False Horizons

by CJ Birch

  He doesn’t stand a chance in this atmosphere. He’ll suffocate in a matter of minutes. Jordan staggers to her feet to help. Her balance is way off, and she over-compensates, crashing forward onto the front console. A shrill beeping begins emitting from the panel. She scrambles to undo her mistake but loses hold of the console. As she swings her legs back to correct her move, the momentum pushes her to the ceiling.

  I reach for Jordan, who manages to hook her foot under the console. We’re rooted by this tenuous string to the ship. Sarka takes advantage of the moment to slam his fist into Bragga, and the blaster spins away, ricocheting off the front glass.

  The great thing about our enviro-suits is that they have air thrusters so we can maneuver in space. But they also work in zero-gravity situations. I push off from Jordan and introduce the slightest thrust from my enviro-suit. My fingers wrap around the grip of the blaster, and I aim for Bragga. The shot goes wide and hits the floor of the lift.

  We’re all in this strange twirling dance, floating as if we were underwater. Sarka’s face is hard and mean as he concentrates on neutralizing Bragga. Sarka wrenches Bragga’s breathing apparatus off his face. He repositions himself to hook his legs around Bragga’s midsection, then squeezes while securing the mask on his own face. The second he has it on, the hard mean is replaced by a wide grin that’s all teeth.

  I take aim again, but Jordan shouts for me to stop. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Bragga boxes Sarka’s ears, squeezes out from between his legs, and glides toward the upper floor of the bridge.

  “Now,” Jordan yells. But it’s too late. By the time I take aim, Bragga is hidden from view.

  Sarka shoots up toward the second floor of the bridge, gliding through the air as if he’d done it a million times before. He somersaults over the rail and disappears from view. From here I can see a blinking light on the console; the ship’s bay doors have opened. We have only a few minutes before we’re out of time. I look over to Jordan to see if we should wait or leave, but she’s focused on the top deck.

  Below me I hear the whoosh of the main doors opening. Crew members are streaming back onto the bridge. As soon as they enter, they begin to float. We’ve officially run out of time.

  “Jordan, we need to leave.” I point below us.

  She nods. “We’ll have to exit through the top floor and hope they haven’t blocked our escape.”

  I adjust my thrusters and propel upward. As I rise to the level of the top floor, the artificial gravity comes back on, and Jordan and I fall to the ground. I slam into one of the crew and knock my head on the front console. Jordan lands a few feet away on her side.

  I hear a crash from above and look up as Sarka throws Bragga against the rail. “Now,” he shouts.

  I aim the gun at Bragga’s head and pull the trigger. It glances off his shoulder, but it’s enough to subdue him. Sarka grabs his head and wrenches it to the right, breaking his neck. He drops him over the edge without a second thought.

  “Let’s go.”

  I untangle myself from the stunned crew member I landed on and run for the lift. Jordan slams into me as I hit the control to raise us to the second floor.

  Outside the bridge, I pull my helmet off and fall to the ground panting, still shocked by the final expression on Bragga’s face. “Are you crazy?” I stand and slam into Sarka. He’s stunned enough that I actually manage to push him back a foot. “You didn’t have to kill him.” I smack my fist into his chest. It doesn’t do much good. It’s like punching concrete. But it feels good to unleash my anger.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Jordan

  I pull Ash off Sarka. Her face is contorted in rage, and tears are streaming down her face. As soon as I touch her it’s like a balm, and she collapses at my feet.

  “We don’t have time for this.” I pull her up and push her down the hall. “We need to get moving. Now.”

  She looks back at the bridge and then to me. “The doors.”

  “I got ’em open,” Sarka says. He brushes at the front of his uniform, as if Ash’s fists marred it.

  “They’re on the bridge, you idiot.” She points to the closed doors. “They’ll just close them again.”

  “Gonna be kinda hard to do. I cut power to that console.”

  Ash’s face contorts in disbelief. I pick up her helmet and push her away from the bridge. We need to get the hell out of here before the rest of the crew come after us. A dead leader will only delay them so long.

