself on the wall with her left hand, drawing his eye—and lifting the lightweight pad out of Silver's open pocket with her right.
But he would, of course, find out it was missing before long and come looking for it. What did she take it for? It was that stupid gut reaction, that steel spring inside her that waited coiled and dangerous at every moment. It wasn't the first time her traitor instincts had gotten her in trouble, but she'd been saved by them too often to count.
Which would it be this time? Silver was dangerous, and he'd be even more pissed than before. She considered turning back, just giving it up and apologizing before he came after her. She could explain she just did stupid things sometimes when people got hostile around her. But after seeing that look on his face—
Maybe it would be best for her to go back to Surface, bring the pad to the police. At least that way she wouldn't have to worry about getting disemboweled by a terrifying cyborg hand. From there she could figure out her next move with Hargrove at the hotel. Regroup a little. Earlier in the day she was lamenting at how boring her life had become, how routine, how… safe. Now all she wanted was to get back to her room and crawl into bed.
It was during this homesick reverie that Silver caught up to her and clamped his hand into her left shoulder and spun her around. Pain and surprise lanced through her and she tried to go limp, drop out of his grip—but he held firm and grabbed her right arm with his other hand. Panic made her try to wriggle free as she realized how easy it would be for him to crush her into fleshy pulp.
“Give me the map,” he said. “You took it. Where is it?”
“Look, I’m sorry—” Bee began, and Silver released her to dig into her pack. Her shoulder throbbed after he let go.
“In here?”
“Hey! Stop!”
Bee thrashed to break free, but Silver held on to her left arm without much effort. The dark metal hand pinched her skin as she struggled. Silver gave up rooting through her pack and growled with anger as he pushed her into a corner and blocked her there with his body, trapping her. Bee’s heart pounded, back to the wall. She was quarried, captured.
Backed into the corner with nowhere to run, Bee considered her options as she rubbed her shoulder. She’d expected Silver’s cybernetic hand to hurt her, but it was his real hand that did the damage. Her collarbone felt bruised from where his thick fingers had dug into it.
“I won’t ask again.”
“Alright, alright,” She said, and slung her pack around to her front to reach inside. The datapad was tucked into the front waistline of her pants, but Silver hadn’t noticed. Bee licked her lips and gauged the distance between herself and the older, more powerful man.
Her fingers found the grip on her knife and she slowly flicked it open inside the bag, making a show of trying to find the pad. She could hurl the bag at him as a distraction, then slash at him to keep him back as she dove for an escape. Now or never.
“Hurry up, out with it—”
A shrieking siren blared from the station’s speakers. After three sustained bursts, an artificial voice intoned with urgency, “Evacuate, evacuate. All civilians and non-essential personnel are to depart the station immediately. Ten minutes to evasive maneuvers. Evacuate, evacuate….”
The sirens and the voice alternated as the message continued. Bee held Silver’s glare. Her hand was still clasped around her knife in the pack. If this was what he and the Governor were running from, she didn’t want to stick around to find out what would happen next.
“Take me with you!” she
shouted.
“Just give me the damn thing,” Silver said, and took a step toward her with his real right hand outstretched.
Bee dropped her pack and brandished the knife at Silver, who danced back in retreat. He was faster than she would have thought his bulk would allow.
“No! I’m not staying here,” Bee said as she waved the knife between them, her voice high and frantic. “Take me with and it’s yours, but I’m not staying here!”
Silver threw his arms up in the air with frustration. He didn’t reply, just turned around and stalked down the hallway toward the docking bay while gesturing angrily to himself. Bee picked up her pack and put the knife away—in her pocket this time—before following after Silver. He took long rapid strides and she struggled to keep him in sight without breaking into a run. When they got to the airlock at dock B46, Silver whirled on her without warning.
“That’s the last time you steal from me, girl,” he said. “Give it to me, now.”
“Only if I’m coming with you,” Bee said.
“The map first.”
“When we’re on board,” Bee insisted.
