Liza flinched when the whole room erupted in cheers. All the members of the crew rose at the same time and began to leave the room. Liza looked around frantically.
“Um, what am I supposed to do?” she asked no one in particular. Becce stopped on her way out the door and threw Liza a look over her shoulder.
“Come with me.”
Liza stared at the device in her hand. “What is this for?” she asked, looking at Becce, who was attaching holsters to her belt. She looked up at Liza.
“It’s just a high-powered flashlight. It’ll temporarily blind whoever you shine it at, leaving them unable to chase after you. They’ll recover eventually.” Becce took the device from Liza’s hand, pointed it towards the wall and pressed a button. The wall lit up in a flash of bright light, which left colorful spots dancing around Liza’s eyes. Becce handed the flashlight back to Liza, who tucked it away into a pocket. “Plus, we don’t have to risk blowing any holes in the ship’s exterior with gamma pistols.”
Becce turned away and dug through a trunk on the floor, and eventually pulled out a suit. She tossed it over her shoulder to Liza, who caught it against her face. “Spacesuit,” Becce said, still digging. Liza shook out the garment and saw that it would probably be too big for her, but she pulled it on anyway. “Ah ha,” Becce said. She stood up and turned, holding a helmet that matched the suit. “We’ll stick a tank on you right before we transfer. Otherwise, you’ll just be uncomfortable.” Liza took the helmet and tucked it under her arm. Becce plucked something off a shelf.
“Make sure you wear these.” A pair of darkened glasses were passed to Liza. She put them on, but her vision wasn’t darker. “They’ll protect you from your own weapon. And this,” she tossed another device to Liza, who caught it awkwardly in her hands. “This is for when your life is actually in danger. Just try not to hit the hull of the ship with it.”
Liza looked down at it and grimaced. It was a gamma pistol, like the ones carried by the Enforcers on the Moon.
“I know how you feel. I was that way once as well. That’s why you should use the flashlight as much as possible, rather than the gamma pistol,” Becce said. “The way they die… it’s not pretty.”
“I know,” Liza replied quietly. “My dad…” A hand rested on her shoulder, and Liza looked up to see Becce smiling sadly at her.
“Say no more.”
Becce led Liza up to the cockpit of the ship. As she stepped through the doorway, the wraparound windshield revealed the vast emptiness of space stretched out in front of her. Liza swayed unsteadily on her feet for a moment before her head stopped spinning. Becce rested her hands on Liza’s shoulders to steady her.
“Normal reaction,” Dom said from the co-pilot’s chair. Captain Warwick sat in the pilot’s chair, tapping a few buttons.
“We’re just about caught up. Do we have enough energy to make a jump?” Captain asked, turning his head towards Dom, who leaned forward.
“Just enough. We won’t be able to jump away from them, but we’ll be able to get away the old-fashioned way. After that, though, we’ll need to refuel.” Captain was silent for a moment, tapping away at the screen in front of him.
“The L2-XD Rad station is only 2 parsecs away from the merchant ship. We’ll head there,” Captain said.
“Roger that,” Becce said. She stepped out of the cockpit and stood at the table in the center of the bridge. She opened a panel and entered the coordinates for the Rad station into the navigation system.
Liza merely stood, feeling lost. She didn’t have much time to contemplate it, though, as a siren went off and a yellow light on the wall began to flash. Dom glanced over his shoulder at Liza.
“You might want to sit down and fasten your restraints. We’re about to make an FTL jump,” he said. Liza’s eyes went wide. FTL was faster-than-light, and something Liza never experienced before. Nodding in a daze, she stepped towards an empty chair and sat down. The Captain sat as well, pulling restraints over his shoulders and lap. Liza followed suit, and the automated countdown began.
10...
9...
8...
7...
Liza closed her eyes, feeling nervous and excited all at the same time.
6...
5...
4...
“Hang on Liza!” Becce shouted.
3...
2...
1...
