Bartoc Secret

by Clara Woods

  “The complete shell of a c-nano hull is an anchor. I’m so sorry, Cassius,” Lorka said, casting his eyes down. “Wait!” He then slapped his palm against his forehead. He dashed by Lenah to his cabin. “I’ve got a suit here!”

  Lenah went after him, followed by Cassius. They crowded in the hatch of Lorka’s tiny room that couldn’t fit much more than his bunk. On one side of the mattress sat a spacesuit. It had a gash in one leg where Lorka had been injured. Bloodstains were visible around it.

  “Why the stars do you still have this in here?” Lenah shook her head.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cassius grinned and accepted the suit Lorka handed to him. “I’ve never seen anything better than your messy cabin and this bloody suit, Lorka.” He pulled off his shoes, then stepped into the spacesuit with the practiced movements of someone who had lived in space his whole life.

  Uz appeared behind him, a small bottle of starglue in her hands. “Let me.” She bent down toward a cut that went through one of the suit’s thigh area.

  The moment she was done, Cassius sprinted down the corridor. “You need to wait for sixty seconds for the glue to dry,” Uz shouted after him.

  He stopped at the hatch.

  Lenah followed him. She looked through the view window. The lights in the cargo hold were still on, giving the room a clinical atmosphere despite the eerily floating stone limbs. She shuddered, glad that Martello hadn’t been one of them and that they had somehow escaped yet another attack by the Cassidians.

  She turned her gaze toward the spot they had warped into. The painting that had fallen under Lenah’s punch still lay on the floor, trampled and dusty.

  “So, that’s how they got in?” Uz shook her head, storing the tube of glue in one of her multiple pockets.

  Lenah hung her head. “I punched it down. “Stars, how dumb is that?”

  “You couldn’t have known, Lenah.”

  “I should have been more careful.” Lenah bent to pick up the painting, a crude scene of her and Corinna fighting Muha Dara on Astur. She reattached it to the wall.

  “I need all of you to leave,” Cassius said over the speakers of his suit. “I’m about to open this hatch.”

  Lenah nodded, then rushed back into the cockpit with Persia and Uz right on her heels.

  9 Spacewalk

  Lenah stopped listening to Martello’s retelling of how he’d been first warped away by the Cassidians, then found himself in the cargo hold with Muha Dara trying to break in. He’d run and bolted himself into the engine room. Lenah was too worried about their current situation. They had survived coming into Saltoc, but how long would that last? The image Thuat Jones showed them of the torn apart drone kept popping back into her head. Every time she remembered Thuat and how all signals from the surface of Juan’s World had gone dead, a stab of pain nudged itself into her breath.

  They needed to get back into the Cassidian sector and fast. She walked into the cockpit her boots making no noise on the floor. Uz was already there, staring at the screens with concentration on her face.

  “How’s it looking?” Lenah asked.

  Corinna squeezed into the cockpit behind Lenah. “How badly is the ship damaged?” she demanded before Uz had a chance to answer Lenah.

  Uz frowned at Corinna, then looked at Lenah. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “You have to know something,” Corinna said, but Uz had leaned back over the screens, muttering to herself.

  Lenah glared at Corinna. “Yes, we do know something. The engine power is reduced to sixty percent, and we don’t have a hatch.”

  “Actually, the engine is now down to fifty-eight percent,” Uz murmured.

  Lenah stared at the screen. “Stars, it’s getting worse.”

  Uz nodded. “I’ll go to the engine room as soon as Cassius and Martello are out of their suits. But Lenah—”

  “What?”

  “If I work on the engine, it means we won’t move away from here for a little while.”

  Lenah sighed and looked at the proximity screen. “Better do it now rather than later when we’re being shot at again. Let’s interrupt the celebration out there. I’m worried that we don’t have a lot of time. It’s too quiet around us.”

  She walked back into the common room where the others had already broken apart, their mood visibly dampened as if they had come to the exact same conclusion.