  I shove her helmet at her. She huffs but moves, finally.

  I follow Ash down the never-ending corridor with Sarka close behind.

  “You’re sure they’re open?”

  “Yes,” Sarka grunts.

  According to Ash, it’s not far now. I feel as if she’s been saying that for the last ten minutes. It’s like a mantra in my head. Almost there. Almost there. Almost there. My feet and heart pound to the rhythm of it.

  Ash pulls up sharply and I run into her. “Detour,” she says, and points to several illya filing into the corridor up ahead. We dash into a side corridor. I’m sure Ash has no idea where we’re going. But it’s better than staying where we were.

  Ash stops in front of a lift. “We’re about a thousand decks above where we need to be.”

  “A thousand? Let’s not be overly dramatic here.” Sarka begins to examine the lift control panel.

  “Yes, a thousand. We’re on deck one, and the ship-bay entrance is on deck one thousand and fifty-six.”

  I put a hand on Sarka’s arm, stopping him. “If they already have security teams after us, the lifts will be monitored as well. We’ll have to find another way.”

  Ash’s eyes widen. “Jordan, it’s a thousand decks down. We can’t climb down that many decks. They’ll discover us. Besides, we don’t have that much time left. Hartley gave me an hour to get the doors open.” She checks her time. “We’ve got less than fifteen minutes before he blows the last bomb and they take off. We have to risk the lift.”

  My insides crumple, but I nod. What other choice do we have? I motion for her to lead the way. For someone who says she doesn’t like being in charge, she’s better at leading than she gives herself credit for. Before she can press the button to summon the lift, the doors open, and three guards draw their weapons on us.

  “Run,” she yells and yanks me by the wrist down a separate hallway. We’re still in our enviro-suits, which makes running hard. My breath fogs the screen. I slam my hand on the release, and the screen retracts. We dodge down corridors trying to lose both teams, but it’s only a matter of time before more converge on us.

  “We need to find another way,” I say. “We won’t be able to keep this up long.” And that has nothing to do with the number of people after us. My lungs are burning. I have a stitch in my side, and the only thing I want to do is collapse and puke. You’d think with all the training I’ve done over the last few weeks, I’d be better suited to this. Something about running for your life must tire you out faster.

  Ash checks our time. “We’ll never make it before he sets off the last bomb.”

  “Where’s it supposed to go off?” As I ask this question, we spot another set of guards heading down our current corridor. We duck into a service bay. Ash guides us to a small chute that leads down to the next deck.

  “The main kitchen. The ship is heated by the runoff from their—I guess you’d call it a stove? But he said that the entire ship is connected through that tube system. If he sets off a strong enough bomb, it’ll carry it throughout the ship.”

  “So when it goes off, we need to be off the ship,” I say.

  When we exit the service bay, the corridors are free of guards. “It would be in our best interest, yes.”

  “Do they have escape pods?”

  Ash nods. “Every deck. But how would we know how to activate or fly them?”

  “If they’re anything like ours, all you have to do is hit a button and the pod does the rest.”

  Ash grabs my
arm and yanks me in another direction. “This way, then.”

  “Do you have any way of communicating with Hartley?”

  She pulls up and crouches in a doorway. “He may have gotten the comms working. We can try with the suits.” She activates her comm. “Persephone, this is Ash. Come in. Persephone, this is Ash. Do you read me?” She shakes her head. I guess not. “I told him to get the crew out whether I was back or not.”

  I motion for Ash and Sarka to follow me. We need to keep moving. “But will he do it?”

  Ash doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah, he’ll do it. He knows it’s more important to get everyone out alive. Like you always say, don’t play the hero.”

  We jog down the corridor. We must be close by now. “I always say?”

  She shrugs. “You’ve said it a few times.”

  “Yet you never listen.”

  She turns back and grins at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see three guards appear at the end of the hall. Sarka slams into Ash and me, knocking us to the ground. As we fall, I wrench the blaster out of Ash’s hand and aim for the guard in front. The shot hits him in the stomach. I crouch next to Ash and take aim again. This shot goes wide. We crab-walk into a doorway and try to make ourselves small targets. That first guard is still down, and I momentarily wonder if he’s dead. I have little time to dwell on this, though, because we’re showered in return fire.