The siren went silent, and at first, Liza thought nothing happened. A split second later, her body pressed back into the chair with such a force that the wind knocked out of her lungs. Out the window, she couldn’t even tell that they were moving, until a large, red colored ship appeared just in front of the Gypsy Star. There was a lurch, and Liza felt weightless for a moment, until she crashed back into the seat, knocking her breathless once more.
“You want to go on this one, Dom?” Captain asked, already rising from his seat. Dom shook his head.
“Nah, you go have some fun, Captain,” Dom replied. Beside him, Becce stood up as well, adjusting her clothes.
“You alright there, Liza?” she asked. Still in a daze and breathless, Liza nodded, unhooked the restraints and stumbled into a standing position.
“You left them too loose,” Captain said, eyeing her. “Gotta make them so tight it’s uncomfortable.” Liza met his eyes and nodded. “Let’s go.”
Liza stood with Becce, Captain Warwick, and Tsuto, who was currently mimicking Becce but with long black hair. Before the group had left the cockpit, Liza had seen the enormous merchant ship ahead. In comparison, the Gypsy Star was tiny. The Captain explained that some merchant ships doubled as luxury travel cruisers.
“Why would someone want to just wander around space?” she’d asked. The Captain laughed.
“Didn’t you ever hear about the boats on Earth, that would just float around on water, and people would pay to ride?” Liza had shaken her head, and the Captain dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
Liza waited beside Becce. The Captain was punching in something on a control panel on the wall and mumbling about “the tube.” Liza tried to catch Becce’s eye, to get some idea of what was going on, but Becce was concentrating on her tablet.
Twin pairs of footsteps sounded on the floor. Weed and Speed rounded the corner, both with mischievous expressions on their faces. Liza still couldn’t decide if she could trust the two of them or not.
“Have you reduced the energy shots?” Captain asked, and the twins lifted their hands, giving a thumbs up. “Good. Get to your positions.” With a single, synchronized nod, they darted off, disappearing down the hall. Captain shuffled the group into the decompression chamber. The heavy door leading to the ship closed behind them.
“Helmets on,” Captain said, glancing at Liza. She pulled the helmet on over her head, and Becce reached over to adjust it and attach the helmet to her suit. After it was attached, Liza could smell the oxygen from the tank on her back. She felt a flutter of nervousness in her stomach; she didn’t think she liked being confined in a small space. Captain pressed a large red button and a light flashed while the decompression process began.
Liza shifted back and forth on her feet, unable to contain her nervous energy. She felt all the hairs on her body standing on end in anticipation for whatever was to come. Her body felt uncomfortably warm under all the layers of clothing she wore. The helmet was heavy on her neck, and it felt strange to breathe oxygen from a tank. She wondered how quickly she’d be able to move with all this equipment.
Captain stood at a window, staring out, his finger tapping on the wall. Finally, he turned back the group assembled behind him.
“Let’s go!” He pressed a button, and a roaring sound filled Liza’s ears. Becce’s hand clamped around Liza’s wrist, and she was wrenched from her feet and out the door.
8
Shouts and the loud buzz of conversations woke Vely from a troubled sleep. Huddled inside a shelter she made of metal paneling, she opened her eyes slowly, aware of how cold she’d become du
ring the night. Shivering, Vely rose, tightening her blankets around her body.
“Are we in danger?” someone nearby asked, fear and desperation pulling at her voice.
“I don’t know yet,” came the response.
“Who are they?” A third voice. Vely peered through a gap in the paneling. A group of huddled Moon colonists stood nearby, their breaths rising over their heads in white puffs. There was only one woman; her eyes darted around frantically, nearly bulging out from her head.
“They’re from one of the Sun Stations,” the tallest male of the group said.
“They don’t look like Enforcers,” someone in the group said. Vely flattened herself against one of the buildings and moved closer to listen. “They look worse.” Vely frowned, feeling her forehead wrinkle. What would anyone from the Sun Stations want with anyone from the Moon colony?