  “What do you mean, Saltoc?” Martello asked, having gone pale. He looked at Lenah with trembling lips before catching himself. “Well, let’s not stand around and waste time. It’s about time we got back!”

  Lenah cleared her throat. “The engine is losing power. Uz will look and do repairs before we attempt to fly back. We’ll need the suits. Cassius, was there a third suit in the locker?”

  He nodded.

  “Get it and give it to Corinna. Martello, yours goes to Uz.”

  “I’m not going to fix your relic’s engine for you, Callo,” Corinna said.

  Lenah took a deep breath and turned to her. “I’m not asking you to repair it, I’m asking you to come should any more Muha Dara show up.”

  “Then, you go.”

  “I’m the pilot. I’m flying,” Lenah said through clenched teeth. Really? Was Corinna trying to make this more difficult on purpose?

  She folded her arms over her chest and looked at Lenah. “I’m a pilot too. I can get us out of here.”

  Martello squeezed back into the common room to hand Uz his spacesuit. Feeling urgency, Lenah growled at Corinna. “Fine.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, they made it out through the corridor’s hatch and into the cargo hold. Lenah swallowed when she saw the gaping hole that once had been her hatch. Not only had it been a crucial part in keeping them safe inside their ship, but they couldn’t securely use a warp bubble until c-nano would once more coat all around them. It made her feel double vulnerable.

  Bits of stone still floated in the space as they crossed the room toward the engine room. Cassius and Lenah waited silently as Uz walked around the engine, assessing the damage. There was a large dent in the hull behind it where the Bartoc lasers had hit, but the engine itself, more securely positioned in a chamber inside the room, looked undamaged.

  “It’s the cooling system,” Uz said after several minutes. She was leaning into the bend, her helmeted head barely visible. “Mmmh.” She ducked a bit out of sight. “This needs to be fixed from the outside. I can’t reach it from here.”

  “Can it wait?” Lenah asked, not feeling the need to expose themselves.

  Uz shook her head. “If we wait, the engine will keep losing power.”

  Lenah sighed but nodded. “We’ll do whatever you think is necessary. We’ll go straight away.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. She loved flying through open space, but climbing around the outer hull and in enemy territory? That seemed a whole different matter. And she wasn’t proud to admit that she had never done it before. Not just the enemy territory part, but also the spacewalking. It would be part of the usual training in the Academy, of course, but Lenah had never taken that, instead she learned to fly from illegal copies of the Academy’s simulations.

  Uz handed Cassius a heavy toolbox, then made for the hatch. Lenah trailed behind, heart pounding in her chest. Did they even realize that she’d never actually done this? Sooner than she liked, the empty hatch appeared before her. “Persia, we’re going outside to fix the engine,” Lenah said through her suit’s comm unit. “Watch Corinna for me, will you?”

  “Lenah?” Persia whispered. “You don’t sound so good.”

  “I’m fine.” Lenah decided she would believe herself. I’m fine. We won’t be ambushed. It’s a piece of asteroid.

  Cassius and Uz were already out of sight, and Lenah hurried to climb after them. The initial angle was awkward, and she struggled to put her magnetic boots onto the hull. How had Uz and Cassius done it? Cassius turned around and knelt, hanging horizontally attached to the hull. “Reach up your arms and disengage your boots
.”

  Lenah complied, and before she even could steel herself, Cassius had pulled her out of the open hatch. Lenah floated outward, the ship and Cassius vanishing out of her line of sight. Her feet bumped into something solid, and Lenah activated her boots, anchoring herself against the hull. Slowly, the disorientation lessened. “Thanks,” she said as Cassius let her go.

  “Persia said this is your first time.” He sounded bemused.

  Lenah turned her head to look at his face through the visor. Even through the darkened material, she could see him grin. “And how would Persia know that?”

  He shrugged. “Take a second to look. It’s best the very first time.”

  Biting down her protest about not having time, about the danger of the situation, Lenah complied. She gasped. It was the same panorama that she was used to seeing from her cockpit; yet, it wasn’t. There was no view window reflecting interior lights, she was right there, floating inside the vastness of space. She could touch it. Lenah reached a hand forward.