Silver shook his head and crossed his arms. “We don’t proceed until I’m holding that map.”
The evacuation warning continued, and the count was dwindling. Bee growled with displeasure and withdrew Slack Dog’s pad from its hiding spot in her waistband. Without the map she had no leverage. Silver could easily take it from her and leave her behind. She would have to trust that he would still allow her on board once she gave it up. Her shoulder still burned from where he grabbed her.
“You’ll obey my orders when we get on that ship,” Silver said. “Best get used to it now.”
Bee held the pad out for Silver.
“Leave me here and I’ll find you again someday.”
Silver took it from her and rolled his eyes. “Very intimidating.”
Chapter 9: Launch
The bulbous hulk of the comet 17P/Orpheus silently plunged through space toward Lux, pulled in by the star’s massive gravity well. As it approached the warmth of the sun, veins of ice melted and boiled within Orpheus and on its surface. The heat intensified the closer it came to Lux, geysers shooting chunks of ice and rock into space around the comet, creating the familiar cloud of moisture and gas that was its tail.
For an eternity it had traveled roughly the same elongated elliptical orbit around the sun, frozen to its core at the edge of the system and thawed when it came back to Lux, always trailed by its pair Eurydice thousands of miles behind.
Only this time it brought passengers.
Warships bristling with weaponry latched on to the comet like parasitic insects, ghostly green gravity tethers extending from the noses of the ships to the rocky surface. They rode along in its wake through the empty void, shrouded from prying eyes by the misty halo of its tail. There were dozens, all varying in size and shape.
Three behemoth spacecraft carriers were the largest vessels, each capable of launching fighters and bombers. The massive ships required multiple tethers in order to keep them steady and prevent them from crushing smaller craft. All the ships were synchronized with each other to keep movement to a minimum and provide a healthy buffer between each.
One vessel broke off from the rest of the fleet and carefully crawled to the side of the comet. It was tiny compared to most of the other ships, but in contrast to the dull steel and patchwork repairs of the others this one looked brand new—complete with a cherry-red paint job. Behind the ship’s main cabin were twin oversized gravity generators hooked up to an enormous tethering node.
The side of the ship was emblazoned with a company logo: Tuggernaut Asteroid Towing.
***
Bee strapped herself in to a seat that folded down from the wall behind Silver's pilot's chair. The quiet boy Gim took a seat across from her behind the other chair. Whatever happened next, her future lay with Bill Silver, who orchestrated the shuttle's ignition sequence.
Governor Strump—Bee was sure it was him even if Silver refused to confirm it—sat opposite Silver looking queasy. The windows on the front of the craft were sealed shut with retractable blast proof metal, but cameras on the hull fed a projected display of the view outside, which gave the illusion that there was nothing between them and vacuum. Bee shivered at the unsettling thought.
“Tower, Wanderlust transport shuttle requests departure assistance from dock B46 to launching platform,” Silver said.
“Negative, shuttle. All traffic is halted prior to evasive maneuvers.” The disembodied male voice which replied over the speakers had a slow, drawling sort of confidence—the kind of soothing yet commanding voice she'd want to hear when everything else in the world was going wrong.
Bill stopped the ignition, but didn’t look surprised.
“I told you,” Strump said. “Tower won't guide you out.”
“Mmm-hm,” Bill grunted.
“So what are you doing?” Strump asked.
“We’ll have to go out manually,” Bill said with a thrill of enthusiasm.
“Manual? We're synced up with Tower, you can't just—”
“Oh, I can't just, eh? Myra,” Silver called expectantly, taking pleasure in the Governor’s obvious discomfort.
“Yes, Bill?” came a reply over the speakers, this time a husky female voice.
“Give me a trajectory from here to Wanderlust, quick as you can.”
“Here you go,” Myra said, and a pale blue thread plotted a course for them onscreen.
“I’m shutting down our computer guidance in a moment, Myra. Tower will override you if you’re in control, so we’re going manual to get around it. Can you make sure that trajectory will stay up with you offline?”
