The ship lurched in another direction as Linda navigated the lane that was anything but clear. The aliens launched another salvo. Three of the projectiles would be filling the space in front of them when they got there, and there were more on the way to keep them moving in that direction. Max aimed, squeezing off shots, quickly adjusting his aim on the fly, and destroyed one. Then another shortly after with a burst into the space ahead of the bomb. He was getting the hang of it.
“Nice shooting, Captain Lanks,” Snow said, with enthusiasm patting his leg.
Max couldn't help but smile. He fired at the third bomb, the only thing left between them and the clear space beyond the rapidly constricting perimeter. None of his shots would land, however, and the smile left his face. He centered himself, aiming carefully following the bomb’s trajectory. He squeezed the trigger. The ship jerked suddenly sideways, and his shot went wild. And then it was too late to make the exit, they were turning again. Max looked around. They were out of space. If they didn't make the next run, they wouldn't be making any more attempts, because they would be dead.
“Sorry, boss, we were hemmed in bad there,” Linda said.
Max waved off the apology. “Let’s make this next one count.”
They were headed back towards Forty-Two. Max did not like that. If the aliens blew the asteroid, there would be no dodging the blast. But he knew the safety conscious Linda also knew that, and so gathered it must be the only avenue left to escape. The Dee-Dub flew towards a gap between the drones and Forty-Two. Whether because of the position of the other drones or because they were getting low on projectiles, again only three needed to be removed. Max lined them up and took them out one after the other, and with time to spare.
“Nice shoot'n, Tex—” Snow said before being cut off.
“One more!” Linda said. “Below us!”
Snow rotated Max like a toy, holding him to the side of the ship. But it wasn't enough, he could see the red dot through his HUD, but there was still a chunk of the Dee-Dub between him at it.
“I need more room,” he said, more loudly than he'd intended.
Snow let go of his belt and grabbed his thigh. She pushed him further below the ship, shifting her grip until she had him by the ankle. The projectile was now in view. It was closer than he was comfortable with, and heading straight at him. He leveled the rifle and burst five rounds on instinct. The bomb exploded, rocking the back of the ship. He could see the bulkhead warp and crack, and he could feel the vibration through the ship, but the shock to his helmet was minimal. The Dee-Dub turned again, angling away from Forty-Two and the alien drones. The asteroid, Forty-Two, cracked and exploded. The rocky behemoth fractured into a dozen or more large pieces. Loose material from the size of dust to small rocks formed lines and rays between the new, though still, massive asteroids.
The port side of the Dee-Dub was caught in the edge of a blast line. The side of the ship was sand blasted and set to spin. Max was flung hard from the sudden rotation, roughly hitting the side of the ship, then again the other way as Linda quickly halted the spin, using the jump drive as a rotational brake. But Snow's grip on his ankle held strong. Linda was forced to veer the ship closer to one of the alien drones in order to stay in the blast shadow of a large chunk of Forty-Two and avoid further damage from the gout of rock and dust.
Max's field of view continued on its rocky course, but the cloud of material that remained at the center of the new asteroid cluster got his attention.
“Linda, if you can fit it into your busy schedule, launch the drones into that mess of dust. And make sure sleepy is included.”
He held out little hope that the small mining drones could long avoid detection in the cloud. The alien drones would presumably be harvesting the debris, and so they stood a good chance of stumbling upon the earthling drones even if they didn't know to look. He felt rather than heard the womp, womp, womp of the five drones being launched from the magazine, and was pleased that the launcher was still functioning. He watched the drones slide away from the ship, then another drone appeared suddenly from his periphery. The alien machine was moving fast.
The cone on the front of the drone lit up as it closed, like a beaming red eye glaring at its enemies. The large chunk of asteroid was gaining on them. Linda pressed onward to avoid it. Max lifted his android arm, and the rifle was still there. With no time to aim he thrust his rifle towards the drone and fired a long burst at the center of mass. The drone, intent on reaching the ship couldn't or wouldn't dodge. Its laser, focused tightly at the end of the cone, slashed into the ship. A flash of flame erupted from the hull as the oxygen within spewed out through the hot burning hull's skin. Max's burst hit the drone in the center of its hot eye, and to his surprise, the eye was extinguished. With an impact hard enough to shake the ship, the alien drone then came to a jarring halt. At first Max thought it had somehow landed intentionally. But the machine was askew with its point of contact being the laser eye. It was fused to the hull.
Snow chose that moment to drag him back. Once inside he was alarmed to see that her helmet was cracked.
Max closed the hatch. “Let’s get some air in here, Linda.” The HUD lit up to indicate that atmosphere was being pumped into the cockpit.
“No, no.” Snow mouthed the words. She tried to say more but Max didn't understand. She put her hands together and wiggled the fingers like many feet.
“Doozer!” Max said. “Okay hold off on the air for a moment Linda. Wait until I bring Doozer up here—”
“Emergency Jump,” Linda said.
Chapter 17
The hiss of an angry snake came from the widest point of the crack at top of Snow's helmet. She pressed the helmet together, squeezing the crack tight and the snake became less angry.