  “What are you two doing?” Uz’s impatient voice made her drop her hand. “We don’t have time for touristing.”

  “Right,” Lenah said. “Sorry.” She looked at Cassius, who was making exaggerated movements of detaching one boot, taking a step forward, and reattaching it.

  Lenah nodded, imitating each step. “Persia, anything on the proximity radar?”

  “No, Captain, you’re good to go,” came the swift reply.

  “And, Persia?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t tell anyone else that this is my first time.”

  Persia didn’t answer, but Lenah thought she could hear her grin on the other end of the comm. She took some more steps, relieved that she seemed to get into a rhythm quickly.

  After a couple of minutes, Lenah joined Uz and Cassius at the back of the ship. Uz was already bent over the dent that looked much more dramatic from the outside. The silver of the hull was scorched and rippled. A faint cloud of liquid was escaping the twisted metal.

  “Cooling liquid?”

  “Yes,” Uz confirmed. She waved Cassius over to hold open the toolbox for her.

  Lenah watched them work in silence for several minutes, thoughts mixing wildly in her mind. She stared around her, willing the hexagonal border to come back. It had shot at them, so it had to be there. But nothing happened, all stayed black and calm. Did Wise Ralika think she had succeeded in killing them? Getting them killed by someone else was her preference. They had escaped, but barely. And there would be a next time. Lenah looked at Cassius, with whom she was on speaking terms again, but unresolved questions hung in the air between them every time they exchanged words.

  Her old argument, the same one that had caused a big rift between Cassius and her floated to the top of her mind. She could die at any moment. They all could. And she wanted to do something nice again. With him. She shoved the thought back down, knowing that he hadn’t changed his mind, but glad that they were finally able to communicate with each other again in a semi-normal fashion. Back to square one, she thought. I should take what I can get.

  She turned on a private connection. “Umm, Cassius.”

  His head didn’t turn away from the toolbox, but he sat straighter. He didn’t say anything, but Lenah was sure that he was listening.

  “I want to apologize. It was wrong of me to suggest…” she broke off and took a deep breath. “The way I treated you on New Earth, that was egoistical. The last thing I wanted was to alienate us, yet that’s precisely what I did. I’m sorry, and, if you can forgive me, I’d like to pick up again where we left off before I…Well, you know what I did. But those kisses we were giving each other; they were very nice.”

  Cassius finally shifted his head, and their eyes met. But then his eyes widened. “Bloody stars.” He switched to an open channel. “Uz, pack up.”

  Goosebumps traveled all over Lenah’s body, and she turned.

  Three small shiny dots were visible behind them in the distance. “What is that?”

  “Either ships or weapons,” he answered. “But given where we are, I’m pretty sure it’s nothing good.”

  “Lenah…you’re not alone out there. Something just popped up on the proximity radar,” Persia’s voice said over her comm.

  “We see it. We’re coming.”

  “Hurry. Please.”

  “What, you don’t want to be on a ship that’s being piloted by Corinna Cheung?” Lenah joked as Uz hastily stored away all her tools.

  “No, I don’t,” Persia said.

  10 Missiles

  Lenah scrambled after Uz, who was making her way to the open hatch with quick and sure steps. The vastness around her had lost all its appeal; she felt lonely and exposed, defenseless. By the time Lenah had made it, Uz had already elegantly swung herself through the hatch. Grasping Lenah’s legs, she unceremoniously pulled her inside, then accepted her tool case from Cassius, who moments later, floated in as well.

  Once they had closed the hatch between cargo hold and corridor, Lenah removed her helmet and rushed toward the cockpit.

  Martello was crouching over the copilot’s seat occupied by Persia. “Looks like missiles,” he said.

  Corinna saw Lenah and instantly swung herself out of the pilot’s chair. “I think this is better with our real pilot. All yours, Callo.”

  Lenah was surprised that she didn’t hear a hint of sarcasm. It spoke volumes about how uneasy Corinna was. Lenah sat down; her eyes locked on the proximity radar. Three dots were approaching at rapid speed, not identified.