Vely turned away from the gap and shook off her extra blankets, rolled them up tightly and stuffed them into her bag. She slung the bag over her shoulder and ducked out from her shelter, pulling the ratty piece of fabric around her head, attempting to disguise herself.
“How so?” the woman asked.
“It’s a group. They’re all tall, wearing black; they barely look human. But they’re searching for someone.”
The oldest man in the group, his graying hair lying lank around his face, closed his eyes, his mouth agape.
“What is it, father?”
He opened his eyes once more.
“This isn’t the first time they’ve been here,” he said, meeting the eyes of everyone in the group. Vely shifted closer. “Bloodhounds.”
A few people gasped. Vely racked her memories, looking for when she might have heard the term before, but nothing came up.
“Who are…?”
The question was never finished. Tramping boots sounded on the ground, moving closer. Vely dropped down to her knees, hiding. The colonists scattered. A group of Enforcers, dressed in their orange uniforms, marched by, leading a group of men in black. Vely tried to make herself smaller, to sink down into the ground.
One of the men in black stopped walking, looking around. His companions stopped as well.
“What?” one of them barked.
“She’s close,” the man said, drifting his gaze around slowly. The group of enforcers backtracked.
“Sir?”
The men in black fanned out, looking or… Vely peered out at them. It looked like they were… sniffing the air. Compulsively, she sniffed the air herself. She didn’t smell anything unusual-- just the same old stink of the Moon colony.
One of the men moved too close to Vely’s hiding spot. Silently as possible, Vely backed up, watching each step she made, to avoid running into junk or garbage. Biting her lip in concentration, she inched down the alley, until she could no longer see the men in black.
“Keep moving,” one of the men shouted, and the sound of boots resumed. Vely spun around and darted between two buildings. A nasty churning in her stomach erupted, and as she ran, she tried to push the feeling away. But it persisted.
They were searching for her.
In the few days since she’d disappeared from her home, Vely had learned many of the ins and outs of the Moon colonies. As she moved through the shadows, she desperately wished that Liza was with her. Liza knew the Moon colonies like the back of her hand and could navigate from one side to the other without ever being seen. A pang of loss for her sister strummed in her heart.
Vely stopped and leaned against a wall, panting, her hands on her knees. Unbidden, a few tears welled in her eyes and dripped down her cheeks. She missed Liza, though her sister wasn’t all that smart, was sort of a thug, but had been kind, crafty, and sneaky. When they’d played together as children, Vely always made up the plans and the games, and Liza followed. Vely liked being the leader, and Liza had no problem being the follower, even though she was older. When her ego wasn’t in the way, Liza would admit that she functioned better as the “muscle.”
Vely smiled briefly through her tears, then wiped them away with her sleeve. Now was not the time to be sentimental. The sound of boots was getting louder. She had to keep moving.
The lights of artificial day dimmed, and Vely found herself in an area of the colonies that she’d never explored before. She moved through the streets without thinking, taking turn after turn, keeping herself hidden from the Bloodhounds. A few times they managed to catch up, but they never found her. Eventually, they declared that they’d finished for the day, and would resume the search in a few hours. And now that it was growing colder and colder by the minute, Vely knew she had to find a place to stop.
Vely noticed that the houses around her were not as dilapidated and rundown as those in her old neighborhood. They were well-maintained and still had a metallic shine to them. The sound of footsteps echoed down the lane, and Vely ducked behind a corner. From her hiding place, she saw an Enforcer tromp down the lane, swinging his weapon around his finger. The Enforcer stopped and entered a code into a panel beside a door of a building, and it opened before him. For just a moment, Vely could see that the Enforcer had nicer furniture, better lighting, and delicious smells that wafted towards her, making her mouth water unpleasantly.
The Enforcers were rich. Of course, they were.
Vely snarled as his door closed, and she spun around, leaning her back against the wall of the building. The phrase her parents had said repeatedly rattled around in her mind: Life isn’t fair. It was certainly true.