Max was behind her. She turned in time to see him open the hatch and glide through the door. She noted the minimal amount of pressure pushing against her through the hatch. The breach had been large enough to empty the living quarters in short order. She considered following him into the back to find Doozer, but that would require removing her hands from her helmet. She twisted as far as the harness would allow her, to watch. Her knee hit a storage pouch and she got an idea. She let go of her helmet to open the pouch. The snakes anger rose again but she kept on, pulling the pouch open and drawing from within a roll of gray tape. It was now much reduced in girth, but there was still enough left for her purposes. She fumbled a bit in her space gloves to grab the tape’s folded edge. When she had a firm grip, she yanked out a stretch of it and, leaned forward to bite the tape in her mouth, but succeeded only in bonking her hand on her helmet. She sighed and placed the untorn tape along one side at the top of her helmet, then pulled it tight with what seemed like less than her usually considerable strength. She smooshed it down across the other side. It was enough. The snake went to sleep, hissing in a low, almost pleasant way. The poor little snake. Probably just lonely is all. Forced to live its life out alone in a space helmet. She patted the snake on her head. The noise of her gloved hand scraping across the helmet drew her out of the lightheaded delusion.
“I'm getting very low on air,” she said to Linda, in case she was interested.
Linda didn't respond.
Doozer landed on her lap.
“Doozer,” she said happily. Her enthusiasm, though low on fuel, was still present.
Doozer looked pretty good for a stilt crab turned space crab. His fur was very full. Stiff and spiky. It emphasized the white and black sides of each hair making him look more punk rock even than usual.
She spied the small pocket inside her helmet.
“Mmmmm. Gum,” she said, and reached in to open it. Her hand impacted on the edge of her helmet again, defeating the attempt to free the gum trapped in the weird little helmet pocket.
Max was sitting beside her. She leaned against him for a hug, then her eyes closed.
Her eyes fluttered open to find Max looking down at her.
“How do you feel?”
> “Wonderful,” she said, though she did not feel wonderful.
“Really?”
“No,” she said, she placed her palm against her temple, and discovered that her helmet was off. “I have a headache.”
“You banged your head and also passed out from lack of oxygen,” Max said.
“I feel better about my headache then,” Snow said.
“Good. Doozer was worried about you,” Max said.
“Oh. Doozer was worried?” Snow said.
“I no longer worry about such things,” Max said.
He was still a bad liar.
“I was worried about you, too,” Linda said. “You were talking to yourself but I couldn't hear what you were saying. I thought you'd gone mad. But I'm glad to see I was mistaken.”
“The jury is still out on that,” Max said.
“So Doozer is okay? He didn't explode in the vacuum,” Snow said. She was relieved. It seemed like a terrible, painful way to die.
“He's fine. His shell did the heavy lifting and the goggles did the rest. His fur is pretty spiky though. His hairs are all hollow, so they puff up pretty good in a vacuum. Linda took some pictures,” Max said.
“Oh! Can I see?” Snow asked.
They looked at the pictures together on the monitor and they laughed and laughed together at blowfish lookin' Doozer. Then they got back to work.
Snow had viciously banged the front of her helmet on the open frame of the hatch, cracking the dome. Then she'd done the same on the back, mashing a hole in the air line against the sharp corner of the hatch. A hatch which “should not have been open during normal operation of the craft,” said Ravaea's voice in her head. The emergency valves closed, restricting the leak to the cracked dome. They made temporary fixes, wrapping gray tape around the punctured hose as well as a serious tape job on the helmet.
With patches applied, they tested the helmet and found that the leak was reduced to a low enough level that the supply could keep up with it for a while. Though Doozer seemed perfectly fine in a vacuum, protected only by his goggles, he was left behind again, this time in the cockpit while they went into the back to assess damage.
The first thing Snow noticed was the mess of debris in the living space between the cockpit and the cargo bay. There wasn't much loose in the room before the loss of pressure, they'd been too busy to make a mess. But those items that had been left loose were spread out, floating through the living quarters, bouncing off this and that. Snow snatched a plastic fork out of the air when it bounced from her helmet. She grabbed the remains of her breakfast cube before it impacted her hip. She knew she hadn't left that floating around. A quick check confirmed that the lid had popped off the container she'd placed the delicious cube in. She put the fork and cube back into the container and rotated the lid closed. Then she saw the hole in the floor.
She drifted closer to take a look. The hole was very cleanly cut, right through multiple layers of material, like an industrial hole punch through loose leaf, but a goopy smear of what turned out to be toothpaste coated one side. And there was something on the other side of the hole she realized when Max grabbed her suit from behind and above her and pulled her away.
She pushed him away. “Wait your turn, Captain Pushy Pants.” But the grip of his android arm was steady and her attempt to physically dismiss him failed.
“Come away,” he said, dragging her back, his feet braced against the floor. “It's one of the alien drones.”
That only made her want to look more.
“Come on, let’s get your helmet dealt with,” he said.
They coasted the few feet to the cargo bay hatch. Max seemed to brace himself for what might lay on the other side of the door. Then one at a time, he opened each door into and out of the small airlock.