  I wish we had more than one blaster, but then I notice the model. It’s one of the weapons the Varbaja had me train on.

  “How far are we from an escape pod?”

  Ash points down the hall. “They’re standing in front of one.”

  I look back the way we came. There’s little chance we’ll make it out of sight before we get hit by blaster fire. And it’s only a matter of time before more teams join.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m going to set this to overload and use it as a grenade. Hopefully it’s enough to disable them without harming the escape-pod hatch.” I’m about to punch in the command when Sarka grabs it from me.

  “That’s stupid. This thing will damage everything within three or four decks.” He motions for us to get behind him. “I’ll get you to the escape pod. Get inside and leave as soon as the door shuts.”

  I shake my head. “No. We’re not leaving you behind.”

  “Why not? What good am I in your world? I’m better off dead.” He stares hard at me as he says this. More shouts come from behind us.

  We’re out of time. Time is strange like that. For the first time since I was a kid I actually want more time with my father. I’m not going to pretend that our relationship would ever inspire others, but the fact that I’ll never get to try saddens me. He reaches out and touches my cheek with the tips of his fingers. And in the second it takes for me to feel the chill of them on my skin, I can imagine a world where he loved my mother and she loved him and just possibly he wanted a better life for me. But then the second is gone.

  I take a steady breath and slap him on the shoulder. “Fuck ’em up.”

  He grins. “I always do.” He races off toward the security team positioned down the corridor, taking aim and firing off several shots that wound at least two. He screams as he gets closer, and they take off.

  Ash stops at the pod door. Something’s on the middle of it, like a large lock box.

  “What is that?” But a loud piercing sound drowns out my question. Ash and I cover our ears, and then the hallway explodes. The force of the blast knocks us several meters back. Christ.

  “What the fuck was that?” Ash asks.

  My ears are buzzing. I can’t hear anything except a loud, incessant ringing.

  I stumble up, using the wall for support. Debris is everywhere. I jog down the hall and find the security team. They’re all dead. I avert my eyes and focus on Ash, whose face has gone pale. Her eyes stand out dark and fearful.

  I cup Ash’s helmet and stare straight into those eyes. “We need to go, love.” She focuses on me, nods, but doesn’t move. I rest my forehead on the hard glass inches from her face. “We can’t stay here.” I take her hand and pull her through the aftermath.

  When we get back to the door, my heart sinks. The force of the explosion bent the doors to the pod inward. No way will they open now. And even if we could pry them apart, the pod’s doors are more than likely trashed as well. Fuck.

  “Where’s another pod?” My hearing is starting to come back. Loud shouting is coming from behind us. I shake Ash’s hand to get her to snap out of it. “Where?” She looks behind us, slow and deliberate. I tug her away, hoping we’re heading in the right direction.

  In the end it isn’t me who snaps her out of it. It’s the loud explosion that sounds like it’s coming from everywhere at once. We both fall as the floor quakes underneath us. We’re out of time.

  Ash gets up first. “This way.” She drags me to my feet.

  I’ve never run so fast, not even when that beast on the planet was chasing us. We are literally in a race for our lives. If we can’t find a pod before the ship implodes, well, we won’t have anything more to say.

  The ceiling behind us collapses in flames, and the ship lists to port. I slam my helmet screen down and reactivate my air. I’m okay with a little fog. The heat from the fire is enough to bubble the finish on the walls.

  “Here,” Ash yells. She stops in front of a pod and slaps the panel to open the door. We list again, this time toward the bow. Toward the fire. I fall and roll. My foot stops me from going too far, but it gets wedged in a broken wall panel about to catch fire. I yank as hard as I can. The fire creeps closer. Ash crawls toward me, she grabs both my arms and pulls.

  “Stop. My foot’s stuck,” I yell.