  Lenah switched on the engine and went through the starting sequence.

  “Lenah?” Uz stuck a still helmeted head in. “Cassius and I will go back to the engine room. I want to keep watch.”

  Lenah turned. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “If the engine explodes or gives out completely, I don’t think it matters where on the ship we are. I need to take care of my limping ship now. And I’m expecting some challenging flying.”

  Lenah sighed. “Be careful.”

  Lenah gave them a couple of minutes to reach the engine room all the while staring at the proximity radar. Once they had passed into the cargo hold, Lorka, Lund, and Zyr crowded the corridor behind the cockpit. None of them spoke, but they looked tense.

  “We’re in position,” Cassius said.

  Grasping the flight stick, Lenah nudged the Star Rambler forward. The engine showed fifty-nine percent, and Lenah could feel its lazy forward pull.

  “What’s your plan, Lenah?” Persia asked.

  “First, make sure these ships or missiles are really after us.” Lenah changed course, bringing them into an upward angle. She continued to stare at the proximity screen. Two of the dots instantly adjusted. The third one stayed on course for all but two seconds, then adjusted as well. “Huh.”

  “What is it?” Corinna asked.

  “Two adjusted instantly, one took a few seconds.”

  “Huh,” Corinna said.

  “It might be two missiles and a ship,” said Persia.

  “Even worse.” Corinna leaned against the wall behind Lenah, squinting at the screen. “I’d rather fight automated weapons than actual Bartoc.”

  Lenah shook her head. “No, we can use this to our advantage.”

  “How?”

  “Well, if we choose to encounter them, we can hopefully trick them.”

  Silence.

  “If we choose?” Persia finally asked.

  Lenah turned on the comm to the engine room. “I mean, are we trying to get back home or…”

  “…or are we hunting down the Strikers?” Persia completed the statement, her voice trembling slightly. “When I was envisioning us doing this, I had a working ship, possibly a whole squadron of them in mind. Not,” she waved her hand around her head, “this.”

  “So did we all,” Corinna answered her. “But Lenah is right. We should make this decision before she brings us any farther away from home.”

  “We’re about three
hours away from the border,” Lenah said. “Zyr, Lund, how far away are we from the closest planet where you thought the Strikers could be?”

  Doctor Lund cleared his throat, but Zyr started talking before him. “It would be a several day’s journey to the closest human-friendly climate zone.”

  “Uh, Lenah,” Uz interrupted. “I don’t think we can go several days. We need to land somewhere. This engine will not make it much longer.”

  Lenah swallowed. “How long do we have?”

  “Ten hours,” Uz answered. “Max.”

  “How far to the closest planet?” Lenah turned to Zyr. She felt oddly calm, distant almost.

  Zyr hovered closer to the screen with the coordinates. “About an eight-hour journey at current speed.”

  Lenah quickly ran the projection against the missiles following them. “Five hours and twenty minutes. They’ll catch up to us long before that.” She stared at the result. “We need more juice to the engine. Just a little bit.”

  Over the comm she heard Uz sigh.

  Lenah steeled herself, knowing that she had to work with what she had in the meantime. “So, that’s our two options. We go back to the border and may make it through.” She paused. “It’s not too likely. Or we go to this planet Zyr indicates, do some much-needed repairs and try to find the Strikers, currently our only chance at winning the war back home.”

  No one answered at first, then Persia said, “If you put it that way…But we don’t know anything about that planet.”

  “Young Persia” Zyr said, pushing his chest forward. “That is not true, though I admit that many secrets remain, we do know some.”

  “It’s one of their terraformed planets,” Lorka said. “We think made for the local species, even though we don’t know who those species are.”

  “Wonderful,” Corinna said. “I still vote that we go there. Now that we’re here, it makes no sense to kill ourselves going back.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” Doctor Lund said, then let out a sharp breath. “I don’t like being in enemy territory. I would like to come here in bigger numbers. Maybe with a full research mission.”