In contrast to the living space, the cargo bay was still well ordered. One drone was floating loose, its section of the hull at the furthest end of the ship having warped and bent in, snapping the drone’s restraints. Apart from that, and the serious matter of a crack in the hull, everything else was in good order.
Max unfastened a trio of drones handing them one at a time to Snow, and making room for the factory to work. Snow strapped the drones to others still firmly attached to the wall.
“It's clear, Linda,” Max said. The factory lit up and began fitting together molecules that would eventually combine to produce a new helmet for Snow.
“I want red highlights please,” Snow said.
“You shall have them,” said Linda.
They reloaded the drone magazine while they waited. When Snow's helmet was done, she slipped into the airlock to fit it on. With the new helmet in place and functioning as intended, they went outside to survey the alien visitor.
They didn't want to risk the cargo bay doors being stuck open, so instead they used the top hatch, located almost directly above the hole made by the alien mining drone. As Max led the way outside, Snow resisted the urge to grab his butt, even though it was hanging right there above her, asking for it. Instead she waited patiently like the serious mission operative that she needed to be and followed him through the portal.
They suspected already that the drone was not sending out any signals. At least none that they could detect. They couldn't rule out some advanced technology that could transmit a secret undetectable signal, but barring that, they felt safe for the moment.
Outside of the ship, Snow used the grippy points of contact on her gloves and knees, and moved with practiced ease past Max along the rounded top of the ship to the first corner. Without breaking pace, she rounded the corner to the narrow side of the ship. She hadn't had a crawl in the big black for a long, long time and she felt a rush of excitement. “It's gecko time!” she said.
There was no response from Max.
Snow crawled to the side of the cockpit, tapped on the canopy, and waved at Doozer. He did a double take, then clambered over with his many grippy reverse-umbrella foot claws, chair to monitor, and bonked his goggles on the canopy in apparent confusion. Snow giggled, waved again, this time to say goodbye, and turned back to get the job done.
Snow looked back but didn't see Max. He had already crawled to the underside of the ship to examine the alien drone. She pulled herself, drifting along the side of the ship to join him. But when she rounded the outside corner, bringing the flatter bottom of the ship into full view, Max was nowhere to be seen. Snow’s chest went tight. “Max? Where are you?”
“I'm okay,” he said.
His voice sounded as tight as her chest had been a moment before, when she thought he was lost in space. But now she knew where he was. She drifted back to the hatch. And saw his long form kneeling in place. She slid along the curve of the hull until she was beside him again.
“This isn't what it looks like,” he said.
“So, you're not afraid that if you let go of the ship you will spin off into the blackness of space? Forever lost and alone?”
“No,” he said, “I just don't want to look like an idiot.”
Snow didn't say the obvious thing. She'd been trained to feel at home in space since she was very, very young. Thanks to her memory backups, she remembered floating in space before she could crawl. And it was delightful rather than terrifying. But she knew that those who were Earthborn had more trouble with it. For Max it would be the same.
“Good point,” Max said, referencing her silence. He made a weak attempt to crawl forward. but his limbs didn't move.
Snow grabbed his belt. “I have you. Now let go.”
Surprisingly, he let go. Snow smiled. It made her happy to know that he had so much trust in her. Then she frowned, knowing that she was about to betray that trust. She lifted him above the hull just out of easy reach. Then she let go of him. He didn't move, but just floated above the hull right where he was when she let him go. Making it look easy, she lay down on the hull looking up at him.
He narrowed his eyes at her, but said nothing.
“Hi,” she said.
“If you fly off the ship. We'll just send a drone to bring you back.”
“That never occurred to me…” he said. He thought for a moment. “Why don't we just make jet packs?”
“We could. But they're harder to use than our hands and knees.”
“Right. I guess they would be,” he said.
“You weren't bothered when we were fighting the drones…” she said.
“I was distracted by all the balancing of life and death for myself. And also, the human race,” he said. “Also, you had my ankle in a Snow-like grip.
“I still have my Snow-like grip, hand me your ankle…” She reached for his ankle.
“No,” he said. There was still some tension in his voice, but it had eased some. “The option of rescue by drone has lubricated my joints a bit. Plus, I'm finding all this intense shame to be very motivating.”
He reached out and grabbed her offered hand and pulled himself back to the hull.
“After you,” Snow said, making the appropriate hand gesture.
Max pulled himself along the hull until he reached the side, where he paused for a moment before bravely folding forward around the bend. Snow resisted the powerful urge to cheer him on.
They rounded another edge of the ship and found themselves looking at the alien drone glinting in the harsh light of the distant sun. It showed no sign of life, but neither of them was foolish enough to make any assumptions. Snow's heart was thumping in her chest as she fully registered that this object was truly alien. Unfriendly aliens, possibly evil aliens, but that did little to dull the shine of this milestone. She had been too bitter when she encountered the squids, frozen on the ice of Mega, far too bitter to feel the awe that the occasion had deserved. But this was also a big moment. They were about to make physical contact with an alien object.
Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) Page 14