  Another explosion rocks the ship. This one is closer. Ash and I work to pry my foot loose. The wall panel next to us catches fire. It jumps onto my enviro-suit leg. These suits are meant to repel almost anything, even radiation, but fire is one of those things that will only stay out for so long. Ash kicks the wall panel with a fury I’ve never seen. She picks up a mangled metal brace and swings it with all her force. It works. She pulls me free and whacks my leg, smothering the fire.

  We clamber toward the open pod door. Ash slams her hand down on the initiate-launch button. It’s the only control in the whole pod. The doors hiss shut, and in less than ten seconds we’re jettisoned from the ship. We lie breathing on the floor, and then we’re lifted into the air. The farther away we get from the ship, the less gravity there is in the pod until there’s none, and we’re left floating. The pod is round and clear, giving us a perfect view of the destruction we’ve left behind.

  The illya’s ship is now a rotating fireball. Or perhaps giant mass is a better description. Very little is left of the actual hull, only arms and legs set askew as the flames engulf what’s left.

  In the far distance are the Avokaado and the Posterus. I don’t see any sign of the Persephone, but then Ash points it out among the giants. My heart soars. She’s fared well for everything she’s gone through.

  A few other pods are drifting beyond the wreckage, tiny dots in the great expanse of space. Again I’m amazed at the fragility of life. Somehow we manage to survive every catastrophe, and I attribute this to Ash’s win factor. She always comes out on top. The pod spins in a slow arc, affording us a view of the entire galaxy. If I’d thought I’d be here two months ago, I wouldn’t have believed it.

  We really are starting new. Even if we could go back to our own galaxy, who would want to? Not after they learn what we were. A payment. The Commons bartered with our lives like we were bars of gold. I don’t even know if that was a good price. Forty-five thousand for a million. And for what? To live out the rest of their lives on the Belt? What a waste.

  Ash opens her helmet screen and breathes deep. “There’s air. Not sure how much, but I think someone will pick us up before we run out.” She unhooks her helmet and lets go. It drifts around the pod, twirling until it bumps into a side.

  I follow her lead. I float to the ed
ge of the pod and pull off my gloves. I press my fingertips to the cool glass. We are truly alone now.

  Ash spins me to face her. “Hey.” Her smile is tinged with sadness. “We made it.”

  I nod. I’m embarrassed to say I’m on the verge of tears. It all seems so pointless. To make it this far and for nothing. No planet is waiting for us. Our descendants have no future.

  “Hey.” Ash pulls off her own gloves and cups my face. “We made it. All that other shit can come later. Right now let’s just be happy we’re here and not back there.” She cocks her head toward the burning ship. “It’s over. We may not have a plan, but at least no one else has plans for us.” She kisses me. Her lips sink into mine, and in that moment I have no more thoughts of what will happen to us. I’m happy to just exist in this tiny world with Ash.

  She unzips my enviro-suit and slides her hands inside. Her eyes dip to my cleavage and my internal temperature spikes. I shrug out of my suit, and Ash helps slide it down my body. Her hands glide along my skin, setting fires as she goes. She quickly discards her own suit, and we spin in a tight embrace around the pod. Her lips dance down my neck to my collarbone, and I grab tight, keeping her close. When all barriers have been removed, I pull back and stare.

  The ambient light from the pod makes her skin look luminescent. It also highlights every scar, cut, and bruise on her body. There’s a scar from the mess incident right above her left breast. I bend and kiss it, then move on to a small bruise on her shoulder. I soothe each cut, each scar. My hands run along her arms, stomach, legs. Ash’s breathing comes in short gasps.

  “We might run out of air sooner than I thought,” she says.

  I grin and take a nipple in my mouth, tempted to test her limits. She grasps my shoulders and arches her back. I ache to speed things up. I have an unexplainable need to hear her come. I run my fingers through her folds and slip inside. Her nails dig into my shoulders. I hook one of my legs around hers, and we slowly spin around and around as she builds toward her own explosion. Her breath hitches and a low moan escapes as she tightens around my fingers. We’re pressed together so tightly I can feel her heart hammering in the same rhythm as mine. And that’s when I realize we have our whole future to worry about what happens next. In this moment nothing but us exists.