It was too dangerous to continue hanging around an Enforcer’s home. She pushed herself away from the wall and continued walking. Eventually, the smooth dome exterior of the moon colony disappeared, replaced by the cold metal that made up everything else on the colony. Vely trailed her fingers along, the tips of her fingers going numb, until she felt a tingle run up her arm. Vely halted.
It was a door. Vely pressed her hands against the metal, until she could feel the door frame under her fingers on either side. Her arms continued to throb with the strange tingle. The area was dark; for some reason, there were no streetlights in the area. She used her fingers to find the panel that would unlock the door.
But there was no panel. Frowning, Vely kept searching with her palms flat, until she felt a small hole. She picked at it with one fingernail, feeling the shape of it. A word from the past, from the stories she’d heard in school ballooned in her memory: keyhole. No one used keyholes or keys anymore. But this is what the hole felt like. And if there was a keyhole… There would be a handle. It was small, barely a handle, more like a small, raised bump in the metal door. Vely pressed her fingers against the small handle and tried to pull, but nothing happened. Pushing had the same result. Despite the futility of it all, Vely didn’t want to give up yet. Something about the tingling sensation, which had now reached her shoulders, urged her to keep trying.
She stuck her fingernail in the hole again, trying to feel around, though not quite sure what she was looking for. Liza had tried to tell Vely so many things over the years, to teach her things that Vely had dismissed as being useless. Vely wondered now if this was something Liza might have tried to teach her.
“What do I do, Liza?” Vely whispered to herself. Force it. That had been Liza’s go-to solution for everything. Figuring it was as good a plan as any, Vely gripped the fingertips of both hands onto the handle, closed her hands, and “forced it.” As she pulled, a feeling of calm crawled over her, slowing her rapid heartbeat. The tingling in her arms faded, replaced by a cool feeling that ran down her arms and into her hands. Beneath her pull, the door slowly gave way, until Vely was able to open the door all the way, nearly causing her to topple over in the process. Shaking her head, Vely recovered, hardly believing that “force it” had worked.
She stepped into the now open door, only to realize that it led to a dimly lit hallway, ending with another door. With a sigh, Vely walked down the hall towards the next door. It was several moments before she realized that she made no noise as she wal
ked. She looked down; beneath her feet was some sort of floor covering. Vely crouched down and pressed her hand into the covering, feeling the softness against her skin.
What is this?
She rose and kept walking. It was strange how the covering made her steps feel unstable, like she was slipping around. She immediately appreciated the good, solid ground of the Moon surface.
The next door was just like the previous one - small keyhole and short handle. Vely pressed her fingers to the handle for the second time and concentrated on forcing it. The strange calm and tingling wound around her body, crawling along her skin. Even with her eyes closed, Vely began to see a swirl of blue filling the space around her. With a heave, the door slammed to the side, rattling the metal wall panels.
Vely investigated the next room and began to sweat. Warmth blasted onto her face, warming her numb cheeks and nose. Her hand flew to her chest, clutching at the fabric.
“Shit.”
9
Liza landed with a hard thud against Becce. She could barely comprehend her situation. Her body pressed against the side of a ship flying through space. She turned her head to see the Gypsy Star matching pace with the merchant ship. Liza could have stayed there, staring off into space, at least until Becce moved and wrenched her inside a chamber. Bodies crowded inside the chamber, until the door into the merchant ship opened, and they all tumbled inside. Captain was the first to his feet, and he shut the decompression chamber door.
Liza pushed herself to her feet and looked around. “Liza,” Becce said through the helmet’s comm device. Liza shifted. Becce motioned for her to follow. Liza pushed herself onto her feet, but she drifted up off the ground. The artificial gravity was not working properly. She gave herself a hard push off a wall and sailed along to Becce, who grabbed Liza’s arm and pulled her along. The partial gravity made it difficult to move freely.
Psychogen (Galactic Syndicate Cycle Book 1) Page 6