“You should see it on your lens display now, Bill. But staying on course is your job without me.”
“Wonderful,” Bill said.
He said it just like Hargrove used to at the Midtown, and Bee was struck with the realization that she may never see her former mentor again. Or anyone from Surface, for that matter. She was finally on her way.
“I’m ready. See you shortly, Myra,” Bill said. “Shut down and power back on under manual control.”
“Don’t scratch my shuttle,” she replied.
They were plunged into darkness for half a second before the auxiliary power kicked in and lit the tiny room up crimson. After a few moments, the normal interior lights flickered back to life. But the former view on the glass was absent, leaving them all staring at the grey metal blast plates.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Strump asked.
“Just watch me.” Silver retracted the blast plates.
As they slid back, Bee craned her neck around Bill’s seat to see the view with her own eyes. They were barreling along about two hundred miles above Surface, held close by the planet’s gravitational pull.
The sunlit Surface rolled beneath them, all blues and greens and swirling white clouds against the consuming starry blackness of space. Up above the incredible view of Surface—it was enough to make her forget to breathe—she could make out a blue-white smear in the distance that shone brightly at its center. The comet Orpheus on approach, she guessed.
“Is this safe? Shouldn’t we be wearing suits?” the Governor asked.
“We’re not going to crash.”
“What if something hits the window? I mean, all that debris…”
“This ship was built to deal with a little debris. The gravity field will protect us from anything substantial the comet spits out. Unless it’s firing bullets at us I think we’ll be fine.”
“You know what little pieces of rock zooming along at high speeds remind me of? Bullets.”
The view of the planet lurched as Silver gripped the ship’s wheel and eased them free of the station’s dock. He smirked and turned his head to look back at Bee.
“You don’t get spacesick, do you?”
She made no reply, just leaned her head against the wall, closed her eyes, and c
lenched the muscles in her abdomen. Breathe in deep through the nose, out through the mouth, she told herself. Don’t think about where “up” is—just sit back, keep steady, and don’t puke.
***
Two fully suited pilots sat in the cabin of Tuggernaut #7, one a bald-headed young man laced with glowing neon tattoos and piercings, the other a lanky grizzle-bearded man. The Beard was monitoring the temperature gauges while Tattoos kept his eyes on a timer than counted down in red block numbers. Three minutes, twenty-two seconds.
“She ready to pull again, bud?” Tattoos asked.
“Nah man, still too hot,” the Beard said.
“Boss Hawk won’t like waiting, yo.”
“Too hot man, like it or not.”
“You tell him, then.”
The Beard shook his head. “Spine like a wet noodle, bud.”
“Freeze you, man. Dude ain’t level.”
“Careful who you trashin’ man. He don’t tolerate.”
The Beard flicked a switch on the console and a projected window of the bridge on Starhawk’s flagship appeared in front of them. Immediately upon seeing the two pilots, Starhawk, dressed in his elaborate golden battle suit, leaped to his feet from the captain’s chair. His ink-black hair was slicked back flat, and cutting blue eyes stood out stark against pale skin.
“Report,” he snapped.
“Gravvy gens still cooling, Boss,” the Beard said. “Another thirty seconds we good.”
“I need you to move that comet another two point three degrees west,” Starhawk said. “If you can’t do that we won’t make an optimal approach. Hell, we could miss altogether. You see how important this is?”
The Beard exchanged glances with Tattoos.
“Boss, we get too hot and she gonna blow. Rock’s too big—”
“We’ve got a schedule to keep. You get me another two point three degrees at the end of that countdown or I send some grubs to execute you both. Best start 'em back up, boys.”
The display went dead.
***
Silver followed the blue thread of the navigational guide toward the orbital station’s launching platform where Wanderlust was waiting for them. It felt good to steer without correction from Myra. Sure, his wouldn’t be the most efficient flight possible, but there was nothing like being in full control of a ship with his own two hands.
